#It got so dark the street lights turned on

[lemonwaterisamazing]

I have an eye condition that when I look to the side, my eyes shake, and I can't see, and it was a HUGE medical mystery. It got so bad that when the doctors were trying to take a photo of my eye's they couldn't get a clear photo because my eyes kept shaking (you have to have your head turned on an angle to take the photo so my eyes were looking to the side), it took the doctors 3 years to know what's wrong (they thought I had a brain tumor or some sort of brain bleed that effected my eyes). They don't even know what it's called but they described it as "something babies have sometimes" so I guess I have baby eyes :3

Also I have astigmatism which essentially is that lights look very blurry (like street lights or lamps look blurry like when you squint and look at them.) and snowy eye syndrome (which is like everything is TV static, it's more noticeable in the dark)

IM NOT BLIND THOUGH

it's so weird to me that everyone on this website is a human person outside of their weird internet niche so rb this with a random bit of your lore

[just-aake]

A Feline Connection Part 7

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x fem!reader

Summary: Natasha has to face the harsh reality that she can’t help everyone.

Masterlist Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

Warnings: angst, hurt/comfort, light fluff

Words: 3790

“Whitney Frost, daughter of Byron Frost—a typical Wall Street tycoon,” Tony’s voice echoes through the phone as he reads out the details FRIDAY managed to dig up.

On Natasha’s screen, she can see multiple files and articles pulled up on Tony’s monitors, the holographic images casting a blue glow on his face as he continues.

“There are plenty of articles about her earlier years. Standard socialite magazine garbage—life of a spoiled rich kid, extravagant parties, lavish vacations. You get the idea.”

Natasha lets out a dry scoff at the irony, her lips curling slightly. 

“Coming from the playboy billionaire who once blew up half of his mansion?”

Tony gasps theatrically, placing a hand over his chest in a wounded gesture. 

“Watch it, Romanoff. I’m helping you here.”

Rolling her eyes, Natasha nods. “My bad. Please, continue.”

Tony huffs, turning his attention back to his screens. 

“After her father’s death, she goes dark for a couple of years. No public appearances, no sightings—nothing. Coincidentally, around the same time, reports start cropping up about a new leader rising within one of the East Coast’s major crime families. Descriptions of the leader consistently include one distinct detail: a golden mask, giving them the title–”

“Madame Masque,” Natasha finishes for him, her tone flat.  

“Bingo,” Tony confirms. “Over the years, she’s pulled off some pretty big moves. Arms deals, arson, major heists—she’s dangerous, Nat.”

There’s a shuffle of papers in the background, and Peter’s voice chimes in. 

“I don’t get it, Mr. Stark. If she was already rich, why turn to crime?”

Natasha doesn’t hesitate to answer. 

“It’s not always about money,” she says. “Sometimes it’s just about power and control.” 

A brief silence follows, the weight of her words sinking in. 

Tony’s expression darkens slightly, and even Peter doesn’t offer a rebuttal. They all know Natasha is right. 

People like Whitney thrive on domination, bending others to their will. 

Natasha’s frown deepens, her thoughts drifting back to the night before—the memory of you leaving with Whitney still fresh and raw. She exhales slowly, the sting of hurt in her chest flaring again, though she pushes it down. 

Suddenly, Tony’s voice cuts through the quiet. 

“Okay, I can’t ignore this anymore. What are you doing?” 

Natasha’s brows knit in confusion as she glances at the screen. “What do you mean?”

Tony leans closer to the camera, pointing a finger at her with exaggerated disbelief.

“Why are you bottle-feeding that cat like it’s a baby?”

Natasha pulls Widow closer, cradling the tiny feline protectively against her chest. In her free hand, she holds a small baby bottle filled with water, offering it near the cat’s mouth. 

“She still won’t eat complete meals,” Natasha explains defensively. “At least this way, she’s staying hydrated.” 

Widow lets out a faint, sad meow, turning away from the bottle and burrowing deeper into Natasha’s arm. 

Natasha sighs softly, her expression tinged with disappointment as she looks down at the cat.

Peter’s voice pipes up from off-screen. 

“Miss Romanoff, I could go pick up some different kinds of cat food if you’d like?”

Before Natasha can respond, Tony waves him off. 

“Great idea, kid. Take my card and have at it.”

“Awesome,” Peter replies, his excitement evident as he disappears from view. 

As soon as Peter is gone, Natasha raises an eyebrow at Tony. 

“Was that really a good idea?”

Tony shrugs, leaning back in his chair. “Eh, it’ll be fine.” 

“So, what is it?” Natasha asks knowingly. She can tell Tony got rid of Peter so that he would not hear whatever it is Tony was holding back. 

“Some tough love,” he says bluntly, his relaxed demeanor shifting into something more serious. He leans forward, fixing her with a pointed look. “Look, Nat, if your friend is running with people like Whitney Frost, you might need to face the facts.”

“Which are?” Natasha’s tone grows colder, her jaw tightening.

“She’s a criminal,” Tony states flatly, the words landing like a stone.

Natasha’s frown deepens, the label grating against her as she reflexively clutches Widow a little tighter. “And?” 

Tony sighs, shaking his head as if she’s missing the obvious. 

“You need to start treating her like one.”

Natasha’s eyes narrow. 

“Did you forget I used to be an assassin?” she counters, her voice tinged with sarcasm.

“And now you’re an Avenger,” Tony fires back without missing a beat. “Not everyone’s like you, Nat. Not everyone wants to change.” 

The silence stretches between them, tension simmering as Natasha processes his words.  

Seeing her still hesitant to accept the fact, he adds softly, “You can’t help someone who doesn’t even want it.”

Natasha frowns, her eyes drifting down to the little cat in her arms. She strokes her fur delicately, and Widow returns a faint purr in response, though she still refuses to move much more than that. 

“Send me everything you have on Whitney and Madame Masque,” Natasha says, her determination resolving. 

She’s not going to give up on you so easily.

Tony studies her for a moment, his expression knowing before he sighs and leans back in his chair. 

“Already done.”

~~~~~~~ ⧗ ~~~~~~~

A deep sigh escapes Natasha as she rubs her tired eyes, trying to dispel the exhaustion. The hours have stretched into the late night, a glance at the window and then at the clock on her tablet confirming just how much time has passed.

Beside her on the couch, Widow is curled into a small ball, her tiny body seeming to shrink further with every passing moment. 

The meal Natasha had prepared for her earlier sits barely touched—a few nibbles at best.

Though, in her tired mind, Natasha can’t help but let a stray thought creep in: maybe her cooking is bad enough to deter a cat. 

The self-deprecating humor makes her sigh again, a sure sign of just how drained she feels. 

Setting the tablet on the table, Natasha leans back against the armrest of the couch, her head tilting to rest against the cushion. She raises an arm to cover her eyes, allowing herself just a brief reprieve, not planning to sleep but needing the darkness to ease the strain from hours of research. 

For a while, the silence wraps around her like a blanket. 

Natasha focuses on her breathing, the steady rise and fall helping her ground herself. 

Eventually, she debates whether she has it in her to dive back into her work for the night when a sudden movement shifts at her side. 

Tiny paws pad up her torso, and then a soft weight settles against her stomach.

A familiar, distinct meow breaks the quiet—a chirping, happy sound Natasha hasn’t heard from Widow in days. 

She freezes, her body going rigid as suspicion blooms in her chest. Breathing slowly, Natasha tries to maintain her sleeping position so as not to give herself away.

Widow’s sudden shift in mood—it could only mean one thing.

“I know you’re awake,” your voice cuts through the stillness, warm and teasing from just above her.

Realizing she’s caught, Natasha exhales softly with a mix of both relief at your presence but also mild frustration at the fact that you were able to sneak up on her again. 

She removes her arm from her eyes, blinking up to meet your gaze.

You’re leaning casually against the back of the couch, your head tilted and resting atop the cushion, a small smirk on your lips. 

“It’s way too early for you to have fallen asleep,” you tease lightly, your voice carrying that familiar playful lilt. 

Your attention shifts to Widow, who’s now eagerly leaning against the cushion to lick at your outstretched hand. 

“Isn’t that right, Widow?” you coo, your tone softening as you address the little cat.

Widow chirps again, louder this time, in agreement and nuzzles against your hand with obvious affection. 

Natasha can’t help but scoff, shaking her head at the way the two of you seem to operate as a perfect team.

Carefully, she sits up, trying not to disturb Widow perched atop her. 

However, the movement brings her face unintentionally close to yours. She stills as she realizes the proximity, her lips parting slightly as the quip she intended to deliver gets caught in her throat. 

Instead, all that escapes is a soft exhale. 

Your smirk falters, replaced by a small, almost sad smile. Your eyes search hers, lingering as if you can see something more beyond her carefully maintained exterior. 

The intensity of the moment steals Natasha’s breath, the weight of unspoken words hanging between you. 

Breaking the tension, you lift a hand into view, holding up a bag of takeout containers.

“I brought dinner,” you say softly, the warmth in your tone cutting through the charged silence.

~~~~~~~ ⧗ ~~~~~~~

Natasha sits cross-legged on the couch, a takeout box resting limply on her lap as her attention drifts away from the half-eaten meal inside. 

Instead, her gaze falls on the two of you. 

You’re seated on the floor on the other side of the coffee table, also cross-legged, with Widow nestled comfortably in your lap. 

The little cat looks more content than she has in days, her tiny paws resting on the edge of the table as she eagerly eats the torn-up pieces of meat you prepared for her. 

A wave of relief washes over Natasha at the sight of Widow eating normally again, her movements lively and natural. It eases the knot of worry that’s been sitting in her chest, but as always, her focus inevitably drifts to you. 

It’s a pull she can’t resist, her gaze lingering on the subtle details in your expression, the quiet ease with which you handle the moment. 

Natasha absently stirs the noodles in her box, her mind turning over the question she’s been holding back since you arrived. It gnaws at her, but finding the right way to ask feels like navigating a minefield.

“How…” she begins, her voice hesitant, but the words falter. 

Natasha bites her lip, uncertain whether she has the right to pry into your life any deeper. 

You glance up at her, catching on to the unfinished question. Setting your takeout container on the table, you tilt your head slightly, offering her an easy opening. 

“How am I here?” you ask knowingly, your voice gentle.

Wordlessly, Natasha nods, grateful but wary of the answer.

“You didn’t look at the USB?” you ask, a touch of curiosity in your tone. 

Natasha shakes her head. 

“I was busy worrying about more pressing matters,” she says, her eyes flicking meaningfully to Widow, who’s still munching happily in your lap. “And anyway, it didn’t seem like she wanted me to have it in the first place.” 

You huff lightly at her words, and with an amused shake of your head, you turn Widow to face you, your fingers gently scratching behind her ears. 

“You were supposed to give it to her,” you chide playfully. 

Widow lets out a small, sassy meow, as if to argue her point, and then wiggles free from your grasp. 

Natasha watches with mild curiosity as the little cat pads over to the side table, where the USB has sat untouched for days. Widow grabs the small device in her mouth and trots back toward Natasha. 

Stopping at her side, Widow drops the USB onto Natasha’s lap with a decisive plop before looking up at her with a smug little chirp, her tail swishing behind her. 

Natasha raises an eyebrow, her lips twitching with the faintest hint of a smile as she picks up the USB. 

“Thank you,” she remarks dryly, her tone soft but teasing.

Widow lets out a pleased meow, circling once before hopping back into your lap, her little body nestling comfortably against you. 

Natasha’s gaze shifts to the USB, her fingers brushing over its surface thoughtfully, before lifting her eyes to meet yours.

“So,” she says, her tone calm but tinged with curiosity, “what exactly am I going to find on here?” 

You glance down at Widow, stroking her head absently as you answer, your voice steady but carrying an undertone of something more. 

“Whitney had a scheduled meeting out of state with some buyers tonight.” 

At the mention of the other woman, Natasha narrows her eyes slightly, reading between the lines. 

“So this is…?”

“Everything you need to finish your original mission,” you reply evenly, meeting her gaze with a serious expression. “The buyers’ identities, their locations, the details of each weapons deal. Enough to track them down and stop the weapons from being used in the wrong hands.” 

Natasha studies you closely, her sharp instinct catching on to the underlying reason for your sudden assistance in her original mission. 

“To shift my attention from Whitney.” 

Your silence at her pointed remark is telling. 

Natasha’s lips press into a thin line, the unspoken truth hanging between you. She tilts her head, her voice firmer now. 

“Why are you protecting her?” 

You flinch slightly at the accusation, your hand pausing mid-stroke on Widow’s fur. After a moment, you let out a sigh, your gaze drifting downward. 

“You know, it wasn’t always like this between us,” you say quietly. 

Natasha stays silent, letting you continue.

“Her dad—her real dad—was the original leader of the organization,” you explain, your voice tinged with something softer, almost nostalgic. “I met her when she was training to take over his position. Or, rather, she found me. I was just a simple thief back then. But not to her.”

You pause, your hand resuming its slow strokes over Widow’s fur as you collect your thoughts. 

“She made me an offer—something I never expected. Another opportunity for my life. To join her. She saw something in me. Something…more.”

The words hang in the air, and Natasha feels a pang of understanding, recalling her own experience from the past. 

“It felt good,” you admit, your voice barely above a whisper. “Having someone look at you like that, like you’re worth something. Like you could be more than you ever thought of yourself.” 

You let out a soft, bitter chuckle. 

“She’s always been good at that. Making you feel special. Like you’re the only one who matters.” 

Natasha’s gaze softens slightly, her arms folding across her chest as she listens. She doesn’t interrupt, sensing the weight behind your words.

“No matter what she did—how far she went—I always found a way to forgive her,” you continue, your tone darkening. “Until I couldn’t anymore.” 

There’s a long pause, the quiet broken only by the faint sounds of Widow’s contented purring. Finally, you lift your gaze to Natasha’s, the vulnerability in your eyes stark, unguarded, and disarming.

“And then I met you,” you say softly, your voice carrying a bittersweet edge. “And for a while, I felt that same thing again. That feeling from the beginning—when it was just lighthearted, fun, and flirty, intoxicating even.”

Natasha’s breath catches, her chest tightening at the quiet admission. The honesty in your words cuts through the usual banter and teasing, leaving her unsure how to respond.

“But I already know how this ends,” you add, your voice softer now, tinged with resignation. “I’ve seen it before. And I can’t…” You trail off, shaking your head slightly, the words left unfinished. 

Natasha watches you closely, her sharp gaze softening despite the weight of your rejection. She leans forward, her voice low but steady in understanding. 

“It’s okay. You don’t owe me anything.” 

Her tone shifts, gaining a quiet intensity and insistence.

“But you don’t need to stay with her either. We can figure out a way to disengage the bomb without you returning to her. A way to keep you both safe.”

Your gaze lowers, regret flickering in your expression. When you finally speak, your voice is heavy with sorrow.

“I have to go back.”

Natasha’s lips part in protest, her brows knitting together in frustration, but before she can speak, you cut her off, your tone firmer now.

“Not because of the bomb,” you clarify. “But because of what I did to her.”

You rise slowly, retrieving the tablet from the table, its screen still displaying the research Tony sent on Whitney. Sensing the shift, Widow hops into Natasha’s lap, purring softly as Natasha strokes her fur, grounding herself.

Sitting down beside her, you scroll through the files until you find what you’re looking for. Wordlessly, you turn the screen toward her. 

Natasha scans the report, her frown deepening with each line. 

It details a failed raid on a Stark Industries facility, ending in a catastrophic explosion. Operatives were killed or gravely injured. Their leader, however, was not discovered among those found.

“I abandoned her that night,” you say softly, your voice barely above a whisper. “None of that would have happened if I had stayed.” 

“You don’t know that,” Natasha counters firmly, her gaze snapping to yours, her hand reaching out instinctively to rest atop yours.

A faint, sad smile tugs at your lips at her touch, and you shake your head slightly.

“I appreciate the thought,” you reply, your voice tinged with bittersweet humor, “but we both know that’s not true—especially considering how I’ve managed to sneak past Stark’s defenses twice now without any problems.”

The smirk you add at the end is small, almost fleeting, but it carries a sting of truth that Natasha can’t ignore.

You’re exceptionally skilled. She can’t deny that.

Your fingers brush hers lightly, tracing the bandages covering her knuckles. A contemplative sadness crosses your face.

Then slowly, you lift her hand to your lips, pressing a soft, almost apologetic kiss against her skin before lowering it back onto Widow’s fur.

“I’m not innocent here, Natasha,” you continue resolutely, your voice low, as if the words are for you as much as for her. “I never was.”

Natasha’s jaw tightens at your words, but she doesn’t interrupt as you continue. 

“I owe her a lot,” you admit, your voice heavy with the weight of your past. “She gave me a chance when no one else did. She saw something in me that I couldn’t. And yet…” Your voice falters slightly, but you press on.  

“I still betrayed her in the end.”

Your gaze shifts to Natasha, your eyes meeting hers with a depth of emotion that makes her chest ache. 

“You deserve more than to wait for me to eventually do the same to you,” you say softly. “More than I already have.” 

Natasha’s chest tightens, the quiet ache spreading as she watches you, her gaze taking in every flicker of pain and regret etched across your features.

But this time, it’s not sadness that rises within her—it’s anger. Not at you, but at everything else.

At Whitney, for manipulating you. At the circumstances that have pushed you to this breaking point. And most of all, at the invisible chains of guilt that hold you hostage, preventing you from seeing a way out.

Her hands twitch, the urge to reach for you almost overwhelming. She wants to close the distance between you, to grasp your shoulders and shake you free from the weight of your past, to tell you that this isn’t your only option.

But she hesitates, her fingers curling into fists as she forces herself to stop.

Forcing you to accept her help, no matter how badly she wants to, would make her no different from Whitney. It would just be another form of control, another pressure you don’t deserve.

And Natasha refuses to become that.

Instead, after a long pause, she speaks with quiet determination.

“What will happen to Widow?” 

You look down at the small cat, curled up peacefully in Natasha’s lap, and sigh. 

