Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The outer edges of Gotham always smelled like trouble.

Not the kind that came with rooftop chases and flashy monologues, the other kind. The quiet kind. Damp alleyways where streetlights flickered like they knew better, rooftops that held more secrets than pigeons.

It was the part of the city that didn’t need chaos to feel threatening. It simply was.

Red Robin moved like a shadow across a rusted-out fire escape, cape tucked, boots light. Below, Superboy hovered silently along the side of the opposing building, breath misting in the cold.

They didn’t need to speak. Not unless something went wrong.

Which meant it wasn’t surprising when Superboy broke the silence first.

"Three o’clock," Jeno murmured, voice low through the comms. "Two tags by the warehouse door. One of them’s armed. Smells like sulfur and insecurity."

"Copy that," Jaemin replied, crouching at the ledge’s edge, squinting through his domino.

They dropped together — clean, quiet, controlled. Jeno hit the ground like a whisper. Jaemin landed in his shadow, the edge of his cape skimming the grit of the alley.

The takedown was clinical. Red Robin’s staff cracked across the first thug’s skull before he even had time to scream.

The second didn’t stand a chance. He was broad, braced in mismatched armour, and elbow-deep in one of the Titan’s encrypted crates.

Jeno moved like gravity didn’t apply to him. The impact knocked the man’s head into the brick behind him.

Not hard enough to kill, but close.

The wall fractured.

The thug slumped, blood trickling past the crude weld marks on his helmet. His groan was low and wet.

Jaemin stood, scanning for signs of backup. “Subtle.”

“He touched Titan tech,” Jeno said flatly, rolling his knuckles. Red gloves scuffed, torn where any regular person would have had open wounds.

"And you punched him like he insulted your mom."

Jeno didn’t answer.

The man on the ground coughed, blood staining his teeth. Still, he smiled, managed to leer up at them both — a lopsided, broken thing. His gaze dragged up Jaemin’s form, slowly.

"Didn’t know the Titans came in matching sets," he rasped, eyes landing on Jaemin’s belt. Then his gaze drifted higher, too high. “Nice cape, sweetheart.”

It was barely a taunt.

But something inside Jeno broke.

Before Jaemin could even shift, Jeno’s foot slammed into the man’s ribs. Then again. A third time.

Not a warning. Not tactical. Not defensive.

Punishment.

“Jeno," Jaemin snapped, already moving.

Superboy didn’t stop. He loomed over the man like a storm cloud, fists clenched, TTK crackling faintly at his shoulders.

"Look at him one more time, and I’ll make sure you never see anything again—"

“Jeno.” Jaemin’s voice cut sharp through the air.

And then, without preamble, he moved.

His hand caught firm around Jeno’s waist. Gloved. Warm. Close. Too close.

The effect was immediate.

Jeno froze. Breath locking in his chest.

The heat of him pulsed, not just under his uniform, but through his skin, through the impenetrable force field surrounding him, his tactile telekinesis, flickering along his shoulders, coiling at his spine.

“You’re beating the shit out of someone already down,” Jaemin whispered, his voice a razor held just under soft velvet. His glove pressed in, grounding Jeno not with strength, but with certainty. “That’s not what we’re here for.”

Jeno didn’t move.

Couldn’t.

Because Jaemin didn’t pull away.

He stayed there, close at his side, fingers at Jeno’s waist like a tether. Like a claim.

And Jeno’s heart, for all its engineered durability, skipped hard enough to hurt. 

Later, back at the Safehouse, Jaemin said nothing about it.

He didn’t need to.

He just disappeared into his room early, shut the door behind him, and pulled up the night’s mission footage at his console.

Fast-forwarded past the takedowns, the breach, the botched flirtation.

Fast-forwarded past the strike and the blood.

Paused.

Rewound.

Paused again.

Each frame caught it:

Jeno mid-lunge. Face twisted in something hot and furious, a snarl in his mouth. The glow of his tactile telekinesis barely illuminating the arc of his fist.

Jaemin stared.

Then he shifted the slider back another ten seconds. Watched it again.

Watched the exact moment his own hand anchored around Jeno’s waist.

Watched how Jeno froze.

Watched it ten more times. Slower.

The tremble in Jeno’s hands. The look he gave him.

And then he did what he always did when the silence got too loud: he navigated to the folder no one knew existed.

Buried three layers deep. Masked metadata. Voice-locked with his personal vocal print.

The archive opened. Date-stamped by mission. Sorted alphabetically and by location. Some images were from official debriefs. Others... were not.

He pulled up a thumbnail. Opened it.

A still of Jeno, captured mid-flight. Hair wild, eyes focused, arm outstretched like he was chasing the horizon. He wasn’t posing. He never did. But somehow the angles always made it look like he’d been carved from something mythic. Not for anyone else. Just suspended.

Then another.

Jeno asleep in the infirmary cot after the Phobos mission. Curled toward the wall, his hand half-closed in the space where Jaemin had been sitting alongside him.

Jaemin leaned back in his chair and let the slow, creeping ache fill him again. Let himself feel the gravity of it. The need. The hunger.

“It’s just for data,” he muttered. But the words rang hollow.

He was watching Jeno’s smile now — slow, frame by frame. Clicking forward with the arrow key like he was uncovering a secret message in every twitch of muscle.

In every breath. Like if he watched it long enough, Jeno might reach through the screen and tell him he wasn’t alone. 

The knock came just after midnight.

Jaemin blinked up from his desk, startled — not because someone was at the door, but because he hadn’t heard them coming. His heartbeat jumped.

Only one person walked that lightly.

The door creaked open with a soft groan.

Jeno stood there, shadows carved into the planes of his face. Tension in his jaw. Still in his uniform, flight suit half unzipped, hair sticking up in too many directions. He looked like someone trying not to feel something too big.

