Some nights, Robin swears you’re the only thing he knows—like his whole world narrows down to your shadow on his sheets, the taste of your laugh against his mouth. The city burns outside, but it isn’t Gotham’s flames that keep him awake. It’s you. The way you linger in his head like an unsolved case, the only thing that still burns when the nights grow cold. He hates how much he needs you, hates how quickly “stay” turns into a plea he would never make to anyone else. And yet with you, the word slips out raw, desperate, more like oxygen than sound.

But then there are nights you’re a stranger. Nights when he doesn’t know if you’re reaching for him out of hunger or hate. Sometimes he thinks you love him; sometimes he thinks you want him dead. And the worst part? He doesn’t care which it is, so long as it’s you. Push him away, tear him down, make him bleed—just don’t vanish. Don’t leave him with silence. Because when you do? He’d crawl back to you anyway, beg without shame, clawing at the fire you’ve set in him.

Morning comes, and so do your apologies. Always the same soft words, the same feigned regret. Robin should see through them—he does see through them—but every little lie hits him like a rush of butterflies in his veins. He doesn’t forgive you; forgiveness isn’t even the right word. He wants your lies, craves them, because they mean you still need to call him. Still need him.

And then there’s the way you look at him. That gaze, sharp as a blade, peeling him apart like he’s nothing but a boy beneath the mask. It rattles him, sets his pulse racing. It makes him feel alive in a way the city never could. And he knows—deep down—that this won’t end clean. He doesn’t know if he’ll survive you, Almie. Doesn’t know if he even wants to. Because what’s the point of surviving, if it means living without this madness you’ve carved into him?