“I can’t bring her back with me,” you admit, your voice thick with regret. “But I’ll stay with her as long as I can tonight. Make sure she’s okay, and I’ll explain it to her—let her think it’s like last time, when she stayed with you while I was away.” 

You glance at Natasha, searching for her response. 

“If…you’re still willing to take care of her?”

Natasha straightens slightly, her expression softening as a small smirk forms on her lips.

“I promised, didn’t I?”

Your lips twitch into a faint smile at her answer, gratitude flickering in your eyes. 

But Natasha isn’t done. She leans forward, her tone resolute as her gaze locks onto yours.

“You don’t have to keep punishing yourself,” she says, her words deliberate and carefully chosen. “If you feel guilty about what you’ve done, you can always make it right for yourself. You still have that choice.” 

Her words hang in the air, heavy with meaning, an unspoken plea woven into her steady tone. 

Natasha’s expression holds no judgment, only quiet insistence and something deeper—hope.

The silence that follows feels fragile, as if it could shatter at the wrong move. 

Widow shifts slightly in her lap, her tiny body curling closer as her soft purring fills the space between you. 

It’s a faint sound, but comforting nonetheless, grounding you in a moment that feels far too heavy for words.

For a fleeting second, Natasha sees something in your eyes—an almost imperceptible flicker, as if her words might be reaching you. 

But then your gaze drops, breaking the connection, and the moment slips away. 

Without a word, you gently lift Widow from her lap, cradling her with the same care Natasha has come to associate with you, and rise to your feet. 

Natasha sits up a little straighter, her sharp eyes following your movements as you step toward the hallway, your figure outlined by the dim glow of the room.

“Try to get some rest, Miss Black Widow,” you say softly, your tone steady but carrying a subtle finality that roots her in place. You pause just before disappearing from sight, your head turning slightly as if debating whether to say more.

“You, out of everyone, deserve it.” 

The words linger in the air long after you’ve gone into your bedroom, wrapping around Natasha like a quiet echo. 

She stays where she is, her fingers drifting absentmindedly over the fabric of the couch where you’d been sitting just moments ago, as if tracing the memory of you.

The warmth of your presence is gone, replaced by an emptiness that spreads through the room, making it feel colder, quieter. 

Natasha exhales slowly, leaning back against the couch and staring at the space where you had disappeared from her view. 

She knows you meant those words for her, but the ache in her chest tells her they’re something you’ve denied yourself for far too long. 

