i-am-the-gremlin

[i-am-the-gremlin]

prompt: lollipop

(originally posted on my bluesky here)

au where Steve and Robin had their bathroom floor conversation/platonic soulmate initiation ceremony way back in 1983, like two weeks after Jonathan rocked Steve’s shit and by the time everyone gets back from winter break they’ve become SteveandRobin.

Steve knows all about Robin’s crush on Tammy Thompson and Robin knows all about the fact that Steve thinks one Eddie Munson is really pretty, actually, when he’s not being a grubby little gremlin.

In this au, Steve and Nancy mutually broke it off after the whole monster-fighting thing and so for the next few months after break, SteveandRobin try to wingman each other but also the ‘you rule/you suck’ board makes an appearance, this time in an unused corner of the band room.

So far Steve hasn’t gotten a single tally in the ‘you rule’ column. He is deeply offended by this and is trying to figure out why he seems to have lost his mojo. He needs to prove to Robin that he is very suave, actually, and no, his reputation is not a fluke. Jesus.

Which leads us to a Thursday evening in late May where band practice is getting out at the same time as Hellfire club. Steve suddenly finds himself being possessed by the ghost of Casanova himself or something because the next thing he knows, he’s abandoning Robin with a quick “be right back” and swaggering up to Eddie, who eyes Steve warily before leaning up against the side of the school building with a smirk paired with a dangerous glint in his eye.

“Hey, Munson,” Steve starts, keeping it causal.

Eddie pulls the lollipop he’d been sucking on out of his mouth with a wet pop and Steve fervently doesn’t have any feelings about that whatsoever.

“Steve Harrington,” he purrs. “What can this lowly peasant do for such esteemed royalty as yourself, hmm?”

Steve raises a single eyebrow. “Well, first of all, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly Hawkins High royalty anymore. Apparently jocks and band geeks can’t be friends,” Steve adds with a roll of his eyes.

“Second of all…” Steve glances left and right, making sure there’s no one in earshot before giving Eddie a once-over and taking a deliberate step forward so the toes of their shoes are almost touching. “I think we both know you’re too pretty and too smart to be stuck as a peasant.”

Eddie’s eyes go wide for a moment before narrowing, his dimpled grin somehow managing to be sharp as a knife. “Careful, big boy. You don’t wanna play this game.”

“Who says this is a game?”

Eddie scoffs, putting his lollipop back in his mouth and straightening like he’s going to move past Steve, but Steve stops him with a hand to the wall behind Eddie’s head.

He makes sure to leave enough room for Eddie to be able to walk away if he really wants to, doesn’t want him to feel trapped or pressured in any way. But he also wants Eddie to know he’s being serious.

“Look, you can tell me to fuck off if you really want, and I will, swear to god.”

Eddie stares at him with wide eyes and slowly nods his head.

���But I really hope you don’t,” Steve continues, leaning forward until their noses are just inches from touching, “because it turns out I really have a thing for curly-headed nerds.”

Steve relishes in the way Eddie’s jaw drops open and a blush works its way over his cheeks and up to the tips of his ears. It’s really fucking cute.

“I know I can’t exactly wine-and-dine you like if you were a girl, but maybe I could get us some pizza and beers and you could come over to my place one of these days?”

Steve raises his eyebrows, trying to only let a little bit of his excitement at the idea through — he doesn’t want to scare Eddie off.

Eddie stares for a moment, two. Eventually, he blurts, “Is— Is this— Are you being serious right now?” He hadn’t bothered to take out the lollipop before speaking, seems like he’s completely frozen, actually, making the question slightly garbled.

“As a heart attack.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“So?” Steve asks, biting his lower lip. He watches Eddie track the movement and gives himself a mental high-five.

“I’m— fuck, okay.” Eddie looks at Steve’s lips again before looking into his eyes incredulously. “I’m pretty sure this is a dream, but whatever, fuck it, I’ll go on a date with Steve goddamn Harrington, I guess.”

