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sundrop-writes · 2 months ago

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The Jaws of Life

Jason Todd x Gender Neutral Reader

Now part of me has holes in it, and part of me is whole.

We’ve only begun.

I can’t decide - maybe it’s enough to get by for now.

But I’m having the time of my life - rotting in the sun.

We’re inside The Jaws of Life.

Part One: Panic Room

Summary:

You and Jason don't really hate each other - at least not anymore. Your feelings for each other are more than complicated, and before you have time to figure it all out, you have to part ways.

Jason goes back to Gotham at Bruce's behest, and you're off to visit a long lost relative that you didn't even know cared about you.

Unfortunately, while you're apart, the Joker makes things even more complicated with a phone call and a gun. And your world comes crashing down before you can even put names to all the stars in your sky.

Jason Todd x GN!Powered!Reader. Friends With Benefits to Lovers/Lovers Reunited. Smut, Extreme Emotional Angst, Hurt and Comfort. Set during Season 3.

Word Count: 19,900

DC Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link

This is a sequel to Emergency Contact, so make sure that you read that fic before you start this one. This can be read as a standalone, but reading that fic first provides emotional context for the relationship between the characters, and it gives you more amazing stuff to read! Either way, I hope you enjoy it.

Detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: this fic has a lot of warnings, so strap in - the reader character is completely gender neutral - the main pronouns used for the bulk of the fic are you/yours and there is one scene where Jason is talking to someone else about the reader and uses they/them pronouns for the reader and there is absolutely no descriptions of what genitals the reader character has (I like all my GN fics to be interpreted so that the character could be trans, or cis, or nonbinary, and that they could have a penis or a vagina); there are implications of the reader being trans or nonbinary (something I threw in last minute cause it felt like it fit the fic well), but like with my fat reader fics - if you're cis then just ignore it, roll with it, and remember that most fics are catered specifically for you; this fic DOES use Y/N (as do all of my fics); the reader character has meta powers - the reader character can form ice crystals out of nothing and can freeze pretty much any substance; Jason calls the reader 'babe' (but as I said with the previous fic, I think this is a genderless nickname and Jason would call anyone this when flirting and being affectionate); mentions of Jason's canon kidnapping and canon interactions with Deathstroke (and the trauma those incidents likely caused for him); mentions of canon deaths; the fic starts off with a smut scene - the reader gives Jason a blowjob; mentions of Jason 'gagging' the reader with his cock (during previous incidents, not this time); Jason uses the word 'pretty' to describe the reader (he says they have a 'pretty mouth') - again, I feel like this word is fairly gender neutral, especially in the context of him being affectionate; finger sucking (the reader sucks on Jason's fingers); protected penetrative sex - Jason and the reader fuck while using a condom (and because I didn't describe the reader's genitals, it could be vaginal sex or anal sex, who knows); marking kink; some dirty talk; the reader is more submissive and Jason is more dominant, but there is no explicit BDSM roles; (very brief) cockwarming; (and I think that's it for the smut section, the rest of the warnings are non-smut related); mentions of Rose having a one-sided affection towards Jason or flirting with him to try and further her mission (in this version, Rose and Jason never get together); mentions of Jason's past and the trauma he has surrounding it - including discussions of his poverty, his parents' deaths, his abandonment and neglect by all the adults in his life, his time in foster care; Jason has a generally poor self-image in this fic and has negative internal dialogue surrounding himself when he is narrating; mentions of the reader having a backstory similar to Jason's - the reader grew up in severe poverty and neglect and was homeless for the majority of their young life, and also had a parent who had issues with substance abuse; descriptions of Jason being kidnapped by Deathstroke; semi graphic descriptions of blood and violence (and death); semi-graphic descriptions of Jason being tortured by a kidnapper; mentions of the reader going to visit a long lost relative who is dying of brain cancer (if themes around hospice and palliative care are triggering to you, then these sections might be triggering - but I haven't gone into detail about the medical aspects or mentioned any medical environments or medical equipment, the cancer is a background plot point); mentions of Jason and the reader sexting in the past (none of the messages are detailed here); mentions of Jason and the reader sharing a dark sense of humor to cope with their traumas; an enemy describes the reader character as a 'pretty one' and 'pretty thing' (again, I think this is fairly gender neutral, and the villain uses this term in a more condescending way); descriptions of gun violence; this entire fic has extreme emotional angst, and this first half is the more 'light-hearted' part, so do be warned that this fic will not make you happy and it is a big whump fest.

A/N: I am so fucking excited to post this fic, you guys have no idea omg. This is just the first half, and I think the fic as a whole is what makes it a great fic, but I think this is an amazing start/introduction and I am so excited to hear what you guys think of it!! Especially considering that this fic has been two years in the making and I am finally getting to post it omg. I am SO EXCITED !!!!!

...

“Fuck, babe.”

Jason let out a breathy sigh as your mouth worked on his cock, sloppy and eager against the beautiful dick that you had come to know so well over these past few months.

It was rare that you treated him to a blowjob. Since the two of you had started this ‘relationship’, you had noticed that he often got too greedy when you sucked him off - trying too hard to take control, shoving his cock into your mouth with unhinged care, rather than just sitting back to enjoy the ride. He would make jokes about ‘shutting you up’ by keeping his dick in your mouth, and you never wanted him to get too cocky about having this.

You wanted him to know that it was a privilege to have his cock in your mouth, especially without you simply biting his (very perfect) cock off.

But after the chaotic past few weeks that the team had - with Gar and Conner being captured by Cadmus, with Donna’s funeral still fresh in everyone’s minds - you thought that Jason deserved this to take his mind off all of it. His wounds from Deathstroke had barely healed and everyone was still mourning.

So you had him flat on his back in his bed - similar to the position he had you in not too long ago, when he had pulled the bullet fragment out of your stomach and bandaged you up. And you were straddling his knees as you worked your mouth on his cock, your tongue flat against the underside of the thick, impressive length while you bobbed your head, letting spit flow freely from your open mouth without care. It sloppily gathered around the base, slick down over his balls in a perfect, messy way.

Naturally, the room was filled with nothing but the sounds of you gurgling on his cock and the moans that he could barely contain due to the deadly heat of you eagerly swallowing his dick.

“Fuckin’ love your mouth.” He moaned, bringing a hand down to stroke gentle fingers across your cheek - burning, something that made you gasp quietly against his flesh.

It was a move much more tender than he would have ever made before.

This Jason was a Jason much sweeter than the one Doctor Light took from you on that near-fatal night. You knew that it likely had a lot to do with you laying your life on the line for him - the fact that you had dangled yourself out of a high-rise building trying to save him, vowed that you would never let him go.

That night had changed everything for the both of you.

This Jason was not the same sex-hungry, carnal, ‘live for the moment’ person who had left The Tower that night, half-cocked and determined to prove that he was better than the old ‘relics’ who kept leaving him out of all their plans. This Jason was humble, quiet, thoughtful. This Jason put his arm around you in a room full of people, not caring who looked on. This Jason actually took the time to think before he spoke.

This Jason - even if he didn’t want to admit it - clearly cared about your feelings and wanted to show it.

(And that made him a lot more deserving of a blowjob, unlike the Jason who would fuck into your mouth without asking and then laugh when you gagged on his cock.)

“Goddammit, ‘m close.” Jason mumbled out - you could feel the muscles of his thighs straining under your palms, a concerted effort not to buck up into the warmth of your mouth to chase the finality of his high.

You would have thanked him for it, if you didn’t have your mouth full. Instead, you bobbed your head faster and moaned around him - a wordless invitation for him to cum down your throat, for him to have a prize that he wouldn’t have been worthy of before.

“Shit, babe-”

Jason seethed through his teeth, and then curled his fist into the back of your shirt, tugging - surprisingly, urging you to pull away from his cock.

“Come on, come up.” He said, gulping for breath. “I wanna fuck you.”

You pulled off, leaving a sloppy twinge of spit trailing from your swollen lips to the pink head of his cock, glistening wet and slick sounding. His dick bobbed back toward his pelvis with a filthy, wet sound - causing him to groan as you caught your breath with a small gasp.

“You feelin’ okay?” You chuckled, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. “I have never known you to turn down cumming in my mouth.”

“As tempting as it is to see my cum dripping from your pretty lips…”

Jason said, reaching down and gently shoving his thumb past your over-worked, swollen lips. Naturally, you stuck your tongue out and tasted his skin, wrapping your lips around the digit and sucking once again, loving the absolutely lust-sick look on his face as you did this.

You couldn’t help but to indulge in the attention - not when it was his eyes on you.

“I definitely can’t pass up the opportunity to watch you cum while you ride my cock.” He added on, his voice rumbling quietly with lust, the idea clearly something that truly excited him.

You popped your mouth off his thumb before you spoke.

“Oh? You think you’re gonna make me cum before you blow your load?” You chuckled, posing it as a challenge - knowing that he fucked you better when he was riled up, when he thought of it as another thing to prove himself in.

“Think I’m some kind of amateaur?” Jason scoffed quietly under his breath.

He put a hand on your hip and pulled you up his body, silently agreeing to the challenge that you had posed. You shed your shirt while he grabbed a condom - you were already prepped and well lubed, seeing as Jason had made you cum with his fingers and his mouth before you had turned him over on his back, seeking to return the favor.

He rolled the condom on and slicked up his cock with more lube for good measure, something that made a wonderfully filthy slick sound. Then, with his hands firm on your hips, he pulled you up to straddle him and had you mounting him like he was a throne that you were meant to sit upon.

You let out a rattling moan as you sat down on his cock, feeling the full hot length stretch you open for the first time in too long. It was a smooth, steady motion - a joining of two people that came from silent, delicate knowing and trust. At this point, he didn’t have to stop and ask if you were okay - he simply knew from the blissed-out look on your face that you were enjoying every inch of it.

It was perfect.

With your hands balanced on his chest and his forehead pressed against yours, for once, his eyes daring to gaze into yours past the thickness of his lashes. Usually he busied himself with his head in your neck, or squeezed his eyes shut when your dirty talk got to him particularly well. And often, insisted on fucking you from behind so that he could focus more on destroying you with ‘skill’ than falling apart due to the expressions on your face and seeing every little echo of his cock flicker in your eyes.

But this was distinctly different. Staring right into your eyes, no shying away, no backing down. As if inviting you to a more intimate part of him that you had somehow never seen, even if you had been naked together and fucked each other dozens of times by now.

He was hot and heavy inside of you, so beautifully thick, filling you up so well. Strangely, there was that thing deep in your gut that yearned for him to pull out and peel the condom off so that you could feel every single raw inch of him - but you told yourself you were smarter than that. You should be.

“Perfect.” Jason sighed, his breath puffing out against your chin.

It was that single word that warmed your insides and made you clench around his cock, causing him to hum from deep within his chest. He stroked a slow, gentle hand from your hip to the fullness of your ass, up your back, holding you like you were something precious. It was so unlike every other time he had fucked you - when all of his touches were about grabbing, consuming you, holding you like you were an object to be taken and owned by him in those moments.

You had liked it then. It was emotionally detached - but it was hot. It always made you cum hard and fast.

But this was so different. Especially for you and Jason.

“Don’t flatter yourself.” You whispered back, fishing for some of that old banter - the humor that had founded your entire ‘relationship’ with Jason.

Jason laughed, and you bit back a moan when you felt the sound vibrating through you, when it drove his cock just a bit deeper inside of you.

He resisted the urge to get sappy, to say ‘I meant you, you’re perfect’. Instead, he wrapped an arm around your waist, tucked a possessive touch tight around you and planted the other arm in the middle of your back, sitting himself up slightly, bending his knees - getting good leverage for what he wanted to do next.

“I don’t need to stroke my own ego when I have you, babe.” Jason announced, his smirk appearing in its usual stance and his voice soft.

Before you could muster any clever reply, he used his tight hold on you to lift you slightly off his cock and then began fucking up into you. In tandem with his rough, heavy thrusts up into you, he slammed your body down to meet the thickness of his cock, creating a rough, demanding rhythm that easily chased the air out of your lungs.

“Jay-” You gasped, quickly becoming breathless. “Jason, fuck me!”

You could little more than let him fuck you senseless. You were used to the feeling of his cock filling you up like this, yet it created that deadly curl in your gut each time like it was brand new. It sent harsh stinging across your nerve endings, a deadly wash across your skin as the heat crept through you.

You knew that Jason was talented at this, but you also knew that it was something else. Something more than attraction - something you couldn’t get from anyone else that you still refused to fully acknowledge.

“Hey, shh.”

Jason hushed you, using that beautifully condescending coo that you knew meant he didn’t actually want you to be quiet - he always wanted to hear how loud you became when you were entranced by his cock. He bent his knees more to fuck up into you even harsher, causing you to make a wounded sound as his cock got even deeper into you.

“I’ve got you.” He whispered, hot against your chin. “I’ve got you, babe.”

The gentle, soothing nature of his voice juxtaposed with the venomous sting of his cock continually snapping against your pelvis was something that made you downright dizzy. All the combined sensations had your body arching against him - your muscles were tightening up, and though he felt that distinct warmth rising up in his own gut, he was proud to know that he had you there already. He was going to make you cum first, just like he had promised. He knew your body too well by now not to play you like a well tuned fiddle.

“You gonna be good for me?”

Jason mumbled against your neck, leaning in to gently skim his teeth along your skin. He sucked slightly, leaving marks, being entirely selfish in his claiming of you. He loved the taste of your skin on his tongue. If you refused to let him go, if you refused to leave him to let him rot in his own poisonous life, then he would let everyone know that you had taken him on and that you were owned now. It was his silent way of begging you not to double back, not to realize what a mistake you had made.

“You gonna cum on by cock?” He added on, his throat flexing slightly as his own lust clutched at him.

It was something that you couldn’t have refused if you tried.

“Jason-!”

You gasped out, unconsciously bucking your hips down to meet his thrusts as he continued fucking up into you hard, getting quite the workout in his legs and abs, spearing his cock into you from the angle below you.

But fuck, you were so worth it. Seeing the twisting pleasure on your face as your orgasm washed over you, feeling the pleasant sting in his back as your nails dug into his shoulders. Hearing your choked off moans and panting breaths as you could do nothing but hang on for the ride, feeling the beautiful mess across his pelvis as you came, showing him just how good he was fucking you.

“So good.” Jason moaned into your neck, latching on to suck the skin there once again. “Fuck, Y/N, so good for me.”

He found his own skin on fire once again as you tightened around his dick, your muscles becoming a hot vice around him as you rode out your orgasm, forcing his mind blank from the pure pleasure of it all. He loved the sounds you made, the look on your face, the way you ground your hips so closely against his as you savored every second of it.

Jason was dizzy as his own orgasm hit him, his whole body tingling and sparking with pleasure as he shot his load into the condom. He put a hand across your back, pulling you close, pressing your body flush against his and grinding up into you in tentative, almost gentle strokes as he rode it out. With his face buried in your neck, kissing you, breathing in your scent - it was almost tender.

It was the closest to love-making that you and Jason had ever gotten.

“Fuck, Jason.” You whined, your stomach curling with a new kind of heat, your skin on fire - this time, alight with the newly birthed feeling of his loving touch on your skin.

To an extent, it almost frightened you. Especially because of how much you liked it, how you could see yourself growing to love it. Especially because now you felt timid. You didn’t want to scare this part of him away.

“I’ve got you.” He said again, quietly mumbling the words into your neck like a sacred promise.

Unable to resist the urge, you wrapped your arms around his shoulders, truly holding him, leaning into his touch. You relaxed against his body, sagging into the hold, and Jason hummed with content against your skin at the feeling.

For a few moments - a capsule against the world that felt more peaceful than you had ever known - you let yourself become lost to this feeling.

Still speared on his slowly softening cock, you simply enjoyed the feeling of his hard, muscled frame against you, the feeling of his arms wrapped around you in such an affectionate hold - like two giant pillars keeping you safe from the world. You enjoyed the scent of his fading cologne twinged with his sweat, let one of your hands wander up into his hair and thread a couple of your fingers along his scalp, which got another pleasant moan from him.

When you unconsciously clenched down on him again, you had a thought.

“Jason,” You whimpered out quietly. “The condom.”

