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Dick wakes up feeling featherlight fingers brush over his arm, leaving a trail of goosebump to his elbow. There is a soft pressure of lips just over the hem of his sleeping tee as Eleanor nuzzles closer to him. He instinctively leans back against her chest, sighing drowsily into the still dark room. Before he completely wakes, with his eyes still closed, he turns his head and feels more soft brushes of her lips travel up over his jaw and cheek.
“Hi.” She murmurs into the peaceful silence, her hand pressed over his chest, feeling the rhythm of his heart. Dick stretches, comfortable and warm in their bed, not yet ready to face the day.
“Hi,” he mumbles back. “What time is it?”
“Middle of the night.” She replies, sounding way too chipper to have just woken up, her cheek resting against his arm as she lightly trails her fingers over the part of his abdomen where his shirt has rolled up, even though Dick isn’t ticklish, his muscles does jump slightly at the featherlight touch. He hears a smile in her voice when she continues speaking. “The lights woke me up.”
“So, naturally you decided to wake me too.” He rasps, cracking his eyes open to watch the aurora borealis above them, the blue and green wave and glitter across the dark sky like something out of a fairy tale. Complain as he might for the interrupted sleep, it’s a gorgeous sight and the whole point of them coming here had been to watch it together. If that meant a little less sleep, well, Dick could survive it.
Especially as he turns his head enough to look at Eleanor. Seeing the lights reflect in her eyes and across her face, she looks ethereal. And maybe he might be just a little biased, but he’s pretty sure she’s the most beautiful creature he’s ever laid eyes on. His heart flutters in his chest out of pure love that he harbours for her. The selfish part of him wants to hide her away from the rest of the world, to wrap himself around her and never let her go.
“You’re staring at the wrong thing.” She murmurs, her lips twitching in amusement.
Dick hums. “Don’t think so, babe.”
“Sap.”
“Yes.”
She laughs. One of those full bodied laughs that ends up shaking your shoulders and smile with your whole face. The kind that makes you want to laugh too but at the same time makes Dick so mesmerised of how happy she looks. He loved seeing her like this, he wanted to see it more often.
When Eleanor finally turns and looks at him properly, her nose is scrunched up and the whites of her teeth are visible in the dim light of their glass igloo. She’s propped up on one arm so Dick rolls over to his back and wraps his arm around her, resting his hand between her shoulder blades. Eleanor leans down and they kiss, just a brush of lips against lips before she settles against his shoulder, and Dick can’t stop turning to press his mouth to her forehead, closing his eyes and just enjoying the quiet of the night.
Even with the borealis shining brightly overhead he can feel his eyes grow heavy in their shared comfort. It’s one of those moments that doesn’t need words to portray how they feel, instead it’s tangled limbs under a warm blanket that smells like them. It’s safe. Warm. Comfortable.
Dick yawns, tugging Eleanor impossibly closer. Feeling himself falling further and further into sleep and only registers that she’s said something when a small laugh shakes them both.
“Hmm?”
Her fingers combs through his hair, nails scraping against his scalp, sending shivers up his spine. “Nothing.” She murmurs. “Sleep. We’ve got plenty of time to talk tomorrow.”
Dick hums again, then turns to press his nose against her throat, mouthing a lazy kiss to her pulse. “Love you.”
“I love you.”
~
Dick has to admit, there’s a certain charm of a forest so untouched by man that the majority of it’s population is just animal. The crisp air is so very different from Gotham’s smog that he’s gotten used to over the years. Clear, and cold, enough to make him feel energized just breathing it in.
They’d set out on their own—with a map, a promise to the tourist guide back at the glass igloo’s that they could definitely read one and wouldn’t get lost. Together with a pack filled with various snacks and a thermos of hot chocolate it had so far been a pretty perfect day. Clear skies, with only the occasional fluffy white cloud passing over them and the surrounding white winter wonderland being something out of a Hollywood movie.
Since both Dick and Eleanor were adrenaline junkies—(“adventurous, Dick, not adrenaline junkies”) they’d gone off the beaten path quite a while ago. Coming across several different types of animals, like reindeer, owls and other birds, and Dick was fairly certain that they’d even come across wolf tracks or maybe wolverine tracks, either way it had been pretty cool to see.
The snowball hits him in the shoulder, and he whirls around in time to dodge the second one while searching for his adversary. Eleanor’s grin is partially hidden by the gigantic fluffy dark blue scarf she’s wearing—handwoven by a local family business, she hadn’t been able to resist buying it. She’s partially hidden by one of the large trees in the forest they’ve spent the past hour or so wandering through, already making another snowball.
“This is war!” He declares, grinning and dropping the backpack he’s been carrying before reaching down to scoop some up of his own. It’s a wet kind of snow—the one that crunches satisfactory under your feet and undoubtedly will make you feel more cold if you spend too much time in it—it’s perfect for a snowball fight.
By the time he’s rounded out his own weapon of choice, Eleanor is already launching a third at him. This one hits centre mass and she laughs when he throws one back, catching her hip just before she dodges behind the tree again.
Dick dives behind cover himself, it’s big enough to allow him to make a small pile of snowballs as he’s keeping an eye on her movements out of the corner of his eyes.
