tw. implied domestic violence

Melina didn't trust easily. She'd seen too many promises break, too many people come and go, usually when it mattered most. So when Jason started hanging around more often at their apartment when Michael was not around—sleeping on their couch some nights, eating the last of the cereal without asking—her first instinct was to keep her distance.

He wasn't family.

And she'd learned the hard way what happened when you started treating people like family.

But then there were the little things.

Like the way Jason would always offer Maeve the warm spot on the couch when the heater went out. Or the way he cleaned the blood off Melina's knuckles without asking questions after Michael lost control again. Or how he never made her feel like she was failing—even when she felt like she was barely holding their lives together.

One night, Melina found Jason in the kitchen, arms elbow-deep in dirty dishwater, cleaning the sink like it owed him something.

"You don't have to do that," she muttered, crossing her arms.

He didn't look at her. "I eat here, don't I?"

She paused. "Most people don't care."

"I'm not most people," he said simply.

Melina raised an eyebrow. "You're still a pain in the ass."

He smirked. "Takes one to know one."

She almost smiled. Almost.

Later, she walked past Maeve's room and paused in the hallway. Through the cracked door, she saw Jason asleep in the corner chair, head tipped back, snoring lightly. Maeve had fallen asleep beside him on the bed, a blanket draped between them. Safe. Finally sleeping without tension in her face.

Melina leaned her head against the wall, exhaling slowly.

He wasn't just some street kid anymore. He was theirs-hers now—whether she liked it or not.

Weeks later, when Jason came home bruised and limping after getting jumped downtown, Melina didn't ask what happened. She just tossed him the ice pack, handed him her last pack of instant noodles, and said, "Next time, take the side alley near 14th. Less traffic."

Jason looked up at her, startled.

She shrugged. "What? I'm not letting you bleed out on my floor. Too much work to clean."

But he saw the truth in her eyes—quiet concern, deep and unspoken. A maternal yet sister-like kind of love.

And for the first time in a long time, Melina realized she wasn't just protecting one kid anymore.

The sun had barely risen when Jason knocked on the bathroom door. Melina stood at the sink, wrapping her knuckles in gauze after a run-in with one of Michael's drunken outbursts the night before.

Jason hesitated in the doorway. He wasn't bleeding or broken—at least not on the outside. But something about the quiet, the early hour, and the way Melina's shoulders were squared told him now was the moment.

She glanced up at him through the mirror. "You lose another fight?"

He shook his head. "No. Just... needed air."

Melina didn't press. She never did when it counted. Instead, she finished tying off the wrap, rinsed her hands, and leaned against the sink, arms crossed. "Talk."

Jason shifted, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets. "Do you ever... think it's gonna get better? Like, for real?"

Melina blinked, surprised. He never asked stuff like that. He joked. He deflected. He ran.

She took a slow breath. "Sometimes. But not without a fight."

Jason nodded, chewing at the inside of his cheek. "You always know what to do. Even when it sucks."

Melina let out a dry laugh. "You think I know what I'm doing? I'm just walking through hell with my eyes open."

Jason's gaze dropped to the tile floor. "Yeah, but you're still standing."

A long silence followed. Then, he finally said it—soft, almost too quiet to catch.

"I don't have anyone to ask stuff. Like, about what's right. What to do when I'm mad. Or scared. I used to guess, but... now I kind of want to get it right."

Melina's chest tightened. She saw herself in him—the anger, the loneliness, the weight of wanting to be good but never being taught how.

"You are getting it right," she said. "You showed up. You keep Maeve safe. You don't run when things get hard. That's more than most grown men."

Jason blinked fast, like he wasn't used to hearing things like that.

She stepped forward, put a hand on his shoulder, steady and solid. "If you need something, ask. You're not just some kid sleeping on our couch anymore. You're mi-ours now. Got it?"

He nodded. Quietly. Gratefully.

Then: "If I ever, like... mess up. You'll tell me, right?"

Melina smirked. "Jason. I live to tell you when you're being an idiot."

That finally pulled a laugh from him.

It wasn't a big moment—not in the way the world measures things. But for Jason Todd, trusting someone like that was bigger than any fight he'd ever survived.

The apartment was still for once. Not silent—never silent—but still enough that Melina could hear the ticking of the busted kitchen clock and the faint rustle of blankets as Maeve shifted in her sleep.

Jason was curled on the couch, one arm slung over his eyes, a bruise blooming purple along his jaw. He hadn't said what happened. He never did when it was about him.

Melina sat at the small table, a cigarette burning low between her fingers. She didn't even smoke—not really. But sometimes the warmth in her hand made the nights feel a little less hollow.

She looked at them—her sister and the street kid who somehow stopped being just a friend and became something more. Her talk with Jason earlier made her realize they aren't just Maeve and Jason. They're so much more than that.

Mine, she thought. They're mine.

Not in the way Nancy said it, like a burden. And not like Michael, who used ownership like a weapon.

Melina's kind of "mine" was different.

She remembered when Maeve was a baby, screaming in her crib while their mother nodded off in the living room, too strung out to move. Melina had climbed into the crib and wrapped her arms around her sister until they both fell asleep.

She remembered Jason, smart-mouthed and bloodied, trying to steal her coat the first time they met. He'd looked so damn angry, like a kicked dog waiting to bite. And now here he was—limping home, choosing them every time.

Melina stared at the chipped mug in front of her, the one Jason always used even though it leaked. Maeve had drawn hearts on it with a permanent marker last winter.

She wasn't their mother—not really. She was barely sixteen. But she'd tucked them in, fed them with money she shouldn't have had, lied for them, bled for them.

And she'd do it all again.

God, they're just kids, she thought. But so am I. And somehow, I'm all they've got.

Her throat tightened.

"I'm not gonna let the world take you," she whispered into the dark. "Not Maeve. Not Jason. Not while I'm breathing."

Outside, the city kept groaning under its own weight.

But in their corner of it, for one night, love looked like cracked hands, scraped knuckles, and a girl who refused to break because two other kids were counting on her to keep standing.