It was a cruel disturbance to your peaceful little world, but he knew that the two of you couldn’t just stay like that forever. He would have to separate from you to throw it out eventually. You would be horrified if that tricky piece of latex got lost inside of you and you had to tell someone else in the Tower why you had to go to the ER to get it out.

“Oh shit.” He sighed in return.

You hesitantly climbed off him and luckily, the condom easily slid out on his soft cock, and he tossed it away while you collapsed to lay on the bed beside him.

“We should just stop using condoms.” Jason chuckled, giving you a sly grin as he laid back against the pillows beside you.

“Funny.” You griped sarcastically, moving to lay against his chest. You couldn’t resist the urge to cuddle, even if you wanted to go take a shower and get cleaned up. You could use the excuse that your legs were jelly right now and you wanted to gain back some of your energy first.

You wanted to bring up the fact that you had been so adamant about using condoms with Jason because your ‘relationship’ with him was supposed to strictly be about sex. Sure, when the two of you started fucking, you didn’t expect that he was going to be sleeping with a different person every other week. Dick had you guys locked up in the Tower, constantly breathing down your necks - that was one of the reasons why you even turned to Jason for sex at all. He was right there. He was available. He was decent looking.

And when you and Jason had started sleeping together, you had thought he was lying about how many people he had fucked before you. You thought he was a mouthy virgin or that he had slept with maybe one other person before he so boldly started pursuing you. But he could definitely back up all the talk, and that had you wondering how many of his claims were true. And that had you even more adamant about the condoms, because you didn’t know where he had… been.

And then when Rose first came around, you saw the way she looked at him. You had seen her trying to flirt with him - a gentle touch on his arm, trying to pull him aside to talk after he came back from his brush with Deathstroke. You had wondered if there was something going on between her and Jason.

You wondered if Jason proposing to drop condoms was his strange way of asking you to upgrade the status of your relationship. Friends with benefits, people who are still allowed to fuck other people - they use condoms. They have to use condoms, just in case. But people in a more serious relationship - they don’t always use condoms, because they don’t fuck other people. They don’t fuck other people because they’re in love.

“Jason-” You said his name gently, about to ask him this, but then - his phone rang.

A high-pitched digital tone chimed out from where he had put it on the nightstand and Jason groaned loudly in annoyance before he picked it up, looked at the Caller ID, and then promptly ignored the call.

“Who was it?” You asked, curious who he would outright ignore like that.

“Bruce.” He said, his tone dull, clearly feeling uncertain about the man. “The old man can leave a voicemail. Or send a text like a normal person.”

This was strange to you. You thought that Bruce and Jason were coming to be on better terms.

Bruce had come to Donna’s funeral, and you had seen the two of them talking quietly at one point. You had tried not to stare at the interaction unfolding, poorly reading Bruce’s lips out of the corner of your eye (but you didn’t get much out of it). Near the end of it, you had seen Bruce give Jason a fatherly pat on the shoulder before he walked away from the conversation, and Jason had looked entirely pensive about the whole thing, even if he hadn’t told you what it was about.

You hadn’t been introduced to Bruce, then - the funeral really wasn’t the time for ‘meeting and greeting’, seeing as everyone was quietly in mourning over their lost friend. But you got the sense that he was a stoic and reserved man, and him giving that small bit of physical affection to Jason was about as good as an outright apology, telling him how much of a mistake it was to send him away in the first place.

Apparently Jason didn’t feel the same way.

“I didn’t know you were screening his calls.” You said, curious as to why Jason didn’t want to talk to Bruce.

“I’m busy.” Jason said, giving you his usual stunning grin before he leaned in and began kissing up your neck again. It was a pleasant, sweet type of affection, but he was clearly deflecting from the actual point you were trying to make, trying to distract you.

He didn’t want to talk about Bruce. And that only made you want to press the point harder.

“Why?” You asked, trying not to fall victim to the feeling of Jason’s soft lips against your neck, lovingly sucking, moving with gentle kisses against your skin.

“‘Why’ what?” Jason replied - perhaps playing dumb, perhaps genuinely not knowing what you meant.

“Why won’t you talk to Bruce?” You asked, clarifying.

Jason sighed and leaned back against his pillow, collapsing with defeat.

After a moment of tense, thoughtful silence - a moment in which you worried that you had pushed too far and he would simply tell you to get out - he finally gave in to the fact that he would have to talk about it. He gave in to the idea that talking to you about it would be easier than not talking about it at all.

“He wants me to go back to Gotham.” Jason announced.

He sounded oddly sullen speaking these words, which instantly confused you. You knew that Jason from a few weeks ago would have jumped at the chance to go back to Gotham, to resume his duties as Robin. He would have screamed with joy and eagerly asked Bruce when the next flight out was.

So why was he hesitant now? Did it have to do with the incident with Deathstroke? Did he doubt his capabilities as Robin now? Did he want to quit?

“You don’t want to?” You asked, trying to sound gentle rather than accusatory.

Jason found it all too easy to open up to you now.

“I don’t know what I want.” Jason shrugged, entirely raw and honest in this declaration - for once, not dancing around his more serious emotions with jokes or sarcasm. “I mean, before, I would have been excited for Bruce to invite me back. But now…”

“This is probably for the best.”

You said, trying to motivate him past his potential insecurities. Before it was something you had done with playful combatance, knowing that if you faced him with a challenge, he would always rise to prove himself, even if it was out of spite. And now it was something you did with brutal, soft honesty, but still, it was nothing new for you.

“The Tower was just supposed to be a temporary stop-over, right?”

You posed, reaching out and gently brushing your fingers across his jaw. He stared into your eyes then, and you saw something swimming there - nerves. Longing.

“Gotham needs Robin.”

You repeated it because it was something you had heard Jason say before.

One of the main reasons he took up the mantle of Robin, taking on someone else’s costume and name, rather than creating his own - was because he knew that lots of lost kids looked up to Robin. When he was a young kid, growing up in the shittest parts of Gotham, he admired Robin. He had been truly thrilled to meet Dick for the first time because, in a world where he was starving and alone and none of the adults in his life cared - Robin was his hero. Someone (seemingly) not much older than himself, who donned a cape, didn’t have any superpowers or magic, and got to stand alongside the Bat himself, fighting for justice. A voice for the voiceless. A fist for the powerless.

Jason went to bed cold and hungry many nights thinking about Robin. Thinking about how one good person can make a difference in a cruel world.

So when he had been given the opportunity to make up some dumb name of his own, or to become Robin - it wasn’t really a choice for him. He became Robin in order to be that symbol of hope for others, and in truth - to fulfill the hope he once needed for himself.

“Right.” Jason sighed. He did have a duty to the people of Gotham. But something else was bothering him. “But… but what about us?”

Us.

He said it so fondly, like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to think of you and him as a pair.

It was the first time either of you had truly acknowledged it. Finally acknowledging the way your dynamic had changed since that night. Otherwise, it had been absolutely unspoken.

“What about us?” You echoed back, your voice trembling quiet.

You were truly afraid to hear his answer.

‘Say it.’ You wanted to scream at him. ‘Say the words. Stop making me think that all of this has been just big one big hallucination on my part. Say it, asshole. Say it and I’m yours for the rest of your life.’

“Come on.” He sighed, flickering off towards the wall and refusing to look at you now, the words grating against his throat.

‘Are you really gonna make me say it?’ He wanted to scream. ‘How much I fucking love you? How I can’t leave here now because I can’t leave you? How I would quit being Robin if it meant getting to be with you?’

The air trembled with the might of all those unspoken words as Jason gathered a better, more guarded reply.

“The Tower was supposed to be a stop-over. At first.” He shrugged, still distinctly refusing to look at you. “But then… we… happened.”

He explained it clumsily, clearly stuck for words in that entirely emotionally constipated way, motioning vaguely between the two of you. Once again, he was refusing to acknowledge the thing going on between the two of you. He was refusing to put those exact, big, serious words on it. Afraid that the weight of it all would knock him over, swallow him whole if he wasn’t careful.

But his lack of words bothered you so damn much.

Was it a casual relationship? Was it sex? Was it love? Was it the two of you finding your life-long soulmates and being too traumatized and stubborn and stupid to actually acknowledge it?

You hummed in agreement of this, nodding.

“You shouldn’t stay just for me, though.” You told him.

His duties as Robin were important. Mending his relationship with Bruce was important. Far more important than having sex with you and training for whatever vague threat Dick had in mind (especially when Dick couldn’t stand up and protect Jason from very real threats, like Deathstroke).

Jason’s face cracked with a flutter of disappointment and sadness, a rattle of emotions coming through that he usually wouldn’t show around anybody else. He thought that you were breaking things off with him - whatever things were. But that wasn’t the case.

“I might have to leave soon anyway.” You added on, trying to clarify your point.

“You’re leaving?” He asked, sounding entirely hurt by this, the words acting as a bitter accusation coming off his lips.

He held in the other thing he wanted to say.

‘Where else would you have to go?’

He was trying to be more thoughtful with his words these days - and he knew this sounded far too much like a dig, mocking at the circumstances of your past. A past which you had divulged to him in bits and pieces while laying in bed with him after a healthy fuck, much like this.

When he had found out how similar the two of you were, he found his soul more and more drawn to yours. Your mother had been a deadbeat, much like his. Apparently she came from some richie rich family that you had only met a few times, when you were so young that you could only piece together a few memories from it, but she left behind all of it to be with her deadbeat boyfriend - someone who may or may not have been your father. Someone who got your mother hooked on drugs and petty crime to pay for the habit when your rich grandmother cut her off from the family money, knowing the kind of life she was living.

You grew up a lot like Jason did.

You saw your mother faded, abused, you had been forced to mature up and take care of yourself and even take care of your own mother when you had been far too young to do so. You had lived in slums. At many points in your life, you had been homeless.

You never had a real father to speak of, and when your mother overdosed, you were left abandoned when you were still a young teen. But you took care of yourself well enough, especially considering that you had an advantage that Jason didn’t - icy powers from a freak accident that happened around the time you were born that should have killed you.

It was only by luck that you ran into Dick and Kory when they came into the diner that you had been waiting tables at, whispering harshly under their breath about a young girl with severe, mysterious powers that they had lost track of. And you had pointed them toward the old Caulder house on the edge of town and offered to go with them - because you knew Niles Caulder from a time when he had offered to ‘help’ you with your own powers and you had gotten a bad feeling about the man.

Jason called it luck because it was that incident that led you on the path to meeting him.

“I’m only going for a little while.” You told him. “My grandmother - the one I’ve only seen like? Twice? Apparently she hired a P. I. to track down my mom. Found out my mom was dead, and then eventually - she found me. She’s getting sentimental because she has brain cancer or something? I didn’t read everything in the letter.”

You shrugged, spotty on the information and unsure if the trip you had planned was even a good idea in the first place.

Jason easily understood why you were jaded when it came to the concept of ‘family’. You had been abandoned by them and left alone in the world. You had raised yourself, essentially. Why would you need them now?

“She wants me to come and see her - something about deathbed remorse and blah, blah. I don’t know. I wasn’t gonna go, but Dick thinks I should, because she’s like the only living family I have that I know about.” You finished the explanation with a sigh, and Jason frowned.

Of course Dickhead was being righteous about his moral code.

Jason wanted to convince you to stay, but - maybe Dick had a point. Maybe, if you had a shot at having a relationship with your ‘real’ family - maybe you should take it.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Jason had no clue why it was his first instinct to offer this. But it felt right. It felt instinctive to attempt to comfort you these days, rather than combating you or coming up with some annoying, clever comeback.

You should have said yes.

It would have been fun at the very least; an amusing trainwreck, perhaps. You could only imagine what it would be like - bringing your mouthy situationship along with you to visit your rich, uptight, estranged grandmother. Even just explaining the nature of your relationship with Jason to her would have been a wild and fun ride.

But instead, you let your guarded instincts get the better of you.

“No.” You sighed. “I - I can handle it myself.”

You sounded a lot less sure in your reply, but you made yourself sure as you continued.

“If she gets too whiny, or too… sentimental, I’ll bail. I know that Dick or Kory would come and get me if I asked them to. And I am very good at running from situations that don’t benefit me.” You tried to laugh it off, though this did evoke some painful memories of your past, when you had to run from things that very well could have ended your life - or worse.

“You also have a habit of running toward situations that don’t benefit you.” Jason sighed, not letting you easily forget the fact that you ran into a gun-hot hostage situation and dangled yourself off a building to rescue him.

You lightly smacked his shoulder in response, and he quietly grunted at this, rolling his eyes.

“I can handle myself. Dickhead.” You replied, much less bite behind the words than there would have been before. “Besides, you have to go to Gotham and deal with your own sentimental old bag.”

“The last word I would ever use to describe Bruce is ‘sentimental’.” Jason argued gently.

“He keeps a trophy room full of stuff from every criminal he’s ever taken down,” You reminded Jason. “It’s his own form of weird, fucked-up sentiment.”

Jason shrugged.

You laid back down, tucking yourself into Jason’s side and laying a few simple kisses against the skin of his chest before you settled in, closing your eyes. He wrapped his arm around you, and there was only a moment of quiet before -

“What are you gonna do after you visit your grandmother?” He asked, so entirely timid. “Are you gonna come back to The Tower?”

‘Will I ever see you again?’ He wanted to ask. ‘Is it really over between us?’

Jason couldn’t imagine not having you around.

You were the tape that had held him together after everything went down with Deathstroke. When the Titans went south, ruined by Dick’s lies and the pressure of enemies from their past, you were the brick wall that had held him up. If not for you, he could have easily imagined himself drowning in booze, crashing his motorcycle off the side of a cliff in a drunken blur; or jumping off the top of this incredibly impressive building to make himself nothing but a stain on the concrete below.

You hesitated, but worked up the courage to truly speak what was waiting on your lips, especially when you weren’t looking at his face, tracing every micro-expression for potential disappointment or glee.

“I could come to Gotham.” You whispered, barely letting your words break into audible sound. When Jason took too long to reply, you rushed to add on something else, to make your proposal seem less serious. “I guess I could come see that stupid cave you’re always talking about.”

Jason laughed at this, and you loved the feeling of the vibrations under the side of your face.

“Yeah.” He said. “Sounds cool. I - I think Bruce would actually like having you around.”

You wondered if that was true, or if Jason was just amplifying his own affection for you within his mind. Either way, it was sweet.

You ended up falling asleep for a few hours. Jason’s gentle breathing flowing through his lungs under your cheek soothed you into an easy sleep - when you woke up, you were reminded of the drying mess between your thighs and wicked soreness that had set into your muscles. You needed a hot shower, and you needed to go pack a bag. You had to tell Dick that you wanted to book the ticket to go and see your grandmother.

Knowing him, he likely already had one booked on the principle that you would come around to his line of thinking and he would end up being right.

You were crawling out of bed when Jason’s hand caught your wrist.

“You sneakin’ away on me?” He mumbled out, sleepy, not yet opening his eyes.

“I gotta go shower, dipshit.” You said, your voice gentle and chiding, no real force behind the words.

Jason gave you a sleepy smile.

“Come back afterwards.” He replied, clearly hoping for more cuddles - or more sex.

“I can’t.” You told him. “I have to get ready to leave. Remember?”

This caught his full attention, and he sat up abruptly, blinking his eyes open to catch a glimpse of you in the barely there, dim light. It was just before sunrise, the sky kissed hazy gray outside of the giant windows that lined his bedroom.

“You’re leaving so soon?” He asked, disappointment barely masked in his voice as he continued to grip your wrist.

“Yes.” You said, knowing that you were echoing that tone right back. “So… I guess this is goodbye?”

“Fuck you.” He replied, a harsh sigh from his lungs. He hurled the expletive at the concept of a goodbye with you. That was something he never wanted.

He tugged on your wrist and you were reeled in like a fish, walking around the bed toward his side. You tucked your butt tightly beside one of his thighs, sitting close to him, vowing that you would get up soon as he wrapped a thick arm around your waist.

He had the other arm across your chest, tucking his hand along your jaw and tilting your head toward him. You eased into the kiss with a small moan, enjoying the softness of his lips like a tree enjoys the sun. You soaked him up for a few long moments, and when you tried to pull back the first time, he held you there for just a bit longer.

