#Just let Alfred have all the comfort his heart desires god dammit

[sunnylolli]

Not ship.

[...]“This is weird.” “It’s weird if you make it weird. I wouldn’t agree to it if I thought it was too outlandish.” “I’m 400 years old, Arthur.” Arthur eyes him as he puts his pillow down next to his own. He’s looking queasy. “And you think that’s old?”[...]

[...] “Listen to what I’m telling you. I have lived for two millenia - There are bigger things for me to worry about than you, needing a cuddle, at 400 years old.”

[black-streak]

Waiting for the Worms - Empty Spaces

Part 2

Please heed warnings of part 1. Added warning of suicidal tendencies. If Anything about suicide makes you triggered, don't continue reading this particular story. Please be mindful of yourself. This WILL get worse.

Tag list of known masochists (I'm playing, you guys are amazing):

@northernbluetongue @thethirdwheelfriend @shizukiryuu @theatreandcomicfreak @michellemagic @karategirl119 @moonlightstar64 @my-name-is-michell @mystery-5-5 @zalladane @queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm @wuvpancakes @dorkus-minimus @jardimazul @allthebooksandcrannies @g-arya @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @persephonescat @mycupisbroken @luciferge @18-fandoms-unite-08 @dawnwave16 @alwaysreblogneverpost @kris-pines04 @mysteriouslyswimmingfan-blo-blog @weird-pale-blonde-person @you-will-never-know-how-i-think @kokotaru @naclychilli @slytherinhquinn @clumsy-owl-4178 @ladybug-182 @darkthunder1589 @evil-elf16 @lysslovsanime

~---~

Coming to in Marinette's body was jarring to say the least. Moments earlier, pain was all he could register and now he was leaning back on a bench in the back of a classroom. 

Leaning forward and hiding his face in his arms, he focused in on the tug in the back of his mind, trying to bring it forward. To force the switch back, only to be met with harsh resistance.

"Dammit Mari, don't do this. Let me back!" He whispered under his breath, panic starting to lurch to the forefront. He started to shake all over, the longer the connection lasted and the longer she resisted.

"Marinette, please stop, please? You can't keep doing this," he murmured, slowly rocking back and forth, pushing with all he had at the bond.

"God, how pathetic can she get? Faking a breakdown for attention," a voice from the front spoke, pitched just right to be intentionally heard by him.

"Why don't you mind your own damn business," a haughty voice exclaimed from his left, before a body drew closer, arm wrapping around his shoulder. He held back a flinch, trying to tune into her normal reliance on others for comfort, instead leaning into the body, vaguely recognizing it as Chloe. 

The resistance dropped and finally the tug calmed down. He still couldn't switch back, but she wasn't fighting him anymore either. He let out a sigh as the shaking calmed down. Bruce must've found her. She was safe, but likely exhausted and unable to switch back. As much as he hated her taking the pain for him, all he could do now was wait for the bond to pull again and leave a letter detailing exactly what he thought of her little stunt here.

This time Jason did flinch. He felt the first few blows Joker landed, he could only imagine how much pain she must be in now.

"You okay there, marzipan?"

That was a new one. Glancing up into worried baby blues, he gave one soft nod and slumped into her side, paying attention to the lesson. Mari would be upset if he let her fall behind in her studies while she was gone.

…

It had been four days since then and Jason couldn't help feeling like something was horribly wrong. It wasn't the first time they switched for an extended period of time, by any means, but his gut told him this time was different.

Sure she had claimed his body for well over four days before to wait out an injury or get more extensive training with Bruce before and he had held her body hostage for over a week once when she was in the hospital with pneumonia, but normally a tug or two would tell him that one of them was holding out on the swap.

This time, nothing came. His mind was achingly devoid of her and as the days passed, he feared he might end up here longer than planned. It would make sense. Multiple broken bones, blunt force trauma, and the sheer force of their swap could easily have overwhelmed his body and dropped it into a state of unconsciousness. 

He took to her computer, trying any combination of words related to the accident to see if anything had been reported only to come up empty handed.

That couldn't be right, if she were in the hospital, if his body was properly reported as a Joker victim, the report would be made public, even if the identity was kept under wraps for being an unknown minor. Anything to indicate someone was caught up in the accident. Surely Bruce wasn't relying solely on Alfred to patch them back up?

