It was late evening by the time you let yourself into the safehouse.

The door creaked like always—something Jason swore he’d fix and never did—and the familiar scent hit you first. Gunpowder, leather, motor oil… and faintly underneath it all, that warm, smoky cologne he wore only when he remembered he owned it. The apartment was dim, lit mostly by the orange glow bleeding in from the city through half-shut blinds. It looked exactly how you remembered, exactly how he always left it: like chaos had found a home and decided to stay.

The kitchen table was, unsurprisingly, cluttered with a disassembled pistol, a half-empty box of 9mm rounds, and a random pair of fingerless gloves. There were two forks in the sink, a Red Hood helmet on the counter like it was a centerpiece, and a jacket hanging off the back of a chair—maybe his, maybe yours. At this point, you shared more space than you admitted.

You’d only just dropped your bag when the bathroom door opened down the hall, a puff of steam rolling out ahead of him like a lazy cloud. Jason padded out barefoot, toweling his hair dry with one hand, the other tugging up his half-zipped tactical pants in that effortlessly careless way of his. Shirtless. Bruised. Beautiful in that messy, bulletproof kind of way. Like a war god who misplaced his war.

He caught sight of you, blinked, then smirked like he’d known you were coming all along. “Fridge is stocked,” he said, tossing the towel over his shoulder as he walked past you. “Don’t get too excited—Alfred snuck in healthy stuff again. There’s spinach in the lasagna. Spinach. Can you believe the betrayal?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Just moved to the kitchen and started clearing a space on the table with the grace of someone used to navigating around murder weapons and meal prep. Shell casings got swept into a metal bowl. He flicked a knife off the cutting board into the sink with a clatter. A burner clicked on. Water ran.

You watched him move around like this was his own language—loud, kinetic, unconcerned with neatness, but deliberate all the same. He didn’t ask if you were hungry. He didn’t need to. You’d been out. You were tired. So he made food.

In the middle of stirring something in the pan—eggs, maybe? garlic and something spicy—he reached over and plucked one of your hands off the back of a chair. Not to kiss it, not to say anything poetic, just… held it there for a beat. Warm fingers wrapping around yours, grounding. Then he let go like it had never happened and went back to stirring like he hadn’t just casually carved out space for you in his world again.

He tossed a dish towel at the table, nudging aside a gun magazine with the corner of a plate. “That’s the cleanest spot you’re getting,” he muttered, but you knew better. Somewhere under all that grumbling was the truth: he’d fought half the night, scrubbed blood off his knuckles, and still came home to feed you first.

You didn’t need an ‘I love you.’ Not when he served it sizzling from the stove, already plated, still muttering about spinach.