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blackthorngirl · 1 day ago

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Red Lights Pt.2

pairing *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ F1 driver!Jason Todd x fem!reader

disclaimer *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ angst. fluff. suggestive content. themes of mental health and depression. swearing. insecurities. non-canon complacent. jason is an idiot. not proofread.

a/n *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ So here's part two. I didn't wanna split it but oh well. Requests are open so feel free to send them. Comment, Like and Reblog (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)

comment to be added to taglist

Part 1

“Jason, I think you should see this.”

Jason’s brows drew together as Dick held up his tablet. On the screen was a Twitter post already gaining traction—photos of Jason in Venice. Not alone. Y/N was beside him in every frame, though mercifully, her face was either obscured or turned away. Only Jason’s features were clear, caught in candid moments of laughter or strolling beside her down cobblestone streets.

“It won’t be long before the tabloids catch wind of this,” Dick said quietly. “And once they do, you know how fast it spreads. So… is there anything we need to prepare for? A statement? Clarification?”

Jason stared at the images for a beat too long, his jaw tightening. “There’s nothing to announce,” he said, his voice low, laced with simmering anger.

This—this—was what he hated most about the life he’d inherited. The fame, the scrutiny, the constant invasion of privacy. People didn’t just watch; they obsessed, they speculated, they twisted everything into headlines and hashtags. And they never knew when to back off.

He pulled out his phone, opened the app, and found the same post. He scrolled through the comments. Some expressed harmless curiosity. Others congratulated him or gushed about how “cute” the mystery woman looked from behind. But the rest? Cruel. Jealous. Misogynistic. Disgusting.

He could already picture Y/N’s face if she saw them—how her smile would falter, how those bright eyes would dim. The internet could be vicious and if anyone recognized her, they’d tear into her without hesitation. She didn’t deserve that. Y/N was kind, full of joy, and effortlessly warm in a way that made the world feel easier to exist in when she was near. She wasn’t built for this toxic attention and she shouldn’t have to be.

Jason’s fists clenched at his sides.

They could say whatever they wanted about him. They always had. But Y/N? She was off-limits. Untouchable. And he would make damn sure it stayed that way.

Jason shoved his phone deep into his pocket, the screen still burning with the comments he'd been scrolling through—each one a fresh ember beneath his skin. The device felt heavier than it should have, weighted down by implications and what-ifs. Across the room, Dick's gaze lingered on him with that infuriating older brother intuition, the kind that could read silence like an open book. Jason hated it—being seen like that—but more than that, he hated feeling powerless.

“I’ll handle it,” Jason bit out, the words sharp enough to carve distance between them as he moved toward the door.

“Jason.”

Dick’s voice was softer than Jason deserved, laced with a caution that had been earned through years of watching headlines twist and private moments splatter across tabloids. The warning wasn’t judgment—it was experience.

“Just... be careful,” Dick said, the words measured. “You know how this stuff spirals. One photo turns into a headline, and the next thing you know, she’s being followed. Whoever she is.”

Jason froze mid-step, his spine locking. The unspoken implication hung between them: I see you. I see what this means. Dick didn’t press further. He didn’t need to.

“That’s exactly why I’m going to handle it,” Jason ground out, the promise rough in his throat.

A beat passed. Then another.

Finally, Dick gave a single nod—not approval, not surrender, just acknowledgment. Permission to go, if that’s what Jason needed.

And Jason did.

Because standing still meant thinking. And thinking meant admitting how much he couldn’t control—the press, the speculation, the way his pulse kicked at the thought of Y/N caught in the crossfire.

Jason’s thumb hovered over the contact for a long moment before pressing call. The phone rang twice before that familiar, graveled voice answered - the one that had talked him through contract negotiations and sponsorship deals since he was a teenager.

“Uncle Harvey. I need your help.”

The words tasted like ash in his mouth. Harvey Dent wasn’t who Jason wanted involved in this fragile, unnamed thing with Y/N. That honor should have gone to Alfred, with his quiet wisdom and endless patience. Or Cass, who understood the weight of public scrutiny better than most. But this wasn’t about introductions over tea—this was damage control. And when it came to protecting what mattered, Harvey was the most ruthless legal mind in Gotham.

On the other end of the line, Jason could hear the squeak of leather as Harvey leaned back in his office chair, the distant hum of Gotham traffic thirty floors below. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of decades navigating the Wayne family’s most sensitive affairs.

“Son, listen to me carefully.” A pause. The clink of ice in a glass. “You say you’re fond of this woman, but you don’t know how she feels about you. Or this situation. And with the championship rounds coming up?” A humorless chuckle. “It’s like pouring jet fuel on a bonfire.”

Jason’s grip tightened on the phone. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse office, Harvey watched a news helicopter circle the Gotham skyline - a reminder of how quickly private lives became public spectacle.

“Driver-presenter relationships aren’t unheard of, no. But let’s not pretend this industry has evolved since Clark Kent and Lois Lane.” A bitter edge crept into Jason's voice. “Unless your girl happens to be a Pulitzer-winning journalist with skin thicker than Lane’s and let’s be honest, you’re no ‘America’s Sweetheart’ like Clark was—she won’t survive unscathed.” The lawyer continued, his dual-toned voice measured.

Jason’s free hand clenched into a fist. He could already see the headlines: “Distraction in the Paddock?” “Is Wayne Racing’s Comeback Kid Losing Focus?” Worse, the vile comments that would inevitably target Y/N— questioning her professionalism, her motives, her very right to be in the paddock.

“So what’s the best course of action?” Jason ground out, hating the helplessness in his own voice.

Harvey sighed, the sound distorted by the scar tissue on the left side of his mouth. “You have three options, kid. One: you walk away now, before this gets complicated. Two: you go public on your terms, with every legal safeguard we can put in place. Or three...” A pause heavy with implication. “You keep this quiet until the season ends, and pray to God no paparazzi catches you two in a compromising position.”

Outside, the first drops of rain began to streak down Harvey’s windows, turning Gotham into a blur of neon and shadow. Just like the night half his face had been melted away by a rival’s acid attack. He knew better than most how quickly the world could turn on you.

“The clock’s ticking, Jason,” Harvey murmured. “But whatever you decide— we’ll handle it.”

We. The word should have been comforting. Instead, it settled like a lead weight in Jason’s stomach. While walking our of the garage, he caught his own reflection in the hallway mirror—jaw clenched, eyes dark with something too close to fear.

Y/N hummed softly to herself as she folded another sweater into her suitcase, the fabric still warm from the dryer. Outside her window, the afternoon sun cast golden streaks across her bedroom floor, illuminating the carefully curated pile of items she was bringing to Zandvoort—a notebook filled with sightseeing ideas, her favorite camera for capturing the Dutch coastline and her prettiest outfits, just in case Jason happened to glance her way during the broadcast.

Every moment with him played on a loop in her mind—his laughter during their disastrous pottery attempt, the way his eyes softened when he thought she wasn’t looking, the rare, unguarded smiles he reserved only for their quiet conversations. She had loved him for years, long before she ever stepped foot in a paddock, back when he was just a face on her bedroom posters and a name she whispered to the TV screen during races. But now? Now, she was falling all over again, deeper and harder than before and it terrified her.

Because how could she ever tell him?

The fear sat heavy in her chest, an anchor dragging her back to reality whenever her thoughts drifted too far into fantasy. Jason had once confessed, in an old interview she’d memorized, how much he despised obsessive fans—the kind who crossed boundaries, who saw him as an object rather than a person. And Y/N? She had been that girl once. She had run fan accounts, written embarrassingly earnest posts, even sketched him in the margins of her notebooks like some lovesick teenager. If he ever found out, would he look at her with disgust? Worse—would he see her as just another face in the crowd, another person who loved the idea of him more than the man himself?

The mere thought made her stomach drop.

Stephanie had rolled her eyes when Y/N voiced her fears. “You’re not some random fan anymore,” she’d argued. “You’re his friend. You know him. Tell him.”

But it wasn’t that simple.

Jason had dated models before—women with legs that went on for miles and faces that belonged on magazine covers. Y/N knew she didn’t compare. She wasn’t polished in that effortless way; sure she could be professional but that's that. She was all sharp edges and nervous energy, too loud when she was excited, too quiet when she was overthinking. And Jason? Jason was a legend. A champion. He deserved someone who matched his brilliance, someone the world would approve of—a supermodel, a pop star, anyone but a presenter whose biggest accomplishment was not tripping over her own words during live broadcasts.

And then there was her career.

Relationships between presenters and drivers were messy. The internet would dissect every glance, every interaction, until the narrative was no longer about her work but about who she was sleeping with. She had seen it happen to other women in the paddock—their credibility erased overnight, their achievements overshadowed by speculation and rumours.

But God, if Jason ever looked at her and asked, she would burn it all down in a heartbeat.

Her career. Her reputation. Every carefully constructed boundary she’d put in place to protect herself.

She’d do it without hesitation.

Because he was worth it.

Worth the risk. Worth the fall.

Even if he never felt the same.

Her eyes fell to the matching bracelets he had bought for them from a night market and a soft smile found its way to her lips. For now, this was enough.

It had to be.

The buzz of her phone against the bedsheets startled her, pulling Y/N abruptly from her thoughts. She reached for it with slightly trembling fingers, her breath catching when she saw the name flashing across the screen— Jay💞.

The little heart emoji beside his name, something she’d added weeks ago in a moment of foolish hope, now felt like a cruel joke.

Jay💞: Can we talk?

Her stomach twisted. That wasn’t his usual style. No teasing remark, no dry observation about whatever hobby she��d been rambling about last. Just three simple words that carried an unsettling weight.

Y/N: Sure. Wassup?

Before she could even process sending the message, her screen lit up with an incoming call. Her pulse skyrocketed, fingers fumbling as she nearly dropped the phone in her haste to answer.

“Hi,” she breathed, forcing lightness into her voice even as her chest tightened with inexplicable dread.

“Hey.”

That single word confirmed it. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Jason’s voice was strained, the usual warmth replaced by something tense and unfamiliar.

“How are you doing?” he asked, the question stiff, like he was reading from a script.

Y/N’s fingers curled into the fabric of her sweater. “I’m good,” she replied, forcing a laugh. “Missing me already, are we Todd?”

It had only been six days since they’d last seen each other—six days since they’d wandered the streets of Monaco after dark, sharing a single gelato while arguing over which historical monument was the most overrated. He’d tugged her under an awning when the rain started, his arm brushing hers and for a fleeting moment, she’d let herself believe there was something more in the way he looked at her.

“Somethin’ like that,” Jason muttered, but there was no humor in it. No warmth. Just a hollow imitation of their usual banter. The dread in her stomach solidified into something heavier.

“And how—” she started, desperate to fill the silence, but Jason cut her off.

“We should stop this.”

The words hit like a ton of bricks, sharp and sudden, as if he’d ripped them out of himself before he could reconsider.

Y/N’s breath stuttered. The room tilted.

Stop what? she wanted to scream. Stop texting? Stop laughing together? Stop looking at me like I’m the only person in the room?

But all she managed was a choked, “Stop what?”

Please say I’m imagining this. Please say I’ve misunderstood.

“This. Us. The whole thing.” His voice was rough now, edged with frustration—a tone he’d never once used with her.

A voice in her head, cold and mocking, slithered through the haze of her shock.

What did you think would happen? That someone like him would ever want someone like you?

The tears came then, hot and unstoppable, but she clenched her jaw, refusing to let him hear them.

“I understand,” she whispered, the words barely audible past the lump in her throat.

It was a lie. She didn’t understand. Not when he’d looked at her like that in Monaco. Not when he’d kept every book she’d ever given him. Not when he’d promised to take her to see the tulips next spring.

But she wouldn’t beg. She wouldn’t make this harder for him.

“It was fun while it lasted,” she forced out, her voice cracking. “I wish you all the best, Jason.”

She hung up before he could respond.

The phone slipped from her fingers, landing soundlessly on the bed. Around her, the room blurred—the half-packed suitcase for Zandvoort, the notebook filled with plans she’d never get to share, the dress she’d bought because it matched his eyes.

All of it, gone in an instant.

The phone slipped from Jason's fingers, clattering onto the marble countertop with a sound that echoed through the hollow silence of his penthouse. The screen had gone dark, just like the numbness spreading through his chest—but her voice still rang in his ears, sharp and clear despite the distance between them.

“I understand.”

The way her breath had hitched—just once, just barely—before she’d hung up. The way she’d tried so hard to sound composed, even as her voice cracked on those final words.

“I wish you all the best, Jason.”

As if he deserved her kindness. As if he hadn’t just taken something fragile and beautiful and shattered it with his own two hands.

A wave of self-loathing crashed over him, so visceral it knocked the breath out of him. He braced his hands against the counter, head bowed, shoulders trembling with the force of keeping himself upright.

You made her cry.

The realization was a knife to the ribs. Y/N, who laughed in the face of his sarcasm, who teased him mercilessly but never cruelly, who looked at the world with a wonder he’d forgotten existed—he’d hurt her.

Rage ignited in his veins, white-hot and directionless. At the paparazzi who’d snapped those invasive photos. At the team managers who’d warned him about “distractions.” At the entire goddamn world that had made this feel like the only choice.

But mostly—mostly—at himself.

The voices in his head, the ones he usually drowned out with engine roars and podium cheers, rose in a venomous chorus.

She would’ve left eventually. You’re not someone people stay for. You ruin everything you touch.

A sweeter, softer voice tried to interject—You were just trying to protect her—but the others drowned it out with mocking laughter.

Protect her? Or protecting yourself from the truth? That you’re terrified she never loved you at all?

“Shut up!” The words tore from his throat raw and ragged.

His vision blurred. His hands shook. The anger needed an outlet, needed to burn, and before he could think, he grabbed the nearest object—

The ceramic pot.

Their pot.

The one they’d painstakingly shaped at Nonna Gianna’s, their fingers brushing over wet clay. The one Y/N had painted with his racing number in that terrible, crooked script of hers, grinning as she declared, “Now everyone will know the great Jason Todd made this masterpiece.” The one he’d secretly kept on the shelf, where he could see it first thing every morning.

It shattered against the wall with a sound like a gunshot.

The moment it left his hand, he regretted it.

Jason was across the room before the last piece hit the ground, collapsing to his knees amidst the wreckage. His hands trembled as they gathered the broken fragments, as if he could somehow piece them back together.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, over and over, voice breaking.

To the pot. To the memories. To her.

The jagged edges bit into his palms, drawing blood, but he barely felt it. The physical pain was nothing compared to the agony of knowing—

He’d broken something far more precious than clay.

Y/N slid down the length of her bedroom wall, her legs giving out beneath her as she collapsed onto the hardwood floor. She pulled her knees to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around them as if she could physically hold herself together. The tears came in relentless waves, hot and suffocating, each sob wracking her body with a violence that left her gasping for air.

She had known this would happen. Had braced for it from the moment she first realized her feelings for him had grown beyond professional admiration. So why did it feel like her chest had been cracked open? Why did it hurt to breathe, as if every inhale was lined with shards of glass?

Her phone buzzed incessantly on the carpet beside her, the screen lighting up again and again with notifications she couldn’t bring herself to check. Calls. Texts. Maybe even an explanation—though what could he possibly say that would undo the way his voice had sounded when he said those words?

We should stop this.

Had he found her old fan accounts? The embarrassing posts from her teenage years? Or worse—had he simply realized she wasn’t worth the trouble? That whatever this was between them had been a mistake?

The questions swarmed in her head like angry hornets, relentless and poisonous. She pressed her forehead against her knees, nails digging into her arms as if the physical pain could distract from the gaping hole in her chest.

Time lost meaning. The sunlight that had streamed through her windows when the call ended had long since faded, replaced by the dim glow of streetlights filtering through the curtains. Her tears had dried up, leaving her hollow and numb, her body too exhausted to produce any more.

She didn’t hear the frantic knocking at her front door. Didn’t register the sound of it swinging open, or the hurried footsteps that echoed through her apartment.

“Y/N? Y/N!”

Stephanie’s voice cut through the fog of her grief, sharp with panic.

Y/N barely lifted her head as her friend skidded into the bedroom, eyes wide with alarm. Behind her, Tim hovered in the doorway, his usual easygoing expression replaced with concern.

“Oh my god—” Stephanie dropped to her knees in front of her, hands hovering as if afraid to touch her. “Tim, go get water. Now.”

“Hey, Steph,” Y/N murmured, her voice raw and broken. She didn’t have the energy to force a smile, didn’t even try to wipe away the tear tracks staining her cheeks.

Tim returned moments later with a glass of water, which Y/N accepted numbly. The coldness of the glass against her palm was the first real sensation she’d felt in hours.

“You didn’t show up at the airport,” Stephanie said, her voice trembling. “You weren’t answering calls or texts. And then we saw the news report—”

Y/N’s fingers tightened around the glass. “News report?”

Stephanie blinked. “You... didn’t know?”

Tim wordlessly pulled out his phone, swiping through his feed before turning the screen toward her. Y/N set the glass down with a shaky exhale. “That explains a lot.”

Stephanie’s brow furrowed. “Wait, what do you mean by that?”

And so, in halting, broken sentences, Y/N told them. About the call. About the way Jason’s voice had sounded—like he was forcing the words out, like he hated every single one. About how she’d hung up before she could break completely.

By the time she finished, Stephanie’s face had darkened with a fury Y/N had never seen before.

“That motherfucker,” she hissed, pulling out her phone and her hands balling into fists. “I swear to God, I’m going to—”

“Steph,” Tim interjected gently, though his own jaw was clenched. “Let’s just... focus on Y/N right now, okay?”

Stephanie nodded slowly and put her phone down begrudged, “But mark my words, he’s not getting away with this. Not after everything. Not after you.”

Y/N didn’t have the strength to stop her. Didn’t have the strength to do anything but stare at the floor, the numbness settling deeper into her bones.

Zandvoort was everything Y/N had imagined it would be—the roaring crowd, the salty sea air mixing with the scent of rubber, the vibrant banners waving proudly in the stands. The Dutch Grand Prix had always been one of her favorites, and she had been looking forward to this weekend for months.

But now, standing in the middle of the bustling paddock, she felt strangely detached from it all.

The night before had helped, at least. Steph and Tim had refused to leave her alone, bundling her onto their private jet with a duffel bag full of all her comfort foods. They’d let her cry when she needed to, let her rant when she wanted to and then, when the worst of it had passed, they’d distracted her with terrible B-movies and enough popcorn to feed a small village. By morning, the raw edges of her heartache had dulled into something more manageable—something she could tuck away behind a practiced smile and a layer of expertly applied makeup.

She still wore the dress she’d bought for the weekend. A deep emerald green with accents of blue, the color of the ocean under storm clouds. She’d picked it weeks ago, imagining how the fabric would flutter in the coastal wind, wondering if Jason would notice. But of course, there was no use of thinking such thoughts now.

The race had been chaotic, the kind of edge-of-your-seat spectacle that normally would have had her buzzing with adrenaline. Jason had podiumed—P3, when he could have easily taken P1 if not for a series of uncharacteristic mistakes. The commentators speculated about pressure getting to him, but everyone in the paddock knew the real reason. The photos. The rumors.

She had avoided him all weekend, sticking to the media zones where she knew he wouldn’t venture. But now, as the post-race interviews loomed, her luck had run out.

Cass was first—stoic as ever, gracious in victory, her answers concise and humble. Konner Kent followed, flashing that trademark Kent charm, all cocky grins and playful winks that had the crowd eating out of his palm.

And then, before she could brace herself, Jason was stepping into the interview pen.

“Hello, Jason.”

Her voice didn’t waver. She had spent years perfecting the art of professionalism, and it didn’t fail her now. The smile she gave him was polite, detached—the same one she’d give any driver.

“Mind walking us through your race?”

For a moment, he just stared at her.

The noise of the paddock faded into the distance. The cameras, the reporters, the fans—none of it mattered. His gaze searched hers, desperate, as if he could find some answer in the cool detachment of her expression.

Are you okay? his eyes seemed to ask. Did I ruin everything?

But she gave nothing away.

“Jason?”

Her voice was calm, measured, the perfect cadence of a professional doing her job. The microphone in her hand didn’t tremble. The smile on her lips didn’t waver. But her eyes—those dark, expressive eyes he’d spent months learning to read—were utterly unreadable.

He blinked, startled back to reality like a man waking from a dream. “Uh—yeah. Sorry.”

The apology tasted bitter on his tongue. Sorry for what? For zoning out during the interview? For breaking her heart over the phone like a coward? For the way his chest ached just standing this close to her, close enough to catch the faint scent of her perfume—something floral and soft that reminded him of the lazy afternoons in cafes of Milan?

He cleared his throat, dragging a hand through his sweat-damp hair as he launched into the mechanical race recap every driver had memorized by their rookie year. Tire degradation. Track conditions. The usual corporate-approved talking points.

But his gaze never left hers.

He watched for any crack in her armor—a flicker of hurt, a flash of anger, anything to prove she still felt something. But Y/N? She was impeccable. Nodding at all the right moments, smiling when the script demanded it, her posture relaxed as if this was just another interview with just another driver.

Not the man who’d danced in the rain with her in Austria. Not the man who had a polaroid of them on his nightstand. Not the man who was currently dying inside.

“So,” she continued smoothly, glancing down at the cue cards in her hand, “any plans after the race?”

The question was innocuous. Routine. He swallowed hard. “I did have plans for going to the beach, maybe the museums...” His voice trailed off, the ghost of a humorless laugh escaping him. Plans with you. “But those fell through.”

For the briefest second, something flickered in her expression. Then it was gone.

“Well,” she said, her tone light but her knuckles whitening around the microphone, “I think you should still try to go regardless.”

Their eyes locked. The paddock noise faded to static.

Even if we’re done, her words whispered between them, don’t stop living.

Jason’s throat tightened. He wanted to say so much more—to explain about the lawyers, the paparazzi, the team. To tell her that walking away was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

But the cameras were rolling. The world was watching.

So all he said was, “Yeah. Maybe I will.”

The days after the interview bled together in a monotonous cycle of exhaustion and emptiness. Jason fell back into his old ways—wake up, train, eat, sleep, repeat. The discipline that had once been second nature now felt like a prison sentence, each repetition chipping away at what little remained of his spirit.

He still raced. Still won, even. The muscle memory was too deeply ingrained for anything less. But the fire that had once driven him—the fierce, unrelenting need to prove himself—had been reduced to smoldering embers. Without her in the stands, without her texts dissecting his performance with that sharp insight and playful teasing, the victories felt hollow. The cheers of the crowd, once electric, now grated against his nerves like static, a shrill cacophony that only emphasized the silence where her voice should have been.

And yet, like clockwork, the messages still came.

Every new city, every race weekend, his phone would light up with clinical, meticulously researched recommendations—museum tickets booked under his name, reservation details for hidden-gem restaurants, phone numbers for local guides who could show him the sights. The messages were stripped bare of her personality—no ridiculous emojis, no witty remarks, no absurd cat memes that used to make him groan even as he saved them to his camera roll. Just facts. Just logistics. As if she couldn’t bear to cut him off completely but couldn’t bring herself to be anything more than professionally courteous.

See? She still cares about you, a voice in his head whispered, equal parts hopeful and cruel. Even after everything.

And what had he done in return?

The taunts came harder now, unrelenting and deserved. There was no defense, no justification. Not anymore. He had made his choice, and this was the consequence—a half-life, a world drained of color.

He tried, at first, to follow her suggestions. Walked through art galleries, stared at masterpieces he couldn’t appreciate. Sat through a lion dance show in Singapore, the dancers’ passion only underscoring his own numbness. Each attempt ended the same way—with him standing in the middle of some crowded plaza or quiet museum hall, struck by the unbearable weight of her absence.

What would she say right now?

The thought was involuntary, intrusive. He could almost hear her voice, the way she’d poke fun at the overly serious museum descriptions or make up ridiculous backstories for the portraits. The memory of her laughter, bright and unselfconscious, twisted like a knife.

Even reading, once his solace, offered no refuge. The books she’d given him sat untouched on his nightstand. When he did try, he’d find himself staring at the same paragraph, the words blurring into meaningless shapes. His mind, usually so sharp, so focused, was a fog of regret and what-ifs. Half an hour. That was all he could manage before the emptiness became too much. Before he had to leave, shoulders hunched against the weight of missing her.

And then, slowly, he began to notice her absence in the paddock, too. Fewer sightings in the media pen, fewer flashes of her familiar silhouette in the crowd. He didn’t know if it was intentional, if she was avoiding him as deliberately as he was avoiding her, or if the universe had simply decided to spare them both the agony of crossing paths.

A blessing, he told himself. A mercy.

But the truth was worse.

Because every time he turned a corner and didn’t see her, every time he scanned the pit lane and found it empty of her presence, the hole in his chest grew wider.

He missed her.

Not just the idea of her, not just the comfort she’d brought—but her. The way her nose scrunched when she laughed. The way she’d bite her lip when concentrating. The way she’d looked at him, really looked at him, as if she saw something worth saving beneath the wreckage.

And now, without her, he was adrift. A champion with no one left to race for. A man who’d pushed away the only person who ever made him feel alive.

The Mexican Grand Prix had been brutal—not because of the track or the competition, but because every turn, every straightaway, seemed to whisper memories he couldn’t escape. As Jason stood in the quiet of his driver’s room, the adrenaline of the race still thrumming under his skin, his mind drifted unbidden to a conversation from what felt like a lifetime ago.

“You have to try my friend’s abuelita’s quesadillas,” Y/N had told him, her eyes alight with excitement. “They’re legendary. I’ll take you there after the race this time.”

This time.

The words echoed hollowly in his chest. There would be no this time for them. No shared meals, no laughter over burnt tongues from too-hot cheese, no moments where the world faded away and it was just the two of them, tangled in the simple joy of being together.

He slumped onto the couch, scrolling mindlessly through his phone in a futile attempt to distract himself. Then, like a punch to the gut, Tim’s Instagram story appeared.

A photo.

Tim, grinning as always, arm slung around his girlfriend—the blonde stylist Jason vaguely remembered from a few events. And there, standing beside them, radiant in a golden dress that seemed to catch fire under the evening lights, was Y/N.

But it wasn’t just her presence that sent a sharp, jagged pain through his heart.

It was Danny.

Danny, with his easy smile and his arm draped casually around Y/N’s shoulders, pulling her close. Danny, who had known her longer, who had history with her, who was now standing where Jason should have been.

Jason’s grip on his phone tightened until his knuckles turned white.

Anger surged through him, hot and irrational, a wildfire he couldn’t control. It wasn’t just jealousy—it was something deeper, something primal. The sight of her smiling, glowing, laughing with someone else, doing all the things they used to do—it carved something raw and feral out of him.

She wasn’t his.

She had never been his.

And yet, the possessive fury that coiled in his gut refused to loosen.

Why?

Why did the thought of her happiness without him feel like a betrayal? Why did the idea of her moving on, of her finding joy in someone else’s company, make him want to slam his fist through a wall?

It was selfish. Hypocritical, even. He was the one who had ended things. He was the one who had pushed her away. And yet, here he was, seething at the mere idea of her being someone else's.

Pathetic.

He tossed his phone onto the table, the screen still illuminated with that damn photo and dragged his hands over his face. The weight of his own contradictions pressed down on him—the guilt, the longing, the anger, all tangled into an unbearable knot. He had no right to feel this way. But that didn’t stop the ache.

And it didn’t stop him from wondering, with a bitterness that tasted like regret, if she had already forgotten him.

The quiet hum of the garage was interrupted by a hesitant knock, followed by the creak of the door swinging open. Jason looked up from where he sat, his phone still clenched in his hand, the screen now dark as he placed it face-down on the table. The familiar voice that followed sent a jolt through him—one he hadn’t realized he needed until now.

“Can I come in?”

Roy Harper stood in the doorway, his frame silhouetted against the harsh fluorescent lights of the paddock outside. Even after all this time, the sight of him brought a flood of memories—both painful and cherished. Roy had been more than just a friend; he’d been Jason’s fiercest rival, his most trusted confidante, the only person on the grid who ever truly understood the weight of what it meant to race at this level.

And then, in the blink of an eye, everything had shattered.

Jason swallowed hard, forcing himself to nod. “Roy?”

The name came out rougher than he intended, laced with surprise and something deeper—something like guilt.

After the crash, Roy had been consumed by it. The guilt, the self-blame, the crushing weight of believing he’d been the one to end Jason’s career or worse, his life. Jason had heard the stories in hushed tones from the team: Roy’s downward spiral, the overdose, the way he’d disappeared from the paddock entirely. And Jason? He’d stayed away, too, convinced that seeing him—seeing the scars, the aftermath would only drag Roy back into that darkness.

It was almost laughable, in the cruelest way. Roy blamed himself for the crash. Jason blamed himself for Roy’s suffering. And yet, neither of them had ever once blamed the other.

But time, therapy and an insistent, stubborn woman named Y/N had changed things.

Roy had been the first to seek help, pulling himself out of the abyss with a determination Jason had always admired. And Jason? Well, he’d had Y/N. She’d been the one to gently but firmly suggest he talk to someone, too. And when the time came, she’d been the one to nudge him toward reconciliation with Roy, insisting that they both needed it.

“You can’t keep carrying this guilt,” she’d told him, her voice soft but unyielding. “And neither can he.”

Another thing he owed her. Another thing he couldn’t repay.

“I didn’t know you came to see the race,” Jason said, forcing himself back to the present.

Roy stepped fully into the room, the ghost of a smirk playing at his lips. “Jade and I were in the country, so we thought we might as well.” He paused, then added with a grin, “Oh, and Lian came too. Had her wear a mini 02 jersey.”