It wasn't until a week after the incident that he received his answer, buried in a tiny little notice in the back of a Tuesday local newspaper. Like an afterthought. Amongst the obituaries. A tiny note that the late Jason Peter Todd had died.

His soulmate died in his body and didn't even make it into the citywide Sunday paper. Just a local midweeker with barely more than two sentences.

Disbelief struck first.

This couldn't be real, right? Soulmates weren't able to just. Die in the other's place. That wasn't a thing. It was his body, if anything, he would have immediately been evicted the second his body died and moved on while she returned to hers. So how the fuck was he still here?

Next came anger.

How dare Marinette die in his place. How dare she end her life for his mistakes! And by the Joker! The fucking Joker deserved to die for torturing and killing his sweet little soulmate. He deserved a life worse than death. To be strung up and peeled apart inch by inch until he begged for death. And Batman... How dare he not make it in time to save her. It'd be okay if it were him, but not her! She didn't deserve this. Mari had her own life, her own desires and dreams, her own villain to hunt down, and that was torn away from her because Batman let them down. But even worse, Bruce barely cared enough to be open about his death. To mourn the loss of her like he did, even if the man didn't know it was an innocent in that body and not him. And even if it had been, it hurt knowing that he alone wasn't worth more than a barely there acknowledgment that he was once alive in an unseen back page.

Last came devastating grief.

She was gone. Marinette, the girl who never even really met him, cared so much for him, she sacrificed her own life for his. Forced him to stay in her body and took his as her own to the grave so he could live as her. With her loving parents and colorful room and warm heart. She gave him everything and wanted nothing in return. Slept on the streets for him at times, took brutal fights on as Robin so he could have a reprieve, skipped meals so he could taste something he'd never had before that her parents made that night. Learned English from an early age so they could talk and he wouldn't be alone in the world. And now that one of them had died, she ensured that he would be left in the best environment she could provide him, even if it had become rougher around the edges from when they were younger. And now she was gone. Dead. Never to return. And as he turned towards the mirror and looked into her beautiful, glowing blue eyes, he saw the tears trail down her face before he collapsed into himself, cursing anything and everything in the universe for allowing such a cruel fate.

…

For the next month, he moved through life like a zombie. As much as he hated her classmates for treating her the way they had, he couldn't help but feel grateful that no one wanted anything to do with him. They still muttered under their breath and glared and purposefully manipulated situations against him, but no one tried to ask what was wrong.

Everyone but Chloe and Juleka avoided him like the plague, which felt accurate in a sense. He didn't have to fake a smile or pretend to be okay like he had when the class still loved her. He could sulk and cry and grieve and it went unquestioned. The others hated him and the two girls, while worried, knew that sometimes she needed the reprieve of just letting her negativity go unchecked for a little while to make up for bottling so much of it all the time, so they let it go as well. The teacher barely glanced his direction. If it weren't so beneficial to him at the moment, Jason would be pissed at the obvious neglect his soulmate had endured at the hands of this lot. As it stood, he just cried a little harder at night in his grief, Tikki curled to his neck with tears of her own. 

The two quickly bonded over their mutual loss and the inability to talk about it to anyone else. Despite the stress of it, Jason refused to let anyone else know that Marinette had died. Her parents didn't need to suffer her death while looking at her living, breathing body, knowing she wasn't in it. That it was his fault she had died in the first place. And he couldn't even imagine having to tell them how she died.

So he resolved himself to live in her stead. To live as she would for the sake of her loved ones and in her honor. He had enough practice in the past to pull it off. It helped that they had both learned to suppress their emotions to the point of nonexistent in the light of facing Hawkmoth.

That was another thing entirely, though. While he resolved to fake a smile and play the happy designer in her civilian life, Ladybug took a turn from that day forward. He warned the cat off him, not playing into the teasing and banter, becoming stoic and professional. And when the kid got too brash, too pushy, too unreliable, he stripped the ring from him and moved on. Built a team she would've been proud to lead.

Over the next three months, he slowly adjusted her mannerisms to be more natural for him. Not enough to be noticeable or seen as anything more than growing older and slightly more jaded, but enough to make it a touch easier and less like he was living a lie.

