You Looked Back, So I Stayed
Peter knew someone was watching him.
He couldn’t pin down the exact moment it started — maybe it was the fourth time the barista spelled his name as “T.M.” on his coffee cup, despite him clearly enunciating Peter every time. Or maybe it was on the subway, where one car in particular always seemed to contain the same guy in the same black hoodie, reading the same battered paperback: Nietzsche for Psychopaths , the kind of title that was either a red flag or an ironic joke. The guy never looked up from the book, not really. But Peter could feel it. A weight on the side of his face. A subtle pressure in the air. A presence.
He tried to rationalize it. Big city. Coincidences happen. Maybe hoodie-guy just liked that train line. Maybe the barista was bad with names. Maybe paranoia was contagious.
But even so, the feeling never left. It clung to him, quiet and persistent. Not a full-on panic alarm — more like a mental itch, a curl at the edge of awareness that wouldn’t go away. The kind of thing you notice just enough to doubt yourself.
Still, Peter didn’t say anything. Not to his friends, not to the barista, not even to himself, really. There was something weirdly comforting about it. Someone out there had their eyes on him. Not in a threatening way — at least, not yet — but with a kind of focused curiosity. Like Peter was interesting. Like he mattered.
And the guy — Tim, as Peter would eventually learn — never crossed any lines. He never spoke. Never followed too closely. He kept a respectful distance, a silent observer in Peter’s daily routine. Watching him the way people watch waves crash or leaves fall. Like Peter was art. Unfinished, maybe. But still worth the attention.
And Peter… well. He’d had worse.
A lot worse.
--
Tim didn’t mean to be obsessed. He didn’t plan it, didn’t set out with charts and red string and intentions. It just... happened.
Peter Parker doesn't- didn't, until a few months ago-exist. Not really . Not like this — with his hoodie too big and his camera slung carelessly around his neck, grinning like the city hadn’t tried to break him in three different ways that morning. His laugh was warm in a way Gotham rarely was, spilling into alleyways and over rooftops like sunlight where there shouldn’t be any.
He was a contradiction in motion: tired eyes that missed nothing, a slouched posture that moved like it had been trained by gods. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week but could still dodge a bullet without blinking. Tim had seen him do it — red and blue suit torn to shreds, a split lip, limping but still dancing between gunfire like he was made for it.
And in that moment, something inside Tim clicked. Not romantically — not the way the movies told you love should feel, all violins and slow motion. No, this wasn’t soft. This was sharp. A hunger, not a crush.
He needed Peter.
So he followed him. Quietly. Carefully. Religiously.
He mapped Peter’s class schedule in his head. Memorized his grocery list. Noted the exact way his fingers scratched behind his ear when he was deep in thought, the way he hummed low and off-key when he didn’t think anyone could hear. Tim knew he liked the rain, that he always paused for it. Knew he hated silence — filled it with podcasts, music, half-spoken thoughts, anything to keep it away.
He didn’t expect Peter to notice. He certainly didn’t expect Peter to turn around one night — high above the city, where the air was thinner and the noise finally died down — and look him dead in the eyes.
“You know,” Peter said, one eyebrow raised, “most people would just ask for my number.”
And just like that, the watcher became the watched.
Tim froze.
Everything in him screamed to vanish — disappear into shadow, melt into the skyline, pretend this never happened. But his legs didn’t move. His lungs didn’t work. All he could do was stand there, caught like a moth in a porchlight.
Peter didn’t look angry. That was the worst part. He wasn’t yelling, wasn’t accusing. Just leaning against the edge of the rooftop like he owned the night, sipping from a lukewarm Coke, casual as hell. His expression was unreadable — one eyebrow arched in amusement, not threat. Like he was waiting for Tim to say something clever. Or stupid. Either would do.
“I’m not most people,” Tim said finally, voice low, tight. His heart was hammering so hard it hurt. “You know that.”
Peter’s lips curved around the bottle in a half-smile. His eyes sparkled in the city glow — not soft, not mocking. Just alive.
“No,” he said, like he’d already made peace with that fact. “You’re weird.”
There was a pause. Not awkward. Just charged. Like the air before lightning.
Tim swallowed. He didn’t speak.
Peter pushed off the ledge and walked a few steps closer, boots quiet on the gravel. He didn’t close the distance entirely — just enough to make Tim feel it. The gravity of him.
“I like weird,” Peter added, more relaxed now, almost playful. “Keeps things interesting.”
Tim exhaled — not relief, not fear. Just something long held in finally escaping.
He didn’t know what this was. Not yet. But Peter wasn’t running. He wasn’t calling the cops or cracking a joke to defuse the moment.
He was here .
--
That was the beginning of… something.
Not a friendship. Not exactly. Not anything either of them could define with a clean label. But something had shifted that night on the rooftop. The lines between watcher and watched had blurred. The silence between them wasn’t empty anymore—it buzzed.
Tim didn’t stop watching him. If anything, it escalated.
He left cryptic notes in Peter’s dorm, all sharp angles and inside jokes only Tim could’ve known. A sketch of Peter mid-swing across the skyline, unsigned. A receipt for Peter’s favorite bodega sandwich, timestamped ten minutes before Peter realized he was craving it.
Flowers started showing up on his windowsill—never the same kind twice, never with a card. Once, Peter found a USB drive tucked into his camera bag. It was full of candid photos: Peter on rooftops, Peter asleep on the subway, Peter staring out across the East River, headphones in. None of which Peter remembered anyone taking.
He found a GPS tracker under the sole of his left sneaker one afternoon. He plucked it out with two fingers and brought it to lunch like it was a weird bug he wanted identified.
“You’re not even being subtle,” Peter said, holding it up between two french fries.
Tim didn’t look up from his book. “You didn’t throw it away.”
Peter smiled into his sandwich. “Maybe I like knowing you’re there.”
That was the game, if it was a game. A quiet tug-of-war played with glances and unsaid things. Tim never apologized, and Peter never asked him to. It was a strange kind of rhythm they found themselves in—Peter walking the line between being creeped out and being… comforted.
He wasn’t used to being seen like this. Not as Spider-Man. Not as Peter. And definitely not both. But Tim, somehow, saw all of it.
And for reasons Peter wasn’t quite ready to name, he didn’t mind.
--
There was never a moment where they became official. No declaration. No dramatic kiss in the rain. Just a slow, steady escalation—Tim hovering a little closer each day, and Peter, despite everything, letting him.
Their lives began to fold into each other like origami: quiet, deliberate, a thousand small creases forming something intricate and impossible to undo. Tim, who once lingered in shadows, now sat across from Peter at breakfast, silently refilling his coffee before he even asked. Peter, who once pretended not to notice, started pausing mid-swing just to see if Tim was watching.
