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mostly-imagines · 9 months ago

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La Vie en Rose

jason todd x fem!reader

aka jason wildly preferring you over everyone else

4 in 1 blurbs

warnings: standard batfam arguing etc.

You sit curled up embarrassingly close to Jason on the couch, head on his shoulder. The team is still in their gear as they filter into the living room, masks and helmets discarded in scattered locations between here and the cave. The mission had been fairly simple and with all of them together it only took a couple hours to finish up.

As you waited, Alfred had kept your mind busy in the kitchen while he taught you how he makes his famous ice cream from scratch.

The clamor of the heroic party’s return had made itself known sooner than later, and you think your face must have displayed your emotions nicely because Alfred nodded you away with a small smile and no second thought.

You’d walked into the living room, weaving through the mess of siblings until a hand snuck out on your left and grabbed your wrist. You barely had time to look at him before Jason pulled you down to sit next him on the sofa. He wrapped an arm over your shoulder, pulling you in and leaving virtually no space between you. His armor sits heavy against you, but a welcome weight on your shoulders.

Tim plops down on the couch across from you and you can just make out a bit of blood on the side of his head, aptly accompanied by an irritated look sprawled across his face. It’s not enough blood to be concerned about—not for them—but you can venture a guess that whatever they were up to shouldn’t have called for any injuries and his pique is likely directly related to that.

Though Dick’s goading aura might have something to do with it too, as he comes crashing down next to him a second later, partially sitting on Tim’s cape and pulling him into an awkward angle.

Nightwing doesn’t seem too perturbed by the younger vigilante’s agitation and curt manner of pushing him off.

The others are too caught up in chatter to pay much attention to you, and you can be certain that’s why Jason takes that moment to press a kiss to the side of your head. He lets his lips linger there for just a second as you lean into him.

Alfred’s own entrance is the only thing able to subside the flurry of conversations skirting around the room.

“A job well done,” he commends with a nod. “A selection of ice creams awaits you in the kitchen.”

He gives you a sly wink before retreating back through the swinging door, leaving Stephanie and Cass to practically trip over themselves trying to beat each other to the kitchen. Robin follows after unhurried, mask still on, with his hands behind his back.

Jason kneads your thigh before pushing himself up to stand. He turns back, looking down to you. “What do you want?” he asks softly.

You hum, "Just strawberry's good."

Tim sits up, "Can I—”

"No, you've got legs,” Jason grumbles, stalking off to the kitchen.

Dick barks out a laugh and you bite back a smile.

Tim looks absolutely aghast.

“That’s such bullshit. You know, he used to be nice.”

“No he didn’t,” Dick laughs, shaking his head. “Not since you’ve known him.”

Stephanie stumbles out of the kitchen then, the door hitting her back on the way, as she mutters a curse behind her. You can vaguely makeout Jason grunting something back before she rolls her eyes.

Steph looks at you, shaking her head as she returns to her seat, “You live like this?”

You shrug, “He’s nice to me.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Tim grumbles.

Jason returns after Cass a minute later with a bowl of strawberry ice cream and two spoons. He expertly ignores Tim’s unwavering glare as he resituates himself beside you.

He scoops your legs up over his lap and positions the bowl in between you, wrapping the sleeve of his jacket around it so that the cold porcelain doesn’t make contact with your skin.

The others have set themselves up so that the four of them are stuffed up against each other on the sofa adjacent to you, very obviously examining you both.

And while you’re willing to acknowledge the amused stares and singular glare, Jason only sighs heavily, rolling his eyes as he glares at the coffee table.

Only a few seconds of this are allowed to go by before he pulls over a throw pillow and sets it over your knees, so that it rests atop your heads like a mini-fort, successfully blocking out his siblings' view of the two of you.

You smile and press a light kiss to his shoulder as he simmers.

Regrettably, you miss the way Damian side-eyes the pillow above you as he re-enters the room, perching himself atop the back of the couch behind the others.

“This is so nice,” Dick preens. “He used to just leave the room when too many of us gathered in one place. Now he has to stay.”

Stephanie watches the makeshift fort with wary eyes, scooping ice cream into her mouth. “Yeah…I don’t wanna freak you guys out but, uh…”

It’s quiet for a moment and you guess Cass is speaking.

You’re proven right when Stephanie starts up again, “My thoughts exactly.” Her voice drops into a raspy whisper that isn’t really meant to go unheard, “I don’t know who the hell that is, but it is not Jason.”

“This is unprecedented,” Damian mumbles, dipping into his own chocolate cup.

