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The Batcave was, for once, quiet.
Dick had been doing a handstand in the corner for the past six minutes because he said it "helped him think," even though no one had asked. Damian was sharpening his katana with an intensity that suggested he was imagining each stroke was removing a particularly annoying opinion from Tim's mouth. Tim himself was collapsed over the Batcomputer console, three energy drinks deep and apparently in a state of semi-consciousness that still allowed him to type. Duke was trying to teach Cassandra how to play a mobile game on his phone, which was going poorly because Cassandra kept predicting what the enemies would do and getting bored when they complied. Steph had brought snacks and was currently being harassed by Alfred the Cat.
And Bruce was Bruce.
So, really, just a normal night.
Then Salix walked in.
Salix Mikolao Sawako, known to the underworld of Osaka as Night's End, known to the Batfamily as "Bruce's Weird Best Friend Who Is Obsessive In A Way That Makes Everyone Uncomfortable (Affectionate)," and known to Jason as "My Boyfriend Who Is Currently Stretching His Back Against The Wall In The Batcave."
Which was fine.
Perfectly fine.
Jason was a grown man. He'd been through death. He'd been through resurrection. He'd been through the Pit. He'd been through therapy, for God's sake. He could handle seeing his boyfriend arch his back against a wall in a way that—
He was not handling it.
"What are you doing?" Tim asked, not looking up from his terminal.
"Stretching," Salix replied, his voice as calm and unbothered as ever. He had one hand braced against the cave wall, the other hanging loosely at his side. He'd already shed the outer layer of his vigilante suit, leaving just the sleek black bodysuit with those hexagonal mesh panels that Jason had spent an embarrassing amount of time staring at on various occasions.
He arched his back against the cool stone, the movement slow and controlled, his shoulders rolling back as his spine curved. His mismatched eyes were closed, a small, satisfied sound escaping his lips as the stretch hit just right. The black bodysuit clung to every line of his dancer's physique, the mesh panels stretching over his ribs, the fabric pulling taut across his—
"You're doing that on purpose," Jason heard himself say.
His voice came out rough. Raspy. Like he'd just gargled glass.
He hadn't meant for it to sound like that.
Jason watched the slow shift of muscle under Salix's suit as he arched his back against the wall.
Salix's brow furrowed slightly, his eyes still closed. "Doing what? I can't feel my right shoulder." He adjusted the angle of his stretch, and Jason realized he was trying to work out a knot. "It's been bothering me since that fight with the Yakuza. Their leader had surprisingly good technique for someone wearing a knockoff Joker mask, I must say."
"The Joker doesn't have a technique—" Damian started.
"Which is precisely my point, little one." Salix hummed, shifting again. The bodysuit caught the dim light of the cave. "He relies entirely on chaos and poor hygiene. This man had actual training. It was refreshing."
Dick had stopped his handstand and was now watching the scene unfold with the expression of a man who had seen many things and was reserving judgment. His eyes flicked between Salix and Jason with increasing curiosity.
"Jason," Dick said slowly, "are you okay? Your face is kind of—"
"Shut up," Jason snarled.
"I'm not wrong," Dick said, not afraid, because Dick had never learned fear. "You're looking at him like he just discovered fire and you're a caveman trying to process it."
"Leave me alone."
"I'm just saying—"
"Grayson."
Cassandra looked up from Duke's phone, then at Jason, then at Salix, then at Jason again.
She smiled.
It was not a comforting smile. It was the smile of someone who could read people's bodies like books and had just noticed something very interesting in the margins.
"You like," she said simply.
"I like him, yes, he's my boyfriend, thank you for noticing, now stop—"
"The stretch," Cassandra clarified. "You like the stretch."
Jason opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"I said shut up!"
"You didn't say anything," Duke pointed out, because Duke had apparently also developed a death wish. "You just made a noise. A weird noise. Like a dying engine."
"That's just how I sound."
"That's not how you sound," Tim said, finally looking up from his console. "That's how you sound when you're trying to pretend you're not affected by something but you're definitely affected by it. I've catalogued it. It's in the files."
