-Dick's POV-

A girl, more beautiful than anything in the universe, wrapped her hands around my throat. I didn't dare thrash. I stared into her face. A warm feeling flooded my chest. I couldn't tell if it was from the lack of air or from the love I felt for her. She continued to squeeze. I let her do it. Why would I stop her? I loved her, despite how evil she was. Her eyes were dark and cloudy as she held me down. I reached up and gently touched her scarred skin. Gasping for breath, I smiled. Bright light clouded my vision. The last thing I saw was her tragically alluring face.

-

I sat straight up, panting. I sucked in short breathes, desperate for some air to clear the dream from my mind. My hands flung out around me. Remembering that I hadn't gone to sleep alone, I glanced over to make sure I hadn't hit Victoria. But, she wasn't there. Her side of the bed was perfectly in order and her clothes were gone.

I sighed and got out of bed. It felt a little awful to wake up alone without even a goodbye, but I knew how Vic was. She always woke up early. She was always gone when I woke up. Yet, I was almost always at the Watchtower before she was. I decided not to question what she was doing during that extra few hours. We were dating, she deserved to still have privacy.

The warm sunlight filled every inch of my master bedroom. Unlike Bruce, I always had my drapes drawn back in the morning. I loved waking up in the morning with light. It made me feel happy.

After a quick shower, I pulled on my cop uniform. I took one last glance at my wrecked room, visions of the night before bringing a grin to my face. I promised to myself to clean up all the clothes on the floor and other things that laid on the floor.

When I arrived at the Bludhaven Police Station after almost an hour commute, I settled myself at my desk. I had decided to be a bit stereotypical and buy a donut and coffee. I had skipped breakfast -- against Alfred's wishes, mind you -- to get out the door quicker. It was a bad idea. Especially when I was I was slowly driving on my motorcycle seeing people eating in their cars. I knew I didn't need that big of a breakfast since I only had a half-shift at work that day. I got to leave early.

"Traffic," Amy Rohrbach said as she approached my desk. She dropped a pile of paperwork on my desk and tossed me the keys of my new cop bike. I twirled them around my finger and stared up at her.

"Thanks, Officer Rohrbach," I smiled.

"Well, go do it, Officer Grayson."

I nodded and hurried to the police parking lot. I pressed the button on my keys to make my specific bike flash in response. It wasn't as cool as my personal vehicle, but it was still a motorcycle. And I loved motorcycles.

Traffic duty proved to be very uneventful. I pulled one person over for having their lights out. I never realized how much crime Bludhaven lacked during the day. At night, it was like a whole new world. Gotham was similar, but even it had a few cases during the day. Maybe Bludhaven had more in store for me, but my higher officers weren't letting me handling it. I was a rookie after all.

I leaned against my police bike, eating a sandwich. Cars zoomed past me. I didn't mind them blowing my hair. I had decided to nibble on the tiny sandwich for the remaining hour of my half-shift. I was thinking that maybe if I was pretending to be off-guard, something would approach me. Unfortunately, I had been wrong. Wow, jobs are so boring. I thought, sighing.

The final hour ticked by. I quickly hopped on my bike and traded it for my personal one. Gotham, with it's long lines of traffic, yet again made my trip back to Wayne Manor take an hour.

"Welcome back, Master Dick," Alfred greeted. I changed my clothes and left in one of Bruce's lamborghinis.

Pulling up to the Wayne Enterprises building, I strolled into the main lobby. A cute receptionist smiled shyly at me. I leaned my elbow on her desk.

"How can I help you?" She asked, a small blush rising on her cheeks. The girl had soft green eyes and light blond hair. I guessed she was roughly around Artemis's age.

"Can you get Victoria Smith down here?"

"Mr. Wayne's secretary?"

I bobbed my head. With a giggle, the receptionist picked up her phone. I presumed she was calling Victoria's office. I hadn't known that Victoria was Bruce's secretary. I had thought he had hired her as an assistant. Knowing her though, she would want a job that was higher than retrieving coffee.

