Despite the blazing intensity behind the question, I could only feel the calm steady beat of Dick's heart in his chest as I rested upon it as we lay on the soft shrubbery.

I think intently on what my answer should be, but my brain kept coming up blank with an adequate enough answer to satisfy him...

Deciding to follow the path of least resistance, I decided to focus on a distraction instead.

"How are you so calm when asking that?" I never said anything about the distraction not being a lame one. A distraction is a distraction.

Dick just slightly huffs at my clear attempt to change the subject but plays along anyway.

"Let's just say, after seeing you inhale a live grenade. I've come to realize that maybe I should approach you more softly because clearly your head isn't on straight and you leap for the most chaotic option when available to you."

"Well...you're not wrong." I slightly giggle as I bury my face further into his chest.

I feel him freeze a bit at my actions, and I stifle back a disappointed sound from rising up the back of my throat.

I start to make a motion to pull away from him but I feel his arms tighten around me, locking me in place.

I tilt my head up at him, making eye contact through my lashes and fighting back the urge to blush because he was staring down at me with the entire night's sky illuminating his face and providing a stunning backdrop with the stars stretching far beyond eternity.

He really was stunning.

"Can we just...stay like this a little longer?" Dick says.

I feel the grip he has around my waist grow warmer and warmer, and my palms on his chest grow unbelievably hot...or was that just me!?

"S-sure." I meekly let out as I lay back down on his chest.

Mine grew incredibly tight as I was on the verge of passing out.

I'm pretty sure for Dick, this was a nothing burger, as they say.

He probably just wanted to calm down from the high of the dangerous situation I just forced him into, and he needed a moment to catch his breath.

For me on the other hand, I'm being trusted into the deep end of a situation I'm trying so hard to avoid.

He knows I like him.

I'd bet being tattoo inked by liquid kryptonite that he does!

So then why does he constantly put me in these situations to fall even harder for him???

It's like he has no intention of dating me, but can't stand the idea of me falling for someone else.

I squirmed at the idea I violently sat up straight, away from him.

Close friends or not, I had to start setting hard rigid boundaries between the both of us because I can't keep getting swept up by his magic spell.

No matter how much I wanted to.

I'm beginning to have other options now.

"The day that you and the gang came to the apartment to apologize for what happened, I got a text from an unknown number." I begin to speak, not looking at Dick sitting next to me but feeling him adjust his sitting posture to listen to me more intently.

"Go on," Was all he said to muster me forward.

I lick my dry lips to moisten them and continue to speak.

I started this.

Might as well finish it.

"It was Lex Luthor."

"Surprise surprise," Dick sarcastically responds.

I whip my head around to give him a scalding glare but his expression remains neutral. All but for a slight uptilt in his lips.

Almost like he said what he did just to make me look at him.

The sneaky bastard.

I'm beginning to know him a little too well...

"I'm pretty sure you already have the full story, but we get to talking, resulting in us talking a little too much and..."

Dick doesn't say a word. Only silently stares at me and waits for me to continue.

"And...I'm meeting his sister soon!" I blurt out the rest, squinting my eyes shut and bracing for impact.

But no explosion came.

I pry open my eyes and still see the same bored expression on Dick's face.

"Already meeting the family? Waw..." Was all he utters with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders.

I am confusion.

Dick should be screaming so loudly right now that people back at the party and all the way in Gotham should be hearing him right now!

What gives!?

My confusion must've been written all over my face in neon gel pen writing because I was responded to with a small sorrowful look as well.

"I don't own you Kara...yet." He playfully jokes at the end.

I punch him in the shoulder.

He laughs but still regains his composure and continues.

"I don't own you. You're a grown person who can make her own decisions. I'm just...trying to protect you because, as much of a red flag as this sounds, I know better."

I say nothing as it is now my turn to allow him to speak.

"This man is dangerous...but it seems the more I...we try to stop you, the harder and faster you run into his open and waiting arms. Into his trap." He looked at me as if my entire being was made of glass, and he wanted nothing more than to protect it.

Wait...where did those thoughts come from!?

"So I'm...we're not going to fight it anymore. We're gonna stand back and let this happen. You can hang out and be friends with whoever you want, after all. We just hope you never find out why we're being so crazily cautious in the first place. We'd rather you'd be open and honest about what you're doing than hiding it behind our backs. In case something goes wrong."

Dick finishes his long-winded speech and instantly realizes his action and an embarrassed expression washes over him.

He turns his head away from me to hide his expression but I just huff at his feeble attempt because I could still see what was going on with him on the inside.

Blood was rushing to his head, his heart was beating erratically, and his mouth quivered behind his palm lifted to hide it.

"You're so cute when you're flustered."

So much for setting hard rigid boundaries, Kara!

"It is SO not fair you can see everything going on with me and I can't!" He fires back.

Suddenly the word Hypocrite flashes through my head and it was gone as quickly as it came.

Foreign thoughts have been popping in and out of my head, but I couldn't focus on that troubling development because Dick clearly seemed uncomfortable at the moment.

"Okay, I'll stop!" I call out as I whip up my hands and block my face.

"We both know that does completely nothing!" Dick calmly seethes.

"Okay, okay!" I bring down my hands, look straight at him, and blink. Then blick again.

Hypersonic x-ray vision, gone!

"It's gone now," I make eye contact with him and assure him.

He looks back into my eyes, for a solid second longer than needed, before letting out a breath and conceding to accept that I was telling the truth.

"It's not that difficult if I put that much effort into it, it's kinda like being conscious of breathing. But I make no promises to block out your increased heartbeats and rapid blood flow. Blocking out sound is much more tricky."

"Deal!" Dick says, lowering his arm to reveal the rest of his face. "I'll take whatever I can get at this point." He bemoans.

Dick reaches out an arm to a tree bark to balance himself when his grip slips and he goes tumbling.

"Careful!" I cry out, but my knee slides on a dewy patch of grass as well and I fall down with him.

We roll backwards and my face crashes into his.

My nose slamming into his bottom lip right above his chin.

It takes us a second to compose ourselves but all the alarm bells in my head were going off because if I'd fallen just a few inches higher...we would've been ki-

"I hope I didn't break your nose!" Dick's worried voice cuts through my spiralling hysterical thoughts as he grabs onto my shoulders and inspects my face for himself.

Ah, there we go. There's the worried overprotective Dick Greyson that I know and...love.

I accept the quiet realization and admission to myself. Don't even attempt to fight it this time. Then swiftly shoved it to the back of my mind to dissect on my own free time later.

"I know your chin is sharp and can cut diamonds, but it'll still take a lot more than that to hurt a Kryptonian."

We start to giggle and laugh at each other, entangled in one another and the leaves of the bushes when our merriment was cut short by a sharp cough.

"Are you done?" An irritated voice said.

We both look up to see a gorgeous man glaring down at us clad in all black in a similar crime-fighting suit like Dick's. But this one had a blood-red bat logo instead of Nightwing's deep blue. And a patch of his dark jet black hair was snow pale white.