“Do they always talk about you like you’re not here?” you ask Jason quietly.

“Yes,” he grumbles with a scornful look directed at the bowl.

A low hiss can be heard immediately after, “I’ve never heard him whisper before, what the fuck?”

You can’t hide your laugh as well as you mean to, but you know Jason’s light swat to your thigh is nothing more than a rib.

Mumbles continue along the other couch, mostly going unacknowledged, until Tim busts out, “He doesn’t even like strawberry!”

Jason snaps the pillow out of the way, “The fuck do you know about what I like?”

Tim resets his posture with one hell of an attitude, snarking, “Well I can name one thing you really seem to fucking—”

Jason grabs the pillow harshly and chucks it at Tims head which connects with a loud thwack.

Damian swats it away before it can knock him off balance, though his scowl is only half worth what Tim’s is.

“You’re unbelievable,” he says with a sneer. “This is why you don’t get invited to movie night anymore.”

Jason doubles back at him, “Sorry, is this not your own fucking house?”

Tim huffs, “Yes, which i—”

“Then get your own goddamn ice cream!”

Tim huffs as he stands, sending Jason a pointed look. “I’m going because I want to.”

Jason barely gives him a sardonic nod as he stomps off.

“Get me some too!” Dick calls back, only for the back of his head to be met with a sideways grimace from Tim.

As he leaves, the focus of the room seems to shift towards Damian dripping chocolate onto his cape and it fades away from there.

You turn to Jason, lowering your voice to just below a whisper, “If you don’t like strawberry—”

“I like it,” he tells you, leaving no room to argue as he takes a bite.

Voicemail.

Declined.

Voicemail.

Declined.

“I swear to God, he better be dead,” Stephanie mutters to herself.

She shuts her phone off and tosses it into the passenger seat with a huff. Her fingers drum against the steering wheel as she scans the sidewalk across from her car.

The night before the majority of the team had been involved in a less-than-successful plan, which some have called “a display of complete idiocy and inability to circumspect.”

Then Tim had to go and make a joke about that word choice in what was apparently a bad moment. This gave way to a harsher punishment of the team being forced to clean the batcave foot by square foot—notably, an impossible task.

So naturally, they had to retaliate.

The plan was to dismantle the batmobile piece by piece and leave it a collection of parts for Bruce to find. Problem being, the group as it stood didn’t possess the capability to do so without doing a great deal of damage to the parts. Damage, that the family was not willing to face extra retribution for.

Fortunately, they knew just the man for the job.

Unfortunately, said man has devoted his life to ignoring their messages, favoring to live peacefully and distantly from them. And because that peace and distance does come with an add-on of borderline complete secrecy from his family, no one had any idea where to look for him.

So, Stephanie decided to do the next most rational thing and track down your location. She’d hoped he would be with you like he always is, but for seemingly the first time in the last year—he’s nowhere to be found.

Now, was revenge for a minor-slight by Bruce so important that it required Stephanie to take all of these steps to get a hold of Jason? No, absolutely not. She’s pretty sure that the others have already given up on it by now and started cleaning. But it’s about the principal. And also, she does not want to clean the floors of a cave.

She jumps up in her seat when she spots you exiting a store, scurrying to unbuckle and pry the car door open.

She’s across the street in half a second, running directly into your line of sight. It actually would’ve been very difficult for her to miss your line of sight, considering she’d landed only a good six inches in front of your face. “Hey!”

“Oh, fuck—” you jump, grabbing your chest. You take a breath when you realize who it is, less surprised now by the theatrics of the introduction. “Hey Steph.”

“Hey,” she smiles casually, like she didn’t do what she just did. “So Jason’s been ignoring us and I need to get a hold of him,” she tells you.

You nod, still collecting yourself. “Oh. I don’t know where he is—”

She shakes her head, “That’s fine. Can I use your phone to call him?”

You frown, “Is something wrong?”

“With him, yeah,” she snarks. “I called him, Tim called him, Dick called him, Cass called him, Damian called him, we used Bruce’s phone to call him—that was a bit of a long shot, but still. This is our last option. Well, not our last option, if this doesn’t work I could get really invasive, but—” She shakes the thought from her head, “Nevermind.”

You nod blankly, taking in the mountain of information she’d just handed you. “How’d you know I was here?”

She scans your eyes back and forth for a second before her own widen in realization and she’s shaking her head. “No, no, don’t worry we’re not tracking you! I just hacked into the traffic cameras to find you.”

