#Burning paper

[oboro-zuki]

It’s burning,

Been feeling really sick and drained. It’s like standing at the edge of the building and looking down at the cityscape type of drained

This drawing was soothing and calming during my messy mood says

[davestylesmokebomb]

WHATS UP!!

Im DAVE!! One of the most terrifying villains you'll ever encounter!

Uhhhrhh..... go ahead and ask me whatever. IM BETTER THAN THAT HERO DC so ask Me things instead!

Tags >:)

[Posts: Smokepost.]

[Reblogs: Smokey steals

Favorites: Smoke filled

Asks: Burning paper

OOC: Exstinguished

Other: Burning smoke

Quotes: Smoke thoughts

[Links!!]

[PFP art.]

[Smoke divider.]

[Cloud divider.]

[Skull.]

[mysteamgrids]

Burning Paper

[feeblescholarmyass]

my last day of school was yesterday and I finally finished all of my finals. after a bit or recovery I have plans to put out the highly requested Tighnari fic, the Jing Yuan fic, and the next chapter of Epiphyllum Oxypetalum.

anyways after school me and my baes (@ratty-rat-toot + my wife and our big strong boyfriend)had a bonfire and burned a ton of school work as tradition, specifically all of the Romeo and Juliet work that caused us actual physical and emotional turmoil. it looked pretty freaking cool

[dingledraw]

Just a couple of gurls

[thevoidstaredback]

How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have

It had been a long few minutes since he'd opened the door and there were a lot of questions running through Dick's head. Most pressing of which was how this kid seems to have information he should not have.

"How did you..?" he asked, but the words wouldn't leave completely. There's so much he wants to know, so much he wants to ask.

"How do I what?" Danny tilted his head like the child he seems to be is.

"How do you know?" Dick knows he sounds weak. There's no hiding that, but there are a lot of implications in what the kid has said so far and none of it is painting a very happy picture for him.

"Oh!" Danny had the audacity to smile, "You want to know how I know you moonlight as a vigilante!" And of course he knows. Dick knows he knows, but he'd held a little bit of hope that the child Danny was mistaken. Danny's smile softened a bit as he explained, "Your hair and voice match up in both jobs almost perfectly. Not to mention your build and how you hold yourself. There's also the matter of your overall vibes, but that's not something living beings can normally pick up on." Excuse him? "Well, not living humans, at least, so no worries on that end!"

"Excuse me?" Dick was fairly sure his heart just stopped beating for a moment there.

"Anyway, I was a hero back home for a while, too. I know what it's like to have to walk the tightrope between maintaining a civilian cover and a hero persona. I know how it feels to have to keep secrets from everyone because anyone who knows will be in danger." he rambled, Though, admittedly, our circumstances are quite different. I was working as a hero all hours of the day as well as going to school. You only have to worry about properly balancing between day and night jobs. Either way, me having more to bounce between just makes me al the more qualified to help you!"

Oh. Oh he did not like that. He didn't like a single thing that just came out of the kid's mouth. Because that's what he is, a kid. "Are you...Are you alright?"

"Not in the slightest," Danny admitted with an even smaller smile. Then, it brightened, not quite to a grin, but to something similar, "But I'm here to make sure you are."

He gets points for being honest, but Dick felt his heart shatter. He knew for a fact that he'd never worked with this kid before. He also knew that the Justice League didn't know about him. If they did, he would've been picked up and dropped with either the Young Justice team or the Titans.

Dick wasn't going to ask why he became a hero because that's not his place. It's more of a 'third mission with the team' kind of questions, anyway. Most of the heroes didn't have many options when they took up the mantle. Asking what Danny can do is a more appropriate question, but he wasn't going to ask that, either.

"Now that that's out of the way," Danny turned a few pages from the table of contents to another one that was topped with 'Why Sleep Scheduling Is Important' in the blue glitter pen that Dick was starting to suspect he favored. "You're not getting enough sleep. Following you around - no one's been able to find me for a while, so don't worry about that - for the last two weeks has given me some really worrisome information on you."

Dick was worrying. He was worrying a lot and even more questions were coming to the forefront of his mind.

