Chapter Text

The apartment smelled like burned toast and something older—maybe rust, maybe memory. Percy stepped inside and let the door swing shut behind him. It didn’t click properly, but he didn’t care. The room was small, square, and bare. Good. That meant less to pretend he cared about.

His duffel hit the floor like it was glad to be free of him.

Gotham was louder than it looked. The city breathed through its cracks—sirens, static, low murmurs of life two floors down. It felt like the whole place was holding its breath, waiting for something to go wrong. That suited him just fine.

He didn’t come here for peace. He came because the gods wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Something about the city’s magic, or lack of it, made the air taste different. He hadn’t seen a monster in weeks. No dreams, either. Atleast not the kind that bled ichor.

Just memories. Those came every night.

He sat on the edge of the mattress on the floor—no frame, no blankets yet—and stared at the cracked ceiling. The light bulb flickered once before dying altogether. He didn’t bother flipping the switch again. It wasnt as if he needed the light anyway and there wasn’t much to look at in the apartment.

The next morning, he met the woman across the hall. She reminded him of his mom. Not in her face or voice—those were different. But in the way she looked at him like she already knew he was tired. Really tired. Not the kind that sleep could fix.

“Coffee?” she asked.

He blinked. Nodded.

She handed him a chipped mug. “You don’t talk much.”

“Hmm,” he said quietly.

She smiled like she understood. “I’m Mrs. Flores. You’re not from here.”

“No,” Percy said. He didn’t say where he was from. It didn’t matter anymore.

“Well,” she said, “this place is ugly, loud, and always wet. You’ll fit in just fine.”

He walked because he couldn’t sit still. The walls were too quiet and the floor creaked in patterns that sounded like her voice sometimes—his mom’s—when she used to call him for breakfast. That had stopped when the treatments stopped working. When she told him not to come home. When the machines had been louder than her heartbeat.

He still didn’t know if the cancer had been natural.

Annabeth had called once, afterward. She’d meant well. She always did. But her voice had sounded happier than it should have. Something about her new girlfriend—engineer, mortal, normal.

Percy had told her he was fine.

Then he’d thrown his phone into the East River.

Now he walked through Gotham’s streets and didn’t bother remembering why.

The city was sharp-edged and heavy with something he couldn’t name. He stuck to shadows. His hoodie felt too warm but safe. His hands stayed deep in his pockets.

People looked at him sometimes. Like they almost recognized him. Maybe from the news. Maybe just from the way he moved.

He didn’t look back.

Someone tried to corner a woman near a subway stairwell. Percy didn’t think. He never did, not with things like that. One moment he was watching, the next the guy was on the ground and the woman was running. He didn’t remember pushing him. Didn’t remember doing anything but breathing in.

That was enough, apparently.

He didn’t stay. Didn’t check if anyone saw. Just kept walking.

By the time he got back to the apartment, the sun was gone and the hallway light was flickering like it was haunted.

A muffin waited on the floor outside his door. Banana nut. Still warm.

The sticky note read: “For surviving Monday. -Mrs. F”

He stared at it for a full minute before picking it up.

It didn’t fix anything. It didn’t fill the hollow in his chest where the sea used to feel like home.

But it was something.

He ate it sitting on the floor. Didn’t cry. Didn’t smile.

Just breathed.

And that, for tonight, would have to be enough.

Percy woke up too early. Not from nightmares this time, just from habit. It was still dark outside. The apartment hadn’t gotten any more welcoming overnight.

He stood under the shower too long, until the water ran cold. Got dressed in layers—hoodie, jacket, something neutral. His backpack felt like dead weight on his shoulder, even though it barely held more than a notebook and a half-chewed pen.

He was locking his door when Mrs. Flores peeked out from hers.

“School?” she asked.

Percy nodded, shifting his bag higher.

She gave him a once-over, not unkind. “You ate?”

He hesitated.

Mrs. Flores disappeared for a moment and reappeared with a brown paper bag. She thrust it into his hands. “There. Sandwich. Apple. Cookie. I don’t trust cafeteria food. It's an act of self-defense.”

“…Thanks,” he muttered.

She tapped the side of his arm gently. “You’ve got kind eyes, you know. Sad, but kind.”

Percy didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t. Just nodded, awkwardly, and took the stairs two at a time.

Outside, the sky was the color of wet asphalt, and Gotham was already awake.

He had no idea what the day would bring. But somehow, with the paper bag still warm in his hand, it felt a little less like drowning.

He kept walking.

Chapter Text

Gotham Academy didn’t look like a school so much as a mausoleum with a bell schedule. The walls were stone, the ceilings too high, and the windows let in more shadow than light. Percy’s borrowed uniform—navy blazer, too-stiff collar, slacks that didn’t quite fit right—itched like the clothes knew he didn’t belong in them.

The office secretary didn’t look up when he walked in. She handed him a schedule and a wrinkled handbook, then gestured vaguely down the hall.

“Room 203 is in the east wing,” she said, already answering the phone. “Follow the red lockers.”

He found the wing. Eventually.

The halls were too clean, too polished. Everything echoed. His shoes sounded too loud even though he walked softly. Every classroom he passed made his chest tighten.

His first classroom was filled already. No one noticed him come in—not really. A few heads turned, but no one said his name. No one asked if he was lost. He sat down in the back, beside a wall, two seats away from anyone else.

Safe.

The desk was too small. The chair creaked when he shifted. His hands stayed clenched in his lap until the bell rang.

He could feel the tension in his shoulders like a wire pulled tight. His whole body ached from the effort of existing.

The teacher handed out some worksheet with a bored voice and a stack of papers that hit the desk with a slap. Percy didn’t look at it.

His eyes kept drifting.

There was a boy across the room—dark-haired, serious, with a sort of focus that felt… familiar. Like he was always calculating. But tired too, in a way that went deeper than sleep.

Next to him sat a girl with bright eyes and a slouch like she hadn’t sat properly in a chair in years. She spun her pen around her fingers without looking. And beside her, another girl—still, quiet, gaze sharp. She looked at Percy once, met his eyes without flinching, then looked away like she’d catalogued everything she needed.

Percy turned his gaze to the window. It didn’t show the sky—just gray walls and rusted gutters. The sun was already losing.

By lunch, Percy had already memorized three exits, two blind spots in the hallway, and the rhythm of the security cameras.

It wasn’t paranoia. It was strategy. Instinct. Muscle memory.

The cafeteria was worse than the halls. Too many voices, too many eyes. The smell of food turned his stomach, and the linoleum reflected the overhead lights like a weapon.

He took one look inside, turned, and walked the opposite direction. Didn’t run. Just… disappeared.

“Hey, new kid!”

He froze.

A blur of motion caught him at the edge of the hallway. Blonde hair. Energy. Flannel.

“Steph,” she said, as if that explained everything. “You look like you’re about to bolt. Rookie mistake. You vanish during lunch and they’ll never stop talking about it.”

Percy blinked.

She grinned. “C’mon. We don’t bite. Well—Cass might, but only if you deserve it.”

He didn’t move, but she grabbed his arm anyway—lightly. Not like a threat. More like an impatient golden retriever dragging someone to a picnic.

He let her.

The cafeteria didn’t feel different just because he was surrounded, but the noise stopped mattering. Steph chatted the whole way back to a corner table, waving like they were best friends already.

Waiting there were the boy from earlier—Tim—and the quiet girl, who Percy now knew was Cass.

Tim said nothing. Just looked up, then down again.

Cass gave him a nod. The kind you gave someone who’d already been evaluated and wasn’t a threat.

Percy sat slowly. He didn’t touch the tray Steph shoved in front of him.

Cass nudged it once, then started eating her sandwich like nothing had happened.

They talked. Well—Steph talked. About teachers, rumors, something about a ghost in the library who only appeared on Thursdays. Cass signed something that made Steph snort into her drink.

Tim kept glancing at Percy like he was trying to figure out the equation he’d just been handed.

Percy didn’t speak. But he didn’t leave either.

After lunch, he returned to Room 203. The seat by the wall was still open.

So was the one next to it.

Percy hesitated in the doorway. Just long enough to scan the room, look for patterns. For threats.

Then he walked in, heart loud in his ears.

He sat in the same chair.

Tim arrived less than a minute later. Dropped into the chair beside him without saying a word. Like this was normal. Like it didn’t matter.

That silence said more than any introduction.

Percy didn’t realize until class started that his hands weren’t shaking anymore.

He walked home slower that afternoon. Gotham was still Gotham—moody, wet, old. The sky looked like it had forgotten how to be blue.

Mrs. Flores’ door was cracked open when he passed.

He didn’t stop. But there was a note taped outside her frame:

“You survived Monday. Try surviving Tuesday too.”

He snorted—so soft it barely counted as a sound.

The note stayed there when he let himself back inside.

He didn’t cry. Didn’t smile. But his backpack felt a little less heavy when he dropped it on the floor.

He sat on the mattress, stared at the ceiling, and whispered,

“Okay.”

And that would be enough.

For now.

Interlude: Tim

Tim had seen a lot of new kids. Gotham was the kind of place that chewed through families and spit out orphans, transfers, and temporary guardianships like clockwork. But the boy who walked into Room 203 that morning didn’t move like someone new.

He moved like someone expecting a trap.

Blazer too big, collar tight, posture controlled to the point of tension. He sat in the back by the wall like he needed something solid behind him. Not shy—strategic.

And gods, he was—well. Handsome wasn’t the right word. Not clean-cut or polished. But striking. That kind of tired beauty you don’t notice until he looks away, and then you can’t stop thinking about the way his jaw tensed or how his hair curled at the edges of his collar like it was still damp from the shower. Haunted, but not fragile. Like a statue someone tried to break, but it kept standing anyway.

And his eyes—Tim noticed those, too. A shade of green that didn’t belong in this world. Not quite human. They didn’t glow, not exactly, but sometimes when the light hit just right, Tim thought he saw something familiar. A shimmer. The kind of wrong-green that reminded him of Jason’s Lazarus gaze. Just a flicker. Just enough to make his instincts go still.

Tim didn’t comment when Steph leaned over and whispered, “Bet he doesn’t last a week.” He didn’t respond when Cass signed something sharp and curious about the way the boy’s eyes tracked exits instead of people.

He just watched.

Not because he was suspicious. Not yet. But because something about this kid felt… coiled. Familiar.

And tired. Bone-deep, dragging-every-step tired.

Tim recognized that, too.

At lunch, he saw it coming before the new kid tried to leave.

Steph, to her credit, intercepted him with all the grace of a golden retriever in sneakers. Tim didn’t move from his seat. He didn’t need to. She’d drag the guy over like she did with stray cats.

He watched the kid come closer. Noticed the way he flinched when the cafeteria noise swelled. How his hands stayed clenched in his sleeves. How he didn’t sit so much as lower himself carefully, like he expected the chair to vanish beneath him.

Up close, it was worse. the boy’s eyes—sea glass and stormlight—never stayed still. Like he was watching the room breathe wrong. Like something in him had learned to brace for impact at all times.

Tim didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to scare him off.

Cass gave him a nod. Steph tossed a sandwich onto his tray. The new kid didn’t eat.

Tim noticed that, too.

But he didn’t press. Pressing made people lie, and this boy didn’t need help with that.

He watched, instead, as the boy’s eyes followed everything but never rested anywhere. Like he was cataloging the room for escape routes.

After lunch, Tim made it to Room 203 on time—maybe even a bit late. But when he entered, Percy was already there.

Same seat. Back row, by the wall. Tim hadn’t expected him to come back.

There was a kind of stillness to the boy that made you second-guess whether he’d actually moved at all since last period. Like he'd folded himself into the architecture.

Tim hesitated just long enough to make sure the seat next to Percy was still free, then slid into it without a word.

He didn’t look over. Didn’t greet him. Just mirrored his’s silence.

The bell rang.

And in the quiet between instructions, he noticed it—the tension in the boy’s shoulders loosened. Just slightly. The way his fingers uncurled one at a time. The breath he took didn’t rattle.

Tim didn’t know who this kid was. Not yet.

But he knew what it looked like when someone needed proximity more than questions.

So he stayed.

And the new kid didn’t move away.

It wasn’t until the teacher called roll that Tim learned his name.

"Jackson, Percy," the teacher read.

A quiet, clipped "Here" came from beside him. No hesitation. No explanation.

Chapter Text

The apartment creaked with the kind of silence that sounded like pressure. Not peace. Not quiet. Just weight.

Percy stared at the ceiling and didn’t blink.

Sleep had stopped visiting around the same time nightmares stopped bothering to knock. Now, if he closed his eyes too long, he didn’t dream—he remembered. Tartarus didn’t fade. It waited. Like rot. Like gravity. The mattress beneath him felt more like a trapdoor than a bed, so he gave up and stood.

The floorboards didn’t groan this time. They were used to his patterns.

He pulled on his hoodie—old, frayed, sleeves chewed from nerves—and stuffed his hands deep into the pockets. The night air was wet and sour. Gotham’s version of a lullaby.

He welcomed it.

Outside, the street was slick with leftover rain and old streetlight haze. Everything smelled faintly of oil and ghost stories. The kind you didn’t tell your kids unless you wanted them to never sleep again.

Perfect.

He walked with no destination. He never had one. The point wasn’t where he was going. The point was that he wasn’t still.

Because stillness meant thinking. And thinking meant remembering. And remembering meant the sound of Sally’s breathing slowing in her last days, or the way the Pit whispered his name like it missed him.

So he walked.

Down past shuttered shops and dented dumpsters. Past graffitied walls that bled neon under broken lamps. Past puddles so still they reflected a younger version of himself, and one time—a different face entirely. He blinked. It vanished.

Two blocks over, someone screamed.

He didn’t flinch.

The alley was narrow. Four guys. One girl. Cornered. Drunk threats. One had a knife. Another had the kind of smirk that made Percy’s spine curl with memory.

He didn’t think.

One step became five. Five became a blur.

The guy with the knife swung first. That was his mistake.

Percy caught his wrist mid-air, twisted—not to break, just to end it. The man screamed. Percy let go. Another came at him with a bottle. It shattered against a wall, not his skull. The last two backed off.

The girl ran. Percy let her.

When the fight was done, he didn’t wait. He never waited. Sirens could come, or not. Didn’t matter.

He didn’t do it for thanks. Or justice. Or redemption.

He did it because he couldn’t stand still and watch someone else fall.

He moved on, hands shaking only slightly. He didn’t bother checking for blood. There usually wasn’t any—not anymore.

At some point, he passed a diner still open, lights buzzing tiredly through greasy windows. An old man inside sat reading a paper. Percy paused just long enough to feel the warmth on his face before walking on.

Three rooftops over, someone had left out a bowl of water and half a sandwich, wrapped in foil.

A note was taped to the ledge. In scratchy handwriting:
"For the Ghost. Thanks for scaring off those guys last night."

Percy stared at it for a long time.

Didn’t take the food. Didn’t throw it away either. He just stood there, wind tugging at his hoodie strings, and whispered, “You’re welcome.”

It felt stupid. Like saying thank you to a shadow. But he said it anyway.

By 3 a.m., he’d stopped three petty crimes, walked seventeen blocks, and nearly punched a raccoon that startled him in an alley.

His breath came slower now. The cold air bit through his sleeves and reminded him he was still here. Still real. Still above ground.

The fire escape on 9th had become his favorite perch.

He climbed it easy, sat on the cold metal, and stared at the city like it owed him answers. Gotham didn’t blink. Just pulsed. Somewhere, deep below, something stirred—but tonight it was sleeping. Or maybe just watching.

He pulled out a granola bar from his pocket, half-crushed, and chewed like it was penance.

At dawn, he made it home.

His shoes left wet prints on the floorboards. The radiator hissed like it was offended he’d returned. Mrs. Flores’ door was closed, but a new note had been taped beside her knob.

“Couldn’t sleep either. The rain was nice, though.”

A thermos of still-warm coffee sat under it.

Percy stared at it. For too long.

Then, wordlessly, he picked it up. Took a sip. Burned his tongue.

Didn’t mind.

He stepped back into his apartment. Closed the door. Sat on the floor.

Didn’t sleep. Didn’t move.

Just… breathed.

And that would be enough.

For now.

Interlude: Tim

Tim Drake noticed things. That was his job, technically. And his curse.

He noticed when the Gotham skyline was two inches shorter because a church gargoyle had been blown off in a storm. He noticed when Damian went quiet in training—which meant he was about to throw something sharp. He noticed when Alfred replaced the usual tea with chamomile, which meant someone in the house wasn’t sleeping.

So it wasn’t a question of if he noticed Percy.

It was a question of when.

It started with the hands.

Percy’s fingers shook. Not dramatically—just at the ends, like they hadn’t quite caught up to the rest of his body. Like they were always cooling down from something. His sleeves were always tugged over his palms, and he rarely wrote more than three lines at a time.

But his handwriting was clean. Calculated. Like someone who used to be neat but couldn’t afford the energy anymore.

Then it was the eyes.

Percy never looked directly at the board. He tracked movement. Always the door, the windows, the teacher’s hands. His gaze scanned like a camera—sweeping, silent, precise. Tim had seen soldiers do that. People trained to survive, not participate.

And it wasn’t paranoia. It was method.

“He's not afraid,” Tim realized one afternoon while pretending to read his chemistry notes. “He’s ready.”

Then there were the steps.

Tim noticed that Percy’s route through school was too perfect.

He never took the crowded stairwell. Never passed locker banks during peak rush. His path shifted each day—just slightly—but always accounted for timing, sound, and space. Like someone doing recon. Like someone who’d memorized which floorboards creaked loudest in the dark.

It made something in Tim’s chest twist.

Because none of the others saw it.

Steph kept doing her thing—barging into conversations like a sugar-high bulldozer in boots. She meant well, always had, but she talked like silence was the enemy and didn’t notice when Percy flinched at loud laughter.

Cass said little, but she didn’t adjust either. She evaluated, nodded, approved—but didn’t shift her posture, her timing, her everything the way Percy needed.

But Tim did.

He started walking slightly slower in the halls. Matched his footsteps to Percy’s without meaning to. Brought two pens to class—he never said why, but he always placed the second one near Percy’s elbow.

He didn’t touch. Didn’t talk much. Just... adjusted.

When they sat together—back row, by the wall—Tim made sure the seat beside Percy was never taken by anyone else. Once, a random student tried to sit there. Tim leaned over, soft-voiced, and said:

“Taken.”

The kid blinked. “By who?”

Tim just looked at him.

The seat stayed empty.

It all boiled over one day during lunch.

Steph was in full ramble-mode, bouncing between gossip and sandwich-based theories about cafeteria corruption. She kept tugging at Percy’s sleeve like she wanted him to laugh. Cass sat nearby, unreadable.

Percy was quiet.

