Chapter Text
Jason can’t breathe—he’s sure of it. Each inhale feels like knives piercing through him. You left nearly an hour ago, but it’s his watch strapped on his wrist that tells him that. The clock hanging above the fridge in your kitchen isn’t working anymore—something he should have fixed—and the silver hands are stuck at 9.50 PM.
You walked out of the apartment at 9.48 PM.
Those silver hands glint and he’s sure that the clock knows what it’s doing. What it’s doing to him.
At first, anger swelled inside of him like a tide, reaching past his exhaustion to grab at his senses. He nearly whirled to slam his fist into a wall when you left, but the little voice in his head stopped him. The one that reminded him of you.
Don’t. You’re not going to be that person.
That person who hurts. That person who wrecks something precious just to stave off the grief gnawing at him. That person who loses everything by being the worst thing he could possibly be.
And then that anger dissipated a little like smoke, and something else took its place. It felt like dread, thick and heavy. It clung to him like spidery hands and it still does.
Jason runs a hand through his hair, wincing when his fingernails catch on the scab at his temple. It makes it all rush back to him—the fact that he’s been gone, and that you’ve left.
He snatches his keys off the little cabinet in the foyer, and the door slams shut behind him like an omen.
Like something final.
He didn’t bring his bike with him—he’d simply dropped onto your fire escape. If he’d been anyone else, he knows you would have thrown a frying pan at him, but you’d basically been sitting on the couch and watching that damned window like it might lure him back to you. You knew the second there was a flurry of shadow that he was there, and the window had slid open only a few seconds after he knocked on the frosted glass.
But now he really wishes he had brought his bike, because going on foot makes his search for you all the more difficult. Gotham City is large, and he knows you cover ground quickly when you’re not thinking about your destination.
Jason’s chest tightens, like ropes slowly looping around each of his lungs. He knows how cold panic feels, but this is hot—molten. If the ropes don’t stop him from breathing, then it’s the heat of his frustration.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he says beneath his breath, like a quiet prayer of desperation. He feels vile for saying it—how can he say it when you’re not here to answer it?
His feet carry him down the narrow steps that lead up to your apartment complex, before turning onto the street. The holes in the asphalt glint with residue rain water, and the chilling wind nips at his skin.
You must be freezing, your cardigan can only do so much.
Each street is as familiar as the last, but he doesn't know how familiar they are to you. Have you taken the route you normally take to the bus stop? Did you simply keep walking past that tiny sliver of shelter from the weather on Gotham’s icy mornings? Or have you messed with him and taken a completely different path? Are you winding through the city like a clever and scared hare, and he the fox?
He hears a ruckus somewhere to his left, loud voices caught on the wind like paper notes.
He cuts across the street with long strides, puddles of water disturbed abruptly in his wake. The shadows don't scare him—whatever lingers inside alleyways doesn't know what violence is.
But Jason is still afraid because he knows that you're not as familiar with Gotham's cruelty. This city chews people up and spits them back out. This city is nothing but barbed wire and a pulsing heart made of teeth.
And Jason can be just as sharp as the place he grew up in.
“I don’t need your help,” Jason sneers, and he feels like he's said this twice already. The words chaff against him, like they're not as smooth and true as he thinks they are.
He watches the way your fists unclench by your sides, something close to resignation pinching around your face.
“I think you do,” you say too softly.
Jason feels like he might burst into flames, the kind that lick at him as punishment.
“You don't know what I need,” he grounds out, and he watches you crumble.
Why had he said those things? You'd been waiting for him for a whole month—Jason knows he hadn't been fair to you for that, but he couldn't find the right thing to say. What does ‘I'm sorry’ do in a situation like this? Begging you to forgive him seems… pointless. All his life he's asked for forgiveness, and never gotten it, even when a ticking time bomb sat next to him.
Why would you be any different?
But the silence that rang through the apartment after you left felt like a bell echoing in his ears, a sort of chant meant to torture him. Guilt had streaked red and hot through him while he stood there, unable to move, think, or breathe.
Jason couldn't let you go like that, even if his whole body screamed for him to just leave; the fact that you left your apartment for the sake of getting away from him is sitting heavily on his chest, too.
The roar of a car cuts through the noise in his head, and Jason makes his way to the crossroad ahead of him. Headlights glare through the dark haze of the night, splitting beams across the asphalt. Engines prattle while the city and guilt gnaws at him. He hears the rhythmic chirping of the crosswalk button, and squints up at the little walking man—
—it’s red.
That colour is everything inside Jason. A pulsing shade that burns through him like a fever. All you’d ever done was try to soothe that burn, and the one time that you try to soothe your own, he lashes out. His throat tightens painfully.
You’re everything to Jason, and you’re alone. He let you leave.
What sort of a man does that?
What sort of lover does that?
Jason’s eyes flit across every moving object, hoping to see you—maybe you’d step out of one of the corner stores, hair lit up by the sickly-green glow spilling from the windows. Or maybe you’d come to a stop by the curb, and he’d run to you—that’s what he should have done in the first place.
Instead all he can see are flashes of white as cars zip by him or stand still at the intersections. Red tail-lights gleam like eyes and there’s so much noise. It fills the entire street, fills his head, and all Jason can see when he blinks is your face crumbling with regret and hurt.
The hurt he buried inside of you when he didn’t send word for a whole month.
The regret he caused when you realised you couldn’t say anything that mattered.
What is wrong with him?
In the corner of his eye, Jason catches movement—and his heart stops.
It’s you, and you’ve just slipped out of a phone booth.