If you had known that was going to be the last time you kissed him, you would have savored it more.

In a silent agreement - he finally let you go, and his eyes stayed glued to you as you got dressed enough to go down the hallway and then, you left out his bedroom door. His eyes lingered on the door for a few prolonged seconds after you did so, and then finally, he turned over again and fell back into an unpleasant sleep. One that felt fitful now that you weren’t in his bed.

…

Jason felt cold.

The room he was in - some mysterious, wall-off concrete place with no light - was freezing. And it wasn’t the pleasant kind of cool like the touch of your icy skin when you crawled into bed with him late at night. Or the shocking delightful kind of cold like when you played a prank on him, running your super-powered icy fingers up his back just to get a rise out of him.

No, this was a shocking, dead kind of cold.

This was the kind of cold that would bring death after a short period of time. It was the kind of cold that easily made his fingers and toes numb, and made him struggle against his binds - and it was only then that Jason realized he was tied up.

His arms were pinned behind his back and bound at the wrists - though he couldn’t tell with what. He couldn’t feel the texture of the binding through the thickness of his Robin uniform gloves in order to know how to best get out of it. Whether it was duct tape or rope, that would determine his next move, and he needed to make a move - fast.

His legs were free. That was a good sign. That would definitely be useful.

Before Jason could contemplate much more of this, a door that he hadn’t yet noticed off to his right burst open, creating a rush of light into the dull, dark room - a blinding moment where all he saw was shadows and movement. By the time his eyes had adjusted, a body was being thrown at his feet. Or rather, a very limp, fully alive person.

Deathstroke towered over this person, wearing his full gear, the armor thick and imposing, his silhouette blocking out nearly all the light that had just been let into the room.

Jason’s eyes flickered from him, to the person on the floor - purposefully stiffening his jaw in his best attempt not to show any fear.

His throat became dry and he held back a whimper of fright when he saw that the limp body on the floor was you.

Your hands were bound behind your back, too, and you were forced silent with a cloth gag in your mouth, tied tightly behind your head. But your eyes truly captured Jason’s attention the most. Beyond the scrapes and bruises that littered your cheeks, signs of pain that already made him ravenous with rage, more than eager to rip apart whatever was holding him back in order to tear Deathstroke to pieces just for daring to touch you - your eyes were full of pure terror.

Jason had never seen you like this before.

Right from the moment he had met you, you had been nothing but confident - a palace of strength, calm, cleverness that he wanted so badly to topple. It was why he flirted with you, argued with you. He wanted so badly to get under your skin, to see you rattled. It was only when the two of you had sex that he finally saw some wavering in that, finally saw you falling apart.

And eventually, it pushed away to something deeper, something softer - something that caused him to fall in love with you.

But he had never seen you afraid. That fear in your eyes, you silently screaming at him for help - it put his stomach in knots within seconds.

“It’s okay,” Jason rushed to assure you. He would get you out of this. “It’s gonna be okay, Y/N, I swear-”

Deathstroke let out a chuckle - one that sounded muffled, cold, robotic behind his mask.

“I can’t tell if you’re truly lying, following in the careless footsteps of your leader, or if you think that placating is the way to soothe someone in crisis.” He said, his tone entirely mocking. “There is no room for soothing here. Things most certainly will not be okay. Not unless you give me what I ask for,”

“What the fuck do you want, asshole?” Jason spit back bitterly, posturing, trying his best to seem big and strong when he felt so utterly weak, so small in those moments.

“Dick Grayson.” Deathstroke announced. “Tell me where he is, and I’ll let your little friend go.”

Jason hesitated.

When Deathstroke felt this, he continued.

“And if you don’t, I won’t hesitate to dispose of this pathetic excuse for a Titan.” He added on, giving you a harsh kick in the back with his heavy boot. You cried out in pain, and Jason’s insides jolted.

It was a move that made Jason want to scream, and make threats that he knew he couldn’t live up to.

He deeply feared what Deathstroke meant when he said ‘dispose of’.

“Is Grayson really that important to you?”

Jason began to panic, his eyes flickering from Deathstroke’s imposing shadow to your terrified face once again.

His brain felt scrambled. He searched, thought hard, concentrated, and somehow - came up empty. For some stupid reason, he had no clue where Dick was. The Tower, Gotham, Detroit - the fucking idiot could be anywhere. And something else nagged in the back of Jason’s mind - even if he did know where Dick was, why the fuck should he tell this asshole? Deathstroke only wanted to kill Dick. Why should it be Jason’s choice to trade one life for another?

And even if he did tell Deathstroke where Dick was, there was no promise that Deathstroke wouldn’t kill you anyway as soon as he had the information.

No - Jason could save you some other way.

There had to be another way, some other way to get out of this, something else-

“Tick tock.” Deathstroke said, rushing Jason’s answer.

“Fuck you!” Jason barked back instinctively, still panicked.

And it was that panic that cost him everything.

“Well…” Deathstroke hummed thoughtfully. “I suppose they truly didn’t teach Junior Robin anything, did they?”

In seconds, he could sense it - Deathstroke could see right through Jason. He knew that Jason didn’t know the answers to his questions. And even if he did - he wasn’t going to give up Dick. He had a strange sense of loyalty to the person who had shit on him and failed to help him time and time again.

Before Jason could come up with whatever magical solution he was hoping would come to him, Deathstroke reached down, fisted the shoulder of your shirt, and brought you up onto your knees with a surprising strength. You continued to look Jason in the eyes with an intense panic while the man reached for his belt, unsheathing a sword that glinted in the little bit of light.

When you heard the sound of the metal slicing through the air, your muscles quaked with fear and you tried to get away - but you were too weak against him.

It was too late.

“No, no!” Jason cried out in protest, having nothing else to do but watch on in horror and hope that his pitiful cries could somehow stop this, tearing harshly against the bonds holding his wrists in place. “No, fuck you! Stop it!”

It happened too quickly.

The sword appeared through the front of your stomach, coated in bright red blood, and you let out a scream of anguish through the gag. Then suddenly, you were being shucked off the blade, thrown away like you were nothing, tossed back to the floor in a puddle of your own blood, limp and near lifeless. Deathstroke turned and left the room without a single care, shutting the door behind him, shutting out all of the light, leaving Jason in cold darkness once again.

And it was only then that the ropes on his wrists somehow loosened, allowing him to break free and rush to your bleeding body - too late.

Too fucking late.

Jason grabbed you up in his arms, hoisting you onto his lap. He was empty with shock. He didn’t know how to feel. He hated the contrast of your cold flesh and the heat of the blood rushing out of you and quickly covering him.

“Y/N, Y/N, baby, look at me,”

He found himself sobbing, forcefully turning your face toward him with a gloved hand, tearing the gag out of your mouth - your lips scarily pale, more than they ever should be.

“Fuck, fuck!”

He couldn’t contain his screams of anguish when he pressed a cheek closer to your lips and felt the shallow nature of your breath.

You were dying, and it was all his fault. You were dying, and it was all his fault. You were dying, and-

Jason awoke in a cold sweat.

He was shaking, frantically looking around in the dark, soon to realize that he wasn’t locked in a concrete room with your bloody corpse - he was in his bedroom in Gotham. He was at home in the comfortable, cushy Wayne Manor.

He had been having far too many nightmares since returning to Gotham. He wanted to blame it on your lack of presence in his bed, or the fact that Bruce had practically banned him from training, now that he was benched from being Robin. So he wasn’t getting nearly as much physical exercise as he used to and it left him anxious and not nearly as physically exhausted when he went to bed, making his sleep uneasy.

Bruce had suggested sleeping pills, but Jason hated the idea of the side effects. The potential of hallucinations didn’t seem like it would make his sleep any more pleasant.

Jason sat up on the edge of his bed, and turned on the lamp, wincing as the bright light prodded at his eyes, aggravating a headache he had that wouldn’t quit for days now. He reached for his phone, and almost unconsciously, brought up your contact.

He laughed when he saw the contact name you had given yourself - clearly something you had done as a joke right before you had left the Tower.

Bootycall Temporarily Unavailable

The two of you often changed each other’s names in your contacts as a joke. He guessed that this one was a joke about how you would be gone for a while, unable to fuck him. But he hated that you insisted that he still thought of you only as a Bootycall. He decided to change it to ‘Robin’s Ice Machine’ - one of his favourites, and what he kept you listed as in his contacts most often. (Even though he wasn’t sure if he was actually considered Robin anymore…)

He opened up his last text messages with you, and couldn’t help but smile when he re-read them.

He had sent you a simple ‘u up?’ around three o’clock in the morning, being sleepless and horny, and you had replied ‘don’t come in here with that fuckboy attitude unless you’re bringing snacks’.

And this had led to the two of you having the most amazing sex and eating junkfood afterwards. That was what he missed most about you. Simple nights. The ability to just be calm with you. Doing nothing with you and feeling so complete.

Jason began typing out a message.

‘I miss you. I can’t stop thinking about you. I-’

Then, he realized how terribly sappy and stupid it sounded. And he thought about how much you would hate it. And even if you didn’t hate it, surely you would have no clue how to respond. The two of you weren’t like that. You weren’t those kind of people. He heaved a sigh, deleted the message, and then he got out of bed. He changed into some jogging pants and a sweatshirt and put on some running shoes.

If Bruce was going to ban him from being Robin, the least he could do was go on a run to get his head straight.

While he jogged through the cold night, Jason tried to convince himself that he didn’t need you. Tried to tell himself that if you decided not to come to Gotham after all, he would be just fine.

When he was finished with his run, standing at the kitchen counter chugging some way-too-expensive vitamin water that Bruce liked to buy, he pulled out his phone again and pulled up your contact. He considered calling you, and wondered what you were doing right then. He wondered if you would answer. He looked up what time it was in San Francisco, remembered you weren’t there, and then considered texting Gar to ask where you actually were - and then he went and took a long shower so he wouldn’t be able to touch his phone at all for a while.

…

When Jason went back to Gotham, Bruce made him go to therapy.

Jason thought that the entire thing was a colossal waste of time, but Bruce insisted that if he was ever going to wear the Robin mask again - he was going to get ‘cleared’ first.

Apparently, something about being kidnapped by a murderous psychopath, dropped off a building, and going to a funeral all in the span of a month doesn’t really scream of stability.

Jason was weary of Leslie at first.

He genuinely thought that her only job was to dig around for his secrets - any signs of his weakness, and report them back to Bruce. He still wasn’t all too trusting when she tried to assure him that whatever she said would stay between the two of them. But he wanted to get back to being Robin. He wanted to get back to doing his job. And if getting all mushy with her was the fastest way of doing that, then he would.

…

They were playing the stupid word association game again.

“Mother.” Leslie said, posing the first word.

“Fucker.” Jason said upon instinct, doing what he did best - deflecting from being too vulnerable by using crude humor.

Leslie gave him a deep frown, and he actually felt a pang of guilt at disappointing her.

She was one of the only adults in his life that he had ever felt bad for disappointing. Not because she put too many expectations on him - but because she didn’t. Because she expected pretty much nothing of him, and he wanted to show her that he could be great. He wanted to defy whatever bullshit Bruce had told her about him. He wanted to show her that he was more than worthy of being Robin again.

“Sorry.” He said timidly. “Habit.”

“It’s okay.” She said, forgiving him too easily. Jason wasn’t used to being forgiven.

Jason appreciated it - nobody had ever given him the chance to ‘try again’. Not even you. But he was glad about that. When you mocked him for his mistakes or called him out on his bullshit, it made him want to try harder. You were the only person in the world that he found himself actively trying for. Everyone else - he didn’t give a fuck what they thought of him. He knew that they always had preconceived notions of what he was - a screw-up, a street kid pretending while waltzing around in Robin’s costume.

But when you looked at him, you saw an asshole trying to be clever and you tore right through that persona, looking for something real. So even though he hated it - even though it made him wiggle and gape like a fish on land - he showed you more and more real parts of himself. And he couldn’t deny how good it made him feel when he was with you.

So, practicing the honesty that you had forced him to find within himself, Jason tried a more honest approach to Leslie’s word game.

“We can try again.” Leslie said, taking a small breath. “Mother.”

“Gone.” He said, announcing the first thing that truly came to mind when he thought of that word.

“Father.” Leslie moved on to the next word.

“Bruce.” Jason felt far too naked and vulnerable when saying this, but it was true.

Bruce was the closest thing to a father that he ever had.

And Jason knew that he was a bad son, constantly disappointing him - constantly failing to live up to the giant shadow that Dick had left behind.

“Robin.” She said.

“Freedom.” He easily responded.

“San Francisco.”

Jason felt like she was cheating at this point - trying to get him to weep and cry and spill all of his secrets like some kind of soap opera. He felt like she was purposefully pitching hits at his weak spots and waiting for him to block or be taken down.

“Mistake.” He said, trying his hardest not to flex back on his honesty.

He wasn’t even sure what he meant by that. If going there had been a mistake, or if he had made too many mistakes while he was there. Either way, it felt like the truth.

“Safe.” She announced the next word, and Jason was not at all surprised by the first thing that came to mind.

“Y/N.” He said your name without hesitation.

You were the only safe thing in his life. The only thing - the only person that ever truly made him feel safe. Sometimes he was terrified of losing you, or hurting you, or poisoning you as badly as he had done with so many other people. But when he was in your arms, it was so easy to forget about all of that.

You were safe.

Which was a fucking rare commodity in his life.

Leslie saw the look that came across his features - the look of fond longing mixed with gut wrenching fear. Naturally, she wanted to dig more into this. She knew that someone like Jason hadn’t grown up feeling safe, and she was curious why the concept of safety came to him now as a person’s name - and why he seemed so conflicted about it, about someone he had never even mentioned before.

“Who is Y/N?” Leslie asked. Jason didn’t immediately answer, so she prodded more. “Boyfriend? Girlfriend? … Friend?”

Leslie didn’t presume to know Jason’s sexuality, or the gender of his special person (and she wouldn’t judge him, no matter what he said) - but beyond gender, for Jason, it was even more complicated than that.

Jason didn’t know what to call you when speaking about you to someone else.

A friend that he sometimes fucks? Should he even call you a friend?

You had tried to save his life, but before that, the two of you had never really been friendly. Mostly argumentative. But no matter how much the two of you argued, you had never hurt him the way that Dick had, or Bruce had. Or even the way that the other Titans had when they had accused him of all those things he hadn’t done.

Your arguments were playful. The two of you never said anything to each other that would actually dig deep, that was ever truly meant to hurt. Nothing like when the Titans had doubted Jason’s loyalty to the team - had accused him of truly trying to harm them. Your arguments with him always held a certain kind of passion. Every time you fired back against dumb shit that he said, even if you were blatantly disagreeing with him for sport - it meant that you cared.

Jason shrugged. “Kind of.”

“Can you… explain more?” Leslie asked, careful and curious.

“Shit’s complicated.” Jason mumbled, truly unsure what to say in order to describe the situation.

“Okay, well… whoever this special person is, whatever they mean to you… why is it that they make you feel safe?”

Now that was a million dollar question.

Jason had never really asked himself that before. The ‘why’.

“Well…”

He began trying to explain it, and found himself stuck for words. But Leslie was patient, and waited for him to find the right ones.

“It’s like…” Jason sighed, finding the whole thing very difficult. “It’s like Y/N knows what I am.”

“‘What you are’?” Leslie parroted back, using his own phrasing carefully. “And what would that be?”

“An asshole. Ya know - a fuck-up.” He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Y/N has seen it first hand. They know me - they - they’ve seen all the worst parts of me, and… somehow, they don’t care. Y/N saw me at my worst and didn’t run.”

It was the best way that Jason could think to describe it. Everyone else who had seen him beaten down and broken - Dick, Bruce, the other Titans - they all saw him at his worst and wanted to dump him at the first possible opportunity. But you held onto him tighter and refused to let go. Even when he struggled in your loving hold like an animal caught in a trap - you still held onto him tighter than anyone else ever had.

And it made him feel a little less broken each time that he was with you.

“Okay.” Leslie smiled. “So - you find safety in not being judged? In… being allowed to be messy?”