More than usual.

Eyes unfocused. Shoulders drawn in like he was bracing for something. His sandwich untouched. One hand tapping his knee beneath the table in a pattern Tim realized matched a countdown rhythm—one he knew from field recon. One that usually meant bail now.

Tim cleared his throat. “Steph.”

She didn’t hear him. “—and I swear, if they serve that lasagna one more time I’m gonna—”

“Steph.” Sharper.

She looked over. “What?”

Tim didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to.

“You’re crowding him.”

That froze the table.

Percy’s head jerked slightly.

Steph blinked. “What? I’m not—”

“You are” Tim’s voice was steady. Cool. Not angry. Just factual.

Cass signed something—short, sharp.

Tim replied aloud for her sake: “You of all people should know to respect personal space”

Silence stretched.

Percy opened his mouth, like he might deflect. Say he was fine.

Tim didn’t look at him. Just added, quietly:

Steph stared at her tray. “...Shit.” “Sorry”

Cass glanced at Percy, then subtly shifted how she sat—angled slightly away, giving him more space without pulling away completely.

Percy didn’t move.

But a moment later, his hand stopped tapping under the table.

After lunch, they went to class like nothing had happened.

Tim walked slower. Let Percy lead.

When they reached Room 203, Percy paused by the door. Just for a second. Then stepped in.

His seat was still empty. So was the one beside it.

He sat. So did Tim.

Tim noticed it slowly.

At first, it was just Percy—dragging his feet in the mornings, eyes shadowed but alert, never yawning, never blinking too long. Exhaustion baked into his posture. But not the kind that made you sluggish.

The kind that made you watch.

It was the same look Tim saw in crime scene photos, in soldiers, in Jason sometimes—when the city was too loud and sleep wasn’t worth the cost.

Percy wasn’t tired.
He was running from sleep.

And Tim… Tim started doing the same.

It wasn’t on purpose.

One night, he just didn’t go to bed. He told himself he had too much to do. That the case files needed reviewing. That his gear needed adjusting.

That was a lie.

He just didn’t want to sleep.

There was something about the silence. About the way the Manor creaked at 3 a.m., and how the city lights shimmered through his window like they were breathing. The quiet was loud. Too loud.

It made him think of Percy. Of the way he always sat in class like he’d already lived a whole day before the bell even rang.

Tim opened his laptop. Started tracking the GCPD dispatch feed—half out of habit, half out of instinct.

That’s when he saw it.

A series of 911 calls from Crime Alley. Minor things. Muggings that ended before officers arrived. Reports of a “guy in a hoodie” helping, then disappearing. No mask. No name.

Tim clicked through the records. Different days, different blocks—but the timing was consistent.

Late. Always after midnight.

He stared at the screen, heart beating a little faster.

He didn’t know.

But he was starting to suspect.

At school the next day, Percy looked... the same.

Not worse. Not better. Just baseline worn-out. Hoodie sleeves pushed halfway over his hands. That same notebook on his desk, pages slightly water-damaged at the corners.

Tim sat down next to him.

Didn’t speak.

But he glanced once, just long enough to see the scrawled notes from the night before. Timestamped. 4:09 a.m. One phrase underlined twice:

“Keep moving. Don't drown.”

Tim didn't say anything. He didn’t have to.

Instead, during lunch, he quietly changed tables—picked one away from the cafeteria windows, where the light didn’t hit Percy’s eyes as harshly. He didn’t ask if Percy wanted to move. He just sat there. Waited.

A minute later, Percy followed.

Didn’t ask questions. Just sat.

Didn’t speak.

But for the first time all week, he finished the sandwich he had brought.

They left school at the same time.

Not on purpose. Percy didn’t wait. Tim didn’t follow. But their strides fell into sync by the time they reached the corner with the broken crosswalk light.

Neither spoke.

The rain had stopped earlier, but the gutters still gurgled like the city hadn’t finished swallowing something. The air smelled like rust and damp paper. Percy kept his hood up, hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets. His backpack hung low on one shoulder.

Tim walked beside him without comment. No forced conversation. Just presence.

A few blocks in, Percy broke the silence.

“Gotham feels heavier after it rains.”

Tim didn’t glance over. Just nodded once.

“Feels like it’s waiting for something.”

Percy huffed a breath—just enough to fog the air. “Yeah.”

They passed a graffiti-covered wall, a corner bodega, a building with a boarded-up door. Then, at a narrow cross-street, Percy stopped. Not suddenly—just slowed until his steps faded to a standstill.

Tim paused too, giving him space.

The alley across the road wasn’t remarkable. Just a pile of bricks and shadows and a trash can that had lost its lid.

Percy stared at it for a beat too long.

“Something happen there?” Tim asked, careful not to sound like he was asking.

Percy didn’t answer. His mouth opened. Closed.

Percy didn’t nod. Didn’t move.

Tim waited.

Then Percy said, “I cant sleep at night.”

Tim’s breath caught slightly. But he didn’t pry.

“Me either,” he offered. Just that. No questions.

Percy’s eyes flicked toward him for a second. Not surprised. Not guarded. Just… searching.

“You ever walk,” Percy said slowly, “just to stay ahead of something you can’t name?”

Tim didn’t answer right away.

Then: “Yeah. All the time.”

They reached the subway a few minutes later.

Tim hesitated at the top of the steps. He reached into his bag and pulled out something small—a protein bar, half-squashed from the day.

“Trade you for silence,” he said.

Percy arched an eyebrow.

Tim added, “It’s the kind with chocolate chips.”

Percy took it with a nod. No smile, but a little less tension in his jaw.

Tim turned to go, and just before he vanished into the crowd, he heard Percy say—

“Thanks.”

That night, Tim watched the Gotham PD dispatch again. There was another call. Crime Alley. No arrest. No suspect.

Tim noted the time. Scribbled it down in a margin.

His thoughts wandering to the quiet new kid in school.

The boy with the beautiful sea green eyes

Soon tim turned off the light and whispered:

“Hope you got home safe.”

Chapter Text

The rooftops of Gotham breathed a different kind of air than the streets—colder, cleaner, lonelier. Percy liked it better up here.

His hoodie was damp from fog, his hands jammed into the front pocket. Below, the glow of police cruisers flickered like warning lights in the sea. He didn’t want to go back to the apartment. He didn’t want to dream.

So he kept moving.

A blur of movement—a flicker of red across the skyline—made him pause. His grip tightened. He could feel it, like static crawling across his skin. Something was near. Someone.

Then a voice: rough, amused, laced with danger.

“You’re not very good at hiding.”

Percy didn’t flinch, but he turned slowly. Across the rooftop stood a man clad in black and red, a helmet that gleamed under the moonlight like a skull dipped in blood. Guns. Lots of them. The air shifted with tension.

Red Hood.

Percy tilted his head, expression neutral. “Wasn’t trying.”

The man chuckled. “Yeah, no kidding. You’ve been real subtle—hoodie, no mask, rescuing muggers like some kind of wet stray cat.”

Percy didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure if this was a trap, or a test.

Red Hood stepped forward, boots clicking softly on concrete. “You’re new. Not just to this—” he gestured vaguely at Gotham, the skyline, the crime scene below “—but to this. The night shift. The whole cape game.”

“I’m not a cape,” Percy said flatly.

“No kidding,” Red Hood echoed. “No mask, no gear, no backup, and still walking into alley fights like you’re bulletproof.”

Percy didn’t answer. He wasn’t.

The silence stretched between them. Wind tugged at the edges of Percy’s hoodie.

Then, quieter: “What’s your deal, kid?”

Percy’s eyes narrowed. “Do I need to have one?”

“No. But people like you usually do.” Red Hood leaned against the ledge, surprisingly casual. “I’ve seen the type. Ex-military. Ex-cop. Ex-something. You don’t have training, but you’ve got instincts. And you don’t run from pain—you walk right into it.”

Percy looked away.

That was fair.

Red Hood tilted his head. “I’ve also seen eyes like yours. Glowing in the dark like that. Pretty rare. Makes people nervous.”

“I’m not dangerous,” Percy lied.

“Liar,” Red Hood said, but not unkindly.

More silence.

“I’m not here to stop you,” Red Hood added after a beat. “You’re doing good. Mostly. But you need to be more careful. Gotham eats kids like you for breakfast.”

“I’m not a kid.”

Another chuckle. “Sure you’re not.”

A long pause, then:

“You got a name?”

Percy shook his head. “Don’t need one.”

Red Hood shrugged. “Fine. I’ll make one up for you. How about… Alley Angel?”

Percy rolled his eyes. “That’s awful.”

“Oh, so you can talk,” Jason muttered, more to himself than Percy. “Anyway, you’re on my radar now. Don’t make me regret not shooting first.”

“You won’t.”

“I better not.”

Red Hood turned to leave, then paused.

“You’ve got that haunted look, you know. Like someone who’s survived more than they should’ve. I won’t ask. But if something's following you into my city—don’t wait too long to warn somebody.”

And with that, he vanished into the night.

Percy didn’t move for a long time. The wind picked up. He closed his eyes, chest tight.

Then he pulled up his hood, and kept walking.

Interlude: People of Gotham

Chapter Text

The alley reeked of oil and rain, but Percy didn’t mind. It was quiet here—dim light, no sirens, no screams. Just the wet hiss of tires on pavement blocks away.

He crouched beside a crumpled figure—a guy in his twenties, bleeding from a knife gash but alive. Percy pressed his hoodie sleeve over the wound to slow the bleeding.

“You’re going to be okay,” he murmured. “Stupid, but okay.”

The man wheezed a laugh. “You a doctor or something?”

Percy didn’t answer. Just stayed there until he heard the soft rise of an engine—not loud like a police cruiser or clunky like a civilian car. Smooth. Dangerous.

He looked up as twin headlights sliced through the mist. A sleek motorcycle pulled into the alley like it belonged there, all matte black and gleaming chrome. The rider wore red and leather like armor. Helmet gleaming.

Red Hood.

Jason killed the engine with a flick, boots crunching as he walked toward Percy. “You know,” he said casually, “you’re really bad at lying low.”

Percy stood slowly, body tense but not hostile. “It’s a quiet alley.”

“Yeah. Until you fill it with a bleeding idiot and your glowing eyes.”

Percy blinked. “They glow?”

“Only when you’re stressed,” Jason said, cocking his head. “Like now.”

Percy didn't reply. He glanced at the man still groaning on the ground.

Jason followed his gaze, then sighed. “I’ll call someone to pick him up. You got what you came for?”

Percy shrugged. “Just passing through.”

Jason nodded toward the bike. “You ever ridden?”

Percy gave him a look. “Does an underwater hippocampus count?”

Jason blinked. “You say the weirdest crap.”

“You asked.”

Jason was still smirking when he swung back onto the bike. “Next time you play nurse, pick somewhere less stabby.”

The engine roared to life again.

Before he pulled away, he added, over the rising growl, “See you on the roof, Ghost.”

And then he was gone—leaving tire tracks and rain mist in his wake.

The city was quieter than usual. Not peaceful—Gotham didn’t do peace—but the kind of quiet that comes when the worst had already happened elsewhere, and everyone was holding their breath to see if it would happen again.

Percy sat on the edge of the rooftop with one leg dangling over the ledge, the other pulled up to his chest. The breeze ruffled his hoodie—washed and dry for once—and for a moment, he just breathed.

“Figured I’d find you up here,” came a familiar voice behind him, low and amused. “You're a creature of habit. And bad judgment.”

Percy didn’t turn around. “And yet you’re the one stalking a minor across rooftops.”

Jason scoffed as he approached, the leather of his jacket whispering with each step. “Minor? That’s rich, coming from a guy who took down three muggers with a trash can lid and a slice of pizza last week.”

Percy glanced over his shoulder, the corner of his mouth quirking. “To be fair, the pizza was the distraction.”

Jason settled beside him, not too close. Just enough to show he wasn’t leaving.

“You always this reckless?” Jason asked, pulling a flask from his jacket and offering it wordlessly.

Percy shook his head, polite but firm. “Not reckless. Just... restless.”

They sat in silence for a few beats. The wind carried up sirens in the distance. A cat yowled somewhere below.

“Gotham’s got teeth,” Jason said eventually. “You seem to like getting bitten.”

“Better than playing dead.” Percy picked at a loose thread on his sleeve. “Besides, the city's honest. It doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not.”

Jason let out a dry chuckle. “Now that’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said about this hellhole.”

Another stretch of silence. Not awkward. Not heavy. Just... companionable.

“You know,” Jason said, voice a little rougher, “you don’t have to keep playing ghost every night. You could just... stay home. Sleep.”

Percy’s voice was quiet. “Sleep’s overrated.”

Jason didn’t argue. He understood.

Instead, he tilted his head. “You ever think about what you’d be doing if the world wasn’t so... broken?”

Percy blinked. “You mean, like, normal?”

“Yeah. Like, if you got to be just some regular dumb kid with a part-time job and terrible grades.”

Percy smiled faintly. “I’d probably still end up on a rooftop.”

Jason snorted. “Figures. You’re impossible.”

A beat.

Then Percy said, without looking at him, “What about you?”

Jason was quiet for a long time. When he finally answered, it was barely above the wind. “I’d be dead. Still am, some days.”

Percy didn’t flinch. Just nodded. “Same.”

The city below them shifted, lights blinking. Someone shouted. Somewhere, glass broke.

Jason stood slowly. “Come on. I’ll walk you home.”

Percy tilted his head. “What, no motorcycle?”

Jason smirked. “Don’t want you falling in love too fast.”

Percy rolled his eyes and stood. “Too late.”

Jason blinked.

Percy flashed him a crooked smile. “With the rooftop, I mean. Obviously.”

Jason shoved his shoulder lightly. “Sure you did, Ghost Boy.”

And with that, they disappeared into the night, walking along the edge of the city like it was a tightrope only they knew how to balance on.

Gotham Academy smelled like floor polish and stress. The good kind of stress—the kind Percy hadn’t felt since Camp Half-Blood, where chaos came with a bell schedule and the promise of lunch.

He still hated mornings. But these mornings? They were tolerable.

Percy dropped into his usual seat at the back of the room—chair slightly tilted, back against the wall. A small mercy, won early in the semester when Tim had wordlessly shifted seats and told Steph, “He needs the corner one more than you need the window.”

She hadn’t argued. Much.

Now, it was routine. A rhythm.

His pencil spun between his fingers while the teacher droned about something economic. Or political. Or ethically grey. Percy didn’t care. He liked the way the pages of his notebook filled with doodles. Liked that no monsters burst through the windows. Liked that the heater hummed even when the rain outside turned half the city to soup.

Gotham was always wet, always dark—but this building stayed warm.

Tim passed him a note during second period.
"You’re going to destroy that pencil."
Below it, a tiny sketch of a heroic pencil snapping in half mid-battle.

Percy smiled—actually smiled—and rolled his eyes.

Steph leaned over from the next desk. “Are you two passing notes in Economics? Scandal.”

Percy said nothing. Just flicked the eraser at her.

“Rude.” She flicked it back.

In lunch, he let them talk while he ate. Tim explained something about Arkham funding and corruption audits with the intensity of a caffeine-charged fox. Cass said maybe three words total, then stole his apple. Percy let her.

He liked the noise. He liked that none of it required him to be anything other than... there.

At one point, Steph lobbed a grape at Tim and it bounced off his cheek with a wet splat.

Tim didn’t even flinch.

“You’re both children,” he muttered.

Percy wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Tim looked at him for a second—longer than he should have—and then looked away.

Something softened in Percy’s chest. A strange warmth he hadn’t felt in months. Like maybe… being normal wasn’t a myth. Maybe it could be a choice.

For now, at least.

Interlude: Tim

The Batcave was silent except for the gentle clatter of a keyboard and the occasional digital chirp as data scrolled past.

Tim leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, waiting. He knew better than to talk when Bruce was in this particular mode—hunched forward, eyes narrowed, jaw tight. Detective Mode: Activated.

The screen replayed the same thirty-second clip again.

A hooded figure blurred across a rooftop in the Narrows—leaping, sliding, catching a falling civilian with one arm while simultaneously kicking a pipe into a fleeing mugger’s path.

The security cam caught just enough light to make the guy look like a shadow wrapped in smoke.

"Still no facial recognition," Bruce muttered. "No prints. No tech signature. But he's been active every night for three weeks."

"He's not reckless," Tim offered. "Doesn't stick around after. Never accepts credit."

"That’s what concerns me," Bruce said, tone unreadable. "That kind of discipline isn't random."

On another screen, Bruce pulled up a map. “Thirteen incidents. No pattern on the surface.”

"But?" Tim prompted.

Bruce clicked. A new overlay lit up the screen—victims' names, locations, timestamps.

"Each one ties back to an open case. Small ones. The ones that fall between the cracks." Bruce’s voice dipped lower. “This isn’t just a vigilante. He’s choosing who to save.”

Tim blinked. “So… what, you think this guy’s running triage on Gotham?”

Bruce didn’t answer. Which, in Bat-language, meant yes.

"Could be former military," Bruce mused aloud. "Or League-adjacent. Maybe ex-Argus."

Tim frowned. “Or… just someone who’s tired of people falling through the system.”

Bruce finally glanced at him. "You sound like you sympathize."

Tim shrugged, a little too casually. “I sympathize with not wanting people to die.”

Bruce went quiet.

The footage played again.

This time, Bruce slowed it—frame by frame.

A flicker of a hand. Bare skin. A faint shimmer of sea-green light where fingers brushed concrete.

He zoomed in. Enhanced.

But the resolution broke apart like fog.

"I want every camera within five blocks of this one pulled," Bruce said.

Tim gave a short nod, even as something inside him twisted.

The Batcave hummed with quiet tension. Screens flickered in the dim light, casting long shadows across the floor. Tim sat at the secondary console, scrolling through timestamps, while Bruce stood motionless—gaze locked on the main monitor.

“Rewind ten seconds,” Bruce said. Calm, but clipped.

Tim hit the keys.

The footage rolled back. Grainy rooftop camera. The vigilante in a hoodie sprinting across wet concrete. Saving a teenager from a knife-wielding mugger. Distant, fast—blurred in most frames.

“Slow it to quarter-speed,” Bruce said.

They watched as the figure spun, hoodie flying loose for half a second.

And in that flicker—barely half a second—Tim saw it too.

A face turned slightly toward the camera. Eyes catching the streetlight.

Not white, not brown, not hazel.

Green. Luminous. Unnatural.

Like something radioactive. Or resurrected.

Bruce’s jaw tightened.

“That’s not normal,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

Tim hesitated. “Could be... camera flare.”

Bruce gave him a look. The kind that could cut glass.

“Flare doesn’t track movement. This—” He rewound and zoomed again. “This glows. Follows the turn of his head. It’s internal.”