“Not dreaming,” Steve grins, finally leaning back a little bit. “And I’m gonna hold you to that,” he promises. On a whim, he reaches out and plucks Eddie’s lollipop from between his lips before placing it in his own mouth, making sure to maintain eye contact the entire time. Eddie’s eyes are as wide as saucers as he visibly swallows.

“Uh.”

“I’ll find you at lunch tomorrow, figure out what day works,” Steve says casually, leaning back and starting to walk backwards towards the parking lot. He points the lollipop at Eddie and commands, “Better not stand me up, Munson,” before putting it back in his mouth, shoving his hands in his pockets, and turning to walk back to where Robin is waiting by his car.

He doesn’t look back, even though he really really wants to, because he still wants to make sure he looks cool and aloof.

“Steven Marie,” Robin whisper yells once he’s close enough to hear her. “What the fuck was that? What did you do to Munson?”

Steve ignores her questions. “What’s he doing, Bobbie?”

Robin, bless her, answers him. “He’s just… standing there. And now he’s pulling his hair over his face and squatting. Did you break him?”

Steve grins, pleased. “Not yet.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Wait, where did you get the lollipop? You didn’t have one a few minutes ago.”

“I might’ve stolen it from Munson, right after I got him to agree to go on a date with me.”

Robin freezes, staring at him like she’s buffering as her entire worldview gets rearranged. “Steve, Stevie, I need you to know I’m so happy for you and proud of you. But also I am going to actually strangle you to death in your sleep what the actual fuck.”

“Love you too, Robs.”

+ Bonus:

Steve, 5 min later after he’s started driving to drop Robin off at home: ohmygod. Robin.

Robin: What.

Steve: Eddie and I basically kissed.

Robin: What?????

Steve: His spit is in my mouth as we speak.

Robin: wHAT??!!!?!!!

Steve: Robin stop screaming I’m having a crisis

{send me a 📝 and a one-word prompt and i will try and write a lil steddie microfic for you! (it will almost certainly be much shorter than this one but who knows, i might get Inspired™️)}

[i-am-the-gremlin]

Eddie goes to a very interactive and scary haunted house with CC. They get separated, one thing leads to another, and Eddie finds himself crouched behind a dusty curtain, trying to evade a masked killer with a spiked bat.

But then his smart watch lights up, and he realizes that he needs to turn it off.

Except his shaking fingers accidentally press the "find your phone" function. One moment, Eddie is suppressing his labored breathing. Now, he's scrambling to turn off his phone as it keeps screeching "I'M HEEEREEEE!" in an obnoxious voice.

The curtain opens and the killer stares at him from above. Even with the mask on, he seems disappointed.

Eddie just stares at him.

The killer stares back.

Then, as an act of mercy, he takes Eddie's phone and turns off the noise. He returns the phone and uses his bat to give the gentlest bonk to Eddie's head.

Eddie still stares and isn't moving.

The killer sighs, removes his mask - and wow. Maybe fear scrambled Eddie's brain, but the guy's so cute!

"Oh wow," he whispers. "If I knew you were so pretty, I would have let you catch me sooner."

He half expects the guy to be disgusted, but he just snorts. "That can still be arranged. But now," he lowers his mask back, "you have five seconds to start running. And if I catch you, you don't get to ask for my number."

Eddie runs like hell. He makes it past the exit gate, he rolls on the floor, wheezing and sweating. But he still finds the words. "Your...oh fuck, my ribs...your name...big boy? And number?"

The guy didn't even break a sweat. He walks up to Eddie, takes his phone and types in a number, plus a name - Steve.

He cocks his head to the side. "My shift ends in three hours. Try not to disappoint me again, hm?"

And then he leaves.

Eddie's friends stare at him, having witnessed the whole scene. But Eddie doesn't explain anything, he just clutches the phone close to his chest and says: "I'm gonna marry that guy."

And surprisingly, he ends up being right.