“Yeah.” Jason nodded.

“Well, that’s perfectly normal.” She told him.

Jason found an odd sense of relief in this. There wasn’t a lot that was normal in his life.

“A lot of great relationships - whether they are friendships, or something more-”

Jason resisted the urge to speak up and say that you and him were definitely in the ‘something more’ category, but he didn’t want to jinx it. Not when it was yet to be official.

“-are founded on the truth. Founded on two people coming together because they find safety in being allowed to be their most authentic self with the other person. Feeling that they can make mistakes without being judged.” She explained this to him gently, and Jason couldn’t stop thinking about you. “So if you have that with someone, you should embrace it. Embrace that feeling of safety.”

Jason definitely had that with you. Or - he had the start of that with you. And he wanted so badly to embrace. To see where a life with you would go. Maybe it was something he wanted even more badly than becoming Robin again.

Ultimately, Jason knew that he wanted to be loved, even at his worst. But he thought that even you weren’t capable of that. Nobody was.

“Next word.” Leslie looked back down at her list. “Fear.”

Jason didn’t take long with that one either.

“Y/N.”

Leslie looked utterly confused at this one.

But - he was too raw, and he ended the session before she could prod him to explain it further.

…

Jason was afraid that he wasn’t good enough for you.

He was afraid that if the time ever came, if you were ever in danger - he wasn’t going to be able to save you like you had tried to do for him. Thinking back on it, he had no clue how you had so boldly stepped into the line of fire, how you had dangled yourself out of a window that many stories high, desperately holding onto him.

You acted fearless, put yourself on the line just to save his life - ultimately, one that wasn’t worth saving.

And if he couldn’t do the same for you, then he wasn’t worth the risks you had taken for him at all.

It was this mindset that brought him to visiting Crane in prison. He worked hard to reverse manufacture the Fear Gas, wanting to be brave for you - not knowing that it would ultimately be his downfall.

…

Going to your grandmother’s house was certainly… interesting.

She was rich. Old money rich.

It was the type of wealth you had encountered very sparsely in your life. Initially, you had only met that type of rich person for the first time when you had met Dick - someone who drove a vintage Ashton Martin and said it was a ‘family heirloom’, yet thought nothing of trading it in for a minivan on a whim.

When you first moved into the Tower - a million dollar condo with advanced tech that you could barely comprehend at first, you didn’t easily feel comfortable among all of the shiny, lavish, modern furniture and the fancy touchscreens just to access everyday necessities. At the time, you had still been sporting an illegally jailbroken iPhone 6 that you had pickpocketed off some random guy a few years prior, and soon as Dick found out about that fact, he insisted on buying you a new phone that you had a very difficult time accepting because you were not at all good with gifts or ‘being spoiled’. You felt awkward accepting something that you hadn’t worked for.

It was one of the reasons that you so easily crumbled to Jason’s sexual advances.

You felt so fucking alone when you first started living in the Tower. Your queen sized bed with a brand new mattress and brand new sheets felt too big. Being so new, it felt too cold. Sometimes you went stir-crazy, thinking about how much the silverware in the kitchen cost and the fact that the fucking television had an ipad for a remote (which apparently also controlled the curtains and the lights in the living room) - fixating on how if you had pawned those things off, if could have fed so many hungry children.

At the time, you were desperate for a distraction. Jason became a very easy one to fall into. It was all too easy to fall asleep in his bed afterwards, because even if you hated the smell of Axe body wash and drying cum, sleeping beside someone, having a warm body at your back - it eased you so much more than sleeping in a big luxurious bed by yourself.

Your grandmother’s house was a different type of rich than the Tower was. Most definitely not modern; everything in her house was about as old as things can get - but still rich. It seemed that she was blatantly against technology, in fact. She didn’t seem to have a TV anywhere in the place, and all the phones were corded into the walls like it was the 80s, and she often mocked you for being so ‘obsessed’ with that ‘brick’ in your pocket (checking, looking for Jason’s calls or texts).

All of the furniture was far older than you, and well taken care of. Polished, the fabric clearly patched or reupholstered by professionals in places where it had worn down over time. She was the nick-nack type. Tall china cabinets full of fancy dishes with patterns on them, and the moment she caught you looking at them, she went on long winding stories about how the pieces were rare antiques that had been owned by some Duke from some place in Europe - again, something more expensive than you could comprehend or even really care about.

Like it had said in the letter, your grandmother had brain cancer.

She had a large tumor that was eventually going to kill her. Apparently money can buy a lot of things - but it can’t buy a miracle treatment. The tumor had invaded too much of her brain before it had been discovered, and operating on it at her age was more likely to mean death than recovery. And as she so gracefully put it, she would rather spend her last days ‘in grace and dignity’ than to be balding and ‘out of her mind’ - so she didn’t accept the only potentially helpful chemo treatment that was offered to her.

Apparently, one of her last wishes was to meet and spend time with the grandchild that she had ‘lost’ when your mother took you away all those years ago. Your grandmother seemed nice enough - she peppered you with cheek kisses and invited you to tea the moment that you came in through the door. She had even sent a limo to pick you up at the airport, which made you feel far too important and awkward, sitting alone in the back of the expensive vehicle with a classical music station playing that you felt too intimidated to attempt to change.

And although your paranoid instincts were waiting for some horror movie reveal, waiting for someone to drug you and tell you that she was going to perform some voodoo ritual on you in order to use your young, healthy body to keep living her life and that’s all she wanted you for - you stuck around. Because the longer you waited with baited breath, the less that seemed to be the case.

If the old woman wanted to spend her last weeks of life telling you winding stories about old dishes from Europe and drinking tea with you on her porch, then you would consider it a much needed vacation. You would simply sit down and listen.

…

“And you know, her granddaughter, she was a - a handmaiden for the Duchess of Yorke, and…”

When you looked over at your grandmother, she had fallen asleep mid-sentence, holding her tea cup at an odd angle that made the small amount of tea inside almost dribble out. Though she had been talking just a moment before, telling a long, winding story about the history of the vase holding the flowers in the middle of the table - she let out a deep snore, and you worried that she was going to drop her cup or spill tea in her lap.

Strangely, after such a short period of time being around her, you found yourself caring for the woman.

You put down your own cup and crept over to her, trying not to wake her, and gently wriggled the cup out of her hands to place it down on the table.

You nearly jumped out of your skin when your phone buzzed in your back pocket. When you realized what the sudden, frightening feeling was, you took a deep breath and calmed down. Your grandmother had asked you to turn it off and leave it in your room, a luxurious guest room that she had you staying in, but you couldn’t help yourself. You missed Jason and you were eagerly waiting to talk to him. You didn’t want to miss a potential call or text from him.

You made sure that your grandmother was sleeping peacefully (in the oddly upright position as it was) before you took out your phone and sat back in your own chair, looking to see who had texted you.

New message from The Flightless Bird

Yes, Jason had a very strange contact name in your phone. For a while, you had kept it as Hot Guy, as it had originally entered it, before changing it to (Not) Hot Guy as a joke. Then, when the two of you started living at the Tower, it became a running gag for you to steal each other’s phones whenever possible and change the contact name to something strange and odd, usually paired with a memey photo to jokingly represent the other person.

After the incident where he had free fallen from the building to his near death, he had changed his contact name in your phone to ‘The Flightless Bird’ - a terrible bit of dark humor. You loved it, and you had kept it since then.

Right before you had left for your flight out, you had snuck into his room and grabbed his phone while he had been sleeping, and changed your contact name in his phone from ‘Cold Hands, Hot Ass’ to ‘Bootycall Temporarily Unavailable’. Mostly because you didn’t need him sending you dickpics at three in the morning when he got bored. As much as you loved his cock, you thought about how weird it would be trying to get off in your grandmother’s house and Jason was so damn persistent and so damn tempting.

You did have to wonder what PG-13 texting would be like between the two of you. It had been incredibly rare. All of your text conversations before living together at the Tower were R-rated enough to send anybody who read them into a mental meltdown.

Before you could wonder if you should send him a message, making it clear that he wasn’t to pull any of his typical fuckboy antics, you opened his latest message, and a large smile ripped across your face.

The Flightless Bird: ‘I miss you like hell.’

You hated that you grinned uncontrollably and your stomach flipped like a teenager with a stupid crush, but you couldn’t help it. Jason just made you feel like that these days. Even just knowing that he had been missing you too - that he had been thinking about you. That was something that had you floating as you typed out your reply, trying not to seem too desperate in your response.

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘Gotham must be really boring if you miss hanging out with me.’

You sent back the simple message and opened another app, browsing while you waited for his reply, trying not to seem too eager.

Moments later, your phone buzzed again.

The Flightless Bird: ‘Gotham is Gotham. It’s always been a boring shithole. The only time it’s not boring is when some fucker in a mask is trying to kill everyone.’

So very Jason. Before you could reply, he sent another message.

The Flightless Bird: ‘Plus, it’s not just hanging out with you that I miss. ;)’

Leave it to him to make even a virtual wink look so incredibly sleazy. Somehow, it brought up fond feelings within you because you had missed him so much.

You resisted the urge to tell him to cool it. Especially because your grandmother was sitting at the table with you. But you didn’t want him to get the wrong idea and start sending his cock out of nowhere.

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘Oh, you make it sound so appealing for me to visit.’

Then you quickly added on:

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘Dealing with homicidal psychos in costumes and you nagging me for a dick appointment. You on the Gotham tourism board?’

It was only a moment before your messages were seen, and you could practically hear Jason’s dry laughter in response, even though he was so far away. You felt validated when he sent you back several laughter emojis and then quickly typed out another message.

The Flightless Bird: ‘I am, actually. First stop on the tour - my bed. Second stop - night patrol. We spend a few hours kicking ass together. Which leads into our third stop - Little Tony’s downtown for some pizza. Aka the only reason I keep coming back to this shithole.’

You couldn’t help but to grin at the thought of it. You resisted the urge to hide your face in your hands, almost embarrassed at just how cheek-splitting your smile was - waiting for someone to call you out on it.

Your imagination ran away with you, and you couldn’t help but to feel warm, thinking about yourself living out his ideal day in Gotham. Being warm in his arms again, feeling his touch all over your body. Getting thoroughly fucked and only leaving his bed when the call of those in need beckoned you both to action.

You soon began picturing yourself in some spandex costume - something you didn’t yet have and made fun of Jason for wearing so often, perhaps slightly out of jealousy because he actually got the importance of a title and a suit and you didn’t yet have either. You imagined yourself in something themed around a hero name with an ice pun to suit your powers, kicking ass beside Jason while he proudly carried the mantle of Robin. The two of you taking down criminals like a perfectly paired team and topping off your night with pizza from a familiar place that Jason praised.

You began typing again.

… Robin’s Ice Machine is typing ….

‘You wanna make it a date, Jay?’

But you feared that it would sound too forward. That he was simply joking about all of it and you would seem too eager. So you deleted that message before you sent it and typed out something else instead.

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘You brave the streets of downtown Gotham just for pizza?’

The Flightless Bird: ‘It’s worth it.’

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘I guess they probably give Robin the hero discount.’

You typed out the message and sent it without thinking.

You had been so absorbed in your own world over the past few weeks that you had no clue that Robin hadn’t been active on the streets of Gotham for a while. You hadn’t checked the news or hadn’t thought to check in with the biggest Robin fan you knew (Gar) to ask for updates.

But ever since Jason had gotten back to Gotham - Robin hadn’t seen a night of patrol, his costume quarantined away in the Batcave like Bruce considered him some kind of disease.

The Flightless Bird: ‘I wouldn’t know.’

You found this reply to be confusing, but waited patiently while Jason typed out more.

The Flightless Bird: ‘Bruce has me benched. He said I’m not allowed to take on Robin again until I get “cleared” by a fucking shrink. Like I’m a fucking war vet or something. He’s acting like I jumped off that building on purpose or some shit.’

You wanted to remind him that in a sense, he did. That he had begged you to let him go because he hadn’t thought that he was worth saving. But you didn’t want to rub salt into the wounds. Instead, you felt curious about his words and hoped that he wouldn’t clam up if you went prodding.

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘Bruce has you seeing a shrink?’

You were more than tense with curiosity at this point. More than anything, you wondered if it was actually helping Jason, or if he was just going through the motions, trying to please Bruce.

The Flightless Bird: ‘Yeah. Someone named Leslie. Wants me to talk about my feelings and be vulnerable and all that type of bullshit.’

For once, this was something that Bruce had done that actually gave you hope for Jason’s future.

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘Maybe it’s not a bad idea.’

… The Flightless Bird is typing …

The typing bubbles appeared at the top of the screen a few times and then disappeared, indicating that Jason had read your message and was unsure about what to say in reply. Your stomach twisted up and you hated it. You hated to think that you might have insulted him.

Finally, after a few long moments, he sent something back.

The Flightless Bird: ‘Do you think I’m crazy?’

There it was. He was terrified that you thought he was broken. That because he had to go to therapy - it meant he was weak. That’s probably what Bruce thought. Or why he feared that he had been benched from being Robin.

You carefully chose your words as you replied.

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘I don’t know.’

You easily sent in a single message, and he read it quickly. And then, you moved on to adding more, clarifying your words.

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘I don’t know if you’re crazy or not, and I don’t care.’

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘I know that you’re kind of fucked up - but so am I. And I don’t want to spend my time around anyone else because your kind of fucked up matches my fucked up really perfectly, and nobody else understands me like you do.’

You sent the messages, and then thought of something important to add.

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘There is no normal well adjusted person in the world who would understand me like you do. Fuck normal people.’

(On the other end, Jason grinned and sighed with relief when he read these messages.)

The Flightless Bird: ‘Yeah. Fuck normal people.’

Jason easily echoed back the sentiment, and then he said something that you weren’t entirely expecting.

The Flightless Bird: ‘This therapy bullshit has got me thinking about a lot of things.’

You resisted the urge to make a ‘don’t hurt yourself’ joke - but you knew that he was sensitive, and you should encourage him to open up rather than make jokes. It was something that a version of yourself from a few months ago would have done without hesitation, but you absolutely knew that things between you and Jason had changed. Hopefully, for the better.

While you were mulling that over in your head, Jason typed out another message.

The Flightless Bird: ‘I don’t think my place is with Bruce anymore.’

You were curious what he meant by this. Did he want to quit being Robin? Had he come to realize that everything Dick said about Bruce was actually true?

When that argument came up, multiple times, you were never sure whose side to choose. You had never known the man personally, but you did find it strange that Jason seemed to idolize him and Dick seemed to resent him like he was some kind of cartoon villain. If anything, it made you wary and cautious of Bruce.

Especially because you knew that Jason had been intensely dependent on Bruce when they first met - he had just aged out of foster care, and he had the ‘choice’ of being homeless or becoming Robin. And who would really make that choice when three square a day, a giant mansion, and a shining costume are staring you in the face? Especially after everything else Jason had been through - all the adults who had given up on him, told him he was nothing. Then he was being presented with the chance to truly be something, someone so damn important.

Again, before you could question him, Jason saw that you had read the message and moved to explain himself further.

The Flightless Bird: ‘When I was at the Tower, I thought that being away from him…’

The Flightless Bird: ‘I thought that not being Robin was a punishment. But now I know that it was really good for me. And not for the reasons he thinks - not because I was benched and focusing on training.’

The Flightless Bird: ‘I got to be away from Bruce. I got some distance from the way he made me think about myself - about Robin. I used to think that I was nothing without him. That I was just some bullshit street kid nobody and him picking me up and making me Robin was what MADE me something.’

Your heart ached reading this.

So that was why he idolized Bruce so much. He thought that he would be nothing without the old man. He didn’t see all of his own strength and determination that he put into Robin. He didn’t see all of his own bravery and resolute stubbornness.

The Flightless Bird: ‘Now I realize that I can be something without him.’

The Flightless Bird: ‘I know it sounds like sappy bullshit, but you’re the one who helped me realize that I am something without him. That I can be great - even without Robin.’

You re-read the message a few times over, those words clutching at your throat, nearly bringing you to tears. For a long time, a part of you thought that you weren’t good for Jason. That you were just another nagging force in his life, another negativity. Then - you thought that you were just something he used to fill the time, to distract from the mental noise, as you did with him. And even then, as you realized that you needed him in other ways, and you might be coming to love him - you thought that he would never feel the same about you.

