flyrobinflyy

[flyrobinflyy]

“ignoring his problems usually worked…” (camera lovingly pans to the prior chapters of all three books)

TYLER ABBOT. 😐🫵🏼

bentley?? little lava lamp eyes and some blood bending?? okay i see you buddy!! (he is so cool) (and scary)

Project: Killcode

batfamily + oc insert

tw: gore?

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

its kinda short but THIS SCENE IS SO INTENSE

part thirty-six

❝ DEFENSELESS ❞

MONDAY — AUGUST 6 — 6:44AM

BENTLEY DIDN’T HEAR OR SEE THE SECRET KEEPER AGAIN.

He stayed in Bellamy’s room for almost the entirety of Saturday and Sunday, and when Monday came around, he begrudgingly got himself ready for class in the wee hours of the morning. Asten didn’t talk to him. He didn’t talk to Asten.

He just… didn’t think about anything. Ignoring his problems usually worked…

When the seven of them went to breakfast, the cafeteria was oddly emptier than usual. But they also went a little earlier than they typically did, so Bentley didn’t think much about it. Varian bounced around like the social butterfly he was, everyone talked, (except Bentley and Asten) and it was normal.

And then, when they went to first period, it suddenly became kinda not normal. Because his and Koa’s English classroom only had about half the students it was supposed to, leaving lots of desks completely empty and the room much quieter than normal.

The two of them took their seats in the back of the class, eyes bouncing across the empty chairs.

“Where is everybody?” Bentley questioned. Tyler was still there, (because of course he’d be.) and probably about a dozen other kids, if his estimating skills were accurate. It was so few they could probably put one student at each table and still not have one at them all.

“I think a lot of kids are sick,” Koa shrugged, sitting down next to him and dropping his bag on the floor. “From what I’ve heard, whatever’s going around is super contagious.”

Bentley cringed. “I hope we don’t get it. I’ve heard it’s rough.”

“Same,” Koa replied. “Some of mine and Var’s friends have been sick as dogs for, like, an entire week. They said one of the nurses comes to their room to check on them everyday. Awkward.”

“Why don’t they just send them home?” Bentley questioned.

“Most of these kids don’t have homes to be sent back to,” Koa replied, and Bentley didn’t say anything. “We’re some of the lucky ones.”

A moment of quiet passed, before Bentley muttered: “Oh.”

“Yeah. You’d be shocked how many parents decide they don’t want their kids once they start to show their powers,” Koa mumbled, plopping his binder on the desk with a whack.

Bentley wondered if that was what happened to Koa — he’d said he lived with Artimi; He never spoke about his parents in the slightest. In fact, the only one of their roommates that ever talked about their parents was Varian. (And Bentley guessed himself, too… but did it even count if Bruce wasn’t actually his dad?)

Bentley flinched when a piece of crumpled up paper whapped him in the side of the head, falling onto their worktop with a quiet sound. When he glanced up, Tyler was smirking at him.

With a brief inhale, Bentley grabbed the paper and un-crumbled it to the best of his ability, glancing down at the words scrawled across it.

How long should I wait until I tell the whole school about your overnight hangout sesh with Chloe Singh, Redwood’s biggest whore? I bet everyone will wonder what happened when you two disappeared together…

Bentley stared at the words, dragging his eyes across the letters one last time before he looked back up. Tyler had this smug look on his face like he’d done something really cool, and he wiggled his eyebrows in Bentley’s direction.

How had he figured that out? Bentley had only told Asten, and Asten didn’t know what girl it was. Chloe said she hadn’t told anyone and forced her roommates into silence. Did she lie to him, too? Or did her roommates talk anyways?

Of all the people who could’ve found out…

Bentley crumpled the paper back up and shoved it in his blazer pocket. He felt Koa’s eyes lingering on him, but he didn’t look over — he just looked at Tyler and then down at his desk.

That was all he could think about until the end of the class period, when the bell rang and he and Koa went out in the hallway to head to their next class. Maybe if he straight up sprinted, he could-

“Hey, Wayne!”

Bentley groaned dramatically, turning with a patented eyeroll to look behind him. Tyler was catching up with them, a dorky grin on his face like he had some good news to share. Bentley was not in the mood for him. He was so not in the mood for him that he almost thought about literally killing Tyler on his approach, but he assumed that wouldn’t be moral.

“I am not dealing with you today, Abbott,” Koa called over his shoulder, barely sparing a glance at him.

Bentley saw Tyler’s eyes narrow, and he spat: “Then it’s a good thing I wasn’t talking to you, asshole.”

Bentley turned back around and kept walking — so Tyler grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around, forcing their gazes to lock. Bentley jerked his shoulder out of his grip and huffed loudly, the familiar sound of water in pipes gracing his eardrums.

Tyler looked down at him like he was ready to give him hell, but suddenly, his face changed a little. “Don’t lose your shit, test tube meta. Put those eyes away.”

Bentley scowled at him. “What are you talking about?”

Tyler lifted his pointer finger to the center of Bentley’s forehead and shoved him back a step, and he suddenly had to refrain from drowning him in his own blood. “When you get all pissed, your eyes start glowing.”

Bentley just glared at him.

“That’s how I knew you made my drink explode. Those stupid blue light-bulbs on your face,” Tyler snickered. “It’s a dead giveaway if I’ve ever seen one.”

Was that how everyone always knew when he was listening? His eyes started glowing? He’d always wondered how everyone knew when to ask what he was hearing…

“I have no interest in talking to you right now,” Bentley muttered, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Good for you; I don’t care. But your little bodyguard can go ahead and get lost,” Tyler replied, glancing over Bentley’s shoulder at what he assumed was Koa.

Bentley glanced backwards at him; He was giving Tyler another death glare. “Just go ahead, I’ll be right behind you.”

Koa’s seafoam green eyes flicked between him and Tyler a few times, before finally, he turned and made his way out of the building behind the final straggling students.

Tyler sighed. “Now that we have the hall to ourselves…”

“How did you find out about me and Chloe?” Bentley grumbled, tightening his crossed arms over his chest. Tyler laughed; literally laughed.

“You know all my favorite subjects, Wayne,” He shook his head with a smile. “Let’s just say a little birdy told me.”

The word birdy only worked to piss Bentley off more. “Well, if you know that much, then you know exactly what happened. Or, should I say, exactly what didn’t happen.”

Tyler shrugged. “I do. But that doesn’t mean everyone else will once the rumor spreads like wildfire. Soon everyone will be talking about your little rendezvous with Chloe. And rumors typically get more drastic as they go on… I’d sure hate for it to get passed onto administration; Maybe even down the grapevine to your dear friends in Gotham? Wouldn’t that be something?”

“What do you want, Tyler? Other than to inflate your ego until you can’t fit it on campus anymore?”

Tyler snickered, his eyes bouncing across Bentley’s face, glowing with sheer arrogance. “Who said I want anything other than to watch you squirm?”

Something… moved, in the back of Bentley’s mind. Like something had clicked into place without him having to think about it, like a thought, a fact had just been dropped directly into his brain from somewhere else. A manageably dull pang of pain came with it, throbbing momentarily on the base of his skull.

He blinked. “You’re jealous of me.”

How did he know that? He wasn’t sure, but somehow he knew it was correct. 

Tyler’s expression changed very quickly from amused to cold, and angry. “Why the hell would I be jealous of you? You’re a little shrimp.”

Bentley shrugged. “Maybe because I managed to befriend all the girls you can only pull when you’re dreaming,” He replied, eyes traveling over Tyler’s frame -- his fists were clenched by his sides, and Bentley suspected that he was about to be punched or something. “Just by being a decent human being. Something you’re obviously incapable of doing.”

Tyler made a sound akin to a groan of frustration, and in an instance, vines came shooting down the hallway mid-air from one of the exit doors. The green, slither-y things latched onto Bentley’s ankles and wrists in a death grip, and he gasped lightly when they jerked him off the floor and up into the air, tugging all of his appendages in different directions like they were about to rip him apart -- just enough to cause a little pain at each joint.

“Test me, you little bitch,” Tyler growled, and the vines tightened enough to probably make Bentley bruise. He could hear the water in the pipes, Tyler’s blood pulsing through his veins, the liquid inside the vines keeping them alive.

Tyler was glaring at Bentley like his eyes would sprout lasers that would kill him on the spot.

Bentley glanced up at the vines, tugging against them to no avail -- all it did was claw at his skin and make it hurt worse. The vines were so strong they hardly moved when he wiggled against them. “Let me go.”