He’d been flying.

“I thought you were headed back to the Tower,” Jaemin said evenly, not standing.

“You have bruises.”

Jaemin glanced down.

There was an imprint of a thin red scrape along the edge of his wrist, right where his gauntlet plating failed to seal. Probably from the skirmish with the thugs earlier. He hadn’t noticed it. It barely hurt.

Jeno’s gaze dropped there too. Eyeing the tips of Jaemin’s fingers as he traced the mark.

“I didn’t even feel it,” Jaemin said, softly.

“Hm,” Jeno replied, and stepped forward.

He reached for his wrist. Touched it — bare and gentle, newly ungloved fingers ghosting over the bruised skin. Not inspecting. Not healing. Just touching.

“I don’t like seeing you hurt,” Jeno whispered.

“I don’t like hiding it,” Jaemin replied, breath thinner now.

For a moment, neither moved.

Then Jeno leaned in. A quiet press of his forehead against Jaemin’s temple. Eyes closed. A mess of windswept and pristine black hair meeting one another. Muscles straining like he was holding something back.

“Next time,” Jeno said, voice raw, “tell me.”

He started to pull back, slowly, and just like that, Jaemin’s hand found his waist again. Just for a second. A brief echo of earlier. Not possessive. Not yet. But anchoring.

“No one — even if it’s your uniform, it shouldn’t — not like that,” Jeno rambled quietly.

Jaemin laughed.

But Jeno didn’t smile. He meant it.

Jaemin’s pulse was still elevated long after the door squeaked shut again. Not because Jeno had left.

But because for the first time in weeks, he didn’t go back to the surveillance footage.

Because he didn’t need to watch Jeno.

Not when he could still feel him.

And that... was worse. Because it wasn’t just an obsession anymore.

He dreams of it.

His hand. Jeno’s waist. Not the mission or the fight. But the furnace of musculature hidden under woven blue fabric.

The way his best friend — half kryptonian, genetically engineered, and near indestructible — stilled when Jaemin’s hand caught his side.

Jaemin is aware of his own indisputable feats, of his detective skills, of his worth and importance to the team.

But by comparison, he’s only human.

Yet, Jeno stopped by his hand.

Not stopped from guilt.

Stopped like a dog hearing its name.

Chapter Text

The cold air at the Titan training ground just outside Jump City was thick with dew, clinging to the grass like static. 

Jeno’s heat vision swept over dummy rigs as he hovered mid-air, scanning for faults, any glitches in the system.

He exhaled sharply through his nose. Alone. Or supposed to be.

He felt it first. Not a sound.

A rhythm. 

Familiar. 

Intimate.

A Heartbeat.

Jeno didn’t turn, just paused mid-air. His ears sharpened. It wasn’t just any heartbeat, it was slow, deliberate, and steady. Familiar in a way most would never understand.

Jaemin.

Even through the static hum of energy pads and distant birdsong, Jeno could pick it out. He knew the tempo. The slight hesitation whenever Jaemin held his breath to observe, the faint acceleration when he was concentrating.

He was the only person whose heartbeat Jeno liked listening to.

It was his tell. His constant. And Jeno hated how good it made him feel to know it.

“You stalking me now, Red?” he called out, half a warning, half an invitation.

A pause. 

Then the soft crunch of boots over gravel.

From between the trees, Red Robin stepped into view. Cape settling neatly, mask glinting under the muted morning sun. But Jeno didn’t need the uniform to identify him. His very heart is ringing in his ears.

“Relax,” Jaemin said smoothly, a sharp touch of a smile on his lips. “Recon. Your form’s been a little... off.”

“Bullshit recon,” Jeno muttered, drifting back to the ground with a low thud.

Jaemin stepped closer, tapping a compact tablet against his palm. There was a flicker of blue across his gloves from the screen, but his eyes never left Jeno. And they lingered, too long, on the jacket.

It was new, sort of. Refurbished would be a better word. 

Same jacket as the one he wore before joining the Titans; black leather, hardy, double-stitched with reinforced fibre, clearly handmade. 

Jeno had pieced it back together over weeks, repairing scraps, molding it into something he could wear on field and off. The yellow ‘S’ on the back wasn’t printed or branded, it was stitched, uneven in places, but unmistakably his.

“You’re staring,” Jeno said flatly, eyes narrowing.

Jaemin didn’t look away. “Just admiring the craftsmanship.”

“You often do when it’s something tight fitting.”

“That’s unfair,” Jaemin replied, though he didn’t bother denying it.

There was a beat of silence, filled only by the soft sound of Jaemin’s pulse.

Jeno shifted his stance, uncomfortable.

“Mark said you used to wear it a lot,” he said quietly. “When I was… you know.”

Jaemin glanced up. “You never asked for it back.”

“Didn’t mean you could keep it.”

“I didn’t say I wanted to.”

Jeno turned to face him fully, hands at his hips. “Then why did you still have it?”

Jaemin’s eyes flicked toward the collar of Jeno’s jacket, then drifted back to his face. “Because it still smelled like you.”

The words hung between them, neither daring to reach nor retreat.

Jeno’s throat went dry.

The wind shifted as soon as Jaemin said it, brushing hair into Jeno’s eyes, giving him something to blink through while he swallowed down everything that response stirred in him.

Jaemin wasn’t looking at him now, deliberately. He studied something on his screen, lips pursed, lashes lowering just enough to break eye contact but not enough to hide the red at the tips of his ears.

Jeno didn’t know what to say. But that wasn’t new. Lately, there were more silences between them than words.

Not uncomfortable ones. Not really. Just... tight.

Tight like the collar of the jacket around his throat.

