He shifted to get more comfortable on the couch, like the pain had finally caught up to him, or maybe the adrenaline had finally burned out. He moved the red helmet off his head, revealing a black domino and a kind of weirdly shaped thin ski mask that covered his hair and face.
Meanwhile, I stood rooted to the spot, his words replaying on loop in my head.
Next time I break into your place.
Next time.
He said it so casually, as if we were coworkers and I'd just loaned him a stapler. Not a masked vigilante bleeding out on my throw pillows.
"…Wait," I said aloud, blinking. "What the fuck do you mean next time you break into my place?"
He cracked one eye open, like I'd interrupted a nap he'd earned.
"Relax," he muttered. "Just means your place is on the map now. In case things go south again."
"That is not reassuring."
He shrugged — or tried to. Winced instead. "Welcome to Gotham."
I opened my mouth to respond, but found I didn't have anything coherent to say. What was I supposed to do? Argue with an armed man bleeding in my living room about his future home invasion plans?
"I didn't exactly sign up for the Gotham guest list," I mumbled.
"None of us did." He let the silence hang for a beat, then added, "But you handled this better than most would."
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. "You've only known me like… ten minutes."
"Long enough to know you didn't scream, didn't panic, and you didn't call the cops." He smirked faintly it showing through the thin fabric over his mouth. "That's rare."
I eyed him for a long moment. "I don't suppose that means you're going to return the favor and not break in again?"
"No promises."
I exhaled through my nose. Loudly.
"Fine," I muttered. "You're bleeding all over my couch, so I guess we're bonded now or whatever."
He gave a low, rough chuckle. "I've heard worse origin stories."
I turned back toward the kitchen. "I'm finishing dinner."
"Make enough for two," he said, settling deeper into the cushions.
I paused at the stove.
I didn't look back, but I couldn't stop the crooked smile tugging at the edge of my mouth.
"…Yeah. Sure."
The silence that followed was oddly companionable.
Not comforting, not exactly, but not threatening either. Like the air had settled.
I stirred the half-finished egg fried rice, resisting the urge to glance back again. I could feel his eyes on me, or maybe I imagined it. Either way, I didn't want to do anything that would shatter the weird, fragile truce we'd landed in.
Behind me, Red Hood groaned softly as he adjusted his weight, mumbling something under his breath that sounded like "never this sloppy…"
The sound of the sizzling oil, the low hum of the fridge, and the city beyond the window filled the space between us. I focused on the simple rhythm of the meal. It grounded me. One pan. One spoon. Focus on that. Don't focus on the gun on the couch. Don't focus on the blood. Don't focus on how your hands stopped shaking without you noticing.
I scooped the food into two mismatched bowls. Not gourmet, but edible. Warm. Familiar.
I turned, setting one down on the coffee table within his reach. "Don't ask what it is," I said.
He leaned forward slowly, taking the bowl with a nod. "I won't. As long as it doesn't kill me."
"No guarantees."
He gave a low grunt — amusement, maybe. Or pain. Hard to tell.
I sat across from him on the floor, legs crossed, bowl in hand. He didn't say anything right away. Just ate. Slow, careful movements. Like every breath still hurt, but he wasn't going to let it stop him.
It was only after a few bites that he spoke again.
"You got a name. Caspian, right?"
"Yeah."
"Caspian…" he repeated, then squinted a bit. "You got a last name?"
"Not one I give to masked men who climb onto my fire escape bleeding."
That got a full smirk this time. "Fair enough."
He ate a little more, then asked, "You a med student or something?"
I shrugged. "Sort of. Pre-med dropout. Switched tracks."
"Shame," he said, glancing at the patched-up wound on his side. "You've got decent hands."
I didn't respond to that. I didn't trust my voice enough to.
Instead, I asked, "You gonna be alright to get out of here later? Or am I playing nurse all night?"
He wiped his mouth with the back of his glove, then leaned his head back against the couch. "I'll move before morning. I just need a few hours to rest. Then I'll disappear."