He pulled out his phone, swiping to a photo of his infant daughter swaddled in a tiny onesie designed to mimic Jason’s livery. A laugh escaped him before he could stop it, the tension in his shoulders easing just a fraction. “You’re turning her into a fan already?”

Roy’s grin widened. “Gotta teach 'em young, amiright? And don’t think I forgot—you still owe her a proper godfather gift. None of that ‘signed merch’ crap, either.”

Godfather. The word settled over Jason like a weight—a responsibility, a promise, a second chance he hadn’t realized he needed. Lian had been born not long after he and Roy had finally sat down and talked, after the apologies and the tears and the long-overdue acknowledgment that neither of them had been at fault. That day, Roy had clasped his shoulder and declared Jason the godfather without hesitation, as if it had always been inevitable.

Jason’s thumb hovered over the phone screen, tracing the curve of Lian’s round cheeks in the photo. The tiny onesie, a perfect miniature replica of his own racing colors, sent an unexpected warmth through his chest. For a moment, the tension in his shoulders eased, replaced by something softer, something like wonder.

“She’s perfect, Roy.”

The words came out quieter than he intended, almost reverent.

Roy’s expression shifted, the usual sharp edges of his smirk softening into something more tender. “Yeah,” he agreed, voice thick with a pride Jason had never heard from him before. “She is.”

The silence that followed wasn’t the heavy, suffocating kind they’d endured after the crash. This was different—comfortable in a way Jason hadn’t realized he missed. The kind of quiet that only existed between people who had seen each other at their worst and still chose to stand side by side.

It didn’t last.

Roy, ever incapable of leaving well enough alone, broke it with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball.

“So,” he drawled, leaning back against the equipment crate with practiced nonchalance, “you gonna tell me why you look like someone kicked your puppy or am I supposed to guess?”

Jason exhaled sharply through his nose, fingers raking through his sweat-damp hair. The motion did little to dispel the restless energy coiled beneath his skin. “It’s nothing.”

The lie tasted bitter on his tongue.

Roy didn’t even dignify it with a response. Just raised one eyebrow, the look on his face screaming bullshit louder than any words could.

Jason opened his mouth—to deflect, to argue, to say anything that would make Roy drop it—but the words died before they could form. What was there to say? That he’d been staring at a photo of Y/N like some lovesick teenager? That the sight of her smiling with someone else had carved a hole in his chest he couldn’t seem to fill?

Roy took one look at his face and groaned, dragging a hand down his own. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Jason scowled. “What?”

“You’re moping.”

“I’m not moping.”

The protest was automatic, but even Jason could hear how petulant it sounded.

Roy rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. “You absolutely are. Look, if you’re this torn up about it, just talk to her.”

Jason’s jaw clenched, the muscles ticking under the strain. “It’s not that simple.”

“Why?” Roy challenged, leaning forward. “Because you’re scared?”

The question landed like a punch, sharp and unrelenting.

Jason didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

Roy sighed, shaking his head with a mixture of exasperation and something dangerously close to pity. “Man, I never thought I’d see the day Jason Todd was too chickenshit to fight for something he wanted.”

The words stung, but not as much as the ones that followed.

“Look, Jay,” Roy continued, shifting forward, his tone losing its edge for something more earnest. “I talked to Y/N once. Really talked to her. And you know what she told me?” He paused, letting the weight of the moment settle. “This whole ‘hobby hunting’ thing you’ve been doing? It’s not about finding some obscure pastime to kill the hours. It’s about you. About you figuring out who the hell you are when you’re not behind a wheel.”

Jason’s throat tightened.

“She wanted you to realize that your worth—your whole damn existence—isn’t defined by what you do on track. That you’re more than just a driver. That you matter, with or without racing.” Roy’s gaze hardened. “And I’ll be real with you—Y/N? She was it for you. The best match you could’ve ever hoped for. Someone who actually saw you—all of you—and chose to stay. Because she knows you're worth it, whether you believe it or not.”

He leaned back then, arms crossing over his chest, his next words deliberate, final.

“So if you let her go? If you really let her walk away without a fight?” Roy leveled him with a look that stripped Jason bare of his defenses. “Then you’re not just scared, Jason. You’re a goddamn fool.”

Jason stayed silent. What could he say? That Roy was right? That he’d known from the moment Y/N walked into his life that she was different, that she saw him in a way no one else ever had? That the thought of losing her for good was enough to make his hands shake?

Roy wasn’t done. “Look at me and Jade,” he continued, voice dropping into something more serious. “Daughter of a rival team’s sponsor. People talked shit—still talk shit—but we made it work. You’re letting your self-hatred and anxiety ruin the one good thing you have.” He jabbed a finger at Jason’s chest. “Snap out of it.”

A beat. Then, with a smirk that didn’t quite reach his eyes:

“Also make up with her, because you race like shit when you’re emo. Can’t have Lian watch her godfather embarrass himself like that, now can I?”

The attempt at humor fell flat, but the message was clear.

Jason had a choice to make. But the question was, could he?

Roy’s words lingered in Jason’s mind like an unshakable shadow, gnawing at him long after they had been spoken. He wanted Y/N—desperately, irrevocably but the weight of his own turmoil held him back. The desire to claim her as his own warred violently with the fear of dragging her into the chaos that followed him like a curse. He couldn’t bear the thought of the world’s cruelty—the relentless hate, the hollow pity, the performative sympathy—tainting her perception of him. What if she started seeing him through the same fractured lens he saw himself? The possibility was unbearable.

When one of his managers suggested yet another PR relationship—this time with a model, just to divert attention from that godforsaken Twitter post—Jason nearly recoiled in disgust. The idea of replacing Y/N, even superficially, made his skin crawl. There was no comparison. She wasn’t just another face in the crowd; she was the only one who had ever truly mattered.

Then came Las Vegas.

During free practice, Tim had been called in as a last-minute replacement after Cass sprained her wrist. Jason had expected the usual awkward tension between them—Tim’s hesitant politeness, his quiet deference despite Jason’s habitual coldness. But this time, something was different. Tim moved through the garage like a ghost, his gaze sliding right past Jason as if he were nothing more than empty air. The one time their eyes did meet, Tim’s expression twisted into something sharp and disdainful, a look so foreign that it sent a ripple of unease through Jason.

This wasn’t about racing.

Jason knew, with a sinking certainty, that this ran deeper than motorsports. Tim and his girlfriend were close to Y/N— always had been. If Tim despised him this openly, then Y/N’s feelings toward him now must be even worse. The thought was haunting.

Three times, Jason tried to bridge the gap, to force some kind of conversation. Three times, Tim shut him out with icy indifference. But Jason wasn’t about to back down. He needed answers. He needed to know—how much damage had been done, whether there was even a sliver of hope left. And if there was, he’d claw his way through hell itself to reach her.

By the time FP3 ended, Jason had resolved himself—he needed answers, and Tim was the only one who could give them to him. He waited, patience fraying, until the garage began to empty out, the mechanics packing up equipment and the hum of post-session debriefs fading into the background. Then, as Tim zipped up his bag, shoulders drooping with exhaustion, Jason moved.

He blocked the exit, not aggressively, but firmly enough that Tim couldn’t just slip past him. The younger driver let out a long, irritated sigh, finally lifting his gaze—not in acknowledgment, but in resignation. He knew this conversation was inevitable.

“What is it?” Tim muttered, voice flat, as if he were already bracing for an argument.

Jason swallowed hard. For a man who thrived on confrontation, he suddenly felt uncharacteristically unsure. But he had come this far, he couldn’t back down now.

“How is she?” The words came out rougher than he intended, laced with a desperation he hadn’t meant to reveal.

Tim’s expression darkened. “How is who?” he shot back, feigning ignorance with a deliberate eye roll, his tone dripping with sarcasm. The act was flimsy, almost insulting in its lack of effort.

Jason’s jaw tightened. “You know exactly who I’m talking about. Y/N.” His voice was low, urgent. “I haven’t seen her around the paddock lately.”

A bitter smirk twisted Tim’s lips. “Didn’t you hear?” he said, mockingly casual. “She asked her higher-ups to switch her from F1 to IndyCar for presenting.” A pause, then the unspoken words hung between them like a blade: Because of you.

Jason stiffened. “But F1 is the pinnacle of motorsports. Why would she just—throw away everything she’s worked for?” The idea was unthinkable. Y/N had clawed her way into the F1 world through sheer determination. She loved this sport. She wouldn’t just walk away.

Something in Tim’s demeanor snapped. His grip on his bag tightened, knuckles whitening, and when he spoke again, his voice was raw with fury.

“Why the fuck do you care?”

Jason opened his mouth, but Tim wasn’t finished.

“Oh, save it,” he spat, cutting him off before he could even form a reply. “Look, Todd—” The deliberate use of his last name was a slap in the face. “—I never had anything but respect for you as a racer. When I first came to the paddock, yeah, you were an asshole to me. And you know what? I got it. Your life sucked. Fine. But then you had to drag someone like Y/N into your bullshit. You used her and then you broke her.”

Tim’s voice cracked, his composure slipping for the first time. “And it wasn’t just her heart, you selfish bastard. You broke her spirit. She was light, and you stole it from her. So tell me—” He took a step forward, eyes blazing. “—was it fun? Stealing the light from behind her eyes?”

The words hit Jason like a physical blow. He had no defense, no retort. Because deep down, he already knew the answer.

And it destroyed him.

“Tim, please—just listen—” Jason’s voice was rough, pleading, but Tim wasn’t having it.

“No, I won’t listen to this shit!” Tim snapped, cutting him off with a sharp gesture. His usual calm demeanor had completely shattered, replaced by something jagged and furious. “She shouldn’t have to suffer just because you decided you were done with her. Like she was some fucking toy you got bored of. And you know what the worst part is?” His voice dropped, trembling with barely contained rage. “She still doesn’t blame you for it. Even now, after everything, she defends you even after how you played with her.”

That stung worse than any insult.

“I DIDN’T PLAY WITH HER!” Jason roared, surging forward before he could stop himself. His hands fisted in Tim’s collar, shoving him back against the garage wall. His entire body was coiled tight with fury—because as much as he understood the young driver's anger, as much as he deserved it, this accusation was too much. He loved Y/N. The idea that he had treated her like some fleeting amusement was revolting.

Tim didn’t even flinch.

“Then what, huh?” he shot back, voice icy despite the fire in his eyes. “What was that cowardly bullshit of telling her over the phone? If she meant so much to you, why couldn’t you even look her in the eye when you broke her heart?”

Jason’s grip faltered. The fight drained out of him as suddenly as it had surged, his hands dropping away from Tim’s collar like he’d been burned. He took a shaky step back, dragging his hands through his hair, fingers tangling in the strands as if he could physically pull the right words out of his own skull.

“I—I wasn’t playing with her,” he said, voice cracking. The admission came out raw, stripped bare. “I love her. I was just—”

His throat closed. The words wouldn’t come.

Hot tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, blurring his vision. He blinked hard, refusing to let them fall, but the weight of Tim’s glare—of Y/N’s absence—pressed down on him like a physical force.

Tim didn’t relent. “People who love people don’t ditch them over the phone like that,” he said, each word a precise, deliberate strike. “If you really loved her, you would fight for her. Not run.”

Jason exhaled sharply, like the words had knocked the air out of him. “I was scared, okay?” The confession tore out of him, ragged and desperate. “I was scared of how the media would react, the pressure it would put on her. I did it to protect her.”

Tim let out a mocking, incredulous laugh. “You don’t get to decide what she can and can’t handle,” he said, shaking his head. “So tell me—was it really to protect her? Or was it to protect yourself?”

Jason stood there, the weight of Tim’s words pressing down on him like a physical force. They were the same ones Roy said, the same ones the voice in his head asked. His chest ached with a pain he couldn’t articulate— part guilt, part longing, part sheer desperation. The garage around them felt suddenly suffocating, the distant sounds of mechanics working and engineers talking fading into a dull buzz in his ears.

“I thought...” Jason started, then swallowed hard, his throat dry. “I thought if I pushed her away first, it would hurt less when the world inevitably turned against us.” His voice was barely above a whisper now, the admission tasting like ash in his mouth. “But I was wrong. God, I was so fucking wrong.”

Tim crossed his arms, his expression unyielding. “You don’t get to make those choices for her. She’s stronger than you gave her credit for.”

A bitter laugh escaped Jason’s lips. “I know that now. Christ, do I ever know that.” He looked down at his hands— the hands that had held her, that had pushed her away. “She deserved better than a phone call. She deserved... she deserves everything.”

For the first time since their confrontation began, Tim’s stance softened slightly. “Yeah, she does.” He studied Jason’s face, seeing the genuine torment there. “But it’s too late for regrets now. She’s gone, Jason. She left F1 because being here hurt too much. Because everywhere she looked, she saw you.”

Jason’s head snapped up at that. “Where is she now?” There was a new urgency in his voice, a spark of something that hadn’t been there before. “Tim, please. If there’s even a chance—”

“A chance for what?” Tim interrupted. “For you to waltz back into her life and mess with her head all over again?”

“No.” Jason shook his head vehemently. “For me to apologize properly. To tell her... to tell her I was an idiot. That I love her. That if she’ll let me, I’ll spend every damn day proving I’m worthy of her.”

The silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken words and lingering anger. Finally, Tim sighed. “She’ll come to watch my race in Qatar, I’ll arrange for you to talk to her.” He fixed Jason with a hard look. “But if you hurt her again, I swear to God—”

“You won’t have to do anything,” Jason finished quietly. “Because I’ll never forgive myself if I do.” He took a deep breath, his mind already racing with plans. “Thank you, Tim.”

Tim just nodded tersely before turning to leave. As he walked away, he threw one last comment over his shoulder: “Don’t thank me yet. She might not even want to see you.”

Jason just nodded. “I know but i have to try.”

The Qatar Grand Prix arrived before Jason had time to process his swirling emotions. From the moment he stepped into the paddock, there was an electric energy coursing through him— a singular focus that hadn’t been there in months. Every turn of the wheel, every press of the accelerator brought him closer to his real finish line: her. Tim’s reluctant information about Y/N’s hotel and availability window after the race had become his holy grail, the coordinates that had rewired his entire nervous system to operate on one frequency— get to her.

As he strapped into the car, the usual pre-race adrenaline felt different. Sharper. More purposeful. The commentators noted how Jason Todd drove like a man possessed. Every overtake wasn’t just for position— it was another minute shaved off the countdown to seeing her. The chequered flag wasn’t just the end of the race— it was the starting pistol for the only competition that truly mattered now.

When P1 flashed on the boards, there was no surprise in his team’s eyes. They’d seen this laser focus before races before, but never with this... hunger. Jason barely registered the champagne spray, his eyes constantly flicking to his watch. The carbon-fiber face ticked away mercilessly, each passing second tightening the knot in his chest. He gave clipped answers in the post-race interviews, the smile not reaching his eyes— the world only saw the champion, not the man counting down until he could escape the spotlight.

The moment the live feed cut away, Jason was moving. Not the usual victorious stroll, but the determined stride of a man on a mission. He bypassed the debrief, the data review, everything, heading straight for where he’d parked his personal car earlier. Not just any vehicle, but the one that still carried fragments of her presence: the scarf she’d left during that rainy weekend in Monaco— he’d never returned it, both because the faint trace of her perfume lingered in the fibers and because she’d complained the fabric texture aggravated her sensory sensitivities, the forgotten fidget toy wedged in the dashboard cubby, even the passenger seat still adjusted to her preferred position.

The drive to the hotel was a blur of speed and suppressed panic. Jason barely registered handing his keys to the wide-eyed valet, the young man’s mouth falling open as he recognized both the car and its still-suited driver. The lobby’s polished floors echoed with the sound of his racing boots as he approached the front desk, his breathing uneven from the sprint from the parking lot.

“Room 1608 - is the guest available?” The words came out rushed, tinged with a desperation that made the concierge blink. The poor man’s professional composure faltered as he took in the sight: Jason Todd, still in his fireproof race suit, smelling of champagne and gasoline, hair damp with sweat, eyes wild with something between hope and terror. The concierge’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, caught between protocol and the surreal reality of a Formula 1 legend panting before him.

“Y-yes, Mr. Todd. The guest just checked in about...” A glance at the computer screen. “...twenty minutes ago.” His eyes darted to the room key card dispenser, then back to Jason’s face, clearly wondering if he should ask for ID from someone whose face was currently on every sports channel worldwide.

Jason didn’t wait for formalities. A curt nod and he was moving again, weaving through the lobby with the same precision he’d shown on track earlier. The elevator ride to the 16th floor lasted both an eternity and no time at all, his reflection in the mirrored walls showing a man he barely recognized— someone capable of throwing away every carefully constructed defense for one chance, one conversation, one... her.

When the doors slid open, Jason realized he hadn’t actually planned what to say. The hallway stretched before him, room numbers ticking up with each step: 1602... 1604... 1606...

And then there it was. 1608.

The moment of truth, marked by a simple brass number plate. Jason’s hand hovered near the doorbell, his breath coming too fast. This wasn’t a racetrack. There was no engineering solution here, no team radio to guide him. Just a door, a choice and whatever lay beyond it.

The chime of the doorbell echoed through the hallway, sharp and final—like a starting gun signaling no turning back. Jason’s pulse hammered in his throat, his body still thrumming with the residual adrenaline from the race. His fingers flexed at his sides, still gloved, still streaked with traces of rubber and sweat. He hadn’t even bothered to change. Every second had mattered. Every second still mattered.

Silence.

Then—movement. The faint shuffle of footsteps from inside the suite, the muted click of the lock disengaging. The door swung open, and there she was.

Y/N stood framed in the doorway and the sight of her hit Jason like a train. The subtle changes in her were devastating— the slight hollowing of her cheeks that spoke of missed meals, the way her shoulders carried a weight that hadn’t been there before. But it was her eyes that destroyed him most— those eyes he’d once seen spark with laughter now dulled, the vibrant light dimmed beneath a film of quiet melancholy. The ghost of a smile that flickered across her lips never reached them, dying before it could truly form.

Tim’s words roared back in Jason’s skull with brutal clarity: “You stole the light from behind her eyes.” His hands curled into fists at his sides, nails biting into his palms. The urge to turn around and drive his fist through a wall warred with the need to fall to his knees and beg forgiveness. He remained frozen instead, caught in the devastating gravity of what he’d done.

The silence between them wasn’t just absence of sound— it was a living thing, thick with all the words they’d never said, all the moments they’d lost. Jason could hear his own pulse thundering in his ears, could see the subtle rise and fall of Y/N’s chest as she breathed. Waiting. Always waiting for him to catch up.

“I, uh—” His voice emerged rough, cracking like dry earth after a drought. He swallowed against the desert in his throat, tasting copper and regret. “I didn’t know if you’d answer.”

Her eyes flickered over him— his disheveled hair, the racing suit still molded to his body by sweat and effort, the faint tremor in his hands that had nothing to do with adrenaline crash. “You drove here straight from the podium,” she observed, not a question but a statement.

No greeting. No ‘hello Jason’. Just this— an acknowledgement of his reckless, desperate need to see her that he couldn’t disguise if he tried.

“Yeah.” The single syllable carried the weight of his truth. He’d abandoned post-race protocols, interviews, celebrations— all of it meaningless compared to this moment.

The quiet stretched between them, fragile as spun glass. Then, so soft he almost missed it: “You won.”

Jason didn’t hesitate. “I had a reason to.” The words dropped like stones into the space between them, ripples spreading through the charged air. He’d driven today not for glory or points, but for the chance to stand here now. Every overtake, every perfect apex had been measured in seconds ticking away to his arrival time.

Y/N’s lips parted slightly— a sign he knew so well, the prelude to words carefully considered. But whatever thought had formed died unspoken as she exhaled, a slow release of breath that seemed to deflate her slightly. She stepped back, holding the door wider in silent invitation. “You should come in,” she murmured, her voice carrying a weariness that aged her. “Before someone recognizes you in the hallway.”

Jason crossed the threshold in two strides, the familiar scent of her perfume wrapping around him like a ghost’s embrace— that light floral note with a hint of citrus underneath, so intimately known it made his chest ache. The door clicked shut behind him, the sound final as a judge’s gavel.

When Y/N turned to face him fully, the question came not with anger or accusation, but with a quiet resignation that cut deeper than any blade: “Why are you here, Jason?”

The detachment in her tone was worse than shouting. Worse than thrown objects or tears. This calm acceptance, this emotional distance— it meant she’d already begun the process of letting go. And that realization terrified him more than any outburst ever could. Because anger would mean she still cared. This? This sounded like goodbye.

Jason’s words tumbled out in a raw, unfiltered torrent—each syllable laced with months of pent-up regret and longing. His voice cracked under the weight of his confession, rough with emotion.

“Y/N—” His throat tightened, as if his own body was resisting the vulnerability he was forcing himself to show. But he pushed through, the words spilling out like a dam breaking. “I’m sorry. God, I’m so fucking sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I thought—” He dragged in a shaky breath, his hands flexing uselessly at his sides before clenching into fists. “I thought if I pushed you away first, I could shield you from the media circus, from the scrutiny, from all the bullshit that comes with being tied to me. But it was cowardly. It was selfish. And I—” His voice wavered, eyes burning with unshed tears. “You’re the only person who ever made me feel like I was more than just a driver. Like I was worth something beyond the track. And I get it if you can’t forgive me, but please—” His voice dropped to a whisper, ragged with desperation. “Please don’t let me lose you.”

Y/N stood frozen, her lips parted in stunned silence. Her eyes, those eyes he had memorized in every shade of emotion, widened in disbelief. All this time, she had believed his rejection was about her, about some perceived inadequacy on her part. That he had been ashamed of her. That she hadn’t been enough.

But this?

This was something else entirely.

The realization struck her like lightning, stealing her breath.

“Say something,” Jason pleaded, his voice rough. “Please.”

Y/N exhaled shakily, her own emotions threatening to spill over. “Jason, I—” She swallowed hard, her fingers twisting nervously in the fabric of her top. “I thought you did it because you didn’t want me ruining your image. That you were—” She cut herself off, unable to voice the insecurity that had festered in her chest for months.

Jason’s expression twisted in anguish. “I was what?” he demanded, stepping forward without thinking, his hands rising to cradle her face. The contact was instinctive, electric—his calloused thumbs brushing against her cheeks as if to wipe away every doubt she’d ever had. “Embarrassed of you?” His voice dropped, low and fierce. “Fucking hell, doll. You’re the best goddamn thing that’s ever happened to me. Why the hell would I be embarrassed of you?”

The warmth of Jason’s hands against her skin sent a shockwave through Y/N’s system, awakening sensations she’d tried so hard to forget. His touch had always been her undoing— those strong, capable hands that could manhandle a race car at 200mph now cradling her face with heartbreaking tenderness. She could feel the slight tremor in his fingers, the way his breath hitched when their eyes locked.

“You really thought that?” Jason whispered, his voice breaking. “That I could ever be ashamed of you?” His thumbs traced the curve of her cheekbones, wiping away tears she hadn’t realized were falling. “Y/N... you’re everything. You’re the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last before I sleep. Even when I was being a stubborn bastard and pushing you away, you were all I could fucking think about.”

Y/N felt her pulse stutter at the intensity in his gaze— that particular shade of stormy blue green she’d always loved. Now those same eyes bored into hers with near-frantic sincerity, the kind that couldn’t be faked. The kind that left her foundation shaking.

When she finally spoke, her voice emerged softer than intended, frayed at the edges. “You let me believe...” A shaky inhale. “For months, Jason. You let me think I wasn’t enough.”

Jason’s entire body flinched, his hands sliding back to cradle her head as if offering protection from his own failures. “I know,” he choked out. “Christ, I know. And I’ll spend every fucking day making that up to you if you’ll let me.” His forehead dropped to rest against hers, their noses brushing. “Just tell me what you need. Scream at me. Throw something. Hell, slap me senseless— I probably deserve it.”

A watery laugh escaped her, the sound startling them both. It was so quintessentially Jason— this brash, all-or-nothing approach that had first drawn her in. The same intensity that made him a champion on the track, now turned entirely toward her.

Her hands, which had hung stiffly at her sides, finally lifted to grip his wrists. Not pushing away. Not pulling closer. Just... holding. Anchoring. “I need you to stop deciding what’s best for me,” she whispered. “I need you to trust me enough to choose for myself.”

“Done.” Simple. Absolute. The way he said everything when he meant it.

The words left Y/N’s lips before she could stop them—lighthearted, teasing, a fragile attempt to diffuse the tension still humming between them. “So... are we like friends again?”

Jason’s breath caught almost imperceptibly, his fingers stilling where they’d been tracing absent patterns along her arm. He would’ve been lying if he said the word didn’t prick at him, sharp as a needle to the chest. Friends. After everything—after the way his heart had just laid itself bare at her feet—that label felt painfully inadequate.

A forced chuckle escaped him, low and rough. “Darling,” he murmured, his thumb rising to brush deliberately across her bottom lip, “I don’t think what we have can be labeled as just friendship.”

Y/N’s breath hitched.

The contact sent a jolt of electricity straight through her, her knees threatening to buckle beneath her. Was this really happening? The moment she’d fantasized about since the first time she’d seen him—since that initial, earth-shattering realization that Jason Todd wasn’t just another arrogant driver but someone who could unravel her with a single glance—was it finally unfolding right in front of her?

She wanted to scream.

She wanted to cry.

She wanted to kiss him with every ounce of pent-up longing she’d been carrying for months.

But fate, ever the cruel puppeteer, had other plans.

The shrill ring of her phone shattered the moment like glass, making both of them jump apart. Y/N turned away with a frustrated exhale, her fingers closing around the offending device where it lay on the table. The caller ID glared up at her: Dan-Dan.

Goddammit, Danny.

She swiped to answer, pressing the phone to her ear just as Danny’s voice exploded through the line, frantic and tinny. “Y/N, I think I’ll be late. Jason just took off to god-knows-where after the race, and we can’t reach him. I swear, if he keeps pulling this disappearing act—” A heavy sigh. “—this is going to ruin our entire championship run.”

Y/N’s eyes flicked reflexively toward Jason, who was watching her with an unreadable expression. “Okay, Dan,” she muttered, her voice carefully neutral. “Take your time. There’s no hurry.”

She ended the call before Danny could respond, her pulse hammering in her throat. Before she could even turn around, she felt him— the heat of Jason’s body pressing against her back, the solid weight of his arm sliding possessively around her waist. His other hand came up, fingers brushing the hair away from the nape of her neck with deliberate, agonizing slowness.

Then his lips were at her ear, his breath warm against her skin as he murmured, “So. This Dan of yours... does he know about us?”

The question—low, teasing, laced with something darker beneath the surface—sent a shiver down Y/N’s spine. She froze, her fingers tightening around her phone.

Wordlessly, she shook her head.

The world narrowed to the searing heat of Jason’s touch, his fingers leaving invisible brands through the thin fabric of her shirt. His voice curled around her like smoke— dark, intoxicating, impossible to escape. Every coherent thought evaporated from Y/N’s mind, leaving only the frantic hammering of her pulse and the dizzying awareness of how close he stood. She couldn’t have strung together a sentence if her life depended on it— not when his breath fanned on her skin, not when every nerve ending screamed for more of his touch.

Y/N gasped as electricity crackled down her spine, her fingers clutching the edge of the table for balance. Then realization struck like lightning— he thought... he actually thought...

“How can you be with another man,” Jason continued, his voice dropping to a growl that sent shivers through her, “while wearing my racing number at the back of your neck like you’re mine, hmm?” His teeth grazed the sensitive skin where her tattoo lay hidden beneath her hair, the digits inked there in his signature font.

The possessive anger simmering beneath his words finally jolted Y/N into action. She whirled around so fast she nearly lost her balance, her hands coming up to brace against his chest. “Jason,” she blurted, the words tumbling out in a rush, “Danny’s my brother.”

The moment their karts screeched to a halt in the pit lane, Jason ripped off his helmet with enough force to make the straps snap. His face was flushed with adrenaline and indignation, sweat-dampened hair sticking to his forehead as he stormed toward Danny.

“Hey, dude! You totally pushed me off on Turn 5!” Jason yelled, his voice carrying over the hum of engines and the chatter of nearby spectators. His hands gestured wildly, replaying the move in the air between them. “That wasn’t racing—that was attempted murder!”

Danny, already unbuckling his own helmet, shot him an unrepentant grin as he hopped out of his kart. “You gave me no choice!” he called over his shoulder, already striding toward the pits where his family waited. “You left the door wide open!”

Jason gaped after him. “That’s not—! Ugh!” He threw his hands up in frustration before stomping after Danny, muttering under his breath the entire way. “Wide open, my ass. I was taking the racing line. Since when is ‘door open’ an invitation for vehicular assault?”

When they reached the pits, Danny peeled off toward his team, leaving Jason to fume alone. But Jason had a plan. If Danny wanted to play dirty, then fine—Jason would escalate this properly. He beelined for his own pit area, where Alfred stood waiting with his usual unflappable calm, a neatly wrapped sandwich in hand.

“Now, now, Master Jason,” Alfred said, his voice the epitome of reason as he extended the food toward the seething teenager. “Might I suggest refueling before launching your campaign for justice?”

Jason snatched the packet, tearing into it with a vengeance. “Danny totally pushed me off,” he declared through a mouthful of bread and filling. “It was clear as day! It was unfair. And worst of all—” He swallowed hard, pointing an accusing finger in Danny’s general direction. “— I know he smiled while doing it!”