“Oh!” you exclaim, nodding some more. “Okay.”

You hand her your phone without any further questions—for your own sake—and she happily accepts.

“You know I texted him 115 times?” she tells you as she scrolls through your contacts.

You furrow your eyebrows, watching her click his name and press the phone to her ear. “Did you count?”

“Well, I had the time, di—you son of a bitch! One ring?” Stephanie scorns into the phone.

You can hear Jason groan on the other end of the line.

He says something to Stephanie that she follows up with a firm shake of her head.

“No,” she says defiantly. “She let me use it.”

Stephanie rolls her eyes, not pleased with his response. “What if it was an emergency?”

She listens for a second, skeptical look on her face.

She gasps suddenly, “I am not overstepping, we thought you were dead!”

Over the course of about ten seconds the shock on her face drops into just-been-caught guilt. “Well, I mean we considered it.”

You imagine Jason’s telling her to give you your phone back as she stands her ground, pushing, “If you promise to text me back.”

A short response on his end.

“Promise to text me back!”

There’s a brief lull before she’s giving a self-satisfied nod and jostling your phone back into your hands. “Here ya go. Thanks, babe!” She smiles wide at you before jogging back across the street, not waiting for the cars.

You smile as you watch her go, putting the phone up to your ear, “Hey Jay.”

You can hear the relief on the other end of the line. “Hey sweetheart. You know if you see Steph in public, you can just walk away?”

“I’m not going to walk away from your family.” You look again across the street, “Also I don’t think that was an option for me this time.”

“That thing is fucking scary.”

Cass smiles fondly, signing, “I think he’s cute.”

Tim eyes the way Salem traipses around his feet, yellow eyes staring up at him. “Why’s it even here?”

Jason rolls his eyes, continuing to scroll on his phone. “He’s hers. Deal with it.”

Tim scrunches up his mouth. “She knows I hate it. And she, unlike you, wouldn’t subject me to this just for the hell of it. So again I ask: why is it here?”

Jason huffs, looking up from his phone. “What do you want me to say? He wants to be.”

Tim scoffs at that, “‘It wants to be’? You’re the one who put it in the car.”

“No, I didn’t,” Jason says factually.

Tim looks at him sideways as Salem leaps onto Jason’s lap and nudges his hand up. Jason follows along as requested, petting the top of Salem’s head with an open palm.

Tim squirms to the other side of the couch with a look of disgust on his face. Salem watches him the whole time.

A smile adorns Cass’ face as she signs, “She says he can read people’s energy.”

Tim huffs, resting his head against his fist. “What does that even mean?”

The conversation is cut off by the clatter of you and Dick stumbling into the room, carrying a freshly painted headboard. Blue paint coats both of your hands and has no doubt stained your clothes.

You’re clearly struggling a bit to keep your grip on your end, the weight of the wooden frame dragging your arms down.

Jason stands and Salem flows along with his movements easily, leaping down onto the hardwood. He comes over and helps you lift your end of the frame with a stupid amount of ease, to the point that you’re not even holding any of the weight up anymore. The three of you—less so you—move the headboard and lean it up against the wall. After it's set down Jason steps back and looks over it gingerly.

“It looks good,” he murmurs to you, quiet enough to not give his brother the satisfaction of his approval.

Dick had asked you over to help him paint Damian’s bed frame as a surprise for him for not getting in any “altercations” at school this semester. You’d decided on coating it with his favorite color first and then fill it in with a collection of what Dick has “on good authority” are his favorite animals. It’s a fairly random assortment that you’re not sure adds to or disproves Dick’s credibility. You’d spent the better half of the afternoon googling animals you’d never heard of just to make sure you projected their likenesses accurately. Dick had been very clear that you had to be precise on the details because Damian would know if he was really looking at a komodo dragon painting or if it was “some common lizard.”

You sigh, “I hope he likes it. I’m worried we did it too childish for him.”

“He is a child,” Jason says plainly.

“But he is not childish,” you counter. And he sure isn’t. You’d had a hard enough time convincing Damian to watch cartoons, adding a colorful animal mural to his bedroom might be one step too far. You’re still trying to figure him out.

“He’ll like it,” he says firmly.

You smile, slipping around under his arm and tucking yourself into his side.

Not a moment later, Dick slings an arm around Jason's shoulder, grinning as he pulls his brother in close.

Jason’s immediately louring. "No, get away from me."

Dick, unfazed and still smiling, removes his arm and takes a big step to the right. You do the same, figuring he needs his space, but you get caught by the wrist before you can do more than sway to the side.