“So do you,” she whispers into the empty room, her voice barely audible but filled with a longing that she knows you’ll never let yourself hear.

~~~~~~~ ⧗ ~~~~~~~

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

a/n: Fair warning, I believe there’s only a couple parts left in this series. But don’t quote me on this cause we all know I’ve never been good at predicting the number of chapters left. Again thanks for reading!

If you asked to be tagged and I missed it or if the tag did not work for you, please let me know.

Taglist : @cd-4848, @carifletchersgirl, @skittlebum, @queen-of-chaotic-surprises, @ima-gi--na-tion, @rainix13, @gay4hotmilfs, @imaginexred, @caramelcat123, @2silverchain, @nowthisisliving27, @waltermis, @scarlettbitchx, @self-indulgent-writer, @ashadash0904, @alowint, @littlyamadeus, @so-to-aqui-pelas-fic, @imthenatynat, @transparentflapfarmsludge, @natashasilverfox, @mousetheorist, @btay3115, @samfunko, @wandaromamoff69, @lost-in-the-ice, @ahsatanizgay, @stonemags, @karsonromanoff, @wandanatlov3r, @l1kepeps1cvla, @esposadejoyhuerta, @fxckmiup, @panickedbabygay, @esposadejoyhuerta, @azaleavolkova, @gay4wandanat, @escapereality4music, @caspianalexander007, @henkermen, @xxnaiaxx, @alyssa-bessse, @alianovnasposts

[sirenpearldust]

Winter

Pair: Azriel x reader (platonic)

Word count: 997

Warnings: Angst, death, funeral

It snowed.

The streets were empty as the young man wandered aimlessly through the night, his breath visible in the frosty air. 

He had no destination, no purpose - just the need to escape, to lose himself in the stillness of the empty streets.

His nose was red and running, a casualty of the biting chill.

He pulled his jacket tighter against the cold that seeped into his bones.

Above, the city sky was void of stars, the only light coming from the faintly flickering street lamps, their glow weak and on the verge of dying. 

He remembered how she used to complain about them back in their school days, saying they were useless when she walked home. 

Years had passed, but the city still hadn’t changed their lightbulbs. He smiled sadly, memories of her still hurt him.

Maybe it was just meant to be.

Maybe Azriel was destined to endure nightmare after nightmare, trapped in a relentless cycle of darkness.

He had forgotten about her and now she was gone.

• •

He hadn’t checked on her in a while, too caught up in his own world.

She had always warned him, told him it was a possibility - but he never thought it would come to this.

The last time they shared a coffee, she had confessed it quietly, her fingers tracing the rim of the cup. She was lonely, she said, and needed him, her closest friend.

Both had relied on each other, their friendship kept them alive through the chaos of school and home. 

But after graduation, their paths crossed less and less, month by month, until the phone stopped ringing altogether.

Until he got too busy, and she kept waiting, for a text, for a call, for something. 

But it never came.

The day they met up, she told him how sad it made her that he never reached out first.

She thanked him and they started reminiscing about old times, sharing how their lives had changed.

He told her about the girl he was interested in.

She listened, nodding, though her eyes seemed to drift somewhere far away.

She told him how living with her parents was draining, how their abusive they still were and how numb she felt. 

Nothing about her life had really changed. 

She felt guilty for burdening him with it, but the words slipped out anyway.

He talked about his own life, how everything was going so well for him.

She was happy for him and smiled brightly.

For a moment, Azriel forgot everything else around him, as he watched her face brighten up.

It made him feel like a young boy and all warm again.

She looked cute as she drank her tea.

But what he didn’t notice were her eyes, empty, lifeless - dead. 

The sparkle that used to draw people in, was gone.

• •

Two days went by, she waited.

The phone pinged, he remembered.

She smiled, he held his promise and everything felt fine again.

She called him and he answered.

They talked for three hours.

He missed talking to her, how easy everything felt.

She missed feeling so alive, how free she felt.

It was the last conversation they would share.

• •

She wrote and called him.

He didn’t answer.

She cried, lying broken in her bed, as the tears rolled down the side of her face. 

He had promised he would be there this time and help her.

Days turned into weeks and the distance between them stretched further.

• •

It snowed the day she called.

He picked up the phone, smiling softly as he watched the snowflakes fall.

It was her younger sister.

He checked his phone display.

The profile picture stared right back at him, it was her number.

He asked her confused why she was using her sister‘s phone.

Silence followed, until a sob broke through the quiet.

“She died,“ her sister whispered.

He chuckled, thinking it was a joke, asking her if they weren’t to old for pranks.

But her sobs wouldn’t stop, each one raw and desperate, as the reality for him slowly settled in for him.

She was gone.

His phone lit up with notifications, one after another.

Texts from friends, all sharing the same news.

He was one of the few that had gotten a call.

• •

The funeral was held two days later.

Her family insisted she be buried in her home country, her final wish.

She was buried in a cemetery near the mountains, where the snow laid like a blanket over the graves all winter. In the spring, however, life broke through, as the flowers grew beautifully around the graves.

One letter was left behind and read aloud at the funeral.

It was all too heavy for him, to hear how unloved and unneeded she felt.

She no longer wanted to be a burden. 

She apologised, asking for forgiveness from God and from those she had left behind.

• •

The way to the hotel afterwards felt endless, the weight of the day still pressing down on him.

Her family had returned to their home they had kept here, the place where she had spent every summer, the place she had once talked about bringing him.

He lay down on the bed, the room cold and silent, the snow falling outside.

He couldn’t sleep, every time he closed his eyes he saw her.

He would never see her again in this life.

He couldn’t help but feel at fault, he should have never broken his promise.

He read their texts over and over again, went through every conversation they had, replayed every moment together. He missed her more and more, with every second.

Loving her was easy. 

Why did he distance himself?

He should have listened better. She had told him years ago that death was inevitable, especially for her.

She had known she would die young, a truth she had accepted long before. 

Wether by her own hand or God’s grace and now he was left with the crushing reality.

Main Taglist: @bubybubsters @fieldofdaisiies

[jam3sacaster]

“Let me warm you up, darling.”

(Rivals) Rupert Campbell-Black x Reader

Suggestion by a sweet anon 🫶🏽 / Rupert gives you a warm place to stay, and then some…

18+ FANFIC / SMUTish. Reader character aged at 21 💋

Torrential downpour whipped brutally at the ground, bitterly cold air creating the most savage concoction. With only a thin linen jacket wrapped tightly around your waist, you plodded through the cobbled streets of Rutshire, so exhausted and sodden that you couldn’t even force a tear. It was nearing on midnight, and you still had another forty-five minutes before you were home. The rain wasn’t going to let up any time soon — you had to power through. Two beaming strobes of light surrounded you, and the humming noise of an approaching car made you turn around with squinted eyes. Slowly down as it became parallel to you, the small car’s drivers window rolled down slowly, revealing Rupert Campbell-Black. “What on Earth are you doing, walking in the rain at this time?” He questioned, disbelief painted across his face.

“I’ve been at Lizzie’s. James didn’t want to give me a lift home, so…” You mutter, shivering wildly and standing to face him. Rupert muttered something inaudible, but you distinctly made out the word ‘cunt’. Reaching over, he pushed the passenger door open and shook his head. “Get in.”

You did as you were told, drenched clothes sticking to the leather seats of his car. Driving in the direction of his house, and now increasingly angry, Rupert spoke, “Why didn’t you call me?” in a particularly harsh tone. “I didn’t want to trouble you. You know, we’ve not been seeing each other long so I didn’t want to call you up and make you go out of your way.” You sigh, twiddling anxious fingers together in your lap. The downpour lashed against the window, and you watched the drops dance down the glass, creating an imaginary contest between three of them. “And that spineless weasel Vereker… how can he let you walk home in the rain? I’m going to have firm words with Lizzie tomorrow.” He tuts fiercely.

Spinning his car onto his lavish driveway, Rupert shuffles off his jacket and gets out of the car, sprinting to your door and helping your out. You hold his coat over your head and dart towards the door. Wringing your hair out thoroughly before you entered, you felt the dangerous wave of numbing cold reverberate through your veins. “Come on, we’ll go and get you changed.” Rupert sighs, motioning you towards the stairs. Your limbs were so numb and frost-bitten that you could barely move — there was simply no feeling left. Uncaring of getting himself wet, Rupert leant down and scooped you up with ease and carried you up the stairs, only putting you down when you arrived to his bed. “Rupert, you really didn’t have to.” You whisper, but he really wouldn’t hear it. “I’ve got spare shirts in the wardrobe, so help yourself.” He murmurs.

Slowly pulling yourself from his bed, you tremble over to his wardrobe and pick up the stretchiest shirt you could find, laying it gently on top of his crisped blue duvet. Peeling your drenched clothes from your skin, Rupert watched in awe as you revealed your clothes. Mottled pale skin, firm breasts with nipples hard from the cold, a svelte, toned waist and a shapely behind. Inching towards you, Rupert placed an outstretched palm across the small of your back, making you shiver at the sudden warm touch on your skin. “Let me warm you up, darling.” He whispered into your ear, and pushed you softly onto the bed.

Smirking to yourself, you allow Rupert to suck your nipples, swirling his tongue around the pink bud, making you yelp in pleasure. Your blood soon warmed under his touch, and he reached over to turn off the lamp, shrouding you in darkness to hide your ensuing sins.

[hiraethwa]

one summer day

18 hiraeth. where everything has changed.

<< 17 light. | >> 19 (coming soon)

pairing: ushijima wakatoshi x reader word count: 3.6k warnings: alcohol, forced interaction

"the love was there. it didn't change anything. it didn't save anyone. there were just too many forces against it. but it still matters that the love was there." (source)

the ocean calls to you, whispering of the bittersweet past as you and semi barreled towards your old apartment complex on the train shortly after arriving at haneda airport. 

you close your eyes, centering yourself, trying your damned hardest to not be swayed by the ocean, this train line, the carriage itself, the familiar scenery flying past you, everything.

the ocean sings of a song long forgotten—a song of a flightless bird taking flight on man made wings. of the song you had desperately tried to forget, its score long since burned to ashes. 

she calls to you to visit her lonely shores, to lay your eyes on the treasures she keeps in her depths, gleaming in the dark, waiting for their master to claim them again. 

stop. you tell her, there is a reason you built your home atop a cliff, never laying a foot on her sandy beaches again. semi tugs at your sleeve as a female voice announces your stop. 

the ocean has a mind of her own, and she is determined for you to sink your toes into her warm waters again. i have always been here.

now is not the time. you turn your attention away from her to focus on the male before you, your arm tightly laced through semi’s, as reality settles in. 

ushijima wakatoshi stands before you, the expression on his hauntingly handsome face a familiar sight. one that you wish to never lay your eyes upon for the rest of your life after semi confirmed what you were told. 

don’t ever mention him again, you had told semi after that conversation five years ago.

and now, the source of your heartache stands before you, a faint smile on his lips, as though nothing has changed in the years that you were gone. everything has changed. 

you curse at her internally for distracting you.

it has been five years. five years since you left without a word. you thought you are long over him, that all he is now is someone from your past, but there he is, just as beautiful as you remembered. traitorous mind. 

there he is, looking as fine as the day he cleaved your heart apart. how could he? 

the ocean quiets.  

something in your chest pangs in remembrance, like an old injury aching just before the storm rolls through, recognising the person who your heart used to call home. you dig your nails into your palms to resist clutching at your chest. 

five years. all the pain and the healing, the breaking and the mending. it will not come undone at the mere sight of ushijima, you remind your heart. 

five year is enough. more than. 

it has to be. 

but then he opens his mouth, a mere hello, the sweet curve of his lips that was seared into the fiber of your being, even if he was only yours for one night, and the precarious image of control you had shatters into a million pieces. 

your anger bursts into life, hot flames shrouding you in its defensive embrace. 

it is all you could do to mutter one back, chest heaving with strained breathing, turning to stare a hole into the side of semi’s head, opting to stand in awkward silence rather than speak any further. 

perhaps you should have taken your chance on the streets, or at a cheap motel. you should never have agreed to this, or let semi convince you that it would be alright to stay with ushijima at your old apartment—the rented two bedroom apartment that he still lived in. 

you had not known what to do with the information when semi sprung it on you, and so he got his way with this ridiculous closure project of his. foolish, this whole thing. it has been five years, what is there left to move on from?

semi takes charge moving your suitcase into your old bedroom, still untouched from the way you left it, not a speck of dust. you shove that piece of observation deep behind some forgotten memory, shushing the ocean that tries to protest.

you opt to walk behind them on the way to dinner, where tendo will be joining you, your high school group all conveniently in tokyo at the same time. the two of them chatted back and forth, so unlike your memories where semi or tendo used to carry the conversation when it comes to ushijima who usually has little to say. 

had, you correct yourself. the man strolling in front of you is holding his own, no longer the boy you knew. your brain notes the broadness in his shoulders, the extra inches he grew, his well defined muscles straining against the turtleneck he has on. 

you almost wish for him to be angry at you for leaving without a goodbye. because then it would mean that you were in the wrong. that you got it all wrong. 

it is wishful thinking—dangerous territory. the ocean croons at you. 

at least semi is kind enough to let you choose your seat in the crowded katsu restaurant—next to ushijima or tendo, which is an easy choice. 

dinner passes uneventfully with tendo recounting his wild adventures in paris, especially the ones that involved you at a time when you lived life a little too recklessly. 

you try not to stare at ushijima’s empty ring finger, or semi’s answer a few weeks earlier when you remembered to ask after his wife to get out of his stupid plan of staying with ushijima. don’t worry about it, he had said. 

you didn’t know what to make of it then. you still don’t know what to make of it now.

when the classic ‘leave them alone so they can talk’ happens, you see it coming from a mile away. 

semi leaves first to get the check, instantaneously followed by tendo excusing himself to the bathroom. you send a hard glare at semi as he gets up to leave, which he responds to with a look in ushijima’s direction—you said you are over him, right?

right. you deflate in your seat as your friends make their escape. 

you worry your lip, eyes darting behind ushijima towards the counter, to the waiter walking by your table, giving them a nervous smile, to the textured ceiling and back to the counter where semi is—where did he go?

your feet tap on the ground at a high tempo, fast enough to keep your mind occupied and away from things you should not think about as you scan the restaurant, eyes coming to a stop at a booth with two very familiar figures and two other people chatting and laughing. tendo and semi—and kai.

traitors. did they plan this?

you whip your head back towards ushijima for a short second, before forcing your gaze to fall to the table. 

“you haven’t spoken a word to me since you said hello—”

“don’t, ushijima. don’t pretend like everything is alright.” you clench your fist under the table, desperately trying to salvage the nonchalance you mustered.

“can i explain—” 

“no.” you inhale sharply. this is all a very, very bad idea. 

“please give me a chance to explain my side of—”

“that’s enough.” you say quietly, meeting his eyes for the first time. “you never gave us a chance. 

“i only wanted to protect you.” he looks pained, as if you are twisting the dagger piercing his chest. 

“it seems that you are the one i needed protecting from,” the words come out in your voice, so detached and void of emotion that you barely recognise it. his presence drags a sharp-tipped blade over the scars on your heart, picking at the fraying thin threads holding it together with every word. 

“i’m sorry.” he drops his eyes, falling silent. 

you look away as well, tracking your friends who are coming back your way, knowing them well enough that they would drag you both to dessert. 

you glance back at him, the organ in your chest bleeding red with liquid that it's supposed to pump away from itself through your body, standing up quickly and turning to leave, your chair shrieking against the tiles, and you lie.

”i don’t care.” 

—-------------

the wind is cold against your face, harsh enough to whip your hair around and make you shiver, but not enough for you to feel numb—the way you feel inside now that you distanced yourself from the situation. 

you had plundered his fridge, choosing a good bottle of sake, surprised to even find alcohol in the apartment since he does not drink, before planting yourself on the balcony, sitting with your knees to your chest on the freezing tiles. 

home. the word had slipped out of you accidentally while referring to this apartment.

“i am going home,” you had responded in your haze of fury when ushijima asked where you were going, realizing your mistake twenty minutes too late, the understanding settling in as you stepped foot on the westbound train. 

his eyes had snapped to yours with that look, as he shoved the keys into your hand and closed your fingers around them before backtracking to the restaurant, letting you go as you wished. 

it was because you called this place home. 

your mistake has played on loop in your mind since then, and sleep feels as far away as the safe havens of paris tonight. 

tonight, you have two choices—stay up all night staring at the stupid glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling in your bedroom while being tortured by your memories or drink yourself into oblivion. the latter feels like a less painful choice. 

you keep forgetting that it also makes your mind painfully clear and your inhibitions non-existent—that was how you got tendo to do all the dubious shit you got into together in paris.

it seems that ushijima also realizes that, knowing that this is his one chance to talk to you without you walking out on him. he is absolutely right. 

he slides the balcony door closed behind him, standing next to you silently, waiting for something. 

you speak first this time, annoyed and emboldened by the alcohol coursing through your system. “here to plead your case again?”

you raise your head to peer at his tall figure in the dim light, an eyebrow arched, your guard thrown to the winds rushing between you. 

he shakes his head, “not if you don’t want to hear it.”

“and you’re not going to try to make me for the rest of the time that semi stuck me here for?”

“i didn’t know.”

“didn’t know?” you parrot after him, “didn’t know what?”

“i was under the impression that you wanted to stay here. i didn’t know that he was forcing you to do it. if i had known, i would not have agreed to it.”

semi tricked the both of you? the bastard.

“you would not have agreed to it?”

he nods, brows furrowed, hesitating on his next words. “i– i booked a room under your name at a hotel in shinjuku, a few blocks away from tokyo opera city, if you wish to stay there for the duration you are here instead.”

you falter, setting down the half empty bottle of sake and the cup in your hand, caught surprised by his words. “you didn’t have to.”

“i know.” silence falls over you both. “you should go, while it’s not too late. i can call a cab for you.”

you sigh through your nose, throwing your head back against the glass doors, looking up at the dark skies for some sign on what you should do next—if your change of heart to hear him out is a bad idea for your own wellbeing. 

is this what semi wanted? for him to be so him and for you to soften at his gestures? no… tendo. 

you drop your head onto your arms, squeezing your eyes shut, uncertain whether you should follow your instincts. 

“sit down.” you mumble into your skin a few moments later.

ushijima looks at you in surprise, unsure if he heard wrong but then you say it again, head raised, your eyes meeting his. he obeys, careful not to intrude on your space. 

you swallow, blood thrumming through your veins at the unexpected change in the course of your actions. “i can’t sleep anyway, so,” you shrug your shoulders, pouring sake into the small cup and lifting it to your lips, sipping. 

you really hope you don’t regret your next words. “what did you want to tell me?”

you look away from the visible perk in the tilt of his eyes, the corner of his lips, the tightness coiled in his shoulders loosening just slightly. 

he still reads like an open book to you—you wonder if you are the same. 

if after all this time that passed, you still remember the language between you. 

“my mother told you about the– the arrangement. how much do you know?”

you don't need to dig into your memories, you hear them frequently enough. “the week i left. that was also the week you went back to miyagi for your family gathering. she said it was for your engagement ceremony.” you lied to me.

hearing your own voice say that out loud, separated by distance and time from the rawness of your heartbreak, it sounds ridiculous. you left, not a single confirmation from ushijima on the supposed ceremony that you heard from his mother, who is practically a stranger to you. 

you left based on nothing but words of a stranger. 

what does that say about you? you blink at the empty cup in your numb fingers. 

“yes, that is right, but i did not know that the yuino was happening then until i went back.” i did not lie to you about it being a family gathering.

you pour more sake into the cup. 

“my mother hated how much volleyball reminded her of my father, so i made a promise to her at the end of junior high. in exchange for focusing on volleyball through high school and pursuing it professionally after, i agreed to having an arranged marriage. she wanted me to have a stable marriage unlike her own, and at the time, i haven’t met you yet. i didn’t care for love, and i thought she knew best.”

is that what all this is about? always too late. to grow old with the boy you fell in love with.

to save your sister. 

“i wanted to call it off. i tried to, but she threatened me with you, with your future. and i could not gamble with that. i thought it was best for you that i keep my distance, protect you from her, but that night, on my birthday—” he chokes on the memory. 

it brings up a well of emotions within you as well. you are no stranger to it—every touch, every kiss seared into your skin, every image of him burned into the back of your eyelids—the deep pools of warmth within his eyes, the softness of his cheeks beneath your thumb, the strength of his arms wrapped around you. 

you had wanted to drown in him forever.