[i-am-the-gremlin]

steddies child on tiktok doing the “my dad was the original teenage dirtbag” trend and all the comments are thirsting over him ofc but then there’s steve. this kids literally dad. going fucking insane and embarrassing his kid bc he’s just thirsting over his husband like “oooooh mygodddd i forgot holy shit he was so hot how did i bag him oh my god that’s my husband dude fuuuuck oh my god” and steddies kid just replies liek “dad if you don’t gET OUT IF MY COMMENTS” and it makes the tiktok go viral and everyone’s like “other dad reveal IMMEDIATELY” and so the kid posts pics of them together from the 80s and 90s and. the crowd goes wild. everyone and their moms are thirsting over this kids parents and they regret every decision they’ve ever made.

*also in the comments of the tiktok with pics of both of them. eddie is there freaking the fuck out over old pics of steve and he DOES cry seeing the pictures of them from when they were kids. he cries so much. he gets so emotional.

[i-am-the-gremlin]

when jason died, they buried him with the possessions that he carried on him all the time. there was a pocket knife tucked into his sock, the bracelet on his wrist from catherine that he never took off, a tangled pair of earbuds in his back pocket, and, in the top pocket of his jacket, the cellphone that bruce bought for him after he was adopted.

that cellphone stayed with jason in his grave. went with him when he dug his way out. somehow stayed on his person when he was taken by the league, and he managed to convince talia to let him keep it throughout all his training.

he doesn’t know why, maybe as a grief thing or maybe just because bruce forgot and it’s not like the bill effected him in any way, but he never stopped paying jason’s phone bill. his number’s still active, still working after all this time. even weirder, but dick started adopting the tradition of adding his dead brother’s phone number to each and every family group chat any of them created after ethiopia. again, jason doesn’t know why. maybe it was dick’s way of carrying his memory with them; including him in family conversations even if they all thought the number was connected to a long buried phone in the pocket of a long dead boy.

the point is that jason wasn’t dead any more. and all throughout his time at the league, he gets to watch the family chats. the mission statuses, the arguments, the rapid spiral every chat went through where they started off using it as a serious bat communication centre only for dick or tim to send a meme and instantly spiral into nothing but chaos that bruce would neither take part in or attempt to stop. jason spectates it all, always fingering the keypad but never actually typing out a message. he came close when there was a heated debate between steph and dick about the best donut types and he knew they were both absolutely fucking wrong, but luckily tim came in to educate them on the right choice last second and jason was saved from having to reveal himself.

the closest call was when little damian got a hold of his phone, attracted to the bright colours of the block game jason had been absently playing out of boredom while ra’s droned on about whatever had pissed him off that day. he’d let the kid play, sat on his lap and eagerly jabbing at the screen, and jason had only looked away for at most a minute before he’d turned back to find the screen open on the family chat, damian having accidentally clicked on the camera button and taken a selfie of the two that he’d been about to send through. luckily, jason deleted it in time, but he became much more careful about letting the kid play with his shit after that.

this is all just a long winded explanation and backstory for and au i think would be funny where jason’s reveal is literally just him deciding to fuck with his family by randomly dropping in through text like:

-in the chat-

bruce: status report.

dick: hungry :( but good!

steph: seconded, im fine

tim: drug bust went to plan, on way back to cave uninjured

cass: ^ same answer

babs: everything seems calm from what i can tell

jason: a little claustrophobic but the coffin’s kinda homely so ig no complaints from me

.

.

.

several people are typing…

[i-am-the-gremlin]

my favourite au fic concept is the one where the league of assassins is just a fucked up crime based wing of Damian and Jason’s family. like yes, is Ra’s a horrible person with no morals? yes. but would it be funny if he was just a real fucked up murder grandfather that two of the batkids have access to that really freak out the rest of a bats on the regular basis? very much so.

the family dynamics i want to see in the loa:

-Ra’s is still Ra’s, but Talia is the one child he actually wants in his life, and thus he is forced to also deal with Damian, whom he begrudgingly indulges. then Jason shows up, who Ra’s fucking hates. no offence to the kid, but he already has one irritating boy he isn’t allowed to want dead, so the idea of having another one, this time one old enough to be less effected by the loa strict behavioural training and thus way more annoying, isn’t exactly a concept he’s thrilled by. he glares at his personal guard like they’re a camera from The Office every time Jason bursts into the room.