Tim leaned forward. "But he's not... violent. He hasn't killed anyone. Just helps."

“That we know of,” Bruce replied. “No mask. No armor. Either reckless—or untouchable.”

A beat.

Tim frowned. “You think he’s Lazarus-touched?”

Bruce didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he pulled up another screen—medical data, grainy morgue shots, old Ra’s intel.

"Possible. The glow, the speed, the control. Fits the early-stage Lazarus effect. Before madness sets in."

Tim turned fully in his chair. “But he doesn’t seem mad.”

Bruce’s expression didn’t change. “Neither did Jason. At first.”

The silence hung heavy between them.

Tim broke it. “So what’s the plan? We tail him? Question him? Trap him?”

“No,” Bruce said flatly. “We watch.”

“Just watch?”

“If he’s Lazarus-touched and doesn’t know it—confronting him could be dangerous.”

Tim swallowed.

Because in his gut, something told him the guy in the hoodie wasn’t dangerous. Not to them. Not to anyone who didn’t deserve it.

But Bruce had already pulled up a satellite link and started rerouting drone paths.

The hunt was on.

Chapter Text

The school bell had barely finished echoing through the stone courtyard before Percy had slung his backpack over one shoulder and made a quick retreat toward the outer gates. He moved fast—like someone always on the edge of being chased—and only slowed down when a familiar voice called out behind him.

“Hey, wait up!”

Tim’s footsteps clicked evenly across the bricks, not rushed, just… persistent. Calm.

Percy turned, halfway to pretending he hadn't heard, but something about the way Tim smiled—not the sharp, knowing kind he wore in class, but a soft, lopsided one that didn't quite reach his eyes—made him pause.

“Walking home already?” Tim asked.

Percy shrugged. “Yeah. Long night.”

Tim gave him a long look. “That’s your third 'long night' this week.”

“And?”

“You look like you’re three minutes away from collapsing in a hedge.”

Percy rolled his eyes but didn't argue.

They stood there for a second—just two students surrounded by the faint chatter of Gotham Academy’s afternoon lull. Tim rocked slightly on his heels before speaking again.

“Want to come over?”

That made Percy blink. “Over… where?”

Tim lifted a brow. “My place. The Manor. Wayne Manor.”

That word—Manor—landed in Percy’s ears like it belonged in a different universe. He imagined polished halls, too many doors, and silent rooms that echoed when you breathed too loud. A place with chandeliers and fresh fruit. The kind of place you could only visit by accident or reincarnation.

Percy tried to smirk, but it came out crooked. “You sure I won’t burst into flames at the door?”

Tim shrugged like he didn’t see the problem. “We’ve got fire extinguishers.”

“Nice,” Percy said dryly, then hesitated. His grip on his backpack strap tightened. “I don’t… really do houses like that.”

“You don’t have to do anything.” Tim’s tone softened. “It’s just a house. I’m inviting you because I want to. You can leave the second it sucks.”

Percy didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no either. He just stood there for another moment, like someone bracing for a wave, and nodded.

“Okay.”

From behind them, a voice chimed in far too cheerfully. “Finally!”

Steph grinned from a nearby bench, one leg swinging wildly. Cass sat beside her, calm as a cat, sipping from a thermos.

“I had money on this taking two more weeks,” Steph added.

“Lost the bet,” Cass said simply.

Tim didn’t turn around. “You guys are the worst.”

Percy exhaled something close to a laugh.

And just like that, the tension in his shoulders loosened by a fraction of a degree.

They walked side by side down the sidewalk, quiet for the first few blocks. Percy didn’t ask where they were going. He didn’t ask how big the house was, or why Tim sounded so casual about it. He just followed, slightly hunched, like he was expecting someone to change their mind.

Finally, to break the silence, he muttered, “You’re not about to drag me into some creepy mansion with culty vibes, right?”

Tim gave him a very dry look. “It’s a house. Not a haunted one.”

“That’s what a guy in a cult would say.”

Tim smirked. “There’s tea. Probably cookies. Very ominous.”

“…Cookies?”

“Mm-hm.”

Percy squinted. “What kind of cookies?”

“Almond, maybe. Or lemon shortbread. Depends if he baked today.”

“He?”

Tim glanced sideways. “You’ll see.”

Percy snorted, but the tension in his shoulders eased a little. “If I get murdered by someone in a cravat, I’m haunting you.”

“Deal,” Tim said. “But you’ll have to get in line.”

The gates alone should have tipped him off.

They were tall. Iron. Not trying to be fancy, but failing. The kind of gates that didn’t creak because they were oiled weekly, and not because no one ever used them. Tim entered a code on a hidden panel. The lock clicked.

Percy followed, slightly behind, hoodie sleeves tugged over his fingers like they might shield him from whatever world he’d just been dragged into.

The house came into view—more manor than house. Pale stone, ivy climbing the walls like green veins. Wide windows. A door that looked like it could repel a battering ram. It was too much. Too neat. Too clean.

This wasn’t a house. It was a statement.

Tim acted like none of that mattered.

He stepped up to the front door, turned the handle, and said, “We’re here,” like they’d just arrived at a 7-Eleven.

Percy hovered on the porch. “You live here?”

Tim turned. “Technically.”

“You said ‘a house.’ This is a tax bracket.”

Tim looked completely unbothered. “C’mon. He’s probably already—”

The door opened from the inside.

Percy startled.

An older man stood there, posture straight, expression calm, with a sort of poise that belonged in black-and-white films. Crisp shirt, subtle tie, a look in his eyes that said he knew seventeen ways to kill you and would still offer you tea afterward.

“Master Timothy,” the man greeted. His gaze moved politely to Percy. “And guest.”

Tim smiled faintly. “Hey, Alfred. This is Percy.”

Alfred nodded once. “A pleasure. Do come in.”

Percy blinked. Just once. Then stepped into the entry hall.

It was quiet. Polished. Ancient in that money-that-never-runs-out kind of way. Wooden paneling. A chandelier that didn’t try too hard. Walls that felt like they remembered every conversation ever held between them.

He shouldn’t be here.

He shouldn’t even be breathing this air.

“Would you like tea?” Alfred asked, already moving toward a side hall.

“I—uh.” Percy fumbled. “I don’t want to be a bother.”

Alfred stopped. Turned.

“There is no bother,” he said. Not unkindly. “Only guests who haven’t eaten yet.”

And somehow, that was worse.

Because it wasn’t pity. It wasn’t the weird, sideways sympathy people gave him when they figured he had a tragic backstory. This was just… normal. Polite. Kind in the terrifying way that made Percy feel like he might cry in a hallway with marble floors.

He swallowed. Nodded.

“Tea sounds good.”

Alfred inclined his head and disappeared.

Tim gave him a side-eye. “You okay?”

Percy kept his voice level. “Why does your butler talk like a war hero?”

“Because he is.”

“…What.”

Tim just smiled.

The kitchen was old, but not outdated. Everything gleamed softly—copper pans, marble counters, a kettle that whistled like it had good manners. The windows let in gold-tinted afternoon light, casting long shadows across the floor.

Percy sat stiffly at the long table while Alfred moved like he belonged in every space at once. He never raised his voice. Never asked questions. Just… served.

There were finger sandwiches. Actual finger sandwiches. Tea in expensive looking china cups. And, weirdly, cookies.

Percy stared at the plate.

“Are those lemon?”

“Indeed,” Alfred said, setting the teapot down. “And the tea is a lavender blend. You may find it… centering.”

Percy squinted at him. “Did Tim tell you I like that?”

“No,” Alfred said.

That was it.

No explanation. No shrug. Just a calm, courteous answer.

Percy glanced at Tim, who had already stolen a sandwich and was scrolling something on his phone like this was the most average Tuesday in existence.

Percy took a sip. It was centering. Annoyingly so.

Alfred poured his own cup and settled across from him with effortless grace.

“Have you been sleeping well, Perseus?”

The name hit him like a slap.

Percy’s cup froze halfway to his lips.

“…What did you just call me?”

Alfred looked entirely unbothered. “Perseus.”

“No one calls me that. I don’t even tell people that.”

Tim blinked. “Wait, your name is actually Perseus?”

Percy didn’t answer. He was still looking at Alfred.

The butler took a sip of his tea, eyes crinkling faintly at the corners. “It’s a good name. Strong. Old. Very few carry it these days.”

“But how did you—?”

“More shortbread?” Alfred interrupted smoothly, lifting the plate and holding it out.

Percy blinked. “What?”

“You seem the type who forgets to eat when distracted.”

“That’s—rude. And correct.”

Alfred offered a very faint, very knowing smile.

Percy took a cookie.

Tim was still looking between them like he’d missed three steps in a joke and wasn’t sure who the punchline was anymore.

Tim had insisted on giving him a tour.

Well—"insisted" might be generous. Percy had muttered something about "feeling weird sitting in the kitchen of a billionaire" and Tim had grinned, said “Come on then,” and started walking before Percy could protest.

The Manor was ridiculous.

Endless halls, vaulted ceilings, paintings older than New Rome. There was a room with a grand piano nobody touched. A staircase that seemed to spiral just for show. Suits of armor that Percy kept side-eying because if one of them moved, he was stabbing first and apologizing later.

Tim led him with practiced ease, throwing open doors like they were just another Tuesday. “This one’s the formal sitting room. No one uses it.”
“This one’s where Steph accidentally started a fire once.”
“This one’s… locked. Don’t worry about it.”

Percy worried about it.

But then they reached the library.

He stopped dead in the doorway.

Floor-to-ceiling shelves. Spiral stairs curling up the corners. Books that smelled like history and dust and things meant to be remembered. Sunlight filtered in through stained-glass windows in soft blues and golds, painting the carpet like holy ground.

Percy stepped inside like he was afraid to wake something.

“You good?” Tim asked, half-laughing.

“I—yeah. Yeah, just…” He ran his fingers along a row of hardcovers. “I grew up in a tiny New York apartment. So this? This feels like someone else's dream.”

Tim didn’t say anything. Just watched him carefully.

Percy kept moving, tracing spines, scanning titles—some in Latin, some in French, some in languages that made his vision flicker.

“You can borrow anything,” Tim said quietly.

Percy shook his head. “I’d give them water damage.”

“Okay,” Tim said, soft and matter-of-fact. “Then you can just read here. There’s blankets in the cabinet.”

“Blankets?”

“Yeah. I crash in here sometimes.”

That surprised Percy. “You? In here?”

“Sure.” Tim smiled. “It’s quiet. No one finds you unless they’re looking.”

Percy hesitated, then dropped onto one of the oversized armchairs like it might vanish under him. “Must be nice.”

Tim didn’t reply right away. Then, “Yeah. It is.”

For a while, they didn’t talk. The room didn’t need them to. Percy let his guard down inch by inch, the air soft against his skin, the quiet settling in his bones.

Then Tim sat across from him, legs folded up like a cat, and pulled a book from the shelf without looking.

Percy watched him for a moment, curious despite himself. “You ever read something just to feel less alone?”

Tim didn’t even look up. “Every day.”

They didn’t mean to end up there.

Tim had wandered off to take a call—some quiet mutter about "Steph again"—and Percy had followed the slow, creaking sound of an open door and warm air. It led him to a second-floor balcony, tucked between two stone pillars, with a view that stretched all the way to the Gotham skyline. The sun was bleeding into the horizon. The light was that kind of gold that only lasted a minute. Maybe less.

Percy leaned forward, arms resting on the cold iron railing. The wind played with the frayed hem of his hoodie. Somewhere below, a bird called once, sharp and lonely.

He hadn't realized how tense he was until now.

Inside, everything had been too still. Too perfect. The kind of perfect that felt like a trap.

But out here?

Out here, the world moved. The wind breathed. It didn’t feel like it was watching.

“Found you,” Tim said behind him.

Percy didn’t turn around. “Wasn’t hiding.”

“I know.” Tim came to lean beside him, close but not too close. “You like the view?”

Percy shrugged. “Better than rooftops.”

“That’s a low bar, dude.”

Percy smirked faintly. “You’d be surprised. Rooftops don’t talk back.”

Tim was quiet for a beat. “Neither do balconies.”

“Exactly.”

They stood in silence for a while. The wind picked up, rustling the ivy that crept up the stone walls.

Tim didn’t push. Didn’t ask him anything. He just stayed.

And that—somehow—was harder to take than any question.

“I don’t usually… do this,” Percy said after a long time. “Go to people’s houses. Be normal.”

Tim nodded. “Yeah. I figured.”

Percy looked sideways. “That obvious?”

Tim met his eyes. “Only to people who’ve done the same.”

That shut Percy up.

Because there was no judgment in it. Just… truth. Simple. Quiet. Like a folded blanket someone left for you, even though you didn’t ask.

The sun slipped lower. The gold turned grey.

Tim didn’t move.

Neither did Percy.

Eventually, Alfred appeared in the doorway like a ghost from an older time. “Would Mr. Jackson care to take a tin of tea home?”

Percy blinked. “What?”

Alfred held out a small metal tin. “You seemed partial to the lavender.”

Percy opened his mouth. Closed it.

“…Thanks,” he said quietly, taking it.

Alfred inclined his head and disappeared.

Tim glanced at the tin. “You gonna drink it?”

“I’m gonna stare at it awkwardly for three hours before deciding whether it’s a trap.”

Tim grinned. “Sounds healthy.”

They both knew it wasn’t. But they stood there anyway, letting the wind move around them.

Interlude: Alfred

Alfred had not spoken Latin aloud in thirty-five years.
Not since he left New Rome.

He had been born there—stone streets, ink-stained scrolls, the scent of olive oil and steel. Trained as all good legacies were: to serve, to strategize, to survive. The Legion had carved discipline into his bones, and when the gods didn’t need him anymore, he bowed out with quiet grace.

He crossed the world. Learned his tea temperatures. Watched over Thomas and Martha Wayne until the city tore them from his care. And then he stayed, because that’s what Roman legacies do.

They serve. Even when it hurts.

But even in Gotham, stories found him.

Not through monsters or oracles—but in the whispers of strange children who passed through hospitals with golden ichor on their lips. In scribbled notes from a Hephaestus kid who interned at WayneTech for one strange summer. In the bloodstained journals he never meant to read but couldn’t help deciphering.

The stories always came back to him.

Percy Jackson.

The boy who drowned a battlefield in a single breath.
The praetor who bent gods to his will.
The son of Neptune who fell into Tartarus and clawed his way out again.

The kind of hero Rome doesn’t make anymore.

Alfred had never seen a painting, never read an official scroll. But some names carve themselves into history like blade into bone. And when Tim Drake brought home a quiet boy with sea-glass eyes and ocean-wrecked silence, Alfred knew.

It wasn’t magic.

It was recognition.

The boy moved like a soldier and flinched like a survivor. His name—"Percy"—meant nothing to Gotham. But when Alfred offered tea and watched him hover by the doorway like a ghost in his own skin…

He saw it.

The tide beneath the boy’s breath.
The salt of a hundred battles.
The stillness of someone who had fought too long and too hard to believe this quiet could be real.

So he brewed the lavender. Added lemon, not milk.

And when the boy blinked at the offer and muttered, “Uh… thanks,” Alfred replied with a soft nod and a word he hadn’t used since the Legion.

“Of course, Praetor Perseus.”, said so quiet that only Percy was able to hear it.

The boy froze. Eyes wide.

Alfred did not explain. Roman legacies never do.

Instead, he left a tin of tea near the edge of the counter, turned back to his dish towel, and said nothing more.

The stories had come to Gotham.

And now, so had the hero.

Chapter Text

The first time Percy got a message from an unknown number, it read:

If your schedule permits, tea is served at four. – A.P.

No location. No context. Just that.

He stared at it in the doorway of his apartment, clutching a grocery bag and wondering if some cult had finally tracked him down.

The second message came a week later. Same wording. A little more firm.

Four o’clock. You’ll find the biscuits improved. – A.P.

He didn’t reply. But he went.

It wasn’t hard to guess who “A.P.” was—not after the visit to Wayne Manor, not after that moment in the kitchen when Percy had been called Perseus like it was a prayer, not a curse. Not after the tea that somehow didn’t taste like cheap perfume or boiled grass.

So he’d shown up again.

And again.

Every Thursday, Alfred sent a message. No emoji. No pressure. Just a time, and an unspoken promise that the tea would be hot and the kitchen quiet.

Now, weeks in, Percy was standing outside the side entrance of Wayne Manor again, hoodie pulled low, holding a plastic container of chocolate-covered pretzels he'd panic-bought on the way over.

He knocked once.

The door opened before he could knock a second time.

“Master Jackson,” Alfred greeted, with all the warmth of a hearth that had been burning for years. “Punctuality becomes you.”

“You really need to stop texting like a Victorian ghost,” Percy muttered as he stepped inside.

Alfred, already turning toward the kitchen, merely replied, “I shall take that under advisement.”

The house was quiet. Still. The kind of quiet Percy didn’t usually trust—but here, it felt intentional. Like the world had been given five minutes to breathe.

No one else ever seemed to be around on Thursdays. Percy figured the Waynes were rich enough to have schedules down to the second, and Alfred just happened to know the gaps.

In the kitchen, two cups were already waiting—one steaming with something citrusy and warm, the other plain black. Percy’s usual.

“I brought these,” Percy said, awkwardly placing the plastic container between them like a peace offering. “They looked fancy at the store. Probably taste like cardboard, though.”

Alfred took one, bit into it, and gave a single approving nod.

“Perfectly acceptable. A fine pairing for oolong.”

Percy sat. His shoulders dropped an inch.

No one asked about school. Or his past. Or the hoodie he hadn’t taken off in three weeks.

Instead, Alfred poured tea, passed the sugar, and started talking about the rising price of tomatoes in Gotham’s East Market—as if it mattered. As if it was normal.

Percy found himself nodding along. Sipping. Breathing.

After the second biscuit and the third topic—some lecture about the “proper boiling temperature for green tea”—Percy muttered, “Y’know, this is probably the most normal thing I’ve done all week.”

“Then you must return next week,” Alfred said simply. “Consistency is key to normality.”

He said it like it was a rule of nature.

Percy didn’t smile, but the corner of his mouth twitched. Just once.

And when he left, nearly an hour later, he already knew he’d come back.
Even if the others never noticed.
Especially because they didn’t.

It wasn’t planned.
At least Percy kept telling himself that.

But when he climbed the rusted fire escape two buildings over from his apartment, he didn’t hesitate before swinging over the ledge.

Didn’t blink when he saw Red Hood already there — relaxed, sprawled, every inch of him sharp in the dim city glow. His helmet sat beside him, still and silent like a second head. Two paper bags rested at his side. One already opened. One still warm.

“You’re late,” Red Hood said, boot tapping a lazy rhythm against the ledge.

