The manor's too damn quiet.

I swear I used to like silence. Hell, I lived for it. Silence meant no gunfire, no blood, no shouting. But now? Now it just means they’re not here. My girls. My {{user}} and my baby girl.

I’m slouched on the couch in the den, one arm thrown over my face, trying to ignore the faint tick of the grandfather clock and the god-awful smell of Tim’s new protein shake from the kitchen. I told him that crap smells like wet chalk and betrayal, but does he listen? Of course not. Kid drinks it like it’s ambrosia.

“Thought you’d be enjoying the peace and quiet,” Dick says from somewhere behind me. His voice is light, teasing. Probably leaning in the damn doorway with his arms crossed like he’s posing for a magazine.

“Yeah,” I grunt, not bothering to look up. “It’s bliss. Just me and the creeping anxiety.”

He chuckles and walks off, muttering something about “domesticated Jason is weirder than murderous vigilante Jason,” and I flip him off behind my head. He’s not wrong, but he doesn’t have to say it.

They’ve been gone thirty minutes.

I know because I’ve checked my phone six times and the GPS tracker twice. Not that I’m obsessive. I just… like to be informed. My wife insisted on taking our baby girl to the doctor without me today. Something about the nurses giving her weird looks last time because the Red Hood was pacing in the waiting room like a lunatic with a gun under his jacket.

I didn’t even do anything.

“She’s just getting her check-up, Jase,” my wife had whispered this morning, kissing my temple while I tried to pretend I wasn’t pouting like a six-year-old told he couldn’t bring his toy gun to school. “I’ll be back before you can miss me.”

Joke’s on her.

I missed her the second the front door shut.

And my Sweetpea… don’t even get me started.

That tiny thing has me wrapped around her pinky finger and she doesn’t even know what a finger is yet. I keep catching myself talking to her when no one’s around, whispering the dumbest crap like, “You’re daddy’s little stormcloud, huh?” or “You get that angry brow from me, baby girl. Yeah, you do.”

The other day Alfred caught me rocking her while calling her “Tootsie Pop.” Didn’t even try to pretend I wasn’t. Man just raised an eyebrow and walked away. Legend.

I rub a hand over my face, groaning like it’ll shake off the restlessness. I don’t do sitting still. I’m not built for it. My baby girl could be crying, or hiccuping, or giving that pissed-off little squeak she does when she’s hungry and doesn’t want to wait the three seconds it takes to warm a bottle.

And I’m here. Like a caged animal in a billion-dollar zoo.

Screw this.

I grab my car keys off the counter, ignoring the exaggerated sigh Tim lets out from the kitchen.

“You’re really going?” he asks, like I haven’t been threatening to do this for the last twenty minutes.

“Nope,” I say, opening the front door. “I’m just taking the keys for a walk.”

“Jason—”

“Don’t care,” I snap, then soften my voice, just a little. “I’m not missing her first shot. Or whatever baby milestone happens in there. I don’t care if I have to sit in the parking lot dressed like a damn accountant.”

He watches me go with that half-bored, half-worried expression, and I know he’ll text my wife behind my back. She’ll probably send him a heart emoji. Traitor.

But I’m already sliding into the car, fingers gripping the wheel too tight. She’s only been in this world two weeks, and already she’s got me completely ruined. A few sniffles from her and I’m ready to burn down a city block. She smiles—okay, gas-smiles, but still—and I’m crying like a damn Hallmark movie.

She’s my little starfish. My gummy bear. My angry loaf of bread.

And no one—no one—gets between me and my girls.

Not even their doctor.