“Not you.”

He pulls you back under his arm, wrapping it around the front of your shoulders. You hook your fingers around his forearm, letting your hand hang.

You hear a double-clap from the other side of the room that has you both turning around to face Cass.

She signs something to Jason with a fond smile on her face.

You look back and forth between them as Jason waves her off. “What?”

He shakes his head, “It’s nothing. She said—she said we’re cute.”

You smile up at him and he deflects—not so subtly—and starts nudging you back towards where the group is gathered, now all standing.

Dick’s quick to start bragging off to the room about how great of a job the two of you did and how really complex and daunting it actually is painting animals for a child.

As he talks, your eyes find Jason, who’s definitely about to roll his eyes any second now. A bit subconsciously, your hand comes up to brush Jason’s white streak of hair back, away from tickling his forehead.

On the other side of Jason, Tim does the same, sweeping Jason’s hair back in a much more mocking manner.

This gives way to Jason smacking his hand away, harder than he needed to.

"Wha—You let her do it!" Tim protests, overplaying how much the slap hurt.

Jason scowls, "She can do whatever she wants."

Tim drops his shoulders, looking at Jason as if he’d been scandalized. “Oh but I can’t?”

“Not if it involves touching me,” Jason grumbles.

Tim steps closer, putting a finger to Jason’s chest. “You’re such a—”

From the floor, Salem hisses up at Tim, successfully startling the teenager. “Auahh—”

He stumbles backwards, grimacing at the cat.

“Fucking demon,” he hisses, walking away.

When Tim’s far enough away and Salem’s seemingly satisfied, he brushes up against your leg, purring.

You peer down at him with a furrowed brow.

“What’s Salem doing here?”

“I’m not doing this shit with you.”

“No, come on, 9 out of 10 times is what you said. How ‘bout just once? Beat me one time at anything, Jaybird.”

“Anything?” Jason asks like he knows damn well Dick can’t swear on that word.

Rightly so, Dick backtracks. “Something agreed upon.”

Jason throws his hands up, partially in exasperation, partially relenting.

Dick smoothly turns his back to him, announcing, “Opening up the room for ideas.”

Damian’s eye roll is almost audible from the corner armchair, where his attention is unmoved from intently sharpening a blade he’d recently come into possession of.

Bruce similarly remains unbothered in his seat, trying to read despite the distractions.

“Ooh, okay. Okay.” Stephanie wiggles up a little on the couch. “You could race!”

Dick shakes his head negatively, “I literally just busted my knee up two days ago, Steph.”

“Convenient,” Jason mumbles.

“You were there!” Dick exclaims with an open mouth.

Steph continues, “Um…”

Cass waves to the room from her position upside down on the couch, head hanging down next to Stephanie’s legs. Attention successfully acquired, she signs, “Staring contest.”

Jason grimaces, “That sounds like a nightmare.”

Dick gives him a faux-smile.

“You should play chicken,” Damian chimes in, holding up his knife.

“No,” Bruce drones monotonously as he flips a page.

“Tic tac toe?” Steph suggests.

Cass is already shaking her head as she scrunches up her mouth in thought.

Jason rolls his eyes, “What are we, five?”

Dick nods, cracking his knuckles as he thinks. “No, we need something that really proves our worth.”

Bruce looks up from his book, staring numbly through his brow, but remains silent.

“You could arm wrestle,” Steph suggests.

The elder brother twitches at that, “Uh, no.”

Cass moves past that before a joke has the chance to be made. “Handstand contest?” she suggests.

Jason shrugs, “Yeah, sure.”

The elder brother looks at him incredulously. “You’ll do a handstand contest with me?”

“That’s what I just said.”

Dick scoffs, “Jaybird, I’m an acrobat, you’re just some guy.”

Jason, not giving him the courtesy of eye contact, pulls his sweatshirt off from his back. “Well, you’re a lot of things, aren’t you?”

Dick throws his head back with a squint.

Jason fishes his phone out of his pocket and Dick follows suit, offended stare maintaining all the while.

No exchange is required as they both toss their phones across the room, landing together with a rough clatter on Damian’s lap. Damian’s resulting glare is borderline disgusted.

Dick starts them off, “Alright, go. One…two…”

Both men push up onto their hands, muscles flexing as they find their balance. Dick’s form is better, of course, but Jason looks to have a stronger foundation.

They both hold strong as several minutes go by with the brothers only maintaining the attention of some of the room, and the interest of none of it.