“No, I don’t think I will. It’s time you learn to respect your elders,” Tyler replied. A vine sprouted out of virtually nowhere and slithered around Bentley’s head, looping over his mouth and making it impossible to speak. His head was forced perfectly forward, and he tried to squirm again, but the vines didn’t budge at all -- not a part of him moved an inch.

He focused hard on the water in the pipes, and he felt it come pouring out of all the faucets in the nearest bathroom a few halls away, accompanied by a loud gushing sound.

“Ah-ah-ah,” Tyler tutted. Bentley tried to make the water move through the bathroom door, he couldn’t -- there was a wall of vines in the way. He couldn’t bring it up through the ceiling or down through the floor or through the walls without damaging the school building. “You can’t swim your way out of this one, Wayne.”

The vines around Bentley’s wrists started to tighten purposefully, and spin, rubbing his skin raw in a matter of seconds -- he might’ve cried out if the vines weren’t over his mouth, but he couldn’t, so he just grimaced and made a muted noise at the unquenchable burning it caused. 

“I’m going to make you wish you were never born,” Tyler grumbled, a dark smile twisting up his lips. The vines that were around Bentley’s head began to sprout smaller ones, and a few of them forced his mouth open and crawled into his throat, making it almost impossible to breathe. He choked on them but he couldn’t cough, couldn’t do anything other than try really hard to breathe through his nose. His eyes watered from the silent choking until the reflex tears fell down his face.

“Aw, don’t cry, Wayne,” Tyler mocked in a high-pitched voice, cocking a brow at him. “It’s only your airway. You can survive without it for… well, eight minutes, maybe?”

Bentley could hear his own heart pounding, almost double the pace of Tyler’s, and the vines in his throat made him gag. He tried to force the water between the vines that were in the bathroom doorway, but he couldn’t -- they were wound too tightly.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He could hear the water in the pipes and the dew on the grass and the blood in Tyler’s veins pounding, pounding, pounding-

Tyler’s face suddenly lost every arrogant, amused expression, and Bentley heard his heart keep pounding and pounding and pounding until it was beating way too fast. Tyler staggered backwards slightly and brought a hand up to his nose -- when he pulled it away, it was bloody. 

“What the hell are you doing to me?” He grumbled, panting like he’d been running a marathon. Bentley only watched as blood surfaced in his ears and started to pour down the sides of his face, and he grabbed at his shirt where his heart was. “Stop it! I can’t- can’t breathe.”

Bentley felt the vines inside of him double in size, completely closing off his airway. 

Tyler was trying to knock him out.

At the complete absence of breathing, Bentley panicked -- Tyler started blinking rapidly, and tears of blood started to run down his cheeks. 

“Stop it! You’re going to kill me!”

You’re going to kill me!

He remembered the last time someone said that to him -- it was her. The Secret Keeper, when she had him hanging by a noose off the edge of a building, when she had crimson running from her ears and her eyes and her nose. Her. A criminal. A supervillain. A murderer.

Tyler wasn’t any of those things. He was just a kid.

Bentley focused on him again just in time to see him hack up a mouthful of blood all over the floor.

So he stopped.

He forced the sound of the water to fade from his mind, he slowed Tyler’s blood back to its normal pace, and the water in the bathroom climbed back up into the sinks. He focused and focused and focused until everything went quiet again -- until he was the same defenseless Bentley he had been before he'd gotten superpowers at all.

Tyler continued to cough for a few moments before he regained his breath, spitting on the floor a pink-ish, bloody saliva. He used the sleeve of his blazer to wipe the red away from his eyes.

He looked up at Bentley, shocked, then down at the blood all over himself and the floor. “You just tried to kill me!” He shouted. Bentley tried to focus on him, but he couldn’t -- the lack of air was starting to make his lungs feel like they were on fire, and everything around him was swimming in and out of focus.

Another shout from Tyler: “You just tried to kill me!” Was the last thing Bentley heard before the world faded to black.

Should he have continued to defend himself?

--

tag list that never works lmao

@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun

@xiaonothere

@skylathescholarly @flyrobinflyy

[flyrobinflyy]

Delighted at the thought of Bruce Wayne having to be an actual parent

[flyrobinflyy]

heyoo! Just put out another chapter :)))))

me after getting this happy cheerful message versus me after reading the new chapter:

[flyrobinflyy]

i just went through stages of grief that don’t even exist on this mortal plane

he’s trying so so so hard WHYYYY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO OUR POOR BOY 😭😭 bentley get behind me

Project: Killcode

batfamily + oc insert

tw: none

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

THE POOR BABY TRIED HE WASNT GONNA LET YOU DOWN OKAY HE TRIED

part thirty-five

❝ OUT OF THE LOOP ❞

SATURDAY — AUGUST 4 — 3:44AM

IT HAD BEEN MIDNIGHT WHEN THE NIGHTMARE-VISION-SECRET-KEEPER DISASTER HAD TAKEN PLACE, AND BELLAMY HAD CRIED UNTIL THREE-THIRTY IN THE MORNING.

Now, it was three-forty-five, and he had managed to cry himself into a light slumber, his head and shoulders pillowed on Bentley’s lap, the older boy’s hand repetitively smoothing down the hair on the top of his head. They were sitting on the bottom bunk of his bed, and Rockie was there, too, sitting at the foot of the mattress in silence.

None of them had really spoken. Apart from quiet consolations to try and help Bellamy calm, no words had been shared, only subtle pitiful glances or vague gestures. 

That was okay. Bentley was still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Bruce had lied straight to his face. Back when he had just woken up from nearly dying, while he was in the midst of having some kind of emotional breakdown, Bruce had lied to him. Without batting an eye, without the slightest bit of visible guilt or regret, he’d lied to him. 

Had Bentley been naive to believe Bruce would never lie to him? Had it been stupid to assume he’d always tell him the truth? Everybody lied, he guessed. Hell, he was a trained liar. But somehow, now that Asten and Bruce were both lying to him, it… seemed to hurt him a lot worse than his pitiful little I-live-on-the-streets lies from back in the day could’ve hurt them. He had to lie. He had to because of his father — but Bruce… Bruce didn’t have to lie.

And he did anyway.

 Why would he do that?

“Is that the first time you saw her?” Rockie whispered after a long, long time of silence. Bentley glanced over at him, and he was just looking back, his red-rimmed green eyes sort of glowing in Bellamy’s dim bedroom. Not a second later he looked down at his gloved hands and fiddled with his fingers.

“… No,” Bentley replied, glancing down at Bellamy, continuing to smooth down his hair. 

Rockie inhaled and exhaled. “Varian told me you… weren’t born a metahuman. And you’re from Gotham. So does that mean… she…”

Bentley glanced back up, but Rockie avoided his eyes.

“I got kidnapped and turned. By her and her people,” Bentley replied quietly, looking back down at Bellamy. “So did Asten… and another friend of ours who moved away after.”

Rockie breathed in and out, again, but didn’t say anything.

“That was almost four years ago, though, and I thought she was…” Bentley shrugged, trailing off. “Do you… see her often?”

Rockie shrugged, eyes laser focused on his hands. “Off and on for the last five or six years.”

Bentley blinked. That was even before she ransacked Gotham.

That was closer to when Asten’s parents died. The first sighting of the Secret Keeper ever, in Brazil.

She had her hand on Rockie even back then? Why?

“I think I was eleven when I first saw her,” He continued with a soft sigh. “I thought I was gonna die.”

Bentley hummed. “Did you tell your parents?”

Rockie went quiet for a moment, and Bentley realized that maybe he didn’t have parents anymore. So he backtracked with quick: “Nevermind, sorry…”

“The people I lived with knew,” He replied anyways, with a faint shrug. “Didn’t care.”

Bentley didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t. He just looked back down at Bellamy, and a few beats of silence passed.

“He always said his head hurt after he had nightmares. I just… never guessed it would be her,” Bentley trailed off, glancing up at Rockie, then back down. “Does Valor know? About you? And her?”

He saw Rockie shrug again in his peripheral. “He knows I have nightmares, and… sometimes I space out and it’s hard to get my attention again. But he doesn’t know why. I’m usually good at handling it so I don’t freak him out by having a breakdown or whatever, but… I don’t know. Tonight was different. I’m usually in there alone.”

Bentley didn’t say anything, and he heard Rockie draw in a breath, fiddling with his fingers.

“What was she doing to you? Before we ran into each other?” 