“Stop hiding!” She calls and Dick laughs, gathering up his ammo to make a run to another tree, for a better angle.
She manages to throw two before he gets behind cover—one sails over his head and she lets out a ‘ops’ as it does, the other one catches his thigh, though the thermal pants he’s wearing lessens the impact of it.
“My turn!” He cries out, and Eleanor squeals in laugher as Dick starts peppering her with her with a taste of her own medicine. He mostly misses—mainly because he’s laughing too hard to actually put any effort into aiming. Eleanor scoops up some more snow and quickly makes a ball while covering from his onslaught. When she throws it, Dick sees it coming, and allows it to hit him straight in the forehead, he tumbles backwards dramatically into the snow, allowing himself to be cushioned by the cold and forces himself to not make a sound.
It has the desired effect too, at first Eleanor laughs, then she calls his name. The second time she calls it, it sounds a bit worried and he can hear the crunch of snow as she walks up to him.
“Hey, are you okay?” She asks, brushing some snow away from his hat.
He trips her down into the snow with a flourish that they’ve both used to do back home on the training mats, and Eleanor’s echoing laughter makes him join in. They wrestle, rolling around in the snow until they’re both red in the face and out of breath.
She props herself up over him, straddling his waist. “I knew you’d do that.”
“Yet you fell for my excellent trap.” He grins smugly.
“I was worried.” She huffs, flicking some snow into his face.
Dick rolls them over again, then proceeds to press a dozen kisses all over her cold face, until she’s smiling and leans up to meet his lips properly.
“Apology accepted.” She hums.
“You started it.”
“Ladies and gentlemen.” Eleanor muses, laying back down. The strands of her black hair that’s fallen loose of her braid looks like ink in the white snow. “My mature boyfriend.”
“I’m a kid at heart.” Dick laughs. “You love me anyway.”
“For some reason.” She teases.
He places a hand over his heart, then in his best English accent says. “You have given me a most grievous injury, my lady. I might never recover from it.”
“Drama queen.”
“One of us has to be.”
She laughs again, and this time Dick joins in. He’s pretty sure that his face is going to fall apart from smiling too much soon. Or maybe the cold. Probably the cold.
“You’re okay though?” She asks once they stop laughing, he hadn’t noticed her taking a glove off, so the warm touch of her fingers to his cheek is a little surprising.
“It’ll take more than a head injury to keep me down.” Dick says, before he shifts to sit up and pull her with him. As good as their winter clothes were, they probably shouldn’t lay down in the snow for much longer. He taps the side of his head. “Thick skull.”
“Good to know.” She muses, shaking her head and rolling her eyes at him.
Dick starts brushing the snow out of her hair, careful not to pull any more of it lose from it’s braid when he notices her staring.
“What?”
“You’re beautiful.” Eleanor says, still just watching her.
He gets told that often, from all kinds of people, mainly the media. He’s got good hair, he’s fit, he’s got an attractive face, more comments about his ass. Most of the time he just ignores it, other people find him pretty, that’s fine. Maybe he should mind a bit more how people view him, but he’s never been one to shy away from the spotlight. He loves being in it just as much as he loves swinging from trapezes. Maybe it’s narcissistic of him to acknowledge it, but Dick doesn’t think he lets it gets to his head.
When she says it. Dick believes it.
“Marry me.”
“I—what?” The question catches him so off guard that he feels his jaw go slack.
He can’t tell if she’s blushing or if it’s just the cold, but she looks like she’s floundering a bit. “I… uhm… I’ve been thinking about it for a while. And maybe it’s a bit out of the blue—I don’t exactly have a ring on me, but I love you. I want to be with you in every sense of the word, grow old together. Have a family of our own together. I want to be yours and I want you to be mine.” Her smile is soft and a little hesitant. ”If you’ll have me.”
Dick has never really questioned his love for Eleanor. Even at their weakest he’s always loved her, and he knows without a single doubt in his heart that he’ll continue to love her for the rest of his days.
Last time he’d been engaged though… It had been mainly because Dick had been afraid to lose Kori. Marriage had seemed like the best chance to save what they had, to make sure he wasn’t alone. It had warped his views on it, even though his mom and dad had married young, and never regretted it. He’d always wanted that. The kind of unconditional love that Eleanor gave him, the kind that even though he made mistakes—hell, even though they both made mistakes, and they fought and had disagreements, Dick still knew at the end of the day that Eleanor loved him.
“You’ve really thought about this?” He keeps his voice calm, even though his pulse is skyrocketing in his chest.
“I have.” There’s no doubt in her eyes, no uncertainty. A bit of nervousness maybe, but other than that, nothing but love. “So, Richard John Grayson, will you marry me?”
He smiles, reaching up to touch her jaw. “Yes. I will absolutely marry you.”
“Yeah?” Eleanor’s breath fogs between them when she huffs out a breath. Her grin wide and eyes sparkling in joy in the noon sunlight.
“Yes.” Dick repeats.
She looks speechless for a second, then huffs out another breath. “Wow.”
“Yeah?”
“I just—” another laugh—a giggle, spills from her lips. “I just think I might be the luckiest woman on this planet—no wait, in this entire universe.”
Dick’s heart swells. “Sap.” He murmurs.
“Yes.” She agrees and leans in to kiss him.