but that was five years ago, and everything has changed since then. 

“i should not have done it. i gave in to my impulses and i ended up hurting us both far more because of it.” he stares at his tightly clasped hands in his lap, knuckles white with force, shaking almost imperceptibly. 

“do you regret it?” a quiet question. 

“no, i don’t. i am the worst, am i not? i keep taking from you, and i can’t find it in myself to regret it. i only regret that it was the only time we shared together without trying to hide our feelings. if that was always the end, i should have asked you out from the start, then we would have had at least a year together. more.” he looks over at you. “i regret not having more time with you.”

“you should have told me, i would have understood.”

“and you would have fought for me like you did in high school without any care for yourself. and you would have been stuck here, and hated your life. i could not bear it, if you gave up music for me.”

you keep quiet, knowing he is right, that he knew you better than yourself. 

“i am an idiot for trusting my mother. i found out that week when i went home that she had messed with your future even though she promised me that she would leave you alone. you did get into the university of tokyo, but she used her connections to have admissions reject you.”

“to get me away from you.”

“yes. she broke our agreement, so i cancelled the ceremony, and everything else. the girl i was supposed to marry didn’t care either way, but my mother was still insistent on it, still dangling you and paris to keep me in line. i was so angry, at her, at my grandparents, mostly at myself for not fighting harder for us that i called her bluff. i wasn’t sure if her threats were empty, but i was so angry that i didn’t think it through.” he pauses, eyes scanning over you. 

“and then tendo’s phone call came that you were leaving. you were leaving without any word, any goodbye to paris on a one way ticket and i panicked. i told my mother that if she touched you again, she can forget she ever had a son, and i got on the first shinkansen back to tokyo, but i was too late. you were gone.”

“were they real? her threats?”

“i don’t know, i didn’t care as long as nothing happened to you. semi never shared any details of your life in paris, what you were up to or when you are coming back, he would only tell me if you were doing fine. i accepted your decision, that you didn’t want anything to do with me, but then you were coming back, and when semi said that you wanted to stay here temporarily…” he shrugs, “how could i say no?”

you fall silent, blinking, eyes moving over the tokyo skyline aimlessly as you turn over his words in your mind, the churning depths in the ocean within you calm for the first time in years, the rough peaks of water smoothing over, crashing onto the sand like a soft lullaby. 

this is what your friend hoped for when he forced you into the arrangement, for closure to the wounds that had scarred over on the outside, leaving the insides to fester and rot quietly. 

you had been so stubborn. 

the love was real. you hadn’t imagined that. a breath of relief shudders out of you, all the fight in your body leaving you with it, suddenly acutely aware of the chill that had settled in your bones. 

the thing between you, it was real. the knowledge unravels a knot all tangled within your chest, every breath that comes after becoming lighter with it. 

it was real, and yet it was not enough to change your fates. the universe had brought you together, but there were too many forces against it, you and him included. 

there was too much lost in the years between you. too much, but… the ocean stills, wavers for a split second before resuming its gentle lapping at the shoreline. she agrees, albeit reluctantly. 

the fingers wrapped around your arms are pale with force as though they could turn back time and undo everything that had gone wrong if you squeezed hard enough.

“if there’s anything more you want to know, anything…” he starts after a long pause, trailing off as he remembers the weight of the knowledge he just shared. 

“i know. maybe another day.” there are many questions at the tip of your tongue, but it would be wise to hold off for another time when your mind is clearer, not tired and wishing for a warm bed after a fourteen hour flight. the sake in your system has long since cleared, sleep sweeping in with welcoming arms at the lightness in your shoulders. 

“i am not asking for forgiveness or understanding,” he hesitates, unsure if his next words would push you even further away. as if his next words could push you even further away. “i only hope that when you look back at the time we shared, it is not with hate, but with fondness.”

“i know.” he also knows that there is too much between you for there to be any hope for something more. you wonder why your heart clenches at the mutual understanding when you know it is for the better—wonder whether he feels it too. “it’s getting late, i should go.”

“of course. let me call a cab for you.”

you wave him off. “i’ll be fine. how do you think i survived paris?”

“i was hoping you didn’t make a habit of getting drunk and trying to find your own way home, you used to hate alcohol.” the corners of his lips quirk, as if teasing you. 

he still reads like an open book, but you don’t know what to expect from him anymore. you wonder if you could still recognize him from touch alone, identify him from the feel of his strength under your fingertips calloused from years of playing. probably not. 

you used to. 

then again, you are not sure if you still recognize the man in front of you. there is enough between you to remind you of the lost years—of the time and experiences that have changed and shaped you, unknown to the other. 

you laugh softly, sadly, “we are no longer the same people we used to be.”

a/n: tags: @lemurzsquad @daisy-room @integers @brokenbraveakira @whosmarjj @nansfyy @illuzminate @httpshoyo @manyuyuu @hatsukeii @bakery-anon

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[owlespresso]

dogged pursuit. dr veritas ratio. part 6 of ? / other parts summary: you’ve been appointed as the bodyguard of one doctor veritas ratio after a failed attempt on his life. he’s easy to get along with, so long as you learn when to plug your ears and focus on his washboard abs. tags. violence. filth below the tag. not beta'd.

When they assigned you the post of Veritas Ratio’s bodyguard, you expected a light workload. But it’s still been kind of boring. You can’t outright say you want your charge to be attacked by the enemy, but you feel like you’re missing out on chances to impress him. He lets you into his bed but the truth is, you are at your core a slavering beast. There’s no higher privilege than to commit violence in his name. In his honor.

So, when the chance does come, can anyone fault you for being a little too enthusiastic?

It’s a bustling night on Orchestron-IIV. The pleasure district is the last place he wanted to go, but you badgered him into it. The luxury villas and safe streets of the expat district are stagnant. They don’t hold a candle to the chaotic thrumming of the Magnolia–the part of the island where locals and tourists alike come to get in touch with their inner animal. 

It’s also a valuable opening for the opportunistic little weasel that’s been eyeing your villa for the past few weeks. You’re not sure who sent him. You don’t care. But you’d be lying if you said you didn’t hope he’d show himself tonight. 

He does, of course. You’ve got good instincts. The blood in the water can be miles away, but you’ll still hone in on it. 

It happens in a dark, cramped alleyway. You taste the metal of the knife on the air before you see him, hear the slight twitch of his boot against the gravel. The fight lasts for less than thirty seconds. Ratio watches you kick his blade far into the dark with an air of practiced neutrality, languid in the way he inspects the cretin you’ve pinned to the wet pavement. 

You wallop him twice on each side of the head for good measure, watch his eyes roll like water spirals down the train, feel the softness of his temple against your eager fists. Then you get him turned over with a few good kicks to his ribs. He shouts, but it’s cut off as you force his face into the cold concrete. Once you’ve had your fill, you stand with one of your boots on his wrist. You’re kneeled over him, his other arm caged by your knee. The fine silver of your hidden blade kisses the unblemished skin of his throat. Maybe you should have choked him for good measure. Given him a good shake. 

“I assume you’ve learnt your lesson?” Veritas’s voice breaks you from your careful contemplation. “...So, who sent you?”

“Call off your dog,” the man chokes. 

“Mm, no, I don’t think I will,” Veritas answers, the coldest you’ve ever heard him. You grind your heel into the man’s wrist, feel the bone creak in protest under your boot. He hisses out in pain, fingers curling, legs twitching as he debates whether a continued struggle would be worthwhile. “I’ll ask again—who sent you? Think very carefully before you answer.”

“Fuck you,”

“Incorrect. Zero points,” Veritas sighs, “If this is the best they could send, I doubt we have much to worry about,” He looks at you meaningfully. You give him a smile full of teeth, wind your leg back, and sail the metal tip of your boot into the bastard’s skull. Not enough to break his neck. Just enough to render him an unconscious, bloodied heap. You like it when you communicate without words. It makes you feel closer to him.

You absentmindedly kick some pebbles around while Veritas dials a number and has a quick discussion–probably contacting his IPC goonies. They’ll come collect this poor scrap of a man and work the information out of him real quick. Nothing you couldn’t have done, but you like to think he’s sparing you the effort. 

The encounter is over but your blood still rushes in your ears, and your hands twitch. Veritas is wearing a darker number, today. 

As soon as he hangs up, you’re on him. You cage him up against the wall, lips attached to the pale column of his throat and he sighs, like he’s annoyed. His big hands find your hips, but he doesn’t push you away. He only squeezes in warning.

“Control yourself,” he says, and you know he’s grimacing even though you can’t see his face. You lovingly retread old ground with your teeth, gnaw a new bruise into his skin. He makes a shaky sound at that, hands gripping you tighter. “You are not some rutting animal and we are not doing this here!” 

“Doc, c’mon,” you whine, desperate fingers tugging his shirt free from where it’s tucked into his belt. You don’t like him in suits. You like him in the flowy, free things from his homeland. “Didn’t I do good for you?” You shove your hands beneath his shirt and feel the strong wall of his abdomen twitch under your greedy ministrations. He exhales. You nose the spot where his jaw meets his ear, draw the smell of him deep into your lungs. “Tell me I did good, Veritas. I don’t ever ask for anything.”

His cock springs free from his trousers, flushed and pink and perfect. He’s already erect, the slight curve of him standing tall against his clothed tummy. The broad head already weeps with precum and you coo, hopelessly endeared. You cup him in your hand and he hisses, but doesn’t try to stop you. 

“You insatiable beast. If you’ve done any good, you are ruining it with this behavior.” He glares, but it’s a watery kind of look that’s just for show. A token show of resistance because his pride won’t let him admit that this is what he wants. That’s fine, because you know how to read him by now. As close as a bodyguard can be. 

“Wow. Did you get hard watching me beat that guy up?” you ask, and don’t wait for an answer before putting your mouth on him. Maybe, if you were more patient and less single minded, you could have teased him a little. Pressed kitten-soft kisses to his tip. But you aren’t possessed of a delicate touch.

You pull half of his length into your waiting mouth and hollow your cheeks. He gasps, hips making an aborted little thrust. His fingers curl into your hair, desperate for any form of purchase. Your eyes flutter shut as you taste the salt and sweat of his skin, humming low in your throat as you work him deeper. He’s weighty on your tongue–you have to really open up to fit him. 

If you were in a better place, you’d hold him there for a few minutes, maybe. Just to see how whiny and desperate he’d get. But the evening crowds are still milling around only a few yards away. 

“Hurry up!” he hisses, and you reward his brattiness by hollowing your cheeks. He makes a helpless, punched out sort of noise as you work him, wet mouth milking his thick, throbbing cock for all it has. His inner thigh is warm against the flat of your palm. You want to feel his skin. You want to shove his trousers down and feel the soft backs of his thighs over your shoulders. 

He’s getting impatient, though. He’s kind enough to keep a steady, mild pace as he fucks your mouth in earnest. You slick your tongue along the underside of him, coo and hum around his erection like you’re praising him. Like you’re proud of him. His back arches, nice tailored suit grinding into the wall behind him. 

You look up, and admire the forming, shapeless blues and pinks that mottle his skin. You just barely hear his nails scratching at the exposed brick behind him. He starts to lose all that good sense he’s so proud of, hips jerking helplessly into your waiting mouth. The muscles of your forearms flex as you pin his hips in place. You take him in deep, take him in relentlessly and press the flat of your tongue hard against his cock. The friction has him bucking, smothering soft sounds into his sleeve.

You can’t see it, but you imagine his stomach tensing and feel his knees begin to shake. It’s so cute, cute, cute–you can’t stand it. You want him cumming, you want him ruined. White hot adrenaline seizes you as you grab his hips and drag him forward. He nearly toppled, his shout ringing down the length of the alleyway. He catches himself with a hand on your head, gritting his teeth as he starts to fuck your mouth in earnest. 

His pace loses sync as he gets hot on the heels of his orgasm. That scholarly composure shatters. He cums with a pathetic, watery keen. Rivulets of warm release fill your mouth and stream down your throat. You swallow around him, let him fuck your mouth through the thick of his peak despite the way your throat aches and protests. 

You only let him go once he has nothing left to give. You pop off of his flagging cock with a lewd, wet sound and rise to look at him close. There’s a visible sweat along his brow, his pupils blown wide. He’s dazed. It takes him a full second to realize you’re here, and you’re lookin’ real close at him. He presses his back against the wall and schools his face into that irritated glower. The typical dignity associated with that expression is lost, considering the obvious flush painted across his pale cheeks. 

“T-there. Are you satisfied now?” he harrumphs, but his voice shakes. like you didn’t just give him the best blowjob of his life.

You’re not annoyed. You feel feverish, kind of, looking at the handsome planes of his face with a newfound, and perhaps manic kind of concentration. And oh– “Are you cryin’?” you ask, incredulous. ‘Cause there are tears on those pretty lashes of his. Pretty as morning dew. He opens his mouth, likely to deliver some sort of fuming retort, but you shove even closer, pinning him bodily to the wall. He could toss you off if he wanted, easy as cake. But he doesn’t. He just looks at you with rabbit wide eyes. “Seriously,” you whine, hands coming up to cup his cheeks. “When did you get so cute, Doc? It’s not fair, it just ain’t!”

“If I am crying, it is because I’m mourning all the time we’ve wasted here!” he fumes, finally finding the gumption to give you a hearty shove. You stumble backwards as he redoes his belt and fixes his slacks, unable to suppress a slight shiver. It takes a saintly amount of patience and restraint to not surge forward and put your hands on him again. “The pickup will be here for him in a few minutes. Wait for them. I’ll meet you back at the villa once you’ve finished.” He kicks off the wall, stomping down the alley. To the unaccustomed passerby, he might look undeniably upset, peeved even. But you’re not too worried. 

You can tell he’s not mad, ‘cause the tops of his ears are totally flushed. 

[shanspitcoca]

BOWERS GANG HC

Summary You date the Bowers gang, but now they love for you is being shown to anyone who wants to get a sense of how the relationship with them works. What the cameras didn't film and what Stephen King didn't write.

Warning It was not revised, in each situation their tragic end was avoided (like going to Henry's house and being killed), english is not my first language.

Henry Bowers

You and Henry met at school. He wasn't used to being nice to people, but you were sent by the principal to help Henry with his studies. At first, it was really hard. He was rude, hated you, and embarrassed you in front of others. Until his hate turned to love, you didn't give up on him and you didn't hate him. Your sweet eyes made him see the light in the darkness, and he was confident that you could become his.

And it wasn't very difficult, because he protected you and took care of you, he invited you to go out with him and the boys and you became part of him, which made you open your heart. And with that came the rumors; "she's fucking them all!" "gang bitch!" "doesn't she have any shame?", but the truth was that you didn't care anymore and that improved for Henry too, he loved you enough to be nice to people when you asked him to.

Henry shut up everyone who was spreading rumors about you and made sure things between you were careful, he saw you as a sweet deer and didn't want to dirty your soul even though everyone already thought you were filthy.

But he hadn't even changed 50%, not at all! He took out the fights you had on your friends and sometimes his hatred was so great that he would even beat up poor street children, and that scared you. He felt absurdly jealous of everything and everyone, of his father who would praise you when he saw you "she's a good girl, keep her." of your friends when they tried to talk to you "why did Marsh the bitch called you?" and of his friends "is she going with us?". He couldn't hide it anymore and felt like he had to keep her away from everyone.

But of course she would use her persuasive skills to her advantage. “You can’t isolate me from the world!” “I’ll kill myself if you do that” were enough for Henry to change his plans, and it worked. That afternoon Henry was coming home, he had gone out with the guys and was walking down the streets, heading towards the farm. Henry had gotten off two blocks before your house and you saw him passing by as you were sitting on the porch eating ice cream, he had bloody bruises on his face and his clothes were dirty.

“who did it to you?” - she shouted from her porch

He made a few turns toward her, he climbed the small stairs to the porch and she stood, opening the door and leading him into the living room. They sat together and she touched his hand as they both remained silent. Henry would talk if he wanted to.

Henry wasn't the kind of person who usually talked about his feelings, but that day he even cried. Jealousy, anguish and fear surrounded him and he would be beaten again when he got home. But you said it only once and clearly and directly. Henry didn't like to talk much, especially when something hurt him, he would tell you with his eyes and sometimes with his touches.

“if you hurt them again i won’t be your girlfriend anymore.”

She then broke the silence, while he still looked down but at that moment something touched his heart and he laid his head on her chest, and she automatically held him.

His eyes moved away from the floor and went to your face, with confusion reflected in his blue irises. That day he promised not to fight without reason and not to be humiliated by children. You gave him a sweet and passionate kiss, which he obviously reciprocated and the simplicity of his love made you love him more and more.

Deep down you were the only proof of kindness that existed in his world.

Patrick Hockstetter

With Patrick Hockstetter, things are different. You were neighbors and became close when you were 8 years old when your mother started babysitting Patrick when his parents were at church. He hated going to church because he had to left the comfort of his home.

Patrick started hanging out with the Bowers gang which at the time was made up of Henry, Victor, Belch, Peter, Jard and Moose, but Henry didn't really like Moose and so he was quickly kicked out of the gang, until Jard moved out of town and Peter left the gang because he loved Marcia.

He started to feel desire for you when you guys still kids, well, you were messy and strange children and sooner or later it would end up happening, a little kiss. Patrick then grew in love with you but of course he would never admit it. He often went on “dates” with other girls and to be blunt he also took them to bed very easily. Sometimes you asked him to read some books, which he never did. He didn't have time for that bullshit, he skipped classes to be with the gang and spent the rest of the day with them, the little time he had he spent with the girls he wanted.

Patrick never actually admitted to liking you because he wasn't sure if it was reciprocal, he also never let Henry invite you to a ride around Derry with the gang because he knew what Henry's intentions were. Patrick felt obligated to take care of you and was preparing to tell you the truth "Im into you” he hoped to say it quickly and matter-of-factly, if you said "Im into you too" he would kiss you but if denied him he would say "do you think I was serious? dumbass"

That midday you went to the barrens, it was disgusting but you liked it there because it was quiet and you could read your books without worrying. But before you completed your arrival you saw Patrick standing looking around, "Is he looking for someone?"

“I'm not in that direction, silly” - you softly shouted and he turned back glancing at you and smirking

Now he had given up on what he had to do and sat down next to you on a rock not too close to the water but not too far either. You were wearing a white dress and brown boots that matched his and until that moment he had remained quiet. He was gathering his courage and suddenly moved, sitting next to her.

“i think im into you, doll” - it didn't go as planned, he sounded passionate and his intention was to sound cocky.

But you didn't answer, for the first time you didn't answer him. You sat next to each other and you laid your head on his arm, opening your book to the marked page. He was almost blushing, totally regretful even though your presence had done him well he was waiting for your answer.

“no amount of fire could challenge the fairytale he had stored up in his heart.” - she smiled and glared him when she finished - “Gatsby.”

“doubt tho that the stars are fire doubt thou that sun doth move doubt truth to be a liar: but never doubt i love.” - he looked down at the ground, kicking a few pebbles as his boots and hers brushed against each other - “Hamlet.”

she chuckles - “you read it...” - he didn't look at her but he could feel her sweet smile on him as she touched his hand and they both intertwined their fingers

“I read every single book you asked for…” - he then plucked up the courage to look at her and in a few seconds they kissed, it was a lascivious kiss but so genuine that they couldn’t help

Victor Criss

You and Victor met in seventh grade, he had been hanging out with Bowers ever since and you had math class together. You treated each other like arch enemies, you were smart but he was smarter than you, you got A's and he got A+'s, you applied to be the student council leader and he was the one who won just for being who he was and he gave up the position because he didn't really want anything to do with it.

But both of you were chosen by the math teacher to present the math competition, which you didn't like because you wanted to have participated in the competition but he loved it because he hated being seen as the nerdy bully. That day, something sparkled in his eyes and you noticed it, the way he looked at you while you performed and the way he loved every second of that time with you, you laughing at his jokes and covering for him when he got nervous and couldn't finish his sentence. Was it passion?

After that day, you started sitting closer together in class and you did all the pair work together. For the first time, the gang didn't make fun of him for being into a girl, they supported him.