Alfred’s lips twitched, though his expression remained otherwise neutral. “A truly heinous crime,” he agreed solemnly. “What do you propose we do about it?”

Jason’s eyes lit up with the fire of a thousand war strategies. He swallowed the last of his sandwich in one heroic bite, then jumped to his feet. “We fight him. And his team.” He jabbed a finger toward the offending party. “Full-scale retaliation. No mercy.”

Alfred chuckled, unable to fully suppress his amusement any longer. “Shall we call Mr. Dent as well, in case we require legal support for this… operation?”

Jason paused, considering this with all the gravity of a general preparing for battle. Then he nodded sharply. “That would seem prudent.”

Jason strode toward Danny’s team garage with the exaggerated stance of a warrior preparing for battle—chin lifted, shoulders squared, chest puffed out with righteous indignation. Behind him, Alfred followed at a measured pace, the faintest hint of amusement playing at the corners of his mouth as he observed his young charge’s theatrics.

But the moment Jason crossed the threshold into the rival pit area, the wind was abruptly knocked from his sails.

What he had expected—stern mechanics, maybe a few glares from Danny’s teammates—was nowhere to be found. Instead, the garage had been transformed into something out of a child’s fantasy. Vibrant streamers crisscrossed the ceiling, balloons in every color bobbed along the floor, and a cacophony of laughter and chatter filled the air. It was chaos. It was celebration.

Before Jason could process the scene, Danny’s mother spotted him. Her face lit up with recognition, and before he could protest, she had him by the shoulders, steering him firmly toward the center of the festivities. “Jason! Perfect timing!” she exclaimed, as if his arrival had been eagerly anticipated rather than an intrusion.

And then he saw her.

Perched proudly beside a lavishly decorated table stood a little girl—Danny’s sister, he realized. She couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven, dressed in a frilly pink-and-purple dress that shimmered under the garage lights. A tiny plastic tiara sat slightly askew atop her head and in one hand, she clutched a glittering fairy wand. Before her, a similarly coloured cake proclaimed “Happy Birthday!” in looping, pastel letters.

Jason froze.

Danny had mentioned his sister in passing—usually with a mix of exasperation and affection—but Jason had never actually met her. Now, faced with this tiny, beaming human, all his earlier fury evaporated like morning dew.

The birthday song started up and Jason found himself clapping along awkwardly, suddenly hyperaware of his grease-streaked racing suit amidst the pastel decorations. Any thoughts of confrontation fled his mind entirely when a paper plate bearing an enormous slice of cake was thrust into his hands.

Soon, he was perched on a stack of tires, happily devouring his cake with the single-minded focus of a teenager who’d been deprived of sweets for too long. Bruce monitored his diet with the vigilance of a prison warden—every carb counted, every calorie tracked. This impromptu sugar rush felt both like rebellion and reward.

Jason was so engrossed in his illicit cake consumption that he didn’t notice the tiny figure approaching until a shadow fell across his plate.

The birthday girl stood before him, her frilly dress swaying as she rocked back and forth on her shiny Mary Janes. Up close, her tiara glittered even more and her smile was so bright it could’ve powered the entire racetrack.

“Hello,” she chirped, her voice dripping with the effortless confidence of someone who’d never known rejection.

Jason blinked, hastily swallowing his mouthful of cake. “Uh. Hey,” he managed, wiping frosting from his chin with the back of his hand. His usual bravado had abandoned him entirely—what did one even say to a tiny human in a princess costume?

Undeterred by his awkwardness, she clasped her hands together and leaned in conspiratorially. “So I made a birthday wish,” she announced, as if sharing state secrets. “Mama said I shouldn’t tell anyone my wish or it won’t come true... but it’s you, so it’s okay.”

Jason’s eyebrows shot up. There was something deeply alarming about being entrusted with this information. “What did you wish for?” he asked, against his better judgment.

“You!” she declared, bouncing on her toes with enough force to make her hair bounce.

The piece of cake Jason had just shoveled into his mouth became a dire choking hazard. He coughed violently, pounding his chest as frosting threatened to exit through his nose. “W-what?” he wheezed, eyes watering.

She beamed, utterly oblivious to his near-death experience. “I wished to have you as my boyfriend,” she clarified, butchering the word with adorable finality. “Mama said birthday wishes always come true. So...” She clasped her hands behind her back and batted her eyelashes. “Will you be my boyfriend?”

Jason’s brain short-circuited. His gaze darted around the garage in panic, searching for Alfred—surely the man wouldn’t abandon him to this nightmare—but he had vanished without a trace.

A cold sweat broke out along Jason’s forehead. This was a minefield. Say no and he risked reducing a birthday princess to tears—an unforgivable sin. Say yes, and he’d never hear the end of it from Danny.

“I, uh...” Jason’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat, scrambling for a diplomatic out. “That’s... that’s really flattering, but—”

Her lower lip began to tremble.

Oh god.

Jason’s stomach plummeted. He was not equipped for this. Where was Alfred? Where was Danny? Where was a natural disaster when you needed one?

He shifted uncomfortably on the stack of tires, suddenly finding the remnants of his cake far more interesting than the expectant gaze of the fairy princess looking girl before him. He cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck as he searched for an escape route that wouldn’t end in tears.

“Umm, I’m kinda... concentrating on karting right now,” he hedged, gesturing vaguely toward the track outside. The words came out stilted, his usual cockiness nowhere to be found. “So, you know... not now.” He punctuated this with an awkward shrug, hoping it would be enough.

The birthday girl’s face fell slightly, her fairy wand drooping in her grip. “Then when?” she pressed, her earlier enthusiasm dimming just enough to make Jason’s stomach twist with guilt. The tiara atop her head seemed to lose some of its sparkle under the fluorescent garage lights.

Jason’s mind raced. He needed an out - something that would satisfy her without making any actual commitments. “When I make it to F1, maybe?” he blurted, the words tumbling out before he could reconsider. That should buy him at least a decade or so, he reasoned. By then, she’d have forgotten all about this ridiculous conversation— probably forgotten him entirely.

But her reaction wasn’t what he expected. Her eyes lit up like fireworks, all traces of disappointment vanishing in an instant. “You promise?” she gasped, bouncing on her feet with renewed excitement.

He hadn’t anticipated this turning into some sort of binding agreement. “Uh...” he stammered, his gaze darting around the garage for any possible escape. Alfred was still conspicuously absent and he could feel multiple sets of eyes on him now— Danny’s family watching with barely concealed amusement, mechanics pretending not to eavesdrop.

Before he could formulate a proper response, she extended her small hand toward him, pinky finger raised with solemn determination. “Pinky promise?” she demanded, her voice taking on an unexpectedly serious tone for someone dressed head-to-toe in princess attire.

Jason stared at the tiny outstretched finger like it was a live grenade. With a resigned sigh that seemed too world-weary for a fourteen year old, he reluctantly hooked his own pinky around hers, the gesture feeling absurdly formal.

“Promise.”

Jason’s laughter rang out, rich and unrestrained, as the pieces finally clicked into place. “You’re her? The fairy princess with the tiara and wand?” His eyes sparkled with delighted amusement, shaking his head in disbelief. “All this time I was ready to throw hands with Danny and he’s just your brother? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

Y/N’s cheeks burned crimson as she fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, unable to meet his gaze. “Because it was mortifying enough the first time!” she burst out, her voice climbing an octave. “I didn’t need my childhood... whatever that was... haunting me now that we’re adults.” The memory of her ten-year-old self boldly proposing to a flustered teenage Jason still made her want to crawl into a hole.

With a tenderness that contradicted his usual brash demeanor, Jason crooked a finger beneath her chin, gently tilting her face up until their eyes met. “Hey,” he murmured, his thumb brushing along her jawline, “you made me promise you something pretty important that day, remember, doll?”

Y/N’s breath hitched. The warmth of his touch, the proximity of his body, the way his eyes darkened with unspoken meaning— it sent her higher brain functions into overdrive. Panic flared through her system and before she could stop herself, she planted both palms against his chest and pushed him back with surprising force. “We can’t do this now,�� she blurted out, her voice unsteady.

Jason stumbled half a step, confusion and hurt flashing across his features. “Y/N—”

“You have a race in a that will decide the entire season! The driver’s championship, the constructor’s championship— Bruce is counting on you, the whole team is counting on you.” Her words tumbled out in a frantic rush. “You can’t afford distractions, especially not... not because of me.”

Jason opened his mouth to protest, but Y/N - suddenly unable to bear the intensity of the moment— pivoted with forced lightness. “Besides,” she said, adopting a teasing lilt she didn’t quite feel, “my standards for a boyfriend have gotten significantly higher since I was ten.”

Jason’s eyebrows shot up, catching her shift in tone. Crossing his arms, he leaned back with exaggerated nonchalance. “Alright, princess, let’s hear these lofty standards then.”

“Okay,” Y/N began, tapping a finger against her lips in mock contemplation as she circled him. “First, he has to be kind. Like, genuinely kind, not just when people are watching.” She held up a second finger. “Sweet, but not cloying— there’s a difference.” A third finger joined the count. “About... yea high,” she stretched onto her toes, holding a hand level with Jason’s forehead.

Jason snorted. “Demanding.”

“Blue eyes,” she continued, ignoring his interruption as she stepped closer, “with just enough green in them to make you wonder what color they really are.” Her finger came up to trace the air near his face, not quite touching. “Devastatingly handsome, obviously.” She took a final step back, folding her arms with a challenging smirk. “And a four-time world champion. That last one’s non-negotiable.”

Jason pretended to consider this, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Hmm. So I’ve got the height, the eyes... the devastating handsomeness is subjective I suppose.” He shrugged. “That last one though... guess we’ll have to see about that.”

Y/N’s smirk softened into something more genuine as she reached up to adjust his racing suit collar. “Oh, that last one’s the most important part,” she murmured, her fingers lingering against the fabric near his pulse point. “But something tells me you’ll manage. We’ll finish this conversation then.”

Jason’s answering smile was slow and devastating—the kind that had melted hearts on magazine covers worldwide. But this? This was just for her. Without a word, he held out his hand, his pinky finger extended in silent question.

Promise?

Y/N’s breath caught. The gesture—so simple, so them—unraveled something deep in her chest. She nodded, her vision blurring with unexpected tears as she hooked her pinky with his, their hands slotting together like they were made to fit.

“Promise,” she breathed.

When they unlinked their fingers, Jason did something that stole the air from her lungs—he brought his thumb to his lips, pressing a kiss to it before gently transferring the touch to her mouth. The warmth of it lingered long after he pulled away, a silent vow sealed between them.

The scorching Abu Dhabi sun beat down mercilessly on the Yas Marina Circuit. Long shadows stretched across the pit lane like grasping fingers as mechanics made their final adjustments, the air thick with the smell of burning rubber and high-octane fuel. Jason Todd stood motionless at the edge of Wayne Racing’s garage, his custom-painted helmet tucked under one arm, its polished surface reflecting the frantic activity around him. His eyes tracked down the start-finish straight with laser focus, watching as the last of the support vehicles cleared the track.

This was it.

The culmination of an entire season’s worth of blood, sweat and tears distilled into a single race. Twenty-two punishing turns of the most technically demanding circuit on the calendar. Fifty-eight laps that would determine whether all his sacrifices had been worth it.

The championship standings couldn’t have been tighter— Jason and his arch-rival Kyle Rayner sat deadlocked on points coming into this final race. Winner takes all. No second chances. And if he somehow pulled this off, it wouldn’t just be his own driver’s championship on the line— Wayne Racing stood to claim their constructor’s title, continuing their stranglehold on the sport.

Logically, he knew Y/N would stand by him regardless of today’s outcome. She’d proven that much already, weathering his storms with a patience he didn’t deserve. But that knowledge chafed against the raw, hungry part of him that needed to prove—to her, to himself, to the damn world that he was worthy. That Jason Todd could deliver on his word when it mattered most.

A familiar weight settled on his shoulder as Bruce stepped beside him, his grip firm and grounding. “No heroics out there,” the team principal and father murmured, his voice barely audible over the garage’s controlled chaos. His steely gaze held Jason’s. “We don’t need spectacular—we need smart. Bring it home clean.”

Jason gave a terse nod, his racing instincts already kicking in, but his attention was inexplicably drawn past Bruce to the timing screens. There, amidst the sea of engineers and data analysts, stood Y/N. Her arms were crossed in that deceptively casual way she had when trying to appear professional, but Jason had spent enough time studying her to recognize the subtle tells— the tension in her shoulders, the rhythmic tapping of her fingers against her elbow, the way she kept biting the inside of her cheek when she thought no one was looking.

Their eyes met across the bustling garage. Without breaking contact, Jason’s lips quirked into a half-smile and he winked at her subtly.

The effect was instantaneous. Y/N’s professional mask shattered as a furious blush crept up her neck, staining her cheeks crimson. She immediately looked away, pretending sudden intense interest in a clipboard one of the engineers was holding, but not before Jason caught the way her breath hitched.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Alfred reminded him he probably shouldn’t be distracting himself right before the most important race of his career. But seeing her flustered reaction sparked something warm in his chest, cutting through the pre-race tension like sunlight through storm clouds.

The FIA official began waving drivers to their cars. As Jason turned to leave, he caught Y/N’s gaze one last time. No words were needed— the determination in her eyes mirrored his own as she gave him a slight nod. Whatever happened today, they were in this together.

Now all he had to do was win that world championship.

The moment the lights went out, the world erupted in a deafening rumble of raw power and desperation. Twenty Formula 1 cars exploded forward like bullets from a barrel, their engines screaming in unison, tires screeching as they fought for every inch of tarmac into the treacherous Turn 1. Jason Todd, locked in his #02 Wayne Racing machine, clenched his jaw and held his line with the precision of a predator—elbows out, refusing to yield an inch.

Kyle Rayner, in his blinding #10 neon green LC25, lurked in his mirrors like a specter, his front wing nearly touching Jason’s rear diffuser as he tried to force him toward the wall. The move was aggressive, borderline reckless, but Jason had expected nothing less.

“He’s playing dirty already,” Jason growled into the radio, his fingers tightening around the wheel.

“Ignore him,” Dick’s voice came through, steady as a metronome despite the chaos unfolding on track. “Stick to the plan. Tire management first. The race comes to us.”

For the first half of the Grand Prix, Jason did exactly that—measuring his pace meticulously, nursing his tires, preserving his fuel, all while keeping Rayner at bay. The laps ticked by in a blur of adrenaline and concentration, the desert heat baking through his visor, sweat trickling down his temples beneath his helmet. The championship hung by a thread—every overtake, every defensive move, every millisecond counted.

Then—disaster struck.

A backmarker, caught in the turbulence of the leaders, lost control in the final sector, spinning violently and slamming into the barriers. The safety car was deployed instantly, the field bunching up like a coiled spring, erasing Jason’s hard-earned three-second lead in the blink of an eye.

“This is it,” Dick’s voice crackled over the radio, the usual calm replaced by quiet intensity. “Final stint. No more calculations. No more waiting. It’s all on you now.”

Jason exhaled sharply, his grip on the wheel turning his knuckles white.

Just a little more.

A little more speed.

A little more courage.

A little more of himself poured into these last, fateful laps.

The moment the safety car lights went out, the pack surged forward like wild horses unleashed. Jason’s foot slammed the throttle just as the green flag waved, his car leaping forward with a vicious snarl. The final ten laps stretched before him. If he could just hold on, if he could just win, then he wouldn’t have to choose. Not between his love and his legacy. Not between Y/N and the championship.

He could have it all.

The high-speed Turns 5-7 complex stretched before Jason like a ribbon of liquid asphalt, its sweeping curves demanding absolute precision. His Wayne Racing machine danced along the knife’s edge of adhesion, the Pirelli tires screeching in protest as he carried impossible speed through the esses. The g-forces pressed him deep into his seat, his neck muscles straining against the lateral load as the car flirted with the track limits.

In his mirrors, the neon green livery of Rayner’s Lantern Corps F1 car filled his vision, its menacing glow reflecting off his rear wing. The rival machine clung to his gearbox like a vengeful specter, never more than half a second behind, waiting for the slightest mistake.

“He’s saving battery,” Dick’s voice crackled through the radio, tense but controlled. “Expect an attack on the back straight.”

Jason’s eyes flicked downward for a millisecond, just long enough to register his energy display. One last push remaining—a precious 4 seconds of overtake boost. He’d have to time it perfectly, deploy it at the exact moment when—

The track opened up onto the massive 1.2 kilometer back straight and suddenly the battle erupted in earnest. Rayner’s car darted left, then snapped right, his movements unpredictable as he searched for any sliver of clean air to mount an attack. Jason countered each feint, weaving defensively while trying to maintain his racing line.

At 310 km/h, the concrete walls transformed into a dizzying blur, the sheer velocity making the world narrow to a tunnel of light and noise. Jason’s heart hammered against his ribs, each beat counting down the meters to the critical Turn 8 braking zone.

Then Rayner made his move— a desperate lunge down the inside. His front wheels locked momentarily, sending up puffs of smoke as he outbraked himself. For one terrifying second, Jason saw the neon green nosecone edging perilously close to his sidepod before Rayner somehow regained control, the cars avoiding contact by centimeters.

But the mistake cost Rayner dearly—his abrupt correction sent him wide, losing crucial momentum.

“These tires have no grip!” Jason snarled into the radio, his voice raw with adrenaline coursing through his veins. The once-reliable rubber now felt like blocks of ice beneath him, the degradation robbing him of the precise control he needed.

Through his visor, he could see the championship—his promise to Y/N—slipping away with every degrading lap. The desert air burned in his lungs, his fingers aching from their death grip on the wheel. Somewhere beyond the roar of the engine, beyond the screaming tires and the deafening rush of wind, he could almost hear the clock ticking down—

The final battle was coming. And neither man would yield.

“Push, Jason. Push.”

Dick’s voice cut through the radio, deceptively calm, but Jason could hear the razor-sharp intensity beneath the words. This was it—the moment that would define his legacy. Jason’s fingers locked around the wheel, his breath hitching as the walls of Turn 12 blurred past—too fast, too close. For a heartbeat, the track vanished.

Bahrain. The screech of tearing metal. The smell of burning rubber. The world flipping, crashing, darkness—

He blinked hard, forcing himself back into the present. The car shuddered beneath him, alive and responsive. Not then. Not now.

His eyes locked onto Rayner’s car ahead, studying every subtle movement. Then he saw it—the twitch in the high-speed corners, the slight hesitation as Rayner’s car fought for grip. His tires were fading. Fast. The rational part of Jason’s brain recognized the opportunity—the rubber was going, the gap was there but his pulse roared in his ears, a drumbeat of panic.

Breathe. Just breathe.

He could hear Y/N’s voice calling to him. She had held his hand and helped him out of a panic attack in his Monaco apartment. Soft, gentle, serene.

Jason held back, resisting the urge to pounce too soon. He conserved his battery, managed his energy, biding his time for one perfectly calculated strike.

The final lap began.

Through the sweeping Turns 11 to 14, Jason carved into Rayner’s lead, the gap shrinking to a razor-thin 0.3 seconds. The grandstands erupted as the two titans of the track roared past, engines howling, the air between them charged with rivalry. The crowd was on their feet, the roar of their voices lost beneath the scream of horsepower.

Then—Turn 19.

Jason played his hand. He feinted left, jinking toward the inside line, forcing Rayner to defend. This was chess at 200 miles per hour—every feint, every adjustment of throttle and steering wheel a calculated gambit. For a split second, Rayner’s focus flickered, his car drifting just a hair too wide on the exit. It was all Jason needed. And in that instant, Jason’s vision fractured.

The scent of scorched carbon fiber flooded his senses. The stomach-lurching sensation of his car crashing in Bahrain—the impact, the deafening silence afterward. His foot hovered over the throttle, muscles locking in phantom pain.

No.

He gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached. This isn’t Bahrain. This is now. And I’m not breaking.

Instinct took over.

Jason wrenched the wheel right, his car slingshotting to the outside with a violence that made his tires scream. The gap was barely wider than his car itself, but he hurled himself into it anyway, metal flashing past metal so close he could see the heat waves rippling off Rayner’s exhaust.

The world dissolved into sensation—the guttural roar of engines, the acrid taste of burning fuel, the vibration of the chassis trembling beneath him like a living thing. Rayner held firm, his car crowding Jason’s line, neither yielding an inch. For a heartbeat suspended in time, they were equals, locked in a duel where the smallest twitch meant triumph or disaster.

Then Jason’s mind cleared.

You don’t get to take this from me.

His car inched forward. Millimeter by millimeter, he clawed ahead, his tires biting into the track with vicious determination. The nose of his Wayne Racing machine broke free first, then the hood, then the cockpit—until suddenly, irrevocably, he was leading.

The checkered flag unfurled in his periphery.

1. TOD 2. RAY +0.2

The radio erupted in a deafening crescendo of pure, unfiltered joy—a chaotic symphony of screaming engineers, clattering headsets, and the thunderous roar of the Wayne Racing pit crew losing all semblance of professionalism. Dick’s voice, usually so measured and calm, shattered into raw, unbridled emotion as he shouted himself hoarse, the words barely coherent through the static. Somewhere in the cacophony, Jason heard his own name chanted like a war cry, over and over, as if the team couldn’t believe what they’d just witnessed.

But to Jason, it all sounded distant, muffled, as if he were hearing it through several feet of water. His hands, usually so steady and sure on the wheel, now trembled with the aftershocks of the race. As his car coasted down the main straight, the world seemed to move in slow motion around him. His chest rose and fell in ragged, uneven gulps, each breath burning through lungs that had been holding tension for fifty-eight grueling laps.

The adrenaline was still there—a live current under his skin, making his fingertips tingle and his pulse roar in his ears. But beneath it, something deeper pulsed. Something quiet. Something heavy. It settled into his bones, into the marrow of him, a weight that had nothing to do with exhaustion.

Four-time world champion.

The words flashed across the timing screens in bold, triumphant letters. The commentators bellowed it into their microphones, their voices cracking with excitement. The crowd chanted it back like a mantra and fireworks coloured the skies. But the number meant nothing compared to the truth behind it. They didn’t account for the brutal crashes that had left him bruised and broken, the surgeries that had stolen months of his career, the endless rehabilitation sessions where he’d fought just to move without pain. They didn’t reflect those endless nights in anonymous hotel rooms, staring at water-stained ceilings while his mind replayed every mistake, every near-miss, every whisper of doubt that maybe— just maybe— Bahrain had broken something in him that couldn’t be fixed.

The doubt had been his constant shadow, a ghost that haunted every practice session, every qualifying lap, every overtaking attempt. It whispered in his ear when he pushed the car to its limits, reminding him of what happened last time he danced this close to the edge.

But today... today he’d grabbed that doubt by the throat and roared right back in its face. Every perfect apex, every daring overtake, every calculated risk had been a middle finger to his fears. That final, breathtaking pass hadn’t just been about beating Rayner. It had been about proving something to himself, to the world, to every person who’d ever wondered if he was done—that he wasn’t just back.

He was better.

“THE CHECKERED FLAG WAVES! JASON TODD, YOU ARE A FOUR-TIME WORLD CHAMPION! THE WORLD CHAMPION! The Wayne Racing garage has LOST THEIR MINDS— Dick Grayson is vaulting over the pit wall like a man possessed, the mechanics are screaming themselves raw—and look at Todd in that car, absolutely spent, but MY GOD, WHAT A DRIVE!”

This wasn’t just another championship added to his record. This was redemption made tangible, a phoenix moment forged from fire and steel and sheer, stubborn will. History books would record it as another victory, but Jason would always know the truth.

He hadn’t just made history today. He’d seized it back with both hands.

The moment Jason Todd climbed out of his car, the world seemed to hold its breath.

He stood atop the scorching-hot chassis, his racing suit streaked with sweat and the ghosts of past battles. The grandstands, a sea of color and noise just seconds before, fell into an eerie silence—thousands of eyes locked onto him, waiting. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, Jason clenched his fist and thrust it skyward.

The crowd exploded.

The roar that followed was deafening—a tidal wave of sound that shook the very foundations of the circuit. Cheers, screams, the thunder of stamping feet—it all blended into one overwhelming symphony of triumph. Jason let it wash over him, his chest heaving, his body still vibrating with the remnants of adrenaline. For a moment, he simply existed in the pure, unfiltered joy of it.

Then exhaustion hit him like a freight train.

He stumbled slightly as he stepped down from the car, his legs unsteady after two hours of punishing focus. But he still managed to wave at the crowd again, a tired but genuine grin tugging at his lips as he turned toward the pits.

His team descended upon him like a hurricane—hands clapping his shoulders, voices shouting in his ear, bodies pressing in from all sides as they celebrated their hard-earned victory. Every thump on his back, every shouted was a testament to the battle they’d all fought together.

But Jason only had one thought in his mind.

Y/N.

And then—there she was.

A glimpse of her through the chaos, standing in the Wayne Racing garage, her face alight with pride. She was wearing the team’s hastily printed “FOUR-TIME WORLD CHAMPION” shirt, just like everyone else, but on her, it looked different. On her, it felt like his.

Their eyes met.

For half a second, hesitation flickered across her expression—her gaze darting to the cameras trained on them, the ever-present vultures waiting to dissect their every move. But then something shifted. A quiet defiance. A silent “Screw it.”

And she ran.

Jason barely had time to react before she was crashing into him, her arms wrapping around his neck, her body pressing flush against his sweat-soaked suit. He could feel the dampness of her tears against his cheek, the way her fingers trembled where they tangled in his hair. Without thinking, he hooked his hands around her waist and lifted, spinning her in a tight circle as she let out a breathless laugh.

His helmet hit the ground with a clatter, forgotten.

Forehead pressed to hers, breathing her in, Jason felt something settle inside him—something warm and sure and right.

“So,” he murmured, his voice rough with exhaustion and emotion, “that’s another one off the list.”

A shaky exhale against his lips. “Yeah,” she whispered back. “Yeah, it is.”

He swallowed hard, his grip tightening around her. “I know there’s still a lot of work left. A lot of races. A lot of battles.” A pause. A heartbeat. “But Y/N... will you be mine? Really mine?”

She let out a choked laugh, her eyes shining. “Jason Peter Todd Wayne,” she breathed,“ I’ve been yours for a very long time.”

As Jason set Y/N back down on her feet, the team descended upon them in a wave of unrestrained joy.

Dick was the first to reach them, throwing an arm around Jason’s shoulders with enough force to nearly knock him off-balance. “You absolute madman!” he crowed, shaking him slightly, his grin wide enough to split his face. “That last overtake—I almost had a heart attack!”

Danny slapped Jason’s back hard enough to make him cough. “We were screaming so loud in the garage, the FIA probably thinks we’ve lost our minds!”

“Too late for that,” another engineer chimed in, shoving a hastily opened bottle of champagne into Jason’s hands. “We lost those years ago working with you lot!”

Jason laughed, twisting the cap off and taking a long swig before passing it to Y/N, who wrinkled her nose but took a sip anyway. The second the liquid touched her tongue, she made a face, and Jason barked out another laugh, pulling her closer.

“Oh, come on, don’t be a lightweight now,” he teased, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“I’m not!” she protested, shoving at his chest half-heartedly. “That’s just objectively terrible!”

“It’s tradition!” Dick argued, snatching the bottle back and taking a dramatic swig before shaking it vigorously, sending foam spraying across the nearest group of mechanics. A chorus of shouts and laughter erupted as they retaliated, grabbing whatever bottles were within reach and shaking them like they were in a goddamn riot.

Bruce appeared at the edge of the chaos, looking as composed as ever—though the slight crinkle at the corners of his eyes betrayed his amusement. “Try not to drown the entire team in alcohol before the podium ceremony,” he said dryly.

“No promises dad,” Jason shot back, grinning.

Someone—probably Tim, because he was a little shit like that—sneakily dumped an entire bottle of cold sparkling water down Jason’s back. Jason yelped, twisting around to glare at the culprit, but Tim was already ducking behind a grinning mechanic, hands raised in mock surrender.

“You’re dead, Drake!” Jason threatened, lunging for him.

Tim bolted, cackling and Jason gave chase—only to be intercepted by Alfred, who appeared with a towel in hand. “Master Jason,” he said, voice dripping with disapproval, though his eyes were warm. “You’re tracking champagne and sweat all over the garage.”

Jason grinned, unrepentant, but took the towel anyway, ruffling his hair with it before slinging it over his shoulder. “Sorry, Alfred. Got carried away.”

“Indeed,” Alfred sighed, long-suffering. “However, it is well-deserved”

Y/N appeared at Jason’s side again, her fingers tangling with his. “You’re a mess,” she informed him, though she was smiling.

Jason tugged her closer, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “Your mess.”

She rolled her eyes, but the way her fingers tightened around his told him everything he needed to know.

The team’s celebrations continued around them—champagne spraying, voices raised in laughter, the occasional curse as someone slipped on spilled alcohol. The cameras still hovered at the edges, capturing every moment, but for once, Jason didn’t care.

Let them see.

Let them see the team, the family, the love.

Let them see what it meant to fight—and to win.

The celebration swirled around them—champagne foam catching in the golden afternoon light, laughter ringing like church bells, the scent of tires and triumph still clinging to the air. But for Jason, the world had narrowed to this: Y/N’s hand in his, her fingers laced through his own like they had always belonged there.

The team moved around them in a blur of joy—Dick draping an arm over Tim’s shoulders as they both laughed. Bruce stood slightly apart, his usual stoicism softened at the edges, pride glowing quiet but undeniable in his eyes with Alfred quietly wiping the stray tear at the corner of his eye. And Cass stood off to the side, that rare, soft smile playing at her lips as she watched her family. The garage was alive, electric, every heartbeat in sync with the pulse of victory.

