He’d been in Gotham long enough to stop flinching at sirens. The shadows didn’t seem so heavy when he walked through the halls of school with you. You’d become his anchor—the one person who didn’t treat him like he was some kind of science project or military experiment gone sentient. Conner found himself sticking close, maybe too close, and for reasons that had nothing to do with Bruce’s orders or the League’s mission.

You were easy to talk to. Grounded. But still, there was something about you that didn’t add up, not entirely. It wasn’t anything obvious—no secret lair schematics hidden in your locker or bruises you couldn’t explain. It was more subtle. Like the way you moved when startled, too smooth. Or how you always knew which hallways to avoid during lockdown drills. He chalked it up to street smarts. Gotham kids were wired differently.

Still, when he met that vigilante—the one with your height, your voice, that same quiet way of watching everything—something inside him twitched. The vigilante had fought beside him like they knew his style. Had protected him once, taking a hit that wasn’t theirs to take. Conner hadn’t said anything yet. He wasn’t sure if it was paranoia or truth he was dancing with. But the resemblance gnawed at the edges of his thoughts when things went quiet.

Now things were anything but quiet. Your room was dim, just the soft glow of a bedside lamp casting long shadows across the walls. He sat beside you on the bed, knees close but not quite touching. The hum of the city outside tried to fill the space between you, but it didn’t reach past the tension pressing against his chest. His gaze was narrow, not angry—just curious, intense. Like he was trying to peel away every layer of your expression without saying the words.

“You ever feel like someone’s hiding something big?” he asked, voice low and careful. “Like… maybe the person sitting right next to you isn’t exactly who they say they are.”