You thought that you had been fighting a losing battle, trying to comfort someone who didn’t want it, or wouldn’t accept it. But reading those words, feeling the rawness of their honesty - it flowed through you and hit you with a radical force.

You actually helped him.

You thought he was too stubborn and hard-headed to get through to, but hearing it directly from him - that was nice. It was more than nice, it was… it shook you to your core.

Your phone vibrated in your hand again, and you realized that you had gone too long without responding.

The Flightless Bird: ‘Too much?’

Clearly he thought that he had frightened you off.

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘Not too much.’

The Flightless Bird: ‘Good. So you won’t think it’s too much if I tell you that I’ve been looking at apartments?’

Wait - what?

You had barely finished reading the message before he sent you a screenshot of an online listing - a picture of some shady, broken-down building. When you glanced at the address, you were almost sure that it was in downtown Gotham.

You wanted to believe that Jason was joking. But from the general tone of the conversation, he didn’t seem to be. He was eager to get away from Bruce, to be out on his own.

Your stomach curled with warmth at the thought of you and Jason living together, and this time not because of some half-baked superhero team. But by choice. This time because you were… what? Friends? Lovers?

You armed yourself with humor as you replied.

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘Jason, that’s downtown Gotham. It’s a shithole.’

The Flightless Bird: ‘Oh, living with rich grandmama has you getting used to the fancy pants lifestyle now? Shall I start looking at mansions with 500 acres and golden swimming pools?’

You let out a small chuckle at his joke. You could practically hear him reciting the words with a fake snooty accent to drive home his point, but you eagerly felt the need to correct him.

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘Hey, I grew up in shitholes too. You know a lot of the time I didn’t even have a roof, Jay.’

The Flightless Bird: ‘Yes, and you slept on a bed of bricks and ate dirt for dinner. Oliver Twist ass. You’re the only person I know who grew up more poor than I did.’

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘The correct tense is: poorer.’

The Flightless Bird: ‘Yet you could afford grammar lessons? Damn.’

You couldn’t hold back a small bit of laughter at this. One of the things he hated most was you correcting his grammar, and you still found it highly amusing.

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘My point is that all this fancy shit makes me uncomfortable. I feel like I can’t even sit down on the furniture at my grandmother’s properly.’

The Flightless Bird: ‘Grandmama will probably have it steam cleaned when you leave. To get the street rat smell out.’

The Flightless Bird: ‘Anyway, do you like the apartment or not?’

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘I don’t know. It looks… sketchy.’

The Flightless Bird: ‘It is. It’s a sketchy ass neighborhood.’

You started typing out a reply full of protests against this, wondering why he would want the two of you to live in a place that was full of drug dealers and other crime, but he beat you to it with another message - and when you read it, your heart warmed.

The Flightless Bird: ‘But - I thought me and you could help keep it safer.’

You grinned widely at this again.

You resisted the urge to correct his grammar again, wanting to tell him the tense was ‘you and I’. He was truly onto something here and you didn’t want to ruin the moment for him.

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘I’ll have to see it in person first.’

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘When I come to Gotham.’

You had no clue what stupid love bug had bitten you - but you were seriously agreeing to go view an apartment with Jason Todd. And you were more excited than anything else.

You finally resigned to the idea, feeling a certain kind of joy in making plans with him. You were entirely unfamiliar with the feeling of looking forward to the future. It was delightfully strange.

For the first time in your entire life, you felt giddy and optimistic for the future.

On the other end, Jason pumped an arm and cheered quietly to himself, knowing that he would hold you to the promise of coming to Gotham to visit him. Knowing that once he had you in town, he would somehow talk you into getting an apartment with him.

This was just the start of your life together. In his mind, this was just the first of many plans.

The Flightless Bird: ‘You could be on a plane tomorrow.’

The Flightless Bird: ‘I’ll pay for your ticket.’

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘You mean Daddy would?’

You knew Jason was rolling his eyes at this, and while he rushed to type out protests about Bruce being his ‘Daddy’, you corrected his initial thought.

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘I can’t come tomorrow, anyway. My trip isn’t supposed to end for another week, at least.’

You didn’t want to tell him that you were getting attached to your grandmother, and you didn’t want to leave her yet. You thought he might mock you for developing those vulnerable familial attachments too quickly. And he would have been right.

The Flightless Bird: ‘Well, don’t take too long. I miss your stupid face.’

In your mind, the only proper response to this was to open your camera and take a picture of yourself - one crudely sticking your tongue out and flipping him off.

You sent it to him and received back several heart emojis.

The Flightless Bird: ‘Gorgeous as always, babe.’

Right then, Jason made that picture into his lockscreen.

You rolled your eyes, and bit your lip to suppress another stupid giddy smile.

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘And you’re a charming asshole, as always.’

Robin’s Ice Machine: ‘But I guess you’re mine.’

You sent the last part without much thought, feeling a twist in your gut when Jason read it and didn’t immediately reply. You stared at the screen for several long moments, waiting for something, wondering how he would react -

But then your attention was snapped away from your conversation with Jason when your grandmother let out a loud snort and woke from her nap.

“Playing with that brick again?” She said, sounding quite displeased.

Though you felt anxious, wondering if you had scared Jason away with your affection, you locked the screen and put the phone back into your pocket.

“Sometimes these ‘bricks’ can be useful.” You told her. “Maybe you should get one.”

You suggested it on the idea that you could communicate with her more easily once your trip was over, though you knew what her stance on the matter was. It didn’t hurt to try.

“Oh deary. I’d never want to strain my eyes looking at that. You know what they say - old dogs, and such.” She let out a small yawn. “Besides, I have heard they can give you cancer.”

You let out a snort of laughter. At least it was nice to know where your sense of dark humor came from.

…

Jason wasn’t sure why he did it.

Bruce told him not to. It should have been obvious that it was a trap. If history had anything to say about it - the Joker never made himself that obvious unless he wanted to get caught. Unless he was planning something and he wanted a lot of people to get caught up in the smoke.

Unless the Joker blatantly wanted attention, then he stayed hidden.

Maybe it was the Anti-Fear Gas. Maybe Jason needed to prove that he was brave. That he was good enough to take up the mantle of Robin again - even if he didn’t necessarily want it. Deep down, he needed to prove to himself that he was good enough for you. That he wasn’t just some broken bird that you needed to fix.

Jason thought the drug made him brave, but it probably just made him stupid. He thought this would be a good field test for it. But it just made his senses dull and useless to everything around him. It made him less aware of his surroundings, it blurred out all his fight or flight that nature intended.

When Bruce said that fear served him, he had no clue that this is what the old man meant.

The Anti-Fear Gas made perfect conditions for someone to sneak up on him.

He heard the cackling laughter - a sound coming from one of those stupid carnival machines, or from the Joker himself, he wasn’t sure - before he even realized what was going on. There was a bag over his head and some heavy, hazy drug forced under his nose.

He was stupid.

He thought he learned something from the incident with Doctor Light.

But it turns out that he was just as stupid as everyone accused him of being.

Because when he woke up, he was right back there. Tied to a chair. Confused. And when the Anti-Fear Gas started to wear off - he was scared. Utterly terrified. Just like he had been on that night.

Bruce was at some investors’ meeting halfway around the world. When Jason didn’t pick up his calls, didn’t answer his texts - he thought that Jason was still pissed off about the fight they had before he left. Bruce tried to give him distance. Without Alfred around to keep an eye on him, nobody reported Jason missing.

Nobody even noticed that he was gone.

…

When Jason stopped answering your texts, you got a horrible feeling in your gut.

The next time you looked at your phone, he had left you on read, and you had an utterly horrible feeling about it. Your stomach twisted over on itself, you became ripe with worry. You immediately wanted to cry to Dick about it, beg him to go searching for Jason’s tracker, or at the very least, call Bruce and ask to confirm where Jason was.

But technically - you had nothing to cry about.

Jason wasn’t your boyfriend. He didn’t owe you anything. Especially not his time. He didn’t owe you an immediate reply to your messages. He wasn’t supposed to be at your beckoned call like a loyal dog.

You had to guess that he got busy training. That he was angry with Bruce, so he was spending extra hours at the gym, working off that anger. Maybe he had doubled down on the apartment search and he was somewhere in downtown Gotham, looking at more shitholes where he didn’t have any service.

At the very worst, you thought maybe you had scared him off with your affection. You thought maybe he was finally realizing that he didn’t want that big, scary thing with you, and he was getting ready to run away from it. Maybe he was debating blocking your number so that he didn’t have to break-off this non-relationship with you.

Maybe he had met someone else.

You went over the possibilities - made yourself sick, wondering why he wasn’t answering you.

But you had never considered the most sickening possibility of them all.

…

As usual, the Joker had seemingly no aim with his chaos.

He took Jason to some random location. Tied him up, hit him. Some of the Joker’s goons came and went. The Joker talked about potentially setting Jason out as ‘bait’ for the Bat to come and get. Jason wanted to tell him that his precious Bat was out of town, but he couldn’t risk revealing Bruce’s identity if he divulged that information.

If that was the Joker’s plan - using Jason as bait - he waited a long time to get on with it.

He spent the interim torturing Jason in increasingly creative ways.

Jason watched the sun rise and fall three different times - through a tiny window in whatever place they were keeping him. When darkness fell on the fourth day, his eyes were becoming too swollen to see light anymore.

Jason tried not to flinch when he heard footsteps approaching.

Every single inch of Jason’s body ached - he was sure that he had fingers broken, an arm broken. Broken ribs. He had several missing teeth, and he was leaking blood freely into his mouth. If he did get out of this, he would be severely fucked up for the rest of his life.

But he had a feeling that the Joker wasn’t going to let him out of this.

A cold hand moved across his forehead, and instinctively, he flinched away from it. The Joker tutted his tongue, and other voices came - echoes of laughter in the room, goons he had brought along with him.

“So shy, Little Birdie.” The Joker’s voice mocked him. “You weren’t so shy when you came looking for me… in fact, you were eager then. Eager, eager, eager. Eager to play my games. But you don’t wanna play now, do you?”

Jason was exhausted. But he knew that he couldn’t give up. If he stopped fighting, then the Joker had won.

“Fuck you.” Jason said, fighting past blood flowing in his mouth, deflated, clearly tired.

But he was still fighting.

The Joker laughed.

Cruel. Harsh.

“Well, I’ll take that as a sign - game on!”

The Joker clapped his hands together above Jason’s head, loudly. Jason hated that he flinched. There was another round of laughter from the goons.

Jason expected that the ‘game’ would be something violent. Removing his fingers, having the goons take turns to hit him harder. Perhaps they would strap him to some kind of target and make up point values for his different limbs and then have a knife throwing contest around him.

But no.

It seemed that they were growing bored of physical violence.

Something that Jason hadn’t even thought of - an utterly terrifying possibility.

With his eyes out of commission, he was relying on his ears more. He heard a small click, a button being pushed - if he wasn’t mistaken, it was someone trying to wake the lockscreen of a phone. It was very close to his head.

“My, my, that is a pretty one.” The Joker teased.

Jason sucked in a sharp breath, causing a painful sting in his likely broken ribs as an even more painful realization hit him.

They had taken his phone. The Joker was talking about you.

He should never have made that picture of you into his lockscreen, you were too important, he had put you in danger -

“Tell me, does this pretty thing have a name?”

The Joker chuckled - Jason thought maybe the phone with your picture was being waved in front of his face, but he couldn’t quite see it.

“Oh wait! You can’t see it, can you?” The Joker seemed amused to remember this, his voice light and jaunty as the thought crossed his mind.

“Fuck you!” Jason spat out, much more energized now, refreshed with the might of protecting you - quite literally spitting blood, hopefully getting some on the clown.

The Joker simply let out another cackling laugh.

There was a ping. A text message coming in.

Let it be Bruce. Let it be Dick. Let it be Gar, for fuck’s sake. Anybody but you.

“You know, this friend of yours sends an awful lot of text messages.”

The Joker chuckled, putting emphasis on that word, clearly mocking Jason’s relationship status with you. Even with his psychotic mind, he could see that Jason loved you more than he cared to admit, and he was terrified to speak it aloud.

“‘Jason, I’m worried about you. Please text me back when you can. I know it’s stupid to be worried just cause I haven’t heard from you in a few days, but Gotham is a stupid shithole and I wanna know that you haven’t been eaten by a giant mutant crocodile or something.’”

Jason’s skin crawled when the Joker read a text from you aloud.

You were worried.

Jason was beaten, dying because of the consequences of his own stupid actions, and you were worried.

“Well, that’s almost sweet.” The Joker sniggered. “You’ve been ignoring these for days now! That’s rude!”

Another round of laughter from the goons.

Jason was then struck with the realization that because of his current situation - idiotically kidnapped, tied to a chair, beaten - he had been ignoring you for days. He had unintentionally caused you to worry, on top of everything else. He had hurt you.

Had you sent someone looking for him? Would he actually somehow get out of this? Was there a chance that he might actually be rescued?

“I think we should answer. Your sweet little friend deserves some closure - a load off the mind, you know.”

The Joker’s voice took on a menacing dark tone as he said this.

Jason’s insides clenched with horror. They had tortured him in almost every way imaginable - taken it as far as they could without actually killing him. They had inflicted all kinds of pain on his body. Now they were going to torture his mind.

They were pulling you into their game as a fucked up pawn.

“No!” Jason tried to weakly protest, but then, entirely against his will, came the sound of his phone unlocking. “Fuck you!”

He hadn’t put a password on it yet. It was relatively new - a present Bruce had gotten him when he had come back to Gotham. A bid to buy his affection. He hadn’t gotten around to putting a password on it yet.

Another stupid mistake.

Jason nearly lost his breath when he heard ringing. The Joker wasn’t just going to reply to your text messages - he was calling you.

Whatever happened to Jason next - whatever torture, whatever pain they inflicted upon him - they were going to make you listen.

…

One thing you had come to learn over the past week: rich people have a lot of peculiar habits.

Your grandmother would insist that you be there for afternoon tea at three o’clock sharp, and apparently having too much sugar in your tea was considered rude, because it was a reflection of the quality of the tea that the host had presented you with. She insisted that you ‘dress for dinner’ - which meant that you weren’t allowed to wear sweatpants at her formal dining table, and even ripped jeans were frowned upon. Also, sitting with your feet curled underneath you at the dining table caused her glare at you - a lot.

But as much as she had scolded you for your brutish, poor people ways - you had managed to bring her around to some of your ways of life. You showed her how binging reality shows could be fun, and that not all types of processed junk food were terribly beyond her taste.

It was probably why you were putting up with this now. The garden party.

You were surprised that she had been able to put together a party this elaborate so quickly. But she said that it was necessary because she had insisted that she wanted you to meet all of her friends.

You thought that it would be just a few people; no more than would fill up the dozen chairs that she had at her exceedingly large fancy dining table. But you grew more anxious as cars filled the long driveway and more people filled the ‘garden’ out back, picking at tables that had been set up with expensive catered food and sipping on drinks that were being poured by a bartender that had been highered last minute.

Of course - your grandmother insisted on picking an outfit for you. She didn’t bring herself to care where exactly on the gender spectrum you fell - she didn’t even bring up your birth gender at all, which surprised you, since she had known you as a baby. She simply took it at face value when you introduced yourself to her by name and the two of you easily rolled with things from there. It was strange for an old woman, especially one so caught up in the history of all the objects in her home. But you supposed that those deathbed regrets ran deep and she preferred to spend this time with you actually embracing you instead of arguing with you and potentially driving you away.

She insisted on picking your clothes because she simply hated your graphic band tee shirts and your ripped jeans, and insisted that you wear something ‘light and airy’ worthy of a garden party. All she had asked before she consulted her personal shopper was if you had a preference of pants or a skirt. And you couldn’t bring yourself to protest, even when you saw the pastel colours that you normally would have utterly hated.