-Jason knows full well how much he gets on Ra’s nerves. this delights Jason. he spends most of his time at the league training, going on missions, or hanging out with Damian, but whenever he’s free he’ll regularly kick open the doors to Ra’s ridiculously fancy loa meeting room to interrupt whatever the fuck everybody’s scheming about purely because no matter how much the old sods working with Ra’s want him dead for it, Ra’s is obligated to protect him as his ‘adopted heir’. one time Ra’s had to plan the assassination of a minor rival and the entire meeting occurred while Jason sat on the table just to the left and in front of him playing subway surfers loudly. they all just had to raise their voices to speak over the music.

-Damian adores Jason, both as a tutor and a brother. Talia is happy about this because she trusts Jason to put Damian’s needs and safety before anything else, while Ra’s is devastated about their bond. this is because the longer Damian spends with Jason, the more Jason teaches him his ways of being an antagonistic little shit. by the time Jason goes to Gotham to become a crime lord he has to worry about Damian sneaking into his chambers in the middle of the night to ask for help because ‘i accidentally set fire to the horse stables and i don’t want mom to know it was me’.

-Talia watches in bemusement as Jason and Damian force Ra’s to begrudgingly become more of a person via repeated desensitisation to childish antics. they’ve even gotten the man a fucking ipad. Jason spam-video calls him at least once a month and doesn’t stop until he picks up. they don’t even have anything to talk about, Jason just finds it hysterical to watch him struggle to figure out how to operate it. the one thing about it that she doesn’t like is that Ra’s has gotten so used to having grandchildren that she’s stopped having as much control over their interactions. she came back from a mission to find Damian and Ra’s missing once, and it turned out they’d gotten a private jet to go to an aquarium.

“the brat wouldn’t stop talking about it. he threatened to cry and never stop, Talia. i swear, Jason Todd has turned him into a manipulative menace.”

“father, you bought him a stuffed dolphin.”

“correction, i killed the cashier and took it. technically, i was working.”

-Damian goes to Gotham to join the batfamily and he isn’t even phased by how weird the group of vigilantes is. his wing of the family is far weirder, anyway. him and Jason don’t mean to keep their little loa fam a secret, but between the whole ‘Damian is Bruce’s secret bio son’ and ‘Jason’s still alive and also the Red Hood of Crime Alley’ situations, it’s not like the loa is ever relevant. it’s the bats own fault for immediately assuming there would be no love or warmth in the league of assassins. they only start to wonder what Jason and Damian’s time in the league was actually like when Damian’s phone goes off while they’re all in the cave one day.

“Who’s that?” Dick glanced over from where he was stretching, Damian pulling his phone out and rolling his eyes at whatever contact he saw.

“Nothing important, I presume.” He mumbled, bringing the phone up to be level with his face before accepting what apparently was a video call. The others began to look over from their various tasks curiously, having never known Damian to bother with video calls before and thus becoming slightly curious. “Do you require anything?” He asked the caller, raising an eyebrow. “I am busy.”

“Get your mother’s special project to answer his phone.” Ra’s voice responded, strained from barely contained anger. Instantly the entire cave snapped to attention, shock and horror freezing them in place. Bruce jolted forward, mouth dropping open as he failed to find words. Damian ignored these reactions completely, instead allowing amusement to rise to the surface of his face as his eyes flicked to the side, where the only person in the cave not currently having heart palpitations, Jason, was casually cleaning one of his guns.

“He wants you to answer your phone,” Damian dutifully repeated, and Jason snorted, gracefully leaping to his feet and strolling towards him.