They moved in a rhythm all their own. Peter would roll his eyes, mouth twitching with a smile, and tease him:
“Jesus, Tim, did you memorize my morning routine?”
Tim wouldn’t even blink. “You added two extra steps this week. I adjusted.”
And Peter would laugh, warm and bright, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe this was his life now. Then he’d lean in and kiss him, soft and certain, like it wasn’t completely insane. Like it wasn’t terrifying. Like trusting someone that much didn’t go against every survival instinct he’d honed since age fifteen.
But it was real. And weird. And maybe a little messed up.
And Peter couldn’t help but love it.
--
Peter’s new suit was definitely not regulation.
Tim didn’t comment at first — because he was composed, because he had a reputation for discipline, because he absolutely did not spend most of his waking hours memorizing the exact geometry of Peter Parker’s body in motion.
But he noticed. Oh, he noticed .
The way the upgraded nanotech clung tighter than the old fabric ever did. The gleaming black accents that cut through the red like ink spilled across muscle and movement. How the suit caught moonlight and wrapped it around Peter’s form like it wanted to keep him for itself.
And Peter—God, that smug little bastard— knew . Knew what he was doing. Knew the effect.
“You’re staring,” Peter said over comms, his voice syrupy with static, floating somewhere between flirtation and mockery. He swung ahead, legs tucked tight, moving like liquid fire across the skyline. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were checking me out, Red Robin.”
“You’re imagining things,” Tim said. A beat too late.
“Sure. Totally. That’s why you missed your grappling mark back there, huh?”
Tim gritted his teeth, recalibrated his gear mid-air, and said nothing.
Peter laughed — soft, breathy, wicked. “Maybe I should switch to a stealth suit next time. Something even tighter.”
“Spider-Man,” Tim warned, voice low and sharp.
“I could lose the undersuit altogether,” Peter continued, flipping onto a rooftop like he’d been born in zero gravity. “Let the nanotech hug me straight to skin. What do you think? Too distracting for patrol?”
Tim landed beside him harder than necessary, boots hitting gravel with a deliberate thud . Controlled, but barely.
Peter turned to face him, slow and deliberate. Tim could see the smirk even through the mask. His eyes, faintly backlit behind the lenses, glittered with something infuriatingly pleased.
“Something wrong?” Peter asked, all faux innocence, his voice a few octaves silkier than it needed to be.
Tim stared at him, silent.
Peter grinned, turned, and jumped off the rooftop — the sound of his webline singing in the night.
Tim followed. Always.
--
They made it another ten minutes before it all snapped.
It wasn’t a kiss. It was a collision .
Tim shoved Peter into the shadowed corner of an abandoned rooftop greenhouse, half-swallowed by ivy and rust, hidden in the sprawl of Gotham like a secret no one was meant to find. Glass panes were cracked or missing, wind slicing through the broken frame, carrying the city’s distant noise. But here, in this overgrown pocket of sky, the only sound was breathing — hard, desperate, ragged.
Tim’s hands were everywhere. Gripping too tight, tugging at the suit, pushing Peter into the cold glass like he wanted to leave marks on more than just skin. The sharp edge of his control, always so carefully maintained, had shattered. There was no logic here. No plan. Just need .
Peter gasped, the laugh punched out of him as Tim’s mouth crashed into his. His fingers tangled in the edge of Tim’s cape, pulling him closer like he was trying to anchor himself. He tasted like adrenaline and sugar, like stolen time. The smirk was still on his lips, but his body betrayed him — already moving, already melting.
“You’re a tease,” Tim snapped, mouth dragging down his jaw, biting at the hinge hard enough to bruise. “You hate me.”
Peter’s head tipped back, breath stuttering out of him. “I wore the suit for you,” he said, voice low and wicked, hips grinding shamelessly against Tim’s thigh. “Thought you might like it.”
Like was a weak word. Tim didn’t like it. He noticed every detail — the sharper lines, the way it clung to Peter’s frame like a second skin, the gleam of nanotech as it hugged the muscles along his sides. It was tailored to taunt. Designed to test him.
And it worked.
Tim’s hands slid under the fabric, suit peeling away with a hiss of nanotech responding to his touch. It dissolved like silk under his palms, revealing hot, trembling skin beneath. Peter was flushed all over, pupils blown wide, lips parted like he couldn’t quite get enough air.
Tim trailed his gloved fingers down Peter’s spine, dragging along the ridges of muscle, slow and firm. When he gripped his ass and pulled him forward, Peter made a sound — small, breathy, completely involuntary — and arched into him, back hitting the ivy-covered glass with a soft thud.
“You’re ridiculous,” Peter gasped, but he wasn’t pushing him away. He was clutching at Tim’s chest now, gloves squeaking faintly against armor, looking at him like he wanted to be ruined.
“Right here?” he asked, half-moan, half-mockery. “In the middle of Gotham?”
“No,” Tim said, voice a low rasp, pulling his gloves off one finger at a time with slow, surgical precision. He didn’t break eye contact. “This is above Gotham.”
Peter’s breath hitched, like he could feel the shift in the air — the weight of what was about to happen.
Then Tim dropped to his knees.
Peter’s back pressed harder into the glass, eyes wide behind the mask, his whole body coiled tight. Ivy curled against the windowpanes behind him, framing him like something feral, something sacred — a god dressed in shadows and nanotech, barely holding it together.
The city blazed below them, but it may as well have been another world. Up here, there was no one to perform for, no one to save. Just the heat between them. Just hands and breath. Teeth and obsession made flesh.
Tim looked up once, and Peter, for all his teasing, for all the reckless smirks and biting remarks, was shaking .
Already unraveling.
Already his.
--
The Batcomputer’s glow painted everyone in grayscale.
Lines of code flickered across the monitors, crime scene reports stacking in one window while a live rooftop feed streamed quietly in another. Gotham breathed dark and slow just outside the cave — rain smearing down the glass overhead, thunder grumbling somewhere above the skyline.
Damian stood near the console with his arms crossed, posture like a blade. Jason lounged back in a chair, boots propped on the edge of the table, spinning a batarang lazily between his fingers. Cass sat perched by the window ledge like a gargoyle, silent and still, watching the rain trace long, silver lines down the glass.
And Bruce hadn’t said a word in ten minutes.
Not one.
Which was always a bad sign.
Tim sat closest to the main screen, leaned forward with elbows on the table, one hand absently adjusting his keyboard. But his eyes weren’t on the scrolling data.
They were on him .
Peter.
The live feed showed Spider-Man crouched low on the edge of a crumbling gargoyle on a rooftop across town, mask tugged halfway up, sipping slowly from a steaming cup of instant ramen like it was a five-course meal. His new suit shimmered in the city’s light — black and blue under Gotham’s sky, like ink and steel.
