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Jason stood in the kitchen mixing the baby formula with zero enthusiasm. It was still dark outside and his matted hair matched the tired look on his face. Both hands rested on the kitchen counter with his head hung low between his shoulders.
Sometimes Jason regretted this life—his choices. He should’ve ran the moment you told him you were pregnant. Their lives were a complete mess and a baby was the last thing they needed.
You told him you could manage on your own. Jason clenched his jaw at the memory of you giving him the opportunity to leave. In moments like this, standing in the kitchen at 3 in the morning and mixing food for your daughter in nothing but a sweatpants, Jason wished he had taken the chance to leave.
Jason’s relationship with you just started three years ago, when he had freshly broken up with Artemis. You served him a drink at the bar and things spiraled from there.
It was just fun for Jason but you just had to catch feelings for him, which grew more and more each time you met. Jason had played into them, because he thought it was fun at the time.
Yet, Artemis was always in the back of his mind. Your relationship bloomed into something more exclusive but for Jason it was just a rebound. You always looked at Jason with those hearts in your eyes he never quite matched.
You never noticed how Jason silently compared you to his ex, it was just the perfect relationship in your head. You loved him dearly and there was not a thing you wouldn’t do for him. From making breakfast to patching him up after patrol. You were head over heels in love. Soon enough, the bubble you lived in popped brutally and Jason stopped pretending to be something he wasn’t.
Jason and you fought every day and things turned ugly. He could’ve ended things, go back to Artemis and beg on his knees for her to take him back. But Jason didn’t. No, some twisted part in him enjoyed the toxic back and forth between you.
The brutal fights in the mornings and the passionate nights with false hopes and apologies. You tried to leave multiple times but Jason just had you wrapped around his finger. You couldn’t turn off your feelings for him and Jason knew that and maybe he enjoyed that too.
And when you showed him the positive pregnancy test almost one and a half year ago, Jason realized that he took it too far.
“I’m going to keep it. I won’t force you to stay.” You muttered under your breath with your arms wrapped around your body, trying to hold yourself together. Jason didn’t loved you and you knew that. The baby wouldn’t fix anything.
Jason tighter the grip around the pregnancy text and clenched his jaw. His first instinct was to run. To run and never look back.
But his feet were glued to the ground. Jason couldn’t leave. For the first time he looked at you—really looked at you. You were nothing but an innocent woman that got caught up in his stupid games.
“No.” Jason said firmly and grabbed your arm. “I will stay.” His eyes never left yours, as if he was trying to force himself into loving you.
A sharp cry yanked Jason out of moment, reminding him of his turn to take care of the little girl down the hallway. With a deep sigh, he grabbed the baby bottle, turned off the lights and left the kitchen in pure darkness.
Jason entered the bedroom without turning on the lights, not wanting to wake you up. He wondered how you could sleep through your daughter crying across the room. It must be the exhausting, he thought.
He walked up to the crib and looked at the baby girl kicking her feet and crying. Once her eyes landed on Jason she stopped crying, her chubby hands reaching for him. The girl cooed and managed a small giggle when Jason picked her up, carefully holding her head before he started to fed her.
Jason’s eyes wandered from the baby in his arms to your sleeping form in the bed. It was kind of adorable how you slept with your cheeks squished against the pillow and how the drool at the corner of your mouth glistened in the moonlight.
He sat down at the edge of the bed starring at you with the baby in his arms. There was a weird feeling in his chest bubbling up, he couldn’t name.
He didn’t want to name.
You wouldn’t believe him after all this time anyway.