Stephanie huffs and tilts her head, thoroughly unentertained with the consistency they’re both managing.

“Starting to wish they’d picked something that moved along a little faster,” she murmurs to Cass.

Dick glances over at the younger brother, clearly displeased with his lack of trouble keeping up with him. He shuffles closer one hand at a time, using the decreased distance to poke at Jason with his foot, trying to knock him over.

Jason kicks him back harder, “Hey! Don’t be a dick—”

“Very funny,” Dick leers.

They both end up finding a struggle to keep balance and are forced to mind their own.

A chime rings out from the corner that has heads turning briefly in his direction before coming back to the competition.

“Whose was that?” Dick calls out.

Damian leans over and inspects the screens with disinterest. “Todd’s.”

Jason adjusts his position, “Who is it?”

Damian responds with your name.

“And?”

He picks up the phone shrugging like he couldn’t care less, “She wants to know if you want to go see some movie.”

There’s a brief silence before Jason drops out of the handstand, standing up.

Dick’s blood-flushed face peers up at him, bewildered. “Wait, what?”

The family watches with wide eyes as Jason picks his sweatshirt up off the floor and tugs it back on.

Stephanie gawks, bordering on laughing. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah,” he says simply.

Dick lets himself fall into a kneeling position with a huff, “You would rather go to some movie you don’t even know the name of than win a bet?”

Jason moues at him, “Uh, yeah.”

He tosses a twenty at Dick, and plucks his phone from Damian’s hand as he strolls past him, typing out a reply.

Cass sits up a bit and signs up to Stephanie, “Does he even like movies?”

Bruce, now attention now fully removed from his book, watches Jason exit with the slightest hint of a smile. Dick sits dumbly on the floor, staring after him with an open-mouth.

Damian twists the knife in his hands around contemplatively before rising to stand.

“I will go,” he announces, dropping his blade onto the seat of the chair. Jason grumbles a no but Damian follows after him just the same.

you know what happened to the last guy that didn’t reblog? … 🔪🧨💥😵⚰️🪦

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musicmags · 1 year ago

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#guitar for the practicing musician #ad #learn to burn #curt mitchell

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feyburner · 10 months ago

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I ??? woke up at 3am with this scene fully written in my mind palace and quickly jotted it down in the Notes app

Clark’s shaking his head before he realizes he’s doing it, and feels a twinge of embarrassment at his own bad manners when Bruce stops mid-word to look at him, brows raised.

“No?” he says.

“No,” Clark says, again without thinking, and again with the reflexive urge to apologize. Somewhere his mother is tutting without knowing why. But he doesn’t apologize, because he’s already saying, “No, it can’t—it can’t be that.”

“Okay,” Bruce says slowly. “Can you elaborate?”

He is, honestly, having trouble taking his eyes off the screen. The mockup design of his new suit is there, dark and sleek, ridged like tactical gear. The blue is like the last shade of evening before you can’t call it evening anymore, the color of nine PM in Kansas in July, so exact there’s a strong chance Bruce color-picked it from a photo. The yellow accents are the cool fluorescent yellow-green of lightning bugs. The red is dark as arterial blood. Every aspect of the suit has been updated—the colors deeper, the angles sharper, the S extending to the corners of its frame—but Bruce has done it without changing the fundamentals. It’s immediately recognizable as the Superman suit, just… well, a little cooler, maybe. A little more of the times. Even the tailoring is modernized. The neckline. The shape of the boots. Where the belt hits at the waist. Clark can tell just by looking that Bruce has not only spent a lot of time on this in general, he’s spent a lot of time designing it specifically with Clark in mind, Clark’s needs and preferences and the small discomforts of his current suit, things he might have mentioned offhand after a mission but never with the assumption that Bruce was listening or filing it away. No doubt the next slides of this presentation will detail all the hidden features of the new suit, and they’ll all be incredibly thoughtful if not slightly overkill, and Bruce will pretend his sole motive here was practicality and risk reduction and respond to any thanks with a curt nod.

And Clark wants to thank him. He will. It’s just.

“It can’t be… cool,” he says, inane. Bruce is watching him with that steady look that used to feel clinical, piercing, and now mostly reads as attentive. “It can’t be—like yours. Tactical, military-grade.”

“Lightyears beyond, actually.”

“It has to—Ma said once, a kid should be able to draw it with crayons. You know? I can’t look like a weapon. I have to—I want to look like a friend.”