You weren’t sure why you were trying so hard to impress someone that you barely knew - someone you could barely even call family. Perhaps it was because your mother had treated you so poorly - she had never cared if you were clothed or fed, so having someone buy you expensive new clothes after caring to have ‘family dinner’ with you every night, it was touching. Especially considering that she was throwing an entire party in your honor when your mother hadn’t even wished you ‘happy birthday’ most years - often forgot the day and let it pass without acknowledgment at all.

Everything your grandmother was going for you, it made you feel like you truly mattered for the first time in your young life.

Perhaps for the first time since Jason had insisted on stitching up your wound - after he had told you that you being hurt on his behalf in the first place was such a terrible crime. But you didn’t want to think about that too much because you missed him so terribly.

You did find yourself picky at the itchy, slightly too tight collar as you went downstairs to join the other guests. Your grandmother paraded you around, introduced you to different people. And soon, she abandoned you near one of the snack tables when she was called over by some ‘business associate’.

You couldn’t resist the urge to pull out your phone and check - your stomach sank when you saw that there was still nothing from Jason.

Entirely against your own will, you began typing.

‘Jason, I’m worried about you. Please text me back when you can. I know it’s stupid to be worried just cause I haven’t heard from you in a few days, but Gotham is a stupid shithole and I wanna know that you haven’t been eaten by a giant mutant crocodile or something.’

You hoped that he would reply soon. Even if it was telling you to fuck off.

You hated when you got sucked into another conversation with more people you didn’t know. You quickly found yourself mentally begging to be released from the hell as more and more people asked you questions that you couldn’t even begin to form the answers to.

“What are your top three?” One of the women asked you, looking at you with precise, dissecting eyes.

‘Top three what?’ You wanted to shriek.

“My Brandon is going to Dartmouth after summering in Metropolis. Doing a lot of volunteer work there - an angel, he is.”

The other women standing around you all nodded, giving approving looks with strangely fake smiles, and all you could do was nod and smile along with them.

‘Summering? Since when is that a verb?’

You wished more than anything that Jason was there with you. Not only would he pull you aside and relentlessly laugh at these plastic-y women with you, but you knew that he would be able to save you from this. He did have a bit more experience being around rich people because of Bruce, and he would actually be able to tell you what the hell they were saying. He would be able to translate all this shit to ‘Oliver Twist’ for you so that you wouldn’t feel like you were suddenly living on some alien planet.

“Where do you usually summer? When you’re not with your grandmother, that is?”

You felt more panic rise in you as another question was directed at you, desperately racking your brain for an answer that wouldn’t make you sound stupidly out of place to them.

Luckily, before you had to stumble your way through the interaction, your phone began to vibrate in the pocket of the overly expensive blazer that your grandmother had made you wear. You wanted to breathe a sigh of relief at the chance for distraction - even though it was probably a spam call, or Gar, calling to complain that he was lonely because Rachel wasn’t back from her trip yet. (Without you and Jason there, and with Rachel extending her stay on Themyscira, he near constantly complained to you that he was lonely, and that he hated everyone leaving.)

But still, you jumped at the chance to escape the many pairs of eyes, staring at you, studying your every move like you were a very fascinating bug. Looking at you like you were something that didn’t belong there.

“I have to take this.” You grinned at them, reaching to grab your phone out of your pocket.

You moved away from the group of clucking hens, hoping for some privacy in the conversation. Even if it was just Gar, you would use this opportunity to stall for as long as possible before being pulled back into the party.

When you took your phone out and saw Jason’s contact photo lighting up the screen, you couldn’t hold back the smile that broke across your cheeks. It was a picture of him sticking his tongue out that you had taken using the front facing camera when he had been annoying you over your shoulder one day.

Pure, unadulterated joy. That stupid teenager crush igniting your insides yet again.

You moved toward the refreshment table, knowing that you looked like an idiot as you stared down at your phone, smiling so widely.

You knew that you were in too deep. That you probably felt far more deeply for him than he did for you - that you would have dared to call it that deep, ‘tied together forever’ thing, and he probably wouldn’t.

But you were caring less and less each day. You were beginning not to care if he broke your heart.

At this point, you were just along for the ride.

A very small voice in the back of your head told you that maybe he was calling to break things off with you. Maybe, all this time that he had gone without speaking to you, he had been waiting, working up the courage, finding the right words to tell you that he was truly done with you.

But no. That wouldn’t be the case.

He had simply been busy. And now, he was calling to tell you what a hectic, shitty few days it had been, how much he had missed you -

“Hey, asshole. I don’t know if you leeched some of Rach’s psychic powers, but you called just in time to save me.”

You breathed into the receiver as soon as you picked up, throwing out a casual greeting, knowing that Jason wouldn’t be offended by the words.

“I always hesitate to say that you were right, but I am beginning to regret not taking you up on that offer to come with me. You should see some of these rich, stuck-up snobs - you would be laughing your ass off if you were here right now.”

There was a long silence.

Your stomach dropped.

On the other end, you had no clue that Jason felt that exact same sting of regret about not coming with you. If he had - the two of you could have been safe and happy together.

Fear clutched at your throat.

It was a basic instinct, but you knew that the silence wasn’t a good thing. You thought that all of your worst fears were about to come true. That Jason was about to tell you that he was truly done with you, that he never actually felt anything for you in the first place, and he was just working up the courage to speak the words aloud.

But it was so much worse than that. It was worse than anything you could have imagined.

A single, ragged breath.

Air struggling to get in and out of his lungs past broken bone - pain.

Standing in the radiance of a warm, pleasant afternoon, with people mingling happily all around you - all the life drained from you. All the happiness sucked out of the world in a matter of seconds.

You wanted to scream at the top of your lungs, wanted to cry out for help.

There was a unique cruelty in the fact that everyone else in the garden simply went on, chatting, laughing, engaging in merriment. The fact that they went about their stupid party, having no clue that a world away, in Gotham - a great tragedy was taking place.

All of those rich assholes sipped their drinks and carried on with their day, having no clue that your world was about to end.

“Jason?”

You knew that your voice was so utterly wounded, small and terrified. You made no effort to hide it.

There was a harsh sound - a collision of flesh, a groan. A hit. It was a sound that somehow made your guts twist in on themselves even more.

“Go on, Robin.”

That voice wasn’t Jason. It wasn’t someone you knew. It was wicked and harsh and made you want to scream. All you could do was swallow around a thick dryness that had formed in your throat - like sandpaper had been put there.

You didn’t know what to do. You couldn’t do anything more than listen.

“Go on, answer your pretty friend.”

Jason sucked in another harsh breath, and sputtered out a cough.

“I - I fucked up.” Jason said, his voice ragged. “I fucked up big time.”

You felt a hot, wet tear run down your face before you realized that you were crying. Your legs were filled with concrete and you felt the world spinning on its axis. It was a miracle that you managed to stay standing upright.

You couldn’t even comprehend how you might have looked to someone else in those moments, and truthfully it didn’t matter. No one else at the party even noticed the terrible grief that had struck you. They simply carried on, absorbed in their own little world.

“Jason?”

It hadn’t even occurred to you that you had given up Jason’s secret identity - the name behind the Robin mask. You were too busy quaking with fear, your chest tight as you considered: this might actually be the end of his life.

And you couldn’t do anything about it.

What the fuck could you do about it?

“What happened?” You rushed to ask, your voice full of breath, full of fear. “What’s happening?”

More tears poured down your face, and you swallowed around the tightness of your throat, forcing a clearness to be able to speak.

“I made a mistake.” Jason said, his voice coming out in a tight wheeze as he struggled to breathe. “I - I never should have gotten you involved in this.”

You knew what he really wanted to say. He wanted to apologize for letting you get close to him. For giving you the potential to get hurt.

“No!” You easily argued back. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

You decided right then and there - maybe you had decided a long time ago - if he broke your heart by leaving you alone, by dying, you didn’t care. You didn’t care if he left you fucked up and broken. All of the time the two of you had spent together - it had all been worth it.

You needed him to know that. You needed him to know.

“Jason, I-”

You hesitated for a moment before you said it. Before you crossed that line into the abyss. Your voice clouded with the thickness of your tears when you finally said the words.

“I love you.”

When he heard it, Jason let out a wounded howl.

You thought that he had been stabbed. You let out a sob of your own, echoing his pain.

You did not know that it was these words alone that damned him. It was something that hurt him more than any baseball bat crashing down over his knees or any brass knuckles against his jaw ever could have.

Moments before his death, you sentenced him to the worst crime of all - breaking your heart. Now, with his own foolish choices, he had damned you to a life without the one you loved. You had sentenced him to dying with the knowledge that he was the worst piece of shit to ever touch your life. That he truly had rotted everything good about you - just like he had promised.

You could have chosen anyone else, and you chose to love the stupid, fucked up, idiotic Jason Todd. The man who was about to die due to his own incompetence.

“Aww, isn’t that sweet?” The stranger’s voice was there again, mocking you.

You weren’t surprised that Jason didn’t say it back - but you hoped that your words, that you saying it brought some comfort to him.

You were about to open your mouth again, about to promise that you would find him and rescue him in time.

And then another pillar of hell struck you.

“Now, it’s time for the little birdie to go bye-bye.”

You couldn’t even muster your voice again, couldn’t scream out against this. Your throat was swollen shut, like an allergic reaction to the tragedy as it happened.

There was a silence - a second of your life that swallowed you whole like an abyss of fifty endless years.

And then, that silence was cut through by the worst sound you had ever been forced to hear.

A gunshot.

The sound was distinctive, clear as day.

“Jason?!”

You screamed his name at the top of your lungs - this time, undeniably drawing attention to yourself. Even the plastic party goers couldn’t ignore a tragedy of this magnitude. You couldn’t bring yourself to care as multiple of their heads snapped toward you, taking in the now utterly disheveled sight of you, crying, clutching at your phone like it was the most precious thing in the world.

“Jason?!” You screamed again, your voice nagging into a hopelessly dead line.

You didn’t know that they had smashed Jason’s phone, disposing of it now that they were done with their game.

Upon instinct, you ran. Your legs were heavy and felt stupid and you stumbled into multiple people on your way into the house, causing murmurs as the crowd stared at you. You didn’t care. You were panicked, shaking, confused. You made your way up to the guest bedroom that you had been staying in and began frantically shoving your things back into your bag, half-packed when you finally realized that you had no clue where you were going.

And you collapsed onto the floor, then. Your whole body was weak, overtaken by shock. Clueless and terrified, your chest was barely taking in breath and your own phone slipped out of your shaking hand when you tried to think of your next move.

For a long time - what felt like endless hours, days - you could do nothing but sit there and desperately try to suck air into your lungs, playing the gunshot sound over and over again in your mind.

They shot Jason. They shot Jason. They had shot Jason.

Your brain could hardly process it.

One of your grandmother’s caretakers knocked on the bedroom door and you couldn’t gather words to answer. When she asked you what had happened, you couldn’t even begin to explain. That was when you realized that you had needed concrete answers yourself. So as she left the room to make you some peppermint tea ‘for your nerves’, you forced your shaking hands to work, and you grabbed up your phone again.

You needed to call Dick.

He didn’t pick up. Then you called Kory. No dice. Then you called Gar - you could hear the bustle of a crime scene in the background, but he sounded okay. He was talking in his usual bright, excited voice. The Titans had likely just made a bust. He was excited to be making a difference, helping people.

You sucked down breath and tripped over your own words trying to explain it. Jason was in trouble - a gunshot, he was hurt. He was dead. Gar barely understood, tried arguing against you because you sounded hysterical. But he passed the phone to Dick at your insistence. Dick made sense of your words, and made you wait fifteen long painful minutes until he was back in front of the computer at Titans Tower to give you some kind of answer.

Jason’s tracker was online. It was in Gotham. It was at the Amusement Mile.

It wasn’t picking up any heat signature from Jason’s body. That only meant one thing: his body was cold.

“I’m - I’m so sorry, Y/N. Jason’s - he’s gone.”

...

A/N: This is part one of two, and I do have the second part ready to go in my drafts.

Based on the original, Emergency Contact, having around 400 notes, and based on the fact that Jason Todd is a popular character:

I would like to see around 50 reblogs and around 50 comments on this before I post the next part.

Which I do think is a modest ask - if the same amount of people who enjoyed the original show up to read this sequel, then I will be asking one quarter of those people to comment or reblog. And I say 'around' because if I see a good amount of people commenting and reblogging, even if we don't meet the goal, then I will post the next part more quickly.

(I just don't want another incident to happen where people stop commenting immediately as the goal is met and then I end up with 30 comments and 900 likes, clearly showing that people don't care to support a fic even if they clearly enjoyed it.)

However, if you are going to comment, please do not just comment asking for the next part or asking when the next part will be posted, please comment about the body of work that has already been written and posted. I find it inconsiderate and stressful when people only ask for updates. I much prefer to spark a discussion about the existing work that has been written.

Anyway - I am just insanely proud of this fic and I really want to hear what you guys think of it so far!! So please do comment, reblog and rant in the tags, or come to my inbox and chat with me on anon if you're shy. I always wanna hear from fellow Jason Todd lovers and fellow Titans enjoyers.

#sundrop writes #jason todd #jason todd x reader #jason todd fanfiction #jason todd smut #jason todd x gender neutral reader #jason todd x gn!reader #jason todd x y/n #jason todd x you #dc titans #titans fanfiction #dc titans fanfiction #dc fanfiction #red hood #red hood fanfiction #red hood x reader #red hood x you #red hood x y/n #red hood x gn!reader

224 notes · View notes

cressidagrey · 5 months ago

Text

Looked to the Sky - Chapter 15

Summary:

Eira Archeron was neither a Valkyrie, nor a Seer, nor the High Lady of the Night Court. She was, however, Azriel‘s mate with her own mysterious, untrained powers.

Also known as: Azriel tries to court his mate the human way.

Warnings:

THIS IS THE LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE SEQUEL! SO READ THAT FIRST IF YOU WANNA READ THIS ONE OTHERWISE THIS MAKES NO SENSE!

Elain Bashing and without @k-godling this would have never happened.

(super pretty dividers by @tsunami-of-tears)

Azriel was in Eira's bed. Between a quilted coverlet, white and florals, making a pattern that formed stars, and embroidered pillow shams, edged with lace. He felt out of place, surrounded by the soft beauty of her work, even when she had curled herself together in his arms, short nails gently scratching his scalp.

He was exhausted; physically, mentally, emotionally…he was utterly depleted, and it was only being in her soft bed, with her soft body pressed against his that made him able to relax at all.

He was laying on his back, with Eira curled up against his side, her head against his chest and her fingers in his hair, and he’d never felt more content.

His chest was rising and falling evenly, his breathing steadier and calmer than it’d been in a while. His eyes were closed, the tiredness and exhaustion making it almost hard to even keep them open.

Azriel shifted the wing she was half lying on, wrapping it around her, and Eira laughed softly but didn't even try to shift away.

Her soft chuckle was a soothing sound, like a balm to his soul. Her body tensed slightly against him with her laugh, but she didn’t move, her body practically melting against his when his wing cocooned her along with his arms.

It felt peaceful…calm, and it soothed the ache within him in a way nothing else could. Her body was a warm, comforting weight against his, her hair against his chin and chest, and the feeling of her fingers gently playing with his hair almost like a lullaby.

“You’re going to fall asleep,” she whispered, her voice soft and quiet. He could feel her breath against his chest, and it was the only thing to tell him she’d spoken, her words so gentle they were almost lost in the stillness.

“This is nice…” he murmured, his voice soft and sleepy and almost a croon, as he held her a bit tighter to him, his wing shifting around her, to hold her even closer.

There was a shifting, a moving of position, and then the next thing he felt was a kiss on his chest and the feel of her body pressed even closer to his.

“Rest then,” she whispered, and her voice was so soft, so soothing. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She started humming softly, singing just like she did for Nyx. And Azriel did fall asleep, just for a little while.

He woke up when razor-sharp claws scrambled up his leg and he watched with amusement how Snow made herself at home on his stomach, happily laying there, making Eira laugh silently, her giggles shaking him. He reached out to touch the tiny kitten with a broad, scarred finger and she purred softly as he petted her.

“As long as she gets attention, she is happy,” Eira recounted with a snort, pressing a kiss against his cheek and he chuckled, the sound raw in his throat.