Tight like the hand Jaemin had once clutched his waist with, back on patrol.

That moment still lived in Jeno’s chest like a splinter, irritating, constant, buried deep. 

He could still feel the pressure of Jaemin’s palm against his side. Gloved fingers flexing like they’d never wanted to let go.

Jeno didn’t want him to.

He never said that, though.

Instead, he stepped closer.

“Just... don’t wear it around the rest of them,” Jeno muttered.

Jaemin looked up. “Why not?”

“Because it was- it’s mine,” Jeno said. “And I let you have it.”

There it was again. That strange pause. Like they were teetering on the edge of a conversation neither of them had the guts to finish.

A bird chirped somewhere behind them, sharp and out of place.

Jaemin closed his tablet. “We’re not doing this right now.”

Jeno shrugged one shoulder. 

The cape flared out as Jaemin turned after considering him. 

Jeno should’ve known something was off when Jaemin went radio silent that night.

No pings. No voice messages. Not even a sarcastic check-in when Jisung accidentally wiped a mission file and everyone had to redo recon from scratch.

It had only been three hours. To the rest of the team, that wasn’t cause for alarm.

But Jeno couldn’t hear him. 

The Tower buzzed like it always did,  lights too fluorescent, voices too loud. But underneath it all, Jeno was waiting for the sound. That heartbeat.

He tuned in between conversations. 

Between bites of food he didn’t taste. 

Between sentences he didn’t register.

Nothing.

He paced his room. Checked rooftops.

By the fourth hour, he was grinding his molars. By the fifth, he was flying.

He found him just past midnight, stepping out of the shadows outside the storage hangar like he hadn’t vanished without a word. Jaemin’s head was down, face dark and framed by his domino yet eyes bright and sharp despite the hour, posture loose like he didn’t notice Jeno’s clenched fists.

“You’ve been gone.” Jeno’s voice came low, dangerous.

Jaemin looked him over once, maybe noting the impossible shadows under his eyes, the ruffled hair, the slight red indentation at the base of his neck where his shirt collar had been tugged and adjusted too many times.

“I was testing out some tech,” Jaemin said calmly. “Solo mission.”

“Without telling anyone?”

“Without telling you?”

Jeno’s jaw ticked.

“You’re not on comms. You didn’t log out. You could’ve been—”

“I wasn’t,” Jaemin interrupted, voice sharper than usual. “I was fine.”

“That’s not the point—”

“Then what is it?” Jaemin stepped closer, chest brushing Jeno’s. “Why are you so mad?”

“I’m not mad.”

“You stormed down here like a pissed-off rhino, and not to mention Gotham-.”

“You didn’t tell me where you were going.”

“I don’t owe you a play-by-play every time I go outside, Jeno.”

“No. You don’t,” Jeno said tightly. “But you could’ve at least told me you were alive.”

Jaemin stared at him. Hard.

Then his voice dipped. “I’m not yours to worry about.”

Jeno blinked.

The words hit lower than they were meant to.

He stepped back half a pace, jaw slack, heart pounding.

For a second, Jaemin looked like he regretted saying it.

At dawn, when he went to suit up that morning, Jeno found that his jacket, newly frankensteined together, was missing.

The Tower’s corridors hummed with early-hour activity — gloved footsteps, distant chatter, the occasional ping of holographic screens. But for Jeno, every sound faded into white noise when Jaemin wasn’t beside him. His heartbeat thrummed erratic, as if his chest had lost its metronome.

When he entered the training annex, he found the jacket on a boxing dummy no less.

Not folded. Not hidden. Not where he left it. Draped over foam shoulders like it belonged there.

The jacket should have just been a jacket.

He had used his TTK, thread and thought working in tandem, folding the fibers just-so to get the angles clean and neat. A tactile act of service disguised as habit. 

Every inch held memory; cold rooftops, sweat-wet missions, dried blood, and Jaemin’s weight leaning into him when it was late and they were too tired to talk.

Jeno hadn’t meant to leave it behind for all those years. But when he found it again he knew immediately it had been worn.

Not by him.

His boots echoed softly on the polished floor. He approached it like it might vanish.

The sleeves were slightly stretched at the elbows, the collar turned up in a way Jeno never left it. 

It didn’t smell like him anymore. 

Not entirely. 

Still overwhelmingly leather and ozone, but now with the distinct clean warmth of Jaemin’s skin under kevlar. 

Jeno’s fingers curled around the collar before he realized Jaemin was behind him.

He didn’t have to look.

He knew that heartbeat.

Out of everyone in the Tower, even the ones who masked their vitals, who trained to lower their pulses, Jaemin’s was the only one Jeno had memorized by rhythm alone. 

Slow. 

Deliberate. 

A backbeat beneath his own chaos.

“You wore it,” Jeno said, quietly. He didn’t turn.

“I left mine in Gotham,” Jaemin answered, not quite lying. 

Jeno slid the jacket off the dummy and turned to face him. Jaemin didn’t flinch, but his eyes dropped, caught on the black leather in Jeno’s grip.

“You didn’t have to wear it at all,” Jeno murmured.

And then he stepped forward.

Jaemin’s brows knit, just barely, but he didn’t move. Didn’t retreat. He stood still, pulse quickening by half a beat. That was all it took for Jeno to close the final space between them.

His hands came up.

At first, Jaemin tensed. But Jeno didn’t touch skin, just held the jacket up between them like a peace offering.

Like a threat.

“Arms up.”

Jaemin blinked. “Why—”

“Just.”

It wasn’t a question. 

Jaemin hesitated for a beat. 

Then lifted his arms.

Jeno slipped the jacket onto him, slow and reverent. A silent ritual.