He can feel himself flushing. It’s rare that he speaks like this, and rarer still that he does so while being stared at intently. Bruce may think of himself as the darkness, but his gaze is a spotlight: unwavering and revealing and more a little sweat-inducing, for one reason or another.

“Sometimes, when I show up, people laugh,” Clark says. “If it’s somewhere out of the way, where they haven’t seen me before. I show up and I look like a festival performer. It’ll be the worst day of their lives, and they’ve got no reason to trust my face, but when they see what I’m wearing—it goes from ‘Who are you?’ to ‘Who is this guy?’ And that’s a good thing.”

“Hard to be afraid of a man dressed in primary colors,” Bruce says, almost to himself.

“Exactly.”

“I see. Thank you,” he says, “for explaining.”

Clark tries not to show how surprised he is to hear that. Judging by the crook of Bruce’s mouth, his success is negligible. “Of course. Sorry I didn’t—I mean, thank you, obviously, for going to such trouble. I didn’t mean to come in here and—I really do appreciate it, I can tell you put a lot of work in—”

Bruce’s eyes cut away. “No. No need. I didn’t ask, before I…. It was only a first draft. If you’re amenable, I’ll incorporate your feedback into the second one.”

“Oh! Yeah. Yes, of course, but you really don’t have to—”

“If you have any further notes, I would like to hear them.”

There’s something determined in the lines of his face. Clark has the sense that this moment is important, that it’s a turning point, even if he’s not sure why. It feels like striking out into a sea of ice, a blank white expanse under which something precious and vital is hidden, has been hidden all along, just waiting for him to find it. To want to.

“Sure,” he says. He looks back at the suit and swallows, and knows Bruce will see the flicker of his throat and take some meaning from it, and wishes he knew what the meaning was. Or maybe Bruce won’t notice or read into it at all. Maybe Clark needs to calm down, in fact. “Um. I don’t want to assume, but does it… do things?”

“It does things,” Bruce confirms, after the barest pause. “Let me show you the next slide.”

#superbat #my writing #i was genuinely surprised to wake up and discover i hadn’t just dreamed the whole thing

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iydiamartinx · 27 days ago

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TERRITORY, MARKED

Pairing: Damian Wayne x Reader ft. Dick Grayson

divider by: @cafekitsune word count: 2.1k synopsis: Damian makes an unexpected friend at the dog park—but when his older brother tags along one day and takes a little too much interest, Damian decides one thing for certain: this was not supposed to be a shared friendship. a/n: I got this cute request from @kitkatscabinet hope you liked it 🩵

He didn’t like the noise, the chaos, or the strangers who insisted on asking where his parents were—just because he was twelve and walking around with a dog half his height. The scrutiny was always the same: curious stares, patronizing smiles, or the occasional busybody who seemed convinced he was lost. He wasn’t. He had perfect directional memory and could incapacitate a grown man with two fingers.

But Titus needed exercise, and Alfred had made a rather pointed comment that morning about how “a well-socialized pet is a reflection of his owner’s discipline.”

So here he was, standing stiffly beneath a tree with his arms crossed, watching Titus bound after a tennis ball like a slobbering oaf. His nose wrinkled slightly as a group of women near the water fountain cast him a judgmental look—three of them with toy dogs tucked neatly into designer purses like accessories. Damian could feel the weight of their stares on him and Titus and he was just about ready to call it a day when he heard a voice behind him.

“That’s a gorgeous dog,” you said, gaze following Titus. “Yours?”

Damian turned, immediately wary.

He looked you over with practiced suspicion, eyes narrowing just slightly. You were older than him—maybe around Grayson’s age—but you didn’t speak to him with the gratingly high-pitched, patronizing tone adults so often used. There was no forced sweetness, no condescension, no judgment. Not even fear. Just curiosity.

An unclipped leash hung loosely from your fingers, and a husky stood at your side, tail wagging as it trotted toward Titus with a cheerful bark.

“Yes,” Damian replied curtly.

You didn’t flinch at his curt reply. Didn’t backpedal or fill the silence with awkward chatter the way most people did when confronted with Damian’s usual icy demeanour. Instead, you just nodded as your husky bounded up to Titus, sniffing noses and circling excitedly.

“They’ve got good instincts,” you said casually, eyes on the dogs. “Mine doesn’t usually approach ones that size unless they’re friendly.”

Damian followed your gaze. Titus, ever the soldier, stood tall and still, allowing the inspection without so much as a twitch. Then, with a quiet chuff, he gave a single, measured wag of his tail and lowered his head in greeting.

A rare sign of approval.

