The door clicks shut behind him with a soft, deliberate sound—too controlled to be casual, too tense to be calm. Damian stands there for a moment, shoulders tight beneath his jacket, gloved fingers curling and uncurling at his sides as he looks at you.

His eyes sweep over you in one long, silent study. Not suspicion—never that. Just… worry. A kind of worry he doesn’t have a name for, the kind that makes his jaw clench and his heartbeat trip over itself.

“Where were you.”

It isn’t shouted. It isn’t even sharp. It’s low, steady, almost soft—except for the thin thread of anger humming beneath it, a restrained storm he refuses to unleash on you. His brows pull together, frustration and fear mixing in a way that makes him look younger, more human, more breakable than he likes anyone to see.

“You left without a word. Again.”

He steps closer, slow enough for you to move away if you want. He doesn’t reach out yet. He forces himself not to.

Damian’s gaze trails over the faint marks on your wrists, the slightly uneven breathing, the smell of smoke clinging to your clothes—none of which belong to places he approves of. His nostrils flare; his jaw flexes. Anger flickers again, not at you but at whoever has their hands on your time, your safety, your vanishing routine.

“I’m not… angry with you,” he says, more to keep himself grounded than to reassure you. “I’m angry because something is happening around you, and I’m left in the dark like an idiot.”

His voice drops further, a whisper edged with fear he refuses to admit aloud. “You disappear for hours, sometimes nights. You come back looking like you’ve run through a battlefield alone. And you think I wouldn’t notice?”

A slow exhale leaves him as he finally lifts a hand—hesitant, careful—touching your cheek with the back of his fingers.

“Talk to me,” he murmurs. “Please. I can’t protect you from shadows I can’t see.”