Bentley blinked, looking back up at him. “Before I ran into you? She was just talking to me.”

“And you were screaming?”

Bentley creased his brow. “No.”

Rockie looked down at his lap with an exhale. “She made me hear you screaming, then. I thought she was torturing you.”

That made Bentley wonder if Bellamy had even really been screaming, when she talked about inviting her third favorite bird. (How were they supposed to deal with someone who could make them hear and see whatever she wanted?)

“What do we tell them? Everyone else?” Bentley asked, swallowing lightly. “We can’t just…”

“We can just tell them that you and Bell had nightmares. That I was here to… y’know. Help,” Rockie suggested. “It isn’t very far from the truth. We can’t tell them about her, otherwise she might…”

“Yeah,” Bentley was quick to reply. “I know.”

Rockie sighed. “I would feel so bad if she started doing this to everyone else because of us.”

Bentley opened his mouth to reply, but that’s when he heard the dorm door open and, after a few minutes, close.

At almost four in the morning.

Bentley’s words died in his throat, and he didn’t say anything at all. Where had Asten gone at eight that he didn’t get back from until four in the morning? If that was even him coming home and not Valor. Bentley guessed he shouldn’t have been so upset — he and Asten had (kinda) decided they could do whatever they wanted and didn’t have to tell each other... But it still dug under his skin like needles anyways. That he had to offer up that option simply because Asten didn’t want to be agreeable.

A few moments later, a knock came on the bedroom door, and a voice whispered: “Bentley? You in there?”

It was Valor, and Bentley found himself huffing.

“Go ahead, I’ve got him,” Rockie said, shifting on the end of the bed up towards Bellamy. 

Bentley obliged, wiggling out from under Bellamy without waking him and letting Rockie take his place. It was a weird maneuver to make with a sleeping child. With one last glance to make sure Bellamy didn’t wake (he looked asleep as oddly peaceful), Bentley left him with Rockie and made for the door, opening it wide enough to glance out.

“Hey,” Valor sighed, running a hand over his face. He looked tired — his gray eyes were dull and his posture was less than alert. “Asten’s asking for you.”

Bentley glanced around the dorm, quickly noting that the lights were out and Valor was the only one visible. He slid out of the bedroom and closed Bellamy’s door behind him, glancing in the direction of his and Asten’s room. “Where has he been?”

“We looked for him for a while, but he wasn’t on campus,” Valor’s eyes flicked around for a second, awkwardly, almost. Maybe like he felt bad, or… didn’t want to tell him? “You know my friend that throws all the parties? I guess Asten’s been talking to him one-on-one… Mason’s dad owns this huge nightclub in town, but it’s been closed recently for construction, so… Mason and whoever he wants to bring pretty much have free reign of the entire thing.”

Bentley just blinked, and Valor frowned at him, as though he’d made a facial expression involuntarily. So first Asten went to parties, and now he went to a literal nightclub?

“He’s… really, really drunk, Bentley. Like, blackout drunk. I’m not sure what they gave him, but he’s probably going to be out of commission for most of the day tomorrow,” Valor sighed lightly with a cringe. “He’s sick as a dog and won’t stop crying. He wants you.”

Bentley glanced toward their bedroom door, which was closed tight. “Will he… even remember it if I go in there?”

Valor shrugged, pity splaying across his features. “If I had to guess… probably not. But you never know…”

Bentley sighed lightly, glancing backwards at Bellamy’s door. “Who’s in there with him now?”

“Koa,”

Bentley didn’t say anything for a solid thirty seconds. On one hand, Asten was crying and sick and asking for him, even when they weren’t talking. Asking for him when he was in pain and upset and… there was a part of Bentley that said he couldn’t possibly ignore that. That it was kind of his job as a brother and as a best friend to throw away whatever little turmoil silent treatment they had going on and just be there for him when he needed him.

But there was the other part of him, too — the little jerk part that said Asten had snuck off to a nightclub by himself, and he should pay for it by himself; that Bentley wasn’t going to be there to baby him through all his bad decisions just because he shed a few tears when he wasn’t even sober enough to comprehend why. It wasn’t Bentley’s mess to control or clean up — it was Asten’s. That Asten was Asten’s mess, Asten’s responsibility.

Would that be too harsh? Bentley was always one to wear his heart on his sleeve and try and make everything better…

But Asten had been mad at him for avoiding conflict.

He huffed lightly. For the first time in his life, Bentley decided that Asten… wasn’t his problem.

He swiping a hand over his face, rubbing at his eyes. “Look, I’m already having a rough night… do you think you guys could just…?”

Valor nodded instantly. “Yeah, yeah, of course. Did you have another nightmare?”

“Yeah,” Bentley lied straight through his teeth, glancing down at his feet. (Because he couldn’t just tell Valor he’d been jerked right into Rockie’s bad dream while he was very much still awake.) “It… was a bad one. And then Bellamy had one, too.”

Valor frowned. “I thought you looked tired. Is Rockie in there with you two?”

Bentley merely nodded, and Valor smiled faintly.

“Alright; get in there and go to bed. I’ll handle Asten,” He replied, glancing back at their bedroom door.

Bentley cringed and asked: “You sure?” (Just to make it seem like he wasn’t super relieved a blackout drunk Asten was off his plate. Even though he was. So, so, so relieved.)

“Positive,” Valor said with a reassuring smile, lifting a hand and patting him on the head like a dog. “Try to get some sleep, okay?”

“Okay,” Bentley replied. Then he gave Valor a little smile and retreated back into Bellamy’s room, closing the door behind him.

He pretended he didn’t feel guilty about it.

—

With everything that happened, Bentley only got about an hour of sleep that night. And not even that one hour went uninterrupted; because his phone decided to start ringing right at the tail end of it, when he was finally drifting into something deeper than a doze.

With a soft groan of frustration, he shuffled around in Bellamy’s bed until he found the device and turned the volume off. The screen was practically blinding in the dark dorm, and the clock on it said it was almost noon. The caller ID that was displayed across the phone read Bruce. For some reason that made Bentley kinda sad.

With a small sigh, he brushed his hair out of his face and maneuvered himself out of the bed. He and Bellamy were lying near the top while Rockie was spread out on the foot, all of them sleeping to the best of their abilities. Which wasn’t very well.

He sort of climbed over Bellamy and made his way out of the bedroom. The living area was empty, but he wasn’t surprised, given the others were out until four a.m.

Then he remembered that Asten was super hungover, and that meant maybe awake, and that meant Valor was maybe awake. So, just for good measure, he left the dorm and went into the empty, long hallway, keeping his foot in the door so it didn’t close and lock him out.

Then, with a sigh, he brought the phone to his ear with a soft: “Hello?”

“Hey there, chum! How are you?”

Bentley very suddenly had to fight off the violent urge to start crying at the sound of his dad’s voice; something stabbed through his chest, and he quickly realized it was betrayal. “Bruce…”

A moment of quiet passed where Bentley just bit his tongue in an attempt to make his eyes stop watering. 

“What is it, buddy?”

“The…” He trailed off, looking down at his socked feet. Memories from last night’s dream-vision played over and over in his head, and his eyes burned. “The Secret Keeper, she… she’s back, and… she’s doing the same thing she did before. You… told me she was dead.” 

A moment of silence filtered through the phone.

“That’s great, bud. I’m so glad to hear that,”

Bentley’s breathing hitched in his throat, and he blinked in shock. “…W… What…?”

More silence came.

“You’ll have to bring them back to the Manor so I can meet them sometime,”

Bentley glanced down at his phone to confirm that Bruce’s name was on the screen. “Bruce? Can… you hear me?”

“Yeah, I can hear you,”

Bentley sniffed lightly, brushing his hair out of his face. “Did… you hear what I said? About the Secret Keeper?”

“Yeah, I said you should bring them to the manor. Sorry, I might’ve cut out, I’m in my car,” Bruce continued, and Bentley scrunched his face up. It was like he was having an entirely different conversation with him.

“Bruce?”

“Yeah, bud?”

Bentley breathed in. “I said the Secret Keeper is back. She’s bothering me and my friends again.”

“I’m sure everyone would be super excited. Dick in particular,” Bruce chuckled. “He’s practically dying to meet your friends.”

“What are you talking about?” Bentley muttered, his eyes burning again until a few tears fell over, because apparently he was losing his absolute mind.

The sound of a blinker vaguely came through the phone. “Okay, I love you, too. And tell Asten I love him. Bye.”

