#actually I have a weird picture of Gotham in my head I might draw it

[little-pondhead]

The Curse Of Hope

_

Danny is in another universe. He had a reason, but he doesn’t remember anymore. He can only stare, horrified and disgusted, at the sickest city spirit he’s ever seen. Shivering and swaying with every step, core exposed, and ectoplasm leaking from wounds that are decades old. A ratty blanket was thrown over their shoulders, barely hiding the spirit’s pale grey skin and protruding black bones.

The spirit didn’t even sense him until he reached out to touch its wispy shoulders. The spirit flinched, clutching at the dozens of trinkets hanging from their neck and tucking in on themselves like they were expecting a blow.

“Oh, shit,” He swore, floating back a few feet, hands in the air, to show he meant no harm. “I’m sorry. I promise, I’m not here to steal from you.” The spirit shivered again and rolled a pearl necklace in between their fingers. A nervous habit. “Uh, I like that pocket watch? It’s very nice.”

That got their attention. They peeked at Danny, and he saw that more tattered cloth was covering their eyes, blending in with the stringy hair that reached the ground. Their blanket fluttered weakly, revealing hundreds of thousands of tiny marks etched into their skin. Scars, really. Scars that wrote out curse after curse onto the spirit’s very being. They burned with evil intent, and even reached inside the spirit’s body and wrapped around their core.

Occasionally, blinding specks of color raced across their body, temporarily erasing the writing, but it always returned quickly. He watched, a little detached, as one particular line rewrote itself across their rough forearm, drawing fresh ectoplasm like someone was writing it with a thin knife.

“Are you…alright?” Danny stuttered. A stupid question.

The spirit cocked its head. He couldn’t see their eyes, but he felt their burning gaze as they pondered the question.

“The pain of others becomes mine own.” They rasped. “The lights of the city dim as rotten wealth clogs mine veins. Magicks long forgotten have eaten mine skins, pulled mine cloak, and darkened mine skies. Helios has refused to grace mine doorstep, and the seasons of the Earth have revoked their kindness.”

Danny held his breath. It felt like he was the one with the exposed core, not the spirit.

The spirit shivered once more. “Tell mine soul, little lamb. How could this Forsaken City know peace, when it was long since ripped from mine hands?”

Shit, he needed Frostbite. And maybe Clockwork. Now.

-Or-

Danny meets the spirit of Gotham City. The villains and rogues that have plagued the city for decades are literal curses that are taking quite the toll on Gotham, and honestly, Danny isn’t sure how much longer they can hold out. The heroes seem to be doing some help, and are probably the reason Gotham made it this far, but the poor city needs help from the Realms if they want to get better.

Luckily, Danny can provide that help.

But only if he could get Gotham to leave their city behind. Because recovery is going to take a very long time.

[odos-bucket]

Protective Batbros, a subsidiary of my Protective Batdad series

Tim is sitting alone.

It was something Dick had made note of shortly after arriving at the gala. There are people scattered around at various tables, but even more people milling about and socializing. Before he can do more than smile and nod to the newest Robin, a small group of WE investors draw his attention into a dull conversation.

Dick talks with them for a little while, then makes his rounds throughout the big hall, mingling with various acquaintances, and sampling some hors d’oeuvres. By the time he’s back to where he began, he notices that Tim is still sitting by himself. Or, he amends, maybe someone else has been by and gone again?

Tim ’s posture is perfectly straight, and he isn’t looking around. His expression is neutral, but not blank like he’s spacing out. There are appetizers on his plate that he clearly hasn’t touched. One of his hands is folded in his lap, the thumb of the other hand is rubbing methodically at the polished handle of a decorative spoon. Dick makes his way over to take the seat beside him.

“Heya, kiddo.”

“Dick!” Tim’s face lights up when he sees him, if only for a moment, which makes Dick’s heart light up as well, as he pulls the kid into a one armed hug.