Jason turned to Y/N, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. The noise faded into something distant, something unimportant.

“You’re staring,” she murmured, a smile playing at the corner of her lips.

“Yeah,” he admitted, unrepentant. His voice was rough, scraped raw from shouting, from the sheer weight of everything he couldn’t put into words. “Just memorizing this.”

Her expression softened, something unbearably tender flickering in her eyes. “You don’t have to,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And that—

That was the real victory.

Not the gleaming trophy waiting on the podium. Not the headlines that would scream his name across the world tomorrow. Not even the deafening roar of the crowd still vibrating in his chest, echoing like thunder long after the storm had passed.

It was this.

Her.

The way her eyes held his like he was something worth keeping. The way she had stood by him through every crash, every setback, every moment he had doubted himself. The way she was here now, her palm pressed against his racing heart, as if she could feel the truth of it beating beneath her fingertips.

Jason leaned in, forehead resting against hers. Around them, the world kept moving—champagne bottles popping, cameras flashing, the announcer calling his name. But here, in this breath between seconds, it was just them.

“I love you,” he said, simple and sure.

Y/N’s smile was brighter than any checkered flag, any winner’s trophy, any sun-drenched finish line. “I know,” she whispered back, her voice thick with everything she didn’t need to say.

And when he kissed her—there, in the middle of the chaos, with the taste of victory and something infinitely sweeter on his lips—Jason knew, with absolute certainty, that this was the moment he would carry with him forever.

Not as the end of a race.

But as the first, glorious note of everything that came after.

╰┈➤ Masterlist

╰┈➤ Event masterlist

Tags: @joekitsu @sophiethewitch1 @hana-no-seiiki @thisisafish123 @ceramic-raven @millyhelp @blamedbisexual @trunkswithlonghair-blog @jasontoddthings @deans-spinster-witch @12134z03 @johnnysilverhandeeznuts @yasmin-oviedo @rosecentury @pierayanna @jinviktor @crybaby-21 @solarrexplosion @sahana28banana @ari-sama21 @princessbl0ss0m @fictionalwhor3 @leeleecats @lalalozer @shkosm @swamiiyasssss @lilyalone @cxcilla @one-pea-in-a-pod-blog @cooki3dough @misaki-kira8 @br0ke-b1tch @cherriespopsicle @lilithskywalker @multifandom-simp @hayleym1234 @sukaretto-n @idontwantthis22 @sarveshishwarishsuta @eclipse-msoul @aaaashiiii @wandabillywrites @star-born-mars @sinnamon-bunn @theendofthematerialgworl @mercuryathens @sugarwhiterose @lar3ine @raven-with-adhd @pezzeronii @federalprison78-4 @panacademics @itzmeme @pb-n-aj @4rachn3

A/n: I just winged the technical part of the race so please excuse that if there are any inaccuracies. There was so much more that I wanted to include, so i'll probably make another post with snippets of moments during, before and after the story. Feel free to request if you want to read anything in particular :)) Also do y'all want a smut fic of the championship celebration night with Jason? Lmk in the comments!!

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blackthorngirl · 1 day ago

Note

Thank you for the mini event!! Can I request a F1 Jason Todd x reader story?

Red Lights Pt.1

pairing *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ F1 driver!Jason Todd x fem!reader

disclaimer *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ angst. fluff. mild suggestive content. themes of mental health and depression. swearing. car accidents. injuries. mention of drug use. non-canon complacent. not proofread.

a/n *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ I can't believe i got this request. Just the other day I was like I wanna write an F1 driver au for a character. Anon are you spying on me? Should I be concerned? Nonetheless this made me so so happy. Comment, Like and Reblog (づ ᴗ _ᴗ)づ♡ Comment to be added to taglist

Part 2

Jason Peter Todd was a man who, at the peak of his career, could effortlessly be regarded as the very embodiment of Formula 1 excellence. He was everything a driver dreamed of becoming—wealthy, young, impossibly gifted, and the adopted heir of none other than Bruce Wayne, the legendary “Dark Knight” of motorsport himself. A five-time world champion, Bruce in his prime had been a force of nature, drawing comparisons to icons like Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. And Jason? He was every bit his father's successor—perhaps even destined to surpass him.

Jason wasn't just successful; he was revolutionary. His meteoric rise shattered records with an almost casual ease. He wasn't just the youngest driver to ever compete in Formula 1—he was the youngest to win, and not just any race, but his very first. The accolades piled up faster than his rivals could keep track: most wins in a single season, most podium finishes, highest points tally ever recorded. The list seemed infinite, his potential boundless. The world adored him, idolizing him with near-religious fervor. Corporations fought tooth and nail for his endorsement, desperate to attach their brands to his golden image. Jason Todd—three-time world champion, impossibly handsome, and a marketing juggernaut—had single-handedly propelled Formula 1 into unprecedented popularity. Fans either wanted to stand beside him or become him.

There was no ceiling to what he could achieve. His future was a blinding horizon of endless possibility—until Bahrain.

The Sakhir Grand Prix unfolded under a scorching desert sun, the sky painted in hues of amber as dusk crept over the circuit. The air thrummed with the deafening roars of engines, the grandstands vibrating with the collective anticipation of thousands. The final laps loomed, tension thick enough to cut through. Jason Todd, the prodigy, the phenom, was locked in a relentless pursuit of history—his fourth Bahrain Grand Prix victory within grasp. His car screamed down the straights, tires dancing on the knife's edge of control. He was pushing beyond limits, chasing glory as always.

But as he himself had said once before “Speed is a relentless god. And sometimes, it demands sacrifice.”

Bahrain's Sakhir Circuit had always been a beast of a track—deceptive in its sweeping curves, punishing in its tire degradation, unforgiving to even the slightest misjudgment. Jason's tires were fading fast, the rubber screaming in protest with every high-speed corner. The team's warnings buzzed in his ear, urgent yet distant, drowned out by the adrenaline coursing through his veins. Roy Harper, his closest friend and fiercest rival, loomed in his mirrors, a mere eight-tenths of a second behind—close enough to strike if Jason so much as blinked.

The radio crackled again, the voice of his engineer strained with concern: “Jason, watch the rear left—it's going off!”

But Jason Todd had never been one to yield. Not to his rivals. Not to the limits of physics. And certainly not to caution. He was five laps away from etching his name deeper into the history books, from claiming yet another record that would silence even his harshest critics. The thrill of the chase, the roar of the crowd, the intoxicating rush of speed—it all blurred into a singular, all-consuming obsession. He knew his car better than anyone alive. He had pushed it beyond its limits before and walked away victorious. Why would this time be any different?

At 200 miles per hour, the world narrowed to a tunnel of asphalt and adrenaline. The next turn approached—a brutal, high-speed corner that demanded precision. He braked hard, but the rear tires, worn to the cords, betrayed him. The car shuddered, the tail snapping out in a violent fishtail. For a heartbeat, his reflexes prevailed—his hands a blur as he wrestled the steering wheel, correcting the slide with the instincts of a champion.

And then—catastrophe.

A deafening bang ripped through the air as his left rear tire failed explosively. The car lurched sideways, spearing toward the barriers at a near-perpendicular angle. The carbon-fiber monocoque—a marvel of engineering designed to withstand brutal impacts—shattered like glass upon collision. The force of the crash sent debris flying in a lethal storm of shrapnel, scattering across the track in a grotesque spectacle. The wreckage rebounded violently, spinning back onto the racing line—just as Roy Harper's car, helpless to avoid the chaos, hurtled into the carnage.

A second impact. A sickening crunch of metal and carbon fiber.

Roy had no time to react. No time to swerve. His front wing speared through the mangled remains of Jason's cockpit like a blade. The halo device—the very piece of safety equipment designed to protect drivers from such horrors—held firm, but the sheer force of the collision tore the survival cell apart, leaving nothing but devastation in its wake.

“Jason? Jason, can you hear me?”

The voice of Dick Grayson—Jason's brother, his race engineer and his unwavering support—crackled over the radio, raw with desperation. A silence followed, thick and suffocating, broken only by the distant wail of sirens.

And then, as if the universe itself sought to twist the knife deeper, fuel from Roy's ruptured tank spilled onto the scorched asphalt. A single spark—a fleeting, inevitable spark—ignited the fumes.

The world erupted in flames.

Marshals in fireproof suits charged forward, their extinguishers spraying thick plumes of retardant, but the devastation was absolute. The grandstands fell eerily silent, thousands of spectators frozen in horror. Mechanics, engineers, and rival team members stood motionless, hands clasped in prayer or pressed over mouths in disbelief. Roy Harper, miraculously conscious but dazed, was dragged from his ruined car with relative ease—his injuries severe but survivable.

But Jason Todd?

The reigning world champion was still trapped inside the inferno.

The fireproof material of his race suit glowed beneath the flames, his silhouette barely visible through the thick, black smoke. Over the team radio, Dick Grayson's voice cracked with increasing desperation, begging for any sign of life. “Jason, talk to me. Please, just say something—anything!” Only static answered.

The medical car arrived within seconds, but the violence of the crash had left almost no room for hope. The extraction was a nightmare—jaws of life prying apart twisted metal, paramedics shouting over the roar of the flames. When they finally pulled him free, his body was limp, his helmet scorched, his suit seared in places. The world blurred into chaos after that—screaming sirens, frantic radio calls, the paddock holding its breath.

Then, whispers spread through the garage like wildfire.

The hospital's initial prognosis was grim: incompatible with life. The injuries were catastrophic—internal bleeding, multiple fractures, third-degree burns covering nearly 40% of his body. At one point, his heart stopped entirely, flatlining for over a minute as Bruce Wayne, the legendary Dark Knight of motorsport, stood helpless outside the ICU, restraining a sobbing Dick Grayson from pounding on the glass in sheer despair.

Time of death: 20:45 hours.

The words hung in the air like a death knell.

But then—

A single, weak beep.

The head surgeon blinked, certain he had imagined it. Then another. And another. Jason's heart, stubborn as the man himself, refused to surrender. The news rocketed through the paddock, a shockwave of disbelief and cautious relief: Jason Peter Todd was alive. Barely. Clinging to life by the thinnest of threads, but alive.

What followed was a waking nightmare.

Roy Harper, consumed by guilt, retired from Formula 1 immediately, unable to bear the weight of what had happened. Months later, he was found half-dead in a hotel room, an empty bottle of pills beside him—another casualty of that cursed day. The FIA scrambled to implement new safety regulations, mandating stronger cockpit protections and stricter tire wear monitoring. The team, once dominant, floundered without their star driver.

And Jason?

He slept.

For six agonizing months, he remained in a coma, his body healing at a glacial pace. When he finally woke, the details were kept fiercely private—no press releases, no interviews, just a single, guarded statement confirming his consciousness. But those who saw him in those early days knew: the Jason Todd who emerged from the darkness was not the same man who had entered it.

The fire had taken more than just flesh.

It had taken a legend.

“I want to race.”

The words hit Bruce Wayne like a physical blow.

For a man who had stood unshaken in the face of countless crises—both as a five-time world champion and as the iron-willed owner of Wayne Racing—the sheer weight of that simple declaration brought the world to a staggering halt. His son's voice was barely more than a whisper, raw and fractured, yet burning with a desperation that cut deeper than any scream could have.

It had been two months since Jason Todd had woken from the abyss of his coma. Two months of slow, agonizing progress—of bandages being peeled away, of casts removed, of wounds grudgingly closing. The hospital had kept the worst of the scarring hidden beneath layers of sterile gauze, not just for medical reasons, but out of fear for his fragile psyche. The first days after his awakening had been a storm of rage and denial—violent outbursts that left nurses scrambling for sedatives, his own body betraying him as orderlies pinned him down to keep him from tearing at IV lines and heart monitor leads.

The crash had taken more than flesh and bone. The doctors had warned Bruce in hushed tones: PTSD. Depression. Nightmares that never end. Jason's body, though stable, was a battleground. His mind? A warzone.

“I understand, Jay, but—”

“No, you don't!” Jason's voice shattered like glass against steel. “You don't get it! These four walls, these fucking machines and tubes—they're driving me insane. I don't belong here!”

And he was right.

Jason Todd had never been meant for cages. He was wildfire in human form—meant to blaze across the rain-slicked straights of Interlagos, to carve through the golden-hour shadows of COTA's esses, to exist where the air smelled of scorched rubber and high-octane fuel, not antiseptic and despair. The hospital was a prison, and every second spent trapped inside it was another piece of him dying.

Bruce exhaled slowly, his gaze fixed on the floor rather than meeting his son's fever-bright eyes. “Jason,” he said, forcing calm into his voice, “you need to heal.”

Jason's hands clenched into fists, the heart rate monitor spiking beside him. “I have healed enough!”

The words weren't just defiance—they were a plea, a demand, a last stand. Because Jason Todd had spent his entire life pushing past limits, and this? This was no different.

Except it was.

And the crushing weight of that truth hung between them, suffocating and unspoken. Bruce, the man who had faced down the most ruthless competitors on the track, who had rebuilt entire teams from ashes, found himself paralyzed by the one battle he couldn't strategize his way out of. How do you make a force of nature understand it's been fractured?

Bruce didn't—couldn't—answer. The silence that followed was deafening, thick with everything left unsaid. The heart monitor's steady beep mocked them, a cruel reminder of time moving forward even when Jason's world had screeched to a halt.

Then, like a blade slicing through the tension, Jason spoke again, his voice stripped of its earlier fire, replaced by something colder. “Who did the seat go to?”

It was a logical question. The season hadn't ended with his crash. The circus marched on, the cars kept racing, and the world didn't stop turning just because Jason Todd had been ripped out of his cockpit.

“Tim got the seat.”

Tim Drake. The reigning F2 champion. Bruce's godson. The kid with a mind sharper than a scalpel and reflexes that bordered on preternatural. After his parents' tragic death, Bruce had taken him in, just as he had with Jason. And Jason knew—hated that he knew—Tim was good. Scary good. But potential didn't change the brutal arithmetic of Formula 1: seats were finite. Tim's promotion meant Jason's throne had been filled before he'd even left the ICU.

Before the crash, Jason's teammate had been Cassandra Cain. A prodigy in her own right, the only woman on the grid outside of Themyscira Formula One team—Diana Prince's all-female team, founded to shatter the sport's glass ceiling. Cass had been more than a teammate; she'd become family. Diana herself had tried to poach her, offering a coveted seat in her revolutionary outfit. But Cass had chosen Wayne Racing, loyalty outweighing opportunity. And Jason would sooner set himself on fire again than take her place.

“He's half-baked at best,” Jason spat, the words dripping with acid. His fingers dug into the sheets, knuckles whitening with the force of his grip. “I saw him at testing. He can't do shit.”

Tim Drake was brilliant. A prodigy by any measure, but raw talent wasn't enough in Formula 1 and brilliance didn't erase inexperience. Not when you were thrust into the spotlight mid-season, expected to fill the void left by a living legend. Not when every lap, every turn, every mistake was measured against the ghost of Jason Todd—the youngest champion, the record-breaker, the firebrand who had redefined what it meant to be fearless behind the wheel.

Tim wasn't just racing against the competition. He was racing against a memory. And right now, memory was winning.

Bruce exhaled, slow and measured. “But that doesn't change the fact that you're not ready yet.”

Jason's jaw clenched. “The season's coming to an end. I have plenty of time to train and get back in the game by the time next season rolls around.”

“Jason, but—”

“YOU DON'T GET TO TAKE THIS AWAY FROM ME!”

The roar tore through the room, raw and unfiltered. In a flash of movement, Jason's hand shot out, snatching the call remote from the side of his bed. Before Bruce could react, it was hurled through the air with enough force to shatter the fragile illusion of control Jason had been clinging to.

Bruce sidestepped on instinct, the remote clattering against the wall behind him. But when his gaze snapped back to his son—really looked at him for the first time since entering the room—something in him faltered.

A flinch.

Subtle, involuntary, but there.

Jason saw it. Saw the way Bruce's eyes flickered, the way his breath hitched for the barest fraction of a second. Saw the look in his father's gaze—not just concern, not just frustration, but something far worse.

Revulsion.

Or at least, that's what it felt like.

The realization hit Jason like a lightning. His chest tightened, the anger draining out of him as quickly as it had surged, leaving behind something hollow and brittle.

Bruce Wayne—the man who had faced down the most dangerous corners in the world without blinking, who had stared death in the eye more times than he could count—flinched at the sight of his own son.

And in that moment, Jason understood.

This wasn't just about whether he was ready to race again.

This was about whether he'd ever be seen the same way again.

“Boy Wonder No More?”“Crash Down Bahrain Lane: What It Means for the Champion Team”“Robin Fails to Fly”

The headlines screamed at him from every newsstand, every digital feed, every godforsaken screen in the hospital waiting room. Bold, black letters against stark white backgrounds, each one a dagger twisting deeper into the wound. And beneath them—always beneath them—the same grotesque images: his car wrapped around the barriers, the inferno licking at the sky, the thick plume of smoke staining the Bahraini horizon like an omen.

They had reduced his entire legacy to a single, catastrophic moment.

Three-time world champion. Youngest race winner in history. The driver who had redefined dominance. None of it mattered now. The trophies gathering dust in Wayne Manor's halls, the records that still bore his name, the races where he'd crossed the line with his fist raised in triumph—all of it was trumped by one mistake. One lapse in judgment. One turn taken a fraction too late.

Jason Todd: No longer the Boy Wonder. Now, forevermore, The One Who Died.

The irony wasn't lost on him. He had died—if only for a minute. Flatlined on the table, his heart stubbornly restarting as if to spite the universe itself. But the world didn't care about comebacks. It cared about spectacle. And what was more spectacular than the fall of a golden child?

He was Lucifer, wasn't he? God's most favored son, the brightest of angels, cast down from heaven for the sin of pride. Wings broken, flames licking at his heels as he plummeted into the abyss. Maybe it had always been inevitable. Maybe this was his divine punishment—for daring to believe he was untouchable, for thinking the throne was his by right.

Fall from grace. Fall from his throne. Fall from his rightful spot.

So he trained.

Day and night, through the pain that lanced up his spine with every movement, through the phantom screams of tires that echoed in his dreams. He pushed his body to the brink, then past it, his muscles screaming in protest as he forced them to remember what they'd once been capable of. The rage inside him was a living thing, coiled tight around his ribs, whispering in his ear: Prove them wrong. Make them regret it.

There were days when the fury was all-consuming, a black tide that drowned out reason. Days when he'd catch his reflection—the scars, the hollows under his eyes, the gauntness of a face that had once been called ridiculously pretty—and something inside him would snap. Mirrors shattered under his fists. Posters torn from walls, trophies hurled across rooms, their polished surfaces dented against the hardwood. The boy who had been worshiped now couldn't stand the sight of himself.

Bruce tried. He really did. He threw money at the media, buying silence where he could, burying stories of Jason's outbursts beneath layers of PR spin and legal threats. Staff members who looked at Jason with pity in their eyes found themselves abruptly unemployed. But none of it changed the truth: Bruce Wayne, for all his resources, all his power, didn't know how to fix this.

How do you mend a shattered reputation? How do you rebuild a ghost?

The world had already written Jason Todd's epitaph. Now he had to claw his way out of the grave.

The new season began with a quiet humiliation—Tim Drake, the temporary heir to Jason's throne, was demoted back to F2 with barely a whisper of protest. If anything, the young driver seemed relieved to return to the junior category, away from the suffocating expectations of filling Jason Todd's fireproof shoes.

Jason reclaimed his seat, but not his crown.

The first race back was... acceptable. Mediocre by his old standards, but passable for a man who'd crawled back from death's doorstep. The commentators tiptoed around his performance—“He's shaking off rust,” they said. “The speed will come,” they assured. But Jason heard the unspoken truth beneath their carefully chosen words: the fire that had once made him untouchable had dimmed to embers.

Heavens know how he tried. But no amount of willpower could stop his breath from shortening at corners that reminded him of that turn in Bahrain. No mental gymnastics could prevent his palms from sweating through his gloves when the pack bunched too close. The doctors had a name for it: PTSD-induced panic attacks. Jason had another word for it: weakness.

And weakness had no place in Formula 1.

Race after race, he watched helplessly as rivals streamed past—drivers he'd once dominated now leaving him in their wake. The unthinkable happened in Jeddah: Jason Todd, the boy wonder who'd podiumed here in his rookie year, finished outside the points for the first time since his debut.

The garage wrapped him in cotton-wool encouragement. “You'll get there, J.” “Just need more seat time.” Each well-meaning word landed like a scalpel, peeling back layers of pride to reveal the rot beneath—their pity, their disappointment, their fading belief in the myth of Jason Todd.

He wanted to scream. To tear the fucking garage apart. To make them all see—really see—what this was doing to him. But he stayed silent, letting their hollow encouragement wash over him like acid rain.

The truth was simple: Jason Todd wasn't back. He was just... there. Haunting his own career. And the worst part? He wasn't sure which was more unbearable—the idea that this might be permanent, or the terrifying possibility that the old Jason, the real Jason, had died in that Bahrain crash after all.

Jason leaned heavily against the balcony railing, a cigarette dangling carelessly between his fingers. Below him, the team party roared on—champagne corks popping, laughter ringing through the Wayne Racing hospitality suite. Cass had podiumed at their home race in Gotham, keeping the team's legacy alive where he had failed. He was proud of her. She'd earned this. But pride couldn't fill the hollow space in his chest where ambition used to live.

The nicotine burned his lungs in a way that felt almost comforting. The old Jason—the real Jason—had treated his body like a temple. No alcohol, no junk food, certainly no cigarettes. Every calorie counted, every heartbeat optimized for performance. But that man had died in Bahrain. This new version of him? This one didn't give a damn.

He exhaled slowly, watching the smoke curl into the Gotham night. It was funny, in a twisted way. Every drag brought him back to that moment—the acrid smell of burning carbon fiber, the taste of gasoline and fear. In a world where nothing felt familiar anymore, only the memory of his destruction remained vivid.

“I thought F1 drivers weren't allowed to smoke.”

The voice startled him. He turned to see a young woman swaying slightly, her cocktail sloshing precariously in her hand. She couldn't have been more than mid to early twenties, her designer dress wrinkled from dancing, her makeup smudged at the edges. Some sponsor's daughter, probably. Or a journalist's plus-one.

“You shouldn't be here,” Jason said flatly. “The bar's over there.” He gestured vaguely toward the party without looking at her.

“Smoking is bad for you,” she persisted, ignoring his dismissal. “You're the best of the best. You're supposed to—”

“I'm roadkill, sweetheart.” The words came out harsher than he intended, edged with something bitter. “All charred meat and bones. Ain't nothing special anymore.” He waved the cigarette absently, sending a lazy spiral of smoke her way. “They don't get rid of me ‘cause I've got too much on them to lose.”

For a second, she just blinked at him. Then, with a suddenness that almost made him laugh, she snatched the cigarette from his fingers and flicked it over the railing.

“Hey—!”

“You listen up,” she slurred, jabbing a finger at his chest. “You are Jason fucking Todd. You are literally the coolest.” Her words were drunken, but her conviction was startling. She said it like it was scripture. Like she truly believed it from the bottom of her heart.

“That was before the—”

“NO!”

Her voice cut through the night, sharp and unyielding, all traces of drunken slurring stripped away by sheer frustration. She stepped closer, invading his space, her finger jabbing into his chest with enough force to make him stagger back half a step. The scent of vodka and citrus clung to her breath, but her gaze was startlingly clear—burning with an intensity that pinned him in place.

“Don't you dare give me that.”

Her words struck like a hammer to glass.

“You're still him. It doesn't matter how deep you bury yourself in hate and self-pity, you're still the Jason I know.” Her voice cracked, raw with something that sounded too much like betrayal. “And honestly? You're the best out there is— snap the fuck out of it. And also don’t you dare talk smack about my idol. Because I will fight you for it.”

Normally, Jason would’ve had security drag her away by now. Normally, he wouldn’t tolerate some drunk stranger laying into him like this. But there was nothing normal about tonight.

Because she wasn’t tiptoeing around him. Wasn’t feeding him hollow platitudes or empty encouragement. She was the first person in months who looked at him and didn’t see a cautionary tale—just a man too stubborn to climb out of the hole he dug himself.

And damn if that didn’t terrify him.

Her hands flew to his shoulders, shaking him with a desperation that bordered on violence. “Why do you do this to yourself?” Her voice broke, and suddenly, the anger bled into something else entirely. Tears spilled over, streaking her mascara in inky rivers down her cheeks. The dam broke—great, heaving sobs wracked her frame, her words dissolving into incoherent hiccups.

Jason stood frozen, arms stiff at his sides, utterly unprepared for the emotional hurricane in front of him. He glanced toward the party, grateful the crowd was still oblivious, but the reprieve was short-lived.

Footsteps pounded against the terrace tiles.

Danny, one of his oldest friends, a race mechanic who’d known him since their karting days—burst onto the balcony, breathless and wide-eyed.

The woman whirled, launching herself at Danny with a wail. “Dan-Dan, he—” She jabbed a finger wildly at Jason, her words devolving into unintelligible sniffles.

Danny caught her, steadying her swaying frame. “He what?”

“He’s being mean.”

Jason’s hands flew up in surrender. “I didn’t do anything to her!”

Danny’s gaze flicked between them, bewildered. “To whom?”

“To himself!” she wailed, fresh tears erupting. “Tell him to stop!”

Realization dawned on Danny’s face, followed swiftly by mortification. He squeezed his eyes shut, exhaling through his nose like a man praying for patience.

“Toddster, I am so sorry for her behavior,” he muttered, already maneuvering her toward the door. “Please forgive her.”

Jason barely had time to process before Danny hauled her away, her protests fading into the din of the party.

The balcony was silent again.

Jason stared at the empty space where they’d stood.

What the hell just happened?

The next race weekend arrived with an unexpected turn—Jason clawed his way past the midfield, securing a respectable finish that, while nowhere near his former glory, at least silenced the whispers of his inevitable decline. The garage hummed with cautious optimism, the tension easing just enough for Dick to crack a joke, for the engineers to clap him on the back without that lingering hesitation. It was progress.

But Jason's mind wasn't on the race.

It was on her.

That drunken, furious woman who'd screamed at him like he was worth the effort. Her words had burrowed under his skin, festering like a splinter he couldn't dig out. “You're still the Jason I know.” The worst part? She'd said it like she meant it. Like she'd seen him—really seen him—through the wreckage of Bahrain and still believed in whatever of himself remained.

He'd resigned himself to never seeing her again.

Until the broadcast screens flashed her face.

There she was—no smudged mascara, no vodka-induced haze—standing trackside with a microphone in hand, interviewing the podium finishers with effortless charm. The realization hit him like a missed gear shift: she wasn't just some random party crasher. She was one of the presenters. And now that he really looked, he did recognize her. Not just from the balcony, but from the periphery of his world for months. Lingering near Danny in the garage, passing through the paddock with a press badge. He'd been too consumed by his own spiral to notice.

His curiosity flared.

He watched her wrap up the interview, then slip toward the back of the garage—a restricted area for presenters. Equipment rooms weren't on the media tour. Even if she was connected to Danny, she had no business there.

For the sake of the company, Jason told himself, and followed.

The equipment room was dim, cluttered with spare parts and toolkits. She was already inside, rummaging through a duffel bag that looked suspiciously personal.

“Looking for something, miss?”

She whirled, clutching the bag to her chest like a shield. “I-I wasn't snooping, I swear! I just came to get my bag—”

“Yes, of course,” Jason said, leaning against the doorframe with a smirk. “And about that night on the terrace...”

Her face drained of color, lips parting slightly as if she couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. “I'm so sorry, really,” she stammered, her fingers tightening around the strap of her bag. “I understand if you want to press charges, but just know I—”

“Actually,” Jason interrupted, his voice softer than she'd ever heard it, “I wanted to thank you.”

She blinked. Once. Twice. “What.”

It wasn't a question—it was pure, unfiltered disbelief, the kind that left her rooted to the spot, staring at him like he'd just spoken in tongues.

Jason exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck in a rare show of vulnerability. The movement was almost self-conscious, as if he wasn't entirely sure how to navigate this moment either. “You were right,” he admitted, the words rough but sincere. “About... all of it.”

His gaze lifted to hers, bracing for the pity he'd grown so accustomed to seeing in people's eyes. But it wasn't there. Instead, he found something far more disarming—wary confusion, yes, but beneath it, a flicker of something that might've been hope. Or maybe just surprise that he hadn't thrown her out of the garage yet.

Silence stretched between them, thick and charged.

Then, as if her brain had finally caught up with the absurdity of the situation, she blurted: “So... you're not gonna press charges? Or slap me with a lawsuit that would probably cost more than everything I own and land me in jail?” The words tumbled out in a rush, her hands gesturing wildly. “Because, honestly, I've been mentally preparing for that exact scenario for the past week, and—”

Jason laughed.

Not the hollow, humorless sound he'd been making for the past year, but a real, genuine laugh—the kind that caught even him off guard. It rumbled deep in his chest, startlingly warm in the dim light of the equipment room.

“Not today, sweetheart,” he said, shaking his head. Then, with a smirk that was equal parts challenge and invitation: “But if you're feeling that guilty, you could make it up to me by keeping me company over dinner.”

The woman looked like she was about to faint.

Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “You—what?”

Jason arched a brow. “You heard me.”

“You're asking me to dinner?”

“Unless you'd prefer the lawsuit?”

