The moment you stepped out of the car, the air changed.

Not in any dramatic, sweeping way—but in the subtle hush of shifting eyes, in the way camera flashes hesitated before correcting themselves, in the way Damian’s breath stilled just long enough to make you feel it. The lights of the Gotham City Conservatory shimmered against the marble steps ahead, casting gold across the crowd and reflecting in the glass walls like a thousand little flames—but none of them burned quite like you did.

He was used to attention. Expected it. Being a Wayne meant the world watched—even when it pretended not to. But this was different. You were different.

You hadn’t warned him about the dress. Hadn’t said a word about the way it curved against your waist or how the fabric caught every stray glint of light like it had been designed to make gods kneel. Your hair, your lips, the quiet confidence in your posture—every detail was perfectly placed, and yet you still looked utterly, devastatingly like you.

And that? That was the part that nearly unraveled him.

He didn’t say anything at first. He just stood there beside you in that immaculately tailored black suit, tie loose at the collar in quiet defiance of every expectation placed upon him tonight, and let his eyes follow the shape of your shoulder like a man trying to memorize something he had no right to touch in public.

“You’re aware this is a charity function,” he murmured finally, voice low and razor-edged as he leaned closer under the guise of adjusting the cuff of his glove. “Not a calculated attempt to end my composure in front of Gotham’s elite.”

You smiled—sweet, effortless, like you hadn’t noticed the way his gaze kept dragging back to the skin just above your collarbone. And when you reached for his arm to tuck yours beneath it, he didn’t resist. But you felt the slight tension in his muscles, the way his jaw clenched just faintly when someone brushed too close.