I just wanted to say a quick thank you for understanding my point about the 'Please Update' comments. Your responses are absolutely beautiful and I am so stunned by some of the words in there I haven't had the mind to respond yet, but believe me, I will! I am so grateful for your understanding and I am glad to have hopefully made a difference in your comments on other stories for the future. I love you all, and I hope you enjoy! 

*Please click the commented link if you would like to take part in the survey on my schedule and writing for 2018! <3 #helpnothurt

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The tap is leaking, dropping into the kitchen sink with a harsh pitter patter, cutting through the silence of the apartment at night.

I watch it, reserved, before my eyes drift to Luscious sitting at the end of the counter. His tail is swishing side to side as he merely stares back. I take another drink- Just water. Alcohol would be counterproductive.

It has been a month since Eric's attack. I have to say that things have been quite uneventful. For us personally, anyway. Due to a city wide attack from some gang lead by two men calling themselves the sons of Penguin and Two-Face, work has been pulled way back.

I got to experience the full 'Gotham is in peril' thing when I was made to stay home, then only allowed to go to work being one of the higher-ups. People were scared, there were even some mini-riots. Nothing like this ever happens in Sunset.

It also meant that Dick had been busy Nightwinging. 

Our relationship hasn't exactly changed. For around a week after the attack it was the basics; go to work, get home, go out for a dinner, return, swim and go to sleep. We didn't end up going beyond that until too much champagne at another Wayne and partners family dinner.

After that it was just a few nights a week. It's fun, in a way, and he certainly knows what he's doing, but I can't help feel that we're stuck. Sex and dinner have become our times of contact. I'm usually busy in the office at work or home, designing a certain something while I have the time. He's 'at work' and away on 'business trips' for days at a time.

It isn't bad, not at all, but it isn't getting us any closer to where we are supposed to be. Where Rip needs us to be, anyway.

"Hey cutie," I whisper when Luscious comes strutting over. He isn't as affectionate as cookie, but I love him the same. Occasionally he shows to be a sweetie. Sometimes I think he can sense when I need it. 

I squash his face in my hands and he starts to purr, arching up into it.

"Where's your sister, tom cat? Hm?"

Big amber eyes stare up at me, you know where she is, mom. 

Cookie has fallen in love with Grayson.

She follows him around when he's here, demands to be petted and if she is rejected, will calmly knock things off the counter until he pays her some attention.

Sometimes she squashes her way into bed if we forget to close the door. If he isn't home and she's in the mood to curl up next to her new favourite human, she'll wait under the bed until he comes in.

He justifies his early morning returns with claims that he micromanages some nightclub Bruce owns, wanting to check up on it with everything that is going on. There is no point in calling him out on his bullshit.

A few times he came in limping, back when I was prepared to demand that he at least make up a less flimsy lie, because his returns could ruin the contract. Seeing him in that state, injured, trying to hide it with one of his stupid smiles changed my mind.

I've come to realise that he has a lot of different smiles.

The first one became clear just after the attack. No trace of Eric has been found and in a way I'm glad, but at the same time if they caught him, maybe I could help him. I was disappointed and Dick could tell, so his smile was this bright, cheerful thing with a mix of understanding beneath it. Annoyingly charming.

Ding. 

Luscious turns away from me to watch the elevator door open.

"Ow," the night creeper whispers as he steps into the apartment. The doors slide shut and he hisses with the movement of taking off his mysterious bag.

Great, I look like that obsessive partner/parent who sits by the door in the dark waiting for their significant other to get home.

"Get into a fight in your 'nightclub'?" I say.

He switches the light on and looks at me from across the room, surprised.

"You're awake," he says dumbly. He's wearing a hoodie and jeans but they seem dishevelled. He has a bruise on his jaw that I certainly did not put there.

"Obviously. I woke up about twenty minutes ago." I down the rest of my water and pick up Luscious as I stand.

"Did you have a nightmare?" He asks.

"No," I lie, "Cookie kept climbing over me, looking for you."

As if on cue, Cookie comes trotting out of the room to rub herself up against his legs. He chuckles and picks her up, patting her head. She immediately pushes her ears up into his jaw which ultimately causes him to wince.

"What happened?" I demand.

There we stand, the living-room between us, both holding a cat. 

"Just some thugs at the club. Too much for the bouncers to handle," he responds.

Luscious jumps out of my arms and goes over to his food. Once Cookie sees her brother eating she does the same, not before meowing at Dick.

He tries to take his jumper off but stops with it half-way over his head, grunting in pain.

"You've hurt your ribs, idiot," I snap, striding over to him.

"I don't think there's any internal bleeding though," he responds, muffled by his hoodie. I help him pull it off the rest of the way. He hasn't got a shirt on underneath, but it reveals purple and blue bruises underneath.

"Um...are you sure?" I ask, alarmed by the discolouration.

"Yeah, I had it...checked."

Checked?

I imagine him having an entire x-ray machine tucked away in his pocket.

"Sit down," I tell him.

He doesn't argue, heading over to the sofa and gently collapsing there. Who was he really fighting tonight? I know those gangs are still standing in some corners. Perhaps he came up against some who actually know how to fight?

