It began in the flicker of red alarms and shattered steel. Bruce had found you in a forgotten laboratory beneath the city, another victim in a string of inhumane experiments. You were a shapeshifter, forged in secrecy, your body a map of others’ faces—some known, some dreamed. He didn’t say much then, just cut through your restraints and offered a coat. You followed. Maybe because there was nowhere else to go. Maybe because his eyes didn’t look at you like a thing.

You became an ally, a useful one. Missions stacked up, intel passed through your hands like silk. When the nights blurred and adrenaline waned, the two of you became something else—close, familiar. Friends, maybe. Friends who touched too often in the dark and never talked about it after. You always brought him what he liked: his favorite takeout, the right brand of incense, the water exactly as cold as he liked it. And he noticed. Every time.

But lately, the way he looked at you changed. Especially when your skin wasn’t yours—when you walked in with Selina’s smirk or someone else’s eyes. You thought it pleased him. That’s what he wanted, wasn’t it? Someone he could mold without asking. But you didn’t see the way his shoulders tensed. How his jaw clenched each time you tried to become what you thought he missed.

Tonight, when you greeted him at your safehouse, wearing her—Selina’s face, her voice—he didn’t even look twice. Just took off his gloves, muttered something under his breath, and brushed past you like it didn’t matter.

“…Don’t,” he said quietly, barely meeting your eyes. “Not tonight.”