She was still perched up on the counter, enjoying the pancakes he had made. But whilst they were having breakfast and Jason was thinking about how to strike up a conversation, she spoke up, "if you wanna do this often then I must know at least something about you. My friends are worried that I am spending my time with dangerous people."

He raised an eyebrow skeptically, "dangerous... Me?"

"I mean you're sweet to me, you're an awesome cook and I like to spend time with you. But I still don't know anything about you, not even your full name," she remarked, taking the chocolate syrup to drizzle more on her pancakes.

"Valerie, I don't know anything about you either."

"And some people assume you're a serial killer so that makes things slightly difficult for me to explain to my friends," she resumed as if she hadn't heard his remark and he almost choked on his bite at that statement.

A serial killer would be too far even for his standards but he could guess why some people would get that vibe from him. He was a crime lord, he had been controlling Gotham's drug mafia and he had seventeen murders to his name currently.

Alleged but not proved; all seventeen of them had been henchmen for the other crime bosses who he had threatened to surrender back when he had first returned to Gotham after his resurrection.

It was surely not the best part of his life and not something he wanted to remember right then.

"Sorry, I thought you'd take it as a joke," she filled up a glass of water and gave it to him, "clearly, you didn't..."

"It just... Caught me off-guard," he replied after drinking from the offered glass.

"Right," her grey eyes were observing his expression closely and she added, "but seriously, you're not a serial killer, right? I am not in some Jeffrey Dahmer kinda situation, am I?"

She looked cute with her wide grey eyes and her teeth biting her lower lip. He shook his head, shoving all those past memories into the back of his head, "no, you're not. I am not going to hurt you."

"Good," she smiled, letting out the breath she was holding.

"I can tell you a little bit about myself in exchange for you telling me a bit too," he offered and she readily agreed, leaning closer to listen, "my name is Jason Todd and I used to live in Gotham before I moved here."

"Oh... And where do you work? I mean, you know I work at the supermarket and you've definitely read my name tag..."

"I don't have a fixed job," he considered how to explain it to her, "it's kind of a contract work situation. I have a team and we are hired when our services are required."

She looked rather curious at his cryptic choice of words. "So you're in the construction industry?"

He considered but then decided to let her believe that, "sort of."

"You definitely have those builder biceps," she mumbled but then blushed, realizing she had said that out loud.

It was a quirk of hers to think out loud and he found it endearing as a smile threatened to play upon his lips as well, "I usually supervise things. But it's good to know you like my biceps."

"Jason, stop," she blushed deeper but then decided to focus on the rest of her pancakes and diverted the conversation down a different track, "so you're from Gotham... I've heard it's a very dangerous place."

"Depends on who you are, if you really ask me. It was worse when I was a kid, does not seem so bad now."

"Right..." She waited for him to add something but when he didn't, she felt it was time for her to tell him a bit about herself. "Well, you know my name already and I work at the supermarket. I was studying privately a few years back but things got too much to handle with my job so I dropped out. Now I live with my best friend who thinks you're dangerous and I should stay away from you."

"I respect your friend's concern for you, she might be right," he replied, watching her shrug nonchalantly.

"You don't get to say that after just telling me that you won't hurt me," she remarked, finishing her share of pancakes at last.

"Did you even tell your friend where you are right now?"

She nodded, "I told her I was not with you."

"Valerie, that will make her believe you're definitely with me," he teased, taking the empty plates to put them in the dishwasher.

"Maybe she's busy too or she would have called by now," she reached out to take her phone and checked her texts but there was nothing from Sarah or Marc.

"And what if your friend is right?" He asked, a slight shadow passing over his eyes but he refrained from looking at her, "what if I am dangerous?"

"Then I can punch you in the face and get out of here sooner than you can do anything to me," she remarked breezily.

"Punch me? With these pretty hands? I don't think so."

"Jay, you are not teasing me into actually punching you, are you?" She asked, watching him leave the dishes to come back to her.

His hands were cold as he held her right hand up, curling her fingers to form a fist, "so tiny."

"Hey..."

"And put your thumb like this or you'll end up dislocating it if you use too much force," he gently adjusted her thumb, "if you're wearing something like a ring or a metal band, it would definitely hurt the opponent, and give you enough time to scurry away. If not, then it's going to end up hurting you. Judging by how delicate you are, it will definitely end up hurting you if you punch someone with just your bare hands."

"But it won't hurt me if I were to use pepper spray and then throw a stone at them, right?"

"Yup," he replied, still observing her tiny fist held in his broad callous hands.

Fragile, he thought, taking in a deep breath to recollect his thoughts that were going all over the place, his hands aching to pull her close and kiss her again.

"When did you flip washing the dishes into a self-defense lesson?" She mumbled, grey eyes locking with his bluish-green ones as he looked at her at last.

"I don't know," he let go of her hand and returned to the sink, "just don't dislocate your thumb if you ever punch someone. And don't hold it the way you did just now."

"Oh... Okay." She watched his back as he busied himself with the dishes again, just then recalling the countless scars he had engraved on his body. She didn't want to directly ask him about the scars so instead she asked, "do you know how to fight?"

"I'm from Gotham, it's a necessity there. If you don't know how to fight back, you get beaten up."

"Right... Normal stuff in Gotham..."

It made her wonder whether everyone in Gotham had as many scars as he did and if that was a normal thing for a Gothamite too or not.

He had hummed in reply and she got silent after that as if thinking about something. So when he was done with the dishes, he wiped his hands off with a towel and returned to her, shaking her out of her thoughts as his hands gently rested on her thighs.

"Valerie, you don't need to find out everything about me and vice versa. We can be friends or more if you prefer but no digging into each other's pasts."

He sounded very serious and she nodded, biting her lip again as she was deep into a train of thought that hadn't fully broken.

He leaned closer and gently kissed her, letting her wrap her arms around his neck. He had a lot of secrets that he would keep her away from and she expected that. She wouldn't be so comfortable in sharing her past with a partner either so it was only fair what he was asking from her.

When he pulled apart, she nodded her head, her fingers gently caressing his cheeks as she replied, "alright, no digging into each other's pasts."

"And you have no problem with us hooking up without it being a relationship?"

"Yeah, no issue," she breathed, her eyes trailing down to his lips again which were still too close to her.

She was about to eradicate that tiny gap and kiss him again when her phone started to ring and she had to pull apart with a disappointed groan. Jason smiled to see the expression on her face as she picked up her phone to see that it was a call from Sarah.

"I've got to take this and you're dropping me back or you won't get to see me again," she mumbled, pecking his cheek lightly just before she answered the call, "hi Sarah."

Jason let her talk to her friend as he made sure that nothing else in the kitchen needed to be cleared. Then he picked up his car keys and signaled her that he was going outside.

She had gotten off the counter and joined him, disconnecting the call as he locked the door to his safe house. "It's my friend, Sarah. She got worried again."

"Seems like she cares a lot for you," he remarked, opening the door of his car for her.

"I don't remember my own Mom but I am sure if she was alive, she would have been exactly like Sarah too," she remarked and though Jason paused slightly, he didn't ask anything further about her mother.

They had just agreed not to dig into each other's pasts and he had been the one to put forward that condition so of course, he would have to keep that in mind for himself too.

***