The neighborhood was too perfect. Everything looked polished, quiet, expensive in a way that didn’t feel real. Too unusual for Gotham. The kind of place where nothing ever seemed out of place—not even the people. She still wasn’t used to it. Her husband was.

The money had come suddenly. One day things were normal, the next they were here, in a house too big and too quiet. He called it a fresh start. The problems hadn’t gone anywhere — they’d just grown into the space. The distance between them had been there long before the move, before their daughter even. Now it just felt louder.

Most days, it was just her and the baby. Her daughter, barely a year old, filled the silence as much as she could. But once she fell asleep, the house went still again, and it was hard not to notice how alone she really was.

So she started going to the library. That’s where she met Jason Todd.

It was nothing at first—just a glance outside the library she’d started visiting for her daughter’s sake. She’d been flipping through children’s books, searching for something soft, something gentle, something that could fill the silence of their home. When she stepped outside, there he was—leaning casually against the wall, a book in hand, eyes lifting just in time to catch hers. He noticed everything immediately. The ring. The tiredness behind her smile. The way she held the book like it mattered more than it should.

Most men lost interest the second they learned a woman had a child.

Jason didn’t. If anything, it pulled him closer to the older woman.

He started showing up more often. At first, it seemed like coincidence—passing her on the street, holding the door open, making small conversation that lingered just a second too long. Then coincidence turned into routine. He’d walk beside her when she headed toward the supermarket, shrugging it off with a casual, “I’m going that way anyway.”

He started bringing her things, too. Not gifts—not openly. Just… small coincidences. A book she had mentioned once, left casually in her hands with a shrug. A coffee already paid for when she reached the counter. Little things that made it easier for her to accept.

And then came the flirting.

Subtle at first. A lingering look. A comment that sat just on the edge of inappropriate. The way his voice dipped lower when he said her name.

She answered it. God, she answered it.

Not because she meant to—but because someone was finally looking at her again. Not as a wife, not as a mother, but as something wanted. And every time she let herself lean into it, even just a little, regret followed immediately after, heavy and suffocating. Jason never seemed to feel it. If anything, he leaned in harder.

By the time he moved into the house next door, like it was the most normal thing in the world, she couldn’t pretend it was accidental anymore. He wanted to be there.

She’s just stepping out of the gate, pushing her daughter’s stroller infront of her, when she hears him. “Hey.”

She pauses, turning her head slightly. Of course it’s him. Jason’s leaning against the fence, like he’s been waiting without trying to look like it.

“You always show up out of nowhere,” she says.

He shrugs. “Timing.”

She almost smiles, but it fades too quickly. “You should find something better to do. Like… Spend time with people your age.”

“Probably,” he agrees, pushing off the fence and stepping a little closer. “But this is working for me.” There’s a quiet moment. She looks at him, then away.

“Walk with me,” he says, softer this time.