…

Six months had passed and everything was different. 

The rest of the class didn't bother him. Didn't make accusations. Throw insults. Acknowledge his existence in any way. And maybe that was meant to be punishment. To be treated as a ghost haunting an unknowing audience. But it was pure bliss. He couldn't thank them enough for their continued silence. 

At least this way he could pretend her last days of life were happy and surrounded by people who cared for her. That they were grieving her just as he was.

There were still mornings he forgot. Times he'd walk by a mirror and smile, seeing her looking back and thinking it just another of their sporadic swaps where he'd wake as her and find a note waiting for him. 

Then reality would crash around him as the little kwami would come out and look at him with those sad eyes, nuzzling his neck (her neck, this was her body god dammit). On those days it hit him differently. Sometimes he'd shut it all down, going through the motions for the rest of the day. Other times he'd break down and cuddle the small being as close as possible and share in her despair, not bothering to leave the house. Usually anger would coarse sharp and deadly through his heart, urging him to seek vengeance. On those days, any remarks made his way were brutally rebutaled, until the remarks stopped entirely. Ladybug fought with just a little more violent intent; he couldn't avenge her until Hawkmoth was defeated. Those gorgeous blue eyes set into her face turned into a deadly storm of promised danger. 

It all kept swirling and cycling through him over and over until one day, the desperation and grief and hurt all hit a little too hard and he laid on the floor, staring up at the dark ceiling, wishing he could be by her side. That he could join her and not have to feel like this anymore. That it could all just go away and he could be happy for once in his miserable life.

That night he wished for nothing more than to die. If it hadn't been for the absolute heartwrenching sight of her little, pale hand wrapped around a too big knife, he has no doubt he would have gone through with it. 

Afterwards he could only thank his cowardice for preventing him from destroying her body like that. She wanted him to live and who was he to deny her? 

That night, he curled up on the cold, hardwood floor and begged her forgiveness, promising to do better. To be better. He knew she couldn't hear him, would never respond, but he begged all the same.

[ask-young-rogues-au]

Harvey and bruce with the college AU and poorly timed confessions?

//I’ll post post them on Ao3 or something if they’re any longer than this but here we gooo//

Harvey rubbed the back of his sweaty neck as he eyed the other man in his dorm, completely ignoring the page that had been sitting between his fingers for several minutes.

“What’s wrong, Harv?”

The voice brought him back to reality. “Huh? Oh, I was just reading”

“Reading my face?” Bruce laughed, nudging Harvey’s knee with his shoe “You jealous that I got the bed and you ended up on the floor?”

Harvey shifted where he was sitting - cross legged in front of the bed with several books and scrawled notes surrounding him while Bruce was sitting on the bed in front of him. He had chosen to let his friend take the comfortable seat and refused to join him, believing that sitting so close to him on the bed would have distracted him too much from his work - however, he had quickly learned that the seat he had chosen right in front Bruce’s legs probably was just as distracting.

“I gave you that spot out of the generosity of my own heart, Wayne” He laughed nervously, slapping at the foot that approached him for another playful kick.

“C’mon Harv, what’s on your mind?” Bruce continued to poke at the man in front of him with his foot. Harvey Dent was his best friend and had been for years - they were inseparable all throughout college and despite the stress of finals, were still making time for each other.

Likewise, Bruce Wayne was Harvey’s best friend, but he had a feeling that they weren’t on the same level.

For several years, Harvey had been struggling with feelings he had developed for his friend - it wasn’t a slow discovery, instead being more so like a slap in the face discovery after looking too deep into Bruce’s eyes. Loving him had felt so natural, so Harvey hadn’t expected the realisation that the love had at some point developed beyond platonic.

“I’m just thinking about my grades,” Harvey lied. He tossed a dirty coin between his fingers, glancing at his untouched notes. “Nervous about exams and all that stuff”.

“Well if you actually studied, you wouldn’t need to be nervous!”

“”Hey, I am studying!”

“I haven’t seen you read a single word for at least 5 minutes,” Bruce went to kick at the man again only to have his ankle grabbed and pulled at “Hey! No fair!”