A knock at the door, made him freeze. It's just the High Lady, the shadows assured him, just as the door was pushed open.

"Eira?"

The bed creaked slightly, as Eira pushed herself up off of his chest. He had to fight not to pull her back, his arms still tight around her, and against his will, he loosened his hold on her, though not by much.

"It's just Feyre," Eira soothed, her voice so soft, and quiet, as she looked back down at him.

"Sorry to barge in like this," Feyre said, her voice quiet though he could still hear it. "Are you two...alright?"

He sat up, carefully not to hit Eira with his wing accidentally. "We are fine," Eira promised, her voice warm, slipping her hand into his. "Everything is alright."

There was a slight pause, and he could practically see the assessing gaze Feyre was no doubt giving him at that moment.

"You sure? " Feyre asked, and he heard the disbelief in her words. "Because you look...rough."

“We had a talk," Eira said, her voice even. "Did you already write to him?"

He couldn't help the growl that burst out of his throat at that. Eira didn't even flinch. He heard Feyre suck in a breath, clearly startled by his reaction, even as he felt Eira's fingers grip his a bit tighter as if to remind him.

"No," Feyre said, her voice still laced with possibly a hint of…worry? "Rhys and Mor are still talking about what the best way to go about it is. They have a draft now, if you want to read it...Are you two hungry? You haven't really eaten."

He was hungry. But there was only one thing he currently wanted to eat and that was sitting next to him.

You should eat, the shadows pressed.

Eira was still looking at him, and the look on her face was so soft and tender and worried it made it so hard to deny her. "...We'll eat," Azriel agreed finally, and he saw her shoulders droop infinitesimally as if she'd been holding tension there.

"We'll be down in a few minutes," Eira said calmly.

"Don't take too long," Feyre warned, her voice dry. "Rhys is going to start prowling if you two don't show soon. "

Azriel barely stifled a snort at Feyre's words, even as he heard Eira let out a soft giggle.

"We'll be down soon,” Eira reassured Feyre. "We'll be down soon."

She waited until Feyre had left before she leaned to press a kiss against his lips. "Come on. We'll have to tell our family, don't we?" And that easy acceptance...like she didn't even need to think twice about it...not hesitating for even a moment to tell their family about their engagement, even when there wasn't a ring to show for it...

It made his heart twist in his chest, a painful yet overwhelming sort of feeling.

He couldn't help but pull her closer against him, leaning in to wrap his arms around her body, as he hid his face in the crook of her neck, his nose buried against her hair. "I don't deserve you," he whispered against her skin.

"You do. And I'll tell you that every day for the rest of our lives," Eira disagreed.

He let out a shaky exhale, his breath shuddering against her neck. The feeling of such certainty in her voice…he couldn’t help the way he shook against her, his limbs almost trembling against her as he held her.

"Let's go downstairs," Eira said, offering her hand to him.

He took her hand without protest, the idea of food a bit more palatable when it included her, with him.

His fingers clenched around her own, clutching her hand as if he was scared that if he let go she might disappear.

He heard her soft exhale at his grip, but she didn’t say a word about his hold as she tugged him off the bed after her. Her hair was mussed, her clothes rumpled from where she’d laid against him on the bed, but she simply shook out her skirt and that was it. She tugged him across the room towards the door and pulled him gently after her.

He let her pull him along, the touch of her hand the only grounding thing as his nerves twisted and his worry over what their family’s reaction might be. Would they be happy? Or would they be confused, horrified, angry?

"Nice of you to come back," Cassian drawled from where he was sitting, Nesta draped over his lap, whose grey eyes were immediately mustering Eira before they stared at him.

"We needed a nap," Eira said simply, her voice as soft and gentle as ever, as she tugged him across the room towards an empty chair, and the table full of food

"A nap?" Cassian repeated incredulously.

"A nap and a talk," Eira said with a shrug. "Tell Kleon that sadly he was too late in his offer for my hand, as I am already taken," she told Rhys, her shoulders squared, her chin stuck out.

There were several stunned looks around the room, as Feyre, Cassian, Nesta, Mor and Rhys all stared at her.

The silence was near deafening. And then Rhys let out a bark of startled laughter.

"You’re engaged then," he said, and it was a statement, not a question.

She shrugged, still standing by his side, her hand still firmly gripping his. “We are.” The certainty, the conviction in her voice made something in his chest ache.

The others were still staring, their mouths opening and closing as if trying to find the words. It was Cassian who spoke first, his voice incredulous as he looked at them both.

“You’re…engaged?” he repeated, and his words were a bit slow as if he didn’t quite believe it. “Wait, when?"

“Tonight,” Eira said simply, and her voice was unwavering, her spine straight and her chin held high, as if in a challenge ."We got engaged tonight.”

There was another moment of silence, where the room was so still it was as if no one breathed.

And then Rhys let out another bark of laughter. “Well congratulations then,” he said, his voice full of amusement. “You’ve got a hell of a mate there, Az.”

And somehow that loosened every bit of tension. There was a chorus of congratulations, as Feyre led the charge and suddenly he was swamped with hands and arms and backs slapped and hair ruffled and laughter.

And through it all, Eira stayed beside him, her hand still holding firmly to his.

"Do not mess this up," Nesta hissed at him, even as she hugged him. He heard the threat in her words, as her nails dug into his skin with her hug. And he knew without a doubt she’d make good on that threat if he did mess it up.

But instead of being fearful, in that moment…all he could be was grateful.

For this...for the family surrounding them...his mate, still holding his hand...he was just...grateful.

"No ring yet?" Mor asked. "Az, you know better than that!" she complained good-naturedly.

He knew. He knew. He did want to get Eira a ring, a visible claim, something that everybody could see.

"It’s being made," he rasped, and his voice was a near whisper, his guilt so overwhelming at that moment that his stomach churned.

It's not, the shadows sniped. You haven't even decided what you want!

Shut up, he hissed back, his mind filled with a mix of irritation, guilt, and agony over the fact that he hadn’t even startedlooking for her ring when it was his duty as her mate to provide her with one. But she was still holding his hand, her grip firm, as if sensing his turmoil, as if reassuring him that his lack of a ring didn’t matter to her one bit.

"I do like pearls," Eira told him with a grin. He could only look down at her as he heard the words, a new longing filling him.

“Pearls?” he repeated hoarsely. He’d been fully prepared to start looking for rings embedded with diamonds, with rubies, emeralds, sapphires…

But pearls…he could just imagine her, with pearls against her skin, her creamy pale skin framed by the white of pearls…

"And nothing big, please," Eira continued. That had his thoughts halting, and a frown pulling at his brows.

“...nothing big?” he repeated slowly, the words leaving a bad taste in his mouth. Was she saying she wanted a smaller ring? The idea of giving her a small ring felt wrong to him. When he thought of a ring for her, he couldn’t picture anything other than a large stone, a ring encrusted with gems and gold so that everyone would look at her and know she was his.

But the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. After all, he knew Eira and the last thing she’d ever care about would be having anything impractical that she needed to constantly take off. The more delicate, the more subtle, the more unassuming a ring he got her, the better she’d like it…

But the thought of giving her a small ring felt like he was settling. Like he was disrespecting her. She was his mate, the woman he’d spend his entire life with…she should have a ring that was just as beautiful, as elegant as she was...

"Aaaaaand we lost him," Cassian quipped.

Cassian’s words broke him out of his thoughts, and Azriel scowled at his brother, only to realize…how true Cassian’s words were. He’d been so deep in thought, in contemplating the details of the ring he would get her, that he had ignored the entire conversation around him. And they were all staring at him.

The weight of their gazes had his neck heat, as he realized what he’d done.

But Eira was still holding his hand, her thumb rubbing soothing circles over the back of his palm as if to reassure him, to calm him and soothe his guilt over not having a ring for her yet.

"I was just saying that unless you want to get married tonight, signing a betrothal contract would wrap you both in enough paperwork that it makes it very clear to Kleon that Eira is utterly uninterested," Rhys said drily. "We'll simply send the Winter Court a copy."

He breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes,” he said, his words eager, his grip on Eira’s hand unconsciously tightening as he spoke. “We should…we should do that.”

"If you think you can pay 2 cows for my sister and be done, you are sadly mistaken," Nesta said drily, making Rhys laugh.

"He doesn't even own a single cow," Rhys said with a laugh. That startled a laugh out of Azriel, and he saw Rhys, Cassian, Mor, and Feyre all struggle to hold back a grin. Feyre seemed to barely succeed in suppressing the sound, her lips quivering.

But Eira’s hand tightened in his, her eyes narrowing, but there was a hint of an amused gleam visible in them. “I am not a prize cow in need of bartering.”

Azriel had to bite his tongue to suppress a grin, the idea of his mate as a “prize cow” was both ridiculously charming and utterly absurd. “No, you’re not,” he agreed firmly, his voice rough. “You’re mine.”

"Besides, you can put whatever you want in these betrothal contracts," Mor said drily. "And it's not like they weren't oftentimes just made between families with no exact person even in mind, or that you can't put in them whatever you want. You want to put in there that Azriel forfeits his entire fortune if he does anything Eira doesn't like? You can."

"We are not doing that," Eira said sharply.

But Mor only gave her a sly smile, the gleam in her eyes sparkling. “You never know, Eira…he might just be tempted to do something stupid someday….”

"The shadows are on my side. I don't need his fortune," she gave back drily.

That startled a choked laugh out of Azriel, as he looked down at her.

“I feel like I should be insulted,” he said dryly. “Should I worry that you’d only be happy with me for my shadows and not for me ?”

Eira gave him a smile that was nearly wicked.

“Maybe I would,” she said teasingly, and Azriel could see the gleam in her eyes, even as her fingers clenched against his side as if to hold him firmly to her. “Maybe I’ll only keep you until I can get the shadows to switch sides and become mine instead.”

His jaw almost dropped at her words, the audacity of her teasing, the hint of playfulness in her words, and he heard Cassian bark a laugh while Feyre gave a stifled giggle that sounded almost like a snort.

But he couldn’t even try to come up with a response, his mouth opening and then closing again as he tried to think of something to say…

"What do we need to do?" Eira asked Rhys. "We sign a piece of paper with our intent to marry, and that's it?"

Rhys leaned back against the back of his chair, an amused look on his face. “That’s it. It’s simple honestly. It's a blood-bound contract though."

"I don't need to drink his blood, right?" Eira asked, suddenly sounding worried.

Azriel had the sudden urge to laugh at her question, the fear in her voice at the prospect of having to drink his blood.

"No," he said, struggling to hold back a smile. "No blood drinking."

"You'll only need to prick your finger," Rhys promised with a laugh That managed to get a breath of relief out of her, and Azriel couldn’t help the urge to smile.

She was still worried, even with the simple task of a blood-bound contract. A contract that would tie them together, that would make sure that any other suitors, Kleon knew that she was spoken for, his. Her agreement to sign a contract to marry him…

He didn’t know what to think, what to feel. Just…everything, swirling together in a roiling mass in his chest.

"Paper and ink, Rhys," Azriel said, his words a near croak, strangled out past his tight throat.

Rhys’s gaze snapped to him, his eyes scanning over his face, then his lips curled into a small smile, as he nodded and stood.

"Paper and ink," Rhys repeated, his smile still firmly in place. "Coming right up."

It was the work of minutes to work out the wording, keeping it simple.

Azriel’s hands shook slightly as he signed the contract, the words blurry in front of his eyes, his mind whirling at the reality of what he was doing.

His hand trembled as it went to his thigh to the sheath of Truthteller, and he pulled it out. He nicked the top of his thumb on the blade, letting the blood well in the cut

He let the red drop fall, watching it splatter on the paper, a thick, red smear that turned into a stain, dark and blotchy.

He’d just signed a contract, a blood-bound contract, pledging himself, promising himself to her, binding his life to hers…

He offered the pen to Eira, and his vision was tunnelled, as if the only thing his mind was capable of seeing was her slender hand, her fingers wrapping around the black ink pen as if to take hold of their future with her grip.

He held out Truthteller for her second, hilt first. She reached out, her hand reaching for the blade, and a flicker of panic rose in him as he looked down at her, her small, beautiful, delicate hand reaching for something that could hurt her.

“Careful,” he managed to say, the word almost hoarse as he spoke, his voice rough. “You have to be careful, it’s sharp…”

She held the blade gingerly, the knife looking large and ominous in her small hands.

He watched as she studied it, a moment of hesitation clear as she stared at the blade, before pressing the tip against the pad of her index finger.

She winced, but only slightly, as she pricked her finger, a bright drop of crimson welling and then falling next to her own signature. The words around them were little more than a buzz in his ears, the only thing he could focus on was the fact that she’d done it, her signature and blood staining the paper...binding her to him.

Nesta signed next to her.

He watched as Rhys took the parchment, rolling it tight and sealing it with a wave of his own power.

"Done," Rhys said, his simple word shattering the silence that had descended around them.

Azriel had the sudden thought that he could hear his heartbeat, how it was thumping in his chest, louder than a drum in his ears. A pounding beat that echoed in his head, pounding along with three simple, perfect words in his mind.

His mate.

"That's it?" Eira made sure.

“That’s it,” Rhys said with a smile, that small, amused quirk to his lips firmly in place. “You’re officially betrothed now.”

Azriel couldn’t help the way his own lips curled up upon hearing those words, his thoughts replaying them over and over in his head.

Betrothed. Officially betrothed.

The words were like the sweetest honey to his ears.

Eira turned to glance up at him, those lovely blue eyes, flecked with silver looking up at him, her gaze curious, contemplative…and happy.

And looking at her, at the smile on her face, the happy gleam in her eyes, he realized that he’d never be able to get enough of that look, of the look of pure joy and hope on her face.

***

She was engaged.

The thought left her both giddy and scared, her heart beating a rapid tattoo against her chest.

Azriel…she was engaged to Azriel.

It was almost too much to comprehend, to even wrap her head around.

The male she had never thought she would be able to have…the one she had fallen in love with the very first time she had seen him…

The man who made her smile and laugh, who made her feel all warm on the inside. The man who looked at her as if seeing her was more beautiful than anything in the entire world…

She was engaged, to the male who made her heart race in her chest, the male who with one look could leave her breathless and dizzy, the male who somehow looked at her like she was the most important thing in the entire world, like he’d do anything for her.

She was quite sure that she was never going to get over that.

The way he looked at her like she was the most precious thing in the entire world, the way his shadows reached out to her, the way they twined around her as if to shield her…

There was a certain amount of possessiveness in the way he held her, the way he touched her, as if he didn’t want her to ever be out of his reach.

And at the same time, there was a hint of reverence in his touch, in the way that he held her, as if he was afraid he would somehow break her if he didn’t hold her gently and tenderly...

Gods, she was getting worse than her sister’s romance novels wasn't she?

Eira didn’t know whether to laugh or not…she was being absolutely ridiculous, wasn’t she?

But gods, the way he smiled at her, the way he looked at her, his eyes full of such wonder every time his gaze found her…

Her good mood was even in spite of the weather, gloomy and cold as she pulled on a set of clothes and readied herself for the day.

The skies were overcast, the threat of rain in the air. The clouds were dark and heavy, hanging over the city heavy and grey, but even that could not dampen her spirits.

"You are in an awful chipper mood," Rhys said drily as she came down for breakfast. Feyre was yet nowhere to be seen but Nyx grinned at her as she dropped a noisy kiss to her nephew’s black hair.

“Maybe I am,” she said in a singsong voice, not even bothering to deny it as she reached for the platter of food. “What do you suppose could have me so happy?

Rhys raised an eyebrow at her, an eyebrow arched up almost to his hairline.

“Oh you know,” he said, his tone as dry as a summer desert. “I can’t imagine what could possibly have you in such a wonderfully happy mood…”

She hid a smile behind a bite of toast, even as Nyx babbled up at her, his small hands reaching up towards her, his small arms held up.

She reached out, picking him up and settled him on her lap, ruffling his hair and earning a bright, joyful laugh from the toddler.

Her nephew seemed happy enough to stay in her lap, his little hands reaching up to pat at her face as if fascinated by the sight of her.

She laughed softly, swatting his little fingers away before he accidentally stuck them in her eye, her gaze flickering back up to Rhysand.