Victor is an only child and his parents love him very much. He used to be a rebellious son and sometimes a little ungrateful, but after you appeared in his life and he introduced you to his parents, everything changed. You matched clothes, smoked together, studied together and had simple but full dates of conversations, smiles, stares, kisses and touches. He loves you more than anything and you know it, he doesn't usually kiss you in front of other people but whenever he does you get goosebumps, in a good way of course.

You were feeling lonely that morning and decided to go to Victor's house. You walked a few blocks since he didn't live that far away. When you got to his house, you rang the bell. "Damn, I'm going!" in an angry shout. He hated it when people didn't have patience. He opened the door and declared you with a smile, you had a bag in your hand with some cigarettes and board games. He blushed when he saw you and apologized for shouting.

“are you going somewhere?” - you entered in the house, closing the door and sitting on the sofa and you asked when saw him wearing his black boots, which he usually only did when he was going out.

“i was going to Henry's house” - he was untying his laces and throwing his boots into a corner of the room - “but be here with you is better”

They went upstairs and as they passed through the hallway and entered his room she threw her bag on the table. They threw themselves on the bed and she took off her shoes before getting under the covers and they lay there for a few minutes caressing each other until the phone rang.

He stood up and walked to the hallway to answer the phone. You didn't hear him very well but you ignored him and just focused on observing every detail of Victor's room. The green wall, the posters, the messy study table, the closet with the door open and shoes that prevented it from closing, the TV with the video game controls on top and the books on the nightstand. He then came back, sitting on the bed and looking at you.

It was Henry, he was angry because I didn't go to his house - he lay down again, squeezing himself between her arms - he doesn't understand...

With Victor everything was calmer and after a few minutes of him smelling your neck, leaning on your shoulder and you stroking his hair, you fell asleep. There was no talking for hours and arguing or much less wasting words, you dozed deeply without thinking about what awaited Belch for having agreed to go to Henry's house.

Reginald Huggins

Oh, but Belch are so sweet. He loves you more than anything and it all started at Greta Bowie's party. He had gone with the gang but was on the couch, bored, talking to Victor while Patrick and Henry bothered some girls. You and Belch had already had an interaction, it was when you were walking down the street coming back from the bakery and saw Belch standing leaning against the famous blue 1977 Pontiac in front of the supermarket, probably waiting for the gang to return.

You introduced yourself to him and started chattering, which he hated at first. “I wish I had a car but my parents don’t have enough money.” “I like Chevrolets.” He wanted to roll his eyes and leave you talking to yourself, but for a minute he decided to be nice and it was the best choice of his life.

At the party you sat next to him on the couch, smiling at him and he automatically smiled back without paying any more attention to what Victor was saying.

“i think gossiping is her only talent, because this party sucks!” - you shouted loud enough for him to hear since the music was drowning out everyone's voices

That was your biggest step, you and he started dating for good and that would lead to a future marriage. He loves every bit of you and your personality and would give you the world if you asked. You shared many things in common, including extracurricular classes, which made your love only grow stronger with every second you both spent together.

You had never gotten along with boys before Belch and meeting him completely changed the course of your life. Belch is an only child and lives with his mother and his mother raised him very well. Despite being one of Derry's typical bullies and rough with other girls, he treated you like a princess. His mother and you were the only women he treated well and the only who called him "Reggie" and he loved every letter when you called him that.

His friends always made a mess of his car and he never really cared about it, “Okay, they made a mess, I’ll clean it when I have time” but with you everything changed. Before he invited you for the first ride on the road he cleaned the entire car, inside and out. And then he did this every day until his friends stopped making a mess, he keeps pictures of the two of you in the glove compartment.

Belch could have gone to Henry's house like Henry asked, to shoot some bottles but Belch said no for the first time. Now you're in the blue Trans Am, although his friends had a higher priority when it came to rides, when you were there the car was entirely yours. He let you drive and was careful behind the wheel when you were in the passenger seat, but that didn't last long. Belch likes to speed up, and make you scream and your hair swing aimlessly out the window.

And that was what was happening now. There were no words for that moment, you were feeling the breeze of the wind on your face while the sun said goodbye to the humans causing a beautiful painting in the sky and a unique light on the earth. The bushes around the road screamed the peace that you both loved to feel when you were together.

“id ride to the moon in this car with you, honey” - she tried to get her hair out of her face as the wind blew harder and harder, which failed and made her burst out laughing

“I'll take you to every single place you want to go” - he says a little loudly as the breeze and road noises almost made them sound inaudible

[novasdrabbles]

A Break from it All

Sevika deserves a little TLC and you’re more than happy to provide.

Im still trying to get used to writing smut 😭

NSFW ahead, 1.2k words, x-reader

When Sevika had returned to your shared apartment, it was already growing dark outside. One look was all it took for you to know her talk with Jinx hadn’t gone too well. Now, she’d have to face the crowd at the rally tomorrow alone. And without the Undercity's new ‘hero’ at that.

You’d be there beside her, of course. But it wouldn’t be the same without Jinx and you both knew that. So, when you finally entered your bedroom to turn in for the night, it didn’t surprise you that she was still wide awake, pinching the bridge of her nose with a small groan.

You crawled in beside her, your hand gently settling atop hers and pulling it away from her face. You pressed a kiss to her knuckles, holding her gaze the whole while. Her own eyes softened at the feel of your lips against her skin, but she couldn’t help but scoff at the knowing look you gave her.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she muttered. Her fingers intertwined with yours, and she shook her head. “I’m okay.”

It was your turn to scoff, and you did just that with a raise of your brow. “You don’t look okay. You look exhausted.”

Even in the dim light of the bedroom you could see that familiar set to her jaw, a tension to her shoulders and the crease between her brows. After Silco’s death Sevika had been the only one to step up and try to pull the Undercity together.

She’d been the one to bring the Chembarons together in an attempt to unify them. She was the one who stood by Jinx despite every ‘disagreement’ they’d had in the past. She protected those unjustly targeted by the enforcers and Noxian soldiers that had flooded the streets. No matter what, Sevika kept fighting.

And it was all weighing on her.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, carefully tugging her fingers from your own. She blew out a sigh, her forearm draping over her eyes. “I just need some rest.”

Oh, please, you thought as you resisted the urge to roll your eyes. You sat up a bit straighter, pressing yourself closer to her side. “If you say so,” you mumbled, sounding wholly unconvinced. You eyed her for a moment, mind whirring, before finally settling on an idea.

You leaned in, pressing a kiss to her jaw. She only grunted, but made no move to stop you. A smile lifted your lips and you shifted in order to kiss along the shimmering scar trailing from her cheek to her chest. You carried on, your hand running along the exposed skin of her waist, relishing in the pleased sigh you heard above you.

You nipped at her clavicle as your hand found purchase underneath her cropped shirt. You moved to straddle her, your knee gently nudging her legs apart to give you more space. Sevika relented, far too used to the random bouts of physical affection you’d drop on her.

It was only when she felt the bed dip at her waist did she move. Sevika lifted her arm from her eyes, staring down at you with a newfound interest. “Yeah?” She said, voice low as your fingers purposefully trailed along the top of her thighs.

“Oh, yeah. You need a break, Sevika,” you said matter-of-factly as you shifted to rest between her legs. “But, I know you won’t take one, so I’ll clearly have to help you relax in a different way.”

Her lips pursed, but she said nothing and you took that as your cue to continue. You kissed her torso, before dragging your lips down to the waistband of her pants. You could hear her breathing getting faster, and you bit back a prideful grin as you got to work tugging her pants off.

You could feel your own pulse quickening as you selfishly stared at the sight before you, your breath coming out in shorts puffs against her cunt. She was already more worked up than you thought, a clear sheen of arousal present. A thousand quips came to mind, but you decided to save the teasing for another day. Especially when she was gazing at you like that.

“You always work so hard, Sevika,” you murmured, pressing a kiss to the junction between her pelvis and her thigh. “Let me work for you tonight, okay? You gonna let me make you feel good?”

Sevika’s jaw ticked, this side of yours never failing to shut her up. Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth, and she barely managed out a quiet, “Yes.”

That was all you needed to hear. You hummed and leaned in, pressing your tongue flat against her entrance before dragging it up to her clit. The sound Sevika made was nothing short of guttural as she tossed her head against the pillows and you felt your own stomach clench in turn.

You set a slower pace, your hands gently spreading her thighs further apart. You wanted her to enjoy herself after all. You teased her entrance, tongue dipping in and out of her steadily. Sevika panted above you, a deep groan rumbling in her throat as your lips wrapped around her clit and sucked.

You weren’t surprised when her hand flew to your head, holding you in place as her hips rocked against your face. You groaned in response, letting her use you as your hands went up to squeeze her breasts.

Sevika’s hips jerked and slowed, a jolt of pleasure coursing through her. “Oh, fuck,” she huffed and you quickly took over at the desperation lacing her voice.

“That’s it, baby. Come on my face,” you encouraged softly, your fingers sinfully circling her clit before parting her folds and adding your tongue back into the mix, pushing into her entrance with short and deep licks.

That was all it took for Sevika to come with a deep groan, grinding hard against your face as her fingers tightened in your hair. You drank up every drop, helping her ride out her orgasm.

When Sevika’s rapid breathing slowed to heavy pants, she was practically dragging you up towards her, her lips clashing into yours in a messy kiss as she tasted herself on your tongue.

You moaned, indulging her for as long as you could before pulling away to suck in a breath. She gazed up at you lovingly, her thumb brushing along your lower lip that glistened with her essence.

“Feel better?” You asked and delighted in the scoff you got in response.

“Much better,” Sevika said with a nod before rolling her eyes at the smug little grin on your face. Her hand dipped, tugging at your pants and you bit back at a laugh at the resulting frown she gave when you stopped her.

“You don’t want me to—” she began and you quickly shook your head.

“I’m fine. Tonight was all about you, remember?” You said, finger tapping against her cheek.

Sevika’s brows furrowed together in that way you knew she was trying to decide whether to be stubborn or relent. Eventually, she sighed and kissed you again, much softer and deeper this time.

“Fine. I’m making it up to you in the morning, though,” she replied resolutely.

You only laughed, pressing swift kisses to her nose and cheek as she grumbled. “I’ll be sure to hold you to that then.”

[lunarflux]

x: Thomas Shelby found his match in an information bookie who has eluded the grasp of the Peaky Blinders long enough to crumble their power over Birmingham. But at last, he found you. The ghost he'd been chasing was finally in front of him, but you were trickier than he expected. Dangerous, cunning - and a bit too much like himself. To buy your loyalty, he would have to sell his in equal measure. Loyalty for loyalty - blood for blood - how much were either of you willing to spill before the game changed entirely?

a/n: the slow burn is slow burning

part 10: the inevitable crash

word count: 3,048

✒✒✒✒✒✒✒✒✒✒✒

The street was quieter than usual, the night cold and empty except for the occasional passerby. You made your way down the alley toward the Garrison, a slow, deliberate pace, your thoughts more on the events of the past days than the path ahead. The weight of the decision you made—though correct in your mind—Tommy’s amusement at your actions, the tension in the air between the two of you. It was a lot to carry, but it wasn't the first time you’ve found yourself with something weighing you down.

Just as you reached the corner, you heard footsteps behind you, quick, deliberate, the sound of boots on cobblestones. You instinctively reached for your knife—the concept that it could be Arthur or John trying to scare you crossed your mind. But when you turned, the figure that stepped out of the shadows was one you knew all too well.

Bingham.

The one who used to buy information from you. A man who’d never been above using others for his own gain, his reputation dark enough to send a ripple of unease through anyone who dealt with him. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. The familiar scar across his cheek caught the moonlight.

“You’re walking alone at this hour, sweetheart,” he said, his voice low and smooth. “Not a smart move, considering who’s still looking for your services.”

You stood firm, swallowing the minute flinch on your brow. “I’m not in that business anymore, Bingham.”

He stepped forward, eyes gleaming with a knowing, calculated glint. “You think I don’t know that?” He laughed softly, but there was something dangerous in it, something that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m not asking for your services, darling. I’m offering you a way back in. You’ve got a talent for finding things out. I remember what you're worth. I doubt the great Thomas Shelby and the Peaky Blinders really know.”

You met his gaze without hesitation. “I've kept my connections, Alfred. I've extended my kindness to the Blinders for a modest fee. I don't think anything else will be necessary.”

Bingham tilted his head, stepping closer. His voice quieted, but the threat was all too real, seeping through each word. “Don’t make me remind you what happened the last time you tried to play both sides, sweetheart. You’re a smart woman. Don’t let the Peaky Blinders loyalty cloud your judgment. It’s only a matter of time before they stop keeping you safe and start seeing you as a liability.”

Before you can respond, a sudden, sharp voice erupted from behind you.

“Come now, y/n. I started drinking without you.”

Tommy placed his hand on the back of your neck, his silhouette cutting through the dim light, standing with a calm, controlled presence that you knew so well. His eyes flickered down to you, then back to Bingham. There was no hesitation in his movement, no uncertainty. He was here, and his presence kept the unwelcome guest from getting any closer.

Bingham didn’t flinch, though the subtle tension in his jaw betrayed his irritation. “The Thomas Shelby,” he sneered. “Of all the people to come out and... Save the day. Surprised you didn't send one of your errand boys to fetch her. Didn't think she was worth a rope from the big man.”

Tommy stepped forward, guiding you with him, not bothering with any pretense of diplomacy. He looked down at the ground. His voice was cold, clipped. “You're standing on Blinders property.” He motioned with his hand. "All of this, those buildings. This pub. The rubble beneath your feet. And this woman—" His grip on your neck tightened. "—she's Blinders property as well."

Bingham’s eyes scanned Tommy's face, but he found no trace of humor. There was no doubt in his mind about the power Tommy wielded, especially with the way he stood tall, unwavering. There was a threat in Tommy’s voice that left no room for negotiation, and he knew it.

“I suppose this is where I bid you farewell, y/n,” Bingham muttered, though his bravado was quickly fading. “In time, we will see each other again. I'll make sure of it.”

Tommy didn’t react to the veiled threat. He just raised an eyebrow, his gaze unwavering. “Come around here without an invitation again, and your body will be beneath this rubble. And then you'll be my property, too.”

Bingham chuckled at Tommy's threat, but, with a final glance at you, he stepped back into the shadows, disappearing as quickly as he appeared. The tension lingered in the air long after he was gone.

Tommy stood there for a moment, his eyes still locked on the spot where Bingham vanished, his jaw tense. He took a slow breath, finally turning to face you.

“Are you alright?” he asked, the concern in his voice softer than usual, though his gaze remains sharp. His hand remained on your neck though his grip eased until it was a gentle hold.

You nodded. “You shouldn't have gotten involved.”

Tommy’s eyes narrowed briefly, a hint of something unreadable in them. “I don't know what that fucking was, but I meant what I said.” He paused, looking at you with a touch of seriousness in his eyes. “The Blinders don't take kindly to strangers on our property. Touching our things. And that includes you.”

You placed your hand on his wrist and eased it down. "I'm not your fucking property, Tommy. Don't think I didn't catch that."

"You're a Blinder now, are you not?"

You could tell there was more he wanted to say, but he didn’t. Instead, he gave you a quick, assessing glance before heading for the door of the Garrison.

“Let’s get inside,” he said. “It’s too cold out here for games. Even yours.”

You followed him, the weight of Bingham's warning still hanging in the air, but now you were sure of one thing: Tommy Shelby wouldn’t let anyone take what’s his. Not without a fight. And part of knowing that meant accepting that—even though you would fight to the death to deny it—he believed you were his, too.

Tommy pulled a chair for you and set up behind the bar. He didn't speak. You watched quietly as he popped open a fresh bottle of whiskey. He pulled two glasses, but as he was about to pour yours, you held up your hand.

"Gin tonight."

The confusion quickly washed over his face. He pulled a bottle of gin from below the counter and filled your cup with a couple of inches. He placed the bottle down with a thud and toasted to the air. An odd silence that you'd never experienced with him before drifted over the bar.

He'd look at you occasionally as you sipped your drink, and you returned the glance. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence, but you knew something was brewing in his mind. Whatever he was thinking about, it was heavy. And though you didn't know the depth of it, you could tell he was carrying it alone.

"So, are you thinking about your big white wedding?" you asked quietly in an attempt to steer the conversation away from Bingham, letting the gin roll over your tongue. "A man who drinks in silence in a woman's company always has something like that on his mind."

Tommy didn't often look shocked, but when he did, it brought a smile to your face, knowing that you read him properly. This time, it wasn't the case.

"No," he whispered. "No white wedding. She wore purple."

For once, you hated that you were right. Though he said so little, the sadness beneath seeped into your skin. The news about his wife's death came to you via a drunk Blinder who sat beside you in a pub. Though, the information alone did not carry the weight of Tommy's loss, his melancholy tone said everything you needed to know. The aftermath of your business never returned the following day.

The gin rested against your lip long enough for the burn to turn into nothing. You couldn't leave the conversation this way, but you didn't know how far to push before he'd back down.

"What was her name?" you asked.

Tommy's eyes connected with yours. It was the only proper way to say her name, the only proper way to tell this story. And though the depth of this story had seemingly died with time, it never got any easier.

"Grace. Grace Shelby."

You lowered your gaze, the name of Tommy's ghost imprinting itself deep into your memory. "Do I need to ask if you loved her?"

"No, perhaps not."

You looked around the Garrison, motioning to the air with your glass. "And what did she think about all this? About you."

Tommy tilted his whiskey all the way back then swiftly poured himself another. "She loved me."

"That wasn't my question." You sat up straight and tapped the counter. "I asked what she thought about you."

Tommy stared at you as he processed what you were asking him. It wasn't a kind question. Or maybe, it was. You were being gentle with him, and that wasn't something he was used to. And if someone had tried, he probably didn't notice.

Grace had, until the end, hoped—expected—things would go right. And so he tried if only for her and her memory. He mourned. He wept—in private, but he still did nevertheless.

And now, here you were. Asking if he really knew what Grace wanted. He should have been insulted except your question didn't imply he was wrong. He knew what Grace thought about all of this. And damn if he didn't try.

"Can I ask you something else?"

"I don't think my permission would stop you regardless," he sighed.

"The way you were before her," you started, your voice low and soft, "are you that man again?"

Tommy's jaw tightened. Now, your questions were teetering on things he didn't know how to answer. He eyed you with caution as you raised your hand and rested it on the top button of his shirt.

"When a woman falls in love with a broken man—" You twisted your fingers, and the button came undone. "She finds you with your shirt open. Cold. Exposed. But you don't know any different because that's how it's always been. And then it happens—" Quietly, you refastened it. "—and suddenly you're warm and safe. She buttons you up and reminds you to take care of yourself."

You smiled softly, a kind contrast to his cold stare.

"And when that story comes to a close—" You tugged on his collar with a brief but strong pull, and the button came clean off. It clattered to the bar. You picked it up and held it in between your eyes and his. "—Either you're cold again or you're not."

Tommy took the button from your fingers and held it in his hand. Such a fragile token, he thought. If he played along with your line of thinking, he could throw it in the river and never be warm again. Or he could hold onto it and put himself together once more. He might never know which choice was the right one.

"Look, Tommy. I won't besmirch Grace's name by saying this, so I'll put it plainly." You reached your hand forward and rested it a few inches in front of his. "There are loves in our life that are meant to make us want more."

The faint image of a face formed in Tommy's mind. Grace's smile, the softness of her eyes. He saw it so clearly, greeting him again just as she had in his dreams for so long.

"There are those that make us want less."

Grace's smile turned blurry like a thick fog from the river drifted over, unkind and unwilling to let the light shine through

"There are those who wish us to be more than we are because they alone saw the potential, and those who wish us to be more than we're capable of."

Heavier and heavier, the fog took over her image.

"And then there is a love, only one love, that takes you as you are. As you were. As you ever will be. Because they take all of the shit, the broken pieces, the parts of us that are shattered beyond belief—and damn, they fucking love you anyway."