“Wait, Bruce!”

The call ended, and Bentley looked down at his screen, complete and utter bafflement written across his features. Why couldn’t Bruce hear what he was saying? Like he was hearing something else? Was Bentley hearing wrong? A few tears fell on his screen and he swiped them away.

A sudden jolt of pain stabbed through his head, and he winced, nearly dropping his phone from the way his muscles writhed. 

“You can’t possibly think I was just gonna let you tell your daddy on me,” Her voice pierced his mind, echoing in his skull. “You two just had a lovely conversation about how much you love this school and your roommates, courtesy of me.”

Bentley cried quietly, shoving his way back into the dorm and letting the door close behind him.

“I have a foothold in everyone’s heads. Everyone will see and hear what I want. Sorry, kid, but your family is going to stay blissfully out of the loop,” 

Bentley’s heart was already pounding out of his chest again as he made his way across the dorm. Another stab of pain came, and her voice never returned. A headache, one that he’d recently managed to shake, formed at the base of his skull.

He went back to Bellamy’s room and closed the door behind him in a not-so-calm fashion. 

The only reason he’d even survived her last time was a time traveling speedster and the sudden realization that he could bend her blood, both of which she hadn’t predicted. How the hell were three private school roommates supposed to do it alone?

He sobbed lightly to himself, sitting down against Bellamy’s door just like he used to when his father locked him in the closet.

Last time this happened, his family had at least a clue about what was going on. How was he going to do this without them? Deal with her?

For a long time, he just cried in Bellamy’s floor. And sometime later he felt a presence to his right, and someone with big metal gloves carefully reeled him into a hug.

He never went back to sleep.

--

tag list that never works lmao

@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun

@xiaonothere

@skylathescholarly @flyrobinflyy

[flyrobinflyy]

He is approximately three apples tall

[flyrobinflyy]

I love them, your honor

[flyrobinflyy]

the most fun a girl can have is finding parallels, noticing patterns, making connections, contemplating

[flyrobinflyy]

okay yay for my favorite villain being back but also FUCK my poor boys 😭😭 charlie when i catch you….

NOT BENTLEY THINKING BRUCE LIED TO HIM 🥲 now he’s really not going to tell anyone

the rubix cube :(

Project: Killcode

batfamily + oc insert

tw: fear???

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

the whole time i was writing this chapter i had the “three little birds sat on my window” song stuck in my head so i named the chapter that lmao

part thirty-four

❝ THREE LITTLE BIRDS ❞

FRIDAY — AUGUST 3 — 11:43PM

BENTLEY’S BARE FEET SKIDDED ON THE WHITE FLOOR AS HE RAN FULL-SPEED INTO A LEFT TURN, NEARLY FALLING RIGHT OVER DUE TO THE BLIND PANIC HE’D FOUND HIMSELF IN.

He couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t hear. The only instinct he could grab ahold of in that moment was run, so he was running; through the white hallways that reminded him so much of Dr. Keene’s lab, the back of his eyes burning spectacularly, because…

Her.

She…

He narrowly missed banging into the wall on his next full-speed right turn. Where was he going? He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything other than the fact that he needed to run.

“Don’t be afraid, Babybird,” She cooed from nowhere, directly into his ears, his skull. “You were bound to find me again one day. Don’t act so shocked.”

Bentley pushed himself as fast as he could go, the burning behind his eyes quickly turning to full-fledged tears that started streaming down his face and strangled sobs that ripped their way up his throat. He had to get out of there. He had to get out. He had to-

“Careful where you’re going,”

Bentley skidded into another left turn as fast as his legs could move, blindly.

And as soon as he turned, he slammed face-first into something else — something that had been moving really fast, too. Something that made a muffled sound when they hit, and made a thump on the white floor just like Bentley did.

He forced himself up almost immediately, shoving himself off of the floor so urgently he careened into the wall from the force. Pain was blooming through his veins and muscles and bones but he ignored it. He had to run, he had to-

“Bentley?”

He managed to focus through his terror and tears on the person who he’d rammed into.

Rockie jerked himself off the floor, stumbling a few steps backwards. He wasn’t in a hospital gown like Bentley, but a solid white jumpsuit with nothing on it, the sleeves tucked down into his metal gloves. He was panting, and he also had tears streaming down the sides of his face, too.

“…Rockie?” He questioned. A loud wham erupted from the end of the hall, the direction Rockie had been coming from — so he lurched forward and grabbed Bentley’s arm and pulled him away from the sound, back the direction he’d just come.

“No, no, no, no, stop!” Bentley ordered, digging his heels into the floor and baring all of his weight against Rockie’s grip. “She’s this way, she was behind me, she was-“

Rockie turned to look at him, wiping his furiously watering eyes. “You can see her, too?”

Bentley didn’t say anything.

“My two favorite birds,” Her voice came, and Rockie looked around frantically, as though he heard her, as well. He pulled on Bentleys arm until he was haphazardly placed behind his back, protection that wouldn’t actually help against a psychopath like her. “Isn’t it kind of rude if we don’t invite my third favorite birdy, though?” 

Bentley and Rockie both whipped around instantly, hearts hammering in their ribcages when a bloodcurdling scream from a familiar voice ripped down the hall from somewhere they couldn’t see. “No!”

Rockie’s grip on Bentley’s arm was so tight it was painful, but Bentley couldn’t find it in himself to care. Between the terror and the crying, he couldn’t even think straight enough to focus on it.

“No! No, please!”

Bentley knew that voice. He knew it, and if he could get his mind to obeyhim for half a second, he might be able to tell who it was. But his mind didn’tobey — his heart was slamming around in his chest, booming in his ears, and it felt like his throat was full of cotton that was blocking his airway. He was having to put so much of his willpower into not having a panic attack that he physically couldn’t think about anything else.

Luckily, Rockie’s brain was working a little better than his, because he wiped his eyes with one hand and muttered: “It’s Bellamy.”

Bentley glanced down the hallway, and a new sort of terror and panic joined the terror and panic he’d already been experiencing — the inescapable dread that came along with the realization that she had him. Bellamy. And that he needed to get him the hell away from her.

Shit.

Without warning (or much thought) Bentley wrenched his arm out of Rockie’s grasp and started running toward the screaming.

“Bentley!” He heard Rockie call out, but it went mostly over his head.

Bentley took a few turns, listening dutifully for where the screams seemed to be coming from, and not much later, he heard Rockie’s footsteps coming from behind him. He turned one more time until he was sure he was on the hallway where the screaming was originating — it was lined with dozens of metal doors, all standing open, hall lights off but the dim lights in the rooms filtering into the empty corridor. 

Bentley inched down the hall, glancing into the doors one by one as he passed. Most of the rooms were solid white and empty, apart from the occasional set of chains attached to the floor or ceiling. He put a hand over his mouth to stifle his sobs into something quiet — not that that would help against a girl who fought him inside his own head.

He suddenly realized the sound of their footsteps had thinned to one pair, and that meant Rockie had stopped walking.

Bentley turned back, and luckily, the older boy hadn’t vanished. He was just standing at one of the doors, staring inside an empty room.

Bentley backtracked, walking up to the door he was looking at and peering inside. Bellamy wasn’t in there, but there was a set of chains attached to the floor, and a…

Rubik’s cube? Just sitting in the middle of the room? 

He glanced up at Rockie, who seemed fixated on the little thing for reasons Bentley wasn’t aware of, but he didn’t seem interested or even confused. He seemed like he could be, almost… sad? Or afraid? Something like recognition, nostalgia was swirling in his green irises, but not the good type; and Bentley wondered why.

“No! Please!”

Both Rockie and Bentley whipped around at the startling proximity of the screaming to them — like Bellamy was in one of the few rooms they were right next to.

Then, in one sudden moment that scared them all half to death, Bellamy shot out of the door right across the hallway (hadn’t Bentley just checked that one?) and screamed in terror when he saw them, skidding to an abrupt stop.

He was in the same jumpsuit as Rockie, his brown eyes red and streaming with endless tears. The moment his gaze flicked between them, and he comprehended who it actually was, he dissolved into a bout of quiet, entire-body wracking sobs, lurching forward and grabbing around Bentley’s torso for dear life.

“She-she’s gonna k-ill me,” He choked, crying so hard he started coughing. “She’s gonna- she’s gonna…”

“Why are you so scared? I haven’t even touched you yet,”

As much as Bentley hated it, he wiped his (still crying) eyes and forced Bellamy to let go of him, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him blindly, quickly down the hall with Rockie hot on their heels. He didn’t know where they were going. Somewhere. Anywhere.

