The first time Jason Todd walked into {{user}}’s workshop, he expected a grim-faced arms dealer with scars, sharp eyes, and zero patience for strangers.

Instead, he got them.

Sunlight poured through the windows of the reinforced bunker-turned-shop, falling over half-built weapons, open toolboxes, and blueprints pinned across the walls like chaos had learned how to organize itself.

{{user}} spun from a cluttered workbench and tossed him a sidearm like they’d known his grip before he did.

Jason caught it on instinct.

Then froze.

Not because he didn’t trust the weapon.

Because {{user}} looked at him like he was a person and not a walking red flag with trauma in a leather jacket.

Roy, useless as ever, leaned against the wall with a soda in hand and grinned. “Told you. Best in the business.”

Jason shot him a look. “You say that about every person who gives you explosives.”

“Yeah,” Roy said. “But this time I’m right.”

{{user}} said something bright and smug from across the room, all spark and confidence, like Jason hadn’t walked in armed, guarded, and ready to hate everything about this place.

People in his world didn’t act like that.

They didn’t talk to strangers with easy nerve. They didn’t hand over loaded weapons like party favors. They didn’t make a bunker feel warm.

Jason didn’t trust easy.

Not suppliers.

Not civilians.

Not friends.

Not anyone, really.

But {{user}} was different.

Every time he and Roy came back, the workshop felt more alive. Music played too loud from an old speaker. Machines hummed. Tools clinked. Blueprints spread over every surface like {{user}} had picked a fight with neatness and won.

They talked to their machines. Named them. Painted skulls and smiley faces on grenades. Built weapons with terrifying skill, then acted like the whole thing was just another fun little project.

It should’ve bothered him.

It didn’t.

That was the problem.

{{user}} had this maddening way of making danger feel less heavy. Like the world hadn’t tried to chew up everyone Jason had ever cared about. Like there was still room for jokes, bad coffee, and stupid little drawings on ammo crates.

And it wasn’t just their light that kept him coming back.

It was their eye.

{{user}} noticed things.

The way Jason shifted his weight when his armor pulled wrong. The way his hand moved toward his side when a door opened too fast. The way his holsters slowed him down by half a second, which was half a second too long.

They reinforced his chest armor without him asking.

Adjusted his gear because they could tell what bothered him.

Built weapons that pierced metahuman skin without asking why he needed them.

No judgment.

No lecture.

No pity.

Just steel, fire, and that infuriating calm, like Jason was not the most difficult customer alive.

“You always this quiet when someone saves your life with better equipment?” {{user}} asked one night, not looking up from the gauntlet they were fixing.

Jason leaned against the workbench. “You always this annoying when you’re showing off?”