Tim didn’t blink. Didn’t move. Just… watched.
Jason made a noise like a groan and a laugh had a deeply uncomfortable baby.
“You realize this is, like, the thirty-seventh hour you’ve spent monitoring him this week, right?” he asked flatly.
Tim didn’t look away from the screen. “That’s not accurate.”
Bruce’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Tim adjusted his posture like he was just now checking a system status. “It’s thirty-nine.”
There was a beat of total silence.
“…Jesus Christ,” Jason muttered.
Damian scoffed, arms still folded, expression stuck somewhere between bored and disgusted. “This is pitiful. At least when Grayson was distracted, it was by someone interesting.”
“I am right here,” Tim said mildly.
“And proving my point,” Damian said without looking at him.
Cass blinked slowly, still gazing out the window. “He fought Killer Croc for Peter last night,” she said, like she was reporting the weather. “Didn’t tell anyone.”
Jason sat up straighter. “Hold on. That fight was halfway across town. How the hell did you even know Peter was in danger?”
Tim didn’t even flinch. “I check his vitals.”
There was a solid three seconds of dead silence.
Then Stephanie’s voice crackled over comms, chiming in from patrol, “ You what? ”
“I monitor his vitals,” Tim repeated, like he was explaining a firewall setting. “Respiratory, cardiovascular, suit telemetry, baseline cortisol—”
“ Please tell me he knows you’re tracking his vitals,” Steph said. “Please.”
Tim tilted his head. “He smiled when I mentioned it.”
“That is not consent,” Bruce muttered under his breath, rubbing his temples like they were the source of all his pain.
“He didn’t say no,” Tim replied calmly, gaze never leaving the screen.
Peter slurped a noodle, completely unaware of the chaos his casual noodle consumption was causing across town. Tim’s expression softened just slightly.
Jason stared at him. “Dude. You’re a crime-fighting genius billionaire and you’re out here acting like a Tumblr stalker with a crush.”
“I have a crush,” Tim said, still watching Peter. “It’s just mutual.”
“Is it?” Dick asked, walking in at that exact moment with a tray of coffee and a well-timed eyebrow raise. He handed one to Cass, who accepted it with a nod. “Because it’s starting to feel a little textbook obsession.”
“He lets me in his room,” Tim said under his breath.
Dick paused. “Tim, so do I. That doesn’t mean I want to wake up with you watching me sleep.”
“Peter doesn’t mind.”
No one had a response to that.
Because they’d all seen the footage. The feed from last week. Peter passed out on his bed after a double shift, city grime still on his boots, mask tugged halfway off. Tim, sitting quietly on the fire escape just beyond the window, watching with that eerie calm, like he was guarding something sacred. Peter had rolled over, spotted him, and — like it was the most normal thing in the world — raised one hand in a sleepy wave before passing out again.
No fear. No panic. Just trust.
And that, maybe, was the most disturbing part of all.
“I’m just saying,” Jason muttered into his coffee, “if he disappears, we’re all blaming you.”
Cass didn’t look away from the rain. “He won’t disappear,” she said softly. “Tim won’t let him.”
A low thunderclap rolled over the city.
Bruce finally spoke. Voice low. Tired. Inevitable.
“You’re not dangerous to him ,” he said.
Tim’s head turned slightly.
“You’re dangerous to everyone else.”
And Tim didn’t deny it.
He just smiled.
--
Everyone was already tense.
There was a vibe in the Batcave. Not the usual tension — not the low-simmering stress of a rogue on the loose or an unstable piece of WayneTech needing immediate defusal. This was something worse.
Something domestic .
Jason was pacing in long, agitated loops, boots heavy against the cave floor. Every few seconds, he ran a hand through his hair, muttered something under his breath, then pivoted again like his orbit depended on movement.
Damian sat on the edge of the workbench, sharpening a knife he had no intention of using. The blade was already perfectly honed. This was for theatrics. And maybe his own sanity.
Stephanie’s voice crackled through comms, bored but deeply invested, halfway through a patrol but clearly parked on some rooftop with popcorn. “Just so we’re clear, I was promised drama,” she said. “This better be a full-scale psychological meltdown and not, like, Tim writing poetry again.”
Bruce stood statue-still, arms crossed in front of the main monitor, which currently displayed three live feeds — each focused squarely on one individual.
Peter Parker.
Feed one: Peter in his apartment kitchen, dancing a little as he made a grilled cheese, mouthing lyrics to some song no one else could hear. Feed two: A blurry traffic cam shot of Peter jaywalking, hands in his hoodie, slurping something from a cup and dodging cars like a video game character. Feed three: Peter’s bedroom. Curtains open. No shirt. Stretching with all the awareness of a man who knew exactly who might be watching.
“This is not normal,” Bruce said, voice low and tight. The kind of tone that usually preceded someone losing their tech privileges.
“I’m aware,” Tim replied calmly from the middle of the room. He was sitting cross-legged in one of the chairs, hands folded in his lap like he was at peace, like this was a perfectly ordinary Tuesday. “You’ve said that. Six times.”
“It’s creepy ,” Stephanie added. “It’s giving Netflix true crime stalker edits . Someone check if Tim’s keeping a scrapbook.”
“He likes it,” Tim said flatly, still staring at the screens.
“He likes being surveilled?” Jason asked, whirling around mid-pace, incredulous. “Peter Parker is a nineteen-year-old trauma goblin with no sense of boundaries and even less self-preservation. You know who that reminds me of? You . When you were fifteen. You know what we don’t do? Enable that.”
Tim didn’t reply. He just kept watching the footage. On screen, Peter was now folding laundry in what was very obviously a Gotham U hoodie that Tim had worn last week.
“He’s wearing my clothes,” Tim said softly, like it was proof of something sacred.
Jason looked like he was about to throw himself into the Lazarus Pit voluntarily. “I’m gonna commit a crime.”
And that was when the Batcave alarms gave a single, polite chirp .
Everyone froze.
Bruce turned. Damian stood up, blade still in hand. Jason instinctively reached for the gun he wasn’t supposed to be carrying. Cass tilted her head slightly, like a bird clocking a threat.
And then — with the casual gravity of a sitcom character walking in from the kitchen — a figure dropped from the ceiling hatch.
No fanfare. No stealth mode. Just a controlled fall, knees bending on impact, followed by a lazy roll to his feet.
Hoodie. Sneakers. A familiar red-blue suit folded into a backpack.
Peter Parker straightened, brushed dust off his jeans, and looked around like he’d walked into a diner, not the heavily secured underground lair of the most paranoid man alive.
“Hey,” he said casually, nodding toward Damian like they passed in the hallway at school. “Sup.”