“S’ on silent,” He made it to Damian’s side, elbow resting on his shoulder as he looked down at the device. “Whaddaya need, oldie?”

“I have assassins stationed in Gotham who have gone silent, I need you to check-“ Jason bent over to bury his head in Damian’s hair, snickering loudly.

“Ra’s- Ra’s stop- you have to angle the camera down. Tilt the iPad towards you, all we can see is your forehead,” He laughed, Damian biting his lip desperately.

“For goodness sake- this blasted thing-,” Ra’s grumbled.

“Other way, grandfather.” Damian said after a second. “Now we can just see the ceiling.”

“Why didn’t you just voice call?” Jason said, voice high-pitched from laughter.

“I DID voice call, I don’t know why it-“

“Well you obviously clicked the wrong button then,” Jason explained patiently.

“Just give the iPad to mother and let her do it,” Damian tried.

“This is POINTLESS.” Ra’s snapped, as both boys shook with mirth. “Just turn on your phone and answer your damn messages, Jason!”

“Alright, will do,” Jason promised with a sun-like grin. He waved at the camera cheekily. “I’ll call you next time I travel outside Gotham; we can meet up somewhere for a coffee!”

“I have no time for your useless ‘chats’ Jason.”

“Don’t be mean, grandfather.” Damian said innocently. “Mother would not be impressed to know you were showing prejudice towards Ahki simply because he is adopted.”

“He’s ruined you.” Ra’s mourned. “You used to sit politely at my feet and talk about the different species of lizards. I was actually interested in those talks.”

“I will call you next week,” Damian ended the call, slipping his phone back into his pocket and allowing a small smirk to appear as he looked up at Jason.

“I love that man,” Said crime lord declared wistfully, placing a hand over his heart. “Such a baffling specimen of a human. Murderous of heart, autistic in nature; everything you need of a grandfather.”

“You’re going to be the thing that finally kills him one day, you know,” Damian pointed out wryly. When they finally turned back to the rest of the cave, they noticed the stock still frozen cast members of their non-assassin organisation family. Dick’s mouth was hanging open. Bruce looked enraged. Tim had one hand grasping the arm of a slightly offended looking Alfred.

“…What?” Damian asked, clueless.

All hell broke loose.

[i-am-the-gremlin]

*Dorcas introducing Marlene to the Skittles for the first time*

Dorcas: “This is Regulus. Yes, he does bite. Do not mention James or Sirius around him.”

Dorcas: “This is Evan-and-Barty. Do Not separate them unless you are prepared to face the consequences.”

Dorcas: “And this is Pandora. She can see the future sometimes and has predicted horrible deaths for all of us, but we don’t like to worry about that.”

Dorcas: “What do you think, babe?” :3

Marlene: “… I think I’ve just unknowingly started dating a cult member”

[i-am-the-gremlin]

Poor lil baby Jason ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ

I would love to make an actual full comic someday but that will not happen anytime soon

[i-am-the-gremlin]

❤️

[i-am-the-gremlin]

Thinking of Eddie Munson at the sidewalk with a megaphone doing the ‘polite catcalling’ thing with his hellfire boys. And firefighter Steve Harrington on the other side of the road responding to a fender bender. And Eddie’s like, ‘none of these thoughts are in the Bible, Jeffrey help me.’

[i-am-the-gremlin]

platonic third base: when you get to know someone well enough that they start making mortifyingly specific observations about you

[i-am-the-gremlin]

canon: they died

fanfic: fUCK YOU

[i-am-the-gremlin]

old ladies love red hood NOT because he helps them cross roads and seems like a charming young man. they love him because at the end of the night, when he's crouched over catching his breath, head in hands in what he thinks is an empty street, or hobbling down roads trying to get home quickly despite sustaining large injuries, he reminds them of their grandsons.

he gets invited into their homes, and knows better than to decline. he'll sit down and wait to be berated by the old lady at the other side of the kitchen who's putting together a quick meal for him. he'll take off the helmet, and that's when she starts, not telling him to stop what he does, but to take better damn care of himself. he'll apologise and promise, as he's fixing himself up with her first aid kit.

as he leaves she'll still be making firm, although loving remarks at him, but he smiles underneath the helmet because he's being treated like a man, not a hero, a villain, or any of the other inhuman titles he's picked up over the years.