"Your dayjob is as an officer on the Bludhaven Police Force, or BPD for short." He was looking over the page he'd turned to very aptly and Dick realized that the kid had notes written on him. "The average hours per week for police across the country is forty hours. Gotham and Bludhaven are the exceptions. As a member of the BPD, you work a solid two days and two hours. Six nights a week, you work as Nightwing from eight in the evening to three in the morning. The last day, you take off, which is good. No deserable pattern, so good on you for that. Regardless, that's seven hour nights and ten hour days, with one day off and one day on call as an officer. Seven hours are now left in your day for personal time, eating, and sleeping. That's not a healthy way to live."

Oh, god, the kid had honest to god notes on him! What the hell!

Danny didn't even skip a beat as he pulled Dick's attention back to him and his binder. "I've drawn up a schedule for you to follow." The back of the page had a meticulously drawn schedule, complete with blocks of time to eat, sleep, work both jobs, travel, personal time, and still have a bit extra left over. It was titled 'Ideal End Result' in green marker. "Drastic changes right away will only affect you negatively, so we're starting off smaller." The next page over had another schedule titled 'Where To Begin'. "I've only pulled one hour from your Nightwing hours because I know important that time is to you and the city. I am, however, going to be having you submit an appeal to your boss to cut back your hours from fifty a week to forty a week. That way, you'll only be working eight hours a day and not ten. You'll still be on call for one day, and you'll have that last day off. Altogether, you'll be going be going from working seventeen hours a day to fourteen hours a day. Nine in the morning to five in the afternoon, and eight in the evening to two in the morning. Not including breaks at work or travel time. It opens up a few more hours for you to sleep!"

"You really think the chief is going to pull back my hours?" Dick raised an eyebrow in question.

"He will if he knows what's good for him."

"You know I can arrest you for that threat, right?"

"Yeah, but you won't." And, damn it, he's right.

Although, there was now another thing he had to know. "How to you plan on enforcing this schedule of yours?"

Danny seemed to have been waiting for this. He got a gleam in his eye as he pulled a black folder from his bag, not breaking eye contact with Dick. He placed it on the table and pushed it across. "Congratulations, it's a boy."

Part 1 Part 3

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

made me think of this (a foreigner on the street in the evening of zhongyuan festival in singapore)

[shartfinz]

dude I have no idea what possessed me

[high-voltage-rat]

I think it's fascinating that the quotes:

"Have you forgotten sir, we were at war? A fight with an alien race for the very survival of our species. I feel I must remind you that it is an undeniable, and may I say fundamental quality of man, that when faced with extinction, every alternative is preferable."

"When you spend every day fighting a war, you to demonize your attackers. To you, they're evil, they're subhuman. Because if they weren't, what would that make you? What I'm trying to say... is I've been afraid to see you for what you really are. You're our brothers. Our sisters. And the things we've done to one another are unforgivable."

"These guys want to use us, take us away from our families, and send us all over the dad-gum galaxy just to test if their agents are ready for the big fight? Well... guess I'm interested in showin' em exactly what a big fight is all about! So I'm not ordering you to go. I ain't even asking. You do what you gotta do, Private."

came from the same series whose standard fare is lines like:

"What in the hell are you two doing?" / "We're being executed by our own men, sir." / "Cut it out."

"I only drink the blood of my enemies, and the occasional strawberry yoohoo."

"You always said I could sleep when I’m dead, Sarge, and guess what? I am dead. This purgatory is about to become purga-snore-y, yawn!"

...and both categories manage to be a poignant statement about the nature of war and what it does to the people in it.