Damian’s grip tightened on the knife. He did not return the greeting.
Peter turned to Tim, smiled crookedly. “You weren’t answering your burner. Thought I’d drop by.”
Bruce finally found his voice. “You walked here?”
Peter shrugged. “Took the subway. I’m not a heathen.”
Jason blinked like he’d been hit. “You just — what the fuck — you’re not supposed to know where this place is !”
Peter frowned. “Tim’s suit logs movement data. I just traced where it parks for six hours every night. It wasn’t hard.”
A beat. Then Steph, over comms: “Jesus Christ .”
Bruce looked like he was about to blow a circuit. “Peter. This isn’t healthy.”
Peter cocked his head. “What isn’t?”
“This.” Bruce gestured with both hands between Tim and Peter like it physically hurt to acknowledge. “ Whatever this is .”
Peter looked at Tim. Then back at Bruce. “You mean Tim being weird? Or me being into it?”
Jason choked on his coffee.
Bruce closed his eyes like he could mentally reboot himself. “I’m asking seriously.”
“So am I,” Peter said, smiling now, sharp and smug. “I like it. I know he watches. I leave the curtains open.”
“You’re joking ,” Dick said from the top of the stairs, holding two cups of coffee and looking like he’d just walked into a fever dream.
“I waved at him last night,” Peter said.
“You—what?”
“I waved,” Peter repeated, walking over to the monitor. “He didn’t wave back. I think he was sulking.”
Tim, still in his chair, barely looked up. “You were wearing my hoodie but texting Duke. I wasn’t sulking.”
“You were a little sulky,” Peter teased. Then, to the room: “See? He gets jealous. It’s kind of hot.”
Jason pointed wildly between them. “ What is happening right now. ”
Cass, who had not moved once, sipped her tea. “They’re mating.”
“ Cass ,” Bruce warned, not looking at her.
Peter turned, walked over to Tim, and — with zero hesitation — climbed into his lap. Like it was his chair. Like this was normal. Like they didn’t have an audience of vigilantes watching with varying degrees of horror.
“You should’ve told me you were getting an intervention,” Peter said softly, brushing Tim’s hair back. “Would’ve brought snacks.”
Tim looked up at him, eyes soft, and rested his chin on Peter’s shoulder. “Didn’t think you’d want to deal with the fallout.”
“I don’t,” Peter said, kissing the side of his head. “But I want you more.”
Bruce opened his mouth. Closed it. Rubbed his face with both hands like he was questioning every decision that led him here.
“I just think,” Peter continued, voice light, “if you’re gonna pull Tim into an intervention, you should probably ask me if I mind first.”
Bruce sighed. “Do you mind?”
Peter smiled wider. “Not even a little.”
Tim’s arms curled around Peter’s waist, fingers fisting in the hoodie like he was anchoring himself.
Everyone else?
They looked done .
Jason groaned. “Fine. Whatever. You two are terrifying, and I sincerely hope you never break up because the emotional fallout would level Gotham.”
Peter looked pleased .
Cass raised her tea like a toast. “To the future crime couple.”
“Cass,” Bruce warned again, more tired this time.
Peter kissed Tim’s temple. “Told you they’d find out eventually.”
Tim just hummed, content, eyes closed, the tension finally bleeding from his shoulders.
The Batcave was quiet — for a moment.
Then Stephanie’s voice, cheerful and resigned: “Cool. I ship it. We’re all going to die, but fine.”
And somewhere in the corner, Damian whispered, “I’m going to poison something. ”
But no one stopped Peter.
No one made him leave.
Because for all their posturing, for all their panic… they’d seen the footage, too.
And more importantly?
So had Peter.
And he’d walked right in anyway.
--
Bruce Wayne had interrogated assassins, war criminals, ex-KGB black ops, metahuman arms dealers, and, on one memorable occasion, a Martian warlord who communicated through light pulses.
But nothing — nothing — was quite as unsettling as Peter Parker sitting across from him in a crisp Gotham Academy hoodie, legs crossed, sipping peppermint tea like it was a fireside chat and not a thinly veiled psychological assessment.
The kid looked utterly relaxed. Too relaxed. His expression was open, soft even, but his eyes were sharp — too sharp. Watching. Calculating. Amused.
He smiled like he already knew what Bruce was going to say. Like he’d solved a riddle Bruce didn’t even realize he’d been pulled into.
“So,” Bruce said finally, measured and low, “I wanted to talk to you. Alone.”
Peter leaned back in the chair, tilting his head. “Cool. Love alone time. What’s up, Dad?”
Bruce didn’t rise to the bait. “I need to ask you something directly.”
Peter blinked, expression neutral.
“Do you feel safe with Tim?”
There was a pause.
Not long. Just long enough.
Peter took another sip of tea. When he spoke, his voice was calm. Almost playful.
“Are you asking me if Tim’s dangerous… or if I like that he is?”
Bruce’s jaw tightened. “Peter.”
Peter’s smile grew, slow and unreadable. “Because those are two very different questions.”
“And the answer?” Bruce asked, already knowing he wouldn’t like it.
Peter’s eyes glittered, calm and unflinching. “Is the same, either way.”
Bruce exhaled, slow and sharp through his nose. He stood with his arms folded, towering over the table like a stone pillar, voice low. “He watches you sleep. He tracks your vitals. He’s coded custom software to monitor your movements in real-time. He has a protocol for your disappearances. This is not normal , Peter.”
“I know,” Peter said brightly. “Isn’t it sweet?”
“It’s not,” Bruce snapped. “It’s obsessive.”
Peter tilted his head again, smile still firmly in place. “And?”
Bruce blinked. “ And that concerns me.”
Peter didn’t flinch. “Why?”
Bruce frowned. “Because obsession isn’t sustainable. It corrodes. It wears things down. Even love. Especially love.”
Peter’s smile faltered — only a fraction. Just a flicker of something colder underneath.
“Tim doesn’t corrode,” he said quietly. “He consumes . And I let him.”
Bruce stared at him.
“You let him?” he repeated, disbelieving.
Peter leaned forward then, all the ease bleeding out of him like someone finally taking off a mask. Elbows on the table. Tea forgotten.
His voice dropped, and suddenly, it wasn’t soft anymore.
“Bruce,” he said, “I came to your world alone. I lost everything . My aunt. My team. My city. I’ve buried more people than you train. I wake up every day rebuilding from nothing. I’m tired. I’m angry. I’m cracked all the way through and still pretending I’m fine.”
Bruce said nothing, but his expression tightened.
Peter went on.
“And then there’s Tim. Who sees me. Not just the mask. Not the Spider-Man. Not the tragedy. Me. Who looks at the mess and doesn’t flinch. Who doesn’t fix me — who doesn’t try to. He just watches. Learns. Memorizes. Chooses me.”