“Didn’t realize I was on a schedule,” Percy replied, dusting his hands and dropping into a sprawl—closer this time. Not touching, but just close enough to make it feel intentional.

“You are now.” Red Hood nudged the second bag toward him. “Eat your gyro, mystery boy.”

Percy raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue. The bag was warm, grease already soaking the bottom in perfect, appetizing blotches. The first bite hit like ambrosia — savory and sharp, garlic kicking like a mule.

“Oh gods,” he groaned, head tipping back. “Is this... a bribe?”

“If it was, you'd be doing more than sitting three inches from my thigh.”

Percy smirked mid-chew. “Careful, Red. That almost sounded like flirting.”

Red Hood chuckled — low and unexpected. “If I flirt, you’ll know.”

Percy licked a streak of sauce from his thumb with slow, practiced ease. “You sure?”

Red Hood didn’t answer. Not with words. But he shifted — subtle, almost imperceptible — just enough to lean slightly into Percy’s space. Not a threat. Not even a move. Just... potential.

They ate like that. In sync, not mirroring — but aligned. The kind of quiet that builds when people stop pretending they don’t enjoy each other’s company. Below them, Gotham pulsed. Sirens wailed. Neon flickered. The city kept breathing.

“I don’t get your angle,” Red Hood said finally.

“I don’t have one,” Percy replied, mouth still half-full.

“That’s what worries me.”

“You think I’m dangerous?”

Percy’s chewing slowed.
He swallowed. Met Red Hood’s gaze. No fear. No posturing. Just curiosity — like he was trying to decide if he liked what that meant.

“You always flirt with guys on rooftops?” Percy asked.

“Only the ones who move like they’ve been to hell and came back better-looking.”

Percy grinned. “Guess I’m special then.”

“‘Special’ is one word for it.”

Percy leaned back on his elbows, stretching lazily like a cat in the sun. “You watching me, Red?”

A pause. Then, “Maybe.”

Percy’s voice dropped. “You like the view?”

Red Hood didn’t deny it. Just tilted his head. “You do that thing.”

“What thing?”

“That... sound. When you eat. The groaning. The licking. It’s indecent.”

Percy bit his lip and grinned wider. “Well, if I’m indecent, you’re the one feeding it.”

Red Hood laughed again — a real one this time. “You’ve got a mouth on you.”

“You should hear me when I’m trying.”

A breeze lifted Percy’s curls, and something shifted in Red Hood’s posture — an unguarded beat of stillness. Not affection. But interest. Charged, electric interest.

“You don’t ask what’s under the helmet,” Red Hood said after a moment.

Percy shrugged. “If you wanted me to know, you’d take it off.”

“Trusting, aren’t you?”

“Nope. I’m just good at knowing when I’m safe.”

Red Hood looked at him. Really looked.
And for a second, the air between them buzzed with something too big for words.

Percy stood slowly, brushing crumbs from his lap. “Thanks for dinner. Try not to pine too hard.”

“Too late,” Red Hood muttered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Go home, hoodie boy.”

Percy gave him one last smirk before vanishing into the night.
Red Hood stayed behind. Helmet untouched. Thoughts a mess.

When he finally went to clean up, a folded napkin slipped out of the bag.

Thanks for the view. Next time, bring dessert.
—P

Red Hood shook his head, smiling beneath the night sky.
Next time.
Yeah.
He was already looking forward to it.

Interlude: Tim

Thursdays were... weird.

Tim didn’t usually keep track of Alfred’s comings and goings — mostly because Alfred was the kind of person who appeared when you needed him, like a summoning spell in pressed linen.

But lately, on Thursdays, Alfred was oddly absent.

Not dramatically so. Just… elsewhere. The tea cart would be stocked but untouched. The usual sharp click of polished shoes on marble seemed muted. Alfred wasn’t avoiding anyone — he simply wasn’t there when he normally would be.

And then there was Percy.

Tim hadn’t thought much of it at first. Percy always left early — sometimes right after last period, sometimes just after lunch. He’d mutter something vague about “stuff to do” or “getting air” and vanish before Tim could ask what he meant.

But it always happened on Thursdays.

By week four, the pattern was impossible to ignore.

Tim leaned against the kitchen counter, arms folded, watching the still-steaming pot of tea someone had set out and then not touched. A plate of lemon shortbread sat in the center of the table, minus exactly two.

“Alfred?” he called.

No answer.

He checked the pantry. Empty.
Checked the study. No sign.
Checked the driveway. No car missing. Of course.

He glanced at the table again. Two cups. One black tea. One lavender.
Very specific.
Very familiar.

Tim narrowed his eyes. “...What the hell are you up to, old man?”

That evening, he texted Percy a meme. Just something dumb, low-stakes.

Tim: Thursday energy is real today 😴
Percy: lol yeah
Tim: You vanish a lot on Thursdays, y’know.
Percy: Maybe I’m in a cult.
Tim: That tracks.

Tim stared at the screen for a while after that. No follow-up. No elaboration.

Just that same deflective humor Percy always used when he didn’t want to talk.
And a growing feeling in Tim’s gut that something was happening right under his nose — not dangerous, not criminal, just… off-routine.

And somehow, Alfred was in on it.

Chapter Text

It started at school.

Steph slid into the seat next to him in the library during lunch like she’d been invited. (She hadn’t.) She plopped a banana on the table and grinned like she knew a secret.
“Movie night. Tonight. My place. You’re coming.”

Percy raised an eyebrow. “Am I?”

“Yup,” she said, popping the “p.” “Popcorn, blankets, dragon-themed emotional trauma. It’s a whole thing.”

He blinked at her. “...Did you just say trauma?”

“Yeah, but cozy trauma. With snacks.”

Cass appeared from somewhere behind him—silent as a ghost—and set a folded blanket on the table in front of him. Didn’t say anything. Just nodded once and drifted away.

Percy stared after her. “Is that a threat?”

Steph beamed. “That’s a welcome gift. You’ll need it.”

He should’ve said no.

Should’ve walked the other direction and melted into the nearest alley and slept on a rooftop like he usually did.
Instead, he nodded.

He was ten minutes late. Not on purpose. Probably.
Okay, maybe a little on purpose.

The room was warm. Gold-toned lighting. A crackling fireplace someone (probably Tim) had lit for vibes, not warmth. A big projector screen flickered with the opening scenes of How to Train Your Dragon. The whole thing looked like the start of a memory Percy wasn’t sure he was allowed to have.

Steph waved a fistful of popcorn like a flag of peace. “There will be snacks. There will be dragons. And there will be chaos.”

Cass tapped him gently on the shoulder before he could answer, her expression calm, unreadable. She handed him a blanket without ceremony, then curled up like a cat beside the couch, already halfway to sleep.

Tim was fiddling with the projector. Calm. Steady. Like this was just another night.

Percy hovered in the doorway for a full minute before shuffling in and lowering himself onto the floor—against the side of the couch, close enough to feel people’s presence, far enough not to touch.

Steph, curled across the beanbag like a gremlin queen, threw popcorn at his hoodie. “Welcome to Couch Club. Rule one: couch is optional. Rule two: Cass gets final say on the movie.”

He blinked at her. “...There are rules?”

“Oh, hundreds,” she said cheerfully. “Most of them made up on the spot.”

A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He didn’t fight it.

As the movie started, Percy let his shoulders relax. Just a little. The lights dimmed. Cass shifted beside him, quiet as ever. Tim ended up on the couch just above him, one knee slightly bent, socked foot brushing the blanket near Percy’s thigh.

No one asked him questions. No one stared too long.
No one needed anything from him.

He wasn’t used to that.

On-screen, the dragon bared its teeth. The boy didn’t run. Percy found himself staring too hard at the moment they looked at each other like equals—like monsters weren’t always what people thought they were.

His fingers curled in the blanket. His head tipped back against the couch behind him. The room smelled like buttered popcorn and old books and something sweet—Tim’s tea, maybe.

He closed his eyes. Just for a second.

Steph and Cass cleared out fast after the movie ended. Steph declared she was “emotionally compromised by dragons” and left in a dramatic heap, dragging Cass along with her by the arm while muttering about “dragon tax deductions.” Cass didn’t argue. Just stole the last handful of popcorn on her way out.

Tim lingered.

And so did Percy.

The fire crackled low in the grate. The room dimmed to soft gold and shadow. Percy sat cross-legged near the edge of the rug, a half-finished cocoa cupped between his hands. He hadn’t touched it in a while, but he liked the warmth. The way it grounded his fingers.

Tim sat on the couch above him, not quite looming, not quite hovering—just... present.

Percy didn’t look at him when he spoke. He kept his eyes on the flames, the flicker and bend of them. They reminded him of campfires. Of other people’s laughter. Of nights that didn’t hurt as much as the days.

“I had a friend once,” he said, voice soft and distant. “She didn’t talk much when I was like this. Just sat beside me. Made the world quieter.”

Tim didn’t answer.

Good. Percy wasn’t really looking for one.

“She used to just... be there. Like she knew I was barely holding myself together and didn’t want to say the wrong thing. So she didn’t say anything. Just... stayed.”

A pause.

Percy rubbed his thumb over the edge of the mug.

“I miss that.”

The fire popped. Shadows danced. Somewhere in the Manor, a grandfather clock ticked too loudly.

Tim’s voice was low. Careful. “She sounds important.”

“She was.”

A beat.

Tim said nothing more.

Percy glanced up, just for a second. Tim was watching the fire too now. Shoulders soft. Hands relaxed in his lap.

Percy looked away again. “There are worse places than hell, you know.”

Tim blinked. Said nothing.

Percy’s mouth twisted. “Hell’s honest. The worst places... smile while they hurt you. They tell you you’re lucky to be there.”

The words tasted like rust.

He expected tension. Awkward silence. Pity, maybe.

Instead, Tim shifted just slightly and nudged something across the floor toward him.

A new mug. Steam curling up. Hot cocoa, fresh. No words.

Percy didn’t take it. But he didn’t leave either.

After a while, the fire burned down to embers, and the silence between them stopped feeling heavy. It just… was.

Like maybe, if Percy stopped running long enough, he might actually survive sitting still.

It was movie night again but the others had left early.

Steph, in true Steph fashion, had yelled something about “sword fights or bust!” and dragged Cass out halfway through the film. Cass had gone with a roll of her eyes and a smirk that said she’d already memorized this one anyway.

That left him and Percy. Alone. With talking foxes and strange claymation chaos.

Tim hadn’t planned for that. But he didn’t mind.

He sat on the couch like always—center cushion, legs tucked in, hoodie sleeves pulled over his hands. His eyes were half on the screen, half on the figure beside him.

Percy had started the movie on the floor again.

But about fifteen minutes in, he moved.

No fanfare, no words. Just stood, stretched with a quiet sigh, and dropped into the far end of the couch like it wasn’t a big deal. Like his presence didn’t send something calm and electric through the room.

Tim didn’t say anything.

He didn’t look, but he felt Percy there—coiled tension slowly unspooling, body angled just slightly toward him, hoodie slouched like armor melting off.

The movie kept playing. Dry humor. Clever lines. Tim usually liked it. But tonight, he was counting breaths.

Percy shifted.

Closer.

Their shoulders didn’t touch, not yet. But Tim could feel the weight of him in the air. A gravity pulling in, not pushing away.

And then it happened.

Percy’s head tilted.

Soft. Thoughtless.

It came to rest—gently, carefully—against Tim’s shoulder.

Tim froze.

Not because he minded. Because he didn’t want to scare him off. Because this—this—felt like trust in its rarest form.

It felt like something sacred.

He let out a breath through his nose. His heart did something stupid. And warm.

Then, slowly, he adjusted. Just enough to stay solid. Just enough so Percy could rest without sliding off. He kept his hands still, sleeves pulled low, body calm.

The movie flickered. Dialogue blurred.

Tim didn’t move.

Percy’s breathing evened out. Not deep enough for sleep-sleep. But close. So close.

And Tim didn’t dare speak.

He just sat there.

Holding still.

Letting the weight of someone else’s exhaustion settle onto his shoulder like it belonged there.

When the credits rolled, Tim didn’t move.

Even when Percy shifted slightly in his sleep. Even when a strand of messy black hair curled under his chin.

He just stayed.

And for the first time in longer than he could remember, Tim didn’t feel like he needed to be anywhere else.

The next movie night was louder.

Steph was already quoting lines before the opening credits finished rolling. Cass had made herself a paper crown out of newspaper and sat on the back of the couch like it was a throne. Tim… was pretending not to be enjoying any of it, which only made Percy watch him more.

Percy wasn’t on the floor this time.

He was on the couch. Not in the middle. Not touching anyone. Just there.

His hoodie sleeves were pulled low. His knees tucked up near his chest. And, most importantly, he wasn’t panicking.

Steph threw popcorn at Cass. Cass caught it without looking.

“Don’t waste ammo,” Steph warned dramatically. “The Fire Swamp awaits!”

Percy huffed a breath—nearly a laugh.

He wasn’t sure when it had happened. When the ache in his chest had started dulling, like it was being padded with fleece and ridiculous movie quotes. When he’d stopped gripping the seams of his hoodie like lifelines.

He wasn’t okay. Not really.

But this?

This helped.

Tim passed him a blanket without looking. It smelled like cedar and dust and something warm. Percy didn’t need it, not really.

Still, he took it.

The movie went on. Sword fights. Rodents of unusual size. Cheesy declarations of undying love.

Steph was doing dramatic reenactments from the floor with a wooden spoon.

Cass gave her a slow clap. Tim smiled like he was trying not to.

And Percy?

He quoted half the movie under his breath.

The lines came easily—like something half-remembered from a better time. A simpler one.

“I don’t believe this,” Steph said at one point, popcorn in her curls. “You actually know this movie?”

Percy blinked. “My mom liked it,” he said, before he could stop himself.

Steph’s grin softened, but she didn’t pry. “Your mom had taste.”

Percy didn’t answer. Just pulled the blanket tighter around himself.

The firelight flickered off the crown Cass still hadn’t removed. Tim tossed a rogue piece of popcorn at her—it bounced off her head and she raised one eyebrow, the closest thing to a challenge Percy had ever seen in someone without speaking.

He smiled. Quiet. Barely there.

Didn’t even realize he’d done it.

But Tim noticed.

Of course he did.

It was after the movie, after the popcorn snowstorm, after Cass had disappeared like a ninja ghost into the walls.

Tim vanished to clean up the kitchen. Percy thought he could escape with the same stealth—but Steph was faster.

She popped out from behind the couch like a glitter-covered jack-in-the-box. “Hey, mystery man.”

Percy didn’t even flinch. “Hey, chaos goblin.”

Steph beamed like he’d paid her a compliment. “So. Vital question.”

She linked her arm through his like they were in the middle of a school hallway instead of the middle of Wayne Manor’s sunken movie room.

“What’s your favorite flavor of emotional baggage?”

Percy blinked. “...Grey.”

“Ugh, same.” She dragged him toward the hallway like they were going to prom. “You ever think about being less cryptic?”

“Not really.”

“Too bad. You’re officially adopted.”

Percy stopped walking. “What?”

Steph turned to face him, still looped around his arm. “Look, Cass says you’re not a threat. Tim already upgraded you from ‘suspicious loner’ to ‘person he brews tea for.’ And I’ve decided you’re fun.”

“That’s your criteria for adoption?”

“Yup.”

She grinned. It was big and unapologetic and weirdly comforting. She didn’t look at him like she was waiting for him to break. Didn’t flinch when he didn’t laugh. Just kept dragging him down the hallway like she’d known him forever.

“You’re lucky,” she added casually. “Tim doesn’t brew tea for just anyone. I’ve known him for years. All I get is coffee and judgment.”

Percy raised an eyebrow. “So tea’s a love language now?”

“Obviously. And Tim’s a weirdo about it. You’ve been selected, mystery boy.”

Percy snorted, despite himself. “You don’t even know if I like tea.”

“Doesn’t matter. He makes it anyway. He’s stubborn like that.”

Steph opened a random door—turned out to be the kitchen—and finally let him go.

She gave him a gentle punch on the arm. “Anyway. Welcome to the chaos. There’s no exit.”

Percy looked around the room. Heard Tim humming lowly while putting mugs away. Saw Cass’s folded paper crown on the counter. Felt something tighten in his chest—but not painfully.

He didn’t say thank you.

Didn’t have to.

Steph winked. “See you next movie night, new brother.”

It was strange how quickly movie nights had become… expected.

Not routine. Not exactly. But something that felt like a rhythm. A thread of normalcy stitched through the chaos of Gotham.

Percy showed up late, as usual.

The others were already sprawled across the couch when he wandered in. Steph was halfway off it, feet kicked over one armrest like she was trying to win an invisible game. Cass had taken the center cushion, completely silent, already claiming the popcorn bowl as her sovereign right.

Tim sat at the far end, a blanket around his shoulders like he’d forgotten it was there.

Percy hovered in the doorway for a beat too long. Then he crossed the room and lowered himself to the floor. Not too close. Just enough to feel… included.

He didn’t ask what movie was playing. He never did.

“Spirited Away,” Tim said softly, like he thought Percy might care.

He did, but not in the way Tim probably thought.

The movie started.

Percy didn’t speak. He rarely did. But something in this film—it pulled at him. The quiet magic, the loneliness of the train ride, the way the spirit looked at the girl like she was real even when she didn’t believe it herself.

It hit harder than expected.

He blinked and realized his hands were clenched in the blanket Cass had wordlessly handed him earlier. He hadn’t meant to hold it. But now it was wrapped around him like a second skin.

At some point, Steph passed out with her head in Cass’s lap. Cass didn’t flinch—just adjusted her posture slightly, like this happened every week.

Percy didn’t move.

The screen bathed the room in soft light. Chihiro stood on the train again, silent and sad and braver than anyone gave her credit for.

And before he even realized he was speaking, Percy whispered,
“I used to have someone who looked at me like that spirit did.”

It wasn’t meant for anyone.

But Tim, from the couch, said quietly, “They were lucky.”

The couch was soft.

Too soft, really.

Percy had learned not to get comfortable on furniture he didn’t own—there was always a price. But Steph had tackled him into the cushions before he could find an excuse, and Cass had draped a blanket over him like some mute, benevolent ghost. Tim hadn’t said anything—just passed him a bowl of popcorn and sat one cushion away.

The movie started. Fantastic Mr. Fox (again), something weird and dry and clever, with animals that looked like they were made from stitched felt and too much trauma.

Steph kept quoting lines under her breath. Cass was curled in an armchair like royalty. Tim—he was just there.

Still.

Present.

And Percy… relaxed.

He didn’t mean to.

