#Juliette Lativian

[thegothicchangeling]

Goodnight to my DCU OC that I originally made in 8th grade but revamped a few times Juliette Lativian who got sent to live with Bruce after her parents died but she hated him and eventually he just let her go live with Jason she was autistic half Russian half French was 14 bisexual and had BPD.

[1-2-4sudoku]

Snapped Restraints: Chapter Three: Crumbling

 On Sunday, we visited Dick and his wife Barbara in their house in Bludhaven. 

I sat between Tim and Damian in the car, which I thought was brave of me. Cass was behind us while Alfred drove the car and Bruce rode shotgun. 

I didn’t like to leave Nadia alone (probably because my dad tried to kill once or twice), so I’d brought her with me. I allowed Damian to hold her while Tim napped on my shoulder.

Damian’s whole face lit up as Nadia began to climb up his shirt. I’d lived with him for three weeks now, and it was the first time I’d heard him laugh. It was a beautiful sound.

“Damian!” Bruce snapped, making his youngest son jump. “Give it back to Juliette!”

“She. Not it,” I corrected him bitterly, then called her back to me. 

“You shouldn’t have brought that thing along in the first place,” grumbled Bruce.

“I told her she could,” Alfred interceded on my behalf. “Nadia is sanitary, intelligent, and more polite than you, Master Bruce,”

Buuurrrrrrnnnnn. “Thank you, Alfred.”

Dick and Barbara, it turned out, lived in one of those thingies where all the houses are connected at the sides but it’s not an apartment. The door was answered by both inhabitants.

I was shocked when Damian voluntarily hugged Dick. “I missed you, Grayson.”

“I missed you, too, buddy,” he replied earnestly. He hugged each one of us tightly. I decided that he gave the best hugs.

Barbara was just as nice as her husband. Everyone bent down to hug her in her wheelchair, except Cassandra, who just knelt and hugged her head on her knees and a huge smile. They must have been incredibly close. I knew Cass visited here a lot, since Bruce didn’t bother to send her to school. 

When Barbara greeted me, she said: “You must be Juliette. Dick showed me how fast you can fold origami. You have talent.”

I blushed and thanked her. She had red hair and kind, intelligent green eyes behind round glasses. Her eyes smiled at me.

The family spread themselves throughout the living room and kitchen. Damian followed Dick everywhere, with Tim not far behind at times. I sat on the floor by the coffee table and showed Cass and Barbara how to make origami fairies.

After only around fifteen minutes, the doorbell rang for a second time. “That must be Jason!” Dick said happily.

I looked up grinning from ear to ear. “You mean as in Jason Todd? Redhood the mob boss?”

“You did not,” Bruce growled. Fucking Gargoyle Face again.

“This is a family day, Bruce,” Barbara reminded him, sounding irritated.

“And Master Jason is family,” Alfred added.

The doorbell rang again in a way that suggested someone was leaning on it heavily.

“He’s getting impatient,” Dick said. “I better let him in.”

I followed him to the front door. Opening it, he revealed the burliest man I’d ever seen who wasn’t Bane. He was tall, had black hair, and wore a leather jacket.

“The fuck is this?” were his first words as he gestured to me.

“Language,” Alfred chided him from the couch.

“The newest addition to Bruce’s ever increasing child collection,” Dick told him.

“I’m Juliette Lativian,” I informed Jason. I stuck out my hand and we shook. His hand almost mine almost completely.

“You have a rat in your pocket,” he noticed.

“You have guns in your holsters,” I replied cheekily.

“Jason!” Dick hissed.

Jason just laughed. “I like this kid Julie.”

I wagged my finger at him, but I was smiling. “I don’t answer to Julie, Jules, or Wayne.”

“I have a new favorite,” Jason announced.

I had a new favorite, too. He didn’t make fun of me for Nadia, which shot his credibility way up. Adding to that was the fact that he clearly did not like Bruce.

We stayed at the Grayson residence for two hours, and I spent the whole time with Jason. We talked about everything from gun laws to mob bossery to books to origami. With me, most things ended up being about origami.

Before we left, I gave him a fox that I folded. “Consider this a reminder to visit me.”

“I won’t need it,” he said. “But I’ll keep it because I like it.”

When damian, Cassandra, Tim, Alfred, Bruce and I got home:

“Don’t talk to Jason. Don’t interact with Jason. You’re not allowed to be friends with Jason. You’re not allowed to welcome him into this house, either.”

The next day, Tim came down for breakfast wearing his MAKE WAY FOR THE GENIUS shirt.

“Change,” Bruce said. He barely even looked up.

“Jason got that for you right?” I asked.

“Yes,” Tim said on his way to the coffee machine. His hair stuck up like Einstein’s.

“SO CHANGE.” Bruce demanded. “NOW!”

Tim flinched, muttered: “Yes, Bruce”, and left to do that. With one kid left to pick on, Bruce turned to me. “You’ve got the filthy rat on your shoulder.”

“Nadia isn’t filthy, Father.” That was Damian, saying the words in my head before I could spit them out.

Bruce rounded on him. “If it isn’t filthy, why not let it share your bed? Why not let it walk through your food?”

He made a grab for my beloved rat, but drew his hand back quickly when he heard approaching footsteps.

“Master Damian, have you fed Titus yet?” Alfred asked.

“Actually Alfred, I think I did today,” Bruce said.

Damian stood up very fast with very wide eyes. “I’ll check,” he replied with a pale face.Then he strode out of the room at godspeed.

Didn’t Damian have a cat once? I wondered.