Bruce’s brow furrowed. “He’s possessive.”
Peter gave him a look that wasn’t naive. Wasn’t flattered. Wasn’t blind.
“Yeah,” he said. “And I’ve been possessed by worse.”
Bruce straightened, arms still folded, but there was hesitation now. A shadow of something more human behind his carefully maintained calm. “And if he snaps?” he asked quietly. “If the obsession tips into something dangerous?”
Peter’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do,” Peter said, with a certainty that was sharp . A blade in velvet. “Because he’d burn the world down before he hurt me.”
Silence stretched like wire.
Bruce watched him closely. Searching. Waiting for the crack. The performance to falter.
It didn’t.
“You’re not a victim,” he said slowly.
Peter’s smile returned. But this one was different — not soft, not playful.
Not kind.
“No,” Peter said, leaning back in his chair, gaze level. “I’m just not afraid of monsters.”
The tea sat untouched on the table between them. The screens behind Bruce still flickered with security footage and tracking data. Peter didn’t look at them once.
He didn’t need to.
He knew Tim was watching.
And Bruce — for all his experience, all his analysis — finally understood what that quiet meant.
Not fear.
Not surrender.
Choice.
And that was, somehow, worse.
--
Dick had come to knock.
He’d even brought coffee. Two cups, still warm, carefully balanced in a cardboard tray. One black, one loaded with sugar — because Tim never remembered to eat when he got like this. Off-kilter. Moody. Tense. Vanishing for hours into data logs and case files like he was trying to merge with the Batcomputer itself.
So Dick was doing the good big brother thing. Casual check-in. No pressure. Maybe some gentle teasing, maybe some warmth. Break the ice.
He never got to knock.
Because — and this was a critical mistake — the door was already ajar.
Just a little. Just enough that he figured it’s fine, he’ll just nudge it open and say something charming and Tim will make a snarky comment and they’ll have a semi-functional sibling moment.
So Dick opened the door.
And immediately, his soul left his body.
Tim was on the couch.
Shirtless.
Peter was in his lap. Also shirtless. Straddling him. Hoodie hanging off one bare shoulder like it was personally out to destroy Dick Grayson’s remaining brain cells. Legs wrapped around Tim’s waist. One of Tim’s hands was definitely under the waistband of Peter’s sweatpants. The other was gripping Peter’s hip like he was holding him in place through sheer force of will.
Their mouths? Occupied.
Peter was making a sound Dick had never heard in any human context before, and his hips were— Nope. Nope. No thank you.
Dick dropped the coffee tray like it had bitten him. Cups hit the floor. One lid popped off. Steam rolled out.
“Oh—Jesus fucking Christ— ”
Tim looked up, dazed. Disheveled. Eyes wide and black and not okay. Not safe. He looked like someone who’d been pulled from a trance and was debating violence.
“Get out,” he said. Low. Flat. A Batman tone.
Peter turned his head lazily, still half-curled around Tim, breath catching in his throat. His lips were red. His hair was a mess. He looked delighted.
“Hey, Nightwing,” Peter said cheerfully. “Want coffee?”
Dick took two steps back, hit the wall with a thud.
“Nope. No. I’m leaving. I’m scrubbing my eyes. I’m calling Zatanna for a memory wipe. I’m—what the fuck. ”
“You opened the door,” Peter pointed out, sweet as sin.
“Why are you like this?!” Dick practically shrieked.
Peter grinned. “I’m in love.”
Tim kissed the underside of his jaw like it was a prayer. “Don’t talk to him.”
Dick made a strangled noise. Turned. Bolted.
He didn’t stop until he was back in the Batcave, wild-eyed, breathless, and muttering like someone who’d just seen the Ark of the Covenant and lived to regret it.
“I saw Peter’s thighs,” he whispered. “I saw Tim’s soul. They’re in love and I want to die. ”
Jason, without looking up from where he was cleaning a pistol, said blandly, “Told you not to walk in.”
“I brought coffee, ” Dick gasped, like the betrayal hurt more because he’d cared.
“Your first mistake,” Jason said, inspecting the chamber. “Your second was thinking they’d be clothed after 9 a.m.”
“I can’t unsee it,” Dick moaned. “There were sweatpants. There were sounds. I’m scarred.”
“I’ll call Constantine,” Jason offered.
“Too much risk,” Cass said from the shadows, sipping tea. “He’d probably laugh and not help.”
“ Why does no one understand the horror I’ve endured— ”
“Because they’re happy,” Alfred said dryly, entering with a tray. “And you walked into a private moment, Master Grayson. Perhaps next time, you’ll remember to knock.”
Dick lay down on the cave floor in defeat. “I’m going to be in therapy for years. ”
Jason kicked a pillow over to him. “Welcome to the family.”
--
Damian stood stiff between the orchids and the moonlight, arms crossed tight over his chest like they were the only things keeping him from drawing a blade. The greenhouse was still, unnaturally so — just the whisper of leaves shifting under the blue glow of the grow lights and the distant hum of Gotham traffic bleeding in from far below.
Everything smelled like earth and chlorophyll and something sweeter — something artificial, but not quite fake. Like perfume on danger.
Peter leaned back against the potting bench like he had all the time in the world, legs crossed at the ankle, the heel of one foot tapping gently against the wood. The blue lighting caught the edges of his jaw and his lashes, throwing half his face into shadow. He looked like a painting, or a warning.
"You know why I’m here," Damian said, voice clipped and cold.
Peter lifted a brow, nonchalant. "Because you missed me?"
Damian’s jaw tightened. "You’re not funny."
Peter shrugged. "Disagree. I’m hilarious under the right lighting."
Damian didn’t move. Didn’t blink. His posture was coiled tension, the kind that meant he was fighting himself not to reach for the knife hidden at the small of his back. He took a step forward.
"Drake is… unwell."
Peter’s smile didn’t fade. It just lost its edges, growing softer. Sharper. Like a blade wrapped in velvet. "Yeah," he said. "So?"
"So you shouldn’t encourage it," Damian spat, stepping closer. His voice was low but laced with heat now — not anger, not entirely. Worry disguised as fury. " You’re enabling his worst impulses. "
Peter tilted his head, studying him with the slow patience of a cat watching a bird twitch. "And what if I’m his worst impulse?"
Damian blinked. It was a tiny thing — the only crack in the armor.
"That’s not comforting," he said after a moment.
"I’m not trying to comfort you," Peter replied, pushing off the bench. His voice lost its teasing lilt, grew quieter, steadier. " I’m telling you I’m not scared of him. And maybe you should stop being scared for me. "
Damian’s eyes narrowed to slits, and his voice was a rasp. " You think he wouldn’t burn this city to ash for you? "
Peter smiled, not smug — reverent. "Oh, he would," he said. "And I’d let him."