But the movie was warm and strange, the room dim and safe, and the weight of the day pressed down on him like a thick quilt. At some point, he stopped paying attention to the fox on screen and started watching the way Tim’s fingers curled around his mug. Tension in the knuckles. Sleeves pushed halfway up. Calm, but… not.

Percy’s head drooped.

He shifted.

Tim didn’t react.

And before he knew it, his cheek was resting against something solid and warm and very much alive.

Tim’s thigh.

Shit.

Percy’s brain fogged with immediate panic, but his body betrayed him—heavy and slow with exhaustion, unwilling to move. He waited for Tim to tense or push him off.

It didn’t happen.

Tim just… stayed still.

Didn’t even twitch.

Percy drifted.

—

He woke up hours later.

The movie was long over. The room was quiet except for the faint tick of a wall clock. The lights were lower. Someone—probably Alfred—had turned off the projector and dimmed the side lamps.

Percy blinked groggily, lifted his head—

And immediately froze.

Tim was still there. Sitting upright. Head tilted back against the cushions. Fast asleep.

He looked… young.

No furrow in his brow. No tension in his jaw. Just a boy with shadows under his eyes, arms folded across his chest like he’d forgotten how to let go.

Percy’s throat tightened.

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep. He definitely hadn’t meant to fall asleep on someone. He was the guy who kept space between himself and the world. Who slept with one foot on the ground and a knife under the pillow.

Not this.

Not safe.

Not soft.

Careful not to wake him, Percy slid off the couch. Quiet. Precise. Barefoot ninja mode. He hesitated only once—just long enough to pull the blanket back up over Tim’s shoulders.

Then he slipped out.

—

By the time he reached the sidewalk outside the Manor, the morning air was cool and pink with sunrise.

Percy shoved his hands deep in his pockets and stared at the streetlight blinking in the distance.

He shouldn’t have stayed.

He shouldn’t have used Tim like a damn body pillow.

But gods…

He hadn’t felt that warm in months.

Maybe years.

He shook his head, muttered, “Idiot,” at himself, and started walking toward the train.

Somewhere in his pocket, his phone buzzed.

A text from an unknown number.

📸 [image attachment: Percy fast asleep on Tim’s lap, mouth slightly open, blanket draped over both]
Steph: “y’all are disgusting. also adorable. 11/10 would ship.”

Percy groaned into his hands.

But he didn’t delete the picture.

Not yet.

The city was still half-asleep.

Gotham at 4 a.m. was more honest than usual—quiet, grimy, and too tired to lie about what it was. The air smelled like wet pavement and leftover rain. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed, but it didn’t feel urgent. Just routine.

Percy walked fast.

He’d left Wayne Manor without making a sound. Just peeled himself off Tim’s lap—carefully, painfully—and wrapped the blanket back around him like it might erase the warmth he shouldn’t have taken.

What the hell was he doing?

Sleeping. On Tim. Touching someone. Letting himself be seen like that—unguarded, soft.

It was stupid. He was stupid.

You don’t get to have things like that, the voice in his head said. You’re not built for it. You’re the weapon they point at monsters, not the one who gets to curl up beside someone and fall asleep to animated foxes.

The streets near his apartment were familiar—cracked sidewalks, flickering streetlights, that one alley that always smelled like burnt plastic. He turned the corner near the corner store when—

“Late night?”

Percy froze mid-step.

Red Hood leaned against the brick wall just outside the bodega. Hood up, helmet on, arms crossed. Like he'd been waiting.

“Or early morning,” Red Hood continued.

Percy forced his pulse back into something resembling normal. “Neither. Just… couldn’t sleep.”

“Didn’t look like that from where I was standing,” Red Hood said.

Percy tensed. “You tracking me?”

“Not officially.” A beat. “You okay?”

No. Yes. Maybe. Percy shrugged. “Just needed air.”

Red Hood stepped closer, boots scuffing the pavement. He didn’t crowd Percy, but he didn’t back off either. “You look like someone lit a fire behind your eyes and walked away.”

Percy huffed. “Poetic.”

“You’re deflecting.”

“Always.”

They stood there for a moment—just two half-shadowed figures in the dawnlight of Gotham’s underbelly.

“I fell asleep,” Percy admitted finally. “By accident. At someone’s place.”

Red Hood tilted his helmeted head. “And now you're spiraling about it?”

Percy gave him a sidelong look. “You always this emotionally intuitive?”

“Only for strays who forget how to take a compliment.”

Percy laughed—short and soft, like he didn’t mean to.

Red Hood leaned back again. “You didn’t do anything wrong, you know.”

“Didn’t say I did.”

“You didn’t have to.”

They fell quiet again. Somewhere far off, a garbage truck groaned into motion.

“You should sleep,” Red Hood added eventually. “Not just nap on couches. Actual rest. In your own bed. At night! For at least 9 hours.”

Percy smiled, tired and sharp-edged. “What, gonna tuck me in now?”

“Only if you ask nicely.”

He started walking. Red Hood let him go, didn’t follow, just lifted a hand in lazy salute.

“Goodnight, hoodie boy.”

Percy didn’t turn around. “It’s morning.”

“Semantics.”

The apartment hallway smelled like cheap paint and old linoleum. The overhead light flickered once, buzzed, and gave up. Percy’s boots echoed too loud on the concrete floor.

Almost home.

He turned the corner toward his door—and nearly bumped into a floral-print bathrobe.

“Oh!” The small, curly-haired woman blinked up at him. “Goodness, sweet boy, you gave me a fright.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Flores,” Percy muttered, trying to gather himself. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

She waved a hand. “Nonsense. I’m just taking Mr. Whiskers out for his sunrise constitutional.” She nodded toward the fluffy orange cat leashed to her wrist. “He insists.”

The cat meowed like he’d seen war.

“You look tired,” she added gently. “Long shift?”

Something about her tone cracked the ice in his chest. Percy rubbed at his eyes. “Yeah. Long night.”

She looked him over once—quiet, knowing. “Well. You’re home now. That’s something.”

It was.

“Thanks,” he said, voice barely above a whisper.

She smiled, warm and worn. “If you ever need company that doesn’t talk much, Mr. Whiskers and I are excellent at silence. You know where to find us.”

Percy nodded, then fished out his keys with shaking fingers and let himself inside.

The door clicked shut behind him.

The apartment was small. Barely furnished. But it was quiet.

Safe.

Percy collapsed onto the bed fully clothed, and for once, sleep came fast.

Interlude: Tim‘s POV

Movie night was supposed to be low-stakes.

A comfort thing. Popcorn, dumb quotes, blankets. A way to keep Percy orbiting them without pressure.

Cass picked Fantastic Mr. Fox. Steph screamed “I’m a wild animal!” halfway through her third bowl of popcorn. Tim had prepped the projector, the snacks, the backup blanket—everything was under control.

Or it had been.

Until Percy dropped onto the couch. Without hesitation. Without picking his usual spot on the floor like a wary cat sizing up a trap.

No, this time Percy settled in like he belonged.

Tim hadn’t been ready.

He’d planned to sit at a polite distance. Just close enough to be reassuring. Just far enough to not scare him off.

But Percy had curled into the other corner like a blanket-wrapped question mark. By the twenty-minute mark, he was visibly relaxed.

By the forty-minute mark, he was leaning sideways.

By the fifty-minute mark—

His head landed squarely on Tim’s thigh.

Tim stopped breathing.

Literally. Fully forgot how lungs worked.

His eyes darted toward Steph and Cass, half-expecting one of them to scream CODE RED, PERCY INITIATED CONTACT. But Cass was asleep (or pretending), and Steph had already vanished to “liberate” more snacks.

Tim stared down at Percy’s head.

Curls. Warmth. Soft exhale. Actual cheek-on-leg contact.

He was going to die.

He was also not going to move. He’d sooner explode than wake him.

Tim forced himself to keep breathing. Focused on the screen. The fox was saying something existential. Something about wildness and not fitting in. Figures.

Under the blanket, Percy shifted slightly—his hand brushing Tim’s knee before settling again.

Tim’s soul left his body.

He glanced toward the doorway.

Escape is impossible. Emotional vulnerability is imminent.

Steph returned near the end of the movie. Froze in place. Raised her phone with predatory slowness.

“Don’t,” Tim mouthed.

She took the picture anyway.

“Dead,” he whispered. “I’m actually dead.”

Steph giggled and tiptoed away like the chaos gremlin she was born to be.

The credits rolled. Tim still hadn’t moved. His leg was numb. His spine ached. But Percy was sleeping. On him. And he looked… peaceful.

Like he hadn’t felt safe in a long time and was finally letting go.

Tim sat there long after the movie ended.

Chapter Text

Chapter Title explained :

The German idiom „Vom Regen in die Traufe“ literally translates to “From the rain into the eaves” (or “drip-edge”), but figuratively, it's equivalent to the English “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

Both expressions describe a situation where someone escapes a bad situation only to end up in an even worse one.

So, while the rain (Regen) is bad, the Traufe—the spot where the water runs off the roof—is worse, because you're now under the concentrated downpour. Just like jumping out of the frying pan (hot) into the fire (blazing).

Jason POV:

He saw him walking home.
Well—“walking” was generous. It was more like drifting.

Hood up. Shoulders hunched. That soft, haunted shuffle like the kid was sleepwalking through molasses and memories. He didn’t stumble, didn’t limp, but something in his posture screamed: not okay.

Jason had been doing his usual late patrol, bike idling near the corner, when he spotted the familiar figure turn into his block. He didn’t expect to see him this far uptown, and definitely not at this hour. The sun hadn’t even considered rising yet.

Something about that slouched silhouette made Jason slow down. He didn’t kill the engine right away—just watched. The kid moved like someone who hadn’t slept in weeks and only just realized it.

When they passed each other on the sidewalk—Jason stepping off the curb, helmet in place, hands relaxed—there wasn’t surprise. Just recognition. They’d been orbiting each other long enough now that this... this weird in-between camaraderie had become its own language.

The kid raised a brow like he expected a snarky remark. Jason gave him one.

“You should sleep,” Red Hood said, casual and half-rough. “Not just nap on couches. Actual rest. In your own bed. At night. For at least nine hours.”

The kid smirked, crooked and tired, sharp-edged like a razor in honey. “What, gonna tuck me in now?”

Jason didn’t miss a beat. “Only if you ask nicely.”

That pulled something close to a real laugh. The kid shook his head, didn’t stop walking.

Jason let him go. Didn’t follow. Just stood there on the sidewalk, arms folded, watching him move farther down the block.

“Goodnight, hoodie boy,” Jason called, lifting a lazy half-salute.

The kid didn’t turn around. “It’s morning,” he said, already stepping inside.

“Semantics,” Jason muttered under his breath.

The kid moved like a guy underwater, weight pressing from all sides. Jason stayed parked half a block down, engine killed, helmet on.

Not that he was worried.
Not that he cared.
But… something felt off.

He’d seen the kid before. On rooftops. In shadows. Behind that cocky half-smile and sharp comebacks was something heavy, something caged. Jason had met enough broken things to recognize the shape of them.

The kid reached the front door, fought with a busted lock for a second, then vanished inside. Didn’t look up. Didn’t glance around. Didn’t even pretend to check his surroundings.

Rookie mistake, Jason thought.
But there was no heat in it. Just a chill that settled in his gut and wouldn’t shake loose.

The door clicked shut behind him.

He stayed where he was for a minute longer, straddling the bike, listening. Gotham hummed. A dog barked somewhere. Pipes clanked inside the building—old ones, probably.

Jason told himself to leave. Patrol wasn’t going to finish itself, and this wasn’t his problem.
But he didn’t start the bike.

Instead, he stared at the building like it might offer him answers. Or warning.
Something didn’t sit right.

The kid had looked... wrecked.
Like he was running on fumes.

Jason waited.
Just a minute.
Just long enough to make sure nothing went sideways.
It was a gut feeling.
And Jason Todd had learned to trust his gut.

Even when he didn’t like what it told him.

Jason wasn’t planning to stay more than five minutes. Just a check-in. A gut-check.
He told himself it was standard—Crime Alley protocol. No one really slept peacefully here, anyway.

But then he heard it.
Not a scream. Not an explosion.
A crack. A snap. A wrongness.

And then, the rush.

The building shuddered. The sound was wet and sharp, like something splitting open beneath the foundation. One second, the world was quiet. The next—

CRASH.
GUSH.

Water exploded from somewhere deep inside the structure.
Not a leak. Not a burst pipe. A goddamn tidal wave.

Jason was already moving.

He sprinted to the rusted front doors, forced them open, and was hit with a wall of water chest-deep and rising. It surged down the stairwell like it had been waiting—hunting—and the second he stepped in, he felt the chill grip his bones.

“Shit,” he hissed, fighting the current. He slammed the doors shut behind him to slow the outside flow and shoved forward, body braced against the icy force.

Voices were shouting from the upper floors. Panicked. High. Children and elderly tones. Someone screamed for a cat. A baby cried. Feet thudded. Something crashed—maybe furniture. Maybe part of the wall.

Jason didn’t hesitate. He started climbing the stairs, water dragging at his boots, cloak soaked and heavy. The building was already old and barely maintained. Now it was dying. Floor by floor.

He paused at the second landing. Water was already up to his waist. A middle-aged man was trying to help an elderly woman down the steps, both of them soaked, gasping.

“Move!” Jason shouted, voice distorted behind his helmet. “Get her out—go through the side alley exit, it’s clearer!”

The man didn’t argue. Just nodded and kept moving.

Jason pushed past them and made it to the third floor. Water had reached the bottom step there, bubbling out of light fixtures, pouring through the ceiling like rainfall. Mold and mildew would set in within hours—if the place didn’t collapse first.

“Anyone else up here?!” he shouted, voice carrying. “Get to the stairwell! Stay close to the walls!”

A teenage girl opened her apartment door and blinked at him, wide-eyed, holding a dripping cat in a towel. Jason grabbed a fallen broom, passed it to her.

“Use this to steady yourself. It’s slick as hell. Go!”

She went. Quietly. Quickly. People listened to Red Hood when he barked orders. Especially when death was lapping at their feet.

He moved faster now—checking doors, kicking a few open when they didn’t answer. Most were empty or already evacuated. He helped a mother carry two toddlers down three flights. Gave a man his own mask to protect against mold. Hauled a dresser off a pinned ankle and carried the guy fireman-style to the stairwell.

But even through the chaos, one name—no, not name—one presence kept flickering in the back of his skull.

Hoodie boy.
Too quiet. Too still.

He hadn’t seen him leave.

Which meant he was still here.

Jason’s boots thudded heavily on the fourth-floor landing as he reached the hallway. He stopped and listened.

There. A faint splash. Barely audible above the moaning pipes and rushing water.

He followed the sound—left corridor, third door. The one with the busted lock and the crack under the frame. He kicked it in.

Water had seeped under the threshold, flooding the floor with an inch or two—rising fast.

The apartment was... still.

Too still.

Jason stepped inside slowly, helmet scanning the room. The place was minimal—bare furniture, no real decoration. A couch. A blanket. A mug on the counter. Nothing personal. Nothing permanent.

Except him.

Curled on the bed, tangled in the sheets, was a too-familiar shape. Hoodie damp. Hair clinging to his forehead. Face twisted in something between terror and exhaustion.

And unmoving.

Jason crossed the room in three steps, heart hammering against Kevlar.

He knelt beside the bed. “Hey. Hey!”

No response.

He reached out and shook the kid’s shoulder—not rough, but firm.

Still nothing.

The water licked up the bedframe now. It was rising faster in here. A main pipe must’ve burst beneath this unit. The sound of rushing water was like thunder trapped behind drywall.

Jason shook him harder. “Wake up! C’mon!”

A sharp inhale. A choked gasp.

Eyes opened.

Not just opened—snapped open.

Wild. Glowing faintly in the dark. Like phosphorescent algae or something from a dream.

The kid flinched away, heart pounding so hard Jason could see it in the way his ribs moved under his hoodie.

Jason held up both hands. “Easy. You’re okay. You were dreaming.”

No answer. Just rapid, shallow breaths.

“I need you to move, alright?” Jason said, voice calm, almost gentle. “The building’s flooding. We’ve got to go.”

The kid stared at him like he was seeing a ghost. Then blinked. Then looked down at the water, as if noticing it for the first time.

He shivered. Silent. But nodded.

Jason helped him up—he swayed like a sleepwalker—and without thinking, Jason just scooped him up.

He didn’t protest.

Didn’t do anything, really, except cling to the front of Jason’s armor like the noise of the world was still catching up.

Jason hauled him back into the hall. The water was up to mid-calf now. People were still evacuating, but the panic had settled into movement. Order. Those who could walk were helping those who couldn’t.

By the time they made it back to the front doors, the worst was past. First responders were starting to arrive. Sirens in the distance. Flashing lights beginning to bloom.

Jason didn’t stop until they were in the alley behind the building—quieter, darker, and dry.

He set the kid down carefully on a stack of shipping pallets.

“Sit. Breathe.”

He shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around the shaking figure, heavy and warm.

“You okay?”

A nod. Small. Fragile.

Jason stepped back, watched him pull the jacket tighter. Watched the breath return to his chest in full, shuddering waves.

He wanted to say more.

Ask questions.

Offer something—words, safety, hell, even a dumb joke.

But instead he just said, “You scared the shit out of me, you know.”

The kid looked up. Tired. Wet. Hollow-eyed.
But grateful.

“…Sorry.”

Jason snorted. “Yeah, well. Don’t do it again.”

He turned away before he could do something stupid.

Like stay.

Interlude: Percy

The world smelled like wet concrete and borrowed leather.

Percy sat on the curb outside his apartment building, Red Hood’s too-big jacket still clinging to his shoulders like a secret he wasn’t sure he was allowed to keep. It was warm. Stupidly warm. Faintly smoky in a way that felt familiar, like a campfire he never sat beside.

He blinked slowly. Water ran down the street in lazy rivulets, reflecting early morning sunlight in broken flashes. Sirens wailed somewhere far off—delayed, distant, almost unreal. People milled about, coughing and soaked and clutching cats and blankets and arguments.

No one was looking at him.

Not anymore.

Red Hood had left without saying much else. Just made sure Percy wasn’t bleeding, wasn’t dying, wasn’t screaming anymore—and then vanished. Like a shadow that somehow remembered to bring you dinner before disappearing.

Percy hadn’t said thank you.

He rubbed at his eyes with one damp sleeve, fingers brushing over the corner of his mouth. Had he dreamed that whole thing? No. His body hurt too much for it to be a dream. His throat ached from screaming. His apartment was... probably unlivable.

Which meant he had nowhere to go. Again.

He should stand up. Find somewhere dry. Make a plan. Be smart. Be responsible.

Instead, he just curled his knees up tighter and let the jacket fall around him like armor.

He’d had another nightmare. That much was clear.