She stared at him, torn between disbelief and the dawning realization that he was, in fact, serious. And then—slowly, hesitantly—the corners of her lips curled upward. “You're insane.”

Jason grinned. “Yeah. Thought you knew that already. So what's the verdict?”

She exhaled, shaking her head as if she couldn't believe her own answer. “...Fine. Better than a ruined career I suppose.”

“That's the spirit,” Jason said, pushing off the doorframe. “Now, you gonna tell me your name, or am I just supposed to keep calling you ‘the drunk girl who yelled at me’ in my head?”

“Oh my god,” She groaned, covering her face with her hands.

The moment Jason’s manager contacted her after their encounter in the equipment room, reality hit like a sudden downpour at a race—unexpected and impossible to ignore. A sleek car would arrive at her doorstep at 7 PM sharp, the message stated, its tone leaving no room for negotiation.

Her heart hammered against her ribs, caught between exhilaration and sheer terror.

What if this was all an elaborate trap?

The thought circled her mind like a vulture. Maybe Jason Todd had taken offense to her drunken tirade, and this dinner was simply a prelude to legal annihilation—a chance to personally serve her with a lawsuit that would bankrupt her and tarnish her fledgling career before it even took off. The possibilities were endless, and none of them comforting.

But beneath the anxiety, a traitorous spark of anticipation flickered.

Because it was Jason Todd.

Three-time world champion. The man whose posters had adorned her walls as a teenager. The driver whose career she’d followed with near-religious devotion long before she ever stepped foot in the paddock as a presenter. And now? Now she was supposed to sit across from him at a dinner table without combusting from sheer nerves.

Outfit crisis imminent.

As a presenter, her wardrobe was extensive—filled with sleek blazers, tailored dresses, and enough heels to make a fashion blogger weep. But suddenly, nothing felt sufficient. Too formal? Too casual? Too try-hard? She stood frozen in front of her closet, hands buried in her hair, as the existential dread mounted.

“Steph. Help.”

The phone call to Stephanie Brown—her closest friend and a rising star in the motorsports styling world—was nothing short of a distress signal.

“I have a very, very, very important dinner today, and I have nothing to wear. What do I do? Should I just die? God, I can’t do this. I—”

“Woah, woah, easy, girl,” Steph interrupted, her voice a calming anchor amidst the storm. “I caught ‘dinner,’ ‘important,’ and ‘nothing to wear’—that correct?” A muffled sound followed, then Steph’s sharp, “Tim, stop that—”

“Uh-huh,” she confirmed, nodding vigorously out of habit despite Steph’s inability to see her. “Also, tell Tim congratulations for his podium. I was going to catch up with you guys, but you’d already flown out.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Steph sighed. “Tim just couldn’t wait to get some ‘me time’ at home.” The unspoken eye roll was almost audible.

“That’s okay. It’s understandable.”

“See? Y/N gets it!” Tim’s voice chirped in the background, smug.

“Shut up, Timothy,” Steph snapped. “Ain’t nobody asked yo ass.” What followed was a familiar symphony of bickering— a dynamic so ingrained it nearly made her smile despite her panic.

“Steph! Dinner!” she interjected before the couple could fully derail.

“Oh, right.” Steph’s tone shifted back to business. “Let’s see—is this like a professional ‘don’t fuck with me’ dinner? Or a ‘I lowkey wanna bang you’ dinner? Or a ‘this could’ve been an email’ dinner?”

The blunt categorization forced a laugh out of her, but the truth was far more complicated. “It’s a ‘please don’t kill me and my career’ dinner,” she confessed, voice small.

A beat of silence. Then—

“Y/N,” Steph said slowly, “What did you do?”

“Fucked up big time.” The admission came out in a rush, followed by Tim’s audible “Ooh,” in the background.

“Shut up, Tim!” Both girls barked in unison, effectively silencing the young driver.

Steph’s sigh was long-suffering. “Alright. First, breathe. Second, we’re fixing this. But you owe me the full story later.”

Y/N had stood in the presence of racing legends before - interviewed world champions with champagne still dripping from their hair, exchanged banter with team principals who controlled billion-dollar empires, even moderated press conferences where the tension between rival drivers could have powered the entire paddock. Yet none of those experiences could compare to the visceral, gut-churning nerves currently twisting her stomach into knots as the luxury car glided toward the restaurant.

It was ironic really. She'd interacted with Jason Todd quite a few times in professional settings - the obligatory media day interviews, the post-race scrums where she'd lobbed softball questions about tire strategy and a couple more here and there. Those encounters should have made this easier. Familiarity should have bred comfort.

But this wasn't a media event with carefully scripted questions and PR handlers monitoring every word. This was dinner. Intimate. Unfiltered. Just two people and whatever uncomfortable truths might surface between the appetizer and dessert.

Before that disastrous night on the terrace, she would have sold her soul for this opportunity - a private audience with the man whose racing prowess had inspired her career path. Now? Now she fantasized about the floor opening up beneath her. The cruel twist of fate wasn't just that Jason Todd finally knew she existed - it was that he knew her as the drunken harpy who'd screamed at him like some deranged fangirl.

Her fingers plucked nervously at the burgundy tulle of her dress, the delicate fabric whispering with every fidget. Stephanie had insisted this was the perfect choice - “It says ‘I’m too sexy to kill, so please don't ruin my career’,” she'd declared while wrestling Y/N into the designer garment through the phone. The color was no accident either: Jason's signature shade, the one that adorned his helmet and racing suit. A subtle homage or a desperate plea for mercy? She wasn't sure anymore.

The car slowed as they approached their destination - one of those impossibly exclusive restaurants where the maître d' could spot an impostor from fifty paces. The kind of establishment where reservations required connections more than money, though God knew there'd be plenty of both behind these doors. Y/N had walked past places like this her whole life, never imagining she'd actually enter one - certainly not under these circumstances.

Through the tinted windows, the restaurant's facade glowed like some temple of the elite, its polished brass and artfully distressed oak radiating quiet money and old-world power. The sort of place where Bruce Wayne might hold court in a private dining room while discussing billion-dollar deals between courses.

Her throat went dry. Against the combined might of Wayne Enterprises and Jason Todd's racing fortune, she was utterly insignificant. A single ill-advised outburst could vaporize not just her career, but Danny's position at the team too. The weight of that realization settled over her like a lead apron as the car door opened, releasing her into the lion's den.

The maître d' didn't even check the reservation list. One glance at her and he was nodding deferentially. “Mr. Todd's guest. Right this way.”

Her heels clicked against the marble floor like a countdown to judgment. Somewhere in this temple of haute cuisine, Jason Todd waited and Y/N wasn't sure whether to beg for forgiveness or prepare for war. The ambient chatter of the elite patrons seemed to fade into a distant hum as her eyes scanned the dimly lit dining room, searching for the one face that had haunted her thoughts since that disastrous balcony confrontation.

And then she saw him.

Jason Todd sat bathed in the warm glow of an artfully placed spotlight, looking every bit the racing royalty he was. The crisp lines of his tailored shirt—a deep burgundy that matched her dress with embarrassing precision—stretched across his broad shoulders, the top button undone just enough to reveal the faintest glimpse of the scars that marred his collarbone and running up his neck. His dark hair was slightly tousled, as if he'd run his fingers through it one too many times in frustration and the ghost of a smirk played at the corner of his lips as he watched her approach.

“Wasn't aware there was a dress code,” he remarked dryly, his voice laced with amusement as his gaze flickered pointedly between her dress and his own shirt.

Y/N felt the heat rise to her cheeks, turning her face the same shade as the offending fabric. Goddammit, Stephanie.

“It's a coincidence,” she muttered, sliding into the plush chair opposite him with all the grace of a startled deer. Her eyes darted anywhere but at him—studying the intricate pattern of the tablecloth, the way the candlelight reflected off the polished silverware, the distant exit sign she was sorely tempted to bolt toward.

Jason chuckled lowly, the sound sending an unwelcome shiver down her spine. “I know I ain’t much to look at, but you don’t need to make it so obvious,” he teased, accepting the leather-bound menu from the waiter with a nod of thanks.

Her head snapped up at that, indignation momentarily overriding her embarrassment. “What? No! You're gorgeous—”

The words tumbled out unchecked, her filter obliterated by sheer panic.

Jason froze, the menu hovering mid-air as his eyebrows shot up in surprise. A slow, dangerously smug grin spread across his face. “I see,” he drawled, the teasing lilt in his voice making her want to vault over the table and strangle him—or maybe herself.

Mortified, Y/N yanked the menu up like a shield, pressing the cool leather against her burning face. You're so done, Y/N, her inner voice screamed at her, equal parts horrified and exasperated.

From behind her makeshift barricade, she heard Jason let out a huff that oddly sounded like a laugh—the kind that vibrated through his chest and made her traitorous stomach flip. “You planning to order from behind there or should I just guess what you want?”

She groaned, the sound muffled by the menu. It trembled slightly in Y/N's grip as she fought to regain control of her traitorous tongue. The embossed letters blurred before her eyes— foie gras, truffle-infused something, caviar that probably cost more than her monthly rent. None of it registered.

The candle between them cast flickering shadows across the sharp planes of his face, highlighting the faint scar that bisected his left eyebrow— a souvenir from his early racing days that no media outlet had ever gotten the full story on.

“It's a bold strategy,” Jason mused, leaning back in his chair with the effortless grace of someone completely at home in this world of white tablecloths and thousand-dollar bottles of wine. “First you scream at me drunk, now you're trying to suffocate yourself with the menu. I'm starting to think you've got a death wish, doll.”

Y/N finally dropped the menu with a defeated thud. “I was hoping for spontaneous combustion actually,” she admitted, reaching for her water glass with only the slightest tremor in her fingers. “Seems more dignified than whatever this is.”

Jason's laughter rang out, unfiltered and unguarded. It transformed his face completely - the harsh lines of trauma and exhaustion momentarily smoothed away, revealing the more of the boyish charmer who'd taken the racing world by storm years ago, almost making Y/N's heart stagger.

“But you know,” He said swirling the liquid in his glass with deliberate nonchalance, “most people who think I'm going to ruin their careers don't compliment me quite so... enthusiastically.”

The ice cubes clinked mockingly as he took a sip.

“I was being polite,” Y/N lied through clenched teeth, surrendering her menu shield to the hovering waiter.

“Polite would've been ‘you clean up nice.’ But ‘Gorgeous’?” He leaned forward slightly, the candlelight catching the gold flecks in his otherwise stormy eyes. “That's the kind of word that makes a man think dangerous thoughts.”

The waiter chose that moment to reappear with their first course - some delicate arrangement of edible flowers and microgreens that looked more like a museum installation than food. Y/N seized the distraction like a lifeline, stabbing at her plate with slightly more force than necessary.

“Careful,” Jason murmured, watching her assault on the defenseless appetizer. “That fork's not one of my sponsors.” Y/N shrugged and muttered something unintelligble before continuning with the same.

“Christ, you’re something else,” he said, shaking his head as he signaled the sommelier. When he turned back, his expression had shifted into something more contemplative. “Look, let's get one thing straight - you're not here because I'm planning to sue you into oblivion.”

The waiter arrived with the wine list before she could respond. Jason barely glanced at it. “The '89 Margaux,” he said automatically, then paused. “Unless you'd prefer something else?”

Y/N blinked. That particular Bordeaux cost more than what she made in a month. “The... the Margaux is perfect,” she managed, watching as Jason nodded dismissal to the waiter.

When they were alone again, he leaned forward, elbows resting on the table. The movement caused his shirt to pull tight across his shoulders, and Y/N suddenly found the stem of her water glass fascinating.

“I asked you here,” Jason continued, voice dropping into a more serious register, “because you were the first person in a year who didn't treat me like either a ticking time bomb or a broken trophy.” His fingers traced the rim of his glass absentmindedly.

The raw honesty in his words stole Y/N's breath. This wasn't the carefully curated media persona or the angry driver she'd confronted on the balcony. This was Jason Todd stripped bare— vulnerable in a way she'd never imagined seeing.

Her professional instincts warred with something far more personal. “I saw someone who needed to get his head out of his ass,” she said before she could stop herself, then immediately winced. “Sorry, that was-”

“No,” Jason interrupted, that ghost of a smile returning. “That's exactly it. It was... refreshing. Let's just say it helped me think differently.” His fingers tapped a restless rhythm against the tablecloth. “And I'd like to thank you for that.”

Y/N nodded slowly, taking a deliberate sip of her wine to buy time. The rich, oaky flavor bloomed across her tongue. “You're welcome, I suppose,” she murmured, the rim of the glass muffling her words slightly.

An awkward silence settled between them, punctuated only by the distant clink of silverware and the muted conversations of other diners. Jason's gaze drifted to the window where Gotham's skyline glittered against the night sky, his expression unreadable.

“You know,” he said suddenly, turning back to her with renewed focus, “you're free to make conversation with me. It's more entertaining than most people I talk to.”

The challenge in his tone sparked something in Y/N. She tilted her head, considering him for a long moment before asking, “So what do you do when you're not racing?”

It was a genuine question - one she'd always wondered about. In every interview she'd ever watched or conducted with Jason Todd, the conversation inevitably circled back to racing strategies, training regimens, or future competitions. His social media showed nothing but carefully curated content - podium finishes, sponsor events, the occasional vacation photo that still somehow related to racing. There was never any glimpse of who Jason Todd might be when he stepped away from the track.

Jason opened his mouth automatically. “Um, I usually train or go over my past races, analyze data, study tracks—”

“No,” Y/N interrupted gently but firmly. “I mean outside of racing. You've pretty much dedicated all of you to racing, but who is Jason Todd outside of that?”

The question seemed to catch him off guard. His fingers stilled against the tablecloth, and for the first time that evening, the ever-present confidence in his posture faltered slightly. The silence stretched between them, growing heavier with each passing second.

Jason's brow furrowed as he stared into his wine glass, as if the answer might be hidden in its depths. When he finally looked up, there was something unsettlingly vulnerable in his expression.

He paused, then continued with a soft huff of self-deprecating laughter, “I mean I used to read.” The admission came slowly, dragged up from some long-buried place in his memory. “Before races. History, mostly.” A faint, nostalgic smile touched his lips. “There was... there was something about empires rising and falling that put the whole 'will I qualify P1 or P2' thing in perspective.”

Y/N found herself leaning forward without realizing it. This was new territory - an actual glimpse behind the carefully constructed media persona. The Jason Todd of press conferences and interviews was all sharp edges and racing statistics, a human embodiment of competitive drive. This Jason? This one had layers.

“And now?” she asked softly, her voice barely above a whisper, afraid to break the fragile moment.

Jason's thumb traced slow circles around the base of his glass, his gaze distant. “Now I...” The sentence trailed off into silence, his brow furrowing deeper. When he spoke again, his voice had taken on a rougher edge, the words tinged with something like self-reproach. “Christ, you're right. There isn't a Jason Todd outside of racing. Hasn't been for a long time.”

Y/N could see the moment of realization hitting him, could practically see the wheels turning in his head as he confronted this truth about himself. The way his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, the slight narrowing of his eyes - she recognized the signs of someone spiraling inward with uncomfortable self-examination.

Seeking to lighten the mood before it turned too heavy, she quipped, “For someone who just admitted he has no life outside racing, you're doing a terrible job of convincing me to take this dinner seriously as a networking opportunity.”

The tension shattered as Jason barked out a surprised laugh that made the waiters look curiously. “Fuck you,” he shot back, but there was no real venom in it - just a warmth that softened the edges of his usual sharp demeanor. He speared a bite of his appetizer with more force than necessary, the action betraying his lingering discomfort with the direction of their conversation. “Fine. Next time I'll lie. Tell you I breed rare orchids or some shit.”

“Next time?” Y/N raised an eyebrow, her own fork hovering mid-air as she caught the implication.

Jason froze for a fraction of a second, then recovered with a shrug that was far too studied to be casual. “Figure of speech.” But the way his eyes darted briefly away, the slight tightening at the corners of his mouth, told a different story entirely.

Y/N deadpanned, “You just admitted your entire identity is wrapped up in going fast in circles. That means we've got our work cut out for us.”

“'We'?” Jason latched onto the word with surprising quickness, his tone dripping with exaggerated sarcasm though something in his eyes betrayed genuine curiosity. “As in you want to accompany me in this grand journey of self-discovery?” The question was framed as rhetorical, but there was an undercurrent of something more - a quiet hope that surprised even him.

Y/N smiled at his characteristic sarcastic flair, recognizing the defense mechanism for what it was. “That depends on you, Mr. Todd,” she replied, matching his tone but letting her amusement show through.

Jason regarded her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. “I suppose it does,” he finally conceded, the words neither a confirmation nor denial, but something intriguingly in between.

The sleek black town car had glided through the city's rain-slicked streets in near silence, the hum of the engine the only sound as Jason’s chauffeur navigated the late-night traffic. Y/N had sat stiffly in the plush leather seat, fingers twisting in her lap, replaying every moment of the evening in her head. Jason had been... different than she expected. Not the brooding, closed-off champion the media painted him as, but someone sharper, wittier—someone who had actually laughed at her jokes.

When the car finally pulled up to her apartment building, she had thanked the driver with a polite smile, maintaining her composure right up until the moment her front door clicked shut behind her.

Then her knees gave out.

She slid down the length of the door until she hit the floor, back pressed against the wood, heart hammering so hard she could feel it in her throat. A giddy, disbelieving laugh bubbled up, followed immediately by a wave of sheer panic.

She needed to talk to someone. Now.

Stephanie picked up the video call on the second ring, her face already alight with curiosity. “Okay, so how did it go?”

Y/N opened her mouth—and promptly burst into tears. Stephanie’s eyes widened as Y/N devolved into a babbling, incoherent mess, words tumbling out between hiccuping sobs.

“I can’t understand shit,” Stephanie said, leaning closer to the screen. “Are these happy tears or sad?”

“Seems happy to me,” Tim chimed in from somewhere off-camera. “Happy?” Stephanie repeated, narrowing her eyes. “What the hell happened? You’re acting like Jason Todd took you on a date or something.”

Y/N froze.

Then, slowly, she looked up at Stephanie through her lashes, her lips quirking into a sheepish smile. “I mean—” A giggle escaped, high-pitched and entirely involuntary.

Stephanie’s expression morphed into pure shock. “Hol’up, bitch. What do you mean by ‘I mean’? Whatchu teehee’ing for?” she shrieked, loud enough that Y/N had to pull the phone away from her ear.

“Y/N went on a date with who now?” Tim’s voice floated into frame as he leaned over Stephanie’s shoulder, eyebrows raised.

“That’s why I just asked her, dipshit,” Stephanie snapped, shoving him away.

“It wasn’t a date,” Y/N insisted, though the way she twirled a strand of hair around her finger betrayed her. “I mean, it was one in my head, but that doesn’t matter.”

Stephanie’s jaw dropped. “What the fuck do you mean by that?”

Y/N snapped out of her daze, straightening up as the full weight of the evening came crashing back. Words poured out of her in a frantic, breathless rush—Jason’s unexpected dinner invitation, the way he’d actually listened to her, the way his smirk had softened into something dangerously close to genuine amusement.

Stephanie’s reaction was instantaneous. “Jason FUCKING Todd? As in three-time world champion Jason Todd? The guy who hasn’t been seen in public outside of races for like a year? The same Jason Todd whose poster you had above your bed and wrote like a thousand fanfictions about in high school and college? The one who’s—”

“Steph! That was years ago!” Y/N’s face burned so hot she was surprised her phone didn’t melt.

From the background, Tim’s voice piped up again, smug. “Wait, Y/N had a crush on Ja—”

“TIMOTHY DRAKE, IF YOU DON’T SHUT YOUR MOUTH RIGHT NOW I SWEAR TO GOD—”

A scuffle ensued, followed by a yelp and the sound of something—or someone—being forcibly silenced.

Y/N buried her face in her hands, groaning.

Then her phone chimed.

A text.

From an unknown number.

Her stomach dropped. With trembling fingers, she opened the message.

Unknown: So when do we start?

Y/N let out a strangled scream and threw her phone across the room like it had burned her.

“Y/N? HELLO? WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?” Stephanie’s voice screeched from the discarded device. Y/N scrambled to retrieve it, her voice pitching into hysterics. “H-he just texted me. What do I do? What do I DO?”

She collapsed back onto the floor, biting her fist to muffle another scream.

Y/N's phone continued to blare Stephanie's increasingly frantic voice from where it had landed face-up on the rug. She stared at it like it might explode, her entire body frozen in panic.

Jason Todd had her number.

Jason Todd had texted her.

Jason Todd was somehow already ruining her ability to function like a normal human being.

Stephanie's pixelated face twisted in exasperation on the screen. “Y/N, I swear to god if you don't pick up this phone right now—”

With trembling fingers, Y/N grabbed the device, her wide-eyed reflection staring back at her in the front camera. “Steph,” she whispered hoarsely. “What do I say?”

Stephanie opened her mouth—probably to deliver one of her famously unhinged pep talks—when Tim suddenly shouldered his way back into frame, his grin downright diabolical.

“Say yes, obviously.”

“TIM—”

“No, listen,” he barreled on, ignoring Stephanie's death grip on his arm. “Jason doesn't text people. Like, ever. Dick had to bribe him just to answer group chats. If he's reaching out first? That's basically a declaration of—”

Stephanie clamped a hand over his mouth. “What my handsome yet unburdened by intelligence boyfriend is trying to say is,” she said through gritted teeth, “that you should reply before you psych yourself out of it. Also, tim don't spout bull, she's plenty delulu as it is.”

Y/N's thumb hovered over the screen. The cursor blinked mockingly in the text box.

Unknown: So when do we start?

She swallowed hard.

This was Jason Todd. The same Jason Todd who had once flipped off an entire grandstand after a controversial penalty. The same Jason Todd whose post-race interviews were legendary for their sarcasm and barely-contained rage. The same Jason Todd who had just admitted he had no identity outside of racing—and was now asking her to help him find one.

Her fingers moved before she could overthink it.

Y/N: Depends. Are we starting with book recommendations or full-blown personality reconstruction with something more hands-on?

The reply came almost instantly.

Jason: Never been the one to back out from a challenge. So what's it gonna be doll?

Y/N's breath hitched. She could practically hear his voice in her head, that low, teasing drawl that had made her stomach flip more than once during dinner.

“Steph,” she blurted out, turning back to her still-active video call where Stephanie and Tim were watching this unfold with rapt attention. “Suggestions. Fast. Something I can take Jason to.”

Stephanie's grin was instantaneous. “Oh, I know you're not about to drag Jason Todd into one of your hyperfixation hobbies.”

“Good idea and that I absolutely will.”

Stephanie snorted. “Well, you could take him to that artisan ceramics workshop with the old Italian nonnas you're obsessed with. Or that dance class you signed up for in Barcelona last year.”

One thing about Y/N: she happened to be on the ADHD spectrum and every Grand Prix weekend in a new country had become an opportunity to dive headfirst into a new hobby. From pottery in Italy to flamenco dancing in Spain, her restless mind latching onto anything that could provide that sweet, sweet dopamine hit. It made her the perfect person to help Jason Todd find something—anything—that wasn't racing. Collecting herself, Y/N typed back with renewed determination:

Y/N: Give me a country, and I'll tell you what we're doing.

Jason: Race in Imola in two days.

Y/N: So Italy it is.

Excitement buzzed under Y/N's skin. Imola. The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. And now, the backdrop for whatever this was becoming.

Across the world, in a private jet en route to Italy, Jason found himself staring at his phone with an unfamiliar feeling in his chest. For the first time in years, he was looking forward to something that wasn't a race.

Their messages continued late into the night—Y/N enthusiastically listing every obscure Italian hobby she'd tried, Jason responding with dry humor that slowly melted into genuine interest. He didn't even realize when the tension in his shoulders began to ease, when the ever-present anger that had fueled him since his return started to fade, replaced by something lighter. Something like anticipation.

In just a span of two days, his phone was filled with ridiculous stickers, mostly consisting of a concerning number of cat memes and a plan for their first “non-racing activity.” His phone buzzed again—another meme from Y/N, this time a photoshopped image of Bruce Wayne with cat ears next to an actual grumpy Persian. Jason snorted, thumb hovering over the keyboard to reply, when a quiet voice interrupted.

“Jason, can we talk?”

Cass's voice cut through the controlled chaos of the garage, where mechanics buzzed around the car like worker bees. Jason slipped his phone into his pocket, though not before Cass caught a glimpse of his screen— the ridiculous meme Y/N had sent him.

“Sure, Cass. What's up?” he said, turning to face her.

Cass studied him for a long moment, her dark eyes perceptive as ever. “You've been... different.”

Jason stiffened. Different. Did that mean distracted? Unfocused? Cass was one of the few people who had never treated him like glass after the accident, never looked at him with pity. If she said he'd changed—

But then Cass's lips quirked. “You smile more.”

Jason blinked.

“And you keep checking your phone,” she added, nodding to his pocket, where another notification had just buzzed. “Whoever they are... I like them.”

Jason opened his mouth—to protest, to deflect—but found he didn't want to. Instead, a slow, unguarded smile spread across his face.

“Yeah,”

he admitted, pulling out his phone to see Y/N's latest message.

Y/N: Pack something you don't mind getting messy. We're starting with ceramics tomorrow.

“Me too.”

Jason stood frozen outside the unassuming ceramics studio, his boots scuffing against the worn cobblestones as he double-checked the address. The building looked like something out of a postcard—sun-bleached terracotta walls draped in lush ivy, the faint scent of lemon trees mingling with the earthy aroma of clay from the open windows. A hand-painted wooden sign swung gently in the breeze, its blue door chipped with age.

He glanced at his watch—10:02 AM. He was late.

Not that it mattered, he told himself. This wasn’t a race briefing or a sponsor meeting. Just... an odd detour into unfamiliar territory.

The street was blessedly empty, tucked away in the city’s historic district where tourists rarely wandered. Jason exhaled slowly, rolling his shoulders to ease the tension coiled there. These days, being recognized outside the paddock meant one of two things—either starstruck fans shoving phones in his face, or pitying glances from those who remembered the crash. He hated both reactions equally.

His outfit felt foreign against his skin—a lightweight linen shirt layered over his usual thin turtleneck, loose trousers instead of fireproof racing gear, boots that had never touched a garage floor. The fabric moved differently, unrestrictive in ways his racing suits never were.

Jason raised his fist and knocked twice on the weathered blue door.

The door flew open before his knuckles could make contact a third time.

“Ah! Finalmente!”

A tiny, silver-haired woman—Nonna Gianna, he presumed—grabbed his wrist with surprising strength and yanked him inside before he could protest. The studio was cooler than the sunlit street, the air thick with the mineral scent of wet clay and something herbal—maybe thyme or rosemary from the small kitchen in the back.

“You are il ragazzo who knows nothing, sì?” Gianna declared, her dark eyes scanning him with the same intensity engineers used when inspecting a damaged chassis.

Jason opened his mouth to argue—he’d mastered the most complex racing circuits in the world, surely he could handle some clay—but she was already dragging him past shelves of glazed pottery, their surfaces catching the morning light filtering through the windows.

The back room was bathed in golden sunlight from the open roof and thin shades, the hum of a spinning pottery wheel filling the air. And there—

Y/N sat at the wheel, her hands buried in a mound of wet clay that spun hypnotically under her fingers. She’d traded her usual paddock attire for a linen shirt that matched his own—though hers was already streaked with earthy smudges—her hair tied back with a vibrant scarf. And a smudge of clay decorated her cheek.

“Wasn’t aware there was a dress code,” she quipped without looking up, her voice laced with amusement.

Jason blinked, momentarily thrown by the quip and the sight of her—so at ease here, so different from the polished presenter or the drunk socialite he saw earlier. But before he could respond, Gianna shoved him toward the empty wheel beside Y/N’s.

“Bello ma stupido,” the old woman muttered, patting his bicep approvingly before grabbing his hands to inspect them. “Strong hands,” she announced, turning them palm-up like a fortune teller. “Good for clay.” Her smile was slightly unnerving—the kind usually reserved for fresh meat in a lion’s den.

Jason, who had faced down the most intimidating team principals and aggressive reporters without flinching, felt an odd prickle of nerves under her scrutiny. “I’ll... try my best?”

Gianna snorted and slapped a wet lump of clay onto his wheel with a decisive thwap. “Non provare. Do it.”

For the next two hours, Jason Todd—three-time world champion, master of precision—was thoroughly humbled by a lump of wet earth.

His first attempt collapsed inward like a deflating balloon. His second wobbled violently before spiraling off-center. His third attempt earned him a sharp rap on the knuckles with Gianna’s wooden spoon when he gripped the clay too tightly.

“Troppa forza!” she scolded. “Clay is not enemy! You fight it, it fights back.”

Y/N muffled a laugh into her shoulder, her own wheel producing something suspiciously vase-shaped. “She’s right, you know,” she said, pushing back a stray strand from her forehead with her wrist. “It’s about listening, not controlling.”

Jason glared at his latest failed attempt, the clay stubbornly refusing to obey him the way his car always did. “I’m used to things responding immediately when I tell them what to do.”

Y/N’s grin was downright wicked. “Welcome to the real world, hotshot.”

He flicked a bit of clay at her. She gasped in mock outrage and retaliated by smearing a streak across his cheek, her fingers lingering just a second too long. Gianna threw her hands up and muttered something in rapid Italian before stomping off.

By the session’s end, his shirt was thoroughly ruined, patience exhausted and—against all odds—he’d somehow produced something vaguely cup-shaped.