Damian’s stance eased—just slightly. “…He doesn’t usually tolerate strangers,” Damian said slowly.

You smiled a little at that. “Guess today’s just full of exceptions.”

He studied you again, this time with a shade less suspicion. You didn’t have the overenthusiastic energy most dog people radiated. You weren’t trying to pet Titus without permission, or asking how old he was like he was a child running errands without supervision. You simply stood there, hands in your pockets, content to watch the dogs with quiet interest.

“I’m Y/N, by the way,” you offered after a beat, though your tone made it clear there was no pressure to respond.

“…Damian,” he said.

“Nice to meet you, Damian.”

He gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod, then let his gaze return to the dogs. Titus and your husky had taken to one another quickly, and Damian felt another piece of his wall chip when he saw how happy Titus was with his new friend.

Silence settled between the two of you again, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. You eventually moved to the nearby bench, letting your dog roam in a wide circle with Titus while you scrolled through your phone.

Damian didn’t sit beside you—not right away. But after a few minutes, he shifted his weight. Then stepped closer. Then finally sank onto the far edge of the bench, arms still crossed but no longer on guard.

That was how it started. The next time he saw you, you sent him a friendly wave. The time after that, you offered him a spot beside you. You never pushed for him to speak but eventually he began responding to your idle chatter, until he found himself opening up and talking about his day—about school, about people who annoyed him, about books he liked. Something about you was easy to talk to, you listened with interest, asking questions when needed, and even occasionally talking about your own daily life, which he found oddly… validating. You didn’t treat him like a child and you were smart enough that you could keep up with him.

Soon, it became a routine. Titus and your dog would charge off together the moment their paws hit the grass, while you and Damian claimed your usual spot beneath the shade. Sometimes you talked. Sometimes you didn’t. Either way, it worked.

Damian had always found it difficult to spend time with kids his age. He didn’t understand them—and frankly, they didn’t understand him. They were loud, immature, easily distracted. The only exception had ever been Jon, and even then, their bond had been forged under very specific circumstances. Neither of them had to hide who they were. They were both born into the life of heroes but And even then, their friendship was… unconventional at best.

Damian rarely connected, even among the other young heroes His surly personality, sharp tongue, and rigid discipline kept most of them at arm’s length. Jon, ever the optimist, was the rare outlier—a ball of sunshine who somehow wormed his way past Damian’s walls with unwavering sincerity.

You were something entirely different. A civilian. Someone completely outside the world he’d grown up in, that he began considering as a friend.

But, of course, with a family like his, someone was bound to find out eventually. Damian had done his best to keep this to himself—this quiet corner of his life that belonged only to him. He changed his routes, downplayed his outings, gave vague answers when asked where he’d been.

Still, everyone had started to notice the change.

Subtle things, at first. The way he stopped groaning every time he was told to take Titus out. The way he came back from his walks with less tension in his shoulders. He wasn’t snapping as much. Wasn’t muttering under his breath with the same venom he usually reserved for Gotham’s general population.

So when Dick insisted on tagging along one weekend—something about “needing fresh air” and “brotherly bonding”—Damian should’ve known his secret was on borrowed time. His friend, his quiet routine, his piece of normalcy… it was no longer going to be just his.

Still, he thought he’d pulled it off. He left early, ditching Dick. He even took the long way around, doubled back twice just to be sure he wasn’t followed. And it worked—he made it to the park alone. What he hadn’t expected was that Dick would show up anyway.

“Hey, Dami!”

Damian tensed mid-sentence, shoulders going rigid as if preparing for an ambush. You glanced up in time to see the source of the disruption. With a coffee in one hand, and a leash in the other, the man beamed brightly. An adorable grey puppy trotted beside him, ears bouncing with every step, tongue lolling out in sheer delight. Her leash was slack—more of a formality than a necessity.

Taking a moment to study the man himself, he was tall, handsome, and fit, with bright eyes and a golden grin. There was an easy confidence to him, an effortless charm that told you he was a people person…right up until he saw you.

And then he just—froze.

You offered a polite, amused smile. “You must be his brother.”

You’d heard Damian complain about his brothers enough to make a pretty solid guess. Drake and Thomas were still juniors—too young to be this guy—and from everything Damian had said about Todd, he sounded more like the leather-jacket, punch-first type. This guy? He was too put-together. Too clean-cut. Too… sunny. Which really only left one option.

Grayson. The apparent golden boy.

Beside you, Damian sighed loudly, rubbing his temples like this entire interaction was causing him physical pain. “Unfortunately.”