Before we left for school, I gave Nadia to Cassandra to watch.

“Guard her with your life,” I whispered urgently. I didn’t want to know what Bruce would do to her on a bad day.

Cassandra nodded, but that wasn’t good enough for me.

“Promise me that you’ll guard her with your life,” I insisted. “You have to say it out loud. I know you can. Just say it to put me at ease.”

“I promise.” she amended.

“Thank you.” Reassured, I could now leave for school.

I was in seventh grade, Damian was in fifth grade, and middle school had recess together. I guess neither of us had bothered to make friends, so we found ourselves sitting quietly together on the swings. I broke the silence.

“I know it hurts.”

Damian replied defensively, with a bitter note to his voice. “If you’re going to tell me to stand up for myself, don’t, because I hate hypocrites. I know he hits you to.”

“Then I guess we’re both just a little too used to people treating us like shit.” After I said it, it surprised me how blatently true it was.

“Well, you know who hurt me first,” Damian remarked. “Who was it for you?”

“My parents,” I admitted. “Both were drug addicts.”

A girl with pink highlights in her hair appeared near us. “Were your parents high when they decided to have a kid?”

“Leave her alone,” Damian exacted.

“Fuck off!”

I got up. “Why don’t you go crawl back into that nasty little  hole you came from?”

Then a kid standing next to the pink haired girl who might have been her boyfriend barked: “Don’t tell her what to do!!’, and he pushed me back hard.

I fell on the swing I was standing in front of, only I slid back on it further. Then gravity took effect and pulled me forward with a lurch. My shirt rode up and the hot plastic swing burned my exposed back. 

I’m told that Damian attacked those two and beat them up pretty badly. I didn’t see it though, because I curled up in fetal position and hid my face. It was an instinct to protect myself that I couldn’t shake needing.

I’d been with Bruce for a month now and somehow it was schoolyard bullying that coaxed me into a panic attack so bad that it was more like a nervous breakdown. I suppose it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I wouldn’t let anyone touch me, and I hit them if they tried. Even Damian. I cried and screamed at the top of my lungs for everyone to stay away from me.

I’m told that everyone else involved was taken to the office. One of the guidance counslers managed to calm me down slightly and take me to her office, where I hid under a table and fell asleep. 

All I really remember is sheer sheer terror, anguish, and frustration as I tried to coax flashbacks to the back of my mind. I thought it was going to swallow me whole if I didn’t get it out of my head. I guess that just exhausted me so much that I conked out.

Sleep was blissful. Bruce was not. He didn’t talk the whole ride home. I sat in the backseat with Damian, who clutched my hand. I think he was trying to comfort me, though.

At home Bruce took me and Damian to the kitchen. Alfred wasn’t home. He must be buying groceries or something. I don’t think Cass is home, either. At least she has Nadia with her, I thought. And Bruce was seething with fury.

“DO YOU REALIZE HOW YOU MADE ME LOOK?!?!?” he bellowed. The counsler must have figured out that most kids don’t suffer debilitating breakdowns when someone else pushes them. Fuck.

“Not good,” I squeaked.

Bruce’s veins bulged and his face twisted itself into the likeness of a gargoyle. He pointed a finger. “THANKS TO YOU TWO SHITS, I GOT TO SPEND 30 MINUTES TALKING TO THE PRINCIPAL ABOUT YOUR HOME LIFE AND FAMILY PROBLEMS!!!!!!”

Damian’s lower lip trembled. He was trying to be strong, but he was still a ten year old. “I-I’m sorry, Father,” he stuttered.

“SORRY ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH!” Gargoyle Face thundered, and he punched Damian in the stomach twice. The second blow was severe enough to make his poor son puke all over the linoleum floor.

He yelled at him for that, too. “LOOK WHAT YOU DID, YOU LITTLE FUCKER!!!”

I was tired of being terrorized, and I was tired of seeing others hurt. I tried to lunge at Bruce, but I slipped in the puddle of vomit fell, and bit my lip hard. Gargoyle Face grabbed me by my hair and started pulling me up. Shrieking with pain, I scrambled to my feet so that I wouldn’t be scalped.

I fell into line just like that. Pain was the price I always paid when I tried to stand up to bullies.

Gargoyle Face forced me to look at him, forced me to look into the eyes of a demon. “Come with me.”

He half dragged me to my room, and all I could think was: At least he’s forgotten about my baby brother.

That sorry excuse for a father was trembling with fury as he pointed his finger at me. “This is what you get for making me look bad!”

Then he tore the place apart. He tossed everything off my bed, overturned my furniture, ripped apart my closet, and gathered my paper creations. He threw them in the dormant fireplace and lit them ablaze.

Seeing that was like having my soul burned. I couldn’t care less about my clothes or furniture, but it devastated me to see my world destroyed. The colorful origami transformed any hostile environment into a realm of beauty. 

Burning my origami was like burning my house to ashes. It takes ages to create a home, but the most incredible of them can be destroyed in less than five minutes.

This was never going to be different, the flames taunted me. It was the ultimate betrayal. Tears ran down my face, but I didn’t make a sound. I knew better than that,

Then I peered out the window and saw Alfred’s car pulling up. The kind old butler’s arrival gave me courage, and my anger was quickly burning through my fear and replacing it. “Stop it.”

Bruce whirled and stalked toward me, then leaned in dangerously close. I could feel his breath on me. “What was that?”

“Stop it. You can’t just treat your kids like this and claim to be a hero.”

“I could kill you with one blow, Jules. What makes you think you can talk to me like that?”