“Non male,” Gianna conceded, examining his lopsided creation with a critical eye. “For first try.” She turned to Y/N and said something that made the younger woman nearly drop her perfectly formed vase.

Jason wiped his clay-caked hands on a towel. “What’d she say?”

Y/N refused to meet his eyes. “Nothing important.”

The warm afternoon sunlight streamed through the studio’s windows as Gianna’s cackling faded into the distance, leaving Jason and Y/N alone at their worktable. Jason found his gaze tracing the details of Y/N’s profile—the way her nose scrunched in concentration when examining their pottery, the smudge of clay drying along her collarbone that she’d missed when cleaning up. He noticed how her shoulders curved slightly forward when focused, the golden chain around her neck catching the light with each movement. A glimpse of ink at the base of her neck peeked through her hair—some tattoo he couldn’t quite make out, its meaning hidden just like so much about her still remained unknown to him.

It struck him then how rarely he noticed these small things about people. In the paddock, he saw drivers as competitors, engineers as problem-solvers, journalists as obstacles to navigate. But Y/N—he was seeing her in fragments, piece by unexpected piece, and each discovery left him strangely curious for more.

As Y/N carefully carried their creations to the kiln, Jason wiped his clay-streaked hands on a towel. The studio’s elderly owner reappeared at his side, moving with surprising stealth for someone who’d just been cackling moments before.

“Tu e Y/N,” Gianna began, her dark eyes twinkling with mischief. “Da quanto tempo vi frequentate?”

Jason blinked. “Pardon? Uh, signora um... non parlo italiano.”

Gianna’s wrinkled face scrunched in concentration as she searched for the right English words, then gave up with an exasperated wave of her hands. Instead, she brought her pinched fingers together in the universal sign for kissing.

Jason’s eyes widened comically. “No, no, me and Y/N—not like that,” he protested, waving his hands in denial.

“Non?” Gianna looked genuinely surprised. “Ma l’ultima volta che l’ho vista eri nello sfondo del suo telefono.”

Jason stared blankly, the rapid Italian washing over him without comprehension. Before he could respond, Y/N returned, immediately picking up on the tension.

“Hey, you okay?” she asked, tilting her head at Jason’s bewildered expression.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it,” Jason muttered, suddenly finding the clay remnants on the table fascinating.

Gianna said something rapid-fire to Y/N, who laughed and shook her head before turning back to Jason. “She said we can fix ourselves a meal in her kitchen if we want while the pots bake. What do you say?”

Jason automatically shook his head. “Thanks for the offer, but I have to strictly watch what I eat.”

Y/N groaned dramatically, throwing her head back. “Jay, look. It’s two weeks before the next race. One sandwich won’t destroy you.” She clasped her hands together in mock pleading. “And Gianna makes her own cheese! With goat milk from her nephew’s farm. Pretty please?”

The way she said it—the exaggerated pout, the way her eyes sparkled with challenge, the way she said his name—stirred something in Jason. He’d spent years following nutrition plans to the gram, never deviating, never indulging. But standing there, with clay under his nails and Y/N looking at him like that, the strict rules he’d lived by suddenly felt less important.

“Fine,” he conceded, holding up a warning finger. “One sandwich.”

Y/N’s triumphant grin was worth whatever lecture his nutritionist would give him later. As Gianna led them toward the small kitchen in the back, chattering away in Italian, Jason realized with startling clarity that for the first time in years, he wasn’t thinking about macros or race weight.

He was simply... enjoying himself.

The small kitchen was warm and fragrant, filled with the earthy scent of baking bread and the sharp tang of fresh herbs. Sunlight streamed through the lace curtains, casting delicate patterns across the worn wooden counter where Y/N stood, her hands deftly slicing into a crusty loaf of sourdough. The rhythmic sound of the knife against the cutting board filled the comfortable silence between them.

Jason leaned against the counter nearby, watching as she worked. There was something mesmerizing about the way she moved—practical yet graceful, her fingers sure and steady as she portioned the bread. The quiet domesticity of the moment felt foreign to him, like stepping into a scene from a life he’d never allowed himself to imagine.

Then Y/N glanced up, her eyes flickering briefly to the high collar of his turtleneck before meeting his gaze.

“I respect people’s fashion choices and all,” she began, her tone light but curious, “but if you don’t mind me asking... why the turtleneck?”

The question shouldn’t have caught him off guard. He’d been asked it before—by reporters, by fans, even by well-meaning acquaintances who didn’t know how to tiptoe around the subject of his scars. But coming from Y/N, it felt different. There was no pity in her voice, no morbid fascination. Just simple, straightforward curiosity.

Jason hesitated, his fingers absently tracing the edge of his sleeve. He could deflect, could make a joke and steer the conversation elsewhere. But something about the quiet intimacy of the kitchen, the way Y/N waited without pressing, made the truth feel less like a burden and more like just another part of himself.

“After the crash,” he started, his voice quieter than he intended, “people tend to... stare.” He shrugged, as if that explained it all. And in a way, it did. The scars were a map of his worst moment, etched permanently into his skin. A reminder he carried everywhere, whether he wanted to or not.

He realized how somber his words sounded and quickly tried to lighten the mood. “And even then, I wouldn’t wanna scare you with ‘em. It’s ugly stuff.”

Y/N didn’t respond immediately. Instead, she turned back to the bread, her knife moving steadily. But just as Jason thought she’d let the subject drop, she murmured, so softly he almost missed it:

“Not to me, it’s not.”

The words hung in the air between them, delicate as the dust motes floating in the sunlight. Jason wasn’t sure if he’d heard her correctly—if he’d imagined the quiet sincerity in her voice. But before he could question it, Y/N looked up again, her expression shifting seamlessly back to casual ease.

“Hey, can you wash the cherry tomatoes, please?”

Jason nodded, pushing away from the counter to comply. As he turned on the faucet and let the cool water run over the vibrant red tomatoes, he became acutely aware of the quiet sounds filling the kitchen—the splash of water, the rustle of Y/N gathering herbs, and beneath it all, the soft, absentminded hum escaping her lips.

The melody was unfamiliar, but the way she let it drift in and out of her thoughts, barely aware she was doing it, struck something deep in his chest. It reminded him of his mother—how she would hum old lullabies while cooking, the sound wrapping around him like a comfort as he sat on the countertop, swinging his legs and waiting for dinner. It reminded him, too, of Alfred—the Wayne family’s butler—patiently teaching him how to prep vegetables, his dry wit hiding a warmth Jason had taken for granted in his youth.

He hadn’t thought about those moments in years. Hadn’t let himself.

The water ran over his fingers, the tomatoes glistening like little gems in his palms. For the first time in longer than he could remember, the simmering anger that had fueled him since the crash—the bitterness, the relentless drive to prove he was still the same, still unbeatable—felt distant. Fading, like an old wound finally beginning to heal.

And standing there, in a kitchen with the scent of fresh bread in the air and Y/N’s quiet humming weaving through the space between them, Jason realized something with startling clarity:

He was happy.

Not the fleeting rush of a podium finish, not the hollow satisfaction of proving his critics wrong. Just... happy.

Y/N perched on the edge of the worn wooden counter, her legs swinging idly as she took another enthusiastic bite of her sandwich. Crumbs tumbled onto the plate below, but she paid them no mind, too absorbed in savoring the flavors—the rich creaminess of Gianna’s homemade goat cheese, the sweetness of sun-ripened tomatoes, the crunch of freshly baked sourdough.

Across from her, Jason sat frozen, his own sandwich hovering halfway to his lips. His expression was distant, conflicted, as if caught in some internal debate. The voices of his past—his coaches, his nutritionists, even his own relentless drive—whispered warnings in his mind. This isn’t part of the plan. This isn’t what champions do.

Across from her, Jason sat frozen, his own sandwich hovering inches from his mouth. His fingers gripped the bread just a fraction too tightly, his knuckles pale with tension. The voices in his head were louder than the cheerful clatter of the kitchen—his old trainer’s stern warnings about maintaining race weight, the nutritionist’s rigid meal plans, the unspoken expectations of a champion who couldn’t afford to slip, not even for a moment.

Was this weakness? The thought slithered through his mind. Was he throwing away years of discipline, all the sacrifices he’d made—the early mornings, the grueling workouts, the endless self-denial—for something as trivial as a sandwich?

“Is there something wrong?”

Y/N’s voice cut through his spiral, her brow furrowing as she studied him. The concern in her eyes was genuine, untainted by the judgment he’d come to expect from the racing world.

Jason shook his head, more to clear his thoughts than to answer her. Then, before he could overthink it further, he took a bite.

The flavors exploded across his tongue—sharp, tangy cheese mellowed by the sweetness of sun-ripened tomatoes, all anchored by the nutty depth of freshly baked bread. It was simple. It was perfect. And for the first time in years, Jason actually tasted his food.

His so-called “cheat meals” had always been at Michelin-starred restaurants—obligatory team dinners or sponsor events where the food was secondary to the politics. He’d long since trained himself to ignore the delicate dishes placed before him. The flavors had become irrelevant, just another sacrifice in the pursuit of perfection.

But here, in this tiny kitchen with its chipped tiles and sun-faded curtains, with Y/N swinging her feet like a child and Gianna humming off-key in the corner, the weight of expectation lifted. For the first time in longer than he could remember, Jason was present—truly present—in a moment that had nothing to do with racing.

“Want one more?” Y/N asked, already reaching for the bread.

Jason didn’t hesitate. “Actually, yes I do.”

The words felt like a revelation.

Between races, in stolen days across different time zones, he found himself dragged into what Y/N affectionately called their “hobby hunts”— whirlwind excursions into the mundane wonders of each Grand Prix host country. In Italy, he’d learned the meditative art of pasta-making from a Nonna who smacked him whenever he kneaded the dough too aggressively. He’d reluctantly tried watercolor painting, only to discover an unexpected satisfaction in the way colors bled across the paper.

And now, in Venice after the triple header, Y/N was determined to subject him to what he firmly believed was the most ridiculous “hobby” yet.

“Mask-making is not a real hobby,” Jason declared, arms crossed as they stood outside a tiny workshop in Dorsoduro, its windows filled with elaborate papier-mâché creations. Y/N’s expression shifted instantly—her usual playful smirk dissolving into something far more serious. When she spoke, her voice carried a weight that gave Jason pause.

“Tell that to Guillermo,” she said quietly, “who spent thirty years perfecting this ‘hobby’ of his. After he lost his job and his son stopped speaking to him, it was the masks that kept a roof over his and his wife’s heads.”

The raw sincerity in her words hit Jason like a missed braking point. He stiffened, suddenly aware of the careless privilege in his dismissal.

“I—” He swallowed, uncharacteristically lost for words. “That was insensitive of me. I’m sorry.”

Y/N studied him for a long moment before her face lit up with sudden mischief. “So that means you’ll give it a go?” The whiplash-inducing shift in tone left Jason blinking. “...What?”

“You promised,” she singsonged, bouncing on her heels with renewed energy. Realization dawned slowly, then all at once. Jason’s jaw dropped. “You made that up?”

“Every word,” Y/N confirmed cheerfully. “And no takesies-backsies. You already agreed.”

Jason groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “You’re an evil little thing, you know that?”

“But you love it,” she teased, already pushing open the workshop door.

The protest died on Jason’s lips. Because as much as he hated to admit it, she wasn’t wrong.

The crisp Canadian air carried a bite that was absent in the Mediterranean warmth they’d left behind. The empty rink stretched before them, its surface gleaming under the soft glow of evening lights, freshly smoothed by the zamboni. Jason exhaled, watching his breath curl into the cold air as he stepped onto the ice, the blades of his skates cutting effortlessly into the pristine surface.

He hadn’t expected this. When Y/N had mentioned renting out an entire rink as a thank-you for flying her to Montreal in his private jet, he’d assumed she was joking. But here they were, the only two people in the arena, the silence broken only by the distant hum of refrigeration systems and the occasional scrape of steel against ice.

It was… thoughtful. Unnervingly so. Y/N had a way of anticipating what he wanted before he even voiced it—like she understood that, despite his love for the roars of the grandstands on track, he craved these quiet moments away from prying eyes and cameras.

As a high-performance athlete, Jason found his balance almost immediately. The muscle memory from years of rigorous training translated seamlessly to the ice, and within minutes, he was gliding across the rink with the same natural ease he carried on the racetrack.

Y/N, however, was another story entirely.

She clung to the boards like her life depended on it, her usual confidence replaced by wide-eyed terror as her skates betrayed her at every turn. Jason watched, amused, as she attempted to push off—only to immediately pitch forward with a yelp, arms flailing wildly before she somehow managed to right herself.

“Show-off,” she muttered under her breath, glaring at him as he executed a lazy backward crossover right in front of her.

Jason smirked. “You’re the one who picked this hobby, sweetheart.”

“I didn’t realize you’d turn out to be some figure-skating prodigy,” she shot back in an attempt to gain back some of her dignity, gingerly releasing the railing—and immediately regretting it as her feet slid out from under her.

Jason darted forward, catching her by the waist before she could faceplant onto the ice. “You’re hopeless, I swear,” he laughed, steadying her as she wobbled like a newborn fawn.

Y/N’s cheeks flushed, though whether from embarrassment or the cold, he couldn’t tell. “I’m great at plenty of other things!” she grumbled, attempting to shake him off.

“Oh, I believe you,” Jason said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “But skating isn’t one of them.”

As she wobbled dangerously again, his arm shot out to steady her. “Careful, doll. Can’t have you messing up that pretty face.”

She muttered something decidedly unflattering under her breath, but the effect was ruined by the way her lips twitched, fighting a smile.

Jason held out his hand. “Alright, baby steps. Take my hand.”

Y/N hesitated, staring at his outstretched palm like it was a trap. On one side: this was Jason Todd, the man whose posters had adorned her teenage walls, whose career she’d followed with near-religious devotion— offering to teach her something for once. It should’ve been a dream come true. But letting him witness her utter lack of coordination was humiliating enough and accepting his help felt like surrendering the little dignity she had left. Especially considering how insufferably smug he looked seeing her struggle.

For a brief, stubborn moment, she considered refusing. But the ice was unforgiving, her pride bruised but definitely not worth a broken tailbone and his hand looked awfully steady. With a sigh, she placed her hand in his. Perhaps this was karma from the pottery class.

“Don’t you dare let go,” she warned.

Jason’s grin was all teeth. “Wouldn’t dream of it doll.”

The scrape of blades against ice filled the quiet rink as Jason guided Y/N in slow, careful circles. Her fingers trembled slightly in his grip - whether from the cold or the unfamiliar intimacy, he couldn’t tell.

“Stop looking at your feet,” Jason chided gently. “Look at me instead. It helps with balance.”

Y/N’s eyes flicked up, meeting his with a mixture of irritation and reluctant trust. The moment their gazes locked, her posture straightened almost imperceptibly.

“See? You’re getting it,” he murmured, unable to resist a small, genuine smile.

“I’m literally just standing here while you do all the work,” Y/N grumbled.

Jason chuckled, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze before slowly releasing it. “Alright, try on your own. Just remember - knees bent, weight forward.”

For a glorious three seconds, Y/N glided unaided, her face lighting up with triumph. Then physics intervened. Her arms became frantic windmills, her balance abandoning her in an instant. Jason saw the exact moment panic flooded her wide eyes—the dilation of pupils, the part of lips ready to yelp—before his body moved on instinct honed from years of split-second reactions.

One strong arm banded around her waist, hauling her flush against his chest with enough force to knock the breath from them both. His other hand slapped against the boards to arrest their momentum, the impact vibrating up his arm. But all Jason registered was the feel of Y/N pressed along his entire side—the warmth of her even through layers of clothing, the way her racing heartbeat thudded against his ribs in perfect sync with his own runaway pulse.

Jason had always known Y/N was attractive. Objectively. The way one might note a well-composed photograph or an elegant car design. As a presenter, she fit the expected mold of paddock beauty—polished, camera-ready, the kind of woman sponsors loved to position near their drivers for photo ops.

But this... this was different.

In his years as a champion, Jason had been paraded before countless models and starlets, had endured awkward PR “dates” arranged by the team, had smiled for cameras with women whose names he barely remembered. None of them had ever made him notice how the arena lights caught gold flecks in their eyes. None had hands that fit so perfectly in his, as if engineered by some higher power just for this moment. No one’s cheeks had ever flushed such an enticing pink from cold and exertion, nor had their lips—currently parted in surprise and glistening with whatever gloss she’d applied that morning—ever seemed so impossibly, distractingly soft.

And the scent of her—citrus and something sweet beneath the cold air—wrapped around him more completely than any embrace.

“Maybe... maybe we should call it a night,” Y/N whispered, her breath puffing warm against his neck.

The words were a surrender, but her body told a different story—the way she hadn’t pulled away, how her fingers had fisted in the front of his jacket as if to anchor herself.

Jason blinked, suddenly aware he’d been cataloging her features with an intensity that bordered on obsession. He cleared his throat, carefully putting space between them while keeping a steadying hand at her elbow. The air from the refridgeration systems rushed in to fill the void she left, chilling him instantly.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he agreed, voice rougher than intended. He busied himself with adjusting his gloves, avoiding her gaze. “We can, uh... try again another time.”

The words tasted like a lie. Because what Jason really wanted was to pull her close again, to see if her hair really was as soft as it looked, to discover if her lips tasted as sweet as that damned gloss promised. But that way lay madness—or at the very least, a complication neither of them needed.

In the weeks that followed, something undeniable shifted in Jason Todd’s racing—a transformation that didn’t go unnoticed by the sharp analysts and devoted fans who tracked his every lap. The reckless, almost desperate aggression that had once defined his driving—the “madman” style commentators loved to dramatize—had mellowed into something far more dangerous.

His moves were calculated now, his overtakes executed with surgical patience rather than brute force. Where he once would have forced a risky gap, he now waited, biding his time until the perfect moment presented itself. The result? A steady climb up the championship order that left his rivals scrambling to adjust their strategies.

“What the hell’s gotten into Todd?” became the paddock’s favorite question.

Only Jason knew the answer.

In the quiet hours between races, when the roar of engines faded to memory and the paddock emptied of its usual chaos, Jason found himself reaching for the books Y/N had slipped into his life like secret treasures. Each volume carried her fingerprints—literally, in the smudges on the pages where she’d gripped them too tightly during thrilling passages, and metaphorically, in the notes she’d scribbled in the margins with her characteristic wit and insight.

“While finding new hobbies, it’s important not to lose the old ones,” she’d told him with that knowing smile of hers, pressing another book into his hands after their delightful attempt at Venetian mask-making.

He’d taken her words to heart in a way that surprised even himself. The books became his companions on long flights between races, their pages a refuge when the weight of expectation grew too heavy. He raced through them not just for the stories they held, but for the promise of her next recommendation—the quiet thrill of her commentary when he texted her his thoughts at 2 AM after finishing one.

What he didn’t tell her—what he couldn’t bring himself to admit—was that he’d commissioned a custom sandalwood bookshelf for his bedroom, its rich grain polished to a warm glow. It stood as a shrine to something that was uniquely theirs’s: the slightly lopsided cup that he made at Nonna Gianna’s, a beer mug from their trappist brewing adventure in Belgium, the framed photo of them covered in cheese curds in Austria, the pressed wildflowers from their trek across the Scottish highlands after his P1 finish in Silverstone. The one that brought him back in contention for the World Championship. It felt like he was building something more than just a collection.

It felt like proof.

Proof that there was a Jason Todd beyond the racetrack. Proof that he could be more than the sum of his scars and his victories.

And it was all because of her.

His phone was a dangerous thing these days.

The gallery, once filled with nothing but race data and engineering schematics, now held a growing album of stolen moments—candid shots of Y/N laughing at a joke he hadn’t meant to be funny, her nose scrunched in that way he’d come to adore. Screenshots of her social media posts and presenter segments saved before he could talk himself out of it.

It was pathetic, really.

World champion. Three-time title holder. And yet here he was, lurking on her Instagram like some lovestruck fan, his stomach twisting every time she posted something new.

Most of her older posts were about him—race photos, blurry grandstand shots, captions filled with exclamation points and heart emojis. The realization should have been flattering. Instead, it left him unsettled.

Did she still see him that way? As some untouchable idol, a fantasy to be admired from afar?

Or could she want the man behind the helmet—the one who woke up sweating from nightmares, who still caught himself holding his breath when tire smoke curled too thick on race day?

Then there was Danny.

A single photo, buried deep in her feed like a landmine. Y/N pressing a kiss to some grinning bastard’s cheek, her caption cheerful and simple: Happy birthday, loser.

Jason knew Danny. Knew him in the way you only know someone who’s shared both your childhood dreams and their dissolution. They’d started karting together, two scrappy kids with more talent than sense, pushing each other until their tires wore bald and their wrists ached from steering. Danny had been one of the few who could match him turn for turn, whose laughter rang just as loud when they tumbled into the grass after some reckless, glorious overtake.

Jason had assumed they’d climb the ranks together, side by side. But life had other plans—Danny’s family couldn’t sustain the financial hemorrhage of competitive karting and pragmatism won out over passion. While Jason raced forward, Danny stepped back, trading the driver’s seat for textbooks, determined to stay close to the sport in whatever way he could. He still remembered the hollow look in his friend’s eyes the day he packed up his helmet— “Engineering school,” he’d muttered, “like the old man wants.” Jason had fought to keep him close, badgering Bruce until Wayne Racing took Danny on as a junior mechanic. They weren’t the brothers-in-arms they’d once been, but the bond remained, worn comfortable with time.

But his closeness to Y/N bothered him. Jason stared until the pixels blurred. He could ask her. Three words —“Who is Danny?” —and he’d have his answer. Who was he to her? A friend? An ex? Worse—a current?

But the thought of hearing the answer—of watching her face shift in that way when someone mentions a name that matters—left him cold.

Better not to know. Better to—

His phone buzzed, Y/N’s name flashing across the screen like she’d somehow sensed his spiral.

Y/N: It’s a shame the race in Zandvoort is so late. You should see the tulips they have in April.

Jason exhaled, the tension in his shoulders easing as he typed back without thinking.

Jason: Yeah well. Next year I’ll take you.

The reply came instantly.

Y/N: Bet. Though the beach there is pretty cool too. The water’s cold this time of year but still warmer than your ice tubs :P And then there are the museums too—a history buff like you would appreciate them.

Jason smiled despite himself, imagining her rolling her eyes as she typed.

Jason: I’ll go wherever the lady takes me.

The words hung in the air between them, heavier than he’d intended. For a long moment, the typing bubbles appeared and disappeared, until finally—

Y/N: Careful, Todd. That almost sounded like a promise.

“Jason, what do you think?” Bruce’s voice cut through the low murmur of conversation in the boardroom. He was seated at the far end of the long, polished table, flanked by executives in tailored suits and their managers poised with styluses over tablets.

Jason blinked, startled. His head snapped up from the phone in his lap, only to find nearly a dozen eyes trained on him. He straightened in his seat, his screen going dark as he shoved the device into his blazer pocket. Of course, he had zoned out—texting during a sponsor meeting was probably frowned upon, but truthfully, Jason didn’t give a damn.

The Wayne Formula One team hardly needed financial backing. Bruce’s wealth alone could fund a fleet of cars and pit crews for the next decade. But apparently, having glossy logos of luxury brands and legacy sponsors plastered across the chassis was “strategic”—whatever that meant. Optics over necessity. It was all part of the game.

“Uh, yeah. It’s… cool, I guess,” Jason mumbled, shrugging one shoulder with disinterest.

Bruce closed his eyes for a moment and pinched the bridge of his nose in silent frustration. But without missing a beat, he turned back to the others and carried on with the presentation.

As the meeting ended and people began shuffling out with polite handshakes and promises to circle back via email, Dick approached him with a concerned look, pulling him gently aside into a quieter corner of the lounge just outside the boardroom.

“Jason, I think you should see this.”

╰┈➤ Masterlist

╰┈➤ Event masterlist Tags: @joekitsu @sophiethewitch1 @hana-no-seiiki @thisisafish123 @ceramic-raven @millyhelp @blamedbisexual @trunkswithlonghair-blog @jasontoddthings @deans-spinster-witch @12134z03 @johnnysilverhandeeznuts @yasmin-oviedo @rosecentury @pierayanna @jinviktor @crybaby-21 @solarrexplosion @sahana28banana @ari-sama21 @princessbl0ss0m @fictionalwhor3 @leeleecats @lalalozer @shkosm @swamiiyasssss @lilyalone @cxcilla @one-pea-in-a-pod-blog @cooki3dough @misaki-kira8 @br0ke-b1tch @cherriespopsicle @lilithskywalker @multifandom-simp @hayleym1234 @sukaretto-n @idontwantthis22 @sarveshishwarishsuta @eclipse-msoul @aaaashiiii

A/n: Ughhhhhh this is what I get for trying to cram what should be a multi-chapter fic into a single one-shot. Tumblr said "bitch i think the fuck not" and slapped a only-1000-blocks-allowed-per-post on my dreams 😭😭😭Anon I'm so sorry it took me so long😔😔 (Tumblr, I beg you—just let me post my novel-length emotional support in peace.) Feel free to send more requests for the event.

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blackthorngirl · 1 day ago

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꩜ Jason Todd who learns how to take pictures of you through you complaining about angles and lighting. Eventually it gets to the point of you forwarding tiktok videos to him about how to take photos with an iphone camera and tips and tricks of how to actually use his phone.

His phone was filled with candids of you, blurry and sometimes of unintelligible parts of your body. Even though every single photo he had of you he thought captured why he loved you perfectly, he tried his best to fit his photography abilities to your standards. It started small, just headshots of you in pretty places and then it spiraled into him having a folder in his camera app of just pictures he had taken of you. Ones that you had never seen before, photos of just the back of your head looking at a painting or photos that looked like a professional had taken them as a showcase of love. He learned this for you.

Every image looked real. As if he had a camera on the small, intimate moments in your life. These weren’t blurry or messy, they were beautiful in a way that wasn’t posed, that showed the moments of your smile that had been so contagious that he couldn’t help but smile too.

When you asked him why—why he never sent them to you or why he took them, he simply shrugged. No response, just a few words muttered under his breath that you were unable to decipher. His voice raised slightly, eyes matching yours. “It’s those kind of moment that made me fall in love with you.”

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blackthorngirl · 2 days ago

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super fan | jason todd

Summary: Three months into your relationship, your boyfriend Jason Todd finds your Red Hood poster. You're mortified. But Jason? Well, you've got his face in your room and your lips on his... truth be told, Jason maybe likes it a little too much that you're a super fan of his.

Pairing: Jason Todd x fem!reader

Word count: 5.4k

Warnings/tags: bf!jason, you find jason and RH hot and that crosses some wires. jason takes advantage of your crush (in a hot way), competency kink, cocky jason, identity porn, minor violence, motorcycles, reader has a crush on RH but doesn't know jason is RH so it's a little complicated but NO cheating!! implied sexual content but NO explicit smut.

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Tonight, you're staying at Jason's place. You've only been dating three months, but it's going well enough that you're comfortable enough to stay over. Jason has hinted more than once that you can leave clothes at his place, but you insist on keeping all of your stuff at your apartment, just in case things go south. What's that rule? Six months and you’ll know whether he’s the one? Three months to go, then.

Call you crazy, but you think you might already know. Jason is fantastic and you’re sure you’re in love with him. Not that you're going to tell him that any time soon. But you know enough not to put all of your stock into a three-month relationship. Who knows what secrets Jason Todd might be hiding.

"How come you never invite me to your place?" Jason asks as he pulls up in front of your building. He'd offered to drive you both to his apartment on his motorcycle, and it's officially weird if you refuse him. He might think you're hiding something. And you are. Something mortifying.

"Because you're gonna try to install your special security measures," you say as he locks his bike.

Jason thinks about it, then nods. "Yeah, that's probably true. No, but it's your place. I wouldn't do anything you wouldn't know about."

"I know," you say, going inside and holding the door for him. "But my apartment is smaller than yours.”

"That doesn't matter to me, baby."

When did he get it into his head that he needs to be in your apartment? You go up the stairs with Jason behind you, thinking about how you can excuse not inviting him inside. Except, it’s suspicious if you make him wait outside. Even for Jason, who's about as cagey as they come. He seems to trust you fine, but you have no idea what freak raised him because he's eternally wary of people and unfamiliar places. He also insists on sitting close to the door when you go out to eat. But even he's invited you to his place. Many times now. Maybe you can extend the same favor.

"Fine. You get a quick tour," you say against your better judgment as you get to your door, unlocking it.

"I'm honored, truly." Jason follows you inside. He clicks his tongue, pointing to the lock. "No deadbolt?"

"Jason..."

"I mean, what a beautiful lock on your door," he says sweetly, kissing your cheek. "Y'know what would make it even more beautiful?"

"You being less paranoid?"

"Seventy percent of Gotham break-ins are in residences that have only one lock. Sixty-five percent of them are on—"

You turn around and put your arms around Jason. He automatically puts his arms around your waist and stops talking. His beauty still stuns you: his aquiline nose, his freckles, those bright teal eyes. You get shy at times, flustered and delighted at the fact that this hunk of a man likes you so much.

"I'm extremely attracted to you, despite your raccoon demeanor," you say.

"You'd be the first," Jason says, gaze terribly fond. "I'll shut up now 'bout the statistics."

"No, statistics are hot. Just not when they're about home invasions."

"Point taken. How 'bout stats on Gotham's exports?"

You throw your head back, gasping. "Oh! You fiend. No more, please. I may just ravish you here on the floor!"

