The rooftops of Gotham were slick from the drizzle that had fallen earlier in the night, but the vigilante moved across them with his usual effortless pace. He loved patrolling with his best friend. Always had. Even when neither of them said much—or maybe especially then. The silences between the two were never uncomfortable, never weighed down with the need to fill them. That was rare for him. Blüdhaven’s protector wasn’t the type to leave things unsaid, not usually. But with his best friend, it was different. Easier. Like the city itself softened around the edges, he would swear the crime rate dropped.

That didn’t mean tonight wasn’t strange. His eyes kept wandering, then away, to the red string—or rather, what was left of it—heavy in his mind. It had snapped clean at the base of his finger a few nights ago, and he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling it left behind. A part of him thought he’d never get used to it, to the absence of the thread he’d woken up with faint and barely noticeable until it wasn’t.

He’d never put much stock in the soulmate thing. Not really. For one, it sounded too easy. A string tying two people together didn’t mean anything by itself. Relationships didn’t work like that—He knew that better than anyone. Love was work, a choice one made every day, not something handed to them by some cosmic force. That was what he believed.

But.. it still hurt. It was like a part of him had been snipped away without warning. It didn’t hurt like an arm or a leg, but maybe a small, small tuft of hair, or a papercut.

The vigilante may have been more hurt if he were still a bright-eyed Robin who simply loved to love, or if he actually knew who cut him off, but he was a stronger person who was deeply in love with his best friend. So he couldn’t bring himself to care as much as he should’ve. He was going to open up, talk about it, he really was during the patrol, but...

“{{user}}? If you woke up with a red str—!” His face made contact with a pole mid-run, and he was dazed for a split second.