"Hey."

When he finally gets to my office I'm gripping a water bottle in my hand crushed to oblivion. I hear the external door of Mai's side click shut, indicating that she has left. 

"Shut the door," I tell him, back still turned with my eyes on the city. He murmurs an 'okay' and pushes it closed with a thunk. He doesn't say anything as he walks through the office, but his footsteps stop at the desk which I'm standing behind. 

I swallow thickly and manage to keep my voice level, "Take your clothes off." I can't think of a better way to proposition him. 

'Hey, wanna have sex on the desk?' or 'Hey, at the moment you're the only thing I like about this city. Can you kindly remove your clothing and lay on the table?'

Yeah, no. 'Take your clothes off' is the only invitation he needs.

When he doesn't say anything, I glance over my shoulder. He's standing a few yards behind me in jeans, a plain shirt and a jacket. He looks mystified, jerking his head back. I give a little nod and he catches onto why I really asked him here.

"What? In here?" He gestures around with a bewildered tone.

"Can't think of a better place."

"Our bed maybe?" 

Irritated by his sudden opposition, I turn back around, ready to tell him to get out. At least I'd like to, but something about being in here by myself just isn't as appealing as usual. So instead I end up gritting me teeth and casting my gaze away. That's enough to hint I'm not all together.

"What's going on?" His tone softens and I cringe, the images flickering by like shadows again.

I throw the water bottle to the side and march up to him. He flinches a bit when I lean up to his face, "I've had these images in my head," I make some sort of stupid gesture to my head, "all day."

Help me. 

"Get. Them. Out."

Whether it's the desperation in my eyes or the proposition itself, I pretend not to know, but he's convinced. There's a sense of reluctance in his face but I can't find the guilt in me. He gives a little sigh, shuts his eyes and seems to mull over the idea of having sex for no other reason than taking my mind off of something.

He opens them, "Okay."

An arm slips around my waist and he turns, pulling me with him. He lifts me onto the left side of the desk. I grasp his jacket and push it off his shoulders. He helps as he kisses me, flinging it behind him before he takes a step closer and pulls my knee up to his hip.

The contrast is strange as he takes his shirt off and I run my hands down his chest. Plump lips, hard chest. Soft hair, rough hands.

Those hands get to work on my own blouse and I reach for his fly. As soon as it's undone he pushes me back so that I'm laying on the desk. He climbs up and looms over me with a renewed p smile.

"I should've guessed you'd done this before," I tease.

"On tables," he agrees, "but not desks."

"Oh cause they're so different," I pull him back down to me before he can laugh, because it'll make me laugh. He throws my top over his head to join his clothes.

I internally dare him to bite me or leave any kind of mark as revenge for this morning when he moves down to my neck, but he doesn't. I'm a little disappointed but he more than makes up for it in the soft kisses as he helps pull my skirt down.

I'm distracted.

◊

◊

"They're gone! Half of them are gone. Someone's taking it all out of the company. Does that fool not even know what's happening in his own business?"

A small group of people stand in the shadows of a rainy street, speaking in a tongue any passers by will not understand.

"He may know," one of the group huddled in the shadows says, "Don't forget, Alan Perich is smarter than he appears. That's what we have always been told, correct?"

Another scoffs, "Who cares? The removal of assets is not enough to take from the Relaysian army. There we have soldiers beyond anything of a dollar."

"Yes," agrees another, "but the loss is still a threat. A threat that increases with each and every company absorbed. The main file though, does it remain intact?"

The leader of the group nods, "Wayne- Or, whoever is taking the assets, is unlikely to touch that in particular file. It is named after something very close to that fool's heart. I'm sure it won't raise any suspicions there. All of our secrets will remain...untouched."

"So long as she doesn't find it."

◊

◊

"Tell me about them."

He kind of looks at me like I'm crazy. I would too if my wife asked me to tell her about my exes.

"You gonna tell me about Jack?" He presses.

I shrug, "If you want."

We're laying back on the empty desk, half dressed. He keeps low-key tangling his fingers with mine. It doesn't bother me, surprisingly, because it somehow defuses a bit of the tension.

"Kori was the first person I ever loved. I knew Babs before that but I can't say I loved her back then, exactly."

"And...how did you meet 'Kori'?"

For a second, I see the double-life panic rise in his eyes. That moment of I wasn't Dick Grayson, I was Robin. 

"Foreign exchange program," he states smoothly. I feel like pressing it further and asking where she was from. Seeing as Dick's two significant exes were, according to the wedding speeches, 'out of this world' and 'like magic', I assume Kori is an alien. 

But, he might think I'm a little crazy for wanting to know the specifics.

"Kori was sweet, innocent...but there was something ferocious about her. She was a good mix of wild and tame, you know?"

The subtle stir of jealousy in me gets squashed down when I turn over on my side and prop my head up to look at him.

He smiles at me, "Sorry."

"Don't be," I shake my head, "What about the librarian?"

"Babs?" He gives a little laugh, "Babs and I were friends for a while before anything romantic happened between us. It was inevitable, and it did happen, but just like with Kori we wanted different things at different times. Life got in the way and eventually we just...stopped. She's still one of my closest friends though."

Just like that, jealousy exchanges itself for guilt. I was so quick to judge when the contract was written. 

For a moment neither of us say anything. He just leans up and kisses me. I roll my eyes and lay back down. I suppose it's my turn.

"Jack was unlike anyone I'd ever met," I begin, "At first I thought he was just another dumb jock. This big Polynesian hothead with a high opinion of himself. But he was none of that. He was softer and gentler than your usual Elite. We all adored him." I can't help the smile. It doesn't last very long. "And then he died."