He makes a brief mental note of how tightly Tim clings to him in return, then files the observation away to analyze later.

He doesn’t like how little they’ve seen Tim around the manor recently. His parents have been in town for the past week and a half, which throws a bit of a wrench into their nighttime escapades.

But it’s a good thing, he reminds himself. Tim doesn’t get to spend nearly enough time with his parents; it’s good that they’re around. Dick feels a little guilty for thinking of them as an inconvenience, even though he’s pretty sure Bruce does too.

Dick leans back into his own seat, but keeps an arm resting on the back of Tim’s.

“How’s it going?” He asks.

“Okay,” Tim says with a shrug, expression and posture already returned to their neutral state.

“Been kinda boring without you around this past week.”

“Yeah, sorry. My dad likes to know where I am.” He begins to rub his hands together, then seems to realize what he’s doing, and forces himself to return to the subtler motion of worrying at the silverware.

Dick nods, watching his hand.

“Must be nice having them around for a while.” He is being supportive. He needs to be supportive.

“I- yeah. It’s great…”

Dick looks at him with an open expression, waiting for some clarification.

“They’re not like around around,” Tim says. “They still work. But it’s nice when we get to have dinner together. And Mom says that maybe we can try to have a family game night before they have to leave again, if there’s time…”

Dick resists the urge to ask when that will be. Tim sees right through him.

“They’ll be leaving for Norway before the end of the month.”

Dick isn’t sure what the appropriate reaction to that is, and his expression sort of ends up stumbling into a grimace. He glances down to keep it concealed, and Tim is kind enough not to draw attention to it.

“I’m sorry they’re not staying longer. But it’ll be good to have you around again.”

Tim nods absently. An uncomfortable expression flits across his face, but vanishes quickly.

“Tim, are you feeling okay?”

At first he just gets a noncommittal noise in response to the question, then after a minute Tim wrinkles his nose, and glances around the room.

“It’s loud.”

Dick nods. He hadn’t really been attuned to the noise level himself. It wasn’t especially loud by Gotham aristocracy standards, but he could see how it might be annoying to someone who was bothered by that type of thing, or just wasn’t particularly used to it. Of course, Time would be used to it though, so that didn’t really factor in here.

“I might have some headphones in the car,” he offers. “They’re not noise cancelling, but they might help. Do you want me to go gram ‘em?”

Tim’s expression shifts, and he eyes Dick, like he’s trying to decipher something about him.

“This isn’t exactly an appropriate setting for headphone,” he says after a minute. “I don’t want to be disrespectful.”

“I don’t think anyone here who’s sober enough to notice whether or not you’re wearing headphones is going to feel slighted if you are.”

Tim shrugs stiffly. Dick glances to where his hand is still fidgeting with the flatware, and feels a spark of concern that he might just rub a hole into the pad of his thumb.

“Why don’t we step out for a sec?” He suggests.

“Because it would be rude?” Tim offers uncertainly, not picking up on the rhetorical nature of the question.

“Just for a minute,” Dick insists. He doesn’t like how uneasy Tim is here.

Tim glances around them cautiously, twitching slightly as the band hits a particularly high note, then turns his attention back to Dick and nods.

They head out through the front doors. And while a few people glance at them as they leave, no one hinders their exit.

Outside, Tim seems to finally notice the blister he’s been wearing into his thumb all evening.

“Does that hurt?” Dick asks.

He doesn’t get a response at first, as Tim is frowning down at the finger with apparently intense concentration.

“It’s ugly,” he says after a minute. “I used to pull at the skin around my nails. It never hurt badly, just looked weird.”

“I think Bruce keeps bandaids in the car. I’ll go grab you one.”

“That’s-“ Tim begins.

But Dick is already halfway down the wide outdoor staircase. He doesn’t want to leave Tim along for long if he’s been by himself all night, but figures he probably won’t miss much in the forty five seconds it should take him to get to the car and back.