Until she was gone. Replaced by the sweet dew of vapors, overtaking the memories he held onto so dearly. Your words didn't force him to forget. Many tried and failed. No, you made him see it all differently, lifting the veil that love so crudely pulled over his eyes.

Tommy came out from behind the bar and stood before you, still turning the button between his fingers. His expression hadn't changed since you started speaking, a sign that he was processing all you had to say. If you were wrong, he might've stopped you. If you were right, then he wouldn't admit it.

What was it—that pull you felt? He felt it, too. The softness in Tommy's eyes tugged at you. The need, the desperation for comfort that he would never willingly seek—it was calling you, and you didn't understand why. Until now, he was your reflection, separated by the half-inch of glass in the mirror, but now the two images would coincide and pray they wouldn't shatter the other.

You expected him to flinch when you reached for his cheek, but instead, he accepted it. And you swore, just for a second, his eyes softened further as the warmth met his skin. He leaned into your palm with the briefest movement that could've easily been mistaken for a twitch. Before you could process what was happening, he mirrored you, his hand on your face, pulling you towards him until his temple rested against your cheek.

"You may call me a ghost, but ghosts only travel to those who call them." you whispered in his ear. "Maybe it's time you hang up, and just live."

The room felt like it was closing in around the two of you, the air crackling with the weight of unsaid words and the weight of every shared glance. Tommy was so close, so close you could feel his heartbeat pounding in sync with yours. The pull of him—this was what you expected, wanted even. You wanted the walls to come crashing down until he spilled out before you. The indestructible face of Tommy Shelby melted away for you at last.

Tommy pulled back and his eyes flickered to your lips for just a split second, the raw hunger in his gaze finally bubbling to the surface. He leaned in just enough that you could feel his breath ghosting over your lips, your noses brushing as he exhaled. You could taste the desperation, the cold loneliness on his breath.

That taste rolled over your tongue, and the second realization washed over you in an unfamiliar warmth. You hadn't just broken him down. You were reciprocating. The mirror of your hesitation, a fire ignited from two matches burning into char until plumes of smoke poured out into the sky. Both your pieces on the board were at a standstill, locked in a face off that could only end in the two of you being taken out of the game entirely.

His hand slid to the back of your neck, fingers threading through your hair, pulling you just a little closer—closer than you'd had ever been. His lips hovered above yours, his gaze never breaking from your eyes.

As the space between you disappeared, the door to the Garrison slammed open.

“Tommy?” Arthur’s voice cut through the thick tension like a dagger.

Tommy stiffened, his eyes still locked on yours, but there was a flash of annoyance, a flash of something—something dangerous and almost angry—that passed over his face. He didn’t want to break this. He didn’t want to stop, but reality was harsh. Arthur’s sudden entrance slammed you both back into it.

Your breath faltered, and in that split second, when everything had been on the verge of shattering, you felt something cold rush over you. A rush of self-preservation, an instinctive retreat. Without a word, you pulled back from Tommy’s grip, your heart racing in your chest.

The heat lingered, still hanging heavy in the air, but it suddenly felt distant. You didn’t know how to explain it, how to admit how close you had come to meeting him down in the place where you forced him to stay—and you hated yourself for it. You couldn't let him see even though you'd both emerged from the same pool.

“Arthur,” you said, your voice colder than you'd intended, a mask sliding back over your emotions. “You’ve got a damn good timing.”

Tommy, still standing where you left him, didn’t speak. His jaw clenched, a muscle twitching in his cheek. He didn’t want to show how much he wanted to follow you, how much he wanted to pull you back into the moment that had slipped through his fingers. But he kept it in check. He had to.

Arthur looked from Tommy to you, his eyes narrowing. He saw the shift in the air, the way you were both too quiet, too controlled, like something had just cracked wide open and was now trying to fix itself. He could feel it in the room—the heat, the power play, the way you had both come so close to something irreversible.

But no one knew who had the upper hand.

Arthur cleared his throat awkwardly, but there was something in his eyes—a protective concern—for both of you. You wouldn't give him the chance to ask. Not now.

“Goodnight,” you snapped, turning on your heel and heading toward the door.

He nodded once, a silent acknowledgment. Then, almost as an afterthought, you glanced back, your movements deliberate.

"For the next deal, I’ll stay hidden. That’s what you expect, right?" Your words were laced with the same sharpness as before, but this time, there was something else behind them. It was the understanding that however this would play out, whichever of you was the first to slip further than intended—that one mistake could break you both.

The moment was broken, and so was your composure.

[storyscribeforthesentiment]

the detective & the dark knight | chapter 12

Summary: Detective Marie Manning, investigating a series of brutal murders in Gotham, crosses paths with the mysterious Batman. As they work together, their mutual respect turns into a deep, passionate bond. Amidst danger and corruption, their unlikely partnership evolves into a profound love, forever changing their lives in Gotham’s dark corners.

Pairing: Batman/Bruce Wayne x f!main character

Word count: 7.5k

Warnings/tags: mentions of gun violence, blood

Chapter List

Marie stood at the stove in Wayne Manor’s vast, quiet kitchen, the stillness of early morning wrapping around her like a blanket. She stifled a yawn, absently stirring the eggs as the weariness from last night’s stakeout clung to her, making her eyelids feel heavy.

She should’ve been exhausted enough to sleep through the dawn, but something in her wouldn’t let her rest, not while Bruce was still out there.

Her mind wandered to the waterfront from the night before, to the adrenaline that had burned through her as she’d crouched in the shadows beside Batman. 

They’d scanned every corner of a local shipyard, waiting for any sign of Sal Maroni’s men, certain they were close to a breakthrough in the Red Lotus case.

But after hours of tense waiting, damp and hidden, they'd come up empty yet again. Maroni had slipped away, like he always did, leaving them grasping at air.

At around 1 a.m., Bruce finally told her to go home. The stakeout was done, and he insisted she should try to get some sleep. Even as she made her way back to the manor through Gotham’s empty streets, she knew Batman wasn’t finished yet. He’d be diving back into the city’s shadows, chasing down loose ends, as he always did.

She couldn’t say the stakeout was entirely awful—after all, she got to spend the evening with Bruce, even if it was in a rundown shipyard. Since that night on the yacht several weeks ago, they’d fallen into a rhythm—working cases and stealing whatever time together they could.

The smell of coffee joined the eggs, warm and grounding, and she poured herself a cup, wrapping her hands around the mug. Sleep wouldn’t come—not until she knew he was home, safe. And so, she found herself here at 5 a.m., in the soft light of the kitchen, cooking breakfast and waiting.

“Looks like I have a fellow early bird in my midst,” Alfred’s warm voice sounded behind her, bringing a smile to her lips. He moved into the kitchen with his usual grace.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she admitted, offering him a fresh mug of coffee, steam swirling between them. “Hard to settle in when he’s still out there.”

Alfred took the coffee with a small nod, his gaze kind. “Ah, yes. I remember those first sleepless nights, when he started going out.” He took a sip, his tone warm and reassuring. “He may not always come home in one piece, but he always comes home. I hope that’s some comfort.”

Marie’s smile softened as she nodded. “He’s lucky he’s always had you to come home to.”

“Oh, me?” Alfred scoffed, a glint of fondness in his eye. “I’m just some old, stuffy butler. Now you—he’s truly lucky to have.”

Marie felt a blush creeping up as she opened her mouth to respond, but a subtle beep sounded from a monitor across the kitchen, catching both of their attention.

“Oh, looks like he’s just pulled into the cave,” Alfred said, glancing at her with a raised eyebrow.

Marie’s face lit up, and she was already halfway to the door. “Thanks, Alfred! Don’t eat all the eggs without me,” she called over her shoulder, hurrying toward the Batcave.

Alfred chuckled, calling after her, “Of course, Miss Marie.”

As she slipped down the familiar path to the Batcave, the excitement in her chest grew as her mind raced with a dozen questions about the case.

Marie stepped into the cold, steel-lined elevator, feeling the hum as it lowered her into the depths of the Batcave. As the doors slid open, she took in the sprawling shadows and the soft glow from the computers. Her pulse quickened, and she stepped forward, her eyes searching for him among the dark, familiar shapes.

The Batmobile’s sleek black silhouette came into view, parked and hummed faintly as it powered down. Bruce stepped out, his face half-shadowed by the cowl, exhaustion tugging at his features. He looked up, surprised to see her. His mouth tilted into a smirk as he pulled off the cowl, letting it dangle at his side.

“Look who couldn’t stay away.” he teased, his voice laced with a husky weariness.

Marie crossed her arms as she leaned against the railing. “I thought I’d come down to get the scoop on what went down last night,” she replied casually, though her grin betrayed her excitement.

Bruce arched an eyebrow, his smirk widening. “Not at all concerned about my safety, I see.”

Marie laughed as she stepped forward with playful indifference. “Oh, right. That. I guess I’m glad you’re home safe.”

Then, her expression softened, her eyes meeting his with a quiet sincerity. “But really... this city is lucky to have you, Bruce.”

“Just doing my civic duty,” he murmured, his voice softening as she came closer. But as Marie stepped into the light, she could see the exhaustion etched into his face—the faint bruising under his eyes, the slump in his shoulders. He was trying to mask it, standing tall, but the night had clearly worn on him.

She reached for his hand, her fingers lacing through his, and his grip tightened. Without a word, he pulled her into him, his other hand resting at the small of her back, drawing her closer. She could feel the tension in his muscles, the weight of the night pressing on him, but he didn’t pull away.

Marie looked up at him, her thumb brushing the edge of his jaw, her gaze searching. “Are you okay?” Her voice was gentle, yet the concern was clear in her eyes.

Bruce hesitated, his brow furrowing just slightly as he pulled her in tighter, as if grounding himself with her touch. “You know I can handle it,” he murmured, his voice low and steady, but there was a softness there, a crack in the armor. “But it’s a hell of a lot easier when I know you’re here waiting for me.”

Before she could respond, his lips met hers—soft, almost reverent—as if the world could disappear for just a moment while they held onto each other.

When they finally pulled back, she brushed a stray lock of hair off his forehead, smiling as she saw him look a little less tired, a little more alive.

“Not too tired to spill some case details, are you?” she whispered playfully, her hand resting on his chest.

He chuckled, rolling his eyes. “You’re relentless, you know that?”

His hands lingered on her waist as he led her over to the massive desk at the center of the Batcave. Monitors filled every inch of the surface, each one displaying different feeds, crime reports, and city surveillance footage.

The soft hum of the machines blended with the low, rhythmic sound of Gotham’s heartbeat—chaotic, relentless, but strangely comforting.

Bruce sank into the worn leather chair, his posture still stiff. Without missing a beat, he reached out and pulled Marie into his lap, her back against his chest. As she settled there, she could feel the tension in his body—every muscle tight and coiled. But as she settled against him, her presence seemed to ease some of that weight.

His shoulders relaxed, his grip on her waist gentler than it had been moments before. Despite everything, there was a softness in the way he held her, the calm of her touch slowly unwinding the tension he’d been holding on to.

Bruce’s gaze swept over the screens in front of him, eyes narrowing as he analyzed the data. “Maroni’s getting reckless,” he muttered, his fingers moving swiftly across the keyboard to pull up reports from the latest crime scenes. “This morning, he had one of his guys take out an entire group—probably former mob members. They were murdered in cold blood. I didn’t get there in time.” His jaw tightened, and his voice dropped. “The bodies were... messy. He’s not even trying to cover it up. It’s like he’s completely gone off the rails.”

Marie gently rested her hand on the armor of his forearm, a shiver running down her spine at the thought. She’d seen the horrors in Gotham, but hearing the raw emotion in Bruce’s voice, the frustration and failure, made her chest ache.

“Seems like he’s trying to send a message,” Bruce continued, his tone hardening. “He’s trying to take control of everything, wipe out anyone who gets in his way. I don’t know if it’s power or paranoia anymore, but it’s getting worse. The city’s falling apart, and he’s at the center of it.”

Marie’s eyes met his, and for a moment, the weight of it all seemed to hang in the air, pressing them both into silence. Then, after a moment, she turned and cupped his face, her fingers brushing over the tense line of his jaw.

“We’ll stop him,” she said softly, but with certainty.

Bruce didn’t respond right away. Instead, he just leaned into her touch for a moment, as if taking some comfort in her belief.

“We need to get some rest,” he muttered, his voice strained. “Then we’ll figure out the next move.”

They got up and Bruce pulled at the buckles of his armor, each strap heavier than it should’ve been, his movements slow and deliberate. The night had taken its toll, and even shedding the suit felt like a chore.

As he peeled back the thick plates, Marie caught sight of fresh bruises blooming across his side, deep purples and reds spreading over his skin. She reached out instinctively, her fingers tracing lightly over the dark marks. He winced, breathing out a low hiss.

“Double-barrel shotgun,” he muttered, half in a growl. “Didn’t go through the armor, but the impact…” He shook his head, grimacing as her hands continued their gentle inspection. “Hurts like fuckin' hell.”

Marie’s touch softened even more, her fingertips brushing over the bruised skin with care. “You’re lucky it didn’t do worse,” she said, her voice a mix of worry and relief. She lingered there for a moment, her hand on his shoulder, grounding him as he exhaled and leaned into her, letting the weight of the night finally fall away.

Together, they headed up to the house, and the morning light filtering through the windows seemed almost foreign after the time spent in the Batcave. They moved through the house in silence, as if simply existing next to each other was enough for now.

Upstairs in the kitchen, Alfred had added pancakes and fresh fruit to Marie’s eggs, setting out a hearty spread. But after the long night, neither she nor Bruce had the energy for conversation. They sat together without speaking, heads down as they dug in, the food disappearing quickly. The quiet was comforting, each of them lost in their thoughts, the stillness of the early morning wrapping around them.

Later, after breakfast, they found themselves in the shower together. The warm water cascaded over them, steam rising as they rinsed off the remnants of the night’s work. Bruce’s hand rested gently on the small of her back, his fingers brushing her skin.

The silence between them was comfortable, but not empty—each touch, each brush of lips, spoke volumes. Marie leaned into him, her fingers tracing the lines of his chest as he slowly washed the soap from her hair.

He kissed her temple softly, a small, lingering peck, and she responded by placing a tender kiss on his jaw, her hands gliding over his back. The world outside the bathroom felt a little farther away as they stayed in the warmth of each other’s embrace.

When they finally emerged, the world still waiting for them, there was a fleeting sense of peace in the air, as if for a moment, they didn’t have to be Batman and Marie, but just two people, together. And that, for a few moments, felt like enough.

—-------------------------------

The squad room at the Gotham City Police Department buzzed with the low hum of voices and the occasional clatter of filing cabinets. It was early morning, and the air was already heavy with the mix of stale coffee and stress that seemed permanently etched into the precinct’s walls.

Detectives and patrol officers filed into the conference room, their conversations trailing off as Commissioner Gordon took his usual spot at the head of the room.

“Alright, listen up,” Gordon began, his voice cutting through the noise like the sharp edge of a blade. It was his usual speech, a rundown of Gotham’s current crime wave that reminded everyone just how thin the line between order and chaos really was. “This new string of robberies on the East Side isn’t anything we haven’t seen before. But that doesn’t mean we get complacent. Detective Bullock, Detective Flask—you’re both on it. Let’s keep this city safe, team.”

Marie stood near the back, sipping her coffee and quietly observing the room. The worn wooden chairs, the flickering overhead light, and the distant sound of a phone ringing somewhere in the building were as familiar to her as her own heartbeat.

She leaned against the wall, letting the voices of her colleagues blend into the background as her mind wandered. In a city like Gotham, trust was a rare commodity, and as she scanned the room, she couldn’t help but wonder how many of the faces she saw were secretly on Falcone or Maroni’s payroll. 

When the meeting adjourned, the room emptied in a shuffle of papers and tired footsteps. Marie lingered, gathering her thoughts as she let the usual precinct chaos wash over her. Phones rang, officers bantered, and the distant hum of the city outside seeped in through the cracks of the old building. She eventually made her way back to her desk, her mind already shifting to the grind ahead.

The morning passed in a blur of paperwork. Marie sat at her desk, the hum of the precinct around her fading as her mind wandered back to the morning.

She thought about the warm shower she’d shared with Bruce, the way they’d tangled together under the steamy water, not wanting to break the quiet comfort of it.

They’d stayed in bed longer than they should’ve, wrapped in each other’s arms, her head resting against his chest as the first light of dawn crept through the blinds.

When the alarm had blared at 7 a.m., she’d had half a mind to turn it off, curl back up with him, and forget about everything else. But she knew she had work to do, even if it was hard to leave the peace they’d found in those quiet moments.

Marie smiled to herself, a soft warmth spreading through her chest as she thought about how it felt to be back with Bruce. Despite the chaos of Gotham and their complicated lives, being with him made everything feel right, like all the pieces were falling into place.

With a sigh, she straightened in her chair and tried to refocus. The morning ahead was already full, and the crime in Gotham didn’t care about stolen moments or tired hearts.

By mid-morning, Marie found herself face-to-face with a supposed victim of a robbery—a wiry brunette with sunken cheeks and a jittery demeanor that screamed trouble.

The woman sat across from her desk, arms crossed tightly, one leg bouncing incessantly. Her eyes flitted around the precinct, never settling on one spot for too long.

“Yeah, it shook me up pretty fuckin’ badly,” the woman began, “The masked guy—he held a gun to me, wanted my purse. Little did he know there wasn’t more than twenty bucks and a coupon for a free slice at Lorenzo’s.”

Marie kept her tone professional, though she already felt the headache brewing behind her eyes. “Did you get a good look at him? Anything distinguishing?”

“No,” the woman snapped, her fingers tapping against her arm. “He had one of those dumb ski masks, okay? But then… then he showed up.”

Marie’s fingers paused on her keyboard as she looked up. “Who’s ‘he’?”

“You know,” the woman said, waving her hand like it was obvious. “Him.”

Marie arched an eyebrow. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

The woman rolled her eyes dramatically, her thin frame practically vibrating with irritation. “Oh, come on. Don’t make me say that goddamn silly nickname this city calls him. That bat freak. Batman.”

Marie nodded, suppressing the urge to smile.

“Yeah, he swooped in all high and mighty,” the woman continued, her tone sharp with sarcasm. “I figured he’d help, but, I don’t know, maybe he was busy or something. Took his damn time getting there. The fucker had already poured my purse out by by the time the bat flew in.”

Marie tilted her head, caught off guard by the complaint. “Pretty lucky he showed up at all,” she said evenly. “Otherwise, you might not be sitting here right now.”

The woman’s lips curled into a sneer, her eyes narrowing. “Lucky, huh? Real lucky that some guy in a leather costume decided to save me from losing a wallet with twenty bucks in it. If you ask me, the whole thing was sketchy.”

Marie let out a slow breath, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from saying something she’d regret. “ Any other details you want to add?”

The woman leaned back in her chair, her leg still bouncing. “Nope. That’s all I got, Detective. Can I go now?”

Marie nodded stiffly. “You’re free to go. Thanks for coming in.”

The woman rose with a jerky movement, shooting a last suspicious glance around the precinct before sauntering toward the exit.

Marie leaned back in her chair, exhaling slowly as she rubbed her temples. The interaction left her somewhere between amused and exasperated. Her fingers hovered over her keyboard before she gave up, pulling out her phone instead.

Scrolling to a familiar name, she tapped the call button. As the phone rang, she realized just how much she needed to hear his voice.

Bruce picked up almost immediately, his voice warm and soothing. “Hey, everything okay?”

Marie smiled despite herself, keeping her voice low. “Yeah, all good. Why do you always assume something’s wrong?” she teased lightly.

“You never call me when you’re working,” he replied, a faint chuckle coloring his tone. After a beat, he added playfully, “Well, you never call Bruce, that is…” The rich sound of his laugh traveled through the phone, easing the tension that had built in her shoulders.

She leaned forward on her desk, a faint smile tugging at her lips. “It’s not urgent. Just… I’ve been thinking about how ungrateful Gotham’s citizens are for Batman.”

“Oh?” He sounded amused. “Care to elaborate?”

Marie rolled her eyes, though there was a hint of affection in her tone. “I just spent twenty minutes listening to a woman complain about how you ‘took too long’ to save her from getting mugged. Apparently, you’re some weirdo in leather with too much time on his hands. Her words, not mine.”

There was a beat of silence before Bruce’s laugh filled the line—a rare, genuine sound that made her grin.

“Too much time on my hands?” he said, his voice rich with humor. “Maybe I should take up knitting. Think Gotham would appreciate that more?”

Marie snorted, leaning back in her chair. “Oh, I don’t know. They’d probably complain that your scarves aren’t long enough or that the yarn’s too scratchy.”

Bruce chuckled again, the sound low and warm. “It’s a thankless job,” he admitted after a pause, his tone softening. “But that’s not why I do it.”

Marie felt her chest tighten at his sincerity. “You’re a better person than most, Bruce.”

There was a brief pause before he replied, his voice warm with quiet affection. “Takes one to know one.”

Her heart softened at the words, her admiration for him deepening.

After a moment, his tone shifted, tinged with concern. “You sound tired. Did you get any sleep last night?”