In the wake of that is him, frozen, unsure of what to do as a comfort. I can't believe I just said it outright like that. 

Eventually, he settles on holding my hand just a bit tighter.

"I'm sorry."

When we leave, people seem unable to keep their eyes off of us.  Most reactions are genuine smiles. A happy young couple. The husband came to see the wife. Not that they need to know what that lead to.

His car is out on the street. 

"When Mai walked past me she said she was taking your car," he explains before I turn down the corner leading to the building car park. So instead, we end up in his.

There are a couple of cameras flashing as we get in. He opens the passenger door for me and I can't tell if it's because of the watching eyes, or his own sense of manner.

"So there was Jack," he begins as we pull out into the road, "Anyone else?"

I hum, trying to think. No one specific comes to mind. I wasn't exactly looking for a partner while I was drifting around at the ridiculous parties my father had to gain popularity. I was just looking for a dumb boy to pass the time.

"No one worth mentioning. Just some rich boys who attended the galas and the dinners with their fathers for business. For a while I was questioning whether or not I'd ever met you."

He chuckles, "I did attend one of the parties, but we would have only been very young."

"Makes sense," I agree, "And if I had met Bruce Wayne or anything of his sons, I probably would have targeted that other asshole instead of you."

I glance at him, his brow creasing for a moment, "You would have picked Jason over me?" He asks.

"No, he's way younger," I quickly, "I'm just saying, I was prone to that type of guy rather than..." I trail of, before gesturing to Dick.

"W-What does that mean?" He asks, expression a mix of confusion and laughter.

"Why? Are you jealous?" I respond.

"No! You're just- Are you saying you want a bad boy? 'Cause tattoos hurt, I hear. And piercings. Do I have to get them? I can start wearing more leather jackets. Do you want me to start smoking? And should I be mean to you?"

On paper he probably sounds serious, but the stupid look on his face and the panicky-pitched tone in his voice screams the joke. He starts laughing at his own comedy and I realise, I already am.

"You don't need tattoos. You could get piercing though," I suggest, grinning as we enter the apartment carpark.

He gasps, "And ruin my good boy image?"

We pull into the parking space and I try to pick something from the range of responses that has. I could point out that his good boy image is ruined by the amount of face creams he uses, or mention that it's not 'good' boy, it's 'pretty' boy.

Instead, I stick with the innuendo theme of the day.

"There are plenty of piercings you can get that aren't on the face," I joke. I quickly hurry out of the car as he starts laughing. I speed walk to the lobby door.

"Hey!" He calls after me. I can hear his footsteps running over, "You want me to puncture little me and then you run away?"

"We're going to the same place genius," I snap. Then, when I actually register what he said,  "And don't call your dick 'little me'. What's wrong with you?" 

Despite the fact that we sound like we're arguing, we both seem to have half smiles stuck on our faces. There's this pain in my stomach. I think it's because of the laughter. When was the last time I laughed this much?

Even though the joy is nice, when we get into the apartment I head straight for the bedroom. Mostly because he disappears into his office. I don't get the feeling he is retreating like before because something has been up with him as well. He's probably checking up on a Nightwing project.

Maybe our little lunch time adventure was what we both needed.  

Today was a rollercoaster of emotions but the pool is like a medication within itself. The perfect ending to a horrible day. I sink to the bottom as usual again and shut my eyes, pretending I'm home. The motion of the waves is imaginary, but it's enough. Coral and sand, fish and salt.

When the flash of fangs still passes by I cringe, pushing off of the bottom and emerging.

"I was wondering where you were," I hear Dick say alongside the closing of the door.

"If you can't find me anywhere look for the closest body of water," I tell him, pushing the hair back off of my face. 

There is something ominous to his expression, like he's worried about something off in the distance. It isn't in me to ask what, because I know it has something to do with Nightwing and that he won't be able to answer. I'm not in the mood to watch him struggle through a response.

So instead, I give him a reassuring smile. It erases that look on his face because he smiles back.

"Are you coming in or not?" I ask. 

My guess is that the image of our last little pool party comes to mind. He grins, then pulls his shirt off. I glance away from an injury on his abdomen. I guess I'm supposed to assume he was roughhousing with Jason or something..

He doesn't slip in slowly. I duck out of the way when he bombs into the pool like a, well, like a him. 

"It's freezing!" He exclaims when he surfaces. His hair does a little flick thing.

"Don't worry," I say, moving towards him, trying not to look like a predator, "you'll get used to it."

The move seems to be muscle memory when he reaches out and pulls me in. I wrap my arms around his neck and basically use him to float instead of wasting my own energy in the deep end. It's not an excuse to cling to him.

"There were more," I begin, anything to distract him from whatever ails Nightwing, "right?"

The distance between us is only a few inches, but I still see his entire expression falter.

"You really want to talk about that when we're like this?" He asks, nodding down.

"So there is?" I press, trying to look more mad than entertained, but it doesn't work. A smile breaks through the solemn expression and he leans forward for a kiss. "You're such a dork.

I feel him smile into it.

Just as I'm about to purposely sink us, I feel a chill run down my back. Not the good kind, not caused by him and not brought on by temperature.

Both of us draw back at the same time and I know he feels it too. Something isn't right.

The second the gunfire starts raining over us we're already dragging each other under water. 

◊

If you didn't see: I am having art done for this book as I have with my others. I wasn't going to but I like it enough now. 

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