"You've catalogued—what files—"
"The files, Jason," Tim said, gesturing vaguely at the Batcomputer like it was obvious. "The ones I keep. On everyone. For research purposes."
"Those files are an invasion of privacy."
"Everything about this family is an invasion of privacy. Don't be a hypocrite."
Jason pinched the bridge of his nose. He could feel his face getting hotter, which was deeply humiliating for a man who had literally been to hell and back. He should be immune to embarrassment. He should have evolved past this mortal limitation.
"You're staring," Jason accused, pointing at Tim.
"I'm not staring at him. I'm staring at you staring at him."
"The difference being?"
"There isn't one," Tim said cheerfully. "I just wanted to watch the slow motion trainwreck."
And through all of this, Salix had continued stretching.
He was now bending at the waist, one hand on the wall, the other reaching down toward his ankle. The bodysuit rode up just slightly at his lower back, revealing a strip of pale skin and the very top of what looked like a—
There were bite marks.
Jason saw them. He knew he saw them because he had put them there. There were three of them, on the right side of his lower back, barely visible in the dim light of the cave. He had left them exactly forty-seven hours ago, which was a precise number he definitely had not been counting.
"You're doing it again," Damian said flatly.
"Doing what?" Jason asked, and he definitely didn't sound strained.
"Going through all the stages of grief in under ten seconds. It's pathetic to watch."
"I'm not—I'm processing."
"You're processing looking at your boyfriend. In a cave. With us present."
"You don't know what it's like—"
"You are going to be the subject of my next painting," Damian declared, turning back to his katana. "The title will be 'A Man Who Has Lost All Control Of His Own Body.'"
"Kiddo, I will put you through that wall."
"You will do no such thing, you are too busy being distracted by the stretch."
The stretch, to be fair, was quite something.
Jason could admit it was quite something. He'd never actually seen Salix stretch like this before. Usually they were in bed, or in the middle of a fight, or in the middle of a fight that turned into something else, but never just... stretching.
In the Batcave.
With his family watching.
Jason was going to have a stress-induced aneurysm, and he would take as many of them with him as he could.
Steph, apparently, had finished her snacks, because she was now fully invested in the drama. "Okay, but to be fair to Jason," she said, her voice carrying across the cave with that particular brand of enthusiasm she reserved for chaos, "has anyone here ever just—like, watched Salix move in general? He's like a liquid. He's like a liquid in a catsuit. It's mesmerizing."
"Steph!" Jason shouted.
"What? I'm just saying! You're not the only one—look at him! There's something about his whole vibe that makes you want to just—feel something!"
"Stephanie, for the love of—"
"Oh my God," Dick breathed, not even trying to hide the grin that spread across his face. "You've been thinking about this. You've been thinking about how he moves. You've been—"
"I have not—"
"Stephanie, how many times have you thought about this exactly?"
"Not about him specifically!" Steph protested, waving her hands. "The movement! The aesthetic! It's like watching a piece of art. A piece of art that can break someone's spine with their thighs."
Salix, still bent over, craned his neck to look at them. "Is this about me?"
"No," three people said at once.
"Yes," Tim said.
Steph glared at him.
"Them's the breaks, Brown. You don't say things like 'break someone's spine with their thighs' and expect people to not have follow-up questions."
"I hate all of you," Jason declared.
"That's not true," Cass said, her voice gentle but devastating. "You love him very much. You're just bad at showing it."
"Cass, please—"
"You made him breakfast this morning. Three times."
"Because he's bad at eating—"
"He's a grown man, he can feed himself."
"Not properly—"
"You still made it. And you watched him. And you smiled. And then you stretched."
"I didn't stretch."
"You stretched your neck. When he was reaching for the syrup."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Salix had finally finished his stretching routine, his back crackling audibly as he straightened with a satisfied noise.
"Is anyone going to tell me what's going on?" Salix asked, tilting his head. His mismatched eyes surveyed the room with mild curiosity. He had the expression of someone who knew something was happening but had decided not to engage until it was absolutely necessary.