His fingers brushed the curve of Jaemin’s wrists, forearms, shoulders. His touch lingered far longer than necessary as he guided each sleeve into place, smoothed the lapel across Jaemin’s chest.

His TTK sparked beneath his palms. Flicking outward, soft waves curling around the seams. Gentle. Controlled.

Jeno wasn’t even sure he’d activated it. But the jacket settled over Jaemin like it belonged there,  every seam snug, every line perfect. And maybe it did. Maybe it always had.

His hand paused over Jaemin’s chest. Right above his heart.

“You smell like me,” Jeno said, barely above a whisper.

Jaemin didn’t reply.

He was watching Jeno the way he watched schematics, like something complicated he needed to take apart and study. A click of thought behind his eyes.

And Jeno, for all his strength, all his supposed virile qualities, was the one who flinched away.

The mission the next day should’ve been routine.

Extraction. Low-level metas. Localised threats. Minimal resistance.

But like most things lately, it spun out fast.

Too many moving parts. Too little intel. Too much distance between them.

Jeno had been clearing the upper perimeter when the sky exploded — a pulse of pure light, no heat, no warning. Just blind force and the sickening delay of his TTK reacting a fraction too late. 

He didn’t see the projectile from above until it cracked the ground behind him. A kinetic concussive blast, meant to flatten buildings.

The scene was hauntingly familiar.

“JENO—!”

The voice tore through his comm just as a shadow of black and red blurred over him.

Gloved hands slammed against his chest, shoving him down behind cover, wind knocked out of his lungs from impact.

He hit the dirt hard, kneeling, ears ringing.

Jaemin crouched in front of him, cape flared out like wings of his namesake, armor gleaming with static.

His hand didn’t move from Jeno’s chest. He was breathing fast, head whipping to the side to track enemy movement.

Then those eyes, glassy behind the mask lenses, turned back to him.

“Alive.”

Jeno nodded without hesitation, still on his knees, throat dry.

Something flickered across Jaemin’s face — something almost broken.

The pressure of Jaemin’s hand shifted. Not urgent anymore. Steady. Warm.

Claiming.

The mission debrief was short and mostly silence. The rest of the Titans didn’t know what to say.

They’d won. Barely.

Everything had gone sideways in seconds, but Jeno’s memory of it blurred around just one moment: the one where Jaemin had launched himself over him, arms locked, voice raw with panic as he shouted his name. 

No one else screamed like that.

No one else made Jeno feel like that.

The way he’d forced Jeno down to his knees with a strength that didn’t come from physical training alone.

Red Robin had looked terrified. 

Not in fear of death, but in fear of losing him.

Again.

See,

Six years ago, Superboy had died.

Or at least, that’s what the official report said. Bio-signs cut out mid-mission, body unrecovered, a crater in his place. 

Jeno didn’t remember most of it.

But Jaemin did.

There’d been no closure. No goodbye. Just a hole in the team where Jeno used to be.

Jaemin remembered the silence. The cold of it. The way the Tower’s lights dimmed like the building itself knew someone was missing.

He hadn’t cried. Not in front of the others. Jaemin had unraveled in private.

He hadn’t screamed or broken down in front of the Team. He just... disappeared into his work. Pushed missions too hard. Pushed himself harder. Refused to rest. Refused to stop. Tried to rebuild the DNA sequence of Jeno’s kryptonian-human physiology from leftover combat footage and clothing samples like that would bring him back.

He remembered threatening to break Mark’s jaw when he begged him to get some sleep.

He remembered whispering into dead comms.

He remembered making promises to no one.

He had lost his best friend. The only person he trusted to see him.

And then, somehow, Jeno came back.

Clone. Restoration. Another Timeline. The details never mattered, whatever the story was, Jaemin didn’t care. 

He was back.

And Jaemin hadn’t stopped watching him since.

“Are you even listening?” Jaemin’s voice cut through the thick air post-mission.

Jeno blinked, breath catching as he came back to himself, still crouched, still grounded, still half dazed.

The room’s empty after the debriefing, except for them.

Jaemin was leaning now, too. Still too close. Still touching him.

“Yeah,” Jeno rasped. “I just... I heard you scream.”

Jaemin’s mouth parted. His hand pulled back an inch, then hovered, uncertain.

Jeno’s skin still tingled under the pressure, not from the impact, from something else. 

Something he shouldn’t want to feel again.

A tendril of tactile telekinesis still pulsed beneath his fingers, faint, coiled like static against the threads of Jaemin’s suit. It had activated on instinct, a subconscious shield, but part of it was still wrapped around Jaemin’s wrist.

He let it go. Abruptly. Guiltily.

Jaemin felt the absence immediately. He stared at him with something unreadable in his expression.

“Don’t do that again,” Jaemin said finally, voice tight.

“What? Get hit?”

“No,” Jaemin snapped. “Don’t disappear like that. Not from me.”

Jeno held his gaze, something in his chest twisting. “I came back.”

The silence between them crackled.

Jaemin whispered. “I don’t want to go through that again.”

Jeno’s throat tightened. He stood slowly, muscles taut.

Jaemin stood with him, closer than was necessary, a hand brushing Jeno’s. His breath was warm against Jeno’s jaw. The tip of his glove still hovered over the place on Jeno’s ribs where the TTK had lingered.

He didn’t press.

Jeno didn’t go back to his corner of the Tower.

He flew, low and erratic, staying close to the Island, until his breath evened out. Until his chest stopped aching from the echo of Jaemin’s panic.

He landed in one of the old observation decks. Dark. Empty. An echo chamber.

And he sat there.

Changed from his singed flight suit, still smelling like the veil between Earth and Space, and sweat.

He thought about the way Jaemin had screamed.

He thought about how his own powers had reached for Jaemin on instinct, not to shield, not to attack.

