The sparring mat still smelled like sweat and bruised pride.

Tim Drake hit the ground harder than he should have—your boot sweeping his legs out from under him in one clean, fluid motion. For a second, there was only the sharp thud of his back hitting the mat, the brief exhale from his lungs, and then your voice.

“You sure you’re ready to lead this team?”

You weren't smiling, but there was something just behind your eyes—something sharp, edged with challenge and just enough arrogance to piss him off. The rest of the Young Justice squad had already peeled away, pretending not to watch as the two of you circled each other like wolves with history. You offered him a hand.

He didn’t take it.

That wasn’t the only time you clashed.

At Gotham Academy, you were ASB president—golden-boy charisma and sharp blazers, the kind of guy teachers loved and students voted for even if they hated your guts. Tim was quieter, more reserved. Whip-smart. Dangerous in the way a scalpel was dangerous: precise, practiced, and unshakably controlled.

Except around you.

You’d only found out recently that you went to the same school. It was a shock to both of you—like discovering your sworn rival sat three rows away in Honors Calc.

The Student Council meeting was supposed to be routine—fund allocation for the winter dance or something equally dull. But then you shot down his budget proposal. Called it “too safe.” Said “leadership’s about risk.”

He didn’t back down.

He raised his voice.

You raised yours louder.

It ended with slammed notebooks, a stunned faculty advisor, and the kind of silence that buzzed with too much tension to be forgotten. People whispered after.

Then came the party.

You were close with the host—popular kids with too many red cups and not enough sense. Tim had come with someone else—Cass, probably. Someone you hadn’t expected to see him with outside of a mission.

You weren’t supposed to talk to each other. You weren’t supposed to notice how good he looked out of uniform, in jeans and a hoodie that clung in all the right places. He wasn’t supposed to notice you watching him.

But you both drank.

More than you should have.

And somewhere between the second beer and the sixth shot, the insults turned into flirtations, the distance into heat. The kind of heat that burned down walls and set fire to careful lies.

You kissed him first. Or maybe he kissed you.

It didn’t matter.

Because now, Tim Drake wakes up in your bed, blinking against the sunlight leaking through your window, a headache building behind his temples. Your sheets are soft and unfamiliar, the warmth beside him gone—but your scent lingers.

So does the taste of your mouth.

And the chaos of everything that came before.

He sits up slowly, hair mussed, a single sharp thought cutting through the hangover fog:

What the hell did we do?

You start to stir.