He finds bandaids, and a set of earplugs in the glove compartment. As he dashes back to the main entrance, he acknowledging that the round trip may have taken closer to sixty five seconds, but figures that’s still pretty good.

When he gets to the top of the stairs Tim’s talking with a woman. Or rather, he’s holding very still and being talked at, by a very unhappy woman, who it takes Dick a moment to recognize as Janet Drake.

“-Don’t know what could possibly have made you think it was appropriate to come out here in the middle of a party. We came back to the table and you were gone! People were asking about you too, and what were we supposed to tell them?”

“Hi,” Dick interrupts, as loudly as he thinks he can get away with, and in a deliberately upbeat voice. “I’m so sorry! I had to get something from my car, and asked Tim to come keep me company. I thought we’d be back in before anyone had a chance to miss us.” He dips his head apologetically, and looks back up with a bashful grin.

Mrs. Drake seems completely caught off guard, looking rapidly between Dick and her son, whose gaze has been mostly focused on a spot behind her right ear. After a minute she manages to force some composure into her expression.

“It’s not that we mind you borrowing him, Mr. Grayson-Wayne. It’s just coming back to the table to find that he’s not there, you understand-“

Dick waves off the rushed explanation of her concern.

“I’m sorry to have worried you.”

She studies him for a minute. Dick isn’t sure what she’s looking for, or what she thinks she’s seeing. But he matches her scrutiny, and forces down the thought that he does not like this woman.

She looks away from him quickly enough, clearing her throat.

“Come, Timothy.”

Dick slips the bandaid and earplugs into Tim’s suit pocket as he follows them back inside, and squeezes his shoulder once there’s no longer a plausible reason for them to be going in the same direction.

He then proceeds to spend the rest of the evening maneuvering himself to keep the Drakes in the periphery of his line of sight, keeping an eye on his little brother. Because Tim can handle himself in this environment, but Dick knows he doesn’t like it, knows that all the sound and bright light gives him a headache. And they’re all a little nervous in crowds. And he knows intellectually that the chances of anything really bad happening tonight aren’t actually all that high. Even so, he needs to look out for Tim, because what if no one else is?

It’s almost too hard to think about. Dick has given himself permission to be a little overprotective, feeling like he has a pretty damn good reason to be. But the thing is, Tim’s not really supposed to need it. Not all the time. Not here. He has a family. Dick has always felt a little guilty for resenting them, but watching the Drake’s go the rest of the night without saying more than a stray word or two to their son makes him wonder if maybe he has the right.

He doesn’t know their situation, not really. But he knows what he sees and he doesn’t like it.

“Can we make sure Tim’s family’s at the same table as us the next time we have to go to one of these?” He asks Bruce later that night, asks as if they themselves aren’t already Tim’s family, even if it feels wrong to imply.

Bruce hums a distracted agreement, and Dick thinks he must see it too.

-

Not that it matters especially, but I kind of picture this happening in the same continuity as this story, but maybe a couple months beforehand (or maybe just a couple of weeks if you want the Drakes to be on the same visit).

Hope you enjoy!

[americasmarauders]

I Had a Dream--Jason ToddxReader.

Summary: She dreamed about him once. And then he appeared in front of her and she just couldn’t believe it. 

words: 9,756

author’s note: so, here it is. the last of this year. this one is special. it’s based on a dream i had with a guy I went to middle school with. I mentioned it on the group chat and @batarella​ said this sounds like a fic, write it. and so I did. It’s immensely personal. Basically reader is me, the friends I mention are my actual friends and the coversations with the therapist are vaguely based on conversations I had with my own therapist (specially the first one). I hope y’all like it. I had a blast writing it. Special thanks to my best friend Julia and @offendedfishnoises​ for proofreading it. Also thanks to every one in the group chat who cheared me on and made me finish this monster. 

don’t forget to check out my jason playlist here. also. please reblog so more people can see the fic :)

#

“I just haven’t had the opportunity to be in love, I guess,” she explained, her psychologist writing stuff she had said down. 