Dick blinked. “I—uh—hi. I’m Dick.” He caught the raised brow you gave him and immediately flushed, a faint pink blooming across his cheeks. “Richard. Grayson. Dick Grayson. That’s me.”

“…Right,” you said, lips curving into a slightly wider smile.

Damian didn’t have to look at you to know. He could already feel the secondhand embarrassment crawling up his spine like an itch he couldn’t scratch. He was going to commit fratricide. Right here. In broad daylight.

Meanwhile, you let your gaze drop to the ball of grey fluff at his side, her tail wagging lazily as she sprawled out across the grass like she owned the park.

“And who’s this?” you asked, your tone cooeing.

Dick followed your gaze, smile brightening instantly. “Haley,” he said warmly. “She’s still a bit of a mischief maker, but we’re working on it.”

As if on cue, Haley let out a happy little yip and rolled onto her back, paws curled in the air, clearly angling for attention. You laughed, reaching down to scratch her belly, and she kicked her legs like she’d just won the lottery.

Titus and your dog trotted over from where they’d been playing nearby, drawn by the sight of the unfamiliar puppy. Their postures were relaxed, tails wagging in casual curiosity as they circled around to greet her. Dick crouched down and unclipped Haley’s leash without hesitation, giving her a soft pat on the side.

“Go on, sweetheart,” he murmured.

Haley didn’t need to be told twice. With a delighted bark, she bounded forward to meet the others. Within moments, the three dogs were weaving around each other in playful loops, tails high and tongues lolling, a flurry of paws and joyful energy filling the open stretch of grass.

Pushing past his momentary embarrassment, Dick dropped onto the bench beside you without being asked, angling his body a little too fully in your direction. His smile was quick to return, all easy charm and boyish confidence.

“So,” he said, leaning in slightly. “You’re the mysterious dog park friend. I’ve heard… absolutely nothing about, because apparently someone likes to keep secrets.”

You chuckled, casting an amused glance at Damian. “I didn’t realize I was being kept a secret.”

“You weren’t,” Damian snapped, a little too quickly and defensively. “But my brothers are like rabid dogs who I didn’t want scaring you off.”

Dick raised his eyebrows, clearly amused instead of offended. “Scaring her off? What, do we bark too loud or something?”

You snorted. “The more important question is, do you bite?”

“Only when threatened,” Dick said with a wink. Then he leaned in just a fraction, pitching his voice low enough that, presumably, only you would hear. “Or when asked.”

Your breath caught before you could stop it, the corner of your mouth twitching despite yourself. There was a spark in his eyes, teasing and a little too pleased with himself, and you hated how easily it made heat crawl up the back of your neck.

You were cut off by Damian’s groan as he saw the look you two shared, slumping back against the bench with the kind of dramatized misery usually reserved for Shakespearean death scenes. “You see? This is why I didn’t tell anyone.”

“Aw, come on, Dami,” Dick teased, nudging his little brother with his elbow. “Don’t be like that. It’s not my fault our new friend is cute.”

Your lips parted in surprise, a soft huff of laughter escaping before you could stop it.

“She is not our friend,” Damian muttered.

You turned toward him, brow arching with interest. “Oh?” you said, drawing the word out, clearly amused. “So what am I?”

Damian opened his mouth, paused, frowned like the question had personally offended him. “You’re… mi—my,” he settled on, vaguely flustered. “My friend. Not his.”

Dick raised his brows, then gave a low chuckle, the sound soft and unbothered. “Hey, no one said she can’t be friends with both of us.”

Then he glanced your way, that familiar glint in his eyes.

“Though I wouldn’t mind being a little more than friends.”

Your heart skipped, just once, and the way his smile deepened told you he noticed your flushed cheeks.

From beside you, Damian huffed, arms crossed tight. “I just didn’t introduce her because I didn’t want you hitting on her,” he grumbled.

Your smile softened as you leaned back against the bench. “Don’t worry, Dami. You’ll always be my favourite.”

He nodded like that settled the matter entirely, posture relaxing ever so slightly as he turned his attention back to the three dogs still tumbling across the grass.

But the moment his gaze was elsewhere, Dick leaned in again, his voice low and smooth.

“What do you say to dinner?” he murmured, the words warm against the air between you. “Give me a chance to change your mind about your favourite.”

You turned your head toward him, brow raised, a smile tugging at your lips. Your eyes flicked to Damian—still fully distracted— before looking back at Dick, biting your lip.

“It’s a date.”

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