"No," Jason said immediately.
"Jason was just having an interesting reaction to your—" Dick started.
"Grayson."
"Posture," Dick finished, with the air of a man who had chosen his words very carefully. "An interesting reaction to your posture."
"My posture is fine, thank you very much," Salix said, slightly affronted. "I've spent years perfecting it. My cultivation mentor would be upset if I didn't maintain proper alignment."
"So your posture is good?" Tim asked.
"I just said that, yes—"
"Really good?"
"What is your question, young one?"
"Are you a god?"
Salix blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"Tim," Bruce finally spoke, his voice carrying the weight of a thousand years of too many events that he had to witness as a father. "We don't ask houseguests if they are gods."
"He's not a houseguest, he's dating our brother."
"That still doesn't warrant the question."
"It absolutely warrants the question."
Salix's gaze moved to Bruce, who had not moved from his chair. "Bruce?"
Bruce sighed. It was the deep, heavy sigh of a man who had seen too much in his life and was tired. "They're reacting to the fact you're... physically present. In a way that is apparently... engaging."
"Engaging," Salix repeated.
"Jason is not processing it well."
"I am processing perfectly fine—"
"You made a sound," Cassandra said, "when he arched his back. Like a wounded animal."
Jason turned to her, betrayed. "Are you going to do this for everyone I date?"
"I don't need to. Your face says it all."
And then, because Jason's life was a never-ending nightmare, Bruce spoke again.
"It's the same sound he makes when I suggest family therapy," Bruce said, with the exact tone of a man who had been waiting for this opportunity for a very long time. "Or when I tell him to do his paperwork. Or when I ask if he's feeling okay."
"Can you all please stop analyzing my emotional state while my boyfriend is right there?" Jason's voice had reached a pitch that was borderline embarrassing for a man of his size and reputation.
Salix laughed. Actually laughed—a bright, unguarded sound that made a few of the batkids straighten. He was rarely so openly amused, and the sight was apparently... something.
"You're blushing," Salix observed, his head still tilted, a smile now clearly there.
"No."
"You are. You are blushing. This is the best thing I've seen in days."
"Is he blushing?" Dick leaned in, squinting like he was examining a bug.
"I'm not—!" Jason's face, which was indeed very red, only got redder. "I'm just going to—I have some—I'll be in the training room!"
"Jason," Salix called, his tone shifting to something softer. "You could've just said you were having a moment."
"I wasn't—!" Jason's voice cracked. His dignity, already a fragile concept, had just shattered completely.
The next few moments happened so fast that even Cassandra's training had trouble following them.
Jason had decided he was making a run for the exit. He was halfway there, his stride long, his face still flaming, and he was nearly gone. Almost free.
Then Salix, who hadn't moved, simply said:
"Jay."
Jason froze.
It wasn't the usual kind of freezing, the kind that accompanied a threat or a command. It was the kind of freezing that came from a single word, delivered in a tone that meant I know.
Jason turned, slowly.
Salix was still against the wall, but he had shifted. His legs were slightly apart, his shoulders relaxed, and he was looking at Jason with an expression that was a mix of affection and the deadly promise of more, all wrapped up in a dark smile that made his mismatched eyes glint with something—power, mischief, the knowledge that he'd won.
"Come here," Salix said. It wasn't loud, but it carried. "Let me help you relax."
The room was silent.
Except for Stephanie, who mumbled, "Paging Dr. Freud, paging Dr. Freud..."
"Absolutely not," Jason said, but his feet were already moving.
"I'm not asking you to do anything unusual," Salix said, his voice dropping into something richer and more private. "Just come here."
"I am an adult—"
"So am I—"
"This is not appropriate—"
"You're walking toward me, Jason."
"I'm walking toward the armory—"
"The armory isn't this direction."
"You don't know what I was going to—"
"I know exactly what you're going to do, love."
The word caught in the air like a physical thing.