          “Is that so?” the therapist lifted her eyes, her eyebrows shot up in confusion. 

          “Yeah,” she shrugged. 

          “‘Cause the way I see it is you’ve never allowed yourself to fall in love,” the therapist commented. 

          She felt heat coming to her cheeks and tears rise in her eyes. “No, no, that’s not like that,” she whispered, refusing to admit that her psychologist was right. 

          The therapist let out a small sigh. “Have you had crushes when you were a kid?”

          She shook her head. “The boys weren’t that nice and…” she drifted off, thinking of a couple of crushes she might have developed when she was a young teen. “No boys were interested in me.”

          “I find that hard to believe, Y/N,” the therapist said. “Let’s think of it this way: were there any boys who picked on you?”

          She snorted. “Plenty,” she responded. “I wasn’t exactly popular in middle school,” she shrugged. 

          “Yes, yes, I remember,” the psychologist said. 

          “There was one boy that used to run around recess calling me a weird nickname he had for me: peanut.”

          “That’s not weird,” the therapist pondered. 

          “It is when you’re 13 and you love eating packed peanuts in recess,” she countered. 

          “Well, this boy did you like him?” the therapist asked. 

            “Yeah, he was nice,” she omitted that she had a crush on him in ninth grade before she left the school and never saw him again. “He was one of the few boys that talked to me without wanting me to help him with his homework or anything.

            “I remember one day in eight grade he stopped to talk to me before class but I was kinda rude to him and he never really talked to me again,” she shrugged. 

            “Why?” the psychologist quizzed.

            “I thought he wanted something out of me,” she sniffed, brushing a strand of her hair out of her face. “They all wanted something out of me. It was safe to assume, I guess.”

            “You scared the boy away, Y/N,” the therapist said kindly. “I think that boy liked you,” she finished. 

            “No, no, Todd, he--” she shook her head negatively, “he was kinda popular, I was a nobody. He didn’t like me.”

            “He liked you, Y/N.”

#

#

#

That conversation stayed in her head for days. The words of her therapist echoing in her head. You scared the boy away. The truth was: she had scared the boy away. It was heartbreaking to think that she could have had what she wanted, a romance, someone to hold and to be held by. Instead she was alone, an adult who had never even dated anyone for that matter. 

          It wasn’t just that boy from middle school. It was every boy that ever tried getting too close to her. It would be comical if it wasn’t so tragic. A romantic at heart, completely alone. Thank god she had her friends. 

          She hadn’t thought about Jason Todd in years. He hadn’t so much as graced her thoughts since she last saw him in ninth grade. Then she dreamt of him. And things started to change. 

          In her dreams she was his girlfriend. He was loving, he would caress her delicately, look into her eyes lovingly as if he was seeing the whole world in her eyes. He would kiss her tenderly, she could feel his lips when she woke up. 

          He had gotten so big in her dreams, even more handsome than he was when he was 15. Jason was a lanky and tiny kid, but somehow her brain imagined him tall--very tall--and very muscular. His eyes were green, and not the blue she remembered. He looked beautiful and waking up after the dream, she could feel her heart race. 

          After she dreamed about him the first time, she dismissed it. It was her brain making weird connections, it made sense: she had talked about her pseudo-love life and about him that week. But after the second dream she knew there was something wrong. 

          She decided to look him up on the internet. What appeared wasn’t something she liked. 

          News coverage about how he had died mysteriously. ‘Adopted son of Bruce Wayne dies at age 16.’ She couldn’t help but tear up a bit on those headlines. The most recent ones though reported him being wrongfully declared dead and how he was estranged from his family. It even showed a couple of pictures of him and she was surprised to see her dreams were not very far off.

          Other than a couple of tabloid headlines, there was no trace of this guy on the internet. He was almost a ghost story, and  she felt her heart beating faster in anxiety. She couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pity for him. 