It didn’t take a genius to guess which one.

He could still feel the pressure of falling—feel the cold, the claws, the way Annabeth’s hand had slipped through his fingers just before she caught it again. He could still hear Nico screaming his name from the other side of the Doors.

But when he’d woken up this time, it hadn’t been Tartarus.

It had been water. Everywhere. Rising, crashing. Flooding the building like it was trying to erase it.

He didn’t remember screaming. Or breathing. Or clawing his way toward the surface. He just remembered hands. Arms. A familiar helmet gleaming above him, like a lighthouse cutting through the dark.

And a voice.

“You’re okay. You’re safe.”

Percy didn’t believe it, but he’d wanted to.

He stared at his shoes, soaked and streaked with dust. The laces were untied. They’d probably been like that all day. His brain felt frayed at the edges, too soft to hold shape. He should be panicking. But all he felt was empty.

And safe.

That was the strangest part.

Because for one sliver of a moment—when those arms had lifted him out of the wreckage, when that jacket had landed on his shoulders, when that helmeted head had tilted just enough to check if he was breathing—he’d felt like maybe he wasn’t alone.

Maybe someone would actually notice if he didn’t make it.

Percy wasn’t used to that.

Not anymore.

He exhaled slowly, watching his breath fog in the air despite the warm jacket. His fingers tightened around the lapels like they might disappear.

Red Hood had said goodnight.

Percy had corrected him. Called it morning. Something about that moment stuck in his ribs.

Semantics.

He smiled faintly, just for himself. It was the kind of line someone like Annabeth would’ve thrown back with a raised eyebrow and a smug grin. The kind of teasing he hadn’t let himself miss until now.

His fingers brushed something stiff in the jacket pocket.

A receipt. Crumpled. Not his.

He didn’t pull it out. Just let it stay there—proof that the moment had happened. That the man who wasn’t afraid of him had sat beside him long enough to forget his own jacket.

That maybe, just maybe, Gotham didn’t want to chew him up and spit him out like every other place.

He stood slowly, knees protesting.

Time to find somewhere else to sleep.

Somewhere new.

But first, he tugged the jacket closer, like a shield.

And he didn’t let go.

Chapter Text

The jacket stayed on.

Percy’s shoes squelched as he walked, laces dragging, the weight of each step reminding him that his socks were soaked, that his feet were freezing, that his life was once again a soggy heap of disaster with no reset button.

The sidewalk shimmered with morning haze. Someone’s smoke alarm still screeched from the building behind him, unanswered. He didn’t look back.

He didn’t have a reason to.

The second he turned the corner, he regretted it. Not because the street was loud or flooded or on fire—it wasn’t. It was just… still. Still and ordinary, like the world hadn’t noticed it had almost drowned him.

He walked two more blocks before someone called his name.

"Perseus?"

He flinched.

Mrs. Flores stood beside a battered travel bag, her old red umbrella clutched in one hand and her cat carrier in the other. She was wearing her winter coat, even though it was July.

He blinked. "Hi," he said dumbly, like they’d bumped into each other at the grocery store and not… whatever this was.

Her wrinkled eyes narrowed, scanning him top to toe. She frowned at his limp hair, the ripped sleeve, the bagless hands. "You look like hell, mijo."

Percy shrugged. "Yeah. That tracks."

She sighed, soft and warm like chamomile tea. "My niece is driving me out to Metropolis. They said the building won’t have clean water for weeks. I told them I could stay—what's a little sewage in the walls? But they threatened to call Adult Protective Services."

He didn’t laugh. He wanted to. His chest hurt too much.

Mrs. Flores reached into her coat and pulled out a paper envelope, thin and crinkled at the edges. “It’s not much. But you helped carry my groceries that one time, so I guess I owe you.”

He tried to refuse. She didn’t let him.

Inside was a $20 bill, a peppermint, and a tiny slip of paper that read, in loopy handwriting:
“Don’t forget you are not nobody.”

He stared at it for a long moment.

"I'll be back in a few weeks," she added gently. "Try not to vanish in the meantime. Gotham’s got too many ghosts already."

He nodded, not trusting his voice. The cat meowed. She waved.

And then she was gone.

He stood there for a while, clutching the envelope like it might catch fire if he blinked.

The waterlogged jacket weighed heavy on his shoulders, smelling faintly of gunpowder and road dust. Not his. Not meant for him. But he couldn’t take it off. His hands wouldn’t let him.

Eventually, he turned and walked back toward the building—not to go inside. Just to see. Maybe to confirm it wasn’t a hallucination.

But his apartment door had already been pried open. A caution notice hung half-peeled on the frame.

Inside, everything was dead.

The mattress was a sponge. His few clothes were streaked with mud. His favorite mug lay shattered in the corner.

The sketchbook was the worst.

It had been a gift from Grover, years ago. Just empty pages and a broken spine now.

He tried not to breathe as he picked through the wreckage. There was nothing to save. No home to stay in. No money, no phone, no plan.

The $20 would last one meal. Maybe a bus ticket. But not both.

And gods forbid he call his father.

No. Percy Jackson didn’t ask Poseidon for help unless the world was actively ending. And even then, only reluctantly.

So he did the only thing he could.

He left.

He walked for hours, jacket zipped high, head down. Ignored the ache in his feet, the fuzz in his brain, the way his stomach clawed at his spine. Searched side streets, dead alleys, cracked doors. A place—any place—that wasn’t too rat-infested or structurally unsound.

And when he found one—a building barely clinging to its own name, tucked behind a shuttered shop and boarded windows—he stared at it for a long time.

It had a roof. Four walls. No heat. No light.

It was enough.

He climbed the stairs, found a room with only a little mold, and curled into a corner like a question he couldn’t answer.

The jacket stayed on.

He didn't cry.

He just stopped thinking.

By the second day, Percy stopped feeling hungry.

Not because his stomach didn’t hurt—it did—but because the ache had dulled into something cold and familiar. Like an old bruise he kept pressing just to see if it still hurt. He told himself he'd eat when he found something. When the world stopped spinning. When he could stand without seeing black spots. When he cared.

None of those moments came.

The building moaned sometimes, metal shifting against forgotten time. The walls flaked paint in quiet sheets. He counted the layers once. Gave up at five.

Sunlight filtered in through a high, cracked window. Dust floated through it like lazy snow. He’d always liked light like that—Annabeth used to call it “the golden hour.” Said it made her feel like the world could be soft.

This wasn’t soft.

The light here felt like it was judging him.

He curled up tighter on the cold floor, still wrapped in the jacket. Still wearing the same clothes from the flood. Still barefoot, because his soaked sneakers had started to rot and the smell had made him gag. He'd thrown them out the window three days ago. Or maybe four. Time was weird now. Heavy. Slippery. Like water on tile.

Sometimes he dreamed of Tartarus.

Sometimes he didn't sleep at all.

When the dreams came, they dragged him under fast and rough—black water, choking screams, twisted hands, teeth that whispered in Ancient Greek. He’d wake up gasping, clawing at the walls, throat raw from screaming words he didn’t remember learning.

Once, he ripped the jacket off. Just tore at it, yanked it over his head and hurled it across the room like it had betrayed him.

Ten seconds later he was on the floor, shaking, eyes unfocused and heart jackhammering like it wanted out of his chest.

He couldn’t breathe.

The shadows had teeth again.

The air had gone sharp and cruel and wrong.

And the only thing that pulled him back—dragged him out, tethered him to now—was crawling across the room, grabbing the jacket with both hands, and wrapping it around himself like it was armor.

He didn’t take it off again.

Not once.

The nightmares didn’t stop.

Neither did the silence.

He didn’t leave the building.

Didn’t go to school.

Didn’t check his phone—not that it worked anymore. Not that anyone was texting.

He watched the city from behind slats of wood and broken glass. Heard sirens. Laughter. Sometimes the flutter of wings from pigeons that had made nests in the rafters.

Once, a kid ran by on the street below with a Batman toy in his hand, yelling something about lasers.

Percy felt like a myth watching a child play pretend. Like some old god carved into stone, forgotten by every prayer that ever mattered.

One night—maybe the fifth, maybe the sixth—he realized he was talking to the jacket.

Not to it, exactly. Just... while wearing it.

“You’re being dramatic,” he muttered aloud. “It’s not that cold.”

The jacket didn’t reply. Obviously.

He kept talking anyway.

“I’m not gonna die here. Okay? I’ve been in worse places than this. This is just… Gotham. With fewer cockroaches.”

Silence.

Percy’s voice cracked. “Right?”

The city didn’t answer. The jacket didn’t hug back. But it stayed warm. It smelled like smoke and sweat and asphalt and maybe hope, if you were desperate enough.

He pulled the hood up and closed his eyes.

If he was lucky, tonight he’d just dream of falling.

Jason POV

It had been four days.

Four full rotations of Gotham’s cracked skyline, four nights of rain-soaked rooftops and empty fire escapes—and no sign of him. No shadow on the ledges. No rustle of movement in that barely-there way Jason had gotten used to. No hoodie kid appearing out of nowhere with snark half-buried in silence.

He was just… gone.

And Jason hated how that messed with his head.

He told himself it wasn’t a big deal. Not really. People flaked. People left. That kid was always half-feral anyway. Maybe he just moved on, found another alley, another streetlight, another damn rooftop.

But the thing was—Jason had looked.

Night one, he'd told himself he wasn’t looking. Just patrolling like usual. Passing by the same streets. Slowing slightly near the destroyed building. Just in case.

Night two, he checked all the usual haunts. Even the broken vending machine spot where they’d once eaten sandwiches in complete silence like it was a sacred ritual.

Night three, he actually asked around. That scrawny tech kid in the bodega hadn’t seen him. The old guy who ran the garage said he hadn’t seen the “weird one in the hoodie” in days.

Night four, Jason stopped pretending.

He didn’t sleep. Didn’t eat more than a few bites. Just kept patrolling. More like pacing now. Back and forth across every rooftop in Crime Alley, scanning shadows for a shape he knew too well.

That jacket—his jacket—should’ve stood out like a flare. But nothing.

He was gone.

And Jason... Jason hated this part.

Because it wasn’t just worry. Not anymore. It was something colder. Sharper. Guilt gnawed at the back of his skull like a crow on a corpse. He shouldn’t have let him walk away that morning. He should’ve insisted. Followed. Dragged him somewhere safe and stayed.

But he hadn’t. He’d played it cool. Said goodnight. Flirted, even. Like a damn idiot.

And now?

Now the kid was missing and Jason couldn’t stop remembering how light he’d felt when he carried him out of that building. How quiet he’d gone once the screaming stopped. How broken he’d looked, sitting there on the curb like he hadn’t felt safe in years.

Jason didn’t do emotions. Didn’t do soft. But that night had cracked something open in him he couldn’t tape shut.

He checked the alleys again. Every crumbling doorway. Every rooftop.

Nothing.

Just wet concrete and the taste of panic blooming slow and bitter on his tongue.

Where the hell are you, hoodie boy?

He didn’t say it out loud.

But he meant it with everything he had.

Percy POV:

He wasn’t sure what day it was.

Maybe Tuesday. Maybe not. It didn’t matter. The building didn’t have clocks. Just dust and cold concrete and a leak in the ceiling that dripped in uneven intervals like a slow countdown to something he didn’t want to reach.

His hoodie was long gone. Everything had been soaked—destroyed. But Red Hood’s jacket clung to him like memory, like warmth pressed into fabric. He tried to take it off. Twice. The second time ended with him on the floor, shaking so hard his teeth ached.

He hadn’t tried again.

The nightmares were getting worse. Not just Tartarus. Not just the monsters or the dead eyes staring from the dark. Now they bled together—New York swallowed by waves, Annabeth slipping away, Sally crumbling into seafoam, Jason (the other Jason) falling with a look of surprised betrayal.

Sometimes he heard Nico screaming.

Sometimes he heard nothing.

And always—always—he woke up gasping, his hand fisting into a jacket that didn’t belong to him, like it was the only tether holding him together.

He hadn’t eaten in days. Didn’t remember how hunger felt. Just a vague hollowness in his gut like a wave had carved him out.

At some point, he stopped counting the cracks in the wall. Stopped flinching when he heard footsteps outside the boarded window.

He’d turned his phone off. The battery was dead anyway. He didn’t need reminders. Didn’t want them.

But this morning...

Something had shifted.

He didn’t know what. Maybe the drip in the ceiling finally stopped. Maybe it was the way sunlight cracked through the dust and hit the floor just so, like a sword unsheathing.

Or maybe—maybe—he just couldn’t stand the silence anymore.

His hand trembled as he sat up. Limbs stiff, body humming with leftover fear. The jacket swished as he moved, brushing against him like a whisper. Like armor.

He didn’t take it off.

He couldn’t.

But he did stand. He did breathe. He did look toward the jagged hole in the boarded door and think—I should go to school.

Not because he cared about classes. Not because he missed anyone.

But because if he didn’t move, if he stayed here one more hour, he was afraid the building would become part of him. And he wasn’t ready to be a ruin just yet.

So he stood.

He wrapped himself tighter in smoke and leather and Red Hood’s scent and opened the door.

The city greeted him with cold air and car horns. Too loud. Too fast. Too real.

He stepped into it anyway.

Tim POV:
Tim noticed everything. It was kind of his thing.

So when Percy Jackson didn’t show up for a few days, he clocked it. When a few days became over a week, he moved past “mildly concerned” and straight into “something-is-definitely-wrong.”

It wasn’t like Percy had a perfect attendance record or anything. But even at his quietest, he showed up. He existed in the edges of rooms, leaned against lockers like he was made of static and thunderclouds. There was a rhythm to him. A storm waiting to break.

Then he was gone.

No messages. No calls. No snarky one-liners about cafeteria food or passive-aggressive commentary on gym class. Just... vanished.

And that felt wrong.

Steph claimed he was “probably just brooding somewhere poetic.” Cass signed something like wait and watch. But Tim wasn’t wired for that. He watched the door every morning. Checked the attendance sheets even when it wasn’t his job. He even—quietly, very quietly—considered asking Alfred to do some casual background checking.

Then Percy showed up.

No fanfare. No dramatic entrance. Just walked into homeroom like he hadn’t missed twelve days in a row and everyone should just accept that.

Except—Tim saw it.

The dark circles under his eyes. The pallor of his skin. The way he flinched slightly when someone brushed past too close. And the jacket.

That jacket was new. Black, leather, a little too big. A familiar kind of tactical cut, like something out of Tim’s other life. Percy wore it zipped up high, hunched into it like armor.

He looked like hell. But he was here.

Tim made a note to act normal. No sudden movements. No interrogations. Just... normal. Friendly. Present.

So when Percy sat down behind him and didn’t immediately disappear again, Tim relaxed. Just a little.

“Hey,” he said, low and casual, halfway between a greeting and a question.

Percy blinked. His eyes were dimmer than usual. Less ocean, more undertow.

“Hey,” he echoed, voice scratchy like he hadn’t used it in days.

Tim didn’t press. Just nodded and turned forward again. But he passed a protein bar back under the desk without looking.

He heard Percy take it.

Noticed the sound of the wrapper unfolding. Noticed the near-silent sigh.

And for the first time in nearly two weeks, Tim let himself breathe.

Percy was here.

He didn’t look okay.

But he was here.

And Tim would be, too.

Lunch was chaos, as usual.

Steph was arguing with someone two tables over about the ethics of pineapple on pizza, Cass had vanished again (either ghosting through the halls or silently judging everyone from a rafter), and Percy…

Percy sat across from Tim with a tray he hadn’t touched.

He poked a fork into some mystery pasta, stared at it like it might bite back, then let the utensil fall with a soft clink.

Tim didn’t say anything. Just watched. Quietly.

He wasn’t good at talking people into things. Not like Steph, who could get a confession out of a hardened criminal by sheer willpower and bubblegum energy. He wasn’t Cass, who could just exist and make people open up.

Tim... noticed. That was what he had.

So he noticed how Percy kept one hand clenched around the cuff of his sleeve, how his shoulders curved in like he was trying to make himself smaller. The jacket—still too big, still too heavy—swallowed him whole. It wasn’t the type of thing a broke high schooler picked up at Goodwill.

It looked tactical. Expensive. Broken-in.

Tim had a feeling it wasn’t Percy’s.

He didn’t ask.

Instead, he nudged his water bottle across the table. Percy took it without looking.

“Missed you at movie night,” Tim said eventually.

Percy’s head tilted slightly. “Yeah?”

“Steph tried to recite the entire script of The Mummy from memory. She got halfway through before Cass threw popcorn at her.”

A faint twitch of the lips. Not quite a smile, but... close.

Percy shrugged. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to be,” Tim said softly.

Percy’s fingers tightened around the water bottle. “Still am.”

There was something jagged in his voice—like every syllable was walking barefoot over glass. Tim resisted the urge to reach out. Percy didn’t like touch. But part of him wanted to just… offer something. Anything.

“You don’t have to explain,” Tim added. “But if you want to… I’m around.”

Percy looked up at him then. Just for a moment.

And Tim saw it all. The exhaustion. The fear. The guilt so deep it had carved trenches behind his eyes.

Then it was gone again, shuttered behind a half-smirk. “You sure you’re not a therapist on the side?”

“I’d charge way more,” Tim deadpanned.

That got a real smile. Brief. Fragile. Gone in a blink.

But it counted.

When the bell rang, Percy stood. Didn’t say goodbye—just nodded and slipped away like a ghost with a new jacket and old wounds.

Tim watched him go, mind already racing.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

And if Percy wasn’t going to say it... Tim would still be there when he was ready to.

Chapter Text

Jason POV

Jason was bone-deep exhausted.

Not the kind of tired that sleep fixed—he hadn’t really slept anyway—but the kind that sat heavy behind the ribs, where frustration and panic twisted together into a cold knot.

He’d searched every damn rooftop in Crime Alley. Scoured the alleys, the soup kitchens, the burned-out buildings. Even the schools. No Percy.

For thirteen days.

Jason didn’t know what had happened. Maybe the kid had left the city. Maybe he’d found somewhere safe. Maybe he’d—

No.
That last one never sat right. Percy hadn’t looked okay when Jason left him on that curb. Too quiet. Too... folded in on himself.

So when Jason finally saw him—just sitting there on the edge of an old tenement rooftop, legs swinging like it was a damn Tuesday—something in him snapped.

He didn’t think. He just barked:

“Are you kidding me right now?!”

Percy startled violently.

His shoulders jerked, his entire body tensed—and then he slipped. One boot scuffed the edge. His arms pinwheeled. He went backward.

Jason’s heart flatlined.

“Shit—”

Percy caught the edge by his fingertips, barely, scrabbling like a cat on glass.

Jason lunged.

He hit the roof at a run, dropped to his knees, and grabbed Percy’s wrists in both hands.

