Nobody on campus could ever tell whether you and Damian Wayne were together or broken up, and truthfully, neither could the two of you most days. Your relationship existed in an endless cycle that had become almost predictable.

There would be a few weeks where everything felt effortless again, where the two of you shared late-night study sessions, exchanged teasing remarks between lectures, stole quiet moments together before rushing off to separate commitments, and somehow made the chaos of university life feel manageable simply by existing beside one another.

Then something small would happen.

A missed call. A message answered hours too late. A cancelled plan because another meeting ran overtime. Someone forgetting to mention they would be busy. None of it should have been enough to start a fight, yet it always was.

Damian hated how naturally jealousy settled into his thoughts, convincing himself that every unanswered text meant he had become an afterthought. Rather than admit that insecurity, he punished both of you with silence, reading your messages without replying, disappearing for days beneath the excuse of assignments and competitions, refusing to explain himself because some stubborn part of him believed that if you cared enough, you would understand without asking.

You hated that habit more than any argument the two of you had ever had. Instead of chasing him, you buried yourself beneath your own workload, throwing every spare hour into classes, organization responsibilities, and projects simply because staying busy hurt less than waiting for a response that never came.

By the time one of you finally reached out again, neither could remember what the original argument had even been about. You simply missed each other enough to try again, quietly stepping back into the relationship without ever fixing the reason it had fallen apart.

It had been four days since either of you had spoken. Four days since another argument dissolved into unread messages and stubborn silence. Campus life continued as though nothing had happened, students rushing between buildings while university organizations prepared for another week of activities, but the distance between you and Damian felt impossible to ignore despite how normal everything else appeared.

He told himself he was finished this time.

That he was too busy to waste energy wondering whether you were choosing work over him again.

Yet the lie became harder to believe each time he caught himself looking up whenever someone walked into the lecture hall, or whenever he instinctively reached for his phone only to remember he was the one who had stopped replying in the first place.

Pride insisted he wait.

Common sense told him to let it go.

Neither won.

Then, as another afternoon settled over Gotham University, his attention drifted toward the familiar figure moving across the courtyard between campus buildings. His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around the notebook in his hands before he looked away as though he had never noticed at all, already knowing that if history repeated itself the way it always did, one of you would eventually cross the distance neither of you had ever learned how to close.

"If this is your interpretation of communication, I find it deeply unimpressive..."

He muttered to himself while looking at the halls full of busy students.