Harvey stood up, taking the ankle with him and causing Bruce to fall back onto the bed. “And how would you know that, huh? You been watching me?” He leaned against the bed on his knee, the display of playful wrestling something that the two were more than used to “Maybe you should be focusing on your own studying too!”

Bruce wriggled, trying to get his foot free “I��ve already studied, unlike SOME people!”

“I know damn well you haven’t been studying!” The taller man threw himself onto the bed, letting go of the shoe only to let all of Bruce’s books go flying “You’ve been sneaking off to parties for weeks.”

“Well,” Grabbing a book before it could fall off the bed, Bruce slapped the other in the shoulder with it “I guess I’m just, you know, so smart and cool and sexy that I’m able to study super fast”. The two shuffled, Bruce’s Gotham College sweatpants feeling ridiculously soft against Harvey’s legs - he doubted they were even from the college store seeing that his own sport shorts were hardly the same quality.

Their shuffling led to tussling before they were eventually laughing as Bruce pinned Harvey down onto the soft sheets. It was something they had done hundreds of times. Bruce often won being the stronger of the two, pinning Harvey down in the grass or on a table, but on a bed? Alone like this? They hadn’t been in that position since they had spiderman sheets.

Harvey’s laughing faded as he glanced up into those blue eyes. His mind was running a mile a minute, his face heating up and his heart threatening to burst through his hoodie. Bruce’s shirt featured a low and loose V-neck, allowing Harvey to cop a good view of the slightly hairy chest - scars of an unknown source scattered across the tanned flesh. The sight made him audibly gulp.

“Ha, I win again,” Bruce beamed “You really gotta learn to stop fighting me Harv, I’m just too good” He shook his head with a charming grin, maintaining the same look even when confusion swept over him. “Hey, what’s with the face? You’re looking like a deer in headlights”

Harvey didn’t respond, eyes sweeping over the face hovering over his own as it leaned in to investigate his reaction. He wanted to lean up and kiss him, or wrap his arms around him, or to just say anything, but his indecisive nature had easily taken over. His fingers traced over the coin in his pocket before he finally took it out, clumsily flipping it despite his position. The coin landed on his chest.

“Tails. Whatcha flipping for?” Bruce’s blue eyes watched as Harvey flipped again. “A double flip? That’s not usually how it works”.

Tails. Tails. Tails. Harvey frowned - he flipped to make decisions, but there was nothing stopping him from continuously flipping to get his desired outcome. 

“Uh, you doing alright-” As Bruce spoke, his phone rang.

Heads.

“I love you” The words practically spilled out of his mouth, Harvey talking over Bruce.

“Hm?” Bruce tilted his head to the side as he looked down at his phone, not being able to fully read into the situation. “I love you too, bro”

“No, I mean-” Harvey’s cheeks were a deep red “I love you.”

“Yeah, I love you too, Harv,” Bruce answered his phone “What’s up, Alfred?”

“I mean romantically, Bruce!” Shooting up from his laid back position, Harvey watched as his friend got off the bed and pressed the phone against his ear, no longer paying attention to their interaction.

“Mhm, mhm-- yeah I’ll, yes Alfred-- I’m just with Harvey-- Yes, I’m studying, mhm” A feeling of rejection took Harvey over as he listened to one side of the conversation. He reached out and grabbed the hem of the other’s shirt, trying to gain eye contact once more. Bruce only idly ran his hand through his friends dark hair, continuing to nod and hum in response to his butlers questions over the phone.

The minute long call felt like it had lasted for hours to him, but once Bruce hung up, Harvey looked up at him with almost scared eyes - unsure if what he had said had settled into the other’s mind. Bruce smiled.

“So, you love me huh?”

“That is... what I said, yes” 

“Well, I’d hope so. I mean, we’re best friends”

Harvey sighed, dejected - for a top student, Bruce could really be an idiot a lot of the time. “I- yeah, yeah. Best friends”

“Romantic best friends?” As Bruce raised his eyebrows, Harvey realised that the man had known what he meant all along. He grabbed a pillow and swung it.

“God DAMMIT Wayne! How long have you known!?”

Bruce allowed the pillow to hit him in the chest, laughing. “Oh, a while.”