“I got you! Hold on, hold on—!”

Their grips locked—Percy’s knuckles white, Jason’s fingers bruising. With a grunt, Jason pulled him up and over, hauling him flat onto the roof in one wild motion.

They lay there a second. Gasping.

Then Jason sat up and stared.

Percy was breathing like he’d just run a marathon. His eyes were wide. Shaking. But not saying anything.

Jason exhaled through his teeth, hands still trembling.

“Jesus, kid. I didn’t mean to—God, I didn’t think you’d—Are you okay?”

A slow nod.

“Physically or emotionally?” Jason tried again.

Percy let out a shaky breath that might’ve been a laugh. “...Define okay.”

Jason scrubbed a hand over his helmet. “Okay, that’s fair.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then Percy sat up slowly, brushing dirt from his jeans. The jacket—Jason’s jacket—was still wrapped tight around him. Damp in spots. Crumpled. Worn like armor.

Jason stared at it.

“You still have it.”

Percy didn’t look at him. “It… helps.”

Something soft and guilty flickered over his face. “I tried taking it off. Couldn’t. Don’t know why. Just… couldn’t breathe.”

Jason blinked.

A strange, warm twist flared in his chest. Not smug. Not proud. Just—something solid. Steady. Like maybe he'd done one thing right in a long line of screwups.

“Then keep it,” he said, softer now. “I meant to give it to you anyway.”

Percy glanced sideways, frowning. “You sure?”

Jason nodded once. “Yeah. Looks better on you.”

That startled a breath of a smile out of the kid. Not much. But it was real.

Jason crossed his arms, tone sharpening. “Now talk. You disappeared. I’ve been combing the streets like an idiot.”

Percy flinched.

Jason winced. “Not mad. Just—worried. Okay? You looked half-dead last time I saw you, and then you vanish?”

“I… didn’t know where to go,” Percy admitted, voice raw. “Didn’t have money. Apartment’s ruined. I just… stayed somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else.”

“A building.”

Jason sighed. “Of course.”

He rubbed at his temples under the helmet.

“Have you eaten?”

No answer.

“That’s it. You’re coming with me.”

Percy blinked. “What?”

“Safehouse. Food. Shower. Blankets that don’t smell like mildew. You can leave after, but I’m not letting you play rooftop ghost until your ribs give out.”

Percy hesitated. “Why?”

Jason looked at him.

“Because I don’t like seeing people disappear.”

Another beat of silence.

Then Percy—still shaken, still silent—nodded.

He didn’t take off the jacket.

The safehouse wasn’t much to look at—bare walls, a too-small kitchenette, secondhand furniture that even Alfred would scoff at. But it was clean. Quiet. And most importantly, dry.

Jason unlocked the door and gestured Percy inside with a grunt. The kid hesitated on the threshold, like stepping over it might trigger some kind of trap.

“It’s not a cult lair,” Jason muttered. “I swear.”

Percy gave a crooked little not-smile. But he stepped in.

He didn’t take the jacket off.

Jason didn’t comment.

Instead, he kicked the door shut, flicked on the lights, and made a beeline for the kitchen. The kid looked like he hadn’t eaten in a week—and judging by the tremor in his fingers when he brushed them through his hair, that wasn’t an exaggeration.

“You good with eggs?” Jason called.

A shrug from the couch. The jacket bunched around Percy’s shoulders like armor.

“Cool. Scrambled it is. I got toast too. And... like. Not-poisoned butter. So. A five-star feast.”

Jason worked quietly, trying not to make it a thing. Just eggs. Just toast. Just a kid with haunted eyes in his safehouse, wearing a jacket that wasn’t his.

He cracked the eggs into a bowl, whisked them with a fork that had seen better days, and dumped them into the pan. The sizzle filled the silence, grounding him. Food always helped. Maybe not enough—but sometimes just enough to stop the spiral.

He glanced back once—Percy was curled in the farthest corner of the couch, eyes tracking Jason’s every move, like he was waiting for someone to change their mind and kick him out.

Jason knew that look too well.

“Hey,” he said softly. “You can relax. No one’s gonna show up and drag you off. You’re safe here.”

Percy blinked slowly. Didn’t answer.

Jason turned back to the eggs before he said something too soft.

By the time the toast popped, the eggs were fluffy and just this side of golden. He plated them like it mattered, even wiped the edge of the plate with a towel like Alfred always did—then caught himself and swore under his breath.

“Alright, fancy boy,” he said instead, crossing the room and setting the plate on the low table in front of Percy. “Come eat.”

Percy didn’t move right away.

Jason sat nearby—not close enough to crowd, not far enough to ignore. He tapped the plate. “Warm food. Actual protein. I’m not saying it’ll fix everything, but it’ll at least shut your stomach up.”

That got a flicker of something—maybe guilt, maybe surprise. Percy reached out slowly, like the plate might vanish. He held the fork in stiff fingers and took one cautious bite.

Then another.

And another.

Jason leaned back and said nothing. Just watched.

When the plate was empty, Percy set the fork down carefully, like it was a weapon. His voice was barely audible.

“Thank you.”

Jason shrugged. “No big deal.”

Percy stared at the empty plate a second longer. Then, without warning, he curled a little tighter into the jacket—Jason’s jacket—and said, “It smells like smoke.”

Jason blinked. “What?”

“The jacket. It smells like firewood.”

“Oh. Yeah. That’s… the safehouse fireplace.” A beat. “It’s not a metaphor.”

Percy didn’t say anything. Just looked away.

Jason didn’t push. He stood, cleared the plate, and muttered something about finding spare blankets.

But inside, under the armor, something warm clicked into place.

He didn’t mind cooking for this kid.

Didn’t mind the silence, either.

Hell, he kind of liked that Percy kept the jacket.

Jason didn’t say anything when the kid started rubbing at his own neck like the dried sweat and flood water were starting to get to him. He just stood, walked into the hall, and opened the door to the bathroom with a quiet click.

“Shower’s through here. Towels in the cabinet. Water’s hot, if you let it run a sec.”

Percy didn’t move from the couch.

Jason leaned against the wall, arms folded. “Look, I get it. I’ve gone a week without showering too. It’s fine when you’re living in alleys and burning holes in your own hoodie, but... You’re not there right now. You’re safe.”

The words made the kid flinch—just a bit.

Jason ran a hand through his hair. “There’s extra clothes in the duffel by the door. Should fit… badly. But they’re clean.”

Still no response.

Jason hesitated. Then, voice quieter, said, “You don’t have to take the jacket in with you.”

That got a reaction. Percy tensed. Gripped the collar of the jacket like it was armor.

Jason raised his hands. “Hey. Not saying you can’t take it. Just—don’t soak it if you don’t want it smelling like sewer water forever.”

A beat. Then Percy finally stood.

He walked to the bathroom like the floor might break under him. At the doorway, he turned back slightly, face unreadable.

Jason held out a shirt—one of his soft long-sleeve ones, black and faded at the seams. “Here. This one’s comfortable.”

Percy took it like it might burn him.

“And these too,” Jason added, handing over a pair of drawstring sweats that would definitely need rolling at the waist. “Don’t worry, no bats on them.”

Percy gave a dry, almost invisible eye-roll and disappeared into the bathroom, the door clicking shut behind him.

Jason let out a slow breath.

He busied himself with folding blankets, checking supplies, and—yeah—maybe standing a little too close to the bathroom door, listening for signs that the water was still running and that nothing had gone wrong.

Eventually, he heard the click of the door unlocking.

Percy stepped out, half-wrapped in steam and the sleeves of Jason’s clothes. The sweats were comically too long, rolled up three times at the ankles. The shirt fell past his hips, collar drooping off one shoulder slightly. His damp hair stuck to his forehead, curls darker with water.

But his face—

He looked calmer.

Still tired. Still haunted. But grounded. Present.

He was still holding the jacket.

Jason raised a brow. “Didn’t drown it, huh?”

Percy shook his head. His voice was hoarse. “Didn’t want it to smell like soap. I like the smoke.”

Jason blinked.

“Right,” he said eventually, a little too fast. “Yeah. Makes sense.”

The kid didn’t let go of the jacket.

He tugged it back over Jason’s oversized shirt like a second skin. Drowned in layers. Cloaked in scent.

Jason wasn’t sure why that made his throat feel tight.

“Water okay?” he asked roughly.

Percy nodded.

“Cool. Well. You look... like a burrito someone dropped in a puddle.”

Percy blinked at him.

“…In a good way.”

Percy rolled his eyes, but it was softer this time. A little more real.

He padded back to the couch and curled into the corner again, like nothing had changed—but Jason noticed the difference. The tiny bit of ease in his shoulders. The way his hand tugged the too-long sleeve like it was reassuring somehow.

Jason stood there a moment longer, watching.

Then he moved to the kitchen.

Percy POV:
The safehouse bathroom was cleaner than Percy expected.
Sterile tile. A dull mirror. A single white towel folded on the edge of the sink with military precision. Everything smelled like lemon cleaner and soap—no mold, no decay, no blood. It was… jarring.

Jason had handed him clothes without comment—soft black sweats and a hoodie, all slightly worn, all a few sizes too big. He hadn’t lingered, hadn’t watched. Just gave Percy a quiet nod and left him alone with the door closed.

And locked.

Percy checked twice.

Then leaned against it, forehead pressed to the cool wood. The ache in his shoulders was back. Not physical—deeper than that. Like all the weight he’d carried since the flood hadn’t left with the water.

He stood there too long.
Only when his fingers twitched, when the skin on his neck felt too tight from dried sweat and panic, did he move.

The jacket—Jason’s—slipped from his shoulders reluctantly.
It was the only thing keeping the tremors at bay.

He held it for a second. Then, carefully, folded it and set it on the closed toilet lid. Not too far. Just… enough.

He peeled off the rest of his clothes like they might scream if he moved too fast. Bruises were beginning to show—shadows of panic and pipes and sleeplessness. His ribs stuck out more than they had last week. That was a problem he didn’t want to think about.

The water steamed hot and fast when he turned the knobs.
He stood under it, arms braced on the tile, head bowed.

Didn’t cry. Just breathed.

It wasn’t Tartarus.
Wasn’t the Styx.
It was just a bathroom.
Just a shower.

Just a safehouse owned by a masked vigilante who kept giving him warm food and silence and clothes that smelled like campfire and steel.

Percy washed fast. Efficient. The way he’d learned in war zones and safehouses and monster lairs. Soap, rinse, repeat, move.

He toweled off, wrapped the soft shirt around himself like armor. It draped off his frame, too big in a way that should’ve made him self-conscious. It didn’t.

It just smelled like Red Hood.

Like safety.
Like someone would notice if he disappeared.

The thought sat weird in his chest. Not painful. Not pleasant. Just… foreign.

He picked up the jacket, hesitated—then shrugged it back on.

Didn’t even argue with himself this time.

It was like breathing easier without noticing you’d been holding your breath.

By the time he stepped out of the bathroom, towel in hand, he looked like a different person. Still hollowed out, still frayed at the edges—but present. Upright. Breathing.

Jason—Red Hood—was at the kitchen counter again. A second plate waited. He didn’t look up, but Percy knew he’d noticed.

Percy sank onto the couch without a word. Jacket on.

Chapter Text

Jason didn’t sleep deeply. He never did. Light dozing, half-aware, instinct always just beneath the surface. But he’d started to relax, just a little, because the kid — no, not a kid — the guy on his couch was breathing slow and steady, tucked in Jason’s spare blankets and wearing a borrowed hoodie that swallowed him whole.

And then, hours later — a sound.

It started as a hitch. A broken inhale.

Jason’s eyes snapped open.

On the couch, the figure writhed. Not violently — not yet — but enough to tangle the blanket and send quiet panic into the room like a rising tide.

“Shit.” Jason was off the bed and crouched beside the couch in seconds.

Percy — if that was even his name — was locked in it. Eyes shut, brow furrowed, jaw clenched so tight Jason swore he could hear his teeth creak. His hands were fisted in the fabric of the hoodie — Jason’s hoodie — like he was trying to hold himself together by force.

“No,” Percy muttered, barely audible. “No, don’t—don’t take her—don’t—”

Jason’s stomach twisted. He knew that tone. Knew that fight. He’d lived it. Died in it.

He reached out — not touching, not yet — and said softly, “Hey. Hey, it’s okay. You’re dreaming.”

But Percy jerked like he’d been struck, curling in tighter, breath starting to come in short, wet gasps.

“No,” he said again, voice raw, “I didn’t mean to—she was right there—I couldn’t—!”

And then he screamed.

A broken, animal sound that tore through the quiet like a blade. Jason flinched, but he didn’t hesitate.

He reached forward and grabbed Percy’s shoulders. “Hey. Hey, listen to me—wake up. You’re not there. You’re here. You’re safe.”

Percy thrashed, tried to shove him off, wild and disoriented — but Jason held on.

“Look at me. Look at me,” he repeated, louder now, the way Bruce had said it when Jason was younger and bloody and sobbing in some alley.

Percy’s eyes flew open — sea-glass green, sharp and feral — and for one terrifying second, they didn’t see him.

Then they focused.

And Percy collapsed forward, nearly crumpling into Jason’s chest.

“Okay,” Jason muttered, arms catching him before he could fall. “Okay, I’ve got you. It’s alright.”

He sat down on the floor and pulled Percy against him properly, folding him into his arms like he was something precious and about to break.

Percy was shaking like he was freezing to death. Not crying. Not talking. Just trembling.

Jason didn’t say anything for a while. Just held him. Let his heartbeat do the talking.

“You’re not there,” he said eventually, low and steady. “Wherever it was, it’s over. You’re here. With me. And nothing’s gonna get you.”

The trembling didn’t stop. But Percy’s fingers curled into Jason’s shirt, gripping like an anchor.

“Can’t sleep,” Percy rasped after what felt like an hour. “Can’t ever—if I do, I drown—”

“You’re not drowning,” Jason murmured. “Not this time.”

Percy didn’t answer. But he didn’t let go either.

Eventually, his breathing slowed. His forehead dropped to Jason’s shoulder, and his body sagged — not limp, but less coiled. The kind of tired that wasn’t just about sleep, but about fighting battles no one else could see.

Jason stayed right there. On the floor. Back against the couch, arms around the boy with the ocean in his eyes and too much pain in his bones.

When Percy finally dozed off again, it was quiet. No thrashing. No fear.

Jason shifted carefully, pulling them both onto the couch this time, maneuvering Percy to rest against him without jarring him awake.

By the time the first light of Gotham’s gray dawn touched the window, Jason was still awake.

He didn’t mind.

Because Percy — hoodie boy, mystery boy, broken-in-all-the-familiar-ways boy — was finally sleeping.

And Jason wasn’t about to let anything take that peace away.

The first thing Percy noticed was that he wasn’t cold.

The second was that he wasn’t alone.

His brain floated somewhere between sleep and waking, heavy with exhaustion but stirred by a faint awareness — warmth, a heartbeat, the rustle of breath that wasn’t his. A steady rise and fall beneath his cheek, solid and grounding.

It took a few more seconds for his brain to catch up.

He was… on someone. On a chest. On a person. And not just anyone.

The Jacket he was still curled into? Faintly smoky, a little leather-scented, warm from body heat?

Yeah. That was Red Hood’s.

His heart skipped. Then thumped. Then did something that might qualify as breakdancing.

Oh gods. No. Nope. Not happening—

He was sprawled on top of Gotham’s most dangerous vigilante, half in his lap, practically using him as a body pillow.

His leg was thrown over one of Red Hood’s like they were in some kind of cuddle pile. One arm had tucked itself under his chest. And his fingers? They were fisted into the hem of Red Hood’s shirt like a toddler clinging to a stuffed animal.

I’m going to die, Percy thought. Spontaneous combustion. Right here. Right now.

He shifted very, very slowly.

Red Hood didn’t wake. Just breathed out — deep and even — and shifted too, arm tightening slightly around Percy’s back. Not pinning. Not holding him down. Just… steady. Present.

Percy swallowed. His face was burning. His entire body was burning. But he didn’t move again.

Because this was the safest he’d felt in weeks. Maybe longer.

The nightmares were still fresh in his chest, but their claws didn’t reach him here — not with the weight of that arm and the thump of that heart and the warmth of that stupid hoodie that wasn’t even his.

He didn’t want to move.

But eventually, guilt and nerves pushed him to gently, carefully untangle himself.

He slid out from the couch’s warm cocoon like he was defusing a bomb, one inch at a time, muscles tight with caution.

Red Hood didn’t stir. Just exhaled, long and slow, and let his arm fall to the side where Percy had been.

He probably noticed, Percy thought, mortified. And just didn’t say anything.

He stared down at him — at the still-masked face, the messy hair just barely visible beneath the edge of the domino. He wondered, not for the first time, what his eyes looked like. What kind of person hid behind that helmet and mask — and still cooked dinner for someone else.

He tugged the hoodie tighter around his shoulders and turned away.

The apartment was still dark and quiet. Percy padded into the tiny kitchen, filled a glass with water, and tried not to overthink it.

But he didn’t take the Jacket off.

He couldn’t.

Not yet.

By the time Percy gathered enough dignity to emerge from the bathroom, his curls were damp, his Jacket was back on, and his soul had been thoroughly screamed at by every intrusive thought imaginable.

He’d woken up on top of Red Hood.

Not next to. Not near.

On top.

And the guy hadn’t even flinched. Just… stayed there. Like Percy half-wrapped around him in the dark was the most normal thing in the world.

Do not think about it, he told himself, trudging into the small kitchen like a man heading to his own execution. Do not think about it. Just eat your toast and pretend you’re a functional person.

Red Hood — helmet off, mask still on — was already by the stove, sleeves rolled up over scarred forearms, spatula in hand. The smell of eggs and something sizzling in oil filled the air, warm and rich and far too domestic for what should’ve been a tension-laced morning-after.

He turned slightly at Percy’s footsteps. “You sleep okay?”

Percy’s ears burned. “Define ‘okay.’”

“You didn’t scream.”

Percy flinched at that, but the tone wasn’t mocking — just matter-of-fact. Observant. And maybe a little relieved.

“Cool,” Percy muttered, sliding into a stool at the kitchen island. “That’s… that’s a win, I guess.”

“Big one,” Red Hood said, flipping something in the pan. “Eggs or pancakes?”

Percy blinked. “There’s pancakes?”

“There will be, if you pick them.”

He hesitated. “Uh. Both?”

Red Hood snorted. “High standards.”

“You offered.”

A plate clinked down in front of him. Toast, eggs, crispy fried potatoes, a side of bacon, and a mug of something steaming that wasn’t coffee. It smelled like cinnamon.

“You got tea?” Percy asked, surprised.

“I’m not a monster.”