“Three words. Alfred is home.”

He looked out the window and turned pasty white.

“Don’t push me over the edge. If you do, I swear on that’s holy I will destroy you. And. My. Name. Is. Jul-i-ette.” I barely breathed those words, but I made sure that Gargoyle Face heard me.

He put on his human face quickly and left me to clean up his mess with the little resolve I had left.

As I remade my bed, I barely contained my anger. As I put away my clothes, I promised myself that the warning I gave Bruce was the last one he was getting.

[1-2-4sudoku]

Snapped Restraints: Chapter Two:How We Do

Bruce was a demon in a business suit, or in this case, sweat pants and a tank top. I hated him more than anybody I had ever known. After one failed attempt at training me, he got down to business.

Let me tell you something about living with drug addicts. They’re crazy unpredictable, so trying to fight them often doesn’t work. Or maybe that was just me. Maybe I was just too scared. Either way, I had a different method of protecting myself.

All I knew to do was get down. Back facing up, stomach to the floor to protect vital organs, arms over your head, and you wait out the storm.

Now I had to fight.

Bruce kept screaming things like:

“Keep your head up!” and,

“Stop hesitating!” and,

“That’s the worst possible way to block an attack!” and,

“Did you not hear me, or are you just suicidal?”.

After that training session, I caught Damian watching me throw up in a toilet.

“Are you ill?” he asked me. His tone was somehow both condescending and concerned. I knew he had been raised by the League of Assassins, which was basically a military cult. I knew he must have been abused and mistreated by them, and others would have told that what they did was wrong.

I thought maybe I reminded him of himself with the League. The League was bad, but Father was good, and Father was the reason for my pain, so it would be wrong of him to feel sorry for me. The kid would be confused. Conflicted.

“How long have you been standing there?” I asked him as I wiped my mouth on some toilet paper.

“Not very long,” Damian shrugged. “And besides, you left the door open.”

“I did do that,” I admitted. “I was in a hurry to make it. I didn’t want to piss off your dad by dirtying his precious floor.”

“I suppose that would vex him,” said Damian. Then he turned and left.

Damian was strange. An oddity. He tried to act older than he was by puffing out his chest and talking like a college professor, but the nature of a child shone through when he tried to get approval from his dad.

I don’t think he realized how obvious it was that he was eager to please. I could see it though. I knew it was why he spent virtually all of his time training. I knew it was why he took out War and Peace whenever he and Bruce were in the same room together.

I felt bad for him. I understood that all he wanted was to make his father proud of him.

My parents beat me all the time. They destroyed my property all the time, just because they were coming down from a high and wanted to take it out on me.

I remember this one time when I was crazy little, maybe two years old, my mom threw a lamp at me. It didn’t hit me, but it did scare the fuck out of me. I ran into the next room and cried for daddy.

He wasn’t home. There was no one to comfort me except for mama, so I ran back to her.

I used to run away pretty frequently. I did it when my parents got especially violent, or when I couldn’t stand them another second, or when the house filled up with strange friends.

I sometimes didn’t take a thing with me, because I had to get out that fast. I slept in homeless shelters when I was lucky, bus stops when I wasn’t. I stayed away for a few days and lived on what I pick pocketed.

The longest I’d ever stayed away was for a week and a half, when I was eleven and my dad’s friend groped me. I came back, though. Just like always.

I wanted to believe that I had people who loved me, but they never cared enough to even report me missing, which was why I always brought myself home. Running away was just a game I played with myself where I pretended to be stronger than I was.

Upon my return, my parents beat the shit out of me. A few days later, my mom felt bad and gave me seventy dollars. She told me: “Get your ass out of bed and spend it before I change my mind.”

So I did. I used the money to adopt Nadia and buy the stuff I needed for her.

That evening, after the torture session, I let Cassandra hold her. I’d noticed her watching me pet her and I thought she might want to interact with me. Her eyes were very wide and she held Nadia like she was made of china. 

She was raised by assassins, Tim had told me. She refused to kill, but was afraid of doing by accident. Of course, she was still incredible in the field. Badass Cass, Tim called her.

I thought she was afraid of becoming what she was meant to be. I could see it when her eyes widened in fear of hurting Nadia. I knew she wouldn’t, though. 

When she watched the grey rat nibble her shoe lace, she smiled in the most pure joy I had ever witnessed. Her demeanor told me Cassandra would never hurt a fly who had done no harm. 

I decided I liked her, and I liked having her for a sister. I also liked Tim. 

About a week after I was introduced to Dick for the first time, Bruce took another shot at training me. I kind of freaked out in the middle of that.

I don’t know what triggered it, but I just instinctively dropped to the ground. I got down and curled up the way you do during an intruder drill at school.

Bruce reacted by kicking me in the ribs. Hard. I whimpered from the pain, but I didn’t move. He kicked me until I did. “GET UP! GET UP!”

I shakily got up. I was crying silently.

“Look at me.”

I looked at him. I saw the a demon. Gargoyle Face.

“You think you can get out of this by playing dead?!” 

“N-no,” I whimpered as I shook my head.

Then Bruce slapped me in the face and my head snapped back so far I thought he would break my neck. “Get out!”

I didn’t need to be told twice. I ran like Hell and collided with Tim in the second floor hallway. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” If only I could get the air in my lungs I would have kept apologizing to him.

“Juliette! Calm down, you need to breathe.” He immeaditely began guiding me to his room. “Just think about breathing in and out and nothing else.”

“Tim! I’m hyperventilating!” I was a snotty, crying wreck.

