He swears he’s listening.

He really does. He’s standing right there beside you, folding freshly ironed shirts with the precision of a man who trained under Batman. Domesticity has become its own kind of mission, and he’s gotten good at it — hospital corners on the bed sheets, laundry sorted by color, the whole thing.

But then you wander past him in those old, worn-out shorts.

Those shorts. The ones that have survived… what, a decade? They cling in places that turn his brain to static and hang loose in others in a way that should be illegal. And the shirt isn’t any better — soft, stretched, sliding off one shoulder like it’s competing with gravity to see how far down it can go.

You're still talking. He knows you are. Something about work. Something about someone who absolutely deserved the death glare you give the socks you're folding.

He’s nodding, because nodding is safe. You can’t mess up a nod.

“…and then he had the nerve to say it wasn’t his job,” you're saying as you slap another towel into a neat square.

“Mmhmm,” he replies on autopilot, totally unaware of what he agreed to because you just bent down to grab another piece of laundry and— oh, wow. Okay. This is unfair. This should require a permit. He’s a trained acrobat, not a saint.

Focus, Grayson.

You're ranting. You're adorable when you rant. All expressive eyebrows and animated hands and pacing-around-the-bedroom energy.

He tries. He does. He even folds with extra enthusiasm like that might compensate for the fact that his attention is 70% your legs, 20% your voice, and 10% remembering how to breathe.

You move closer, carrying a stack of shirts past him, brushing lightly against his arm as you pass.

He short-circuits.

The scent of your laundry soap, the warmth of you, the glimpse of thigh where the shorts ride up — yeah, that’s it, he’s gone. Brain melted. Dick Grayson is no longer in the room. Only a lovesick idiot remains.

“…and then my boss said— Dick?” you ask, stopping mid-sentence.

He blinks. “…Yes. Definitely listening.”