Percy took a sip. Apple cinnamon. Sweet and spicy and exactly the kind of thing someone like Annabeth would have rolled her eyes at — and then stolen a second cup.

He wrapped both hands around the mug like it could anchor him.

“I can cook too, you know,” Percy said, mostly to say something.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. I mean—mostly breakfast stuff. Used to make it for my mom. French toast. Burnt eggs. Cereal with extra steps.”

“Cereal with extra steps?”

“Pancakes,” Percy said with a tiny smile.

Red Hood gave a quiet huff — not a laugh, not quite — and turned back to the stove.

They didn’t talk for a while. Just ate. The kind of silence that wasn’t awkward. Like maybe they’d slipped into some kind of rhythm neither of them knew they wanted.

Percy couldn’t stop watching his hands. The way Red moved around the kitchen was oddly graceful. Like someone who never really let his guard down — even while flipping pancakes.

The plate of pancakes slid toward him with no fanfare.

Percy took one bite and nearly moaned. “These are stupid good.”

“Compliments will get you more,” Red Hood said, tone dry.

“Then you’re the best cook in Gotham and possibly the known universe.”

“Too far.”

Percy grinned into his plate.

Another stretch of quiet. Percy picked at his food, appetite not quite matching the portions, but his body still grateful. He hadn’t eaten like this in days. Maybe longer.

At some point, Red Hood sat across from him, still masked, still quiet.

“Can I ask something?” Percy said after a moment.

Red Hood tilted his head.

“Why’re you being nice to me?”

The answer didn’t come immediately. Then—

“You looked like you needed it.”

Percy looked down at his hands. The knuckles were still raw. He hadn’t even noticed.

“Most people avoid me,” he said softly. “Even when I’m trying to be normal.”

“You’re not normal,” Red said. “But that’s not a bad thing.”

Percy swallowed. The cinnamon tea burned a little now.

He tried to find something clever to say. Some joke. Some shield.

But nothing came.

So he just said, “Thanks,” and meant it.

Jason didn’t usually linger after breakfast.

But today, he stood in the doorway to the kitchen, watching the boy sitting cross-legged on his worn-down couch, hunched over a steaming mug like it was some kind of talisman. The sleeves of Jason’s hoodie swallowed his hands. His hair stuck up in a dozen directions from a night of fitful sleep. And even though the bags under his eyes hadn’t vanished, his shoulders weren’t as tight. Not clenched up like they were waiting for the next disaster.

He looked better.

Still haunted. Still shaken. But breathing. Here.

Jason leaned a little heavier into the doorframe, arms crossed. “You sleep?”

The kid nodded, slow. “Yeah. First time in a while, I think.”

Jason grunted softly. “Good.”

Silence stretched. The heater buzzed in the corner, the city rumbling faintly outside the window. Jason watched as the kid fidgeted with the edge of his borrowed shirt—his shirt, really—and finally stood up, brushing toast crumbs off his pants.

“I should head out,” the boy mumbled, not quite meeting Jason’s eyes.

Jason raised an eyebrow. “What, got a rooftop meeting scheduled? Fight club? Or are you the one stealing donuts from the precinct vending machines?”

The kid huffed, barely a laugh. “School.”

Jason stared. “Wait. You go to school?”

A shrug. “Last year of high school. Had to repeat it.”

Jason’s gaze narrowed slightly, teasing. “And what, should I be calling you ‘High School Hoodie’ now?”

The kid blinked at him. Then, like it hadn’t occurred to him until now, he straightened slightly and said:

“…Perseus Jackson. Percy. I probably should’ve said that sooner.”

Jason stilled.

Perseus?

The name didn’t match the image. It sounded old. Heavy. Like it belonged to someone carved into a statue, not the boy standing in his kitchen wearing someone else’s clothes and looking like he hadn’t known peace in years.

Jason took a breath. “That’s… a name.”

Percy gave a faint smile. “Blame my mom. She liked Greek myths.”

Jason’s face twitched. He wasn’t great at this part—at soft. But something about the way Percy said “mom” made him pause.

“She’s not around anymore,” Percy added, quieter now. “She died. Not long before I came here. Gotham seemed like the kind of place where no one would ask questions I wasn’t ready to answer.”

Jason’s throat felt tight.

He wasn’t even sure why. Maybe because that was too close to his own story. Maybe because he remembered what it felt like to wake up and realize the one person who anchored you to the world was just… gone.

Jason reached up, slowly pulled off his mask, and tossed it on the table.

Percy blinked, startled. “What are you doing?”

“Evening the playing field.”

Jason held out a hand. “Jason. Jason Todd.”

Percy’s brows lifted, surprised—but he didn’t pull away. Just shook the hand like it mattered.

“Nice to meet you,” Percy said softly.

Jason smirked. “Bit late for introductions. I’ve already cooked you breakfast and watched you steal my hoodie.”

Percy flushed. “You gave it to me.”

“Semantics.”

Percy looked like he wanted to argue. Or maybe just smile. But his fingers tugged at the sleeves again, comforted.

Jason nodded toward the door. “You gonna come back later?”

Percy hesitated. “If that’s okay.”

Jason shrugged like it was nothing. “Sure. I’ve been meaning to find a roommate anyway.”

Percy stared. “Really?”

“No,” Jason deadpanned. “But you’re small, quiet, don’t break anything, and I already know you look good in my clothes.”

That earned a real laugh. Quiet. Warm. And then Percy stepped into his boots, zipped up the hoodie just a little higher, and said, “Alright. I’ll be back for dinner.”

Jason nodded, trying not to let it show how much that mattered. “Deal.”

As the door closed behind Percy, Jason leaned back against the wall and exhaled.

“Perseus,” he muttered to himself.

He liked it more than he should’ve.

Tim had already resigned himself to another silent day.

Third one in a row.

No Percy at the lockers. No hoodie figure slinking into homeroom late and bleary-eyed. No half-smiles or tired metaphors dropped like puzzle pieces waiting for someone to solve.

He didn’t want to admit how much that bothered him.

So when the bell rang and Tim glanced up out of habit—and saw him—he nearly dropped his pen.

Percy Jackson. Standing in the doorway like he wasn’t the single biggest mystery Gotham Prep had seen since a freshman tried to microwave a plastic fork.

Tim blinked.

Percy was... there. Really there. Shuffling into class with all the grace of a half-asleep cat and carrying that strange, quiet gravity like always. But something was different.

The clothes.

Not the usual layered hoodie and denim armor. Today Percy wore a hoodie at least two sizes too big, the sleeves nearly past his fingers. The collar was a little frayed. His jeans didn’t quite fit either—hung low on his hips like they’d been borrowed in a rush.

And the jacket.

That same dark, heavy thing he’d been wearing the day before, when he’d stumbled in late and pale and distracted, eyes haunted like he'd seen something crawl out of hell and back.

Today, Percy looked… not fine, exactly. But better. Less like a ghost. A little more solid.

Tim didn’t comment. He didn’t want to scare it off.

He just watched as Percy slid into the seat next to him, dropped his bag to the floor, and leaned his chin onto folded arms like the weight of the world was slightly more manageable today.

“Hey,” Tim said, soft.

Percy blinked at him. “Hey.”

Silence stretched. The teacher started talking, but Tim didn’t care. His focus was on the boy next to him, the one who hadn’t smiled in two weeks but was here now, in one piece.

“New jacket?” Tim asked, trying for casual.

Percy shrugged. “Kind of.”

Tim didn’t push. Not yet.

But his mind was already racing. The clothes weren’t Percy’s. The jacket definitely wasn’t school standard. And he’d disappeared for almost two full weeks with no explanation.

But now he was back.

That was enough—for now.

So Tim nodded once, offered him a pen (even though Percy clearly had his own), and went back to pretending to take notes.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Percy tug the sleeves down over his hands and let out a breath that looked just a little less heavy.

Tim didn’t even have to ask.

Percy didn’t say a word when they left the school building. Just gave him a look—eyebrows barely raised, the tiniest lift of his chin—and Tim got it.

So they ended up walking.

No real destination. No plan. Just two boys, quiet as dusk, heading toward the nearest patch of green Gotham had left untouched.

Robinson Park was mostly empty this time of day. A few joggers. A dad trying to get his twins off the climbing frame. Someone walking a very angry-looking poodle. The usual Gotham weekday weird.

Percy barely noticed.

He kicked a pebble down the path with the heel of his boot (which Tim still clocked as not his) and said, softly, “My building flooded.”

Tim stopped walking. “What?”

“Two weeks ago. Pipes burst. Water everywhere.” Percy kept walking, hands in his jacket pockets, not looking back. “My place was on the fourth floor. Still didn’t help.”

Tim caught up. “Are you okay? Like—physically?”

“Yeah. Mostly. Lost some things. No big deal.”

It was a big deal. Percy said it like someone talking about losing a pair of shoes, not their home.

Tim exhaled, trying to stay steady. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Percy finally looked at him. “I didn’t want to be a problem.”

“You’re not a problem,” Tim said, maybe a little too fast.

There was a pause. The kind where Tim wished he had better words, sharper words. Something that could cut through Percy’s practiced silence and make him believe he was wanted.

“You could’ve stayed at the Manor,” Tim added. “Seriously. You still can.”

Percy’s lips curved, faint and grateful. “Thanks. But I’ve got a place.”

“You do?” Tim asked, frowning. “That fast?”

“Got lucky. Found a roommate.” Percy paused. “He doesn’t talk much. Cooks well. Not a serial killer, probably.”

“That’s a low bar.”

“In this city?” Percy snorted. “It’s the highest bar.”

They both laughed, and for a moment the air between them lightened.

They turned off the main path toward the playground.

Tim didn’t question it. He just followed.

Percy kicked off his shoes at the edge of the wood chips and climbed up onto one of the swings. It creaked as he leaned back, letting the chains hold his weight like he didn’t quite trust the ground.

Tim took the one beside him.

No words. Just the soft rhythm of creaking chains and wind brushing past.

Eventually, Percy said, “It’s weird. I feel... okay. Not all the time. But in moments.”

Tim nodded, staring up at the patchy sky between the trees. “You don’t have to be okay all the time.”

“Yeah.” Percy’s voice was quiet. “But it’s nice when I am.”

They swung in slow tandem for a few more minutes before Percy dragged his feet to stop.

Tim glanced over. “You trust this new roommate?”

Percy shrugged. “I think so. He gave me a jacket and didn’t ask for it back.”

“Wow. A modern-day knight.”

“Pretty sure he’s more of a gremlin, honestly.”

Tim smiled. “Still. If he ever slacks on roommate duties, the Manor offer stands.”

“I know.” Percy looked at him, really looked. “Thanks.”

Tim just nodded.

And in the fading light, surrounded by old monkey bars and cracked slides, it didn’t feel like Gotham for a moment.

It felt like the start of something better.

Jason heard the front door click shut just as he was flipping the chicken.

He didn’t glance back. Just called, “Don’t tell me you broke into my safehouse again.”

“You gave me a key,” Percy’s voice replied, dry. “That’s called entry, not breaking and entering.”

Jason smirked. “Still weird. I don’t give those out.”

“Am I supposed to frame it? Hang it over the sink?”

Jason turned to find Percy toeing off his shoes by the door. He was still wearing Jason’s too-big hoodie — sleeves half-covering his hands — and jeans that hung off his hips just enough to make Jason vaguely anxious about gravity. His curls were windswept, cheeks a little pink from the outside air.

“I brought snacks,” Percy added, holding up a half-crushed pack of cookies like a peace offering. “They’re only a little expired.”

Jason blinked. “That’s the most Gotham thing you’ve ever said.”

“I aim to impress.”

Jason watched as Percy wandered into the kitchen, gave the stove a cursory sniff, and then—without asking—grabbed a wooden spoon and started stirring the sauce.

Jason raised a brow. “You know how to cook?”

Percy glanced at him. “You say that like it’s surprising.”

“Because it is.”

“Surviving in New York on a demigod budget teaches you things.”

Jason stared. “A what budget?”

“Never mind.” Percy waved it off, like the word hadn’t just dropped out of nowhere. “You want garlic or no garlic?”

Jason blinked again. “Uh. Garlic’s fine.”

They fell into an odd rhythm after that—Percy chopping vegetables with suspicious precision, Jason trying (and failing) to not be impressed. There was something fluid in the way Percy moved, like he’d done this before. Many times. For someone else, maybe. For a family that wasn’t here anymore.

Jason didn’t ask.

He just handed over the salt when Percy reached for it.

Eventually, food was plated, couch cushions were shuffled, and dinner was eaten in companionable silence—just the soft background hum of some random show neither of them were watching.

Halfway through the meal, Jason leaned back and said, “So. Roommates.”

Percy didn’t look up. “That what we are?”

“Unless you’re planning to just show up for food and ghost again.”

Percy was quiet for a second. Then: “I was planning to crash on the couch. Y’know. Until I figure stuff out.”

Jason frowned. “You don’t want the extra bedroom?”

“It’s your place.”

“Yeah, and?”

“I don’t want to be in the way.”

Jason set down his fork. “You’re not in the way.”

Percy still didn’t meet his eyes. “I just... don’t want to get too comfortable.”

Jason opened his mouth. Closed it. Swallowed back the thousand things he wanted to say—about comfort, about safety, about how this place had never felt less like a cave ever since Peter was here.

Instead, he said, “Well, too bad.”

Percy blinked. “Too bad?”

“Because you are getting comfortable. I’m getting you a bed. And maybe an actual blanket, not whatever half-dead throw you’ve been using.”

Percy raised a brow. “You shopping for me now?”

Jason shrugged. “Roommates.”

That earned a soft chuckle. “You’re weird.”

“And you’re wearing my hoodie like it’s a weighted blanket, so don’t throw stones.”

Percy flushed slightly, but didn’t argue.

Jason took another bite, pretending he hadn’t noticed. Then added, casually, “You’re not a burden.”

Percy looked down at his plate. “I didn’t say I was.”

“You didn’t have to.”

They let that sit between them for a moment. Heavy, but not unbearable.

Later that night, when Percy yawned and curled up on the couch again—insisting the bed could wait—Jason made a mental list.

Bedding.

Towels.

Toothbrush.

Maybe a lava lamp.

And a lock for the door that only Percy would have the key to.

Roommates.

Sure.

The dishes were done.

The lights were low.

The city outside the safehouse window breathed in its usual wheeze of sirens, rusted fire escapes, and alley cats fighting over a sandwich.

And Jason?

Jason was having a crisis.

It wasn’t a shootout kind of crisis, or a someone put a bounty on your head again sort of thing. He knew how to handle those.

No, this was far more dangerous.

This was a Percy-in-his-shirt crisis.

Specifically, Percy Jackson—recently crash-landed in his life like some sea-drenched stray godling—emerging from the bathroom with damp curls and bare feet, wearing one of Jason’s old Gotham Knights t-shirts.

Which hung off him like a dress.

Which he was completely unaware of.

Which was, clearly, illegal.

“Uh,” Jason said.

Percy blinked at him. “Something wrong?”

Jason’s brain stuttered.

He’d made it through warzones with a steadier heartbeat.

“No,” he lied. “Just—uh. You—shirt. You’re. You good?”

Percy gave him a confused look, then tugged at the hem of the shirt. “It’s a little big.”

“It’s fine,” Jason said too quickly. “I mean. Yeah. It’s good. It’s great. It’s... cloth.”

Nailed it.

Percy just hummed and padded into the kitchen, grabbing a glass of water like he didn’t just shatter every last coherent thought Jason had left.

Jason threw himself onto the couch with enough force to rattle the frame.

He did not do this.

He did not catch feelings for random disaster boys who wore his shirts and smiled like broken mirrors and made cheap tea like it was an act of rebellion.

He definitely didn’t do cozy.

Or roommates.
Or flushed cheeks and wet hair and oh gods he smells like my soap—

“Do you always look like you’re about to fight a ghost?” Percy asked, settling into the armchair across from him, sipping his water. “Or is that just my presence?”

Jason groaned into his hands. “You’re exhausting.”

“I haven’t even started,” Percy muttered, not quite smiling, but not not smiling either.

Jason peeked at him through his fingers.

He looked... calmer than this morning. Still tired, but not hollow. His shoulders weren’t hunched the same way. And yeah, maybe the shirt was ridiculous on him, and yeah, maybe Jason was regretting every time he’d joked about not doing feelings because now they were happening and there was no off switch in sight.

But Percy looked safe.

That was new.

And Jason wasn’t about to ruin it.

He let out a breath. “Couch or bed?”

“Couch. For now,” Percy replied softly, curling his legs up beside him. “Feels less... real.”

Jason nodded. “You got it.”

He grabbed a blanket from the closet—one that actually didn’t suck—and tossed it at Percy without ceremony. Percy caught it with a sleepy noise and immediately buried himself in it like a cat in a laundry pile.

Jason turned away before he could say something stupid like you can stay forever or I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt you again.

Instead, he grabbed a hoodie of his own, turned out the lights, and muttered, “Night, Percy.”

“…What?”

“Nothing.”

He walked away before Percy could see the smile twitching at his lips.

He was so doomed.

Tim had never cared about jackets before.
They were just fabric. Layers. Armor against Gotham’s teeth.

But today, as Percy shoved his hands into the too-long sleeves of that jacket, something twisted sharp and ugly in Tim’s chest.

Because it wasn’t Percy’s.

The fit was wrong. The shoulders hung wide, the sleeves swallowed his fingers. The whole thing looked borrowed—was borrowed. And Percy wasn’t the kind of guy to borrow from just anyone.

Tim caught himself staring as they parted ways at the front gate, Percy giving him that tired, crooked grin before tugging the jacket tighter like it meant something. Like it was more than just warmth.

And maybe it was.

Tim’s brain, traitorous as ever, started working the puzzle. Percy had vanished for nearly two weeks. Came back thinner, paler, like something had clawed him hollow. And now—new jacket, new clothes, no explanation. Just a vague line about a “roommate” who apparently cooked and didn’t ask questions.

Tim should’ve been relieved. Percy wasn’t sleeping on rooftops or alley floors. He had someone. He wasn’t alone.

But all Tim could think about was how he hadn’t been the one Percy trusted with that.

Not the one to lend him clothes.
Not the one whose jacket Percy pulled around himself like armor.

And the jealousy—raw, hot, ridiculous jealousy—hit harder than he wanted to admit.

He shoved his hands into his own pockets, biting down the words that wanted to come out.
Who gave that to you? Why not me?

It was stupid. He knew it was stupid. Percy wasn’t a project or a prize. He was a person—wounded, complicated, private.

And Tim had promised himself he wouldn’t push.

So he just watched Percy’s back retreat into the Gotham crowd, the jacket’s hem brushing against his knees with every step.

And for the first time in a long time, Tim hated the color black.