“I know, Juliette.Deep breaths.” And he talked me through my attack with breathing exercises and soothing voice.

When I could breathe normally, he gave me a sheet of paper to make an origami and an ice pack from his mini fridge. He held it on my swollen cheek for me so that I wouldn’t have to stop folding. He knew how it kept me calm.

“Thank you,” I said quietly. I was sort of embarrassed.

“No problem, Tim replied. After a moment of silence, he added. “I get panic attacks, too.”

“What do you do when you have them?”

He blushed and ran his fingers through his jet black hair. “I call Dick. He’s pretty good at dealing with me, he’ll answer his phone and talk me through it even if it’s two a.m.”

He said ‘dealing with me’, like he was a burden to his brother, something aggravating to which Dick would say: “Uhhhh, not this again. It’s my dumb little brother having a panic attack, so I guess that means I have to go make him chill out. What a downer!’

I stood up and handed him the origami I’d crafted; a clever red fox. “Thanks again for helping me. If you have an attack and need help, I’ll help you, too.”

[1-2-4sudoku]

Snapped Restraints: Chapter Four: The Last Straw

AU: This is a long chapter, folks. If you’ve been waiting for the ‘snapped’ part of Snapped Restraints, this is where your wish comes true.

“What happened to your room?” Alfred asked me suspiciously.

“Um, I had an emotional breakdown.”

“I’m well aware of that, but I was told it happened at school,” he replied with one eyebrow raised.

I shifted my weight from one leg to the other and twined my brown hair around my finger anxiously I wasn’t stupid. I knew that Alfred knew that I was lying.

“You’re sure, Miss Juliette. that it was you who destroyed every one of your precious origami, which you spent hours on, which I’ve heard you refer to as your ‘pride and joy’?”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and said:“Yes, Alfred. I just lost my temper, is all.”

I felt bad for lying to someone who had been good to me. He had saved me from training sessions, defended me, made me my after school snacks, and so much more. I knew he wanted to help me, and I lied to him.

He couldn’t prove I was lying, though he knew I was. There weren’t any cameras set up in my room, no honest eye witness report. If he tried to dig deeper with no solid evidence, he could fail and Bruce would be angry and it would be worse for me.

On Friday, Dick picked up Damian to spend the weekend with him in Bludhaven. When Dick brought him back, he talked to Bruce. That freaked me out. I thought that Damian told our brother about Bruce hitting us. I felt it was my fault for encouraging him to stand up for himself.

I came into his room without knocking, and discovered that Tim and Cassandra were already there. Damian saw me come in and immeaditely blurted out: “I didn’t tell Grayson what you think I did. I only said anything at all because he asked me why I was sad!”

“Fill me in,” I demanded.

“I only told him about what happened at school and Father being angry with us, not that he hit us, and now Grayson is angry with Father.” Damian looked scared and pale and very small. He was on his bed with his arms around Titus, who he was holding onto like a lifeline.

“Okay. Okay.” I began pacing rapidly with my fingers woven tightly in my hair as I desperately wondered: What now? What the fuck do we do now?

Cass was sitting next to Damian, looking just as lost as he did. Tim sat in a desk chair with his elbows on his knees and his hands supporting his gaunt face.

After a few long moments, Damian inquired in an appropriately childlike voice: “Are you angry with me?”

Tim responded the fastest and the most harshly. “Um, YES!”

“Zip it!” I told him. “I need to think.”

“That’s funny,” Tim stood up. seeing his face, I noticed that he seemed to have worry lines despite his age. He started towards Damian. He wasn’t replying to me. He had concentrated his anger on Damian. “Because you know what I’m thinking? I think-”

“Quiet!” Cass snapped.

“Thank you!” I said empathetically. “Don’t try to redirect your anger at anyone else, Tim. It’s Bruce who hurt us, Bruce we should be angry with.”

“Hero. Helped me.” Cassandra interjected quickly.

“He hurt you, too, Cass,” Tim replied. “After all you’ve been through, of course you’d like the world to be black and white and Bruce a hero. But it isn’t and he’s not.”

“Tim is right,” I agreed. 

Tim inhaled deeply. “When he found out that you were suicidal, Bruce should have tried to find you therapy. Instead, he locked you in a sinking ship to make you want to live.”

“Got out. Lived.” Insisted Cassandra fervently.

“What if you didn’t?” Tim demanded of her. “What if you had wanted to die so badly that you lay on the floor and let yourself drown?”

“You were suicidal?” Damian asked. “Why?”

Cass nodded. After a period of silence she admitted: “Killed before. Hated myself.”

Cass’s feelings were a welcome distraction from my own panic and turmoil. I instantaneously jumped on the new topic.

“You stayed with Barbara for a long time, right?” I asked. “Did she try to help you with those feelings?”

She nodded.

“Tell me about that.”

This time Cass waited a long time to talk and said a lot when she did. “Barbara was kind to me. Tried to teach me words. Helped me... socialize. 

“She told me everyday that I was good. Said I wasn’t my father. Wanted to know my feelings. If I said I was bad, Barbara told me all the good I did.” 

After that speech, Cassandra brought her knees up to her chin and and wrapped her arms around them. She closed her almond eyes, clearly exhausted from saying so much, and put her head down. She told me without words that she was done speaking.

“Cass,” Tim concluded gently. “Barbara loves you like a daughter. Bruce appreciates you as a weapon.”

“Amen,” I verified with passion. “Bruce doesn’t love us. The sooner we come to terms with that, the better.”