[i-am-the-gremlin]

I think my favorite version of Dead on Main is when Danny actually isn't hot. Not like, 'ugly, but literally just the most average looking Some Guy dude while Jason is a solid 11.

Nobody judges Jason exactly, but they are very 'why', especially when Danny just kinda, does his cryptid shit in the weirdest dorkiest way possible. He glitches out both himself and the cameras and his eyes glow with the fangies in front of people and then immediately trips. His extremely cringe one liners based off the opponent of the day (Danny and mr freeze are forcibly separated after they spent a six hour long pun-off). Danny will say the single most out of pocket most traumatic thing you've ever heard in your life that's somehow still really fucking funny and is he joking??? You never know. And he's not even hot or sexy in a dangerous vampire way he acts like bigfoot but he got caught on camera with his bare ass hanging out and a fish in his mouth.

Everyone is So Confused. Even the batfam and the Outlaws who know Jason is also kind of a huge dork himself are very 'that one? really?'. And every time Danny walks in to talk to Jason about killing the scary bug in his room or 'do you wanna go to bat/nasty burger and watch me eat my weight in fries' or 'hey how much blood is a human supposed to be able to consume before it gets weird?' with zero context and Jason always replies 'on god I need to fuck him'.

Very Jessica and Roger Rabbit or Mortisha and Gomez energy with them.

[i-am-the-gremlin]

James: I think- I think I’ve fallen in love with you

Regulus:

Regulus: get the fuck back up

[i-am-the-gremlin]

Sirius and Regulus going over Walburgas' stuff after her death:

(That one Shameless scene:)

Regulus *sad face* grabbing a knife carefully from a box: she used to throw this at us when we were kids

James: What

Sirius: Oh Yeah, she had a game..what was it called?

Regulus: Dodged the dagger

Remus: I'm so fucking confused right now

Sirius: Reggie and I would run around the house screaming, laughing, trying not to get stabbed

Regulus *tearing up*:

James: That's fun...

[i-am-the-gremlin]

Growing up I always hoped I’d be as cheerful as James, as smart as Remus and as confident as Sirius.

I ended up with the mental health of Regulus Black.

[i-am-the-gremlin]

A fanfic idea:

Bruce was able to rescue Jason before he died, and after this experience, Jason stopped being Robin.

He became afterwards the golden child, he goes to college (with a scholarship), helps out in the city library, teaches children (helps with their homeworks and helps them to study), works part time in a car garage in crime alley, and is a supportive brother.

And it pisses his siblings off.

Because there has to be something fishy because no one, really no one, is that perfect.

And there is something fishy.

He is also Red Hood.

No one knows, and the vigilantes never talk to Jason about "the family business" because he needs to concentrate on his studies and other stuff.

So imagine, Batmans suprise when the JL was able to catch Red Hood.

Someone takes Jasons helmet off in front of Batman, Nightwing, and other members

And Jason, who wears also a domino mask, doesn't look Batman in the face even as he says :

"Hey Dad. I can explain."

And Dick loses his shit, he laughs so hard because, Jason, The golden child, the one who gave up on being a vigilante, who reads to children in the library, is a goddamn crimelord.

Bruce just stands there frozen because wtf Jason?!

And Dick takes selfies with Jason being tied up and calles the other Batkids in because they should definitely not be left out of it.

(Edit: As someone who doesn't really write (or can write good stories), I want to say, feel free to use this prompt for a fanfiction. Just please give credits to me (because I don't know if someone else had also this idea and posted it) and please inform me if you publish something (because I want to read a fanfiction like this too))