"Oh my God," Tim whispered. "I've never seen him fold that fast."
"You always fold for him," Duke murmured, like he was narrating a nature documentary. "He just called you 'love' and now you're going to go over there and do whatever he asks."
"I am not folding—"
"Yes you are," three voices said.
"I'm—" Jason took a breath. "I'm just going to—talk to him! Privately! In a different part of the cave!"
"The cave is one room," Tim pointed out. "The only 'different part' is the shower area, and there's no way—"
"Young Timothy—"
"You are going to be very embarrassed in a minute," Tim said, "but I'm going to keep watching."
"Everyone's staring," Jason said, his voice low.
"They always stare," Salix said, matching Jason's tone. "But you're only here for me."
It was a statement of fact. There was no question in it.
"I hate you."
"You don't hate me."
"I hate how well you know me."
"That's a shame," Salix's smile shifted, going from gentle to knowing. "Because I know exactly how to fix what's bothering you."
"You can't fix the fundamental problem of my family watching us!"
"Oh, I can fix that problem," Salix's voice had become so low that Jason had to lean closer to hear him, "by getting us out of here. My place is closer."
Jason's eyes went wide. "You're not—you're actually suggesting—"
"You know I've never suggested anything I didn't mean." Salix's hand had moved, and was now resting on Jason's chest, right over his heart. "I can take you somewhere private. If you want."
"Salix."
"Yes, my love?"
Jason opened his mouth to protest, to say something about where they were, and his family, and the fact that they were all watching with an intensity that could strip paint off a wall. Instead, he heard himself say:
"I hate that you always do this."
"Do what?" Salix's voice was innocence itself.
"Make me want to forget there are other people in the world."
"I don't make you do anything." A beat of a pause, then, "I just make it easier to remember what matters."
"You—"
"We," Salix corrected, his hand now curled into the fabric at Jason's chest.
There was a clatter. Dick's handstand had failed, and he was now lying on the floor, looking up at the ceiling with a blank expression.
"I think I need therapy," Dick said.
"You all need therapy," Jason growled. "This is your fault. All of you. You and your staring."
"Your staring started this," Damian said evenly. "You couldn't have known Salix was going to stretch like that, but you definitely couldn't have known your family would be so observant."
"You—"
"Your face told the whole story."
"Damian—"
"I am simply stating facts."
"Facts that are meant to embarrass me!"
"I want all of you to understand," Bruce announced, his voice a little more tired than usual, like he'd just made peace with something. "I'm not going to remember this happened."
"Bruce," Dick said from the floor, still staring up at the ceiling. "You're Batman. You don't forget anything."
Bruce paused. He looked around the cave, from Jason's red face, to Salix's hand on Jason's chest, to his children, all of whom were watching with varying degrees of amusement or horror.
"I'm going to try," he said. "For all our sakes, I'm going to try."
And that was when Damian, who had been silently sharpening his blade, looked up with a thoughtful expression.
"I have a question," Damian announced. "If Jason and Salix were to have children, would the children be—"
"Damian—" Jason lunged forward, his hands outstretched to grab his little brother by the shoulders and stop the sentence from being completed, but the damage was done.
"Wait," Tim said, his mind now fully engaged in a direction it definitely should not have gone. "Would they be human? Or—"
"Nobody is having children," Jason interrupted, his voice climbing a full octave. "That's not—this is not the conversation—"
"Salix is a new species of Yokai," Steph said, unhelpful as ever. "Are you saying the kids would be half-yokai? Because that would be epic. Actually, wait, would they be half-yokai or half-half-blood? Because his genetics are actually—"
"Stop talking."
"Jason's going to have kittens," Dick said, his tone somewhere between amusement and pity. "He's going to have kittens, and it's going to be your fault."
"Don't pin this on me! I wasn't—Damian just asked a question!"
"You started a conversation about their future offspring."
"I asked if—"
"Damian—"
"Enough," said a voice.
It was quiet. Unassuming. A little amused. And it stopped everyone dead in their tracks.