The words landed like a gunshot.
"You’re insane," Damian breathed.
Peter stepped closer, not looming, but looming . Not with size — with certainty. With truth .
"No," he said softly. "I’m his. "
The silence that followed had weight. It pressed in on the walls, thick with breath and unspoken things.
Then — from the shadows behind Damian, smooth as silk on a razor — a voice cut through the quiet.
"You shouldn’t have come here."
Damian turned instinctively, hand darting for his blade — but it was already too late. Tim was there , standing in the doorway like he’d been there all along, half-lit in the glow of the exit sign. His posture was loose. Casual. But his eyes — his eyes were predator-black and half-lidded, and they didn’t blink.
"I was watching the whole time," Tim said, voice low. Velvet over glass. " I always am. "
Peter didn’t even flinch. He didn’t turn away.
"Hi, baby," he said, like this was Tuesday and not a showdown.
Tim’s gaze slid to Peter — and something in him shifted. His shoulders rolled slightly, tension draining and sharpening all at once. The look on his face softened, briefly — something fond, something dangerous in how fond — before it twisted into something colder.
"Are you okay?" he asked, soft as cotton. Deadly as anything.
Peter nodded once. "Handled it."
Tim turned back to Damian like remembering he was there was a chore. His tone dropped to a whisper laced with warning.
"Go home."
Damian didn’t move at first. He looked between them — Peter, calm and quiet and terrifying in how much he trusted. Tim, unreadable and unraveling and composed in the most fragile, lethal way.
It hit Damian all at once: he wasn’t the predator here.
He was standing between two .
He backed away slowly, one step at a time, eyes never leaving them. His fingers stayed near his belt, but he didn’t draw anything. He didn’t blink. Not until the door shut behind him with a soft click.
Then it was just the two of them.
Peter exhaled. Tim crossed the space between them and touched Peter’s waist like he was checking for damage, like reassurance wasn’t a word but a pressure point.
"You okay?" he asked again, quieter now. More to himself.
"I said yes," Peter murmured, tilting his head into the touch. "You don’t have to circle every time someone challenges your territory."
Tim’s mouth ghosted over Peter’s temple.
--
They weren’t supposed to work together.
Not like this.
The Bat had rules. The Bats had restraint . Controlled movements. Coordinated strikes. Tactical silence. There were chains of command, call-ins, protocols — all the things that kept the myth intact.
But Peter and Tim?
Peter crouched beside the broken, twitching body of Heatwave like he was checking on a mildly injured dog. His suit was scorched across the shoulder, his mask tugged halfway up, exposing the curve of his mouth — which was smiling.
Tim stood a few feet back, arms crossed, a shadow draped in kevlar and quiet threat. His eyes were nearly invisible behind the tactical lenses, but his posture made it clear: he was not in the mood to be questioned .
Heatwave was sobbing, breath catching in short, wet bursts. His mask had been torn off and webbed to his own back. His flamethrower had been ripped apart piece by piece, smoking and useless. There were burns on his hands — his own fire, turned against him.
Peter tilted his head. “He was trying to melt children,” he said, tone casual, like he was commenting on the weather. “You should thank me for not webbing his lungs shut.”
No one answered.
The GCPD officers stood in a loose, uneasy circle around the scene, guns not quite lowered, eyes not quite meeting Peter’s. Lieutenant Markham looked pale.
He took a shaky step forward. “We… didn’t call for both of you.”
“You didn’t need to,” Tim said flatly, without looking at him.
Peter stood, stretching until his spine popped. “We’re just making the rounds,” he said, brushing soot off his gloves. “You know. Couple’s patrol. ”
Markham blinked. “Are you—”
He hesitated, visibly thinking better of the question.
Peter, of course, ignored that completely.
“Oh,” he said brightly, glancing back at Tim. “You wanna tell them or should I?”
Tim walked over, quiet as smoke, and reached up to tug Peter’s mask back down over his chin with a gentle touch that somehow made the entire precinct flinch.
“They already know,” he said, calm and cold. “They’re just scared to say it out loud.”
Markham swallowed. “You’re terrifying.”
Peter beamed. “Thanks! Means we’re doing it right.”
Behind them, Heatwave made a wet sound and tried to crawl. He didn’t get far — just a few inches toward a knocked-over trash bin before Tim kicked him behind the ear with mechanical precision. Not hard. Just enough.
He went still.
Peter didn’t even blink. “That was hot.”
Tim looked at him sideways. “Please don’t flirt while we’re standing over an unconscious arsonist.”
Peter shrugged. “I said what I said.”
Markham stepped forward again, slower now, like someone approaching a cornered animal. “Look, we appreciate the help, but this... isn’t standard procedure.”
“Neither is barbecuing a school bus,” Peter replied. “So, you know, balance.”
Another officer coughed quietly, then immediately regretted existing when Tim turned his head just slightly in his direction.
Peter clapped his hands once. “Welp. Our good deed for the night is done. Now, pancakes.”
Tim’s shoulders relaxed incrementally. “You want me to beat the traffic cams again?”
“You know me so well.”
And just like that — no signal, no orders, no briefing — they turned and vanished into the shadows together. A blur of red and black and unspoken trust.
They didn’t run.
They moved — with the fluid synchronicity of people who’d long stopped needing words.
Behind them, the scorched concrete still steamed. Heatwave twitched in a growing pool of regret. The cops stood in uneasy silence, watching the alley where Gotham’s most unsettling crime-fighting couple had disappeared.
One officer whispered, “Was that Spider-Man?”
Nobody knew what to say after that.
--
“People are scared of them,” Jason said, sprawled across the couch like a lazy wolf, boots up, phone in hand, thumb idly scrolling. “Like. Actual criminals. Hardened, been-to-Blackgate, not-afraid-of-God-or-Batman criminals. They see those two show up and just run. ”
“They’re efficient,” Cass replied calmly from the armrest, sipping tea. She didn’t look up from the security footage playing silently on the screen.
“They’re feral, ” Steph muttered from the floor, where she was untangling a knot of grappling line and glaring at it like it owed her money. “They make eye contact mid-fight like they’re about to kiss, and then someone loses a kneecap.”
At the center of it all, Bruce stood in front of the monitor wall, arms crossed, brow furrowed into his favorite wrinkle. The screen displayed a rooftop feed from less than an hour ago: Tim gently tying Peter’s shoe.
Both of them were covered in blood — not their own — suits torn, bruises blooming, Peter’s mask tugged up just enough to show a crooked grin.
Tim looked at him like he’d invented joy.
Peter leaned down mid-laugh and licked a smear of blood off Tim’s cheek.
