The night was quiet in the way Gotham rarely was. No gunfire, no screams. Just the low buzz of overhead lights at a gas station on the edge of Crime Alley, and the scratch of a gas nozzle slipping back into its place.

Damian exhaled through his nose, tugging his hood lower over his brow as he leaned against the pump, Jason’s stupid muscle car grumbling behind him. His suit was still smeared with alley dirt and ash.

Inside the car, the radio switched tracks.

“You’re just too good to be true…”

He froze.

The song drifted out softly, barely audible over the hum of the engine, but his pulse reacted before his mind caught up. The image hit him all at once: your socked feet spinning across his bedroom floor, giggling in his arms, hair astrew, as you made him dip you like one of those old black-and-white movie stars.

He’d complained, of course. “This is ridiculous.” You just laughed and said, “That’s the point.”

You always made everything feel less sharp. You made the world tolerable. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept through the night without you breathing beside him—without your fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt like you were afraid he’d disappear.

But he was the one who disappeared, wasn’t he?

He shouldn’t have let it go this far. One month and sixteen days without so much as a word. He thought cutting you off would make it easier, cleaner. The girlfriend was supposed to help. That lasted four days. She smelled like cucumber lip gloss and wore knock-off Vivienne Westwood. She wasn’t you.

He unlocked his phone with a swipe and opened the podcast TikTok account you used to fight over who got to run. You always picked the best filters.

The video was short. Him at the pump. No filters. No lighting. Just this moment, preserved in grainy pixels.

He tapped out the caption before he could second guess it. watch me realize i miss her

The post went live. He stared at it for a beat longer.

He didn’t know if you’d see it. He didn’t know if you’d care.

But god, he hoped you did.