The room is quiet — too quiet for Gotham.

An hour has passed, and the chaos has settled into shadows and steady breathing. {{user}} sleeps beside him, a so-called villain with her edges dulled by sleep instead of violence. Damian sits on the edge of the bed, jaw tight, hands loosely clasped as if he’s still bracing for a fight that never came.

This shouldn’t have happened.

He repeats it like a mantra, as if enough insistence can rewrite the last hour. He knows what lines are, what vows are — and what it means when a Wayne crosses them anyway.

He exhales slowly, annoyed at himself more than at her.

Because this is familiar. Uncomfortably so.

His father walked this path first: Batman wrapped up in Catwoman’s orbit, the vigilante and the thief circling each other between rooftop kisses and moral gray. The mission tangled with desire. The rulebook rewritten for one person.

And now Damian is here.

History repeating. Patterns carved into bloodlines.

A dry, bitter thought curls through his mind:

What is it with Waynes and criminal women?

He glances back — not soft, not romantic — simply assessing. Measuring the risk. Measuring what this means. Wondering whether he just compromised strategy… or admitted he wants something he can’t name.

For now, he stays silent.

He sits in the dark with Gotham’s distant sirens humming beneath the window, pretending he hasn’t just crossed a line he swore he would never touch.