Damian muttered something from his bed.

“What’d you say?” Tim inquired tiredly.

A short pause. A child’s voice muffled by his sadness. “I’m difficult to love.”

“You only think that because Bruce never tried to love you!” I cried. “I know! Tim filled me in on everything about this family when I got here. Bruce didn’t try to know you, didn’t try to be patient with you, didn’t try to help you, didn’t try to bond with you. If that shitbag can’t love you, he’s got no one to blame but himself.”

Damian started crying. The tears streaking his face and his runny nose were good reminders as to how young the little soldier was. 

Without a word, Cassandra and I wrapped our arms around him. After a few moments, Tim did the same with an accepting mutter of, “Oh, what the Hell.”

Silently, we all agreed that we were going to stick together through whatever happened.

As for what all Dick said to Bruce, I’m not sure what exactly it was, but I know it made him angry and I know it affected Alfred’s view of him.

After that day, he was never not home when Bruce was. And sometimes, when the Batman looked at me, I could see it in his eyes that he was full of burning hatred of me. I knew he wanted to hit me. The feeling was mutual.

Three weeks later, Alfred decided that is was safe to leave all us kids alone with Bruce while he went to the library. Big mistake.

That fateful Tuesday afternoon,  I  was working on a puzzle at my desk. As I did, Nadia chased a small rubber band ball across the floor.

Foolishly, stupidly, absolutely moronically, I had left my bedroom door wide open. I felt Bruce come in before I turned and saw him, because kids like me have a sixth sense for danger.

I stood up and we looked at each other silently before that bastard spoke. He watched Nadia studiously. She was stock still with quivering whiskers; a deer in the headlights. “I know you love that rat.”

A lot of things happened in the ten to fifteen seconds following his words. They didn’t blur together to me; instead they were all very clear in my mind.

I knew exactly what he was thinking. I thought: Hell no, you motherfucker.

Adrenaline flooded my system immeadietly. I started moving, and moving fast.

“It would be a sha-” Gargoyle Face began, but I interrupted him, yelling: “OVER MY DEAD BODY!!!”

As I uttered those words, I pinned my beloved friend to my chest with my arms and arched my back over her with my legs bent beneath me.

Gargoyle came at me screaming bloody murder at the top of his lungs, but I didn’t try to run.

He kicked me hard in the side. He grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled me so my back was to the floor. I must’ve learned something after all from all the training, because I manged to kick him fairly hard in the balls.

After that was when everything started to blur together. I think he threw me across the room to try to shock me into loosening my hold. I think he tried to stomp on my hands to break them. I think it’s a miracle that he couldn’t, a miracle that I somehow kept Nadia safe.

I know that I was crying hard and swearing and Nadia was screaming and shitting herself and the demonic excuse for a hero was yelling and beating me and I knew better than to try to fight him and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw Cassandra and then suddenly it stopped.

She knocked out Bruce with a nerve paralyzing move on, I found out later. She finally stopped standing by and helped me.

Tim and Damian came in moments later.

Tim was the first to speak. “Oh, Jesus Christ!”

Cass said: “Bruce hurt Juliette. I hurt Bruce.” She said this in a very quiet and flat voice, like she was in shock. Later I decided that she probably was.

“Damian, try to take Nadia from her, and you take care of her,” Tim ordered. He spoke in a calm, professional manner. “Cass, you help me move Bruce to his bed.”

After a long time, Damian somehow managed to pry Nadia from my grasp and hold her for me so that I could take a hot bath.

Most of one wall in my bathroom was covered in mirror. When I stood up and looked at my body, the bruising was so bad that the freckles that covered every inch of my skin were no longer visible in some places.

Damian began cleaning my room while Tim looked for pain medication and cold packs. 

“I’d give you morphine if I could, but that means an IV, which there’s no way Alfred wouldn’t notice,” he said miserably. Then Tim helped Damian clean up.

My brothers and sister put me to bed and arranged ice packs around me. They planned to help me fake being sick so that I could stay in bed and recover.

I lay there staring daggers at the ceiling, nowhere near sleep. My wounds pulsed to the beat of my heart, as rage simmered and boiled inside of it.

One thought played on repeat in my head. That’s it. You don’t fuck with me or the people I love, because there’e Hell to pay if you do. Oh, that bastard’s gonna pay.

[1-2-4sudoku]

CHAPTER 3 OF SNAPPED RESTRAINTS IS UP

[1-2-4sudoku]

Snapped Restraints: Chapter Seven: Call It Karma

“I want to die thanks to him,” I told the camera through my tears. “I am going to die; I’m going to commit suicide today. I just want everyone to know why. I want you to know who made me miserable enough to take my own life.”

In that video, I listed every time Gargoyle Face abused me. I showed off a myriad of bruises. I cried and cried and cried and I put it on the internet for the world to see.

I made that video at ten o clock a.m. on a Saturday. Like everything, the timing was planned meticulously.

Alfred had gone to run errands. He would be out for about two hours, and  Gargoyle Face would be back from brunch with an associate about an hour sooner.

I had faith that this would go viral in less than that. I checked google maps. The police would be there exactly when I needed them.

Tim, Damian, and Cassandra were all in on it. Convincing Cass was easier than I thought it would be.

My alleged suicide was by hanging. Damian was the only one who didn’t understand the Heathers references. Stephanie must’ve shown Cassandra.

At first Tim thought I might not be able to hang myself in my bedroom for lack of exposed support beams, but we found a way pretty quickly.

