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You weren’t sure if it was the warm water of the bath, the glass of wine, or the fingers tracing patterns on your arm, but you’d never felt more at peace in your life.
On the way back from one of the most awful shifts, you’d ever had the displeasure of working, Jason called you. No one was more excited than him when the hands of the clock lined up at the five. His fingers always hesitate for two minutes before clicking on your name. He’d wait the gruesome one hundred twenty seconds before dialing to give you what he deemed, a substantial amount of time to pack up.
The call always came when you had stepped no more than three feet out of the concrete building that you worked in. He asked you the same questions without fail: How are you? How was work? Did you eat a good lunch? etc. Usually, it was fine, normal, and there were some funny stories you’d tell him from the office sprinkled in, however, today was a little different. You’d practically had your asshole ripped in half and handed to you on a platter to eat. The project assigned to your team, that you had completed entirely by yourself, had been edited by some of your coworkers. They forwarded it to your boss without telling you and he scrapped the whole project because of their changes. Now, you had until Friday to redo the whole thing from scratch because the OneDrive crashed, wiping all the work you’d done in the past week.
You hadn’t realized how long you’d been complaining about it until you reached the subway station, barely giving Jason any time to talk before you lost service. A heavy sigh escaped you when the call failed. You told yourself you would call him when you got off on your stop. The subway stunk of piss and you were trying to zone out on the ride home, but some guy was bothering every occupant of the train for a lighter. The stop for Seventeenth Street couldn’t come any faster. When time finally ceased to suspend you in this dingy train, you practically ran out the doors before they’d finished sliding open.
After climbing the faded green stairs out of the subway, you dialed Jason’s number again. After five pathetic rings, it went to voicemail. He was probably taking a shit or on his way to the manor before patrol, you reminded yourself. Thankfully, the walk to your apartment was a little less than ten minutes from the station. Walking the same blocks you’d been walking for years should’ve been mundane, but it wasn’t it was oddly comforting. These blocks had seen you put yourself through college, watched you walk back from mind-numbing breakups, witnessed you get your spark back, and caught you falling in love again.
The world could feel like it would end tomorrow, but the liquor store would always have its neon sign letting you know that it was open when you passed by, and Mrs. Walker would always be outside sweeping the sidewalk before she closed her pottery studio for the day. Some days she’d stop you for a conversation and some she would offer you a smile that reminded you that there was more to the world than the imbeciles you called coworkers.
Soon enough the brick wall of your apartment building came into view allowing you to finally relax. Your shoulders dropped the tension they’d been carrying since your boss embarrassed you in his office. Greeting the doorman, Tom, he had the same smile he always did while opening the door.
You were way to exhausted for it to be a Wednesday, usually this feeling didn’t begin to settle in your bones until Thursday night or Friday morning. The elevator door opened and your feet dragged you through the double doors, grateful you didn’t have to share it with anyone. Your finger pressed the button for the third floor lighting it up, and you fell back on the wall.
Catching your reflection in the mirrored roof, you saw the exhaustion etched into the blurry picture above. Hair falling out of the previously tight bun from this morning, mascara smudged under your eyes, and the dry-cleaned shirt from this morning was now wrinkled. Selfishly, you hoped Jason was still home. He typically had patrols on Wednesday and ran late, but you needed him tonight. Considering he hadn’t called you back or sent you a message meant he was probably enroute to the manor. He’d text you when he arrived and you would probably sleep like shit until the inevitable tap of the window confirmed that he was safe before joining you in bed.
The familiar ding of the elevator, tears you out of your reflection and you drop your head back to a normal angle before stepping out. Your eyes lock on your door as you manage to pick your feet up just enough to get you to the door. Clinging onto the gold sixteen nailed onto your maroon door like it’s a lifeline, when it comes into view. The familiar silver key is slotted in the lock when you reach your door. Finally, you unlock the door into the dimension of your apartment where the rest of the world falls away.
The cozy apartment greeted you like a soldier who’s returned from war. The warm ambiance of the lamp Jason always forgot to turn off lights the apartment with a comfortable familiarity. You drop your bags and keys onto the welcome table and kick your shoes off messily next to the rack, telling yourself you’d fix it later. Turning around, you walk the short way to the kitchen to open the cabinet next to the stove. Grabbing one of the shitty plastic cups you’d bought in undergrad that you couldn’t convince yourself to throw out, you fill it up with water from the fridge.