All clad in a pin-striped dress suit with pearls, a very professional Victoria stepped out of the elevator. She smiled at the girl behind the desk when she arrived. I couldn't help but notice she was wearing black heels. I remembered last night she wore sexy heels, but I never knew she wore them to work. The more I thought about what she had worn yesterday, the more I had wished she had worn that small cocktail dress right then.

"Thank you, Rebecca," Victoria cooed. Her long legs glided across the floor as she went outside. I followed her, straightening my tie.

"What're you doing here?" My girlfriend asked.

I smirked and pulled her in for a hug. She actually wrapped her arms around me limply. I pulled her close and put my chin on her head. I had to really reach though. Those heels made her a lot taller. She squirmed around. I knew I was embarrassing her.

"Alright, down Boy Blunder," Victoria giggled, getting free of me. I smiled seeing how happy she was to see me.

"I had a half day at work so I wanted to surprise you," I explained, "wanna grab lunch?"

As if on cue, her stomach growled. She grabbed at it and nodded quickly. "I'm starving. I skipped breakfast."

"Me too." I grabbed her hand and led her to the car I had taken. Her hair was slightly messed up from the hug I gave her, so she smoothed it into place.

As we approached the luxury car, her expression went dead-panned. She rolled her eyes at me. "Did you really have to drive the most expensive car Bruce owns?"

"This isn't Bruce's most expensive car, trust me," I opened the door for her, "and I wanted to make sure you know about all of the Wayne benefits." Victoria hesitantly got into the car through the door I opened for her. She snuck me a glare before getting in. I knew how much she hated when I did simple things for her. She truly was an independent person, which made me even luckier to be dating her.

"You should crash it to see how angry Bruce would get," she suggested with a smirk.

"I'll bet you one margarita that his face would turn as red as Red Tornado," I said.

"You're on."

I drove to a casual mexican restaurant. It wasn't too fancy, but it was perfect for lunch for a Wayne. Victoria instantly turned heads when she entered. It was something I noticed she did a lot. Wherever she went, she seemed to draw all attention to her without knowing it. It wasn't just men that looked either. I would see women stare at the beauty and send glares.

Victoria was nothing short of a rich model.

"May I have a chimichanga with green chile, please?" She ordered. Before I could even offer, she had already whipped out her wallet and handed the guy her credit card. Just like the receptionist, the cashier sent Victoria a shy smile and blushed. I saw him taking glances at her while he punched in her order. Just as always, she remained oblivious of her obvious attraction.

"Ehm," I cleared my throat to alert the guy I existed, "I want the enchiladas."

"Uh, okay. Would you like some drinks?" He asked, shaking his head and facing me. Victoria was too busy admiring the decor of the place.

"Yes. Two margaritas." Victoria was eighteen and I was nineteen. We were both under Gotham's legal age limit for drinking, but I had gotten away with buying alcohol since I joined the Teen Titans. Being a master hacker as well as being able to make my own fake ID was a blessing.

I paid the guy, we got our food, and chose a spot outside. The weather was luckily still warm. It was nearing the end of August. Gotham would be getting colder and that would mean no more outside dates.

"It's so nice," Victoria remarked, sitting back in her chair. "I really like the summer, but I can't wait for winter."

I didn't really like winter. Everything seemed so gloomy. It made Gotham more sinister. But, I did enjoy the family and friends aspect of it. I enjoyed walking past Christmas decorations and drinking hot chocolate. Bruce never really liked the whole christmas-hero-slack-off thing, but all the Batfamily did always come together to take Christmas Card photos and eat dinner.

I ate my food and savored every spicy bite of it. Victoria was already done with her food when I had started on mine. That was another thing I noticed. She always wolfed down her food and got extra servings when she could. She didn't eat as much as Wally or me, but compared to other girls I knew, she was a viking with her meals.

"I bought us margaritas," I said when our drinks finally got to our table. The pale yellow of the drink swirled to form a peak at the top of the salted glass. A small pink umbrella was stuck in Victoria's drink. No doubt the cashier had put that there.