It turned out that my bathroom’s adjustable curtain rod could extend pretty far, and the shape of my room was just enough in certain places to accommodate my death wish.

The steel was strong enough to support my weight, and Damian helped me tie the knots. I wore a striped jacket to hide most of the ropes.

On top of that, I used make up to give myself a deathly pallor. I’d spent weeks in front of the mirror, training myself to keep perfectly still and my face clear of expressions until the time was right.

Brucie Wayne was a dead man.

When Gargoyle Face came to my room, I was hung from the shower rod with my eyes shut.

Rapid, pounding footsteps right before the door slammed open. Eight seconds of absolute silence, and then I could hear him walk toward me tentatively. 

He said in a shaky voice: “Oh, good God. She’s dead.”

Before he could think to check my pulse, I snapped my head up. My eyes were open in a split second and I let a Cheshire cat smile spread slowly across my face.

“I did warn you that I would make you pay.”

“KIIIIDS!!!” Bruce bellowed.

Cassandra, Tim, and Damian stampeded into my room and found no obvious source of aggravation.

“What is it, Father?” Damian asked innocently.

“What’s the matter, Bruce?” Tim inquired boredly. Their acting was on point. I was glad that I’d practiced with them.

“JULIETTE! COMMITED! SUICIDE!”

“No,” I told him calmly. “You did.”

“What are you talking about?” Tim inquired earnestly. His face was a mask of concern for the bastard. “She’s not here, Bruce,” Cassandra told him

“SHE”S HANGING FROM THE CEILING IN FRONT OF US!!!!!!!”

“You’re losing it, Bruce.”

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Gargoyle Face,” I went on. “I swore that I would destroy you, but you didn’t listen to me. You mistook me for the stupid, weak willed little girl who couldn't protect myself.

“But the thing is, Gargoyle Face, is that this little girl ended her life just to drag you down so far that you could never hope to get up again,”

His tiny, conceited little brain couldn’t handle the psychological torment that I had caused him. It short-circuited, so he did what he always did when that happened. He hit me.

I didn’t weep or yell in pain. I smiled at him.

“Father, you’re fighting with no one!” Damian cried. He and Tim and Cass  played the role of terrified children; begging him to stop, saying he was scaring them, and eventually huddling close to each other in the corner.

The problem was that Tim called the police on Bruce being an abusive parent ten minutes before he was. They would be here in five, maybe ten, depending on which station was able to respond.

I’d probably wind up with some broken, or more likely shattered bones, but that was alright. Better than alright, honestly.

They arrived. I shook with laughter.

I heard and saw everything from a distance, as if the events were the table upon which a television playing my favorite movie sat. I overheard phrases like:

“Put your hands up, PUT YOUR HANDS UP!”

“Jesus Christ, she's coughing up blood!”

“She’s laughing up blood.”

“What did I do?” That was Damian, who clearly knew exactly what he’d done. He was in a ball on the floor, sobbing and saying that he wanted Richard. Cass held him while she wept quietly. Tim was the only other one who wasn't crying, who was smiling even a little.

Later, when I remembered that, I felt sorry for him. Damian didn't understand that this was what had to be done. He didn’t understand that that soldiers had to be decapitated to free slaves, that the right thing to do was sometimes ugly, that all we did was deliver justice.

I heard the medics in the ambulance speak quickly, tensely, to each other.

“What’s her blood pressure?”

“She’s in a state of hysteria; she’s going to pass out.”

“Pray for us sinners, now and at th......”

I laughed until I felt a needle in my arm and I blacked out and then I laughed when I woke up because Jesus, the look on his face when he realized he signed his death warrant!!!!

I had no pity. I had no regret. What I had was immense pride that I had exacted my revenge as I did.

[1-2-4sudoku]

Snapped Restraints: Chapter Six: Three Months

Over the course of a few months, Tim and I were great.

A little while after we made our deal, Brucie made us all go to a fancy restaurant with him to play happy family. It was on a Friday evening, and for desert Bruce ordered a huge thing of peanut butter brownies for the table. 

“Bruce,” I said, “I’m not eating this.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

The veins  in his forehead were bulging. Gargoyle Face’s face was the color of a nasty little scab and he was almost shouting when he said “Yes, you are.”, while I kept my cool.

That’s also a manipulation tactic. If you provoke your enemy into yelling at you while you stay completely calm, it makes them look really terrible really fast.

And Gargoyle Face  knew what I was doing; I knew that he did. He just didn’t know why.

Finally, he forced himself to be calm and gritted his teeth and growled: “Well, why not?”

“Because of my peanut allergy,” I  replied. I wasn’t allergic, of course. I lied.

“You don’t have a peanut allergy,” Gargoyle Face snapped.

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

Again, he was nearly screaming at me while I didn’t raise my voice.

I shrugged. “Fine.”

“I need to use the bathroom,” Tim said. “I’ll be right back.” 

I could see the bathrooms across the restaurant from where we were sitting, and there was a huge fountain near them.

As Tim got up, I handed him some loose change and said: “Put some coins in the fountain for me.”

When our hands touched, he gave me two charcoal pills.

“Are there fish in the fountain?” asked Damian. “Because they often mistake coins for food and-”

“Damian, shut up,” Bruce demanded, and Damian shrunk in on himself. “Tim, just go already.”

I put the pills in my mouth with the brownie. “I feel sick already.”

“No, you don’t!”

For the next ten minutes, I complained that I was having an allergic reaction. Then I vomited on Bruce’s suit.

Oh my Lord, you should have seen his face. Yo should have seen everyone in the restaurant’s faces when they saw Bruce’s face!

