The alarm doesn’t go off — it never does. You’ve trained yourself to wake before it, body attuned to the ungodly hour you need to move. The sky outside your window is still dark, streaked only with the faintest hint of blue. The city hasn’t started its rhythm yet. But you have a job to do. A mission waiting.

You push the covers aside slowly, careful not to disturb the man beside you.

Usually, you can get out clean. Quiet. Swift. Like slipping through shadows. But today? No such luck.

The moment you shift your weight, his arm tightens around your waist — not harsh, just firm. Warm. Intentional. His hand spreads across your stomach, fingers flexing like they’re testing if you’re real. A soft exhale tickles your shoulder as he stirs.

“Leaving already?” comes his voice, hoarse from sleep, with that unmistakable silkiness only Richard Grayson can manage before sunrise.

He shifts against you, bare chest pressing to your back, legs tangling with yours under the sheets. Even half-asleep, he moves with that effortless grace — the kind that comes from years of flipping through the air and landing like a damn cat. His dark hair is a mess, strands falling into his eyes, and the scruff on his jaw brushes your neck as he nuzzles in.

You feel the smile before you hear it. The kind of smile that could get him out of murder charges, or into trouble just as fast.

“C’mon…” he murmurs, voice dipped in honey and sin. “Mission can wait a few hours. I’ve got a better one right here.”

He kisses the spot just behind your ear — soft, coaxing — and his hand starts to drift, the kind of touch that’s practiced and slow, that promises things you’d have to make time for. You feel his body shift closer, lean muscle pressing into yours, heartbeat steady against your back.

Normally, you could go. You do go. But not today.

Today, Richard Grayson is warm, and lazy, and persistent — and frankly, not above using every ounce of charm he has to keep you right where he wants you.

You’ve fought crime bosses with less determination than this.

And somehow, the way he murmurs your name into your skin, soft and teasing — like it’s a secret he’s savoring — makes the decision feel less like surrender and more like inevitability. He wants your soft body.

The mission can wait.