ghosts | d. grayson

chapter 17

17. realization

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three hours later

"SO YOU BURNED THE SUIT, HUH?" PAIGE asked, as he sat down beside her. Since they made it back to the safe house, Paige had been sitting on the floor in front of her bed. The forced memory from earlier triggered a flood of other memories from her childhood that she suppressed over the years. To say she couldn't sleep was probably an understatement. The woman was wide awake.

"I had to," Dick said. "Every time I put that mask on it's like..."

"You have no control over yourself?" she finished, turning to face him as he nodded. "I know the feeling."

He noticed how off she seemed and not like herself at all. She felt more closed off than usual. For starters, her body language was already a dead giveaway. Her legs were brought up and she had an arm wrapped around them. The distant look in her eyes told him that something was wrong. "You okay?"

Silence filled the room before she decided to respond. "When I was in the box, I passed out. And while I was out I had a dream — well actually relived a memory — of the day my sister died."

"I didn't know you had any siblings."

"Cause technically I don't. I don't go around mentioning it to avoid the fake sympathy. But anyway, that was the day I became claustrophobic. Never went into tight spaces again," Paige mentioned. "My dad was a horrible man. He praised my older sister and would always take his anger out on me. The youngest child. The fuck up. The day she died, we had gone swimming. She went too far out and couldn't make her way back. My dad never stopped blaming me for it."

"It's not your fault," Dick reassured.

"I know that now. But try telling that to the twelve year old girl who wanted to kill herself because her father hated her," she mumbled, looking at everything but the man in front of her. Obviously, he heard what she said. "I just wish that I could go back to that day and tell her that we should just stay home. Maybe she would still be alive, you know?"

She felt the sudden warmth of his hand on top of hers. It was a comforting feeling, but it wasn't enough to make her forget about the guilt that hung over her. "I'm sorry you had to go through that again. I should've been there—"

"No," Paige interrupted, shaking her head as she looked back over to him. "You don't have anything to be sorry for. There was nothing you could've done."

The two sat in complete silence for a moment, finding comfort solely in each other's presence. They understood the other well enough that they didn't need words to communicate how they felt. A simple look could express so much to the other without anyone else ever noticing.

Dick inched closer to her before her head rested gently against his shoulder. "Do you think we'll ever get to be normal?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean get to live a regular life without looking over our shoulder. No superhero business involved."

"What would you be doing then?" he asked curiously, shifting his gaze down to her.

Shrugging, she thought of what a perfect, average, life would entail. "I'd have a standard nine to five job. Maybe in an office. At night I'd go home and make dinner and watch TV. Maybe I'd have a couple of kids by then, who knows."

He chuckled softly beside her as the thought of Paige trying to frantically make dinner for a family entered his mind. "If only it were possible."

"What? Me with kids?"

"No. Either of us stepping away from what we do," he clarified. "We care too much to just simply let it go."

"And what if you did stop?" she asked.

"I'd need a very good reason to."

"Like?"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "I honestly don't even want to know."

He was lying. Dick knew exactly what would cause him to stop and it had to do with the woman beside him. If she died, especially during a mission and on his watch, he would stop and leave the crime fighting life behind. Forever.

She was all he had known for two years and he didn't know what he would do without her in his life at all.

The man had promised himself that he wouldn't fall in love again because all it did was bring complications into his life. He was realizing that Paige made it difficult for him to keep that promise to himself. She didn't even have to do much. Her existence enthralled him and all he ever wanted was to just be around her.

That scared him. The realization that he was in deep terrified him.

He snapped himself out of his thoughts, looking down at Paige as she twirled the strings of her hoodie around her finger, going off on a tangent about something he hadn't really been listening to. All he could focus on was her.

The sound of her sudden yawn told him that it was time for him to go. "I think it's time for both of us to go to sleep."

"I think you're right," she yawned again as they helped each other up and off of the floor. Before Dick could leave the room a sudden thought popped into her mind. "What do you think of Rachel's mom?"

"Angela? What about her?"

"I don't know. She just gives me this weird vibe like something's off about her that she's not telling us."

"Maybe it's cause she's been trapped in an asylum for who know's how long."

"Yeah, you're probably right. I'm just overthinking. She's seems like a nice woman. Maybe it's just paranoia," Paige shrugged.

Nodding, Dick bid her goodnight before going to his own bedroom for the night. Now that he was gone, Paige felt a bit lonely.

Like Dick, Paige had realized that when she wasn't with him, she felt odd. He had been in her thoughts all of the time she could never bring herself to think about anything else.

When they were together, everything felt right for her. She couldn't even begin to imagine a life without him in it. When they were sitting in front of her bed not too long ago, her head against his shoulder and his head on top of hers, she wanted to stay there forever because at that very moment, Paige had realized that maybe she was in love.

She was in love with Dick Grayson and he was in love with her.

After pacing back in forth for a bit, she threw her hands down in defeat, mumbling "Fuck it" to herself as she rushed over to the door. As soon as she opened it, she was met face to face with the man who had been standing on the opposite side with his hand up ready to knock.

Their eyes locked onto each other's. Paige could feel her heart beating in her chest as Dick's gaze dropped down to her lips and back up again. The space between them soon closed as their lips crashed together. Neither of them pushing the other away.

Both of their lives had just changed with that single decision, but for now all they had was each other and that was all that mattered to them. They were living in the present and that was good enough for Dick and Paige.