Jason bends you back a little, his hand fitting in the center of your back to ease you over. He doesn't do that very often, use his strength and wield you the way he wants, but when he does, you lose your breath. Your pulse quickens as Jason nuzzles your neck.

"This okay?" he asks. You hum an airy yes.

"'M in no rush," he says in your ear. "We can linger. Haven't finished your tour. 'S your room next?"

You straighten so fast, you nearly knock Jason in the teeth. It's only because of his quick reflexes that you don't.

"You can't see my room," you rush out, looking at him with wide eyes.

Jason squints, hands dropping to your sides. "What? Why?"

"Um... because... because my room is a mess."

"So? I don't care. My room looks like a solitary confinement cell."

You raise an eyebrow. Jason clears his throat.

"Well, I mean, it used to. It's better now that I have plants and shit."

"Lack of decor is nowhere near as embarrassing as my room, Jason. Mine is beyond messy. It's filled with half-eaten pizza crusts. And rats. And... slime?"

"Slime, huh? Well, good thing I wore my Doc Martens. I can withstand a little slime."

You sag. "You don't believe me."

Jason smiles and kisses your forehead. "Not particularly, baby. What's the issue, huh? You hiding nudie mags or something?"

You roll your eyes. "Who calls it that, Jay? You sound like Tony Soprano. Just say porn."

"Gracefully choosing to ignore that comment. Look, if y'do have porn, it's nothing to be ashamed of. You should feel safe to express and explore your sexuality however you—"

"Oh my God, it's not porn." You cover your face. "Jesus. It's—okay, just come in. If you're gonna break up with me over this, we might as well face it now."

"I'm not gonna break up with you," he says as you take his hand and lead him to your bedroom. "Nothing you show me could—"

You swing open the door Jason trails off as he follows you in, his eyes landing on your 4x6 poster of the Red Hood that's smack middle in the room, taped over your bed.

And then, obviously, one can't miss the Red Hood towel on your computer chair, or the Red Hood mug. And the limited edition Red Hood Bat Burger bobblehead, which was quickly discontinued after some public backlash.

"Wow," Jason says.

You groan and bury your face in your hands. "It's fine. I know it's weird. Just go."

You don’t know how it happened, this accumulation of Red Hood merch. It's not like people aren’t fans of heroes. Plenty of local heroes are revered across the world. You have an online friend from Brazil who has literally all of the Superman collectibles. But Superman is reasonable. Batman is reasonable. Nightwing is common and basically a Gotham staple—you've seen women in Nightwing bikinis.

But Red Hood fans are far and few. Plenty of people think he's a criminal and a borderline villain. Some people, working-class people mostly, adore him. You've heard plenty of wonderful things he's done to turn neighborhoods around, keep people safe, fight The Man. Hell, last week there was a video of him carrying an old woman to the hospital after she fell in the road.

Plus, you get the feeling he's really handsome under that helmet. You're sure he's physically overwhelming, at the very least. You've seen clips of him fighting. Oh boy, can he hold his own.

But if you told the average person on the street that your favorite hero is Red Hood, they'd definitely give you a side eye. You brace yourself for one now.

"Huh," Jason says. "Didn't think you'd be a fan of his. Not really a hero, is he?"

You huff, squaring your shoulders. "He's helped a lot of people. No one actually cares about protecting us except for vigilantes. Red Hood protects innocents. If that takes a little bit of a heavier hand, so be it."

Jason raises his eyebrows. "Didn't know you played fast with morality like that, honey."

"You don't agree?" If this is where your relationship ends, you'd rather it happen sooner than later. "He's implemented a lot of fundamental structures that even Batman hasn't. He's more big-picture than the Bats. So, whatever, okay? If you think I'm nutty for liking Red Hood, then just go now."

You cross your arms and turn away from Jason. It's quiet for a long moment. You're sure it's done; you've just ruined the first relationship you really wanted to make work. But you've been on dates and let it slip that you admire Hood, and plenty of men let you know what an idiot you are to do so. You thought Jason would understand. Maybe not.

But then you feel arms around your stomach. Jason kisses your cheek.

"C'mon," he says chidingly, voice low and sweet in your ear. "Y'think it's that easy to scare me off? We live in Gotham, sweetheart. The only way I'd be worried is if you had someone's head sitting in your fridge. And even then, I'd hear ya out on whose head it is."

You lean into Jason's solid warmth, rubbing your cheek against his scruff like a cat. "I'd have my reasons if I did that."

"Mm, I know it."

You slip out of his grip enough to turn around. Jason's got a coy, little grin on, and you can't figure out why. But you suppose that's better than him leaving because of your local celebrity crush.

"You're really not annoyed?" you ask. "Because if you are, we should hash it out now."

"No, baby, 'm not annoyed." Jason glances at the Red Hood bobblehead. His grin widens, tongue resting between his teeth as he looks at you. You feel hunted, but the glint in Jason’s eye quickly disappears. "I think he does what needs to be done."

"Yeah?"

"Sure. Just surprised, is all. He doesn't seem like your type."

You blink, heart beating faster. "My type? Well, I-I just think he contributes a lot to the city. It's not... I appreciate what he does for Gotham."

"Wait." He tilts his head like he's genuinely trying to figure something out. "D'you have a crush on Hood or something?"

You blink, flustered at how quickly Jason picked up on that. How does he do that? "I don't—I mean, I admire him—he's—but I don't even know what he looks like, so—"

Jason's eyes light up, and you know you've made a mistake, just not the one you thought you would. He cups the back of your neck, which always makes you hot and squirmy.

"Oh, you do like him like that. Huh. Didn't know the helmet did it for you. Very interesting news, sweetheart. He doesn't scare ya?"

"No," you say, the word coming out weak. Wires are being crossed in your head between the image of the Red Hood and your boyfriend crowding you in your room and pressing his lips to your neck.

"That's very good to hear," Jason says, and you give in, tugging him over to your bed. He laughs. "Why didn't you want me to know?"

"It's embarrassing," you whine. "The poster was from a friend."

You let Jason climb atop you, permeating your senses with his bulk and his citrusy scent. He carefully keeps his weight off of you, but you wish he'd hold you down. This is exactly why you didn't want to bring Jason over; you don't need your old fantasies of Red Hood getting mixed up with your boyfriend.

"I don't think it's embarrassing," he says, gently taking your leg and crooking it over his hip. "You picturing him right now?"

"Jason!" You thwack his shoulder. You feel it more than he does, probably. He cackles.

"Teasin'," he says, soothing you with a kiss. "But I can get a helmet if you want me to."

You kick him off the bed. "No more tours for you!"

Work runs late a week later, so you're still out by the time eight o'clock rolls around. It's summer time, so it's not the worst thing ever, but you know what Jason would say. Your last message is still unread because Jason works most nights. You’ve chosen not to worry him by telling him you're also working tonight, instead texting him funny Gotham memes.

"Evening."

…Maybe you should've let him know.

You flinch, the voice startling you hard. Red Hood is leaning against the fence surrounding the park you pass by on your way to the bus stop. His arms are crossed, and his biceps bulge underneath his tight black t-shirt. You can't tell from here, but you're sure he must tower over you.

"Oh." Briefly, you wonder if you summoned him somehow after revealing your room to Jason last week. You've lived in Gotham your whole life and you've never run into Hood. The only vigilante you've met is Red Robin, and he's not a talker.

"Hi," you say, a little nervous, a little starstruck.

"Hi," Hood says, letting his arms drop. His posture is easy, but you know better. You know he's here for a reason. "Working tonight?"

You nod. "I just finished. I'm just going to the bus now."

"Pretty late for the bus."

"It's June."

"It's Gotham."

You open your mouth, then close it. Then you open it again. "Um... it's okay. I've done it plenty of times before."

"Plenty of times? Without letting anyone know?"

You wince. "Well, not plenty—"

"Nobody to pick you up?"

You shrug. "No."

"No? Think hard." There's the tiniest edge to his tone.

"I mean, my boyfriend could, hypothetically, but he works nights, so—"

"And you think his job is more important than making sure you're safe? It'd devastate him if something happened to you."

You blink. "I don't—I guess I didn't think of it that way."

Hood shakes his head. Then he pushes himself off of the fence and approaches you. Immediately, your heart rate increases. To be this close to the Red Hood, to have him worry about little old you, scold you for not calling Jason, it's causing a confusing mix of emotions to swirl inside you.

You've thought about how you'd act if you met Red Hood. Maybe ask for an autograph if the opportunity arises. You can't fathom asking him for anything now. He's intimidating. Maybe you are a little afraid, but it's intertwined with other feelings.

Hood pauses. "Everything okay?" he asks carefully. "Your heart rate spiked."

"Oh," you say breathlessly. "Yes, I'm okay."

You can't see his face but you feel like he doesn't believe you. "Sure?"

You wonder if he can see all of your vitals. Can he see how warm you feel? "Yes, I'm sure. It's just... I'm sort of a fan of you. So it's... it's an experience."

Hood laughs. "Fan? Don't think I have any fans."

You shake your head. "That's not true. I know a few people who like you."

He hums and approaches you slowly. You let him until he's close enough for you to take in his physicality completely. He's a couple inches taller than Jason. Not that it matters. Just an observation.

"'M flattered," he says softly. "But if you're jus' sayin' that 'cause you're a little scared, please don't."

"No, I'm not scared. I trust you, Red Hood."

He folds his arms, stretching his neck to his right shoulder. You catch a sliver of tanned, scarred skin. "So soon?"

"Uh-huh."

"Kinda crazy of ya."

You shrug. "Maybe."

"Hmm. We goin' home?"

"You want to take me home?" you ask, eyes wide.

"Not-not like that. I mean, I can't let ya go home alone."

"No, I know, I just... I didn't think Red Hood made home visits."

"Sometimes." He makes an aborted gesture to touch your cheek with his finger and you swallow hard. Your ears are very hot. You might choke on your spit.

"I didn't know Red Hood would care that much if I went home."

"'Course I do," he says softly. "Your safety is my priority."

"My-?"

"Civilians, I mean," Hood says quickly. "'S why I'm out here patrolling."

"But surely there's people who need you more than me. I'm just some nobody going home from work, I—"

"You're not a nobody. Don't say that," Hood says with so much force, it renders you silent. "Got it?"

You nod. "Okay. Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry 'bout. C'mon, I'll take you home, okay?"

You really don't want to bother Jason at this hour. Besides, as far as vigilante escorts go, Hood really isn't the worst choice. Another person might be afraid. A sane person would refuse.

"Yes, I'm okay with that," you say, smiling. "Thank you."

"Sure. My bike is parked down the block."

He walks a little behind you, close enough for you to turn and talk to him, but angled so that nothing can sneak up on you. It's the way Jason walks with you sometimes. You wonder if it's a Gotham thing.

Hood's bike is a cherry red. He lets you type in your address into his GPS. Then he gives you a helmet.

"Safety first," he says. It's the same helmet that Jason wears for his motorcycle. For a second, you swear you can smell his aftershave. Orange blossoms.

Hood gestures for you to get on. He holds the bike steady and it seems like he's going to hold your back to help you onto the bike. But he doesn't touch you, not like Jason does.

"Ever been on a bike before?" he asks when you're on.

"My boyfriend's."

He hums, throwing a leg over and straddling the bike. You blink at the sudden wall of bulk in front of you. "He treat you right, that boyfriend?"

You nod. "He's amazing. I love him."

Hood is silent for a moment, then he clears his throat. "Good. Lady like you deserves to be treated like a princess."

You laugh. "You barely know me. I'm no princess."

"I got a good sense about people. Hold onto me."

You wrap your arms around his waist. He tuts at you.

"Gotta hold me tighter than that. Don't want you flying off. You know better."

You tighten your hold, flustered and speechless. Hood pats your hand.

"There we go. Good listener," he says. "Everything okay back there? You're quiet."

For a second, it sounds like he's teasing you, and your stomach jumps like when Jason teases you. But the Red Hood isn't playful like that, right?

"I'm okay," you say.

"Nervous?"

You shake your head. "No."

"No? Glad you've got so much faith in me."

"I do."

Hood turns on his bike, revving the engine. You squeeze him tighter as he flicks the kickstand up with his foot, pushing off and balancing. He does so effortlessly. Wow.

Hood gets you home quickly. He follows all the traffic laws and doesn't speed. He drives efficiently, like Jason, but he takes it slow on the leans... like Jason. Maybe he can feel how you get nervous on motorcycles.

"This is it?" he asks, slowing down next to your building.

"Yes. Thank you." You wait as Hood stops and gets off first, then helps you off. You take his gloved hand, and he helps you off like it's nothing, bearing most of your weight.

"No more secretly working nights," he tells you. "I'll know."

You don't question it. "Okay. I won't."

"Good. Have a good night."

He starts to mount his bike. You step off the curb, in front of him. Hood stops.

"What's up?" he asks, nodding at you. He addresses you so casually... so familiar.

"Um, I was... do you mind if I ask for your autograph?"

Hood looks at you for a long moment. You lose your nerve and turn around.

"Never mind! Sorry. Good night."

"Hang on."

You turn around. Hood beckons you over with two fingers. You go, eyes widening as he takes off his gloves. He gives them to you. You catch a glimpse of more scars and maybe a silver ring. Jason sometimes wears a silver chain around his neck. It dangles over you when he’s—

"Oh no! Oh my God, you don't have to—"

"Got a bunch." It sounds like he's smiling. "Always nice to meet a fan. Any trouble with that boyfriend, let me know."

You're not sure if you respond, you're so dazed. Hood pulls away from the curb like a bat out of hell, waving at you as he goes.

You're already in bed by the time Jason comes home from work. He comes home earlier than usual, and you're still awake when he crawls into your bed next to you. You've taken down the Red Hood poster, too embarrassed from last week. Jason insists he's going to get you an even bigger poster. You beg him not to.

"How'd you know I was at my place?" you ask, yawning.

"My apartment alarm didn't report anybody entering."

"Still think it's weird that you track who enters your apartment," you say.

"Safety first. You usually don't go to your place unless you're coming home from work. You wouldn't happen to have worked a shift tonight without telling me, would you?"

"Okay, yes, but please don't be mad. I didn't take the bus." You pause before finishing. "Red Hood actually gave me a ride home tonight."

You reach sleepily for Jason's arm. He tucks himself into place behind you, wrapping an arm and a leg around you. He smells like your shampoo.

"Yeah, don't think we aren't done with the conversation about you taking the bus home at night, by the way. Red Hood, huh? Should I be doubly worried then?"

You roll your eyes. "Not on my part. But I was definitely getting a vibe."

"A vibe? Red Hood's got the hots for my girl?"

Jason slips a hand under your shirt to rest on your stomach. He always runs a little cool and it feels good on warm nights like tonight. He doesn't mean anything by it, but desire creeps onto you, slow and thick. You think of the gloves in your dresser.

"It kinda felt like that," you say, a little embarrassed to even admit it. "He, uh, gave me his gloves."

"His gloves?" Jason sounds sleepy. "That's basically a proposal."

"Two centuries ago, maybe. Please don't be jealous. Nothing happened, Jay."

You'd never cheat on Jason, obviously, but you've had a crush on the Red Hood since he came to Gotham. Riding on his motorcycle tonight was exhilarating, to say the least. Still, you don't want this to be a thing. Another guy would probably get upset.

But Jason's tone doesn't change. He's still sleepy and peaceful. "'M not. Might have to kick his ass, though."

You laugh at the thought. Jason kneads the soft fat of your stomach. "Something funny?" he asks. "Y'think I can't take him?"

"I know you could," you say, and you mean it, even though you're not sure how well your boyfriend can dodge bullets. "But, I mean, you're too nice for him, Jay. Hood fights dirty when he needs to. You fight fair."

"Wow. So you don't think I could beat Red Hood in a fight. Way to bruise a man's ego, baby." Jason buries his face in the back of your neck in retaliation. You squeal at the tickles.

"I didn't say that!" you say, giggling. "It's a compliment. You're too nice to scrap with him. Ah! Jason, mercy, mercy!"

"So you're saying he's mean?" Jason asks, showing mercy and easing off. He returns to just holding you, leg over yours.

"Not... not to civilians. Not to me. He's just a little rough overall, I think. But he seemed nice."

"Oh my God, you loved it," Jason says, no longer sounding so sleepy. "You loved being on his bike. You loved him being a little rough. This was a dream come true."

"No! No, Jason, it wasn't like that."

"You got the hots for Hood," he sing-songs. "Hood hots, Hood hots!"

"I don't, I don't," you say, shoving your face into your pillow. "Stop. You know you're the only one for me."

Jason hums, pushing himself up so he's on top of you without putting his weight on you. He pets your hip. "Yeah, baby, I know. Don't worry. Not mad. I think it's cute. You got a little flustered around him. No biggie. I trust ya."

You sigh, turning your face to the side. "He was professional."

Jason snorts. "Yeah, he better have been. Pretty lady like you holding onto him."

"I'm sure he helps way prettier ladies in a night," you mumble.

Jason easily rolls you over, so you're facing each other. He tucks you into his chest, an arm and a leg returning to their places around you.

"I seriously doubt it," he says. You can feel his voice vibrate through his chest. "Everyone knows you're the prettiest princess in Gotham, baby."

You hesitate, thinking about Hood. "Princess?"

"Yeah. That okay?"

"Oh. Yeah, that's fine."

Jason makes a noise like he knows something you don't.

Every so often, you really hate living in Gotham. It's usually around a time like this: Scarecrow has broken out of Arkham, and he's causing serious damage. Everyone has been warned to stay inside, and the sky is hazy with fear gas.

You're mostly worried about Jason. He went out a few hours ago and he hasn't texted you since. You asked where he was and called him a dozen times but he didn't respond. You're freaking out.

You're about to go out and look for him, Scarecrow be damned, when suddenly Red Hood is on the balcony of your boyfriend's apartment. How did he avoid tripping the alarm? You go to open the window but he opens it himself.

Shit. Is Hood breaking into Jason's apartment? Who the hell do you call in this situation?

"Hey," he says, voice tight. "Get your bag. We gotta go. Scarecrow and Ivy teamed up and it's bad."

"What? Okay. Oh my God." You jump into action, running into Jason's room to get your stuff. You come back, about to climb out the window, but you stop. He waves you over urgently. You shake your head and take a step back.

"No, I can't go without Jason," you say. "He was supposed to be back by now. What if he's gassed? He hasn't called me."

Hood fidgets, his whole body restless. He looks around, then looks back at you. "I'm sure he's fine. You can call him again when you're—"

"No," you say, staring those glowing white eyes down. "I don't care what authority you might hold, Hood. I'm not leaving Jason. He might come back here and he'll worry if I'm not here. I was going to go look for him."

"Don't do that," he says firmly. "Jesus." He looks at you, rolls his shoulders, then sighs. He shakes his head and grabs his helmet.

"Fuck," he says. "Fuck, I didn't wanna do it this way. Shit. Okay."

The latches of his helmet click. And suddenly you have your boyfriend in front of you, dressed like the Red Hood. He drops his helmet on the floor.

Your mouth falls open. "Wh—Jason? What? Are you–you were him the whole time? Are you fucking ser—"

"I know, I'm sorry." He takes your hands. "I'm sorry, honey. I wasn't gonna tell you this way but you're so stubborn, worrying about me and shit. I promise you can yell at me as much as you want after. You can throw stuff, hit me, break up with me, anything you want, just—"

You squeeze his hands. Jason stops his senseless ramble.

"I would never do any of those things," you say. "You don't know me at all if you think I would, Jay. I'm just, y'know, caught off-guard. Apparently, I've had a crush on my boyfriend since he before he became my boyfriend."

He cracks a smile. You roll your eyes.

"And you've been a smug asshole about it this whole time!"

"Kinda," he admits, looking away, and you see how pleased he's been about the whole thing. "I'll make it up to ya."

"Yeah, you better. Where are we going?"

Jason's shoulders slump with relief. You see it in his eyes too.

"You'll go with me?"

"Always," you say.

He takes his helmet, shifting from your boyfriend back to Red Hood. Wow. "Okay. Down the fire escape. We're taking my bike."

Jason puts his helmet back on. You follow him down the fire escape and to where his—Hood's—bike is parked.

"Your bike, huh?" you ask.

"My other bike."

"Uh-huh."

Hood gives you a rebreather and you take off, headed toward the Diamond District. He goes down a ramp and through some pretty fancy gates. Where...?

Concrete walls slide open and Jason pulls into what looks like a lair. Holy shit. He helps you off and you take off your helmet, staring up at a cave ceiling that seems to go on forever.

"Hood," someone growls, startling your gaze back down. Batman is glaring at you. "Why is there a civilian here?"

Jason takes off his helmet. "Yeah, so, this is my girlfriend. She's staying here, and if you try to kick her out, I'm gonna blow up the Batmobile. Cool? Cool."

"Since when do you have a girlf—" begins Red Robin.

"No questions," Jason snaps. "Not one word. Be nice to her or I'll kill you all."

You gasp. Jason turns to you, pulling you closer.

"No, sorry, I wouldn't do that. No deaths. They would recover from my maiming," he says to you, petting your shoulder.

"Not better," you hiss.

He shrugs, smiling. "'M a man of habit. Gonna try to change me now?" He kisses your cheek and you melt like you always do under his affection. Jason leans in and whispers the last part: "You could. I'd let ya."

"Wow," says Spoiler. Is the entire Gotham vigilante taskforce here? "So it's true what they say about married life."

"We aren't married," you say, confused. Jason grunts in annoyance, cradling the small of your back.

"With how he's acting? You might as well be," she says.

"This is so awesome," Nightwing says, full of glee. "Oh, you'll never hear the end of this, Jason."

"Listen, Dickbag—"

"Focus," Batman says. "She can't be here. Take her upstairs and come right back."

Jason rolls his eyes. "Sure, fine. C'mon, baby."

Robin is glaring at you, which kind of makes you want to throw up. But then Black Bat and Spoiler wave at you, and that makes you feel better. You wave back.

"Batman's really mad," you say as Jason leads you upstairs.

"Yeah, that's his default setting. He's been mad for about twenty-five years. He'll get over it. You're gonna meet Alfred next. He's the best."

"Alfred?"

You get to the top of the stairs and step into what looks like a mansion. Wait a minute. You've seen this mansion before. In a magazine...

"Is this Wayne Manor? What the hell, Jason? Am I meeting the Queen of Denmark next?"

"Again, not how I wanted you to find out," he says.

"I'm–I'm not dressed to be in Wayne Manor!"

"Bruce dresses up as a bat every night. Rest assured that you are the most normal person in this house, and none of those freaks downstairs can ever take that away from you."

You frown. "Still..."

"Don't y'trust me?" Jason asks, tapping under your chin. He towers over you, and now you notice that his Red Hood boots are taller than his normal ones. Clever.

"Yeah, I trust you, but—" You stop as Jason herds you against the wall, helmet dangling from his hand. He looks very official with his guns and armored clothing. His black cargo pants are pulled taut around his thighs, outlining how thick they are. It's just now occurring to you how deadly competent your boyfriend is, now that you've learned that the Red Hood was never that far away. Maybe you should be scared but, well, the wires were crossed a while ago.

"I didn't even suspect anything," you say, blinking at him. "You had me completely."

Jason shrugs, eyes half-lidded. You're not mad. He knows it. "Made sure you wouldn't find out. Wanted to find the right time, see how you felt about Hood. And then imagine my surprise when I learn that you've got his face on your wall, and his gloves in your dresser."

"You liked it," you say, lifting your chin, challenging.

Jason leans in, cupping the back of your neck, lips going to your ear. He wedges a knee between yours. "How could I not? You're so pretty, so nice t'me. Y'like me that much? Want me even like that? Tellin' Hood you love me, God—"

Something beeps, loud and shrill, and you jump. Jason just sighs exasperatedly, pulling out his phone and denying the alert.

"You have to go," you say, suddenly guilty you've kept Jason for so long.

"I—" Jason grimaces. "Yeah. I'll be back. We're not done."

You bite the inside of your lip. "I hope not."

Jason kisses you, hot and hard, and then he seems to steel himself, shifting into whatever Gotham needs him to be. He puts his helmet on and brushes your cheek, then disappears down the stairs to the Cave. You lean against the wall, catching your breath.

Maybe you'll put your poster back up.

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blackthorngirl · 2 days ago

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saw this cute post and now I'm not going on reddit for the rest of the day. quit while you're ahead

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blackthorngirl · 2 days ago

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SIMON RILEY loves how desperate you get for him—how you spread your legs wide, whining as his big hand comes down on your pussy, making you jolt. smack. your clit throbs, already swollen, and he grunts at the sight of it, red and glistening under his rough touch.

his hand comes down again, a sharp smack against your puffy little cunt, and you jerk with a whine. “fuck—!” your thighs tremble, but he doesn’t let you close them, his free hand pinning your hip down. “look at her,” he murmurs, voice rough but so fucking tender, like he’s talking to something precious. “all red and swollen, just for me. poor thing.”

another slap, this one lighter, just his fingertips brushing over your throbbing clit, and you sob. “simon—!”

“shh, i know, i know,” he coos, leaning down to press a kiss to your inner thigh. “she’s so sensitive, isn’t she? can’t even take a little tap without shaking.” his thumb rubs slow circles around your clit, not quite touching, just teasing. “you wanna come, baby? gotta ask nice.”

“please,” you whimper in a shaky voice.

you’re dripping, your cunt making a mess of his sheets, and he tsks like you’re being greedy. “such a wet little thing,” he murmurs, finally giving your clit the pressure it’s begging for, his thumb pressing down just enough to make your back arch. “there you go, that’s it—let me take care of her.”

his fingers slide through your slick, gathering it up before he brings them back to your clit, spreading your own wetness over it, slow and filthy. “gonna make her even redder,” he promises, voice dark. “gonna have you crying before i let you come.”

his calloused fingers drag slow over your clit, teasing, just enough to make your hips jerk. "fuck, she’s so needy," he growls, before landing another sharp slap right on your clit—your back arches, a broken whine tearing from your throat as the sting blooms into heat.

every slap, every cruel twist of his fingers has your clit pulsing, your cunt clenching around nothing. "there she goes," he chuckles, watching the puffy pearl twitch under his touch. "such a good girl for me."

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blackthorngirl · 2 days ago

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tumblr is basically a gay bar in a mental institute

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blackthorngirl · 2 days ago

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How it feel to finally accept and embrace the cringe of reading x reader fics

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blackthorngirl · 4 days ago

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blackthorngirl · 10 days ago

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Mmph, my🐱

Because this is how he’s gotta be looking at you when you’re at a neighborhood block party, right? After he sees you happen to have charmed the very shy little two year old girl who lives three doors down from you. Her four year old brother is shepherding both you and the little girl who won’t let go of your hand around to get snacks, play on the swings, and back and forth from the play room of the house throwing this get together.

He can see it.

American pie, white picket fence dream.

(Better put this behind a read more for some breeding and some questionable consent…)

You’ve already fooled around a bit. Not the first few weeks as the new couple in the neighborhood, but this week the proximity finally caught up in a moments of weakness that finally coincided for both of you. He knows you’re not a prude, but without a need to even discuss it, you had drawn a nice, comfortable line between the two of you. The logical thing if you’re going to play house to spy on the neighbors for as long as it takes to get their secrets. Both of you are such professionals it’s why he had no qualms taking this unconventional approach with you.

But then one late night less than a week ago…

And with the damn broken, it seemed a shame to waste a good thing.

He is on you the second he closes and locks the front door that night. It’s a kiss to consume you, and you half moan, half giggle when he presses you up against the wall and grinds his erection into your stomach. He’s a quick study and he’s already figured out enough ways to turn your brain off.

When he pushes you down to your knees, you go eagerly, and you unzip his pants and take his cock out without instruction.

He enjoys the warmth of your mouth until the saliva is dripping sloppily out of your lips and he can see you’ve finally slipped one hand down beneath your skirt to touch yourself.

That’s when he pulls you off, and in one swift moment raises you back up, twists you around, and shoves you against the wall. He flips up your skirt, pushes the wet gusset of your panties aside and sheathes his cock in you in one full thrust. You were wet for him, but not stretched, but you’ve already confessed that you don’t need him to prep you every time, that sometimes you like the pain of it, if being split open by his thick cock.

He can hear how far gone you already are in the baseness of your moan, which is perfect, because a couple of times you’ve let him fuck you a couple of times without a condom already, but he’s not pulling out tonight.

You realize that a moment too late.

In the throes of your first orgasm for the night, he continues pumping, he twitches inside you, and you try to move your hips, but he pins you and keeps thrusting.

“Steve, you need to - ”

“I need to fill your sweet cunt and see your belly swell with my children, sweetheart.”

You gasp and then cry out.

“What I saw tonight? You with those kids? Too sweet to pass up.”

He keeps thrusting until he’s spilling his hot seed in your womb, and he taps your needy clit to pull another short orgasm from you and you whimper his name.

He will take you again on all fours on the hardwood floor of the entryway before throwing you over his shoulder and then taking you apart until you’re mindless and docile and pumped so full of his cum before midnight that it’s dripping out of you. It won’t matter because he’s got plenty more for you, and he will keep you full all night, fucking you a few times through the haze of your sleep. You won’t be able to move in the morning with your exhaustion, which will be perfect for him to go to the bathroom and flush your birth control away.

As for him? He can do this all day, as many days as it takes to root his seed in you and get you to see this his way.

He even thinks it could be easy to sway you into his fantasy.

Sure seems like it with how you moan and cry at first but with cries that turn to keening.

Um… happy accidental Sinday!

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

I do not do tag lists, but FOLLOW @buckets-and-stories and TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS to be updated any time I publish a new work!