Jason inhales and it’s sharp, piercing through him. He watches as you grip your hair, fists shaking. You look so lost and Jason’s moving before he can think. A car horn blasts at him, but the noise is lost in the rapid pulsing of blood in his ears. He can feel the wind clawing at him, but even its cold fingers can’t steal away the heat beneath his skin—hot shame and guilt, it builds while the air in his lungs becomes stuck.
“Sweetheart!” Jason calls without thinking, and his voice catches on the word.
You spin, eyes wide—everything is spinning, but Jason stands as still as a statue in your vision. Had he known how desperate you were to go back to him? Was this why he didn’t answer the landline at the apartment?
You watch with your mouth dry as Jason comes to a stop in front of you, several paces away. You hate that distance—when did you get so distant?
“Jason,” you utter quietly, and if Jason hadn’t watched your lips form to say that single word, he wouldn’t have caught it at all.
“I’m… so sorry,” Jason says heavily, and your heart squeezes as if a hand had been shoved through your chest and grabbed the beating muscle.
You know how difficult it is for him to say that—mostly because he doesn’t ever believe that you’ll forgive him. All you’ve ever done is forgive him. How can he not see that?
Tears burn the back of your eyes, and you blink rapidly. Cars leave behind the rush of air and sound, surrounding the two of you like beams of metal and light. Gotham watches the two of you like a cruel mother, and you feel your stomach bunch with nerves.
“I—” you swallow thickly, “I called the apartment… thought you might still be there.”
Jason blinks, eyes combing across your face while his shoulders sag with the weight of that knowledge.
“I wasn’t there, I’d left already.”
“So you came looking for me?”
Jason feels like hands are grabbing at his ribcage and splitting it open. He’s afraid that when he speaks again, everything he feels might spill out from his mouth—I love you I love you I love you I love you!
“Yeah,” he settles with. “I should have—I should have gone looking for you sooner.”
“You should have come home sooner,” you say.
Jason nods, his jaw tightening while his throat throbs. He hasn’t felt this desperate in a long time.
“I’m really sorry, doll,” he murmurs, “I know you needed me, and I wasn’t…”
He can’t finish the sentence: I wasn’t there.
You close your eyes while the burn becomes overwhelming, the first few tears falling like thin, silver ribbons. You never want to cry when there’s something hot and angry settled in your chest, but maybe you’re not really angry. Maybe you’re just tired and terribly in love.
“I forgive you, Jason,” you cry softly, and Jason’s body aches—as if the weight of your sorrow were breaking down his muscles, slowly eating away at his nerves.
Maybe you’d both been distant, but that never meant you had abandoned his soul. He is still irrevocably connected to you, so tightly that if you didn’t have physical forms, he’s sure the both of you would have merged into one single thing.
He doesn’t know what that looks like, but Jason knows that it’s all that he wants.
Jason moves, almost senselessly, and his hands reach for you. They hover, not quite touching, and you open your eyes to find his outstretched hands. You don’t think or wait or pull away. His skin feels warm when you slip your fingers between his, intertwining your hands like a woven tapestry of calluses and scars.
And forgiveness.
“I’m sorry for leaving,” you say, voice thick with tears.
Jason shakes his head instantly. “No, don’t—”
He brings you closer, pulling you into him. Gunpowder and leather overwhelm your senses and you want to drown in it. You latch onto him like he might slip through your fingers—like he might be gone if you blink once, twice.
You breathe him in and feel his chest shudder beneath your cheek.
“I’m not going to do that again,” Jason whispers brokenly, and his lips press against your scalp. “I won’t keep you waiting like that—I’m sorry that I did.”
You feel the ache in your chest slowly ease, though it doesn’t leave fully.
“And,” he chokes around the dryness in his throat, “I’m sorry for all the things I said. I… I do need your help—more than I think I do. And you know me better than anyone else—I shouldn’t have pushed you away like that.”
You can hear the regret inside of him. It pulses like a heartbeat, and you want to soothe it. Blow it away like smoke.
“It’s okay, Jason. I promise that it’s okay.”
Jason’s warm hands tighten around you, shielding you away from the rest of Gotham.
“I love you,” Jason says, and there’s no hesitancy lingering behind the words.
No shame.
No regret.
No guilt.
You want to cry even harder, but instead a lightness fills you, breathing air back into your lungs. Pure air, not the kind Gotham offers. Just the kind that Jason brings.
“I love you too,” you reply softly.
The cars don’t slow, even when you feel like they should.
***
Luigi’s Pizza Place simmers with heat and spices, melted cheese and crispy bacon. Jason stands beside you with his hand firmly wrapped around yours. Both of you stare up at the menu, even though you both know the prices by heart.
“We could get a hawaiian,” you say, and you hear Jason’s long exhale.
“Sweetheart… we’ve talked about this.”
“I will not hear any hawaiian pizza slander, Todd.”
“It’s fruit on pizza—”
“Invalid argument.”
Jason scoffs as you both shuffle along with the rest of the queue.
“How is that an invalid argument?”
You idly watch the staff flitter behind the counter. “Olives are a fruit, but no one complains about that.”
“That’s… different,” Jason sighs.
“How so?”
“Because it’s still savoury.”
“So? We put BBQ sauce on a bunch of pizzas and that’s sweet too. What’s wrong with pineapple being sweet?”
“Baby,” there’s a laugh stuck in Jason’s words. “I don’t think that works the same way.”
“Whatever—also, why is it that there’s more hate for hawaiian pizza than there is for those weird gummy pizzas?”
Jason tugs you closer to him as a group of teenagers enter the place, loud voices bouncing inside the heated shop.
“That I will agree with—that stuff's disgusting,” Jason mutters, and you squeeze his hand.
“That’s probably better than any apology you’ve ever given me.”
A kiss is firmly planted against your temple.
“Minx,” Jason mumbles, and you smile wider than you have in a long time.