She hesitated, her mind flickering back to the hours she’d spent waiting for him to come home. “Enough,” she said lightly, though she knew it wasn’t convincing.

“Marie,” he said, his voice dipping into that low, intimate tone that always undid her. “I told you, you don’t have to stay up for me.”

“Why should I get to sleep if you’re out there fighting crime?” she countered, her tone teasing but not quite masking the truth.

Bruce chuckled, the sound sincere. “Because my day job involves sleeping until noon as a billionaire playboy. Yours involves, you know, real work. Important work. The kind that requires sleep.”

When she didn’t immediately reply, he continued gently, guilt threading through his words. “You’ve got enough on your plate without losing sleep over me. I mean it.”

“I don’t mind,” she said softly, and she meant it. “I just like knowing you made it back in one piece.”

Bruce let out a quiet sigh, one that carried both affection and exasperation. “Hey, you know I always will.”

Her heart softened at his words. Leaning back in her chair, she exhaled, the weight of the day lifting just a little. “You don’t need to worry about me, Bruce. I’m tougher than I look.”

“I know,” he replied, his voice gentle. “But I’ll worry anyway.”

For a moment, the silence between them felt warm, grounding her in a way only he could.

“Tell you what,” he said finally, his tone lightening. “When you’re off duty, we’ll catch up on some much-needed rest. Together.”

Her cheeks flushed, and she couldn’t help the smile tugging at her lips. “I’ll hold you to that, Mr. Wayne.”

“Good,” he said, a touch of humor returning to his voice. “Now, get back to work before Gordon starts thinking I’m distracting his best detective.”

Marie ended the call, her heart lighter and her mind steadier. Whatever the day had in store, she felt ready to face it.

—-------------------------------

The afternoon stretched on, the quiet lull of the precinct giving way to the late hours of Marie’s shift. She glanced at the clock, her body already anticipating the end of the day. With most of the department winding down, she grabbed her coat and made her way to the breakroom.

The fluorescent lights hummed softly above her as she poured herself a cup of coffee, the rich aroma filling the empty space. She leaned against the counter for a moment, the weight of the day finally starting to hit her. All she could think about was the warm bed waiting for her and the familiar comfort of Bruce by her side.

Marie’s phone buzzed in her pocket, the unknown number flashing across the screen.

“Detective Manning,” she said, her tone firm, bracing for another generic lead or dead-end tip.

The silence on the other end stretched on, then a shaky breath, and in a voice barely more than a whisper: “I can’t keep fuckin’ doing this.”

Her chest tightened. She recognized that voice immediately, even though he hadn’t said his name. There was no mistaking the fear under the familiar tone—Tony Zucco.

Marie looked around the room to make sure no one could hear the conversation, confusion flickering across her face. “Why are you calling me?” she asked, struggling to hide the surprise and the faint trace of concern in her voice.

There was a long pause before he exhaled, his voice barely holding together. “I don’t have anyone else to call,” he murmured, raw and vulnerable, like he was on the verge of breaking.

“Look, just—listen,” he stammered, his voice trembling with fear. “I’m in deep shit here, okay? Maroni… he’s gone insane. He’s threatening families. Not just his enemies—anyone who crosses him or looks at him the wrong way. I’ve got people to protect. I don’t have a choice.”

The desperation in his voice was palpable, a stark contrast to the cocky, untouchable Zucco she’d met before.

Marie’s expression hardened. “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you signed up with a psychopath,” she said coldly.

“Damn it, don’t you think I know that?” His voice cracked, and she could hear the strain. “Look, I don’t give a damn what you think of me, alright? Just—Maroni’s setting up another drop tonight. East side docks. He’s moving product, but it’s different this time. He’s avoiding the usual route because he thinks Batman’s gonna be waiting for him there.”

Marie’s pulse quickened. Maroni knew about their stakeouts. That’s why he was avoiding his regular shipment routes.

Zucco’s voice lowered, fear thickening his words. “I’m telling you this because he’s not just coming for me. He’ll go after my family next. Please, you gotta understand, I’m—” His words trailed off.

Marie’s heart raced as she processed the information. “Thank you for the heads up,” she said, trying to keep her tone steady. When Zucco didn’t respond, she pressed, “Are you going to be safe?”

Zucco let out a harsh laugh, almost bitter. “Am I going to be safe? I’m a dead man walking, especially after talking to you. Maroni’s never going to stop. And if he finds me, I’m gonna fuckin’ wish I was dead.”

Marie softened her tone, hoping to reassure him. “I get it, Zucco. I really do. But you have to listen to me—GCPD can provide protection. We can get you into witness protection, change your name, anything you need. We’ll put units outside your house, keep an eye on your family—”

Zucco cut her off with a scoff, bitterness in his laugh. “Yeah? You really think your department is gonna protect me? Maroni’s got most of your cops in his pocket. They’re all paid off to look the other way. You don’t think I know that?” His voice was cracking now, the fear overwhelming his usual bravado.

“I’m not asking you to trust everyone at the GCPD,” Marie said, her voice steady and firm. “I’m asking you to trust me. I’ll make sure Maroni doesn’t get to you or your family. You have my word.” She thought about Bruce, and how she would tell him about this, and knew he would do everything in his power to keep Zucco’s family safe.

There was a long, heavy silence. For a moment, Marie thought he might hang up, but then his voice came through again, softer, almost regretful. “I want to believe you, Manning. I really do. You’re one of the few good cops left, but…” He hesitated, “I can’t. I’ll tell you this though—Maroni’s losing his grip. He’s taking down his own guys. The East Side docks will be your best shot. He’ll be there tonight, with more security. He’s scared. He knows that Batman’s after him.”

Marie’s heart skipped a beat. “I’ll be there,” she replied, her voice firm. “And Zucco… thank you.”

The line fell quiet for a moment, before Zucco’s voice cracked through again, quieter this time. “I hope you can pull this off, Manning. I really do.”

Then the line went dead.

—-------------------------------

Marie’s nerves were on edge as she made her way up the winding drive toward Wayne Manor. The weight of the phone call from Zucco felt like a lead weight in her chest, pressing harder with every step.

Her fingers were trembling as she dialed the code for the gates to open. Once they slid open, she drove the familiar path toward the garage, her thoughts scattered.

Her mind kept replaying Zucco’s voice—broken, afraid, and desperate. He didn’t sound like the same man who punched her in the face months ago, or the cocky, overconfident mobster she had once dealt with. Now, he was just another terrified man trying to save his family.

But there was so much risk. She wasn’t sure if she could trust him, or if Maroni was setting a trap. The possibility that it could all go horribly wrong gnawed at her.

When she pulled into the garage, the doors slid shut behind her. She took a shaky breath before stepping out of the car. She didn’t even take her coat off before she was walking into the house, her heart pounding in her chest. She needed to talk to Bruce.

Marie found Bruce in the study, hunched over his computer, his eyes scanning the screen as he likely sifted through case files or crime reports. He looked both serious and relaxed, the usual intensity in his gaze softened by the casualness of his attire—a plain t-shirt and well-worn jeans.

His hand ran through his hair absentmindedly, a telltale sign that he was deep in thought. When he heard the door click open, his head snapped up, and his face instantly brightened.

“Hey, you’re home,” he said with a warm smile, his voice full of quiet excitement as he stood up, eager to approach her. But as soon as he took in her expression, the smile faltered. His brow furrowed in concern, and his posture shifted, tense. “Marie, what’s wrong?”

Marie felt her heart race, her hands trembling as she made her way toward him. The words were stuck in her throat, and no matter how hard she tried to focus, everything around her felt distant. She couldn’t find the words.

“I know where Maroni’s going to be tonight,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. Her eyes locked on Bruce, and she could see how he was watching her carefully, noting her unease.

She felt the knot in her chest grow tighter. “Zucco called me. He said Maroni’s going to be at the East Side docks for a drug drop. He’s been avoiding his usual routes, trying to outsmart Batman, but tonight he’s making a move.”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed slightly as he processed the information. “That’s a good lead, Marie,” he said, his voice soft but firm, trying to keep things calm. “If we know where he is, we can take him down.”

But Marie shook her head, her hands clenched into fists by her sides. She could feel her nerves rising, her heart racing in her chest. “That’s the thing,” she said, her voice cracking a little. She had to take a deep breath to steady herself. “The last time we came this close to Maroni, Bruce...you almost died. I can’t—”

“Hey,” he interrupted, stepping closer, his hand gently resting on her shoulders, grounding her. His touch was warm, and she could feel the steadiness of him seep into her. “I’m not dead, baby. I’m right here. It’s okay.”

She met his gaze, but the racing thoughts in her mind only made her anxiety worse. “But what if Zucco’s lying? What if it’s another trap? What if we’re walking straight into it, just like last time?” Her voice cracked, trembling with fear as she spoke. Every worst-case scenario played out in her head, and the weight of it all felt suffocating.

Bruce’s expression softened, the ever-present intensity in his eyes taking on a gentler edge. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he said, voice low but resolute. “You know that, right?”

Marie closed her eyes briefly, her chest tightening further as she took in his words. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to feel the certainty that he seemed to have, but the doubt clung to her, stubborn and persistent.

Marie opened her eyes, her gaze meeting his with an intensity that matched his own. “I’m not worried about that,” she whispered, voice thick with emotion. “I’m worried about something happening to you.”

The words hit Bruce like a wave, and for a moment, he felt deeply emotional in a way he hadn’t anticipated. She cared, truly cared, about him.

“I don’t know what to do,” she admitted, a tear slipping from the corner of her eye despite herself. “I’m scared. What if I lead you into something even worse than last time? What if I fail again?” She bit her lip, trying to suppress the wave of emotion that was threatening to overwhelm her.

Bruce exhaled slowly, taking a step closer to her, his hands moving to her arms as he gently held her. “Hey, you’re not failing anyone,” he said, his voice calm and steady. “I know it’s terrifying. I know the stakes are high. But I trust you, Marie. I trust your instincts, and I trust that you wouldn’t put me in harm’s way if you didn’t think we could take him down.”

“I don’t want to see you get hurt again,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. She pressed her hands to her face for a moment, taking another shaky breath. “I just—what if I’m wrong?”

“You’re not wrong,” Bruce reassured her, his voice soft but unwavering. He tilted her chin up so their eyes met. “You’ve already done more than most people ever would. And you’ll keep doing what you do best—fighting for what’s right. If there’s a chance to stop Maroni, we take it. Together.”

Her breath caught, her chest tightening as she gazed up at him. She wanted so badly to believe him, to trust that everything would be okay. She was scared, terrified even, of what might happen next. But Bruce wasn’t backing down. His confidence in her was unwavering, and for the first time in what felt like forever, she let herself lean into it.

“Alright,” she said, her voice a little steadier now. “I’ll do it. I’ll go to the docks.”

Bruce’s hand touched her cheek, his thumb brushing gently over her skin. “I’ll be with you,” he promised. “You’re not doing this alone.”

Bruce wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a tight embrace. “Let’s take this fucker down.” he said quietly with a smirk. Marie chuckled and felt the nerves fade.

—-------------------------------

The East Side docks stretched out like a massive, industrial labyrinth, filled with towering shipping containers. The cold air smelled of salt and rust, and the distant groan of the bay mingled with the occasional clang of metal. Dim security lights cast eerie, flickering glows over the maze, giving the entire area an unsettling vibe.

Marie and Gordon moved carefully through the narrow alleys formed by stacked containers, their boots crunching on gravel and grit. The tension was palpable, each creak or echo sending Marie’s hand instinctively to the butt of her gun.

“This place is massive,” she whispered to Gordon, her voice barely carrying over the ambient noise.

Marie’s eyes darted from container to container, her senses on high alert. She knew they weren’t alone. Even though they couldn’t see him, she could feel it—the constant, oppressive awareness that Batman was trailing them from the shadows, ensuring their safety. She wasn’t sure how he did it, but it was impossible to ignore the quiet reassurance his presence brought. 

Gordon nodded, his hand hovering near his flashlight. “We’ll have to split up to cover more ground.”

Marie hesitated, glancing over her shoulder, as if to look for Batman in the shadows.

“Stay sharp,” Gordon added before moving off to investigate a rusted tugboat docked nearby.

Marie continued alone, scanning her surroundings. The containers loomed around her, the shadows between them deep and foreboding. She tightened her grip on her weapon, every sense heightened.

Suddenly, a faint rush of air stirred above her, followed by a soft thud.

“Anything yet?” Batman’s low, gravelly voice came from the shadows to her left.

Marie startled but didn’t jump, masking her surprise. She glanced at him as he emerged from the darkness, his towering frame blending seamlessly with the night.

“Nothing yet,” she replied, her voice steadier than she felt. “Gordon’s checking by the docked boats.”

Batman’s eyes narrowed, scanning the containers ahead. “Stay close to cover. Maroni’s security is everywhere.”

They moved together, their footsteps eerily silent on the gravel. The weight of the case hung between them, unspoken but heavy. In moments like these, Marie tried to focus on Batman as her partner, pushing aside thoughts of the man beneath the mask. She tried to keep her emotions in check, though it wasn’t easy.

The moment shattered when Batman suddenly stopped, his hand shooting out to halt her.

“What—” she began, but he cut her off, “Don’t look.” he said curtly.

His gaze was fixed ahead, just around the corner of a container. The grim set of his jaw made her stomach knot. Ignoring his warning, she stepped forward.

“Detective stop—” Batman began, putting his arm up to keep Marie away, though she peeked around him.

Zucco’s body lay crumpled against the metal wall, his face frozen in a rictus of terror. Blood pooled beneath him, the sharp metallic tang of it cutting through the salty air. His lifeless eyes stared out into the void, his chest adorned with the unmistakable mark of the red lotus tattoo.

Marie’s breath hitched. She felt an overwhelming wave of guilt crash over her, her legs trembling. She gripped the container wall for support, her mind reeling.

“Shit… that’s Zucco,” she whispered, her voice trembling.

She blinked hard, forcing herself to steady. “I should’ve protected him,” she said, her voice breaking. “I promised him I would…”

Batman turned to her, his expression serious beneath the cowl. “This isn’t on you,” he said, his tone firm but not unkind. “Zucco knew the risks that came with ratting on Maroni. You couldn’t have stopped this.”

Marie swallowed hard, trying to steady her breathing. She nodded, but the guilt remained like a weight on her chest.

Before she could respond, a voice echoed through the maze of containers.

“Well, look who’s here,” came Maroni’s mocking tone.

Both Marie and Batman turned, spotting the mob boss stepping into view, flanked by several heavily armed men. Maroni’s expensive suit was immaculate despite the grittiness of the docks, and his smug grin was enough to set Marie’s teeth on edge.

“Batman. Detective Manning. Quite the dynamic duo you’ve become,” he sneered, gesturing to his men. They fanned out, weapons raised but not yet firing. “You’re both loose ends I need to tie up.”

“Stay behind me,” Batman growled to Marie, his voice low and dangerous.

Maroni’s attention briefly flickered to Zucco’s lifeless body. “Poor Tony. Guess he couldn’t keep his mouth shut after all. Shame.” He sighed theatrically.

“What’s your game here, Maroni?” Marie demanded, her voice sharp despite her frayed nerves.

Maroni smirked. “Game? No game, Detective. This is strategy. I’m about to wipe the board clean. When I’m done, Falcone will be dead. His men will be dead. Hell, there won’t be much of anyone left in Gotham’s underworld. Just me.”

The tension in the air was thick, charged with the weight of everything that had led them here. Batman and Maroni stood a few feet apart, their words sharp as knives, each weighing the other's next move.

"You’re planning a war," Batman said, his voice cold and hard, like gravel scraping against stone.

Maroni’s lips curled into a smirk as he spread his arms wide, feigning innocence. "Why dirty my hands? I’ll let both sides kill each other off. Falcone’s been getting soft anyway. It's time for someone with vision to take control."

Before Batman could retort, the sound of a gunshot sliced through the air. Maroni pulled a sleek pistol from his coat, his movement swift, but not swift enough for Batman.

The air was thick with the sounds of grunts and fists colliding with flesh. Batman moved like a storm, his body a blur of precision and power as he tore through Maroni’s men.

One attacker rushed him with a wild swing, but Batman ducked low, fluidly spinning and driving a fist into the man’s ribs. The blow sent the man stumbling back, gasping for air. Another thug lunged, but Batman was already on him, his elbow crashing into the man’s face with a sickening crack.

The fight became a swirling mess of chaos—punches, kicks, and bones snapping under the weight of Batman’s relentless strikes. He moved like he was part of the shadows, effortlessly dodging attacks and dishing out punishing blows in return. His fists hit with the speed of a freight train, each strike landing with calculated force, taking down attacker after attacker.

Marie, just a few paces away, was in her element. Her gun never faltered as she picked off Maroni’s men one by one. The first man came at her with a wild swing, but she fired, the bullet sinking into his arm. He dropped like a stone. Another rushed her from the side, but she was faster—her second shot rang out, catching him in the shoulder, and he fell to the ground.

She fired with precision, each shot deliberate and controlled, aiming to incapacitate rather than kill. Her movements were fluid, her focus unwavering as one by one, the thugs dropped to the ground, clutching arms or legs where her bullets had struck.

She was in sync with Batman—two sides of the same coin, taking down anyone who tried to challenge them.

But then, the chaos hit a brief lull. The few remaining men, realizing the fight was slipping away from them, hesitated for a moment. They looked between each other, trying to regroup, but it was already too late.

Batman took the moment to unleash a flurry of kicks—each one landing with brutal efficiency. He landed one to a man’s jaw that sent him flying, another to the side of an attacker’s head, knocking him out cold.

Marie stood at the edge of the brawl, her breathing steady, her gun raised and ready. But the rest of Maroni’s men had either been incapacitated or were retreating, leaving only the mob boss himself standing amidst the fallen.

As the last of Maroni’s men crumpled to the ground, there was a brief, eerie silence. Batman, chest heaving, surveyed the scene. His eyes were cold, scanning for any more threats.

But as he stepped toward Maroni, ready for the next move, a voice rang out—low, dangerous, and mocking.

"Enough."

Maroni’s gun was now pointed directly at Marie. She froze, her eyes widening.

Batman’s fists were clenched, ready to fight, but his attention snapped to Marie, his body tensing as the cold barrel of Maroni’s gun aimed at her.

Maroni chuckled softly, enjoying the control he held over the situation. "You know, Batman," he said, his voice dripping with false sympathy, "it’s not about the bloodshed. It’s about compassion." He paused, pacing slightly, gun still pointed at Marie.

"The Red Lotus? It’s a symbol of compassion, of rebirth. I’m giving Gotham a second chance. I’m doing what the old guard couldn’t." He raised his hand as if to emphasize the weight of his words. "What I’m doing is necessary. I’m bringing order to the chaos. I’m saving this city from itself."

Batman didn’t move, his body tensed, every muscle coiled in restraint.

He knew any shift, any movement, could leave Marie exposed to Maroni’s gun. The weight of the situation hung in the air, but Batman remained still, calculating the risk with every breath. 

Maroni smirked, his voice dripping with mockery as he aimed the gun, making eye contact with Marie. “I’m sorry to do this, Detective. Really, I am. It’s been fun, you chasing me around like a little bloodhound. I’ve enjoyed it. But all good things must come to an end. Goodbye.”

Maroni’s smile twisted into something cruel. With a swift motion, he pulled the trigger, and shot Marie in cold blood.

[bluejay-flies]

Did anyone else watch the eclipse??

[fingertipsmp3]

Still not over the embarrassment I experienced when the delivery guy called me last night because he was lost and I just had no idea how to explain to him where I live

[wanderingandfound]

Well it happened. I finally put my phone down long enough for the depression to catch up.

[eggmeralda]

i'm lucky my obsession with remembering everything peaked from late 2013 - early 2016, bc the phone i had during that time hasn't been able to turn on for years and i'm still in denial about it

[noisilyscreechingsong]

Seeing ghosts in Gotham

He’s walking alone. Despite how dark it is, he’s not particularly nervous, not like the couple of people hovering in an alley.

His shift at Batburger went a little long, not that he’s complaining, he needed the money.

Everything is fine. Splendid. Fantastic. A little quiet, enough to pretend it’s a nice stroll home like it was back in Amity. Of course that all kind of goes up in flames when a dark figure drops into a crouch right in front of him. About two arm lengths away is a guy who straightens to a little taller than Danny himself. From the flickering street light across the street he can spot red, crisscross yellow, and a dark cape.

Red Robin.

Danny shakes his head and turns around.

“Nope.”

A smaller body is already standing behind him, blocking his path. The little guy with a serious face folds his arms across his chest as if challenging Danny to try to get by him.

He’s had enough tussles with Danielle to know better than to test the kid.

Danny rubs at his eyes with a hand, purposefully keeping the other limp at his side. He turns back around.

“Okay. Fine. What? What do you want?”

“You sent in a folder of information to solve the Boothe case,” Red Robin states confidently like there wasn’t any doubt it was Danny who sent it in.

He frowns. It was sent in anonymously. As in they shouldn’t be able to know it was him. Then again they are detectives in their own right even if they dress weird.

“See? This is why no one helps out the police if they’re gonna get grilled for it later on,” he complains sourly.

“That case is connected to another string of crimes we’ve been investigating. I need to know where you got your information.”

Danny glares at him for a second, actually thinking about telling him, then he remembers how quickly these guys throw people into Arkham.

“Do you not get what anonymous means?”