Just to feel.

There was a kind of truth in that moment he hadn’t wanted to name. Had been running away from for months. Maybe longer.

He was supposed to be invulnerable. Solar-Powered. Dependable.

But all his strength collapsed when Jaemin touched him.

All his focus fractured when Jaemin spoke like he mattered.

He’d heard Jaemin’s voice a thousand times. Through comms. Through walls. Through Space and Time.

But nothing had ever cracked him open like this.

Jeno closed his eyes, clenched his jaw, and let it hit him.

He didn’t want space.

He didn’t want safety.

He wanted Jaemin.

He wanted his best friend, all of him.

Even the parts he should run from. Even the obsession.

Especially the obsession.

That night, Jeno stood outside Jaemin’s door at the Tower.

Didn’t knock.

Just stood there. And listened.

He knew Jaemin was inside. Knew his posture, the flick of his fingers over a screen, the deliberate way his heartbeat slowed when he was trying not to feel anything.

If he had inherited X-Ray vision, he could take a peek for himself, confirm what he already knows to be true.

But he doesn’t need to.

It was so familiar it hurt.

He reached up, fingers hovering over the panel by the door.

Stopped himself.

Then dropped his hand and left.

But it didn’t feel like leaving.

It felt like circling. Like gravity pulling him tighter.

He dreamed again.

Dreamed of falling.

Dreamed of hands holding him down, not to protect, but to possess.

Gloved fingers at his waist, curled under leather. Invisible tendrils flaring soft and instinctive around the familiar warmth keeping him in place. Anchored. Grounded.

Hands moving.

Touching the back of Jeno’s neck, the heavy gaze of a God looking down at him, surveying something he’d finally reclaimed.

He woke in a sweat, pulse thrumming hard through his body. Hands clenched. Sheets torn.

Chapter Text

In the following hours, Jeno found himself watching Jaemin, studying every nuance, how he pressed his gloved fingers to his chest when he thought no one was watching, like he was feeling for a heartbeat. 

The way his eyes flicked to Jeno, even from across the room. Just for a second. 

It wasn’t healthy. Jeno knew that. But he couldn’t stop. He found himself bubbling with something ugly, tar-like, in his chest, like a storm about to break.

Midnight came. Jeno shut his eyes as he lay on his bed, but all he saw was him.

He rolled out of bed, pushing himself into boots and leaping to his feet. The hallway was empty yet alive.

He followed instinct, no powers. Didn’t need to. He’d closed the gap once before. He could do it again.

Down corridors, up stairs, past darkened offices. 

The kitchen should’ve been empty.

Night had settled outside, thick, quiet, the kind of stillness that always made Jeno restless.

He almost backed away.

But he didn’t.

Jaemin stood by the glass overlooking the training annex, arms folded behind his back, posture rigid. 

He wasn’t watching anything in particular.

But Jeno was watching him.

Through the reflection. Through the shadows. Through the slight way Jaemin’s ungloved fingers touched the collar of the jacket.

His jacket.

It’s mismatched, a dream of domesticity. He’s dressed for sleep, soft cloth against heavy leather. 

He looked... different.

It fit him too well. As if branding him.

Jeno’s breath caught.

He didn’t announce himself. Didn’t need to. Jaemin always knew.

He was too used to watching. Too used to mirrors and long lenses and refracted glass to not feel it — eyes heavy and hot along the slope of his shoulder, his profile, the soft twitch of his fingers grazing the jacket’s cuff.

Jaemin tilted his head, just a fraction. The sound of air caught and held, familiar boots hovering on quiet flooring. 

Not moving. Waiting. 

He doesn’t want to be seen.

So Jaemin let him watch.

Let him think he was still unseen.

Let him stay in the shadows and simmer in it, the sight of Jaemin in his jacket, alone and still, the reflection of him across the glass as if preserved in amber. 

Like something to study. Something to steal.

Something to have.

Jaemin didn’t smile.

But he felt it. The shift.

For a moment, just a flicker, the power tipped.

Jeno had always been strong. Too strong. A blunt weapon wrapped in careful restraint. Even his gentleness was threatening, not because he’d break you, but because he could and wouldn’t. 

That discipline, that fear of his own touch, made every gesture more intimate than it should’ve been.

Jaemin had counted on it.

Had banked on Jeno holding himself back. Because if he didn’t…

If he ever asked Jaemin for something…

Jaemin would give it to him.

Everything. All of it.

Without hesitation.

“You’re not good at hiding your presence,” Jaemin said softly.

No answer. Just the faint shuffle of weight. An inhale that pulled too sharp.

His eyes fleet from the glass, just enough to catch the silhouette behind him. “Your heartbeat’s too loud when you’re angry,” he added. “Or… whatever this is.”

Another silence.

Then Jeno’s voice, low, rough, “I thought I was the only one who listened to heartbeats.”

Jaemin turned his head back slightly, just enough to meet his eyes through the reflection. 

And Jeno can see a pointed shark-like smile pull across his face.

He stepped forward, finally, shoulders tight with restraint — too close. Heat bleeding off his body.

Jaemin could feel the tension thrum off him like electricity.

“I remade that jacket last month,” he said. “Didn’t tell anyone. Didn’t mean to give it to you.”

Jaemin didn’t move. “But you did.”

“You wore it like it meant something.”

The air thickened.

Jeno’s powers buzzed softly in the space between them — tactile telekinesis fluttering around him, ghosting over Jaemin’s wrist.

“I thought—” Jeno started, then stopped. “I thought if I ignored it, it would fade. This— whatever this is between us.”

“But it didn’t.”

“No,” Jeno whispered.

They were close now.

“You like the way I look at you.”

Jeno’s jaw twitched. “You don’t look at me.”