And then all the lights cut off.

The three of them skidded to a blind stop, and Bellamy stayed pressed up against Bentley’s left side, holding onto his hospital gown like he’d float away if he let go. The only sounds that were audible in the dark halls were the soft telltale sniffles that came with all three of them crying. 

Then there was a faint click-click-click sound from right next to them. Then a clack! (The click-click-click clack! of Davis taking off his metal gloves and dropping them on the floor echoed in Bentley’s mind for half a second. Now that he thought about it, Rockie’s gloves looked just like his.)

“What’re you going to do with that hand?” Her voice came, with a mocking tone, confirming Bentley’s suspicions that a glove had been removed. “I’m in your mind. Nothing you do to me is real.”

The arms that were around him tightened, and Bentley looked down into the pitch blackness at where he thought Bellamy’s head would be if he could see.

“But what I do to you, that is real. If I want it to be,”

Bentley turned his head in the darkness when a pained noise came from his right. “Rockie?”

No reply — just dead, dead silence that lasted far longer than he’d have liked. Then came a simple thump.

The lights flicked on, and Rockie was unconscious in the floor, nose and ears pouring blood.

“Rockie!” Bentley tried kneeling down to him, but he suddenly couldn’t move, like his legs and arms and muscles weren’t obeying him. 

Like he was on the roof and she’d slid a noose over his head and he was walking to the edge against his will-

The only thing Bentley had control over seemed to be the fact that he was crying. His arms and legs just moved without him, and he took a few steps backwards until his back thudded against the wall. “Bellamy, run.”

Bentley saw his bloodshot brown eyes for only a millisecond before everything went black again. It felt like he was pinned to the wall — his muscles didn’t respond, none of them except for his face. Maybe because him crying in terror brought her joy?

The lights flicked back on, and she was standing directly in front of him, her face only inches from his, her hands baring down on his shoulders just hard enough to cause a little pain. Her stitched smile looked fresh, but it always looked fresh, and her amber eyes were drilling into his skull with an absolutely manic look about them. Her platinum hair was hanging down, and every time she exhaled, she blew the blood-soaked strands into Bentley’s face.

He didn’t scream. He didn’t try to fight. He just sobbed.

“You’re no fun anymore, babybird. What do I have to do to get a rise out of you nowadays?”

Her amber eyes slid over to Bellamy, who was standing a mere dozen feet away, mortified, staring with tears streaming down his face at a rapid rate.

Bentley tried to move, but his body didn’t obey. “Don’t touch him.”

He saw Bellamy turn to run in his peripheral, so the Secret Keeper let go of one of Bentley’s shoulders and pointed at him. “Don’t move, Birdy.”

Bellamy went rigid, stopped in his tracks — which likely meant she had his body, too.

“Don’t touch him!” Bentley repeated, louder, though it didn’t sound tough when he was crying his eyes out. A maniacal, sinister giggle bubbled up out of the Secret Keeper’s chest. 

“I don’t have to,”

Bellamy was facing away from Bentley, but he started screaming. Not the scared sort of screaming from earlier, but a worse scream, rooted in pain that couldn’t be explained by words.

“Stop!” Bentley shouted, trying his best to move his body even though it just wouldn’t move. “Stop! Do it to me instead!”

“What’s the fun in that?” She laughed. She snapped her fingers and Bellamy fell like his strings had been cut, curling up tightly on the floor with screams and sobs of pure agony.

“Stop! Stop it, please! Why are you doing this?!” Bentley continued with a sob, glancing over at Rockie, who was still unconscious on the floor. “We didn’t do anything to you!”

“If I do recall, babybird, you tried to kill me,” She spat, venom on her tongue, amber eyes boring into his skull. “I think a little revenge is justified.”

“You were trying to hang me!” He cried, eyes flicking to Bellamy, who was still screaming. “Please. He’s just a kid. He didn’t do anything.”

She blinked once, twice, as though she was processing something. Something in her amber eyes shifted. “Say my name.”

Bentley tried to move, to wrench himself out of her grip, but he couldn’t make his body obey.

“Say my name!” She ordered, louder, almost desperately. Then she shouted: “Shut up!” But it wasn’t at him, it was almost… at herself?

“Say my name!” She repeated.  “Shut up!”

Why did she want him to…

To…

Bentley looked at her, choking on a few more quiet sobs. “Charlie?”

The Secret Keeper made a sound akin to an animalistic growl, flinching away from him and clawing at her own face like he’d sprayed acid in her eyes. 

He could move his fingers.

“Charlie,” He repeated, sniffling lightly. Bellamy’s screaming began to subside. 

“If you don’t stop talking, I’ll kill him right now!” She spat, pointing at Bellamy again, who screamed like someone had just stabbed him.

“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie-“

The Secret Keeper covered her ears and roared like some kind of beast.

And then she stopped. 

And she looked at him.

Her eyes began to flicker — between amber and blue. 

“Wake up,” Her voice said. It was lighter, smoother, different. It wasn’t the Secret Keeper, it was Charlie. “Wake up!”

Bentley felt like he’d been shot in the head, like he was falling and spinning in circles at unimaginable speeds. Like he was hurdling through outer-space while it threatened to tear him apart.

A high-pitched ring squealed in his ears, so loud it hurt. White swam in his vision and morphed into a myriad of colors. And with a whoosh sound and a wave of vertigo that made him instantly nauseous, Rockie’s bathroom swam into focus.

Bentley was on the floor, his back braced against the sink cabinet and aching like he’d fallen. He had tears streaming down his face, and it was hard to breathe, like he had cotton in his throat-

Rockie jumped out of his asleep (unconscious?) state on the floor with a shout of terror, scrambling there until he was nothing more than a small ball shoved in the corner against the bathtub. Bentley might’ve said something to him, if he could get air to enter his body, which he couldn’t.

He forced himself to look over at Rockie. His nose and ears weren’t bleeding like they had been in… there. The nightmare, vision thing. (Bentley had been a hundred percent awake when he was pulled into that.. so he wasn’t sure what to call it.)

Rockie had his legs tucked up to his chest as close as they could go, gloved hands laced in his hair with his head down, sobs wracking his trembling frame. He looked eerily small.

Bentley thought again about reaching out, but he was crying so hard he couldn’t get his brain to listen. He just pulled his knees up, too, wrapping his arms around them only to find that his entire body was trembling violently.

“You were… in my…?” Rockie mumbled. Bentley guessed he was about to say nightmare. He wondered how long he’d been in there with the Secret Keeper alone before she pulled Bentley into it.

Bentley gave him a jerky nod.

And then someone across the dorm started screaming.

They finally managed to look at each other, their terrified, wide, crying eyes locking, brown and green.

Rockie pushed himself out of the floor on queue, but Bentley’s body didn’t obey as well as his — he thought about getting up, but he was teetering right on the edge of full-blown panic attack, and somehow he couldn’t bring himself to do anything.

“C’mon, buddy,” Rockie hiccuped lightly. “…I gotcha.”

Bentley didn’t fight when Rockie grabbed his arms and helped lift him off the bathroom floor. “It’s okay; we’re not in there anymore,” (Though it wasn’t as reassuring as it could’ve been, given Rockie was still crying, too — but he was managing to calm himself down much quicker than Bentley was.)

Bentley didn’t say anything, he just sort of stood there and let Rockie rub his arms because it felt like literally anything else would send him directly into an anxiety attack. (He had to physically fight the urge to lurch forward and hug him and have a breakdown, but that was okay.)

“I’m gonna go check on Bellamy. Do you want to come?”

Bentley nodded jerkily, and Rockie spent another second rubbing his arms before he turned and made his way out of the bathroom and toward the bedroom door.

Bentley followed along numbly. He had a throbbing headache forming at the front of his skull, and his head already kinda felt all fuzzy and staticky — like being on a foggy road and only being able to see a few yards in front of the car. He did not miss that feeling.

He blindly followed Rockie out into the living area, where strangely, no one was. Varian wasn’t in there anymore, and his bedroom door was open, indicating that Koa, too, was gone.

Rockie wasted no time going straight to Bellamy’s door and swinging it open. They went in, and it took a second for Bentley to focus enough on the room to realize something was… wrong.

Bellamy wasn’t in there.