“What is your source?” He asks, completely ignoring Danny’s concerns.

“What are gonna do? Dangle me over the side of a building to get me to talk like you do with the criminals you guys pick up? Go ahead. See where that gets you,” he shrugs indifferently.

“You’re a runaway.”

Danny’s eyes widen in surprise before narrowing into a warning as he turns to look at the pipsqueak that spoke.

“From your poorly made fake ID and the fact you don’t look close to eighteen, you must be a runaway minor. We could bring you in to the proper authorities if you prove to be… uncooperative.”

Danny sneers in annoyance.

“Seriously?” He turns back to Red Robin. Clearly the older of the two and the one leading this investigation. “This is what I get for trying to help? Blackmail?”

“Robin can be a bit… abrasive. I, on the other hand, can appreciate a different approach.”

Suddenly there’s a couple pieces of paper money in between his fingers. Danny couldn’t see how much it was from this far away, but it didn’t really change how he felt about the whole situation.

“Now bribery? Wow, you guys really got the whole good cop, bad cop thing down, don’t cha?”

“Then what do you want?”

“For you to stop wasting your time,” Danny answers with a snap.

Red Robin pauses.

“Our time,” he repeats calmly.

“Yea. Your time. This is a dead end and you should move on.”

“And why are you a dead end?” Presses Robin.

“Because,” Danny emphasizes with a look over his shoulder, “the guy you’re really looking for, my source as you put it, is dead, okay? So you can’t go ask him questions. I sent in everything that was relevant. Find another lead.”

Red Robin’s expression remains blank as he mentally calculates his next move. Danny hopes he takes his advice and let him go home.

“His name?”

Danny folds his arms over his chest, a pathetic attempt to protect himself. He chews on his lip a minute. To tell him or not to tell him. It’s not really ratting the guy out since he’s, you know, dead. Although there is a large chance Danny’s missing something and it’s all going to lead back to him somehow.

“I didn’t kill him.”

“I never said you did,” the vigilante replies calmly, almost nonchalant.

Danny shifts his weight with nerves. He really wasn’t getting out of this without giving them something, huh?

“Greg,” he grinds out like it’s painful.

Silence for a few moments, then-

“As in Gregory Boothe?”

The victim of this whole conversation? Yes.

Danny’s silence is answer enough and the diverted gaze just solidified their suspicions.

“Gregory Boothe’s body turned up a month ago. Presumably he’d been dead for several weeks before that.”

Red lets that damning information hang in the air like Danny didn’t already know.

“So when did he talk to you? Last week?”

Danny jerks at the off handed joke, actually taking a step back and hitching his shoulders up to his ears. He grimaces at his knee jerk response, but can’t take it back. A glance toward the vigilante shows a calculating stunned expression from what he can see ignoring the mask. He looks away again finding a discarded soda can very interesting.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Demands Robin behind him.

Danny tried to resist the urge to curl even more into himself, but knows he failed without even having to look.

“You’re a medium,” Red Robin states. It’s not even a question.

Danny flinches and shoots the guy a scared glare.

“I am not one of those scam artists,” he hisses firmly.

“No,” Red agrees, “you’re not. You didn’t ask for money or attention.”

Danny stares like it’s his first time seeing him. The lack of aggression or accusations was new and a little disarming. He was genuinely confused as to why the guy wasn’t immediately going to denial or throwing him in Arkham.

“Hell of a city to hide in when you can see ghosts,” Red Robin says in a light tone like he was teasing him. The small tug to his lips just proves it.

Danny’s shoulders practically sag at the playful demeanor. A hand reaches up to rub the back of his neck self-consciously.

“Yea, well… no one was gonna look for me here.”

Which was only half the reason he chose Gotham, but it was still truthful.

“So… Greg?”

“Isn’t here right now.” Danny pauses and snorts at himself. “Please leave a message.”

The vigilante does have a sense of humor because he smirks in response to the joke.

“Is there another way to… make contact? Summoning maybe?”

Danny raises an eyebrow incredulously.

“Summoning is rude,” he says like it’s common sense.

Instead he turns to the nearest reliable ghost in the vicinity.

“Hey, Susan, can you go-“

The vigilantes can’t hear how she interrupts him because she was standing there the whole time and knows exactly what he was going to ask.

“Okay, thanks. Meet at mine.”

The ghost woman nods and flies off to go hunt down dear old Greg and Danny turns to Red Robin. He makes a casual move with his head to say ‘follow me’ and continues walking down the sidewalk past the guy and further into the old, decrepit buildings he’s been squatting in.

They already know he’s a runaway, being homeless shouldn’t come as a shock to them. Even with his two jobs, he can’t afford to rent an apartment. No wonder so many people are in poverty or in the slums.

He ducks into his rundown building, ignoring the rats scurrying away, and hops up the rickety stairs, avoiding the ones that were unstable. It was a nightmare figuring out which steps were faulty. Lots of injuries.

At the top he turns to see Red easily copying his movements up the stairs while Robin balances along the railing like a tight rope. When they reach the top at the same time Danny just stares at them for a moment before shaking his head in exasperation. Darn vigilantes. Why did Danny have to get caught up in this mess?

He turns, walking along the floor closest to the wall before getting to what he’s deemed his room.

It used to be an office from what he can tell. A desk pushed against the far wall and a ripped sofa he’s been using as a bed on the other wall. The floors were the most stable in this room which really won out.

Danny goes to the desk where all his papers are scattered over the surface. An organizational pattern only he understands as he shuffles through the pile he pulls from the cubby above the desk. It holds all the same information he sent into the police, just in its raw form with about twice the amount of useless information. Along with it is a few other ‘cases’ that sounds familiar that he just threw together into a pile. Maybe the genius detectives could decipher what he couldn’t.

“Here,” he says, holding out the stack. Red Robin doesn’t hesitate to take it off his hands.

There’s no chair for the desk anymore so he slides some papers out of the way to hop onto the desk to wait.

“No.”

The vigilantes look at him and he shakes his head and looks over to the side.

“No, Abby. I’m not wasting their time.”

Red Robin goes back to flipping through papers. Most of them were old business papers he had found in the office and just written on the back. Some were receipts or pamphlets or some other random scrap of paper he could get his hands on.

“Because yours was an accident. There’s nothing for them to solve.”

Robin watched him cautiously as if waiting for Danny to snap or suddenly turn violent. Instead he leans back on his hands in a vulnerable position which screamed ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone’.

“There is a lot more information here than what was submitted to the police,” Red Robin comments neutrally, purposefully ignoring Danny’s exasperated sigh and one-sided conversation.

Danny shrugs in defense, “Didn’t think all of it was relevant.”

The vigilante doesn’t respond.

Robin drifts closer as Danny gives a withering glare to the corner. He examines the mess of papers surrounding the teen in the low lighting.

“Are these all files of victims?”

Danny glances over them with a knowledgeable eye.

“Most.” He twists to point at the top left corner of the cubbies. “Those are accidents though… well, what sounds like accidents.”

“There should be more.”

Danny looks at the boy with a tilted head and raises brow.

“Not everyone sticks around,” he explains simply.

Then something draws his attention away across the room. Surprisingly his eyes don’t glaze over like someone with mental illness, instead they sharpen to see something they can’t. It resembled Constantine or Thomas.

“Greg, these guys wanna talk to you.”

What proceeds is a very awkward interaction with Danny as a middle man between victim and vigilante. Despite the need for a translator, Red Robin does in fact get a lead from the conversation.

“Thank you for your cooperation.”

Danny nods. “Sure, no problem. Just don’t rat me out to the police and I can help with any other case that pops up with a ghost attached.”

“You know we can help with your living situation,” Red Robin offers with a glance around the room.

“What, and put me in foster care? No thanks, I’ll pass.”

“There are other options,” Robin chimes in with nonchalance that implies he doesn’t actually care.

“You don’t pass for eighteen, but if you let me make you a new ID we could say you’re emancipated.”

Danny frowns.

“I’d have to be sixteen to be eligible for emancipation.”

“You could be sixteen.”

No, he really couldn’t. Maybe if you squint your eyes and tilt your head, but Danny is fourteen with all the baby fat and innocent face that comes with it. His license now is a clear fake to anyone who sees it, but in this city no one’s gonna question it to his face. They just raise a brow, look at him, then shrug it off and roll with the lie.

“What do you want?” He demands. All this good will and wanting to help him can’t be free.

“We want to help,” Red says too easily.

Danny stares for a second, eyes narrowed as he tries to block out the multiple voices around him.

Insurance. He wants Danny to owe him so he can keep coming back for more information.

“I just told you I would help. Why are you still trying to get leverage?” He demands with irritation.

“We want to help-“

“You want me in your back pocket.”

Red Robin doesn’t give that a response, his lips pressing together to make a hard line.

Instead of pushing, he surprisingly takes a step back and heads towards the door, papers still in hand. Danny doesn’t argue.

Robin ducks out first, blending into the shadows without even a glance over his shoulder. Red Robin pauses in the doorway.

“Don’t try to skip town,” he states like an order. Like if Danny did in fact try, he would be found and brought back.

It didn’t even cross Danny’s mind.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” he says tiredly, too fed up with the day to defend himself.

Red Robin watches him for a moment before nodding and disappearing out the room.

Danny slumps with a groan, finally sliding off the desk to shuffle to the couch, body flopping face first into the worn cushions.

It’s silent to everyone else but Danny.

“I know.”

…

“I know, Jack, but I don’t trust them. Even if he is your son.”

Danny never noticed the bug planted by Robin on the underside of the desk.

[monstersflashlight]

Monster in the dark

Demon x chubby fem!human || chasing, dub-con (almost cnc), breeding, cum play, tail play

There wasn’t anyone in the street. You knew you should have taken the longer path, it took you all around the neighborhood but at least it was always crowded with people shopping, talking, walking around... anything. There were always people there, but instead you choose the fucking short path, going through the less light part of the neighborhood. You hated the dark with passion, but you were in a hurry, your favorite show was about to start and you didn’t want to run into anyone and risk them stopping you.

But apparently you were out of luck. "Hey dude!" Someone called out. You didn’t turn around. You walked faster, trying to get to the end of the long street where at least the lightbulbs weren’t flickering. Your anxiety was spiking, your heartbeat so loud in your ears you were scared someone could sneak up on you. A shiver ran down your spine when a cold breeze blew past you. A bad feeling creeping out on you.

"Hey you! I need a little help!" You turned around trying to decipher if your possible attacker was close enough that you should run faster. You knew you shouldn’t have done that. It was scary movies 101 to never turn around when something was chasing you. But maybe they were hurt or something. Your big heart betrayed you. You turned around completely, but there wasn’t anybody in sight. Just empty space. Confused you kept walking, almost running, but not entirely.

“Hey darling! The one with the cute butt, I need some help!” They called. What? Your anxiety was through the roof. The lightbulbs started to flicker like crazy, some of them even exploding, engulfing the street in darkness. You screamed and started to run as fast as you could. Which wasn’t so fast.

You ran and ran, the street seeming longer than ever. You prayed to whoever was listening to let you make it. To let you run fast enough to get to your house. Then you heard something similar to a growl, a primal sound that made your blood run cold and your body fuel with a fear so profound that it made your insides twist.

"Caught you!" Someone said as you felt a hand closing down on your shoulder. "Why are you running?" You were scared to turn around, but the stranger made you twist your body either way. The sheer force in that one point of contact made your fly or fight response activated. "Don't worry, darling, I just wanna talk."

You turned around and saw nothing. Not a peep. But the hand on your shoulder was there. The voice was there. You could feel it. You could feel a presence there. What the actual fuck. Your heart was going to get out if it kept beating like that.

"Oh, shit, sorry! I forgot humans couldn't see me in this form." And right before your eyes a tall figure appeared. Just like that. There was nothing, and then there was a big as fuck man. So big you have to look up. And up. And up. Your neck hurt from looking at his face. "Better like this, right?" He asked, the black tendrils around his body shimmering as he smirked. His mouth was too big, too wide, he had so many teeth you couldn't even process it. And they were sharp, so fucking sharp. You shivered. "Oh, darling, don't be scared, I'm not gonna eat you." You thought he added maybe under his breath, but your heartbeat was deafening in your ears.

“Wh- what are you?” You got out, your body frozen in place.

“A poor demon who needs your help.” He told you, his face trying to mimic a grin, but contorting in a creepy way, making you shiver.

“With- With what?” You asked, your body sending all kinds of alert signals to your brain.

“With this…” He whispered as he pulled your body against his, his erection rubbing against your stomach. “I need a sweet human pussy to help me with this, and your luscious body looks delicious. Perfect to breed.” He answered, making your blood turn into ice. And your body started to respond, trying to fight his hold, unable to do it.

“No. Stop. Let me go!” You struggled against him, but his hold was too strong.

He turned you around, pressing his front against your back, black tendrils coming around you, caging you. They started to touch every part of you. The tendrils and his hands moving freely over your body, groping your tummy, your tits, your hips, your ass, rubbing your pussy… There wasn’t a centimeter of you that was left untouched by him. You tried to scream, but his hand covered your mouth. “Don’t do that, baby.” That pet name made something inside your brain react. Could it be?

You talked with your demon boyfriend about wanting to try some CNC a couple nights back. He didn’t react to what you said, just kept listening as you listed your personal kinks. But this couldn’t be him, could he? He was a demon, but you never saw him like this. You couldn’t know. Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe you had a magnet for weird monsters who wanted to fuck you. Fuck. You couldn’t know. What if he wasn’t? What if this stranger fucked you and you realized later it wasn’t your boyfriend. What if a weird monster took advantage of you in the middle of a dark street?

You knew you should have taken the long path.

The anticipation and the fear mixed inside of you, making your stomach drop and your fight response kick in. You bit the hand around your mouth as hard as you could. The monster moaned and rubbed his hard cock against your back. It was so big, too big. There was no way that would fit inside of you.

He used his tendrils to manhandle you into the air, lifting you so his cock rested between your ass cheeks. Your feet didn’t touch the ground, you were completely suspended, at his mercy. You regretted putting on a dress this morning, making his advances so easy now. You felt the cool air hit your rear as he lifted the back of the dress, exposing your almost naked ass.

“Aw! Look at that, you are wearing the prettiest thong. I bet your boyfriend loves it, too bad he’s not going to fuck your pussy tonight. I am.” His voice went so low in tone that it sounded distorted, making your insides tingle. To your shame, making your pussy tingle, too.

He moved the thong aside, pushing two fingers in right away, his claws pointy, dangerous. Your walls contracted against his fingers. “Someone is excited…” You blushed so hard you could feel the blood in your cheeks. “You like it, don’t you? Of course you do, you are a proud monsterfucker, aren’t you? I saw you with that demon boyfriend you have…” He whispered against your ear. You shivered, feeling humiliated as you moaned when his fingers hit your G-spot. “You are so wet and so hot… I’m going to enjoy your slutty pussy.” He teased, a tendril flickering your clit harshly, making you cry out in pain and pleasure.

He didn’t wait, he didn’t care about you or your comfort. He pushed his dick inside of you in a fluid motion. As far as it could go. You could feel he wasn’t fully inside, his dick too big for your human pussy. But he didn’t seem to care about it. He started to fuck you hard and deep, hitting all your sensible places at once as his hands groped your tits over your dress, not caring if you screamed. Shame filled you as your pussy got wetter and wetter around his assault. You tried to struggle, but your forces bleed out every time he hit your G-spot. Fuck.

“Are you going to be a good breeding bitch for me? Are you going to keep fighting as I fill your pretty little cunt with my cum until it overflows?” You moaned, embarrassment filling you as your pussy pulsated around him. “You like that, don’t you? You try to fight but you are enjoying this. You are enjoying to have a monster’s cock deep inside of you.”

“N-no.” You choked out, the moan you let out after made your words pointless. He laughed harder, the movement of his body making his dick go a bit deeper.

“Yes, you do. You love to be a little human cum-dump for me. I bet you’d love if I fucked you harder.” He speeded up, setting a punishing pace that made a chorus of ah ah ah leave your mouth. He didn’t try to cover your mouth anymore, clearly enjoying the sounds you were letting out. You felt like the bitch he called you, enjoying as someone took advantage of you in the middle of the street. Anybody could come and see you there, exposed, being fucked by a monster, acting like his personal fleshlight. His cumdumpster.

“Prepare yourself slutty human, I’m going to cum so deep you are going to taste my cum.” His words were nasty, so dirty you wanted to say something, anything. But instead it made you moan, turning you into a mess.

And then you felt his cum hitting deep inside, so much of it you felt your lower abdomen bloating. “Look at that, you are so full… Poor little human, let me help.” He laughed cruelly, pushing against the bulge there, as cum gushed out of you, trying to escape around the cock still buried inside of you. Some of it came out, making the filthiest sound you ever heard, accompanying his laughter. He pulled out at that moment, his hand still on your abdomen, making a splosh sound as what felt like a river of come dripped down and hit the pavement under you. “So messy…” He chastised.

He lowered his hand, collecting some of his cum gushing out. He played with it, spreading it around your pussy, pushing some inside again. You groaned and moaned, his tendrils holding you in place as he played with your pussy like it was his personal toy. He took some of the cum and rubbed your clit with it, the most delicious friction taking you to the edge. It was dirty, so dirty… And then he took his hand away. You whimpered loudly and he laughed at your pathetic slutty act, slapping your pussy hard and making your eyes roll inside your head. You came, right there, right then. You screamed at the top of your lungs, his laughter fading into the background as your brain blacked out for a couple seconds.

You came back slowly. He lowered you to the ground, his front to your back and tendrils still around you. “Told you it would be fun!” His voice was back to his normal tone, making you relax, finally recognized your stupid boyfriend’s voice. He never showed his full demon form, just giving you glimpses of it through the months you dated. It came in handy for him today, you guessed, anger rising inside of you.

“You didn’t say you were going to use your fully transformed form. You scared the crap out of me, you ass!” You yelled back at him, your eyes still teary and your voice raw after the screaming marathon you just had.

“Hey! Don’t lie to me, you like my ass. And I definitely love yours…” He smirked, his hand groping your ass. He kneaded your ass cheeks like he was making bread, chuckling when you tried to pull away. You knew you were going to have some pretty nasty bruises the next day. He would love that. To have you all marked.

“I hate you.” You whispered, trying hard not to moan as he pulled on your thong’s string, the fabric rubbing your asshole and abused pussy in the best possible way.

“Aww, baby, don’t be like that.” He said softly, placating. His lips trailing kisses along your neck. “But you looked so good running away from me, I couldn’t let the opportunity pass. Also, your booty moves so nicely when you run, and your tits were bouncing like you were an anime girl.” You didn’t need to look at his face to know he was smirking like a madman.

“You are nasty.” You told him, reaching back and grabbing his balls, hard. He just moaned. You knew he liked the pain.

“You love when I’m nasty.” He teased you. He was right, you couldn’t deny that. “Can I fuck your asshole next?” He mumbled, rubbing his still hard dick against your back. You looked over your shoulder at him, trying to decipher if he was kidding. He wasn’t.

“You give me the scare of my life!” You repeated, mad at him for being so heartless, but deep down loving how shameful he was.

He didn’t look guilty at all. “You came either way. You loved to be my prey, didn’t you baby?” He teased, tendrils coming around your body to hold you tight against his embrace. You mumbled about how mad you were, not really meaning it. “Does that mean I can’t bend you down and fuck your ass?” He asked again in a pouty voice. You hesitated, and he took that as an invitation to move your thong to the side again, teasing your asshole. He pushed his traveling tail up your hole, circling it. You tried to push him away, but he just laughed and moved it to collect some of the mixture of his seed and your juices. He used it as lube as he pushed the pointed tip inside you, making you moan. “There she is, my lovely slutty girlfriend.”

“Take me home first, at least.” You told him, already giving in to the pleasure you could feel building for him pushing his tail in an out, just the tip, but it was enough to make your pussy tingle all over again. His cum was still coming out of you. He always came in what felt like buckets.

“But I don’t wanna wait!” He complained, fucking you faster and holding your hips flush against his body. You pushed back, making his tail go deeper, his laughter almost cruel.

“Don’t be a brat. Take me home.” You choked out, already feeling the signs of an orgasm building. You didn’t want to be caught, and you already pushed your luck too far tonight.

“Can I fuck all your holes if I take you home?” He tried to negotiate.

“Ugh, fine.” You tried to fake the annoyance, but you knew he saw right past your facade. Who were you trying to lie? You loved when he was so shameless, you loved when he used all of your holes as you were nothing more than a human fleshlight for him. And specially, you loved when he used his prehensile tail to fuck your ass as he pushed his dick inside your pussy. Fuck. You were so close.

He lifted you up and carried you home, his tail still fucking your hole sloppily all they way there, bouncing you over him and staring at your tits.

You came two more times before you reached your bed.