Too close.

Jaemin finally turned.

Face to face.

“Yes I do,” Jaemin said. “I always have. I watched you before you came back. After. Always.”

Jeno flinched, eyes dropping to the collar, to Jaemin’s throat, to the place his jacket hugged across his shoulders. His hand twitched at his side, like he was stopping himself from grabbing again.

Jaemin stepped closer.

“I mapped your patrol routes. I timed your midnight flights. I tracked your eye movements during missions.”

“You’re not joking, Jeno breathed out.

It wasn’t about a jacket. It never had been.

It was about the urge beneath the gesture. The way Jeno touched and retreated, how he never let himself want out loud, but broadcasted it in every glance, every moment of silence filled with barely-restrained motion.

Jeno didn’t look away. His restraint was a frayed thing now, peeling at the edges.

Jaemin leaned in, voice low.

“You know… if you wanted me to stop watching you,” he said, tone laced with something dangerous, “you should’ve stopped looking at me like that.”

Jeno exhaled.

Not a sound of surrender, a sound of defeat.

Jaemin had been patient for years. He could wait a bit longer.

But the air between them is breathing, heavy, slow, thick with static.

Jaemin can feel the way Jeno’s body vibrates, not visibly, not for anyone else to notice, but he does. He knows the nuance of Jeno’s restraint. How it curls in his knuckles, hides in his shoulders, tightens in his jaw.

Jaemin has studied it.

Obsessively.

He could map it with his eyes closed. Has. Many times. From footage. From memory. From dreams.

There are files. Folders. Tags. 

There’s a whole world dedicated to Jeno living in Jaemin’s off-grid backup servers. 

Backed up thrice. Protected. Not from others.

From himself.

Jaemin never asked himself if it was wrong. He only asked how long he could keep it hidden.

And now Jeno is standing here. So close that Jaemin can feel the warmth of him, all that solar-charged skin and brute strength barely held in check. Superboy was built to be invulnerable. But Jaemin had learned, long ago, where he was most vulnerable.

Jeno’s weakness was never kryptonite.

It was trust.

And Jaemin had it.

Still has it.

He shouldn’t. He knows that.

He watches. He tracks. He follows every pattern and flight path. Times Jeno’s patrols to the minute, builds predictive models on how many blocks he’ll clear before he gets bored or distracted or lonely enough to circle back to wherever Jaemin is.

The first time he did it, he told himself it was for safety. For missions. For efficiency.

The fiftieth time he stayed up replaying Jeno’s surveillance footage in 0.25x speed just to watch the moment his smile dipped, blinked, reformed he’d stopped pretending.

It wasn't safety. It wasn’t logistics.

It was need.

Compulsion.

Possession.

He wants Jeno. But not in the way people want other people.

Jaemin doesn’t fantasize about Jeno loving him back. He fantasizes about owning the way Jeno breathes when he’s near. About cataloguing every impossible bruise, every torn seam, every telltale look — like wings from a rare butterfly that ought to be pinned and studied.

He doesn’t want Jeno’s heart.

He already has it.

What he wants is to see how far it can be pushed before it breaks.

And now…

Now Jeno’s watching him. Like he's the dangerous one. Like he finally realizes just how deep this goes.

Jaemin turns his head, slow and deliberate.

And Jeno flinches.

It’s a tiny thing. Barely there.

But Jaemin sees it.

He savors it.

Because it’s not fear of Jaemin hurting him. That would make sense. Logical. Justified.

No.

Jeno’s afraid of something much worse.

He’s afraid that this darkness, this corrupted thing in Jaemin’s eyes, the way he licks his lips too slow, the way his voice softens into silk just before it strangles, isn’t a dealbreaker.

He’s afraid that he doesn’t mind it.

That part of him… wants it.

Jaemin steps forward once, and Jeno doesn’t back away. His eyes dart, between Jaemin’s mouth, his hand, the collar.

Jaemin smiles.

Not soft.

Not kind.

“I think,” he says, voice dipped in honeyed venom, “you like the idea of me being a little... broken.”

Jeno swallows. Hard.

“Jaemin,” he says, quiet. Rough. “You’re not—”

“You’ve felt it, haven’t you?” Jaemin steps in, nearly chest to chest. “The way I watch you. The way I wait. Always in the right hallway. The right safehouse. The right city”

His breath touches Jeno’s lips. Not quite close enough to kiss.

“But you never stopped me.”

Jeno’s pupils are blown wide.

He’s listening, heart racing. Despite his humanity, Jaemin can hear it. Knows it better than his own.

Jeno whispers, “I didn’t want to.”

Jaemin’s eyes half-lid.

“Good,” he says. “Because I’m done hiding it.”

He could kiss him. Right now. He could slide his hand under the hem of Jeno’s shirt, feel the buzz of his TTK pulse against his stomach, feed the tension, push until they both shatter.

But not yet.

Because this is better.

This moment.

The near-undoing. The edge of madness where Jeno still thinks he can handle it.

He can’t.

But Jaemin wants to watch him try.

The air between them was thick. So thick that Jaemin could almost taste it, sharp like smoke, electric with anticipation.

He stood there, back to his console, his chest rising and falling with each breath, eyes locked on Jeno. 

Every inch of him screamed for release, a long-deserved gratification for all the time he’d spent waiting. Planning. Observing.

Jeno, shaken by the silence, stared back at him, his eyes dark and full of something primal. Jaemin could feel his heartbeat like a constant drum, the beat of someone finally giving in, the rhythm of years of silence breaking.

And yet... there was a stillness between them now. A tension so palpable, so hungry, that Jaemin wondered if he was losing control.

Jeno took one slow step forward. Then another. He wasn’t speaking, but Jaemin didn’t need him to. He had him.