After downing it in one go, a deep breath fills your lungs before a voice coming from the bedroom makes you jump.
“Princess?”
It takes you a second to recognize the voice, then the first smile of the day climbs to your face.
Jason was still home.
His face peeks out from behind the door as a sight for sore eyes. He’s in a pair of grey sweatpants you bought him a couple of weeks ago to match, and while taking him in you realized he’s already managed to stain him. The tease dies in your throat when your eyes drift up and notice that he’s not wearing a shirt. His torso on full display with every muscle acting like a painting in a gallery you would spend hours wandering in.
Only recently had Jason let you see him without a shirt on. After the first couple of dates, you’d picked up on the fact that intimacy was hard for him. Physical touch wasn’t something that came easy to him.
It started with hand holding.
After your first date at the bowling alley he had taken you to some run-down diner he swore had the best food on the planet, your cholesterol levels sky-rocketed just by looking at it. On the walk over, your shoulders knocked together teasing each other like you had been doing all night. Eventually, you got the courage to reach for his hand, and he froze for a moment. You were about to retract your hand when he interlaced your fingers and let himself hold onto you. You watched him swallow heavily, and at the time you assumed it was nerves and continued talking like normal.
In reality he was swallowing the bile that rose in his throat. Nerves were part of the reason why he almost threw up, but it was the feeling of skin to skin that triggered him. He could touch through the worn leather gloves, or hug through clothes, but unprepared touch sent him right back to that warehouse.
You assumed that Jason just had no game. You weren’t wrong, but that wasn’t the whole truth. It took him four whole months to finally come clean to you about everything.
The confession came after distant days when he got in his head. It was on a night that you had gone out with the friend group and Dick started teasing you asking how it was going. There was a bittersweet smile of acceptance telling a story on your face when you told him you thought Jason was going to break up with you. Dick’s expression fell instantly asking why. Shrugging, you recounted that week and how he had barely called or seen you. This pattern wasn’t new to you. You weren’t stupid, you recognized the signs.
Dick’s eyebrows furrowed together and his mouth settled into a thin line before shaking it away. He changed the topic and you both went back into partaking in silly conversations with friends at the bar. He left while you were in the middle of running the table on Wally. You didn’t know it then, but Dick had gone to take Jason out of his dark place. He wasn’t going to let him self-sabotage and from what Jason told you later, it was a very long conversation about feelings.
That night he knocked on the door of your apartment, and looked as if someone had tried slicing him in half. Worry bubbled into fear and you weren’t sure where to start. You dragged him to the couch you both had laughed on a week prior, with the shitty first aid kid you’d bought at the pharmacy across the street when you moved in a million years ago.
While you made a horrible attempt at patching him up, he told you everything. He opened up about who his parents actually were, the night he met Bruce, becoming Robin, dying while trying to save his mom, the resurrection in the Lazarus Pit, his time in the League of Assassins, how he escaped, being the Red Hood, the lives he’d taken, the anger, the resentment, all of it.
You swore your heart broke into a million little pieces on the wooden floor. He was sitting on the couch with his gaze laid on the roof. He was trying to lie to himself with a pathetic attempt at believing you weren’t actually sitting next to him, disinfecting the cuts on his arms and face.
He didn’t cry, didn’t hiss when the alcohol wipe went over a cut, didn’t get emotional over his short-lived childhood, he just spoke into a void of truth. When he finished, you briefly put down the medical supplied. Your palm found its way to his face and he froze. He was trying not to flinch when you cradled the scars that haunted him in the mirror, the scars reminding him of every mistake he’d ever made, the scars that became a lesson.
This was normal, he reminded himself, this is what couples do. You didn’t rush him, didn’t force him to feel comfortable with the sensation, you waited. Waited for him to adjust to the feeling of being held.
He turned to look at you with those devastating green eyes that had doubt drowning in them. Then, to Jason, the most shocking thing in the world happened.
You stayed.
You didn’t run away.
You didn’t abandon him.
You listened to him and understood.
You asked him questions about what made him comfortable and what triggered him.
You adapted to him, laid yourself bare, explained everything so he wouldn’t be anxious about being blindsided by you.