Bentley managed to grab ahold of at least a little clarity as he glanced around the room. The bed was empty, the bathroom was open with no humans inside, the desk chair was pushed in with no one in sight, and Bentley felt that panic attack threat come roaring back twice as hard as it had earlier.

“Where did he go?” Rockie questioned softly, glancing around the vacant bedroom.

Bentley suddenly couldn’t breathe very good again. He started to hear things like the water in the pipes, and Rockie’s heartbeat, and his own blood moving in his veins, and-

Another heartbeat, twice as fast, pounding so loud it drowned out the rest of the noise, blood forcing itself through veins with a panicked violence. And then the feeling of something else closely associated with it came, moving faster and more freely— tears. 

Bentley let his eyes drift around the bedroom, to the bathroom shower curtain, under the bed, the top bunk, the wardrobe-

It was coming from the wardrobe.

He could breathe easy again.

Bentley, for a moment, just looked at the piece of furniture. It was the exact same one that he and Asten had in their room, a deep wood with a pair of big doors.

“What do you hear?” Rockie questioned, and Bentley glanced over at him, blinking.

“He’s in the wardrobe,” Bentley replied, moving toward the big wooden mass. “I can feel his blood.”

Rockie didn’t say anything. Bentley lifted his hands to the small round handles on the wardrobe, but stopped short and knocked on the front of the door instead. “Bellamy? It’s Bentley.”

There was a moment where nothing happened. 

And then the left wardrobe door creaked open the tiniest bit, and Bentley saw one of Bellamy’s brown eyes peek out to look at him. (Hopefully he didn’t look too terrible, but he was still crying real good, so the odds of that were pretty low.)

Bellamy just looked at him for a solid ten seconds, before the door swung open and he came stumbling out, immediately synching his arms around Bentley’s torso for dear life.

“It’s okay,” Bentley muttered, but it probably didn’t sound too reassuring, given the crying he’d been trying to stifle was coming back harder now that Bellamy was sobbing into his shirt. “I saw her, too. But she’s not really here.”

Yet.

Bellamy didn’t say anything, he just held onto Bentley’s shirt like he was on the verge of death.

Charlie Reins was alive.

The Secret Keeper was alive. 

Which meant something even scarier than her looming presence in Bentleys mind. It either meant that she had immortality, or that…

Or that…

Bruce had lied to him.

--

tag list that never works lmao

@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun

@xiaonothere

@skylathescholarly @flyrobinflyy

[flyrobinflyy]

Nightwing by Gleb Melnikov

[flyrobinflyy]

knocks on your door hi hello do you have any tips to get into batman comics/batfamily Things..,,,, im new here and holy shit theres a lot. but also jason and dick has me Intrigued

HI!!

i do!!

a lot of people have different opinions on how or where you should start, but personally i think the best way is to look up ‘[character name] reading order’ on reddit LOL

there’s a bunch of websites you can read comics for free on to use too!

there is a LOTTT of content (which is both great and overwhelming) but you’ve got plenty of time!! and you don’t have to read anything you don’t want to!! don’t feel obligated to read the thousands of comics that are out there w batman, just the stuff you’re interested in :)

people are gonna roll their eyes at this one but if you want some joy happiness and whimsy when it comes to batfam you can read wayne family adventures on webtoon—it’s just some fanon stuff but joy! happy! whimsy!

[flyrobinflyy]

I been staring at this part of the canvas for a while…what was i on

[flyrobinflyy]

SOME KYLES I MADE

[flyrobinflyy]

im so glad we managed to end up in the same corner of the internet <3 LOVE YOU!!

hey. just here to be sappy for a min and let you know that i literally dont have irl friends and my mutuals ARE that for me. so seriously, thank you❤️ you dont know the half of the impact you make on my life simply by having fun with me on this silly little blog

[flyrobinflyy]

(ROCKING BACK AND FORTH IN A DARK CORNER) (LOUD SCREAMING) (WAILING) OH GOD. OH GOD. OH GOD.

Project: Killcode

batfamily + oc insert

tw: none

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

it’s getting real

part thirty-three

❝ PLAGUE DOCTOR ❞

FRIDAY — AUGUST 3 — 8:02PM

BENTLEY AND ASTEN DIDN’T TALK BESIDES A FEW SENTENCES OVER THE WEEK, ABOUT CLASS OR SCHOOLWORK OR SOMETHING EQUALLY BORING AND USELESS.

As weird as it sounded, Bentley was starting to get... used to it. He just… hung out with other people. He’d started talking more with Valor, and had gone back out into the city with Rockie just because they felt like going to Times Square. He’d been getting steadily better at soccer and closer with Varian and Koa, and Bellamy was starting to open up more, to talk when other roommates were around, to come out of his room even when Bentley wasn’t there.

He’d gone to get ice cream with Vera and Layla again, had helped Summer hang posters and banners for some kind of name drawing thing (which took them until like, midnight), and texted Chloe a lot, even if she didn’t talk to him in person much besides early mornings and late nights.

He hadn’t heard from his father, he hadn’t had any more breakdowns or bad dreams, he’d spoken to a Wayne every day about nothing important, and everything was… good. Even now, on a Friday night at almost eight, everything was quiet, and normal.

But he guessed it all could’ve been a little better, had a fundamental piece of the puzzle not been missing. (As in a blue-haired Brazilian who’d literally almost died by Bentley’s side way too many times for a lie to ruin their friendship.)

“-no, yeah, Jackson’s whole dorm has, like, the plague. He’s texting me about it right now. Sounds rough,” Varian trailed off. He, Koa, Valor, Bellamy, and Bentley were sitting at the dining table, playing a mean game of uno. Valor was winning. (Bentley may or may not have had about an entire deck of cards in his hand, courtesy of sitting next to Koa, who had absolutely no mercy.)

“Didn’t I see you frolicking around at their breakfast table this morning?” Valor questioned with a snicker, laying a card down, and Varian shrugged.

“Nah. My immune system is so terrible that sometimes it has pity on me and keeps me from getting sick,” He muttered, laying one on top of Valor's. “I’ll be fine.”

“Speaking of sick,” Koa piped up, laying a card down on his turn. Bentley drew four. “I haven’t seen Rockie or Asten since dinner. Where are they?”

Bentley glanced up from his hand of cards, to Valor, who was the most likely one to know the answer to that. Unsurprisingly, he simply shrugged. “Rockie said he wasn’t feeling good. I don’t know about Asten.”

Koa groaned. “Oh, Jesus, we have the plague already.”

Varian held his hands up. “Wasn’t me!”

“He’s not sick,” Valor continued. Everyone sort of waited for him to elaborate on that statement, but he never did, just waited for them to keep playing. So eventually they just… let it go.

Bentley put a card down, and Bellamy did right after.

“Was Asten feeling okay?” Varian questioned, glancing over at Bentley. He shrugged lightly, and thought about making an offhand comment on Asten's current vanished status, but decided to just settle on:

“I dunno,”

Varian then looked over at Valor, who also shrugged. “I have no idea. Uno.”

“Me, either,”

“I don’t think Asten’s here,”

Everyone glanced down to the end of the table, where Bellamy was looking back at them. He seemed to shrink a little under all the eyes, but he didn't get up and move, or apologize, which was a good improvement in Bentley's book.

“What do you mean?” Valor questioned, leaning forward slightly.

Bellamy's brown eyes flicked vaguely toward the door. “I saw him leave right when we got back from dinner. I don’t think anyone was really paying attention.”

Bentley glanced down at the table, at his cards.

Asten was really into utilizing his newfound freedom, wasn’t he? Just up and leaving midday with none of his roommates and no heads-up for anyone?

Valor hummed. “That's odd.”

Another moment of quiet passed, and Varian laid a card down, then Koa, then Bentley and Bellamy. When Valor's turn came around, he put his final card atop the deck to declare himself winner with an abrupt: “I’ll be back later.”

Then he stood up, grabbed a hoodie, and left the dorm without much more than a split-second glance back.

Bentley wondered if he was going to look for Asten.

“Yeah, I think I’m over getting absolutely annihilated repeatedly,” Koa sighed, placing his cards down on the table. “I have homework, and Sunday night me is going to be pissed if I don’t do it now.”

Varian gave him a sarcastic round of applause. “How mature of you!”

“Don’t get used to it,”

Bentley chuckled lightly, gathering up the cards as they dispersed from the table and stacking them to put them back in the box.

“I’m glad we stopped, I was losing so hard,” He muttered, and Bellamy snickered at him, sliding his hand of cards across the table toward the box.