"Mmm, this is good!" A smile of delight stretched across her beautiful face. She closed her eyes and hummed, drinking more of the drink.

"Summer's almost over, so I thought we could celebrate it's life by drinking some summer drinks." I brought the margarita to my lips and licked off the salt. The margarita was sweeter than usual. Or maybe it was just me.

"I should be getting back to work...I only have an hour of lunch," she said, "and it took me days to argue with Bruce to get that extra time." Victoria flipped her hair and looked nervously at her watch.

"How about you take a half day too?" Her eyes widened, "hear me out, Vic. We work all week and always have to be a hero at night. I'm surprised we even get sleep!"

"Dick, I have a very important position. Bruce would fire me in a second if I ditched," Victoria said, rolling her eyes. The dark circles under her eyes proved my point even more that she needed to let loose.

"I've known Bruce since I was ten. He'll let you off the hook."

"Alright, whatever. Where do you want to go?"

"Amusement Mile."

She gasped. "The amusement park?"

I nodded. Victoria was never a person to enjoy things that were even slightly childish. She was too serious and too badass to eat cotton candy. But, I was destined to change that.

"Let's go, come on," I left the money for the food and grabbed her hand. Despite her efforts, I tugged her up to her feet. Victoria crashed into me.

She stood in her place. After a moment of thought, she said, "I'll go, if we double date. I'm calling Tim and Cassie. Everyone knows they need some personal time together," she smiled.

"I wouldn't mind having some personal time for us together."

"We had some last night, didn't we?" A seductive smirk crept across Victoria's plump lips. Her red lipstick was making her look dangerous and hot at the same time. My hands instinctively found themselves at her hips. The way she pressed against me was making me excited.

"Y - yeah we did," I stuttered, "but I was hoping for something more of a date."

"I understand. A double date is okay, right? Tim and Cassie need the romance and so do we." She smiled sweetly. The innocent look made me want to kiss her nose and hug her really tightly. I chuckled and kissed her gently.

"Alright. You always get what you want, huh?"

"Not always."

When she smirked, I laughed again. "Maybe it's just me that is under your spell, witch."

"If I'm a witch, you're a warlock. I know you casted a spell on all the girls in the universe. And I'm under it."

I rolled my eyes and sweeped her up into my arms. I rubbed my nose softly against hers. Carrying her to the car, I sat her on the roof of it. She pulled out her phone. "I'm gonna call Tim. We can get him out of school and he can get Cassie."

"Okay." What I said about her spell, it was true. I was so distracted by her body, her face, her hair. Everything she did drew my attention. If she moved her leg, I stared. If she parted her lips, I gasped. If she talked, I listened. She was so amazing.

After a small talk, Victoria turned towards me. "Tim said he could leave his last two periods and come with us if Bruce called Gotham Academy about it. He said he's on his way via zeta tube right now. Apparently, Cassie's school has today off and Tim said she'll be arriving shortly as well."

"So, everything is figured out?"

"Yeah," Victoria said. I smiled and pulled her into me for a random hug. She wrapped her arms around my neck, using me to slide her off of the car. When she got off, she slid inside. Realizing the true intentions of her gesture, I growled and got into the driver's side.

-

I held Victoria's hand as Tim and Cassie walked beside us. Amusement Mile was buzzing with happiness as we went through it. Colorful booths and rides contrasted. Victoria was looking at everything with a curiosity I had never seen before. I was casually glancing around, mostly focusing on the girl beside me.

"We should go on the roller coaster!" Cassie pointed towards the red and blue ride that was ripping through the sky. Tim had told me about her fascination with roller coasters, but I didn't understand it. What thrill could a girl who can fly get from a roller coaster?

Despite my curiosity, we headed toward the ride anyway. Victoria followed after the two younger kids as if she was fourteen herself. She tugged me behind me as we joined the line.

"Ever been on one of these before?" I asked, rubbing the top of Vic's hand with my thumb. My eyes were locked on her hands.