He was watching the interaction between her and Nyx, his eyes flickering back and forth between the two of them, a smirk on his lips.

“He'll miss you, you know,” he casually commented, and she felt her spine stiffen in an instant at the words, her chest clenching slightly, her heart skipping a beat at the words. "Whenever Azriel and you do find a house to make your own."

Rhys' words startled her, the prospect of leaving Nyx behind making her heart pang in her chest, a twinge of sorrow sparking in her chest. "I'll still visit," she protested, as she looked down at the toddler in her lap, the child happily patting his little hands against her face. Of course, she would visit. He was her nephew.

Rhys' expression was almost rueful. "That won't change the fact that he'll miss you," he pointed out, just as Nyx gave a particularly gleeful laugh, his little hand accidentally smacking her cheek in his excitement.

She gave a small wince as the toddler's hand smacked against her cheek, a soft thud that stung just a little.

"He's young, he'll forget about me eventually," she said stoutly, even as the thought made her heart clench slightly.

"About his Auntie Ra Ra? I highly doubt that," Feyre said as she came into the dining Room. "But then, maybe you'll give him a cousin or two to play with."

The sound of Feyres's voice had her glancing up, and she gave her sister a smile, though her words made her cheeks flush as her heart stuttered in her chest.

"One step at a time," she said with a laugh, but the thought of children was already in her head.

Azriel's children, her own children…

She felt her head spinning, the prospect both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.

Children...children with Azriel, with the male she cared so, so much for…

It was something she'd once thought would never happen, a family of her own.

The thought of it, of marrying Azriel, of having children with him…it filled her with wonder.

And even the nervous thrum of energy it sent through her didn’t diminish her mood.

She was just about to reach for a slice of bread, when she heard the entrance door open. She looked at Rhys questionable, who gave her a smile. "Azriel. It seems like my spymaster was thrown out of bed by his shadows at an ungodly hour."

Her heart skipped a beat at the words, her stomach flipping, and a sense of anticipation running down her spine.

And then she felt his presence like a brush of a cool draft, the feeling of his shadows winding through the room, almost like a greeting just for her.

They immediately twined around her wrists and hands, hissing wordlessly... like Snow sometimes purred just because.

A soft laugh escaped her at the feeling of the shadows, at the familiar way they reached out to her, winding around her wrists and hands, almost as if greeting her.

She reached out to brush a finger along one of the shadows, feeling a strange sense of joy at the way the shadow leaned into her touch, wrapping around her finger, almost as if nuzzling her skin.

Their Master was not far behind. Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of him, in the doorway, his usual leathers covering him, his hair mused slightly from sleep, a hint of a smile on his face as he looked at her.

He almost took her breath away just from the simple sight of him, his dark clothes hugging his frame, his hair slightly mussed as if he had woken up late, his eyes still a little cloudy from sleep.

And that hint of a smile on his lips, just for her, a soft smile that managed to send her heart fluttering in her chest.

"Good Morning," he greeted. "I thought I...may get to kidnap you after breakfast?"

Her heart just soared even more at the words, a small laugh escaping her, her mood soaring at the prospect of spending time with him.

“You’re not too tired?” she asked, and his smile grew, a hint of mischief in his gaze as he looked at her. "I heard the shadows threw you out of bed at an ungodly hour," she quipped.

Azriel just shook his head, a small smile playing around his lips. "They had an errand for me to run," he answered.

“Important, I presume,” Rhys commented, his tone slightly dry.

“Of course,” Azriel replied, his gaze flickering across the room to her, the smile on his face growing into something a lot closer to a cocky smirk. “Of the most importance.”

"Where are we going?" Eira asked as she stood, finishing her Marmelade Toast with two more bites.

"Not that far," Azriel answered. "But put on a coat please, it's getting colder."

She didn't even get to respond before the shadows had already managed to get her coat from her room, making her sigh as they wrapped her up in it.

She was helpless to resist as the shadows worked her arms into her coat, a huff of laughter leaving her lips at their eagerness.

She managed to roll her eyes as her arms went through the sleeves of the coat, the shadows wrapping her up in her coat with almost gentle delicacy, almost as if they feared they might somehow break her.

A gentle tug on the hem of her coat had her turning back to face Azriel, who had an almost fond look on his face as he looked at the shadows.

"Are you alright?" he asked, nodding towards the black shadows, but there was a twinkle of amusement in his gaze.

"I'm fine," she replied, though she felt the flush in her cheeks increase slightly as she cast a look down at the shadows, feeling that odd sense of both affection and annoyance. "Your shadows are just...overly eager," she quipped.

"I can't really fault them," Azriel responded as she took his arm that he offered, waving to Feyre and Rhys as he led her out of the room. "How do you feel about flying?"

"The one time Cassian took me, I vomited all over him," she said drily.

Azriel gave a low, dark scoff, a hint of annoyance in his gaze at that. "Of course Cassian would make you vomit," he said, a hint of annoyance in his tone as he said his friend's name.

"Well, if it makes you feel better," Azriel continued, glancing down at her through half-lidded eyes. "I won't be diving and swooping the way that idiot would do."

"That's a little reassuring," she said drily, even as her stomach fluttered.

It was reassuring, definitely better than the thought of vomiting all over him, but it didn't stop her heart from thudding slightly as he led her towards the door.

They were going to be flying.

Her stomach did a little somersault as the thought raced through her mind, even as he led her out the door, her breath caught in her chest as the wind tugged at her clothes.

She was going to be flying with Azriel, in his arms, with those wings of his.

"You still trust me, right?" The sound of his voice pulled her from her thoughts, and she looked up at him, her heart fluttering slightly as she saw the certainty in his gaze, the look in his eyes that made her forget how to breathe for a moment or two.

"Of course," she said, the words breathless, her heart skipping a beat in her chest.

She trusted him more than anything else in the world, more than everything. And while she didn't trust flying...she trusted him.

He seemed reassured by her words, a hint of relief flickering in his gaze for a moment, his lips twitching slightly into a small smile. And then he moved, one arm sweeping under their knees and picking her up into his arms, holding her against him in a tight, secure embrace.

"Just hold on to me." It was all the warning she was going to get.

There was hardly any time to respond, for him to even give her warning, and then her feet were leaving the ground, leaving the safety of the ground as he wrapped her tight in his arms.

And then they were in the air, the ground suddenly falling away beneath her.

She instinctively tightened her grip on him, her arms wrapped tighter around his neck, holding on to him for dear life as she felt the wind against her body.

She shut her eyes tight, burying her head against his shoulder, feeling the sensation of falling and a small, terrified gasp escaped her, her grip on him so tight she was probably cutting off his circulation.

"Relax, sweetheart," his voice was a low rumble against her ear. "Just relax. I've got you, you're safe...nothing's going to happen, just relax..."

She could hear the reassurance in his words, in his voice, and she tried to relax, tried to listen to him and the steady, reassuring tone of his voice, to the steady, calm beat of his heart, even as her own heart was pounding.

"You're fine," he repeated, his lips brushing against her temple, his breath a soft shiver against her skin. "You're fine, I won't let anything happen...just trust me, sweetheart."

She dared to peek over his shoulder...seeing the rushing water of the Sidra beneath them. They were crossing over from the River House towards the House of Wind.

The view was slightly dizzying, and she shut her eyes again with a small whimper, her head resting against his shoulder, her face buried in his leathers, as she tightened her arms around his neck.

"Almost there," he comforted her, the words a low rumble against her ear. "You're doing great, just hold onto me, love..."

And then she could feel the descent, tightly controlled, slower than she was sure he had ever done it before, only for her benefit...and she concentrated not on the ground that was coming closer but on these massive, majestic wings that stretched from his back.

She concentrated on the sight, on the dark, membranous wings that stretched from his back, on how majestic he looked, with the sun shining on his wings, and then her own feet were once again touching solid ground, and she realised she had barely dared to even breathe the entire flight.

She stood in his arms for a moment or two, her limbs still trembling from the nerves, her lungs gasping for the air they'd been denying themselves for God knows how long.

"See? Completely and perfectly safe," he said, his voice quiet. "No vomiting, no dropping you. Completely safe."

She let out a shaky exhale at his words, forcing herself to relax as she took a deep breath, her heart still pounding against her chest, her body still trembling. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that," she managed to say, a hint of breathlessness in her voice.

"Maybe you just need a lot more practice," he quipped, and she could hear the hint of amusement in his voice, the hint of satisfaction, that he was able to make jokes again. “A lot more flights with me. Maybe hundreds…”

She managed a small laugh at his words, feeling her heart give a little bit of a flutter at that, and she could picture it, hundreds of flights, all in his arms, just like this, and it flushed her face with colour.

"Maybe we should take it one flight at a time," she said, still laughing slightly. "I think all the flights are just going to leave me as a trembling, terrified mess if I keep vomiting or panicking every time I get in the air, and I highly doubt you want that."

He pressed a kiss to her temple, as he finally let her down and only then she took in her surroundings. They were on the other side of the Sidra and she could still see the River House in the distance...

"Where are we?" she managed to gasp out, still trying to catch her own breath, her heart still racing furiously, her legs feeling a little wobbly from the flight.

Home, the shadows said brightly. We are home!

She looked down at the shadows who were writhing around her legs, a small smile playing around her lips as she watched them.

"Home," she repeated, feeling a sense of wonder and excitement coursing through her heart as she looked up at the house in front of her, taking in the sight of it, and feeling the beginnings of possibility.

Eira stared at the grey stone house, overgrown with ivy...with a blue door and matching blue shutters on its windows. It wasn't massive. Not huge. But big...big enough to house a family. Two stories and an attic, tucked along a side arm of the River. It looked...magical.

Slightly depilated, like it hadn't had somebody to take care of it...but…She stared at the house, taking it in with wide eyes, a thousand different thoughts and emotions rushing through her mind.

It was...perfect. It was perfect.

It was perfect and every little detail of it filled her with a sort of longing, a longing to make it theirs.

"Do you..." she spoke, her voice low, as she continued to stare at the house in front of her. "Does it have a backyard ?"

Azriel let out a low laugh, clearly amused by her question. "Of course it does," he answered a hint of laughter in his voice. "Do you really think the shadows would have picked a house that doesn't have space for your vegetable garden?"

She felt her cheeks flush pink with embarrassment to have her desire for a garden so utterly transparent, but she didn't shy away from it, just huffed a small breath of laughter under her breath, even as her heart did a funny little leap in her chest.

Let us show you! the shadows said excitedly, twirling around her wrist again and tugging her towards the house. There was no chance to resist even if she had wanted to, the shadows pulling her along towards the house, and she followed, a hint of excitement and anticipation rushing through her.

She cast a glance back at Azriel over her shoulder, but he only followed behind, a soft smile on his face.

The shadows were already opening the front door, letting her inside, and she stepped into the front hallway feeling her breath catch in her chest.

It was...perfect. It was perfect.

And it could be theirs.

She walked around, taking in the small hallway, the wooden floors, the high ceilings, looking into the living room, the kitchen, feeling a sense of possibility filling her as she looked around. And the shadows were already showing her around, racing ahead of her as she looked, almost seeming to vibrate with excitement as they pointed things out to her.

There was a sitting room, a formal dining room, a study, a large kitchen, a cosy nook set into the side of the house, and a small bathroom all on the first floor.

The shadows tugged her up the stairs. Towards the master bedroom, overlooking the stream. And then they tugged her into a room overlooking the garden.

The shadows were vibrating with such excitement now that she could barely keep up with them, but they tugged her forward, showing her the room.

For the babies, they whispered.

"For the...babies?" She repeated, feeling her heart leap into her chest, as she looked around.

It was perfect. For a child. For a few children. Plenty of space, and a full wall of windows that looked into the garden, and her heart was racing.

Yes! The shadows were practically cheering. For the babies!

She turned and met Azriel's eyes from the doorway, He was leaning up against the doorjamb, watching her, a slight smile on his face as she looked at him. He raised an eyebrow at her, a gleam in his eye as he looked at her.

She couldn't do anything but look at him, her heart hammering in her chest, her face flushed with excitement.

"You like it?" he asked, a note of smug satisfaction in his voice, and she could tell he was already pretty sure of the answer, having seen the shadows showing her around and having watched her reaction the whole time.

“Yes,” she breathed out. “But I need to see the garden.”

This time it was Azriel who let out a low laugh, amusement dancing in his eyes as he pushed away from the wall and crossed to where she stood.

“Of course you do,” he said, and there was an odd...tenderness in his voice, a fondness in the gleam in his eye. “Let’s go see the garden then.”

She didn’t even have a moment to hesitate, before he reached forward and took her hand. The contact felt like sparks in her skin, her breath catching in her chest as he intertwined his fingers with hers, and tugged her forward, leading her from the room and back down the stairs.

She was aware of the way her heart was racing as if trying to break free from her chest as they walked, and she could practically feel every point of contact between them. His hand in hers, every brush of his skin against her fingers, every place they were touching... Her skin tingled and danced, her breath caught in her chest, and she could have sworn she was shaking.

And then he tugged her from the back porch, tugging her out into the garden, and her attention was fully captured as she looked around her, at the space around her-

It was perfect. A space of green, of flowers... A riotous assortment of blooms, vegetables, a place to sit, a place to play...

And there was…as she turned back towards the house, and saw the blue door…suddenly she remembered. Remembered Elain’s vision. Remembered the fleck of blue in the background…remembered…this was their home. This was the place for their children, where they would grow and learn.

She looked at the house, at the back porch and the windows, the flowers and vegetables around her, and she felt her eyes growing watery, a sense of longing in her heart, a sense of home, the picture so perfect in her mind. And in her mind’s eye, she saw it - children running through the garden, playing in the grass, their laughter filling the air…

She imagined it. The children’s laughter, the sound of life. She could picture it, children racing around the garden, playing in the grass, children with light hair and dark eyes, and her heart ached, her throat closing up with an almost painful longing.

She wanted it. She wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything else in her life…

Eira turned towards Azriel, who was still watching her, a soft, tender expression on his face. He already had known what she was doing, that she was picturing what the garden would look like with their children, what the house would look like full of life, and she could see the longing in his own eyes, the same emotion that burned in her chest.

“Let me at least do this one thing right,” he requested softly, as he stepped close to her, as he grasped her hand and sunk down on one knee. “Eira Marie Archeron, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?”

She stared at him, her heart stopping in her chest. He was kneeling in front of her, his hand wrapped around hers, hazel eyes gazing up at her, a hopeful, hopeful gleam in his eyes, as he waited for her to answer.

She wanted to say so many things, wanted to tell him so many things, but the only thing that would come out of her mouth was a soft “Yes”…

He let out a shaky, almost desperate exhale, almost as if he had been holding his breath the whole time, waiting to hear her response, before his fingers tightened around hers, a fierce, hopeful gleam in his eyes, and it felt like her heart was burning in her ribcage.

She wasn’t even sure from where the ring that he slipped on her finger suddenly appeared. Silver. One pearl, flanked by diamonds. Small enough that it wouldn’t get in her way. But so utterly beautiful that she could only stare.

“The shadows had it all narrowed down,” Azriel said quietly. “They threw me out of bed this morning to drag me all around Velaris to show me the rings they had picked out. I chose this one…I thought it was the most…you.” She stared at the ring in wonder, taking in the simple beauty of the silvery metal and the diamonds and pearls. She would have been happy with any ring, any piece of jewellery that he gave her, but this...it was so her, she couldn’t help but smile, her heart filled with something sweet and warm and fluttery at the sight of it, at the thought of the shadows guiding him.

She could picture it, the shadows, tugging him all over the city, the shops lining the Sidra, guiding him to the perfect ring, and she loved the thought of it, of how the shadows wanted to help Azriel pick this perfect ring, that they wanted to help make this moment perfect for both of them.

“We would be lost without you,” Eira told them and they preened in response

They swirled around her happily, almost fluttering with pride, their dark matter moving like ripples in a pond as they basked in the praise, and she couldn’t help but smile at them, letting out a soft laugh as she watched them dance around her.

#acotar fanfiction #azriel x oc #azriel x reader #azriel fanfiction #azriel fanfic #Azriel x Archeron!Reader #the prophecy #Looked to the sky

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