"I don't know why we have these when neither of us cook," I say, taking one bag of frozen peas and another of frozen beans out. "Maybe for this."

"You think your assistant-bodyguard knew we'd need ice packs?" He grins.

"Na," I drop them in his lap, "She does everything my father tells her to. He likes to think I'm perfect enough that I can cook. Really it's his fault- When I was younger he had a rule on associating with the house staff. We were only allowed to talk to our nannies."

He rolls his eyes, "That's stupid. And rude."

"Told myself that my entire childhood."

Sleep seems to be amiss that night. I watch him for a moment, as he tentatively places the bags atop of each other and then presses them to his bruised body.

I stand there awkwardly for a moment, staring at my shirtless husband on the sofa.

"I'm going for a swim," I decide, hurrying over to the bedroom to change.

The giddiness comes from a place I refuse to acknowledge. I don't feel the need to admit anything like loneliness, or something stupid like that. There is just no reason to try and sleep when I am seeing the bodies of children in a village in my dreams.

"Aren't you tired?" He asks when I come back in a swimsuit. 

"I sat at a desk all day. I'm fine." I press a couple of buttons on the remote for the outside controls. The new glass doors slide open and the pool cover retracts. It lights up a pretty shade of blue and begins to warm.

"You really like swimming, huh?" He states the obvious as I step onto the deck.

"Love it."

I resist the urge to jump in. Instead I take the submerged steps and descend down into the cool water. We weren't able to swim in it for a while because it had to be filtered of bullets and broken glass.

Just one last time, I sink myself to the bottom and scout the pool floor, looking for any remnant, anything remaining. Covering paranoia with satisfaction, I come up empty, and emerge on the deep end.

A pained hissing from inside catches my attention. Dick comes outside, still holding the peas and beans against his side.

I glare at him and slick my hair back, "You'd be much more comfortable on the sofa you know."

He moves into the lawn chair with effort. Blue and purple skin around the edge of those packets reflect the pool light, creating little ripples moving against his skin. The more I stare at those awful colours, the more I get reminded of the last time I saw a bruise that violent on someone.

"You can take a hit, I'll give you that boy," Eric slaps the back of Jack's head as Jane dumps his shirt in his lap. She had been checking bruises on his abdomen, following a fight with a Relaysian super soldier, and is satisfied that it's not serious.

"Seriously though," she starts to tease him too, "It took Cleo and Christa like, two seconds to take down their's. They're fine and you're as purple as a grape."

We're back at base, among tents and trucks. Jane has her medical set-up beneath a tree. I sit on the ground by Jack's bed. He merely laughs off the comments even though it hurts. It's a breezy, summer day in the war zone.

"Grapes aren't purple?" Eric frowns at Jane.

"Did he just say what I think he just said?" Max throws in.

"They're green!"

"They're not just green, Eric." 

"Actually," Cameron joins in, turning away from the truck he is loading with guns to grin at Eric, "Green grapes are technically called white grapes."

"That's racist!"

"There are black grapes too."

"Thanks for proving my point!"

I can't help but chuckle along with the others, but that laughter stops abruptly when Jack starts to roll off the edge of the bed. Distracted by the argument over whether or not Martians would be offended by green grapes actually being called white grapes, Jane doesn't notice.

"Idiot, you'd be more comfortable on the bed," I tell him.

He just grins, laughing and hissing at the same time through his teeth as he lowers himself to the floor in front of my crossed legs.

"Yeah," he says, as he starts to sit up, "But I'd rather be down here with you."

"Ah, that's so much better."

His words and a light splashing drag me out of the flashback and force my attention onto Dick, entering the pool having discarded his pants and frozen vegetable bags.

The relief that washes over his face when he is able to float and take the pressure off of the rest of his body feels like it takes weight off of my own mind. He ends up on his back, sighing contently as he drifts around the surface of the water with his eyes closed. 

I stay where I am for a moment, keeping my head above the water in the deep end.

"Wife?"

"Mm?"

He comes drifting towards me.

"I...have to go away for a few days." He tilts his head back and opens his eyes to meet mine. "Is that okay?" It's quite out of place for the calm atmosphere we had. "It's just a business thing in Toronto. No big deal, I'll be with Bruce and Tim."

He shuts his eyes again and returns to drifting.

Bullshit.

I duck under his body and head back to the shallow side, submerged. He's going on business alright- Nightwing business. What an idiot. His torso looks like...Well, a grape, and he's still going to go out fighting? In Canada?

According to the reports I was reading in bed before I got up, the gangs he has been fighting for the past month are still at large. Is Damian supposed to take care of all of that on his own?

Nothing he says adds up, and it's really starting to get annoying.

Still, when I come back up to the surface and see him trying to vertical himself, wincing and hissing with the effort it takes, I remember his dedication to that stupid suit and mask.

"Of course it's okay," I huff, "Idiot." 

That last bit and the comparison reminds me of that part in Wreck-It Ralph where Felix calls Calhoun a Dynamite Gal and it gives her flashbacks to her late ex, who used to say that to her xD