And on that night, Jason Todd allowed himself to fall in love.
Slowly, he started opening up more. He would kiss you intimately, hold you longer, told you stories about a life he tried to hide. He let himself be a boyfriend.
The day he took his shirt off for the first time was one for the books.
It was one of the many nights he had come to sleep over after patrol, and he was sweating a whole river in his pajamas. When he was alone he slept in only boxers, but he hadn’t so much as worn shorts in front of you yet. He allowed himself a short sleeve and that was it. His pajamas consisted of an old tattered shirt and plaid pajama bottoms that he’d brought from a drawer in his apartment.
You felt him tossing and turning since he had come home. It was almost sunrise and he hadn’t slept a wink. Turning around, you propped yourself up on your elbow and pushed the hair from his sweat-lined forehead. The air was at 71 and the fan was on high, but he just couldn’t get comfortable. Knowing he preferred to sleep in his boxers, you offered to move to the couch to let him sleep more comfortably, but he refused.
He sat up, back facing you while his feet found the floor. It was silent for a few minutes before you watched his fingers find the hem of his shirt. He took multiple deep breaths before taking it off in one fluid motion, almost as if he was ripping off a band aid. You didn’t gasp, didn’t stutter your breath, you just watched in silence. If you moved too fast or said something too soon, you would scare him off.
He couldn’t look at you, petrified at the horror that would inevitably take over your face. He heard the creak of the mattress and shuffle of blankets as you inched closer to his side of the bed. When he felt your precious hands gently lay on his bicep, his eyes screwed shut.
Then he felt your fingers tug at his chin, turning his face to you. After another minute of your everlasting patience with him, he opened his tired eyes and saw praise highlighting yours.
“You’re beautiful.” Is what he heard you say.
He thought his ears were playing tricks on him, that the exhaustion of the patrol had finally caught up to him, but he didn’t. You repeated it. Then your lips found every scar on his back, arms, and stomach and kissed them all with love pouring out of you while repeating the same two words.
Eventually, he let himself believe it.
Now here you are, ten months later in a bath being held by the man who let himself be known.
His fingers were scratching your arm in the way he knows helps you fall asleep. His lips found the crook of your neck leaving open mouthed kisses while whispering how much he loves you into each beauty mark.
There were bubbles floating on the water hiding the mess of limbs submerged below. The glasses of wine laid on the tray next to the bath with candles lit on the top of the toilet.
After hearing you complain about the train wreck that was your day, he called off patrol. He rarely ever called off, which is why when he asked Bruce, he didn’t hesitate to give him the night off. You would never say it, but he read between the lines of the phone call. You needed him and he had to show up for you in the ways you showed up for him.
He ran down to the liquor store a block over from your place and bought your favorite bottle of wine. He ran the bath hot enough to fuel the fires of hell, because God forbid you ever take anything less than a scorching hot shower. He lit the eucalyptus candles you loved, because he knew they were “stress relieving” or something like that. Right when he finished setting up what would be your relaxing night in, he heard you stumble through the door.
He hugged you and kissed you with a love he never thought he’d get to experience. It was cheesy and his brothers would make fun of him if they ever found out, but right now he didn’t care. All the potential shame that came with his strong feelings faded when he surprised you with the bath.
You almost cried at the fact he remembered all your favorite things. He ran the bath at the perfect temperature, the glasses, of wine, the candles, the brand of bubbles you liked, the chocolate.
These were the times you couldn’t help but remember the ex-boyfriends who claimed to love you in past relationships but never acted like it. Charming with their words and helpless with their actions.
And Jason may not tell you he loved you very often, but he remembered. And that was a million times more romantic than an empty declaration.
Jason Todd was awful with words, but he was an angel with his acts. You never had to ask if he loved you, if he wanted to be with you, because he proved it. Every single day.
Laying here in the tub, laying against him made every shitty interaction today worth it. You would star in Groundhog Day and relive this awful workday a million times over, if it meant coming home to this every night.
His lips were still placing open-mouthed kisses on your neck when you brought the glass of wine to your lips. Swallowing the Moscato, you turned your head over your shoulder and caught him staring.
“What?” you whispered, not wanting to disrupt the peaceful scene.
“You’re beautiful.” He murmured before taking your bottom lip captive between both of his.