Something in his tone made me glance up. There was weight behind that word — disappear — like he'd done it before. Like it wasn't just a plan. It was a cycle.
And suddenly, I understood something I hadn't a moment before.
He wasn't just crashing here.
He didn't have anywhere else to go tonight.
I didn't say anything. Just nodded and went back to my food.
If Gotham had rules, I was starting to learn them.
One: Never ask too many questions.
Two: Don't offer anything you're not ready to give.
"So what track did you switch to?"
"Occult Studies and History, the old medical ritual practices I learned of while doing pre-med got me hooked, and I needed to know more," I replied, remembering the memories this body had lived through, and honestly, it gave a good cover to the weird cleric stuff.
Red Hood raised an eyebrow over his half-empty bowl. "Occult Studies? In Gotham?"
He gave a low whistle. "Bold choice."
I shrugged, poking at the rice in my own bowl. "It's not exactly a popular major, no. But it's interesting and surprisingly more needed given everything that's coming out of the woodworks in the world."
That got another rough laugh from him, low, but real.
"Still," he said, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees, "that kind of study's not just academic. Not here. Gotham's full of weird shit. Cults, demons, old gods, no one wants to name out loud. You dig too deep in the wrong direction, you don't get to crawl back out."
I looked up. "You speaking from experience?"
He held my gaze a moment, then gave the faintest shrug. "Let's just say I've seen what happens when people think the supernatural's just a metaphor."
The room fell quiet again. The hum of the fridge, the distant siren, the soft clink of cutlery on ceramic, it all faded under the weight of his words. And the way he said people, like he meant someone specific. Like he still carried the memory of it under his armour.
I didn't push. Rule number one. Though my mind drifted to people like Constantine, and the other well-known magic users in the DC universe.
But part of me itched to say something else. Something like "I know exactly what you mean."Because I did. Not in the way he'd expect. But still.
Instead, I offered, "I don't dig for the sake of digging. Just… studying patterns. Histories. Looking for threads."
Red Hood nodded slowly. "That's fine. Just remember, not all threads want to be pulled."
He set his bowl aside and leaned back again, eyes heavy now, exhaustion finally settling into his limbs like concrete.
"You crashin' here too?" he asked, voice softer now. "Or am I hogging your couch and your bed?"
I blinked. "What? No, uh, I've got a real bed in the other room. You're not, well, I mean, you are hogging it, but it's fine. I'm not gonna kick you off it or anything."
"Good," he murmured. "'Cause I'm not moving."
I stared at him for a second, then got up, carried both bowls back to the sink, and ran water over them.
When I turned the tap off, the silence crept back in. I turned to him and nodded.
"There are some blankets under the coffee table."
"Thanks, I'll try not to mess them up too much."
Just me. Him. And the smell of iron was still faint in the air.
I didn't know what tomorrow was going to look like.
But tonight?
Tonight, Red Hood was on my couch.
"I'm gonna go to bed, bathroom's the door closest to the fridge."
And with that, I made the quick trip down the short hallway to my bedroom. I closed the door to my room quietly behind me, like noise might break whatever fragile truce had settled in the apartment.
The adrenaline was gone, but my brain was still wired. Like my nerves hadn't gotten the memo that the situation was over. My hands trembled faintly as I leaned against the door and took a long breath.
My heart was still pounding.
I didn't think it was just the danger.
The room was quiet. The small glow of the desk lamp cast soft shadows across the wall — enough to see the cluttered shelves, the hastily unpacked boxes, and the pile of clean laundry I'd been meaning to fold and put away still. The new-ish stuff I had bought in a crumpled bag at the foot of my bed.
I peeled off my hoodie and tossed it into the hamper. The sleeves were damp where I'd knelt on the floor tending his wound.
Red Hood. Jason Todd. Gotham's own problem child with a vendetta and a body count. And I'd let him in. Not just into the apartment, in, covered him with gauze, made him dinner, and offered my couch like we were old friends crashing after a long night out.
I changed into sleep clothes mechanically, pulling on a loose shirt and joggers, then stood there for a beat, staring at my own reflection in the dark window glass.