[purplemagicn]

🔥Burn, baby, burn!🔥

TOOLS: Procreate, iPad Air 4, Apple Pencil 2

[mournfulroses]

Adrienne Rich, from Poems; “The Burning of Paper Instead of Children,”

[davestylesmokebomb]

IVE LITTEN TONYS ABLAZE! HAHAHSHA

[poisoned-fruit-prose]

𝐩𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐭.

synop: what do you do when you've lost it all?

wc: 3k.

request from anon: Hello! If it’s okay, may I request a Viktor x reader (established relationship) fic where Viktor, Jayce and reader were a trio in creating the hextech, but after the final battle in s2, both Viktor and Kayce are trapped in the astral plane (I refuse the notion that they are gone gone), but can see everyone and follow people around like unseen ghosts. With them gone, it’s just reader as she’s sitting at the ledge both Viktor and Jayce were about to jump in their respective times, but stopped because of the others, but now, it’s just reader all alone, burning the papers with their names on it as Viktor and Jayce sit on both sides of her. Flesh it out however you want!!

includes: angst. major character deaths. tw for suicidal thoughts. some unexpected comfort, but not enough.

author's note: oh anon, i can tell we share such similar feelings on those final scenes. i decided to write this with the assumption that jayce and reader are very close friends too—in fact, they conceived and began the secret research on hextech together. jayce and reader went through that certifiable hell of a timeline together as well. i'm extremely unwell about the "only you" quote to the point where i'm getting it tattooed on my clavicles, so of course i had to include it. when viktor says this, he means both jayce and you. you three are a trinity, previously believed inseparable. i hope you enjoy.

“Was I not enough?”

“You were everything.”

Viktor wanted nothing more than feel you beside him again. Your voice and mere existence were holy salves in this limbo—but oh, what he would do to touch you again. To wipe the tears from your eyes and tuck you against his chest and hold you until you smiled up at him again.

“You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Had you been atop the Hexgate, fighting like you should’ve alongside Jayce, you could’ve shared the burden of death with the two people tantamount to your existence. But you couldn’t kill Viktor. You understood why Jayce had to do it, to destroy the commune and commit the ultimate, heinous crime; and you wouldn’t stop him, but you wouldn’t go either. You holed away in the lab, windows sealed shut, and wallowed in darkness.

You were never one to let things destroy you. The life you led with Viktor was filled with nothing but discovery, sunshine, and base adoration. Setbacks were trivial. With Viktor at your side, you always worked through them.

All this, though? This wasn’t a setback.

This was obliteration.

You were slumped over on the familiar table when the battle began, blanket cradling you, leaning against Viktor’s cane as you numbly listened to the bombs and the guns and the screams. Maybe Viktor’s soldiers didn’t register you as a lifeform; maybe he purposefully passed you over. All that made you lift your head was a sudden quiet.

And then Viktor and Jayce were gone.

Viktor was belated at your survival, even more so than his own; yet even he couldn’t deny the importance of Jayce’s sacrifice. They didn’t finish this together—not without you. This magical plane was extraordinary and he shared it with his closest friend. But your absence was inescapable. It left a constant, marring hunger in his chest. You were missing. He was unbalanced.

The piece of hair that always fell across your face parted your forehead and Viktor itched to push it off your skin, tuck it behind your ear. Even without a body he could feel the sickness of his want for you.

You sobbed again, chest heaving as the clouds cracked above you and drowned Piltover with rain. You had been so close to stabilizing the Hexcore.

Then the attack on the Council.

Then Viktor virtually dying.

Wrong place, wrong time.

You were crying like a little kid. You hadn’t needed to in a long time. Snot and hiccups and gobs and gobs of tears. You had lost utterly everything. Not just Hextech—all of the realm of magic. Jayce. Viktor. The hope for a happy ending. Rosy, golden memories were tainted with the knowledge of their ending.

Viktor and Jayce stayed with you, invisible, as you grieved on the infamous edge. If only you could tilt the prism of reality—just a smidge—and refract them into your view. If only you knew it could be done. You’d see the kaleidoscope of their bodies pressed against each side of you, keeping you pinned to the ledge; Jayce’s head on your shoulder, Viktor’s hands running through your hair.

“There must be some way to speak to her,” Viktor murmured. His hands phased through you, but he still tried to card his fingers through your locks anyway. “This whole realm of infinite knowledge—it is beautiful. Perfect. But it doesn’t even compare.”

“Now’s not the time for I-told-you-so’s, but…”

Viktor’s eyes nearly rolled out of his head at Jayce’s words, yet he appreciated his ability to jest. There wasn’t much else to do but reflect or watch over you; his humor was a refuge in what felt like an impenetrable fog.