Finally.

Jaemin had won. He could feel it. He had pushed Jeno to the edge, had made him want this. Had turned the entire tide of their friendship. His hand itched to reach out and touch him, to pull him in, to feel the heat of his skin against his own.

But Jeno didn’t move to close the distance.

Not yet.

Instead, Jeno stood still, eyes tracing Jaemin as though he were a delicate puzzle to be solved. Something raw and dangerous lingered beneath that familiar, steady stare. The same stare that always made Jaemin ache in a way he couldn’t explain.

“You know,” Jaemin whispered, voice lower than usual, “I don’t think you realize what I’ve been doing... what I’ve been wanting from you.”

His breath was hot against the cool air of the room. The words felt like a confession, something darker than just attraction. A confession that would finally make Jeno see the truth in him, make him understand.

Jaemin’s hand grazed the edge of the desk, moving closer to the soft blue light of his monitors. 

The screen flickered to life.

He knew Jeno could see it, his collection, his obsession. He could see how he’d taken the most intimate pieces of Jeno’s life, how he'd organised them, loved them from behind a lens.

Jaemin smiled faintly, watching as Jeno's expression flared. 

All angles. All missions. All moments he hadn’t known where being saved.

Candid. Surveillance. Raw.

There was a shift in Jeno's stance, the subtle crackle of his telekinesis responding, vibrating in the air like a low hum. 

It was barely noticeable, but Jaemin could feel it, the way the room seemed to bend around them, the invisible pull drawing them closer, like their skin had somehow become magnetized.

Jaemin reached to his own chest, fingers brushing across the edge of Jeno's leather jacket. Stitched with care, each thread holding onto the moments they’d shared. 

He traced the stitching lightly, the same jacket Jeno had worn so many times when they were together, when they were partners, when Jaemin had been close enough.

He let his fingers linger.

Jeno’s jaw tightened, the veins in his neck barely visible, pulsing beneath his skin as Jaemin continued to trace the jacket. A small, purposeful caress. His eyes never left Jeno’s.

“I didn’t do it to own you.”

“You did,” Jeno stepped forward, the air thick with the weight of something too much, like the world was teetering on the edge. “You do.”

Jaemin’s hand froze. He thought, for a moment, that Jeno might kiss him — that he might finally be the one to break the barrier, to cross that line.

But no.

Jaemin’s voice turned quiet. “Would you rather I stopped?”

Jeno didn’t answer, his eyes didn’t leave his as he leaned down. His breath against Jaemin’s neck sent a thrill of anticipation through him.

Jaemin’s chest tightened, and the world seemed to stop for a second, just hanging in the air. He hadn’t expected it to feel like this, so raw, so close to the edge. His fingers tingled at the thought of pushing Jeno, of forcing him to fall in line.

He almost wanted to.

Almost.

Then, just as quickly, something shifted. Jaemin’s pulse quickened. He could feel the sudden weight of the room, the oppressive silence closing in.

Jeno was still holding himself back.

“You follow me, you always do,” Jaemin whispered softly, his voice dark. “You’re mine, Jeno. I know you better than you know yourself.”

The tension between them snapped.

Jeno stepped back, his heart pounding in his chest.

Jaemin smiled at the confusion written across Jeno’s face. But there was no pity in it. 

No sympathy.

Jeno, barely able to process it all, felt the weight of Jaemin’s gaze anchor him in place.

And as Jaemin slowly stepped forward again, Jeno’s telekinesis hummed, raw and charged, wrapping them both in a quiet, intimate storm. 

He couldn’t stop it.

Not when Jaemin was looking at him like that.

Not when he could feel Jaemin’s obsession, as real and palpable as his own.

Not when the last shred of resistance cracked away completely.

The monitor still glowed behind Jaemin, flicking through image after image of Jeno. 

Candid, meticulous. Images from rooftop angles, thermal body readings, recorded heart rate data, all organized by time, mission, temperature, expressions. 

It was cold. 

It was surgical. 

It was... loving. 

In its own monstrous, reverent way.

Jeno stared at the display, and the tension that had built between them, that had promised something physical, didn’t dissipate.

It just warped.

Curdled into something heavier.

Jaemin touched the lapel, the leather soft, worn slightly already from his own wear. 

“I’ve slept in it.”

Jeno’s breath caught. His power flinched out like a reflex, flaring, air humming with invisible threads.

But Jaemin didn’t step back. He tilted his head instead, eyes steady and heavy with possession.

“You want to be angry. But you’re not.” His fingers found Jeno’s forearm, tracing the seam of his balled sweater. “You’re afraid. Because you knew. You’ve always known what I am.”

Jeno’s gaze dropped. He couldn't hold the weight of Jaemin's eyes.

“You kept all those photos—”

“I kept you,” Jaemin corrected. “I made a world where you never left. Where you never died. Where you always came back to me.”

The words stung. Not because they were false, but because they were true.

Jeno remembered the moment he’d first been brought back, hazy and confused, empty, and the first voice he’d recognized had been Jaemin’s. Before the others. Before his own name.

“I didn’t do it to hurt you,” Jaemin said, stepping even closer now, the leather between them whispering. “I did it because I couldn’t breathe without knowing where you were. Because I didn’t want to move on. You were the only thing I wanted to hold onto.”

There was no shame in his face. Just hunger and acceptance.

Jeno’s chest rose sharply. He was spiraling, but not away. Toward. Everything inside him twisted with it.

His knees met the floor with a soft thud. The telekinesis around him trembled again, a soft shimmer in the air, flitting across Jaemin’s slippers, wrapping delicately around the hem of his pyjama pants, like a leash without pressure.

Jaemin’s fingers threaded into his hair, gentle but firm.