And then came the harder part.
The thing I hadn't wanted to think about, I hadn't had time to face during the whole scene.
The heat. The stirring in my gut.
It hadn't hit right away, not when I was managing the bleeding or when I was gauging how likely he was to shoot me.
But somewhere between cleaning his wound and watching him peel off that helmet, something… shifted. A tension in the air. A pull in my chest. My tongue had felt dry, and my fingertips had twitched when I touched the skin around the bullet graze.
The smell of blood had lingered in my nose — sharp, metallic, warm.
And it hadn't repulsed me.
It had drawn me in.
I sat down hard on the edge of the bed, elbows on knees, head in my hands.
"Get a grip," I muttered under my breath.
Maybe this was just leftover adrenaline. Maybe it was the danger, the stress, the proximity. Maybe it was all part of whatever weird-ass bugged-out magic build this body came with.
I hadn't felt this keyed up since I got here. Since the shift between worlds. Like my skin didn't quite fit right. Like something inside me had opened one eye and started paying attention.
It wasn't just the blood. It was him.
The way he'd moved, the gravel in his voice, the way he commanded space even half-dead on my couch.
It did something to me. Lit a fuse.
I knew I found the fictional character of Jason Todd attractive in my last life, but having the real thing in front of me was something else entirely.
I rubbed at my face, palms rough against the growing stubble on my jaw. "This is so far above my pay grade."
But I couldn't ignore it. Couldn't write it off. This wasn't just a trauma response or some lingering fight-or-flight buzz.
It was instinctual. Physical. Like a hunger under the skin that I didn't understand yet.
I took a deep breath and tried to push it down. There was no way I was processing all of this tonight.
I threw myself onto the bed like that might somehow shake it off, the adrenaline, the weird magic body reaction, the presence of Red Hood, half unconscious in my living room.
The ceiling stared back, blank and unmoved.
I rolled over. Pulled the blanket up. Closed my eyes.
Didn't help.
The image of him leaning against the wall, bleeding but composed, wouldn't leave my head. The way his voice rasped out commands even when half-slumped. That calm, calculated weight behind every glance. Like he was always measuring people, including me, for danger, use, threat.
The problem was, it didn't make me want to run. It made something under my ribs lean forward.
I opened my eyes again. The digital clock blinked back at me: 2:38 AM.
I groaned and pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. I wasn't used to my body yet, not really. Still felt like driving a car I hadn't tuned myself. It responded weirdly sometimes, late, or sharply. This reaction was different, though.
Not just nerves. Not just hormones.
Something more primal. Like, part of me recognised him on a level deeper than logic. Like whatever D&D character creator I'd gotten glitched through had coded a pull toward blood, dominance, and danger. He ticked every box.
I was trapped with the realisation that I'd only been in Gotham for 48 hours, and I already had the hots for a vigilante, or crime lord, I didn't know what era of the Red Hood we were in.
Was it weird to get myself off in my new body for the first time to the smell of someone's blood? Absolutely.
But I could almost hear him through the wall that my room shared with the couch. I could wait till he left, the last thing I need is him hearing me. 'Unless he's into'that my traitorous mind whispered.
I shoved the blanket off, kicked one foot out like it might cool my brain down, then flipped the pillow for the cold side.
Didn't help.
I squeezed my eyes shut again, tried to count backwards from a hundred, tried to pretend that this wasn't happening. That I hadn't let Red Hood into my apartment, that I hadn't felt something when he bled on my towel.
I could still smell it.
That hint of copper in the air, faint, metallic, lingering around the edges of my senses like phantom heat.
I stared up again, helpless.
There was no way to go to sleep like this. My mind was buzzing, my body was wrong, and I didn't know what to do about any of it.
So I got up, padded barefoot to the kitchen, poured myself a glass of water, and leaned against the counter in the dark.
Through the doorframe, I could just barely see him on the couch, one arm still slung over his side, blanket over him like a guest I hadn't asked for but now had no idea how to send away.
I sipped the water slowly.
It was going to be a long night.