Bruce didn’t speak for a long moment.
Then, quietly, like it physically pained him: “I don’t know if I need to break them up… or start preparing the world for their wedding.”
“Why not both?” Dick said, walking in with an ice pack held dramatically over his eyes. “You think I want to see what I’ve seen?”
Cass nodded solemnly. “We all suffer.”
“Last night,” Jason added, “they slow-danced after a stakeout. In the rain. While interrogating a guy.”
“It was... choreographed,” Steph said weakly. “Like they practiced it.”
Bruce rubbed his temples. “They’re distracting. They’re unpredictable.”
“They’re in love, ” Dick said, flopping down next to Jason and stealing his phone. “Get over it, Dad.”
“They’re dangerous,” Bruce muttered.
Jason looked up. “ So are we. ”
Steph shrugged. “Honestly, they might be the healthiest relationship in this entire family.”
“Peter webbed a guy to a ceiling and left a post-it note that said ‘Tell your friends we bite,’” Bruce said flatly.
“He does bite,” Cass noted.
“And Tim likes it, ” Jason added, smirking.
Bruce sighed. “They’ve rewritten every field protocol.”
“Because they don’t need the protocols,” Dick said, pulling the ice pack down to gesture dramatically. “They read each other’s minds. I saw them take down six guys in fifteen seconds without speaking. No comms. No hand signals. Just vibes.”
Steph pointed a finger at the monitor. “And that, ” she said, as Tim finished tying Peter’s shoe and looked up at him like he’d just watched the sun rise for the first time, “ is not normal. ”
Peter ruffled Tim’s hair. Tim leaned into it like a cat.
Cass smiled faintly. “But it’s theirs.”
Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. “God help us all.”
Jason threw a couch pillow at him. “You raised him. This is on you.”
Dick groaned into his hands. “I already RSVP’d to the inevitable rooftop wedding. I’m bringing a flask.”
Steph perked up. “Ooh, can I be Maid of Honor?”
Cass raised a hand. “Best Man.”
Jason grinned. “Flower boy. I want to throw knives instead of petals.”
Bruce turned slowly, stared at them all in exhausted horror. “I hate you.”
“We know,” the they chorused.
Behind them, the monitor feed switched to a new rooftop. Tim and Peter were already gone.
But the trail of broken bones and stolen hearts they left behind?
Very much still there.
--
The attack had come fast — calculated .
Arkham rogues never worked together. Never for long. But tonight, they moved in sync. A precision strike, like someone bigger — smarter — was pulling strings from the dark.
Five blocks of Gotham went up like a fuse had been lit.
Explosions staggered across downtown like a heartbeat. Blackgate prisoners poured through barricades. Joker gas hissed through sewer grates and subway tunnels, curling in green clouds over panicked civilians. Sirens screamed. Civilians ran. Gotham bled.
Batman was two boroughs away.
Nightwing and Batgirl were pinned. Oracles’ comms were glitching under a data spike that reeked of Riddler. Cass had disappeared somewhere underground.
And in the middle of it all:
Tim had gone quiet for thirty seconds.
Then: “Red Robin. Downtown. Corner of Fifth and Halloway. Engaging. Might be a trap. I’ve got it.”
Peter didn’t answer.
Didn’t need to.
He was already moving .
--
By the time Spider-Man landed on the rooftop above the chaos, downtown looked like a war zone.
Smoke choked the street below. Cars were flipped like toys. Streetlights flickered. People screamed, ran, stumbled through puddles of neon and blood. The Joker’s laughter echoed from somewhere it shouldn’t. Sirens blurred into white noise.
And at the center of it all, like the eye of the storm—
Tim.
Crumpled on the asphalt. Motionless. Blood dark and slick beneath him.
The red and black of his suit had been torn through. One arm bent wrong. His mask was cracked. A single hand was twitching, uselessly trying to reach for something.
Peter’s lungs stopped working.
His chest locked.
His vision narrowed — not to a tunnel, but to a pinpoint. And then—
It went white.
--
The first one to die — metaphorically — was Firefly.
Peter dropped from the sky like vengeance.
A spinning kick shattered Firefly’s mask into burning shards. Peter landed, ripped the oxygen tank off his back, and webbed his mouth shut before he could scream. The man hit the ground like a dropped machine — sparks flying, limbs jerking.
Didn’t move again.
--
Then came the others.
Clayface surged forward like a wave. Peter lobbed a flash-freeze capsule at him mid-lunge — blue-white frost engulfing his center mass. One hit. One shatter.
Two-Face tried to raise a gun. Webbing ripped it away mid-motion, and Peter was already there — snapping his wrist in one smooth twist, elbow to temple, down like a sack of wet cement.
Harley lunged with a bat — he didn’t even look. Just caught it mid-swing and used her own momentum to flip her into a wall hard enough to crater drywall.
--
And then — Joker.
The fucking Joker.
He grinned, delighted, mouth already moving: “Now wait just a goddamn—”
Peter tackled him.
Not a punch. Not a hit. A tackle , into a lamppost, so hard the pole bent. Webs locked Joker’s throat to cold steel. Tight. Too tight.
He tried to gasp.
Tried to laugh.
Nothing came out.
His eyes went wide. Realization blooming. Not fear — not yet. But something worse.
This one’s gone feral.
--
Peter didn’t quip.
Didn’t banter.
He moved like a ghost with knives — silent, fast, surgical . Every blow was calculated. Every web line was placed to maim, disarm, stop. No flash. No flair. Just absolute brutality wrapped in red and blue.
He didn’t stop until the street was quiet.
Really quiet.
No rogues standing. No jokes. No sounds except fire crackling and a few groans from half-conscious bodies stuck to walls, lampposts, and the hoods of police cars.
Cops on the perimeter didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
They were staring.
--
Peter dropped to his knees beside Tim, hands shaking.
“ Tim— ” His voice cracked. “ Baby, talk to me—come on— ”
A groan. Tim’s head shifted.
Blink. Slow. Painful. “...Pete?”
Peter’s hands hovered — not touching, afraid to make it worse. His HUD scanned frantically, Karen whispering in his ear.
“Broken rib. Minor concussion. Fractured wrist. Internal bleeding minimal. Stable vitals. Nothing life-threatening.”
Peter collapsed forward with a choked breath, forehead pressed to Tim’s shoulder. “Oh, thank god. Oh thank god. ”
Tim blinked at him, dazed. “Why are you… out of breath?”
Peter glanced up.
Around.
Every rogue in a four-block radius was either unconscious, tangled in webs, or whimpering against the pavement.
The air was thick with static. Police had set up barricades but hadn’t dared approach. One officer had dropped his gun. Another crossed himself.
Peter looked back down.