You, of course, didn’t hear him. You stayed stubbornly inconsolable. Two parts of your trinity worried you would finally do what they failed to. You were so close to falling—you already had emotionally. It felt only natural that the physical should follow.

You thought of the first night you met Viktor, when you placed your reputation and life on his ideas in making Hextech conceivable. When you were engulfed in that first field of magic. The three of you swimming in air, stars, and runes.

You thought of floating. You sobbed and started to believe if you tilted forward, just enough, you could fly with them again.

Third time’s the charm.

“There you are,” a voice gasped. A voice in your plane. Could be another ghost for all you care.

Mel crouched behind you and placed a warm hand on your shoulder. Being Jayce’s beau and an important advocate for Hextech, Mel had become a rather important part of your life—and a desperately-needed girlfriend, at that. When the stars aligned, your spa nights and genuine conversations always gave you a fresh perspective and a good break from the sometimes monotonous lab.

“Please, leave me alone,” you croaked.

“Teetering on the edge of a maintenance shaft? I know you’re grieving, but I can’t let you do that.” Mel’s hand pressed down on you, urging your body away from the precipice.

You wailed, refused to move. “How am I supposed to keep going on? My life—” You interrupted yourself with a sputtering sob, “—is meaningless without them!”

“That is not true,” she insisted. Her hand stayed firm. “I’m grieving them too. And if you do this, I’ll have lost you too.” She stepped out into the rain to grab your shoulders and force you to look at her. “You cannot live a life defined by other people.”

“Then what was the point of loving?”

Mel’s face turned stony as you glared up at her. Your words bit a new consideration into her mind. She hadn’t experienced the hellish landscape of your potential future, devoid of emotion for the sake of progress. She hadn’t kneeled before the iteration of Viktor who had seen it all—every timeline, every possibility—and been the recipient of his declaration that only you could show him this. She hadn’t loved or experienced Viktor and magic like you. She would never understand the hole that tore into you, a supernova that was determined to take you with it. You didn’t have a life without Viktor or magic. You had let it consume you, happily—the loss of it would surely erase you. There would be nothing left.

“...I can’t make the pain go away,” Mel began. Her voice was measured, but it held a softness for you that belied her own grief. “And it never will go away. It will get smaller, but it will always be there. But if you let that expound you, then you really never will love again.” Viktor watched as Mel pushed your hair off your forehead. A small moment of catharsis for him. Finally, your beautiful face.

“Are you going to let the universe make that choice for you, when we have all since learned the importance of having that power?”

You looked up at her, eyes pleading, soaked to the bone. You were a shattered tea cup on the floor. She was scooping you up. She wanted to repair you with gold.

“I miss them so much, Mel,” you whimpered. She leaned forward and hugged you to her chest, your head atop her collarbone as you sobbed. She held you in the rain and pulled you off the edge.

“I know,” she murmured back. “I do too. Moving on is impossible, when we are a mosaic of all the people and events of our lives. But we can move forward. We just have to gather ourselves up first.”

Mel helped you make a bed in the lab that night. You just wanted to surround yourself in it all again, and she would allow you—for a little while.

You dreamt of them. A kaleidoscope of colors, their voices, their faces in horrific clarity. A flash of light, and you swore you could feel the warmth of Viktor’s hands on your cheeks.

Only you.

You choked awake, dead of night, and immediately burst into tears as you held your own face in poor imitation of Viktor. Your chest was ripping apart. You were sure if you looked down, you’d see the muscle and sinew and bone, the beating of your heart in its cavity, your lungs heaving, your blood gushing off the sides of the bed.

But you opened your eyes to a room faint with moonlight. Viktor’s cloak spread over you as a blanket. You gathered it in your arms and burrowed your face into it. You knew the scent would be lost, sooner than you needed it to stay, so you greedily gulped lungfuls of air through the familiar fabric as you bled and bled and bled.

You fell asleep only out of sheer exhaustion and a headache that enervated every bit of fight from you.

Mel awoke you at dawn with a swarm of Noxian servants. Two ripped the curtains off the lab’s windows, forever washing it in sunlight once more and making you groan atop your makeshift cushions. The mage kneeled beside your bed, rubbing your arm through the sheets.