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blackthorngirl · 13 days ago

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this is making me lose it

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blackthorngirl · 17 days ago

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scarlet johannson did not spend an entire decade fighting tooth and nail to make natasha into an actual character instead of the sex object writers wanted her to be while also having to endure the most vile, misogynistic questions during press tours for people to now disrespect her legacy because yelena is 'better'. the only reason why that is, is because of everything scarlet went through. natasha singlehandedly paved the way for every other female superhero in the mcu and don't you forget that

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blackthorngirl · 18 days ago

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「 DON'T GET THE DOOR 」

OLDER!CLINGY!DAMIAN WAYNE X F!READER

★ SYNOPSIS: After days of being too busy to be intimate with you, Damian's finally got you propped up on the kitchen island, sweet and like putty in his hands, when a sudden knock sounds at the door... and he absolutely refuses to let you go and answer it.

★ TAGS: damian is 18+, suggestive content, nothing too much—just making out, and a bit more, damian is physically incapable of keeping his hands off you, srsly babe wtf did you do to him, dick and jason cameo at the end

★ A/N: just some dami hating everyone but you action 🤭 enjoy trying to get him off you lmao

line divider by @cafekitsune

Damian's gaze is heavy as it runs all over you, soaking you in with an intensity that makes you squirm on the counter, the marble cool against your bare thighs.

His hands are firm on your waist, sitting there like that's where they're meant to be—like they know no place else—as his chest moves to press up against your own, and his body stands situated right between your thighs, hot and present.

"I've missed you, Habibti," he whispers after a beat of just staring, and it comes out breathless, framed a little by disbelief, like he just can't fathom you're actually there.

You can only squirm in response, eyes ready to move to the side in all their bashful glory—when he ushers them back to him, fingers gentle against your chin.

"I've barely seen you these past few days—and now that I can, you choose to hide from me?"

You blink back at him, eyes wide and head shaking from side-to-side to convey what you can't with words, what you can't under the intensity of his gaze.

He hums, and he's so close now, so within kissing distance, that his breath fans over your face, minty and fresh, begging and pleading.

You don't even realise the way your lids grow heavy until it takes only half the time it usually does to shut them, until you're leaning forward and eager to meet him halfway as it registers to you just how much you've missed his touch.

Damian receives you with open arms, lips pressing against your own as he further pushes himself against you, hands now curling around your waist instead of situated at its sides.

All you can breathe is the scent of nature and cologne, drowning in all that is him until your head grows dizzy and your body begins to shake, until you're suffocating in heat and pounding need.

He kisses you like he's running out of time to, like at any minute, he'll be forced to pull away, hungry and desperate and left with an ache near impossible to fill.

He also kisses you like he has all the time in the world to, like he's taking in a piece of art, studying every inch until he has it etched into his mind forever.

It's too much—it's not enough—and you're left a panting mess when he pulls away, the air hot and heavy and seeping so much steam it practically fogs up your vision.

"Dami..."

He hums, lips now on your neck, having moved there as soon as he pulled away as though incapable of truly ever leaving you.

Your fingers move to card through his hair, and he groans right into your skin, just above a vein, sending a vibration straight through your body.

God, the moment is just so perfect, and you've just been so starved for attention, and everything in the world seems to just be going so right, that it feels wrong, like something will happen to ruin it all.

Something like a knock at your door.

At first, you think you're imagining it, because Damian continues to litter your skin with kisses like nothing's happened, his hands even beginning to roam beneath the hem of your shirt, touch light against your skin.

But then you hear it again, louder this time, and you're sure that it's real.

But Damian acts like it isn't.

His hands continue tracing patterns into your skin, lips painting your neck like it's one of his canvases as he worships you with all the devotion of a man begging for his life.

It's only when a third knock, even harder and louder than the former two, sounds from the door that he shows even a hint of acknowledgement, fingers digging into your sides, but not enough to hurt, your Damian would never hurt you.

"Damian!" a voice calls from the other side of the door, deep and insistent, "I know you're in there! Open up!"

"Would you be quiet?" another hisses right after, "People are looking."

You blink, pulling back a little, only for your boyfriend to chase after you.

Another knock at the door.

Damian growls into your skin just as you call softly, "Dami."

"Ignore those two idiots," he scoffs out with all the vitriol of a man wronged, one starved of something he's needed for far too long. "They'll leave eventually."

You nod, readily and easily because you don't particularly care for answering the door either. Not when he's holding you so sweet, and kissing you so right, and loving you like you're the only thing in his sight.

And you practically are with how he devours you, biting and sucking as he tastes you enough to shoot tingles down your spine and flood your veins with heat.

"Maybe he's not home," one of the two voices says, and you're just lucid enough to recognise it as Jason's.

"Oh he's home alright," the other responds, and you're quick to find that it's Dick.

But then all your lucidity washes out your veins because Damian's fingers start to crawl up your skin, and you're parting your lips to warn him with another call of his name.

"Dami—"

"Shh," he hushes you gently, and you know he doesn't mean it, soft and reverent as his hand reaches up to play with the band of your bra, lifting and snapping it back in place to send a jolt down your spine.

Your eyes dart to his, a heat pooling low in your stomach, and he simply meets your gaze with his own hooded one.

Then he moves to capture your lips again, and you're moaning low against his mouth, lips parting just a brief amount to let him in, when another huge bang slams against your door.

You pull back with a frantic, "Coming!"

Damian is already moving to try and capture your lips again, but you shut him down immediately, hands pressed firmly against his chest.

"Damian."

He growls, cursing beneath his breath in Arabic as he lingers a second longer, fingers curling against your skin. But he does ultimately let go, backing away enough to leave you room to hop off the counter, but not enough so that you can't feel the heat of him against you once you do.

And as you make your way towards the door, Damian follows right after, a shadow to his light, a knight to his princess.

A boyfriend to his girlfriend.

You swing open the door to two figures stood on the other side, both who you suspected them to be, wide-eyed and blinking as though they never thought you'd answer.

"Finally," Dick whines, lips jutted in a pout before they tug back up, flashing you one of his signature charming smiles. "Hey [Name]! Think Jason and I could crash—?"

"No."

A rush of wind flies over your face, the door to your apartment slamming shut before your very eyes to leave you dazed and a tad confused for a second.

Then a pair of arms wrap right around your waist, and that same voice that rejected the two brothers at your door is whispering right against your ear, hot and heavy, "Now... where were we?"

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blackthorngirl · 21 days ago

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Compromised Positions

Summary: Bucky Barnes x fe!Reader -> You and Bucky find yourself in one too many compromised positions, not that he's complaining.

Disclaimer: Steamy moments with a slight hint of smut towards the end, swearing, multiple undercover kisses, he fell first, she fell second, he fell harder. Mentions of domestic disputes, criminal neighbours. Bucky ties Reader's heels, shirtless Bucky, him in joggers, a lot of physical touching (innocent...at first). Gala kiss, undercover as a married couple, Bucky admires Reader's nails. Not Proof Read.

“Guys, you’ve got like, two minutes until they’re gonna notice you’re gone.”

“Relax, little Falcon, we’ll be out in time.”

You heard Joaquin sigh over comms. “That nickname,” he groaned. “I’m the Falcon, now.”

Bucky smirked. “Whatever you say, Big Bird.”

You all heard Sam chuckle as a groaning whine left Joaquin. “Not you, too.”

You nudged Bucky’s arm and pointed at the room. “In here.”

He closed the door behind you both before he joined you in the search for physical evidence. Pictures were taken on his phone whilst you looked for the file.

“Jesus, have they never heard of organisation? What the hell is this?”

Bucky just looked at you. “Seriously? The chaotic organiser is judging their organisation skills.”

“At least I know where everything is.”

It was another thirty seconds before your anxiety kicked in. You considered it to be the same kind of anxiety mother’s got before their kids threw up in the middle of the night. And Joaquin’s voice confirmed your suspicion.

“Guys, they’re back early.”

Bucky looked around the room. There was one exit and that would mean running right into them. “We can’t-”

“I’ve got a plan.”

Instantly, you grabbed Bucky by his henley and threw him over to the sofa as you removed your own jacket. The room wasn’t exactly an office – it was more of an overflow of actual office stuff. A storage closet.

There was a chance your plan would work better than you both being compromised.

“What the hell are you-”

You held Bucky down by his shoulders. “Just shut up.”

The footsteps out in the corridor were getting louder. They were getting closer. So, strandling Bucky’s thighs, your knees digging into the worn sofa in the middle of the room, you kissed him just as the door unlocked.

Considering you and Bucky had gotten through the building door pretending to be members of the society, it wouldn’t seem odd that two new-ish members were in a room they had been told about.

Your hips shifted as Bucky’s legs moved, his hands putting just the right amount of pressure on your back to make the whole thing look believable.

There were strangled noises from behind you both which quickly disappeared with a soft click of the door, whispered awkward voices and then quick footsteps leaving down the other end of the hall.

It took Bucky a moment to get his breath back.

“Good…good thinking.”

You smiled. “Thanks. Now let’s go, before they come back.”

Neither of you mentioned how you managed to avoid a confrontation with top members of the group. You didn’t talk about it either. It was a kiss that saved you both from a compromised position, nothing more.

Until it happened again.

Three months later, you were on a – meant to be – solo mission.

An undercover identity built through a long career at Shield meant you still maintained the yearly invite to a rather pretentious gala on the Italian Coast. And, since words had been brewing around another multi-million dollar deal over a key to a vault that protected certain secrets of yours, meant you had to go.

However, somewhere between the extra security, extra guests and a faulty switch, you’d almost gotten caught.

Almost.

The third round of security was about to turn down the hall to the faulty security alert just as a hand came to the small of your back. You were about to say something until you recognised the face it belonged to.

“Bucky?”

“Just trust me.”

That was all he said before you found yourself pressed against the prestinely polished wooden door frame a few feet away. His steady right hand lay on your cheek, tilting your face to his whilst his left softly skated down the length of your body, over the dip in your hip and to the top of the slit on your dress.

Your breath was taken away as his lips were pressed against yours, his tongue being granted permission to taste you properly.

Somewhere behind the thrumming in your ears, the two security officials joked quietly in Italian before flicking the warning light off and moving on down the hall.

When you finally caught your breath, you asked, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“You’re welcome,” was what he replied.

“Bucky-” you warned.

“Sam called me. Joaquin ran those checks you asked for and I was in the area.” He said it as if it was nothing. Like turning up, not only technically saving your ass but kissing you like that was nothing more than an average Tuesday.

That night you swore to yourself that it would only be a second one time thing. But apparently that was just another lie.

A few months later, you had been put onto a mission. You were monitoring the supposed harmless janitor of the building. ‘Supposed’ as there had been warning’s flagged over his involvement with an elite terrorist group that had been targeting undercover Shield agents.

And, despite knowing you were safe enough, Sam had provided you with a ‘boyfriend’ cover.

And that boyfriend just so happened to be Bucky.

He came to your apartment every few days. Stayed at least two nights a week. And helped you do laundry…

Even when you were both fighting.

“I don’t need someone watching my every move, James. I’ve been in this job a lot longer on my own. Besides, it’s not like I’ve never not done it before.”

You were sitting on top of the empty washing machine as your bedding was spinning around in the dryer. Bucky was folding the second piles of clothing considering they were his that he’d left overnight.

“What if something had happened? What if you’d gotten caught?”

“I nearly did,” you told him. “When you came charging inside like some fucking-”

There were slow and heavy footsteps coming down the hallway. Without saying anything, Bucky reached out for you as you pulled him to stand between your legs.

He leaned forward, his hands pulling you in by your hips as your hands pushed through his hair. Your mouth opened almost instinctively as his tongue swiped forward. A quiet groan left him and his fingertips gripped a little harder onto the soft skin exposed at your hips, before the door opened up.

Sam rushed inside. “It’s just me.”

You and Bucky moved away from each other quicker than you’d come together. Bucky moved back to the laundry pile and wiped his lip as he thought about something other than the feeling of your legs hooking around his own and holding him in place.

You wiped your own mouth, trying to hide the slight embarrassment as Sam stopped, realising what he, sort of, walked into.

But there wasn’t time to question it.

“Can you break your window?”

You looked at Sam confused. “What?”

“I need you to break a window in your apartment and call the janitor up. Joaquin is gonna come to ‘fix’ it. Eventually, he’s gonna have to sign papers in the office and we’ll be able to tag his desk top. It’s so old, Torres can’t hack it.”

“Jesus, really?” You hopped off the washing machine, ignoring the dull ache in your underwear.

Sam nodded. “This dude is working with something from, like, the 90s.”

“For the amount that they charge for rent?”

Sam nodded.

Three hours, two struggling-attempts at a fitted sheet that decided for today to be the day it didn’t want to comply and one shattered window pane later; Joaquin had tagged the computer and you had a fresh window installed.

Apparently, that mission was the catalyst for the next undercover assignment you received. Or rather, the undercover assignment both you and Bucky received.

A new-ish wedding couple that have been house hunting for six months and had finally found the perfect one to try and start a family in. It just so happened to be across the street from a few different couples you would be quietly surveilling.

Some for money laundering for elite underground teams that missed the idea of outfits such as ‘Hydra’ existing, some for potential involvement in weaponry sales overseas and some for recruitment to both groups.

The other neighbours, however, were completely normal.

Which seemed to be harder to deal with than the potential criminals living across the road.

Considering you and Bucky had already made out more than once before, physical affection seemed to come a little easier than you had thought. It was still a little awkward, but overall, not as bad as it could have been.

A week after moving everything in, you and Bucky agreeing to separate bedrooms, you’d gotten an alert one morning from the security camera doorbell.

Someone was coming up the path.

And you and Bucky were right in the way of the door.

Still in your pajamas, bickering over which neighbour to start with, Bucky stepped forward and held onto your hips. He lifted you before your legs wrapped around him and you kissed him as if your life depended on it.

Between each kiss came laughter to mask both the awkwardness and the fact none of it was real. It was all an act. It’s all it could be.

The doorbell rang, then someone knocked on the window beside the frame of the door. You and Bucky pretended like you’d just been caught in the act.

Your body practically slid down his as he let you down but kept an arm around your waist. As you answered the door, he remained fixed beside you. You opened the door enough to frame yourself and Bucky to the nine am neighbour who was holding a pie dish.

As time went on, the affection became a little more subtle. Hand holding, open car doors, a helping hand down the front steps of the porch when you wore heels.

Then, a few months later, you were both invited to the street BBQ.

You were standing in the slightly open planned hallway, trying to get the buckle of your heels to play along. That was when your husband came jogging down the stairs in dark jeans, a fresh shirt and a brown jacket.

“Need some help?”

He didn’t wait for your answer after hearing you sigh as you lowered your foot, frustrated at your shoe.

Bucky didn’t hesitate in bending down on one knee as you leaned against the back of the sofa. His hand gently holding onto your ankle, he lifted your heeled foot to rest on him. He did the same with the next one, his thumb rubbing beside your ankle before he let you place it on the ground.

His gaze didn’t leave yours as he stood.

“You look incredible,” he told you.

A sundress, softer block heels to match and a smile that knocked him dead on his feet the first day he met you.

“Ready to go?”

You nodded. “Let me just grab the food.”

“I still don’t see why we have to bring food to a BBQ we were invited to.”

“Because it’s good manners.”

“You know most of these people are criminals, right?” He asked you as he opened the door for you.

You shrugged. “To them, we don’t know that…yet.”

Bucky locked the door before helping you down the porch steps. It was a short walk a few houses down. As one of the women ran over to you, holding your hands and complimenting your outfit, Bucky kissed your lips quickly before being ushered towards the buffet style table where the other husbands and partners were standing.

But despite involving himself into the conversation, his eyes barely left you the entire night.

Long after food, you found yourself sitting in your husband’s lap on one of the chairs. There were only a select few left, including you and Bucky. Which also meant chairs had become few and far between.

You had planned to stand beside him, but without worry, Bucky had put his hand onto your waist and pulled you across until you were sitting comfortably.

Your arm remained fixed on his shoulder and as the night went on, you started to get more and more tired. Your body practically melted against him as the faint buzz of alcohol took over and laughter passed between the remaining people, awake enough to hear the story.

It was a little after midnight when you both returned home. Bucky pulled you into his side a little as his hand grazed over your hip and he kissed your head.

“Go shower,” he told you. “You’ve still got sunscreen on.”

You nodded as you molded into his touch once again. “I know.”

“Give me them,” Bucky whispered quietly as he took the leftovers from your arms. “Go on, I’ll be up in a minute.”

By the time you had gotten out of the shower, you found a set of fresh pajamas on your bed. They definitely hadn’t been there in the morning. As you got dressed, you hesitated in the hallway for a second. Bucky’s room was just a little further.

Yet, you stopped in your tracks when you saw his partially naked body through the crack in the door.

He was buttoning his shirt on the hanger whilst he stood by his wardrobe door, jeans hugging his hips and the muscles a little tense in his back.

It wasn’t like you’d never seen him shirtless before. But in those moments, he’d been hurt. You’d been cleaning a wound he couldn’t reach and wouldn’t let Sam touch since he considered him, “Too heavy handed.”

There was something far more intimate about how you were seeing him at that moment.

Yes, he technically was your husband. And you were living in the same house. But, it was a mission. It was a cover. It wasn’t real.

You’d thank him for the pajamas in the morning. After the feelings in your stomach had died down and the fictional image of you walking over and kissing the dip between his shoulder blades had disappeared.

You tried to make it as casual as possible. And he accepted it as casually as possible. And you both very quickly moved on. A job still needed to be done.

However, a few nights later, those lines blurred again.

You’d been awake for hours, unable to sleep. Bucky had gone to bed an hour before you had, but you were the only one to wake up after having a rather intimate dream about your marriage partner.

No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t push the image of him away. So, with a sigh, you’d dragged yourself from bed and gone downstairs. You’d kept the TV volume low as you turned it onto a rerun channel.

Only, as Dorothy hit Blanche on the head with a newspaper, there was a knock at your door.

You muted the TV and reached for your phone to check the camera.

You waited to the side of the front door until they knocked again. “Y/n? Are you awake?”

You rushed forward, shoving the hidden gun back into the security draw of the hallway stand.

“Suzie?”

You unlocked the door to find one of the few women you’d become friends with in the last few months. She was one of the ‘normal’ neighbours. Only, it wasn’t normal for her to be standing in her casual clothes, sopping wet from the rain, outside your door at almost half one in the morning.

“I’m so sorry,” she said with puffy eyes. “I-I saw the shine behind the curtains and I just…I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Come on in,” you pulled her out from the wet just as the familiar sound of Bucky’s feet came down the stairs.

“Is everything okay?”

The sight of him shirtless in nothing else but joggers was doing nothing to put a stop to your imagination. Considering he usually slept in his underwear – a fact you’d learned one morning when your kitchen fire alarm had decided to let its battery die at five in the morning – it shouldn’t have shocked you the way it did.

“Everything’s fine,” you assured him quietly as you met him halfway. A hand landed on his chest over his heart as you leaned up and pecked his lips. He kissed back. “Go back to bed. It’s just Suzie.”

Bucky’s tired eyes opened wide enough to recognise your neighbour in the light of the TV. He looked back at you and you just nodded.

“I promise,” you told him before kissing him again as you felt his hand at your hip.

He just nodded. “Okay. If you need me-”

“I know.”

You watched as he turned around and went back upstairs to bed before you turned back to Suzie. “Let’s get you some fresh clothes.”

“Oh, no. It’s okay. I-I can just-”

You shook your head, taking her hand in yours as you dragged her to the laundry room. You grabbed her a towel from the dryer before picking out an old paint-flicked T-shirt and some wide-legged joggers.

“Put these on, I’ll make us some tea.”

“Thank you, Y/n.”

You just nodded as you slid the laundry room door shut. She reappeared a few moments later, dressed and drying her hair with the towel, her eyes stained with tears once more.

“What’s going on?”

“Me and Johnny had a fight.”

For the next two hours you sat with her in the kitchen as she cried her way through the story of how her and her boyfriend of three years had started their fight and how it had ended.

“You can stay here for tonight. I don’t want you going back there.”

Suzie sniffled, “Thank you.” She hugged you tightly. “You’re such a good friend.”

Leading the way, you showed her the bathroom first which gave you time to tidy up the guest bedroom, as well as your own across the hallway – which just so happened to already look like nobody had been sleeping there.

By the time you reappeared, Suzie hugged you once more before you led her to the room and closed the bedroom door behind her. A few minutes later, you walked down the hallway towards Bucky’s room.

He’d left the door ajar for you.

Walking inside, you gently pulled the covers up and shifted under them until you were laying beside Bucky. And just as you thought he was dead-asleep, his arm came to lay across and pull you closer.

As your hand ran up his arm and you settled against the mattress, you felt his nose brush against the crook of your neck.

“Everything okay?”

You swallowed a little before nodding. “Yeah. Her and John had a fight. I put her in the guest room. Thank you, by the way.”

“For what?”

“My bedroom. You tidied it.”

Bucky had a hint of a smile on his lips. “You’re my wife. You shouldn’t be anywhere else but right here, beside me.”

The use of his words, with his deeper morning voice was a pairing that would be haunting your ovulation dreams for a good while.

By the time you both woke up in the morning, you leaned over to check the time on his alarm clock. It was a little after nine. You’d both slept in.

“Suzie and I are gonna have a girl’s day today, so I might be back late.”

Bucky nodded. “Okay. Need me to do anything?”

You shook your head. “I’ll handle John.”

You leaned on your side as you watched your husband stand from the bed in his boxers and pull on his jeans, before zipping them up and buckling his belt. Then he sat back on the bed, his arm caging you in.

“Are you sure? Because, you don’t have to.”

You looked at him curiously. “Have you ever seen yourself mad?”

He then looked at you, curiously. “What?”

“Because, though you might not be him, you still have that glint in your eyes.”

“Glint?”

You nodded. “You know, that I’m gonna kill you and not regret it, look. I don’t think John needs to be threatened by the Winter Soldier look…yet.”

Bucky relaxed and nodded. “What happened?”

“It’s little things that became one big thing. What they both need right now is some space.”

“If you need me, call me.”

You smiled, before watching him pull a henley down his body. “I know.”

However, when the back of his t-shirt became stuck, you leaped up and onto your feet rather than watch him struggle for the next five minutes.

“Here, let me.”

Suddenly, the room became a lot more quiet. Bucky felt your fingers lightly graze his bare back as you fixed his shirt and helped pull it down his back. And for a moment, he felt you lean against him. Or maybe he’d leaned into your touch so much, his knees had gone weak.

“You know,” his voice was low as he spoke. “I like waking up to you with me.”

He didn’t know where the sudden confession came from considering less than two minutes ago, you’d both been talking about something completely different. All he knew was that it was the truth.

Your breath hitched. “So did-”

Before Bucky could fully turn around to face you, there was a sound of a lock opening down the hall. Suzie was awake.

“I better get breakfast started.”

Bucky nodded, his hands rubbing up and down the top of your arms as you leaned into his chest. He pressed his lips to your head. “I’ll go and check in on Sam.”

And for a few moments, you were left standing alone, his voice circling in your head.

I like waking up to you with me.

The rest of the day ran swiftly. Having pancakes for breakfast before driving out to the local shopping mall and cafe. From where, you both got a manicure before ending up at a diner on the edge of town; John had been racing around town to find his girlfriend.

Following multiple threats – both spoken, and silent – and constant apologies, Suzie and Johnny made up. But his actions were definitely going to be watched closely by you. Though nothing terrible had happened during the fight, and you doubted John would ever lay a hand on his girlfriend, he’d still hurt her.

Which put him in your bad books.

By the time you got home, John still providing Suzie the space she needed, you’d dropped Suzie off at home before pulling into your driveway, where almost instantly, Bucky had come outside and was standing on the porch waiting for you.

“Where’s Suzie?”

“She went home,” you said as you locked your car and climbed the steps of the porch, Bucky taking your hand in his. “John apologised. I’m still gonna be watching him, but they’ve made up.”

Bucky smiled. “Good. You got your nails done?”

“Oh, yeah.” Between the diner and the long conversation home, you’d forgotten. “Like ‘em?”

Bucky nodded. “Looks great.”

You smiled to yourself before looking back up at your husband. What followed was a debrief of the day, before you both collapsed onto the sofa with some desert you’d brought back home from the diner.

As whatever show Bucky had found for you both was about to flick onto the next episode before a pop-up ad came on asking if you wished to continue, you both took a break. Meanwhile, you pulled the blanket from you and stood before taking both empty bowls into the kitchen and laying them in the sink.

And you took a breather for a second.

For the last two hours, Bucky’s presence had been overwhelming – in the best sense, if the marriage had been real. But considering you were still trying to stuff emotions and images down into a box you kept meaning to lock shut, his presence was becoming more difficult to be normal around.

That fuzzy line officially broke a few weeks later.

The feelings had been growing stronger and more noticeable. The way he held you, the way he kissed you – even if it was quick. It left you wanting more. You’d also been spending more time sleeping in with him beside you than on your own.

First it had been the night Suzie had stayed. Then it had been the sofa, waking up on his chest with your back against the sofa cushions. A few sleepless nights after that, he slept beside you, holding you close to him.

After that, it became…normal…to wake up with him so close to you. His legs tangled with yours, his arm over you or around you, his steady heartbeat calming your own erratic one.

Then, one night, you couldn’t sleep.

You’d carefully peeled yourself from his arms and padded downstairs into the kitchen to grab a glass of water. But after standing at the sink for a few minutes, your own thoughts too loud for you to notice him behind you, Bucky’s hands came to lean on the sink counter.

His hands were on both sides of you, caging you in.

“You okay?”

You jumped a little. Bucky noticed, his hand coming to rest on your hip for a moment. Somehow, it calmed you.

“Yeah,” you said. “Just…couldn’t sleep.”

Bucky stayed quiet for a second before asking his next question. “Are you sure that’s all it is?”

You lowered the glass from your lips and swallowed the water in your mouth. “What?”

Bucky watched the side of your face, your lips freshly wet from the cold water, your mind spiralling and distant.

His right hand came up to your left side to pull the hair away from your neck. Carefully, he called you back in before he leaned into you, his nose gently running up the length of your neck.

Your breath hitched a little as you leaned against his bare chest but still held onto the glass as it balanced on the edge of the sink.

“You’re tense,” Bucky said before he pressed a feather-light kiss to your exposed skin. And for a moment, he felt you relax. “Nightmare?”

You shook your head slowly. “No.”

“Then what is it?”

For a moment, you refused to face him. You were yet to know feelings that went away on their own when they ran as deep as they did, but maybe it was a fluke.

Then he kissed the crook of your shoulder. “Talk to me.”

“It’s you.” The words came out a quiet sigh as your eyes closed. As his lips left your shoulder, but his arms didn’t leave the space he’d created for both of you, he looked at you.

Your eyes opened. “It’s you, Bucky. You’re in my head and my…”

Heart.

“And no matter how hard I try, I can’t get rid of you. It feels like somewhere between that first kiss on the sofa and…waking up beside you, you’ve seeped into my bones. And I…I don’t know if I want that to stop.”

Bucky’s gaze roamed over yours and for a long time, he was quiet. But his arms never moved.

“That’s why I can’t sleep.”

The silence continued for a moment longer until Bucky finally spoke.

“Your name has been tattooed on my soul since the first day I met you, doll.”

You looked a little puzzled, because you were. So he explained, “The first time you smiled at me, I’m pretty sure I got knocked off my feet. And that day you kissed me…I was thinking about it for weeks until I saw you in that dress. You looked fucking stunning. From then I knew my feelings for you would never leave, not that I tried to make them. You’re tattooed on my soul, doll.”

Your gaze narrowed playfully. “Are you really having a feelings competition?”

Bucky shrugged, a smirk on his face. “Maybe. But I know I’ll always win.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because I’ve got you,” Bucky answered sincerely. “You’re more than I could ever dream of. And that includes ‘dream’ you.”

You chuckled, “Such a romantic.”, before leaning in and kissing him with a smile. But as the softness moved away for a moment, the kiss became something more. Something deeper.

Bucky stood a little taller as he moved his hands from the counter and held onto your face. The glass in your hand clattered into the sink as the water fell down the drain and you turned to step into your husband.

Placing an arm around your waist, he lifted you up and onto the island in the kitchen before he held your face again, his tongue swiping at your lip before you granted him access. He felt your legs lock around him as he pulled his mouth from yours, letting his wet kiss trail under your jaw before catching at your pulse.

You breathed deeper as his hand came to your thigh, his fingers pushing under the hem of your shorts, the ache in your underwear growing more needy.

Making it halfway up the stairs, you held onto the handrail as Bucky dropped to his knees and trailed his tongue on the inside of your thigh before tasting you like a man starved of his final meal.

By the time the sun rose, the sheets had been changed and the tile markings on your knees had settled down. But Bucky’s arm remained fixed around your middle, his fingers tracing up and down your spine.

“Promise me this isn’t a part of the mission.”

Bucky’s eyes opened to meet your tired gaze. “I promise this isn’t a part of the mission. I meant what I said last night; I don’t plan for this to stop when we move out.”

The memory of Bucky on top of you, his gaze locked onto yours as he inched himself into you slowly, floated over you. You smiled.

“Good.”

Leaning forward. Bucky kissed you lightly before rolling you onto your back, his arms wrapped around you as his kiss moved from your lips to your neck and collarbone.

He heard you giggle softly as he did so. “We’ve got work to do.”

“It’s Sunday, doll.” Bucky told you, before leaning down and kissing your bare skin. “Work can wait.”

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