“I was close to winning,”

Bentley glanced up at him. “Of course you were, just like you won the three games before that.”

“Luck of the draw,” Bellamy shrugged.

Bentley shoved the cards in the box and folded it up. “Literally.”

It was quiet for another moment, and they heard Varian and Koa bickering in the background for a few seconds before Koa emerged from his bedroom, settling on one of the couches with a binder. Varian came out and plopped down on the other couch.

Bentley glanced down the table at Bellamy, who was sitting quietly. "I'm proud of you."

Bellamy glanced up at him, and a confused look crossed his features. "Why?"

"Because you've been doing so well with the other roommates," Bentley replied. "It's great. I know firsthand that it helps when you know other people can see the effort."

Bellamy smiled lightly, his eyes trailing down to the tabletop. He opened his mouth, but his soft words were drowned out when something loud and pulsing invaded Bentley's ears. A heartbeat; quick, and hard, like someone was running.

He glanced between all three of his visible roommates in quick succession, even if he knew it probably wasn’t them. Sure enough, one by one, they checked out, Varian, Koa, and Bellamy, their pulses calm and even. It was unsurprising to find that the pounding was coming from behind a closed door.

Rockie and Valor’s closed door.

Bentley zoned back in, and Bellamy was looking at him curiously.

“Sorry, what?”

“Oh. I just said thank you,” Bellamy replied, creasing his brow. “What did you hear?”

Bentley glanced up at the bedroom door across the way. “Rockie’s heartbeat. It’s fast.”

Bellamy glanced back at the door as if it would magically open so he could see in. “Maybe you should go check on him.”

Bentley glanced at him, then at the bedroom door again, a few moments of silent contemplation passing between both of them. Valor said Rockie wasn’t feeling good, but that he also wasn’t sick. What did that even mean?

Despite the lingering question, Bentley stood anyhow, making his way around the table. He ruffled Bellamy’s hair on the way by, which, a few short weeks ago, wouldn’t have gotten panic in response, but today, earned him a little smile.

He made his way to Rockie’s door and, checking the pulse one last time (no change), knocked softly. “Rockie? It’s Bentley.”

A moment passed where Varian and Koa glanced over at him, then between each other. Bentley glanced back at Bellamy, who looked back at him, all four of them waiting for a response that never came. The pulse remained unchanged, a repetitive bam, bam, bam in Bentley’s skull.

He knocked again. “Rockie?”

Again, no response. Nothing to suggest his voice or knocking had been heard in the slightest.

With a glance over to Koa, who was watching again, Bentley shrugged. Then he turned the knob and pushed Rockie’s bedroom door open in the slightest.

It was dark in the room. The blackout curtains were pulled tight even against the darkness of nighttime, and the bathroom lights were on, but the door was closed, only letting in the faintest sliver of dim light. Bentley might’ve guessed Rockie was in the bathroom, if it weren’t for the curled up figure that kept shifting uncomfortably on the bottom bunk.

Bentley stepped in farther, and when he did, he was met by the smell of sterile cleaner that reminded him of a hospital and made his nose crinkle. He closed the door softly behind him.

As his eyes continued to adjust to the darkness, the figure on the bed became clearer — it was definitely Rockie. He was laying on the edge of his mattress, knees tucked up tight and arms wrapped around himself, trembling slightly on top of his covers. Trembling, Bentley noticed, not shivering -- less of an off and on movement that came with the cold and more of a constant… vibration, almost? His eyebrows were pitched inward slightly, his eyes and face twitching every now and then like he was having a bad dream.

Bentley stepped forward slowly. “Hey, Rockie?”

Of course, he went unheard. Bentley took another grueling step forward, and the closer he got, the more he heard Rockie’s soft but undeniably ragged, uneven breaths. It wasn’t terrified thrashing or screaming like Bentley and Bellamy were accustomed to, it was just… he didn't know. Really calm, in a weird way. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anyone so calm during a bad dream. That was what was happening, right? What else would it be?

Nevertheless, he inched forward again, closer to the bed. “Rockie?”

Waking him up was way easier than Bentley thought it would be. He didn’t have to shake him or tap him or raise his voice like everyone did for him — Rockie’s green eyes just flicked open at the simple mutter of his name, breath hitching in his throat with a nearly inaudible, sharp inhale.

Despite his startling calmness, Bentley took notice of the shininess that quickly gathered at the bottom of his eyes.

“Hey, Rockie. Just me…” Bentley trailed off, taking another tentative step forward, fiddling with the ends of his sleeves. “Valor said you weren’t feeling good, so I was just coming to check on you…”

Rockie’s dull eyes focused on him, then flicked around the room as though he was gathering his bearings. Then he sighed lightly, curling up tighter like he was uncomfortable, blinking a few times until there was no sign of the previous wetness. He swallowed and let his eyes fall shut again. “Thanks, Bentley. I’m okay.”

With a frown, Bentley slowly reached forward and rested a tentative hand on his forehead. The older boy just smiled faintly in this almost half-aware, half-asleep kind of way. “Don't have a fever.”

Bentley drew his hand back.

“My meds like to screw with me,” He mumbled with a strange movement that was probably meant to be a shrug, not even opening his eyes. “But it’s fine.”

Bentley cringed to himself, glancing at the cleaning supplies that were stationed haphazardly outside of their bathroom door. “Your medicine makes you sick?”

Bentley understood side effects like feeling nauseous if you didn’t eat food with certain medicines, but a pill that put him on bed arrest seemed kinda… unnecessary?

Rockie hummed into his pillow, obviously only half-present. “When it pleases.”

Bentley was quiet for a short minute. “Is there anything you want or… need?”

Rockie’s eyes fluttered open, bouncing around the room a little in contemplation before drifting closed again. “S’ Valor here?”

“...No, he left just a few minutes ago,” Bentley replied sheepishly. “Sorry.”

For a minute, after that, Rockie didn’t say anything. Bentley might’ve thought he was asleep if it weren’t for the contemplative look on his face. After a moment, he swallowed thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Another vague look of discomfort crossed his features. “Then I guess not.”

While Bentley couldn’t see it, his powers (a blessing and sometimes a curse, too.) allowed him to feel the vague tears that built at the corners of Rockie’s eyes. Did he need Valor that bad? Because Bentley would run across campus to find him. It wouldn’t be hard, he had giant white wings!

“If there’s something you need me to do… I can do it,” Bentley continued softly (because he couldn’t just tell Rockie hey, I can feel your tears, because I’m creepy.) 

Rockie just sort of shook his head and didn’t open his eyes.

“No, it’s okay… I can text you if I need you,” He replied cooly, turning his head into his pillow in a clever way so Bentley couldn’t really see his face anymore.

Bentley just sort of nodded even though he was hesitant to leave. He just kind of stood there for a minute, and in his drowsy state, Rockie didn’t seem to mind. He just laid there.

But Bentley assumed he should talk again before he fell asleep if he was going to, so he continued, softly: “Do you want me to stay?”

A moment of hesitation hung in the air, like Rockie wanted to say yes. But then he swallowed again, and adjusted his head on his pillow. “No, it's okay.”

Bentley bit his lip. “Are you sure?” 

“Mm. I’m just gonna sleep,” He replied. Then he opened his mouth to say something else, but decided against it. “Thanks… Bentley.”

“No problem…” Bentley replied, as he began to move for the door. “Text me if you need me, okay?”

“I will,”

So with that, he left and closed the door softly behind him, keeping his phone ringer on and the screen in his sightline until further notice.

He pretended he didn’t feel the stubborn one or two tears that fell down Rockie’s face a few moments after he left.

--

It was midnight, and Valor wasn't back.

Neither was Asten.

Bentley would be lying if he said he wasn’t anxious. But, since Asten was clearly so tough and capable and experienced that he could just vanish on his own without telling anybody, he obviously had no reason to worry.

But he did anyway. Because it was Asten; and it was basically Bentley’s full-time job to worry about him, even if they weren’t talking.

Rockie hadn’t texted him since he’d checked on him earlier, but he kept his phone turned up and sitting next to his pillow anyways. He’d checked on him once more about an hour and a half ago, but he looked to be asleep, so Bentley didn’t bother him.

It was about twenty minutes past midnight when Bentley’s phone did chime. He was quick to look at it, but the name on the screen was Chloe, not Rockie.

He opened the text and quickly scanned it.

Well, me and my roommates are all officially dying.

Bentley scrunched his face up, typing back a quick: what?