"Yeah, but a very long time ago. I haven't rode one in," she paused, suddenly getting serious, "in a very long time." Her childish smile dropped. I didn't know what triggered her drop of attitude, but I knew that I shouldn't ask. Victoria liked to keep those type of things to herself.

Cassie and Tim chatted and laughed while Victoria and I stayed silent. When it was finally our turn to ride, Tim stepped up. He grabbed Vic's hand and plopped her down in the seat beside him at the very front. She was surprised for a second. Cassie rolled her eyes and, with a smirk, she pulled me down beside her. The two had obviously made some bet or something.

The carts jerked forward. Our hair started to fall back as the cart climbed up the hill. Tim and Victoria were laughing. Her youthful smile had returned! I grabbed her brown hair as it fell into our cart. She turned her head around and glared. Her sneer melted away into a smile as she blew me a kiss. The carts darted down just as the gesture left her hand.

Screams cracked just as the carts rolled down the hill. I wasn't scared; I did what the roller coaster did every night. But, the whole feeling of it made me still anxious. Just in the spirit, I let out a laugh-induced scream along with Cassie. Tim shot his hands up, and I followed. Victoria asked Tim why he was doing it.

"It's to show you aren't afraid of the roller co- AHHH!" Tim explained just as we went around a loop. I was laughing uncontrollably, like a maniac. Cassie was yelling as her hair whipped around. Smiles seemed to be contagious. Victoria reluctantly put her hands in the air, a laugh cackling out of her.

"Told you Amusement Mile is fun!" I screamed at her, trying to be heard over all the noise. She giggled and nodded slightly. Finally, our cart came to a stop with a jerk. All of Victoria's hair was sticking out in weird angles. So was Cassie's and Tim's, so I was trying to ignore what I looked like.

"I'll admit, that was pretty fun," Victoria admitted, a dimple appearing. I laughed and nodded, pulling her into me. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder, her arm around my waist. We walked side by side as Tim and Cassie led the way.

Once we spent a couple of hours riding every ride in the place, we ended up standing in front of the ferris wheel. It was the only ride we had yet to ride. As a kid, it was always my favorite. I always had to ride it at night, though. It was so beautiful at night. I had a feeling the more fun-loving Victoria would love it.

I had gotten to know Cassie way better. Tim insisted on riding every ride with my girlfriend and me riding with his crush. Tim was new at the whole 'dating' thing, so I didn't make a big deal of it. But, I had to ride the ferris wheel with Victoria. That was final.

"Come on, Vic," I grabbed her hand. Tim looked at her with fear. She put a hand up at him as to say it was okay. The ferris wheel was loaded. I helped Victoria in and then slid in beside her. The guy running it strapped us in. Her hands rested loosely on the bar, so I took my opportunity. I rested mine on hers. Tim did the same for Cassie right after we were on. That's my boy, I thought.

Gotham's night sky was littered with lights. Amusement Mile casted it's own light, then there was all of Gotham's buildings, and finally the stars. All the light and brightness was reflected in her crystal eyes. She leaned over the side of the cart when we stopped at the top. The cart rocked a bit. Victoria didn't even notice. Her wonder for the whole place seemed to overtake her safety. I loved her seeing her like that. It was like I was seeing her as a kid. Something was strangely familiar about the way she looked.

I stared out at the city. I could see everything from up there. I could see all of the amusement park, all of Gotham, and all of my people. The people I swore to protect. Gotham was messy, scary, and crazy, but people still chose to live there. That's why heroes chose to protect it. I was always in love with the idea that people weren't scared of the city. They were never really intimidated by whatever villain the city through at them. They would still live in Gotham. That's why I was a protector of it. If the people weren't scared, neither was I.

"It's so fascinating," Victoria mumbled. She tore her gaze from the scene and faced me. Her hands rested in her lap.

"Yeah. I love it."

"I know this whole ferris wheel ride thing was supposed to be a move, so here you go," she talked so quickly I didn't even process her kissing me. All her words came out in a rush, as did her breath. I pulled away.

