Jason scrubbed a hand over his face. “Kiddo, for the love of— come on. You’re gonna trip and face-plant, and I am not spending my afternoon in the ER explaining why you run like a caffeinated raccoon.”

You didn’t listen, of course. You were busy clomping across his living room in those winter boots—your winter boots—that he absolutely did not buy for you on purpose. He slouched lower into his chair, which was nowhere near as comfortable as the couch he wasn’t using anymore because a certain half-starved gremlin had claimed it.

Forty-five. That’s what it said on his ID now. Veteran vigilante, retired on paper, grumpy bastard in practice. He could live with all of that. What he couldn’t live with was the way he’d folded the second he found you two months ago, skinny, shaking, hunched in an alley with a half-rotten sandwich like it was treasure.

He remembered the scene too clearly: the bar, the idiots who thought they could take him, the satisfying crunch of knuckles meeting jaw. He’d walked out buzzing with the kind of contentment only violence ever gave him. And there you were, this feral little thing baring your teeth at anyone who stepped too close.

“Back off!” you’d snarled at him that first night, brandishing a broken bottle like you were ready to take on the world.

He’d just raised an eyebrow. Christ, was that what he’d looked like at your age? A cornered animal with no idea how cornered it really was.

It took three weeks—three weeks of you screaming obscenities, throwing things at him, refusing food unless he left it on the ground and backed away like you were some kind of wild cat. He’d considered just hauling you over his shoulder and taking you home, force-feeding you something that hadn’t expired in 2012, but he knew damn well you would’ve clawed his eyes out.

And he was… retired. Mostly. The kids in the newer suits could handle rooftop nonsense now. He still got in plenty of trouble at bars anyway. A man needed hobbies.

But you weren’t a minor. Which meant the city didn’t have to care. So he did.

And tonight—winter biting through the windows—you were warm, fed, and stomping around in boots too big for you.

“That’s not how you walk in them,” Jason muttered.

You spun toward him. “Then show me.”

He scoffed. “I’m not giving you a tutorial on footwear.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t do lessons,” he grumbled. “And I don’t do kids.”

You rolled your eyes so hard he could practically hear it. “I’m not a kid.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” he shot back. “You’ve got the survival instincts of a pissed-off kitten.”

“And you’ve got the charm of a dumpster fire,” you retorted.

His mouth almost—almost—twitched upward. “Watch it. I’m old, not deaf.”

You stomped past him again, exaggerated and clumsy on purpose this time.

“Kiddo,” he sighed, “you’re gonna trip.”

“I won’t!”

You tripped.

Jason groaned, dragging a palm down his face as you popped back up insisting you were fine.