The bubonic plague that’s going around has struck. She texted back. It’s so annoying. It’s ultra contagious so they won’t let us leave the dorm. The nurse had to come to us this morning.

Bentley cringed to himself. I’m sorry, was his message back. That must’ve been the same plague that Varian was talking about one of his friends having. 

Her text: It’s fine, I get time to binge watch netflix. Are you guys uninfected? Came in a moment later.

Yeah, thankfully, He replied. 

Make sure to wear your plague doctor mask to class, she typed. And send me a selfie, too.

Bentley smiled to himself. I’d rather be caught dead than wear one of those.

She sent back an amused message of: Oh don’t worry, you will! With a funny gif of someone dressed completely as a plague doctor dancing.

Bentley found himself smiling in amusement at the screen. And a second later, she sent another text.

Anyways, I was just letting you know since you were around me. The nurse prescribed me an unholy amount of sleep, so I’m gonna try and do that. Keyword, try.

Bentley snickered lightly to himself. I guess I should, too. He sent back.

Goodnight, Bentley :)

Goodnight.

The text thread went offline, and a few moments later, he laid his phone back down next to his head.

Well, whatever sickness they had obviously wasn’t that bad, or Chloe wouldn’t have been texting back so well. Or planning to have a netflix marathon.

About three seconds into his contemplations, his phone dinged again.

When he checked, it was Valor's name shining on the lockscreen, along with the text: Hey, you awake?

Bentley exhaled heavily, reaching over and typing: yeah. What’s up?

Valor’s typing bubbles popped up and disappeared a few times, and it only worked to make Bentley more anxious. He’d left after they mentioned Asten, which probably meant he was looking for, or maybe even found him. And lots of typing bubbles meant a long text. And long texts were usually bad texts. Was this a bad text about Asten?

Do me a favor and check on Rockie? He told me you went in earlier. Was Valor’s mysterious terrible text that… didn’t end up being so terrible. Then another came in quickly after. He usually has nightmares when he feels bad. They’re rough sometimes.

Bentley blew out a sigh of relief and texted back: Yeah, I’ll go check on him.

Valor’s bubbles bounced at the corner of the screen for a while before the next message, Thanks, I shouldn’t be much longer, popped up.

You’re welcome, was what Bentley sent back.

Then, with a soft sigh, he pushed himself up out of his bed, rubbing his eyes lightly. He flicked the bedroom lamp on and sent a glance to Asten’s bunk, as if he’d magically appear there just because Bentley wanted him to. 

He didn’t.

Nonetheless, Bentley swung his bedroom door open, stepping out into the dim living area. Varian was the only one out there, and only one lamp was on. He was asleep on the couch with a laptop open on the table like he’d been watching something.

Bentley closed his bedroom door softly and tiptoed over toward Rockie’s, his footfalls almost dead silent in an attempt not to wake Varian. He thought about knocking, but wouldn’t that just risk waking both Varian and Rockie? 

So he opened Rockie’s door just a few inches, peeking inside at the bottom bunk.

It was empty.

With an exhale, Bentley pushed the door open just enough to slide himself through, then closed it behind him. Rockie wasn’t in the bed, which meant he was in the bathroom. Unless he’d taken an impromptu trip out like Asten. Or leaped out of his window. (Given they were on the sixth floor, probably not.)

But the bathroom light was on, and the door was closed, and the fan was running, which probably meant he was in there.

Bentley stepped up to the door and, after a second, knocked lightly. “Rockie? You okay?”

Five seconds passed, then ten. No reply.

“Rockie?”

Bentley went unheard. He tried to twist the door handle, and it moved freely. Was it really his place to go barging in? Valor had asked him to check…

With a cringe, mostly because he didn’t want to make Rockie upset if he didn’t want him in there, he continued: “I’m… gonna come in, okay?”

Nothing.

Bentley pushed the door open.

It thudded softly against something when it was only about halfway open, and when Bentley looked down to check what it was, it ended up being Rockie’s foot. He was curled up on the bathroom floor on top of what looked like a thin, black throw blanket, legs tucked up and arms wound around himself just like he had been in his bed. He looked like he was asleep, the same vague discomfort splayed across his features that had been earlier.

When the door nudged his foot, his frown deepened, and he pulled his legs in tighter.

“Rockie? You awake?” Bentley asked softly. He waited for an answer, but it ever came, and he never opened his eyes.

 Bentley sighed and pulled his phone out, shooting a text to Chloe that said: Still awake?

Not ten seconds later, he got one that said: Yeah. I just found say yes to the dress on my computer so I think sleeping tonight is a no. Thought you were trying to go to bed?

Sick roommate, Bentley replied. What does the bubonic high school plague entail?

Chloe’s typing bubbles popped up off and on for a few moments, before a text came: Well, it started with just feeling gross, then came all the stupid symptoms. I’d say the worst ones are the like sun-level fevers and throwing up every three milliseconds. But there’s also just weird random stuff like muscle cramps and burning and stuff, which I can honestly say is a first for me while sick. You think your roommate has it?

Bentley glanced up at Rockie. While he looked extraordinarily uncomfortable, he didn’t exactly look sick. Bentley moved to the other end of the bathroom as quietly as he could, crouching down and gently resting the back of his fingers against Rockie’s forehead. He shifted a little under the touch, but didn’t stir fully.

He doesn’t have a fever, Bentley typed back to Chloe. Just checking. Thanks.

No prob.

Bentley sighed lightly, his eyes lingering on Rockie’s limp form. He wished he could help, but he wasn’t exactly sure what to do about sickness caused by medicine. He remembered Tim complaining about the fact that he couldn’t mix a lot of pain meds and stuff with Fluoxetine, so he didn’t really… have anything else he could offer up. Except for himself, but Rockie had said he didn’t want him to stay earlier. So…

Rockie suddenly made a quiet noise, almost a whimper of sorts. Bentley glanced down at him, and he was coiling up tighter, brows furrowed. Bentley could hear the accelerating bu-dump of his heartbeat.

He reached out to rest a gentle hand on his shoulder, and-

There was a flash, and a searing, stabbing pain ripped through Bentley’s head. He was falling, and falling, and WHAM! He hit the floor with a thud that sent a deep pain shooting through every bone in his body.

He groaned lightly. What the hell?

He peeled his eyes open and glanced around. Instead of Rockie’s bathroom, he was in… a long, white hallway? Lined with doors, with dim lights that flickered every now and then? It was cold, and when he looked down at himself, he was in a hospital gown with no socks or shoes.

Where…

Suddenly, a muffled: bang, bang, bang, bang, bang sounded from the other end of the long, dark hall, and Bentley’s head snapped up in that direction. It was just… long. And dim. And empty.

Bentley pushed himself off of the cold white floor and glanced both directions down the hall. They seemed to be endless, so long it made him kinda dizzy, with flickering lights here and there. There were so many doors he couldn’t even begin to count them all.

The banging came from the opposite direction it had before, and he whipped around that way, greeted by nothing but emptiness.

And suddenly, the entire hallway went pitch black.

And a second later, one light, all the way at the end, flicked on.

And she was standing there.

Bentley felt the moment his soul nearly left his body, going absolutely rigid, unable to move, unable to breathe like all of the air was sucked right out of his lungs by a force he couldn’t see. All coherent thought screeched to a halt, and he heard, felt his heartbeat slamming in his ears. Panic clawed it's way up his throat, and all of his senses fired at once — he wanted to run, he wanted to scream, he wanted to start crying, he wanted to kill her, he wanted to scream in her face, he wanted to get out of here, he wanted to go home.

He couldn’t think enough to react. He just stood there. 

And she just stared at him, with her glowing amber eyes, with her bloody stitched-together smile, with her stringy platinum hair that was more of a brown and crimson mix now than anything. 

And finally, she lifted a hand. And she waved.

“Miss me, Babybird?”

--

tag list that never works lmao

@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun

@xiaonothere

@skylathescholarly @flyrobinflyy

[flyrobinflyy]

Now this dumb idea has been in my head I just couldn’t figure out the background so it’s gonna stay simple and easy

I wish I got the eyes more expensive but am happy with it otherwise! Honestly I wish I had more people to yapp about Batman and the fam I don’t feel like anymore wanna talk about it dosent matter of it’s the internet or real life I just never get my yapping scratched where I want it to 😭😭😭

[flyrobinflyy]

[flyrobinflyy]

do you think if damian grew up from birth with bruce his first word would have been something ridiculous like “cave” or “batmobile”