You melted into him with a small moan. Every time he kissed you, it was like you had discovered the holy grail. A mission completed after a life spent searching for something you thought you’d never find. A love neither off you thought you would ever be lucky enough to have. His lips molded into yours like a puzzle piece being put into place.
When he pulled away with blown pupils, there was a childish grin etched on each of your faces. You giggled a bit while glancing between both of his eyes. While you were distracted, he took the glass of wine from your hand and stole a sip. Scoffing, you splashed him with some water, but he chuckled and stuck out his tongue playfully. He placed the glass of wine back on the tray and leaned back, pulling you to him with a contempt sigh.
“Y’know,” he paused, pressing a kiss into your temple. “I had the fattest crush on you for like two years before we got together.”
You immediately push off him, small waves rippling from your frame.
“What?” you stare at him incredulously.
There’s a deep flush that rises onto his face, embarrassed with his confession. He starts scratching the back of his neck and looks away.
“Yeah, I didn’t think you’d ever go out with me, so I avoided you.” He isn’t meeting your eyes, staring at the dancing flames burning on the candle.
“Jay-”
“Damian was the one who actually found out that I was head over heels for you. He saw me staring at you at that gala Dick took you too, I think it was like what? Three weeks before our first date?” He questions himself as if he didn’t know the exact day. “The demon blabbed to everyone, which is how Dick found out. That’s the reason he ended up setting us up.”
You stare at him dumbfounded, while he continuously refuses to make eye contact.
“I know it’s dumb, but I just thought it might make you feel better to hear how I though I was hopelessly in love with you after today.”
“Jason.” He finally turns to look at you hearing the demand heavy in your voice. “I had the most embarrassingly big crush on you for years too.” You confess to him half laughing and half blushing.
Now it was his turn to stare at you disbelievingly.
“You don’t have to say that to make me feel better about how pathetic I am." His hands fly up resigning to his shame. "Really, you don’t.” He reassures you in a sad attempt at recovering his dignity.
“I’m not lying to you Jay,” He notices the blush dust your cheeks, and it starts settling in his bones. “Next time you see Barbara or Wally you can ask them. They’ll tell you how helpless I was.”
“Oh my God…” his hand wipes down the length of his face while processing your words. “Why?”
“What do you mean why?” You huff out confused. “Have you look in a mirror like ever? You’re gorgeous, I thought I was going to orgasm the first time I watched you smoke a cigarette.” That earned you a laugh from him. “The first time Dick brought you to one of out hang outs, I was a goner. You had that bay boy persona that would make any dad shivering in his timbers if you showed up to pick up his daughter.”
That got you a brief unimpressed look before a teasing one took over.
“You think I’m gorgeous?” His eyebrows wiggled at you.
“Yeah, and?” You tried to play it off cooly, but failed miraculously when the blush deepened into a maroon that rivaled your door’s.
“And you think I’m a bad boy?”
“Mhm!” The false confidence was waning thin.
“Well,” he began before pulling you in, pressing a kiss on your cheek. “I’m only a bad boy for you.” He sounded so genuine despite his stupid claim that you snorted while he pressed a kiss to your other cheek.
“I think you’re gorgeous too- ethereal actually.” A kiss to your nose. “I looked for you at every gathering Dick dragged me too.” A kiss to your chin. “I stared pathetically at every picture you’d post and freak out when I hit the like button.” A kiss to your forehead.
“But,” he pulled back, staring at you longingly. “It was all worth it, because now you're here with me.” A flash of mischief passes through his eyes before he opens his mouth.
"And I'll make sure to give you something worth orgasming over."
You laughed and shook your head right before his lips met yours. All the adoration he had just confessed to slipping in your mouth with the small gasps you shared. His hands roaming to touch you as a reminder that this isn’t a dream, that you chose to be here, with him.
As your bodies slid together and found a consistent rhythm, Jason wondered how he got so lucky. Wondered who finally blessed him enough times to cancel out the curses that had been cast through his life. Wondered how he had finally found someone who cared about him.
He didn’t deserve it, he knew that, but he would cherish you, nonetheless.
He would spend the rest of his life fighting for you. Everything he would do from here on out, would be for you.
Because you were the first person to prove him wrong. The first person to choose him over everyone else.
Because when you knew him, you didn’t run.
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