“Lots to do today,” she murmured. “But first, breakfast.”

“I’m not hungry,” you protested lamely.

“You don’t have an appetite,” she corrected. “You are hungry, though.”

You didn’t bother to retort. You didn’t have the energy. You internally grimaced at that, knowing it probably was because you hadn’t eaten since Jayce and you had returned to your home timeline.

Mel helped you sit up as a servant placed a silver platter of food before you. Huge, juicy fruits, meats that would melt on your tongue, eggs and fresh bread and butter—it all smelled nauseating. You looked visibly ill at the sight of it. You looked visibly ill in general.

Mel sat beside you on the cushions and broke the bread. The crust crunched in her hands as she offered a bite for you. It was mindless, the way you took it and stuck it in your mouth. Its taste hardly registered. You chewed mechanically, swallowed. And Mel offered you another.

With the patience of a saint, she fed you until you ate half of the small loaf. She tried one of the fruits, but you gave her a pleading look to not try; so she had the rest of the food sent away and hoisted you to your feet.

With the lab awash in light, everything laid out in front of you in perfect clarity. You saw a page with Viktor’s handwriting and immediately sobbed, bent over in pain as you snatched it off the table and smashed to your chest. Mel caught you and helped you stand upright. She shushed you, wiped your tears.

Viktor lived through her. His spirit watched over you and pretended Mel’s hands were his.

The mage ordered the servants to clean up the papers, have them set out of view. You wailed, begged, for her not to, to let you wallow over them and crumple them against your face and scar them into your skin. But she did not relent. She held you with gentle firmness as the lab was cleared of Viktor and Jayce.

So began the next few weeks. As the world shifted to react to the Battle of Piltover, Mel simultaneously accepted rule over the Noxians and took you under her wing. Each step you took, you took together. The papers were the first. Then it was getting you out of the lab, back into your own room. Leaving you alone for meals. Reading you the letters Violet and Caitlyn and countless others had left you.

You started getting up on your own. You felt numb to everything, but some level of worldly shuttering had to happen so you could just take care of yourself.

Viktor laid with you at night. He pretended his fingers were grazing over your cheek and your warmth was pressed against him one more. He already knew you were strong enough to recover from this.

After all, you were everything.

Months. You think, at least. You lost track of time in your grief. You’re sure you would’ve lost much more without Mel.

Golden hour in the lab was the most beautiful. Sunlight sparkled off every surface and washed everything in honey-glazed hues. It used to be your favorite time of the day. So many memories of Viktor and you testing, discovering, being. The walks you used to take through the nearby gardens. The day you harnessed flight for individual use, you two taking it for a run in a magical fly over Piltover. The dinners Jayce would bring when you both were too lost in work. The unextraordinary days of no progress. You’d kill to have just one more.

Months ago, just being aware of the time of day brought you to your knees. It still hurt, now, but you had it on a leash. It growled and pulled and sometimes got away; but today your grief was being surprisingly well-behaved. So you wandered to a cabinet. The door creaked when you opened it.

You sat in the curve of the alcove. Machinery whirred behind you. Piltover gleamed ahead of you, resplendent beneath a halcyon sky. Your back, flush with the edge of the window, slid down as you dangled a foot off the ledge. Viktor sat on the other side, on another plane, watching you fondly. You were pouring over the old papers. The Hexcore stared up at you in sketches, as formulas, overarching concepts. Your fingers brushed over Viktor’s signature scribbled tightly beside yours.

You pushed yourself out of the curve and toed the ledge. Viktor’s expression dropped. Jayce flocked to your other side as if to stop you. You looked down and thought of flying. You brought the papers up to your eyes again.

You ripped the parchment in half, Hexcore on one, Viktor’s handwriting on the other. You let the wind lift it from your hands. Viktor moved to sit beside you. Jayce followed.

You turned back to the stack. Grabbed another piece.

Shhhkt.

Runes drifted in one direction. Your signatures in another.

Shhhkt.

Shhhkt.

Shhhkt.