“I thought you were—” he said, voice thin, raw, unraveling. “I thought you were gone. ”
Tim’s gaze softened. “You okay?”
Peter couldn’t answer. Didn’t need to.
Then Tim — aching, broken, somehow smiling — reached up with his uninjured hand and cupped Peter’s cheek.
“Hey,” he whispered. “I’m fine. I’m right here.”
Peter leaned into the touch like it was the only thing keeping him human.
--
From the alley, Jason’s voice crackled through the comm:
“So… Spider-Man just took out eight rogues in under five minutes. I think he bit Riddler.”
Steph, audibly breathless: “Okay, so we’re never breaking them up, right? Because I like living.”
After a long pause, Bruce’s voice, grim and quiet:
“Noted.”
--
Peter didn’t hear them.
Didn’t care.
He curled forward over Tim, forehead pressed to his, breathing slow, deep, trying not to shake.
“Next time,” he whispered. “You wait for me.”
Tim smiled — tired, bloody, alive. “Only if you bring the chaos again.”
Peter’s answering smile was feral. " For you? Always.”
--
They were all talking over each other.
It wasn’t even arguing anymore — it was overlapping panic, ego, and injury, bouncing off the cave walls like ricochet.
Jason was pacing, bleeding from somewhere under his jacket and still shouting at Bruce about “field priorities” and “bullshit power plays.” Damian and Steph were yelling over each other, every sentence sharper than the last, until it was mostly just the word “idiot” said in different tones.
Dick was trying to be the mediator and failing miserably, hands raised, voice calm and tight, trying to get everyone to breathe, but no one was listening. Cass sat high above on a ledge near the rafters, swinging her legs and saying nothing, eyes watching everything with surgical focus.
Barbara was at the Batcomputer, fingers flying across keys, muttering curse words in three languages while trying to restore a crashed surveillance feed and simultaneously reboot the communications grid. Duke stood near the wall, not even pretending to follow the conversation anymore, looking like he was starting to suspect this wasn’t a team — it was a trauma cult.
And Alfred, saint that he was, stood off to the side, completely unbothered, holding a tray with tea like this wasn’t a room full of emotionally volatile, weapons-trained human powder kegs with unprocessed grief and too many knives.
And Peter?
Peter was sitting cross-legged on the edge of the Batcomputer desk, sipping lukewarm coffee from a paper cup like it was a front-row seat to his favorite show. Calm. Amused. Eyes half-lidded like none of this was surprising.
Like he’d seen worse . Survived worse. Maybe even been worse.
Then, very quietly — like he was commenting on the weather — Peter said:
“...You guys realize you’re all unhinged, right?”
Silence.
Immediate.
Sharp.
A sudden, ringing stillness that settled over the room like a dropped curtain.
Several heads turned to look at him.
Peter didn’t flinch. Just blinked and took another sip of his coffee, unfazed.
“I mean,” he said casually, “no offense. Love you all. But like… this whole operation? You run on mutual obsession, emotional repression, and a group surveillance system that borders on Orwellian . It’s kind of impressive, honestly.”
Jason squinted at him. “You wanna run that back?”
Peter held up a finger, like a professor beginning a lecture. “Let’s go down the list.”
He pointed at Bruce first. “You track all your kids. GPS. Biometrics. Pain response data. You literally monitor their stress levels in real time. That’s not parenting. That’s Blade Runner meets Big Brother.”
Bruce’s mouth opened.
Closed.
Peter didn’t wait.
He turned to Dick. “You’re the fun one. The golden retriever. But you internalize every failure like it’s a moral responsibility and overcompensate by trying to fix everyone around you. You haven’t slept a full night since the Obama administration, and you smile so no one worries.”
Dick opened his mouth.
“You’re doing it right now, ” Peter added helpfully.
Then to Jason. “You’ve got a trauma kill list longer than my FBI file, and I have one. You keep pretending you’re fine, but you sleep with a gun under your pillow and come back here hoping someone will stop you before you go too far. You don’t want to admit it, but you need this place.”
Jason blinked. “Okay. Damn. ”
Peter spun toward Damian. “You love your family so much it actually terrifies you. So you armor yourself in sarcasm and death threats, because if you let anyone close, you think they’ll leave — or die — and you won’t survive it. You’re thirteen and already more emotionally constipated than your dad.”
“I’m fourteen, ” Damian snapped.
“Worse,” Peter said, deadpan.
He pointed at Steph. “You joke about dying like it’s a personality trait. It’s not. You’re scared, but you’ve been scared so long it feels normal, so you dress it up in sarcasm because no one checks on the funny ones.”
Steph’s mouth opened. Closed. “I—what—how dare you—”
Cass tilted her head, studying him.
Peter met her eyes. “You think silence keeps people safe. That if you say too much, you’ll lose control, or hurt someone. But what actually hurts them is you not trusting them enough to speak.”
Cass didn’t respond. But her fingers curled ever so slightly in her lap.
Then to Barbara. “You’ve got seventeen contingency plans for what happens if any of us go rogue — and I respect that. But you haven’t updated your own trauma recovery protocol in three years . You hide behind the tech because it’s easier than admitting you need help, too.”
Barbara stared at him like he’d slapped her with a spreadsheet.
Peter turned to Duke. “You’re new, so you still think this is fixable. It’s not. Run. ”
Duke slowly nodded. “That... tracks.”
And finally, to Alfred.
“You enabled all of this.”
Alfred raised one eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”
Peter smiled. Softly. “Lovingly. With tea. And great skill. But enabled.”
Everyone looked at Alfred.
Alfred did not deny it.
Bruce, quietly: “And what about Tim?”
Peter didn’t hesitate. “Oh, Tim’s a disaster. ”
From the shadows near the wall, Tim’s voice drifted in: “He says that with love.”
“I do,” Peter said, sweet as sugar. “But it’s still true. He spies on all of you. He doesn’t sleep unless I drug him. He has dossiers on your dreams. And he would absolutely burn Gotham to the ground if he thought one of you hurt me. So. Equally fucked.”
Silence again.
Longer this time.
Then Peter finished his coffee, hopped down off the desk, and stretched.
“Anyway,” he said, like they hadn’t just been roasted alive. “Just thought we could name it. You know. Since no one else will.”
He smiled — bright, kind, and just a little unhinged — like someone who'd peeled their skin off in front of a room and dared everyone to look.
Cass started clapping.
Duke followed, slow at first. Then with feeling.
Jason muttered, “Jesus. I think I need therapy.”
Peter patted his shoulder. “You all do.”
Then he turned and walked toward the elevator, calm as ever.
Tim followed him without a word, hands in his pockets, gaze soft. He looked happy .
Bruce stared at the empty space Peter left behind and said, slowly, “...He’s not wrong.”
No one disagreed.