“You always come back to me,” he whispered. “Even when I push. Even when I dissappear. You still choose me.”

Jeno’s eyes were wide, unblinking.

“Even when you didn’t know why. Even when you couldn’t admit it.”

Jaemin’s other hand tilted Jeno’s chin up, and he smiled, slow and unspeakably pleased. Not cruel. Not manipulative.

Certain.

“You’re like a dog,” he said gently. “Not a stray. Not rabid. Just...mine.”

Jeno didn’t flinch.

He didn’t run.

He shivered.

Jaemin crouched down to meet him eye to eye, the glint in his gaze turning predatory, not threatening, just hungry.

“You follow me. You defend me. You growl when someone gets too close.”

The hand in Jeno’s hair tightened subtly.

“I feed you, and you sit where I tell you. I give you something of mine and you keep it close like it’s part of your skin.”

Jeno exhaled, a sound caught between a breath and a moan.

“And you’d never hurt me,” Jaemin whispered. “Would you?”

Jeno’s voice cracked when he finally spoke.

“No.”

The room held still.

Jaemin leaned forward, brushing his lips against Jeno’s ear, and said it again.

“Mine.”

On his knees. Still wrapped in the phantom threads of his own power, his tactile telekinesis pulsing in soft waves around Jaemin like a leash pulled taut and humming with restraint.

Jaemin just watched. Devoured.

The hand at the back of Jeno’s neck lingered, fingertips drawing circles at the base of his skull like he was soothing an obedient animal. 

Not that Jeno had fought. He hadn’t even tried. He wanted to be seen like this. 

Claimed like this.

“Mine,” Jaemin repeated — softer now, with something dangerously close to reverence. “You came back to me, and I am never letting you go again.”

Jeno’s jaw clenched. “I never left you.”

Jaemin let out the faintest laugh, tight, frayed at the edge. “Yes, you did. You died. I buried you. I mourned you. And then I broke every rule in the book trying to find a way to get you back.”

Jeno looked up sharply. “What did you do?”

Jaemin’s fingers flexed in his hair. “Things the big Bat wouldn’t have forgiven. Things I don’t forgive myself for. But I’d do it again. A thousand times, Jeno. I’d bring the whole world down if it meant keeping you where you belong.”

The silence between them split wide, like the air had turned viscous.

Jaemin leaned in.

And for a moment, it was clear that he was no longer performing. He wasn’t hiding behind intelligence or manipulation. He was cracked wide open, naked.

“I kept everything,” he confessed, eyes dark and glinting. “Every photo, every comm log, every time your vitals glitched post-resurrection. I mapped out your sleep patterns for three weeks before I said anything. I know when your powers spike and fall. I know when you get phantom pain from your last death. I even know how often you think about kissing me.”

Jeno inhaled sharply, the telekinesis stuttering around them like a gasp.

“Because I think about it too,” Jaemin continued, and his voice had gone quiet. Gentle. “I think about it too much. I think about you too much. And when you pulled that jacket over my arms and didn’t say a word—” he exhaled, “—I knew it was mutual. But I needed you to show me.”

He finally let go of Jeno’s neck. Stepped back just enough to pull Jeno gently.

“You wanted me to beg?” Jeno rasped.

Jaemin shook his head, slow. “No. I wanted you to choose it. Choose me.”

Jeno surged forward then, fists gripping in his own jacket, mouth crashing against Jaemin’s in something far messier than planned.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t gentle.

It was pent-up fury. Regret. Years of unspoken things compressed into teeth and breath and pressure.

Jaemin responded instantly, biting back with equal force, pushing Jeno until his back hit the floor. 

Jeno groaned, not in pain, but in need, and the telekinesis flared out again, pulling Jaemin closer, binding them together, gripping Jaemin’s wrists without ever touching them.

Jaemin moaned low into his mouth.

“You’re doing it,” he whispered, voice wrecked. “Touching me like you mean it.”

“I’ve always meant it,” Jeno panted, dragging their mouths apart only to drag them back together again.

Their hands were frantic now, pulling and pushing, mapping through fabric and soft patches of vulnerability. 

Jaemin kissed like he’d been starving. Jeno kissed like he was trying to anchor himself to the one thing that had always brought him back.

Their hips ground together once, twice, and Jeno’s powers twitched again, unbidden, locking Jaemin in place with a breathless gasp.

Jaemin broke the kiss, head falling forward into Jeno’s shoulder as he let out a breathless, nearly broken laugh.

“I knew you’d be like this,” he whispered. “I knew once you gave in, you’d ruin me.”

Jeno held him tighter. “I want to. I want to ruin you.”

“No,” Jaemin corrected, dragging his mouth along Jeno’s neck. “You already have.”

Jeno keened, back lifting off the ground, threatening to lift the rest of his body along with it, but Jaemin caught him.

And then, in a slow, deliberate reversal, Jaemin pulled him back forward. Guided him to his knees again with the same composure as before.

But now, the tension was molten.

Now, Jeno looked up and wanted to stay there.

Jaemin thumbed the edge of Jeno’s jaw, gaze smoldering.

“Stay,” he murmured.

Jeno did.

Jaemin leaned down and whispered against his lips, “Say it.”

Jeno stared up at him, throat tight, heart pounding, mouth dry.

“I’m yours.”

Jaemin kissed him again. Slower this time. Possessive. Final.

“Good,” Jaemin breathed, voice laced with something too close to madness. “You’re such a good dog, always coming home.”

Jeno exhaled, like he’d just been absolved of something heavy and ugly and ancient.

And still, that part of him that had always been afraid to break things, to break Jaemin, stayed quiet. 

Because Jaemin wanted to be broken by him. 

Just as much as Jeno wanted to be owned.