Theo had been watching. He had been watching since the first bell of the sixth hour, a silent specter at the periphery of the training hall.
He had constructed a fortress of rationalizations to protect himself from the truth: that he was watching with the obsessive focus of a man who had been usurped. He told himself it was professional duty that a Nightwing heir must closely monitor the methods of the acting director.
He told himself he was studying Rex's techniques to better understand the threat. He told himself he was simply assessing the new power dynamic of the household.
Each lie was thinner than the last, crumbling under the weight of the undeniable reality unfolding before him.
When the kiss ended and the hall began to fracture back into its normal rhythms, Theo moved. He crossed the stone floor without conscious intent, his boots making no sound, drawn by a gravitational pull he couldn't resist.