"It wasn't a move," I said, "I loved the ferris wheel as a kid. I wanted to show you something amazing. So, here you go." Throwing her words back in her face, I smirked. Victoria bit her lip and slapped my arm. I held it and laughed.

"Well, it is amazing. Thank you for sharing it with me." Her gratitude seemed genuine. "Looks like someone got lucky," Victoria pointed to the cart below us, which was finally in view. Cassie and Tim were tangled up with each other. Kissing.

"They are really a good couple," I commented. Tim stroked Cassie's blond hair as he kissed her. Feeling a bit thirsty for the feeling he was having, I touched Victoria's brown hair. She looked to see what I was doing until it clicked. She fizzled away into my hands. I could feel her relax.

I reached behind her and rested my hand on her shoulder. She leaned her head into my arm. When she looked up at me, I kissed her softly. Our lips touched in a slow, sweet gesture. The stars sparkled above us. We kissed until it was time to get off.

"That was nice," Victoria reflected as we were leaving the park. Cassie was in Tim's arms and Vic was in mine. It felt nice indeed.

We walked in silence again. This time, the air was light and joyful.

We stopped at the zeta-tube entrance. Tim held both of Cassie's hands in his as he whispered a kind goodbye. He kissed her and she disappeared. When he turned back towards us, Victoria and I had mirrored expressions. Smirks that showed congratulations and our proudness for our little Tim. He rolled his eyes and pushed past us.

The car ride home was a long one.

"Oh, shut up," Tim said, laughing, "she's just a girl." We had been discussing Tim and Cassie together. I could tell he was embarrassed. But, the conversation was producing carefree laughter. Nothing had been that loose in a while.

"A girl you've had a crush on forever," I added.

"You two are truly cute together," Victoria teased.

Tim groaned, trying to hide the smile that was appearing. "Stop talking about Cassie and I. You guys are the true new couple of the decade," he wiggled his eyebrows.

"Pssh," Victoria crossed her arms, "Grayson and I are totally casual." She sent me a wink, making me blush with thoughts of the sex she was referring to.

"You and, Grayson, have been together since you kicked his ass on the Old Gotham tower."

She busted out laughing. I sent Tim a glare in the rear-view mirror. He was also howling. I tapped the brake, making Tim and Victoria jerk. Their laughter ceased for a second. Mine was the first to rise. Soon, the other two were crying with joy as well.

"What does Grayson mean anyway? You always call him Tim not Drake," I asked when my laughter had stopped. My stomach ached from the laughing and my face was still slightly red.

Victoria's eye shifted. Tim smiled small and spoke up, still chuckling a bit, "Usually, in the fighting world, calling someone by their first name is a sign of respect. Someone who is called by their last name is deemed a bad fighter and disrespected." Victoria cried out, a loud, long laugh filling the silence.

"What!" I gasped, "you've been calling me Grayson more than Dick!"

Victoria nodded. "Yep. You've earned it." That's what I thought she said. She was talking between sucking in air. It's hard to talk when you're laughing.

"I can't believe it," I said, gripping the steering wheel. I chuckled a bit, but I was trying to be serious. It was to no prevail. To see Tim and Victoria that happy...I couldn't help but smile and laugh along with them. Tim's dad had died a year and a half ago, he wasn't genuinely happy that much. I knew somehow that Victoria had been deeply hurt during her life. I also knew that when she was hurt, no one had been there. I suspected that was why she was the way she was. No one was there to pick her up, so she did it herself. No one was there to care for her, so she did it herself. She needed a hero, so she became one.

~~~~~~~~~~~Relationships :') I remember when I said this book was going to be 35-50 chapters. Hahahaha...you guys are okay with the range being more around sixty or seventy, right? Seventy is like the maximum. I don't wanna go to 70, but it's a precaution. Anyway, don't forget to vote, comment, and follow if you aren't already! PS This chapter is dedicated to RedHeadTodd because I love the support and I feel like I wasn't giving you enough thank you for it so, I hope you feel appreciated! ~~~~~~~~~~~