Shhhkt. Shhhkt. Shhhkt. Shhhkt.

Shhhkt.

You watched as stars of paper floated away from you. You suddenly realized what you'd done. You collapsed onto the platform, curled over yourself, as you held the rest of the stack to your chest and wailed. Viktor pretended his hand didn't phase through yours, pretended that his fingers were capturing yours, that you could hear him as he murmured assurances and comforts against your ear. They were just papers, you'd write a new copy when you got back to the lab, he'd draw his signature as many times as you needed it. Just come back, step away. You'd all be back to your gloriously routine evenings before you knew it.

But all you saw was the ledge. Past it, a sprawling world with nothing in it for you.

"There must be a way," Viktor murmured. You were sleeping later that night. He was laying beside you, memorizing every atom of you. Jayce sat beside him on the edge of the bed. You had the sheer grit to tear yourself away from the edge again; but even after months of grueling recovery, you had still come far too close to it. That terrified everyone but you.

"We don't have anything here. Ideas can't be reality, not when everything is just..." Jayce gestured around them in frustration. "Speculation."

"A connection can't be impossible."

"I'm not even sure how to look for one."

Viktor was looking at you when Jayce grumbled those words. The revelation dawned over them simultaneously. He looked up at his partner, then back at you.

He cupped your head in his hands, leaned in as he ran his thumbs over the apples of your cheeks. Your expression squeezed in discomfort from the branding, searing pain that came with seeing his face again. The veil was thin between your planes when you dreamed. Sometimes you'd see through to them, feel Viktor's spirit touch your weary one, hear his voice in shattering lucidity for an ephemeral moment. But you'd always believed they were just that—dreams.

All Viktor wanted was to make you happy again, with or without them. But maybe if you knew you weren't just having nightmares, that it really was them, you'd find a new purpose. You'd find a way.

Only you.

You gasped awake. You flung the blankets off your body, haphazardly threw Viktor's robes around your shoulders, and sprinted out of your bedroom.

Mel wanted to clean the chalkboards ages ago, but you were adamant they stayed as they were. Papers could be hidden until you were ready, preserved and untouched; these writings on the walls were virtually intangible. Once they were erased, they would never return again. All that would be left were ghosts. Palimpsests.

You burst into the room. In one hand, a bucket of water and soap that sloshed at your feet; the other, a scrub brush. You dunked the bristles into the suds and slashed a wound of water across the chalkboard. It bled white as you scrubbed furiously. You didn’t bother with the whole thing. You weren’t ready for that.

But you were ready for at least a sliver of a blank slate.

You used the long ends of Viktor’s robe to dry the board. His spirit stood beside you, watching you carve into the past. Jayce took your other side in pride.

You gripped a piece of chalk off the tray and pressed it to the clearing. You hesitated, your grief biting regret into you for being so rash; only hours earlier had you destroyed important scientific documents.

Your trinity rested their hands on your shoulders.

Only you.

You nodded, almost imperceptibly, almost in acknowledgment of them.

Then, you began anew.

dividers used: paper • scribbles

[sqswisashitposter]

[thevoidstaredback]

How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have

In Danny's defense, dying scared the hell out of him. Living in a house of ghost hunters was a bad idea, so he left. It didn't matter that they were family. He was a ghost living in a house of Ghost Hunters whose life's work was the very thing that killed him in the first place. He died turning on the portal his parents had spend nearly thirty years working on with two witnesses to his demise. The natural response was to destroy the portal and leave without telling anyone.

He didn't get to that point, though. The first few months after The Accident had been constant ghost attacks, one after another. Danny had tried t understand what was happening, but between his friends on some level denying his death, the ghosts attacking on sight, and the powers he was developing not getting themselves under control, he was reaching his breaking point.

On top of all of it, the portal destabilized.

No one had been in the lab, thank god, but the ghost portal collapsed in on itself. The running theory his parents had was that the ghost boy had been the one to break it. Danny's running theory was that the constant back and forth and overloaded the system. No new actually knew what had been the thing to turn it on in the first place, so no one could actually prove anything either way. At least, that's what Danny hoped.

