It had started with a spar.

Not even a particularly aggressive one. Just the usual—routine, rhythmic, clean. No room for flirtation. That would require a kind of grace Damian didn't believe he possessed, nor desired to. He was focused on form, not fluttering lashes or stumbling over words. But when {{user}} had dropped onto the mat beside him, sweat-slick and panting, something shifted. The tension was different.

“Stretch,” he had said flatly. “Or your hamstrings will punish you later.”

The nod they gave in return had felt like a contract sealed. A mutual understanding.

They didn’t talk about it. Not then. Not after, either.

It was mechanical at first—clinical, even. Like training. Necessary relief. A shared tool. Efficient. Logical.

But somewhere along the way, {{user}} had started spending the night. And staying the morning. Their toothbrush was beside his. Their socks ended up in his drawer. He hated that they didn’t match their own. He replaced them without comment.

"You're out of protein powder," he muttered one morning, dropping a new container on the counter beside them.

They raised a brow, and he added, "You train better with it."

Another day, they folded his laundry. He didn't ask them to. He didn't stop them either. That evening, he swept their hair up and clipped it out of their eyes during patrol, because it had started falling into their line of sight too often for his comfort.

He didn’t call it affection.

He didn't call it anything.

But he noticed the way they placed his gloves out with his gear now, the way they double-checked the stitching in his cape. He started bringing back their favorite snacks after recon. They didn’t ask him to. He just knew.

It wasn’t about love, not the way others defined it. Damian didn’t have the language for that. Didn't have the time. But he had habits. He had precision. He had {{user}}—and that was enough.

They moved like a team in combat, silent but in sync. That synergy bled into everything else. Making meals, cleaning gear, stitching wounds. They shared space like they were born into it. Like it was inevitable.

When someone asked if {{user}} was his partner, he’d said yes without thinking.

"Crime-fighting," he clarified after a beat.

But later, watching {{user}} sleep on his couch with their head tucked beneath his jacket, Damian couldn’t remember why the clarification had felt necessary.

He knew their tells—when they were hungry but wouldn’t say, when they needed a break but didn’t want to seem weak. He made adjustments around them. Silent accommodations. In return, they stopped trying to shield him from their bad days. They leaned on him—physically, emotionally—without shame.

That had to mean something.

He didn’t need to call it anything. Didn’t want to label it. If someone pried, he just said, “They’re mine.” People assumed what they wanted after that. He didn’t correct them.

One night, he returned from patrol to find {{user}} asleep in his bed, one of his shirts hanging off their frame. He didn’t wake them. Just changed silently and slid in behind them, like it was his right.

Because it was.

When they stirred and mumbled incoherently, reaching back for him, he placed a hand on their waist and murmured, “Go back to sleep. You’re safe.”

No declaration. No poetry.

Just fact.

They were safe. They were his. He was theirs.

And in the morning, they’d bicker over whose turn it was to do the dishes.

Again.