He beat the shit out of me for that little stunt. And for a million other little stunts I pulled with Tim’s help.

Once, he dislocated my arm. Don’t worry, Tim popped it back for me,

I didn’t want to drag Damian and Cassandra into my plot yet, because they had all suffered enough as they turned their backs on the horrible things that they had been taught. This would seem unethical to them and they might feel like if they did this, they might become monsters.

I saw nothing wrong with it. I saw this as justice for what Bruce put us through, but I understood Damian and Cassandra’s trauma.

Tim and I had agreed to ease them into it by just letting them figure it out, like Tim had. Seeing Bruce’s reactions to us wouldn’t make them want to help with things for a while, but it would probably make them more willing to play along when I needed them to the most. I think even Alfred turned a blind eye, eventually.

For months, I did a lot of crazy stuff and then gaslighted Gargoyle Face about it. Rooms like the Batcave and ballrooms for galas had security cameras in them, so Tim would hack in and edit footage. He was incredible. Seeing the footage kept Bruce from saying anything.

He would think he’d gone mad. Maybe he would go mad. Maybe I’d gone mad. It would make sense if I’d finally lost it, but I’d be kind of glad that I did since I was finally standing up for myself.

Three months after Bruce tried to kill Nadia, I made a little video and released it on the internet.

[1-2-4sudoku]

Snapped Restraints: Chapter Five: Begin

Well, i just barely got it in on time. Sorry for the late update and semi crappy content.

Tim played sick with me so that I wouldn’t have to be alone. We used hot water bottles and charcoal pills to fake it.

I don’t know where he got the charcoal pills, but I’m glad he did. They were much better than sticking a hand down your throat to make yourself retch.

Tim was well enough to stumble through the house and bring me whatever paper he could get his hands on. I was bedridden, but I spread the bounty across my blankets and folded it into paper cranes.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7....

Before one day was over, the origami overflowed my lap and spilled off of my bed. They decorated my floor like coins at the bottom of a wishing fountain.

501, 502, 503, 504, 505.....The paper wasn’t hard to manipulate in my nimble fingers. I’d never had to manipulate a person before, but I looked forward to the challenge.

669, 670, 671, 672, 673, 674....

Jason visited Wayne Manor the second day after the incident. He sat by my bed and watched me stare at the wall while my hands folded cranes rythmatically and my lips formed silent numbers. 

I wondered what he would think of what I was planning. If he knew what Bruce had done, he would simply kill him, no questions asked. That was why he couldn’t know.

While he relied on violence, I had my intellect. I could and would psychologically torture Bruce to the brink of madness. I would destroy him. He would live out the rest of his days in prison and even then he would know that he was utterly at my mercy.

“You look like you’re in a fucking trance, Juliette,” he remarked. “Are you having some kind of vision or something?”

“I’m just thinking,” I told him calmly. I was being honest. 971, 972,973...

“That’s vague as shit. Hey, do you have anything good to read around here?”

979, 980, 981, 982.... “Are you offering me a bedtime story, Jason?”

“Dunno. What do you have?”

“Before I Fall is good. I have it over there, on the desk.” I pointed. 988, 989, 990, 991, 992, 993, 994, 995, 996, 997, 998, 999, 1,000!

 I finished my counting, and Jason read to me until he left. He promised to read the rest when he came back, and said he genuinely liked the plot.

I began on Thursday, during recess at school.

I smiled as I dialed Bruce’s number. He picked up on the sixth time I called.

“Juliette,” he growled.

“What’s the matter, Bruce?” I asked innocently.

A pause. “Why did you call me?”

“I didn’t call you. You called me.”

“I did not call you, you little shit!” he snapped angrily.

“I didn’t call you,” I sang mockingly. “Why would I call you when I know that you're very busy?”

“That-I-y-” I tried not to laugh listening as he sputtered with rage.

“I didn't call you, Bruce.”

“You, you.. JULIETTE.” He was furious with me, and I couldn’t blame him. You can’t debate with someone who just says the same thing over and over, and that was immensely frustrating.

“I didn’t call you,” I told him firmly. “Since you seem to have forgotten why you called me, I’ll let you go, now. Buh bye.”

That was gaslighting. Some might say there was a bit of regression there, too, but I’ll let you decide for yourself. Honestly, I was proud of myself. I was turning out to be a much better actress than I thought I was.

On it’s own, what I did was an immature prank. But with everything I had planned, it was the start of Bruce’s inevitable fall from grace.

He would beat me later. Good. I needed him angry for this to work.

Brucie Wayne was unstable enough that I could and would provoke him into hitting me. When he beat me and I fell to the ground pathetically, he’d think he controlled me. Really, it was the other way around, because he hit me because I made him.

Tim had figured out what I was doing by Friday, which I knew he would. I wasn’t worried, though. Tim was smart and he also hated Bruce.

“I think I know what you’re doing,” he told me.

“Okay. What am I doing?” I stood in front of my bathroom mirror and brushed my hair.

“You’re manipulating Bruce into abusing so you can gather a magnitude of evidence and destroy his reputation.”

“You’re so close, Tim,” I replied with a smile. “There’s more.”

“What’s the ‘more’ part?”

I told him what the ‘more’ part was calmly and proudly as I applied concealer to the bruises on my face. I had a black eye from ‘training’. 

Tim sighed. “Juliette, while that’s brilliant, it’s also dangerous, even if it is for the sake of giving Bruce what he deserves.”