Salix had moved. He was now standing right behind Jason, one hand still resting on his boyfriend's chest, but he'd found the perfect angle to look at the whole group.
"If we ever have children," Salix said, his tone that of a lecturer explaining a simple concept to a group of confused children, "which we probably won't, given the fact that I'm not a woman and this is not—as far as I'm aware—a world where gay men can have biological children, if we ever had children, they would be whatever they decided to be."
No one said anything.
"Their fate isn't written in my blood," Salix continued, his voice still mild, his mismatched eyes still gleaming. "They'd be people. That's all."
Damian opened his mouth, and then closed it again.
The cave fell into a stunned silence that, to be fair, was probably for the best.
Bruce had stood up from his chair and was now walking purposefully toward the Batcomputer, a new case file on the screen. "I've been told the conversation has moved on. Jason. Salix. If you're done with the stretching, maybe you can check on the new surveillance in the East End?"
"Not done," Salix answered, his voice still a bit too close to Jason. "But I can do more than one thing at once."
The screen flickered to life. And on the screen, from a hidden camera near the fish market, was a blur of motion.
"Did I just see—?" Dick asked, his body finally upright and alert.
"I think the fish market has a new vigilante," Tim said, his eyes wide. "And I think he's wearing a knockoff Nightwing suit."
"It's not a knockoff," Jason snapped, his attention finally diverted. "It's the real thing. With bad copyright laws."
"Someone's making knockoffs of our suits?" Stephanie gasped. "In the East End?"
"Gotham's a copycat city," Dick said, a grin spreading across his face. "They've always had that."
They all watched the screen as the figure moved, a glowing stick tucked under his arm. He wasn't bad, but his technique was all wrong.
"Did he just—" Tim started.
"Yep," Salix answered, now slipping into the conversation like he was a natural part of it. "He just tried a flip kick and landed on his face."
"That's not a good sign," Damian said.
"He's still on the ground," Duke confirmed, "and now he's waving his limbs like a tipped turtle."
"That's my queue," Jason said, finally stepping away from Salix with obvious reluctance. He was still pink, but at least he could form sentences again. "You're not going anywhere, you're with me for this."
"To catch a turtle?"
"To catch the thief of a knockoff suit."
"Same difference."
The entire Batfamily erupted into motion. Bruce was already at the Batmobile, giving orders; Damian was strapping on his gear; Tim was pulling up the surveillance feed on his wrist computer. Dick was already halfway to the cycle, his expression one of pure, unbridled excitement.
And Salix was still standing there, a small smile on his face, because he'd just watched the whole chaos unfold around him and had known all along that this was exactly how it was meant to be.
"You planned this," Jason accused, looking at him with something that wasn't quite anger.
"I planned nothing," Salix answered, his smile sharpening into something that looked very much like a secret. "I simply stretched. The rest was all you."
"You—"
"I'm not going to apologize for existing in a way that makes you forget how to speak."
The family was still moving, and Jason was swept away by the tide of it. Before he went, he turned to Salix, his expression shifting to something both amused and longing.
"Do you love me?" he asked.
"Beyond measure," Salix replied, his voice surprisingly sincere. "Beyond measure, and in more ways than I'll ever be able to explain."
"See?" Jason answered, now with a softer smile of his own. "That's all you had to say. That's the secret. You say that, and I'll just... stop. For a minute. Or a year. Or however long."
Salix laughed, and then he was gone too, merging with the darkness of the cave in a way that left the remaining few breathless.
The Batcave was empty again.
Bruce stood by the Batmobile, his cowl half-removed, watching the chaos of his family finally coalesce into some semblance of a plan. He looked at the screen, at the knockoff Nightwing, at the crime scene he was already predicting. He had the best team.
He also had a headache.
And somewhere in the middle of it all, he remembered a conversation from earlier, the words "You're my best friend" hanging in the air like a promise. He wasn't sure who said it first, but he was sure of one thing: he was going to talk to Salix about it.
Because no one else knew him like Salix did.
And no one else would ever let him be this ridiculous.