Danny knew, in the deep recesses of his mind, what to do to get it working again. He knew what to do to keep it open if he so chose.

It had never been his choice in the first place.

Danny had known it wasn't entirely safe for him when the house started to turn on him, but that had only been solidified when the portal had gone down, Jack and Maddie Fenton doubled down on hunting down the Ghost Boy. He was the only ghost left in Amity Park, so he was the only one the trackers would lock onto.

Six weeks before he turned fifteen, Danny left his home. He didn't tell Jazz or Tucker or Sam, and he most certainly didn't tell his parents. Quietly, he packed his things - only those of which that would be easy to carry - and left. He didn't bring his phone or laptop with him. He thought about leaving his wallet, but figured that'd be useful to him.

The last thing he did before leaving Amity Park was go to the police station and tell them he was leaving willingly. He refused to elaborate as to why. They didn't need to know that. He didn't tell them where he was going, either, just that he was leaving.

It was an accident that he ended up in Bludhaven. Four weeks of traveling had tired him out. His powers only making it worse. He was low on money and food, he'd been sleeping on benches and in alleyways, his clothes were all filthy, he hadn't showered in days- He was ready to collapse.

Bludhaven, from what he understood, had a much smaller homeless population that her mother city Gotham, but it was still a lot of people. Particularly homeless youth. Danny was just another kid in an alley when he'd finally collapsed.

It took three days of sleeping behind a dumpster before anyone noticed him. In that time, he'd only woken up once. Not having eaten in a while, he had no waste to expel, so his body had focused on keeping he rested before allowing him to wake up. That was when he'd realized the actual danger he was in.

He had no idea if human weapons could still work on him or not, and he was not trying to figure that out any time soon. So, before the group of armed guys who'd just come into the alleyway noticed him, Danny let the invisibility wash over him before he flew up and away.

On the rooftops is where he found the city's vigilante. He was dressed in a black suit with blue accents and a black domino mask. His weapon looked like a broken bo staff and was strapped to his back.

Danny was not inclined to meet this man, but he'd never seen another hero in action before! Sure, he knew they existed, but he'd never actually gone looking for any. No one in Amity had, actually. It was a peaceful place. Well, until he opened the portal on himself, but that was hardly his fault.

Sure, he wasn't going to meet him, but maybe following him around wouldn't hurt? As long as he didn't get caught, he should be fine. It was only for the night, anyway. He'd probably never see this man again after this.

At least, that was the plan until he accidentally followed the man home at three in the morning. In his defence, though, he didn't know that it was that early or that Nightwing - as he'd heard a few guys call him - was going home! Regardless, he was going to take this to the grave. He was going to leave Bludhaven come dawn and he was never going to tell anyone the he knows where Nightwing lives.

Again, that was his plan. Danny ended up falling asleep on the rooftop opposite the building Nightwing lived in. He slept through the day, only waking up when rush hour foot and road traffic got too loud to ignore. Just as he was getting ready to leave the rooftop, he spotted movement in Nightwing's apartment.

Now, he couldn't even begin to say what had made him stay, but he did. He sat back down and watched as Nightwing moved around his apartment.

It was messy, messier than he'd have expected, but he wasn't one to judge. What really caught his attention, though, was the uniform Nightwing was wearing. Now that begged the question as to why the hero - vigilante was probably the better term here - fought crime at all hours of the day. Why approach the problem both legally and less legally? Why align yourself both ways?

Danny was always a curious boy when something sparked his interest.

He was swift in his movements as he pulled out the binder of paper and scholork he'd taken with him. Opening up to the first blank page, Danny started to write.

He was a hero, whether people thought of him as such or not. He only ever wanted to help. Maybe he could help this guy. Maybe he'd feel some kind of accomplishment if he managed to help Nightwing.

Step one is to observe.

Part 2 Part 4

Tag List: @flame-343

I need to point out that I have gone off of the original prompt, if that wasn't already obvious. In the og prompt, Danny is an adult. In this one, as I continue my take on it, Danny is a child. I didn't mean for it to happen, but the words don't listen to me, I listen to them.

[crnl-chicken-tots]

Push and pull, yeah that's our arrangement