Tim once told me a story about the first time Bruce hit him. He went straight to Bludhaven to visit Dick the next day. He told me that he had planned to tell him, but somehow he just couldn't bring himself to.

Tim said that Dick, being Dick, realized right away that something was bothering him and asked him about it. He told Dick that he was just tired, and Dick let him take a nap in his bed.

Then Tim went home and Bruce beat him for the mere possibility that Tim might have thought for a moment about telling his big brother. That took care of that real fast, so I would have to take care of that.

“People have been beating on me since the day I was born. I’m done with that.”

“If you fail he can make everything so much worse!”

“It will get worse either way. If I try and fail, he’ll hurt me. If I do nothing, he’ll hurt me for some other reason. I’m willing to take the risk.”

Still, he looked uncertain.

“Tim. Look at me.” 

Tim looked at me.

“You and I are young geniuses. When someone hurts us, we make them pay.”

Tim closed his eyes. He rubbed his temples for a long minute, then he opened his eyes and smiled with a wicked joy.

I mirrored his expression and we shook hands. “Welcome to the dark side.”

“Do you have cookies?”

“We have vengeance.”

[1-2-4sudoku]

Snapped Restraints: Chapter One:Gargoyle Face

Author’s Note:

This story takes place in an AU in which Bruce is a shitheaded bastard. The story revolves around Juliette, an OC of mine who is not in any way going to let that go.

“Please...I really don’t want to.”

“Did you want Joker to kill your parents?”

My name is Juliette Lativian. I am thirteen years old. Batman saved my life and Bruce Wayne adopted me.

“No.”

I don’t like either of them.

“Do you want him to hurt more people?” He was mad. I looked at his face, and it was like a gargoyle with pulsing veins that looked as if they might burst.

“No,” I whispered. I made myself small, ducking my head down and wrapping my arms tightly around my frame. 

He wanted to train me and make me a vigilante like he had the rest of his children. I wasn’t made for war. Not everyone is. Bruce seemed to think, though, that those people are the worst in existence.

He seemed to think we don’t care. That’s not it. We simply know that if it was us out there, it would go wrong quickly, because it’s not what we were made for. We know our talents. We know how to help in those areas.

I’d like to tell him all this, but I know that would seal my doom because I know what a face looks like when its owner would like to hurt you.

“THEN YOU SHOULD WANT IT TO STOP!” he thunders.

“I do, but-”

“But what?” he sneers at me cruelly. “Are you saying you can’t? Do you think you’re injured or crippled or dying?”

Nothing I could say would help my case, because he’d already decided that  I’m a terrible person. I couldn’t keep this up forever. I knew I could only push Bruce so far, but I would’ve liked to believe that I’m a strong person.

Alfred saved me that time. He opened the door and said: “Why don’t you come upstairs now? Master Dick is coming over soon and you, Master Bruce, need to shower.”

That was all I needed to hear. I dashed up the stairs, out of the Batcave, as fast as I could and made a beeline for my bedroom. Then I locked the door and went to my stack of origami paper.

I don’t remember how I learned the art, but I’d been doing it for as long as I could remember.

My parents were drug addicts. That wasn’t much fun for any of us. My house wasn’t a home in the least, so every time a storm was brewing, I locked myself in my room and used origami to create a friendlier world for myself.

I used anything I could get my hands on- newspapers, lined paper meant for essays, pages from books I was done reading. When I ran out of that, I bought real origami paper with stolen money. 

Bruce reminded me of my parents coming down from a high, so I sat on my carpet and did what I do best.

Don’t think. Just fold.

Someone knocked on my door. “Hey,” they said. “I’m Dick Grayson! I came to meet my new sister!”

Oh. Oh yes, Alfred said he was coming.

I unlocked the door and opened it for him. “Hi. I’m Juliette Lativian.”

He had black hair, just like Tim, Cassandra, Damian, and Bruce. Brown eyes. Tan skin. Tall and smiling.

“It’s nice to meet you. Ooh, I see you have a pet rat.”

He’s talking about Nadia, the gray rat that scampered to my feet just a few moments prior. Usually when people notice her, they say something like: “Oh, what a stupid, disgusting creature! How dare it exist! How dare you show it affection and love!”

That was more or less Bruce’s reaction to Nadia, which annoyed me because it was both rude and inaccurate. Rats are highly intelligent and sanitary creatures. This one even used a litter box.

Dick didn’t look like he was judging me, though. He looked sincere.

“Can I pet him?” He asked me.

“No,” I replied. Then I added; “Her name is Nadia.”

I picked her up from where she sat on my foot and put her in my pocket. I wore hoodies that were too big for me on purpose, because their pockets were the perfect size for Nadia. With them, I could keep my best friend always by my side so that nothing happened to her. Dick watched me do this, and he looked like he understood.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure,” I actually sort of liked this guy. He didn’t insult my pet, and he respected my boundaries.

Dick walked in and sat down on the carpet carefully, not disturbing any of  my paper creations. “Origami. What’s your favorite to make?”

After a moment, I sat down with him. “Cranes. Because of Sadoko.”

“That’s a beautiful story,” he said with a smile. 

I didn’t think he would know that story.

“Can you make an owl?”

“You insult me! Of course I can.”

I grabbed a sheet of turqouise origami paper. I was about to start, but Dick said; “Wait! I want to film this. I heard you could make those in thirty seconds flat and I want proof to show people.”

I beamed with pride, then I made him the owl he asked for and put it in his hand. “There.”

“That’s incredible!” Dick praised me. His smile was contagious, and it found it’s way to my face. I decided that I liked him.