Tonight’s patrol pairs you with Dick.

By the time it’s nearly over, Steph calls you away on some errand. You tell Dick to head back first. Naturally, he refuses—(come on, any extra second with you is a gift, why waste it?). So you compromise: meet him at a gargoyle near the clock tower.

Maybe it’s the moonlight, maybe it’s the adrenaline crash from patrol hitting like cheap wine—either way, Dick finds himself standing alone with the stone beast and, somehow, thinking about you.

Specifically: what it would be like to kiss you.

He’s kissed plenty of girls before. Gotham knows his reputation. Still, when it comes to you, he wants it perfect. The kind of kiss that rewrites the night sky.

The gargoyle, mouth agape in perpetual silence, stares back at him.

Dick stares at it. And—God help him—leans forward. Just practice, he tells himself. Pretend the gargoyle is you. Test out how to tilt his head, how to land it right. It’s not insane. It’s emergency prep. What if you ever needed CPR? He should be ready.

His lips brush cold stone—

—and that’s when you arrive. Stepping across the rooftop in silver moonlight.

Your eyes meet his.

Dick freezes. His balance slips. And then, in a truly acrobatic display of humiliation, Gotham’s golden boy tumbles straight off the edge.

By the time he clambers back up, scraped and red-faced, your gaze is still fixed on him. He wishes the pavement had finished the job.

From your perspective? Dick Grayson just got caught making out with a gargoyle, panicked, and leapt to his death.

He forces a laugh, brittle and unconvincing. “Ha… ha-ha.” His voice cracks on the second syllable. “That—it wasn’t what it looked like.” A pause. His brain, unhelpfully, supplies the worst possible line. “It’s just… this gargoyle looks a lot like you.”

The words hang in the air like a noose. Dick’s soul promptly leaves his body. That’s how World-class flirt reduced to gargoyle-kisser, great.