          She otherwise forgot about him--other than the occasional thought about what if that would cross her mind. That is, until she literally stumbled into him. 

#

#

#

A part time job to help with the finances, that’s what working in the bookshop was supposed to be. It would help pay tuition and her insurance. Her parents had said that she didn’t need to do it, they could pay and it wouldn’t even make a dent in their bank account. But it wasn’t for them, it was for herself, a sense of achievement. 

          It was supposed to be just that. No meet cutes, no falling in love in a bookshop, just boring old work. Work for half of the afternoon, close up, get her salary and move on with her life. 

          The shop was quiet that day. No one had come in to buy or even browse anything. It didn’t really bother her. She occupied herself with other things: homework, studying, drawing, texting her friends, the list was endless. She was so engrossed in her drawing, she didn’t even hear the bell ringing and the door opening. 

          She heard someone clear their throat and she looked up from her drawing to meet their eyes. She gaped a bit as she met his gaze, intense blue eyes meeting hers. She closed her mouth quickly, trying to cover the fact that she was clearly staring at him. The gods must be really enjoying themselves playing with her life like that. Of course, she thought, of course that he would fucking appear in her life like that: out of nowhere. The one day she had a calm evening and Jason Todd, the guy who was haunting her dreams and thoughts like a ghost, appears. 

          “May I help you?” she asked, professionally, ignoring her racing heart and the anxiety increasing in the pit of her stomach. 

          “Yes,” he replied. “I’m lookin’ for the complete H.P. Lovecraft collection. I stopped by the other day and a guy separated it for me,” he explained. His eyebrows were furrowed in confusion, and she hoped that he hadn’t recognized her. 

          “Oh,” she said. “Wait a moment, I’ll check if it’s in the back.”

          She walked controlled, to mask the fact that she wanted to run out of that place as fast as she could. 

          She closed the inventory door and leaned her back against it. She breathed heavily, trying to calm herself. It was only a guy, she had talked to plenty of guys before. She calmed herself down, steadying her breathing. 

          She glanced around the shelves looking for his book. The sooner she ended this the better. She could move on with her life without his face haunting her. She found the book (almost like a brick). She got it and took a deep breath before stepping out of the inventory and calmly walking to the front desk. 

          He stood there calmly , his eyes glancing around the shop. He had picked another book to buy, something significantly smaller than Lovecraft's collection.  She itched to see what  it was, before catching herself and stopping her curiosity. She couldn't get attached, even if just a little bit. 

          "Here," she said, resting the book on the counter. She smiled at him kindly, her hand open for the book resting in his hands. He handed it to her, confusion plastered on his face.

          "It's 60 dollars," she stated, calmly and controlled. 

          He handed her the money. She accepted it and packed his books neatly. He clocked her moves as she did so, she felt a bit uncomfortable under his gaze. 

          "I'm sorry, do I know you?" He asked. "I feel like I know you."

          She gulped imperceptibly. So he had recognized her. Goddammit. "I don't think so," she replied, hesitant on whether or not he would see right through her lie. 

          He hummed. His eyes then  shifted down to her name tag, and she knew he had put the pieces together. "Did we go to school together?" He insisted. 

          She smiled tightly. "I don't know, probably," she shrugged. "I went to a pretty big school, there were a lot of people there," a lie. Gotham Academy was big, but it was nowhere near as big as she made it sound. It was the kind of school where you knew everyone, even if you had never talked to them. 

          He smiled at her coyly, sensing her awkwardness. Maybe it was just that that made him finally remember her, or maybe not. Either way she did not like that he indeed recognized her fully. "I remember you," he trailed off. "We had English together," he stated. 

          She pretended to search her memory for him. She couldn't give away that just days before she had dreamed about him yet again. How pathetic, dreaming about a boy from middle school. "Oh yeah," she dragged. "Jason, right?"

          "That's me," he whispered. "I thought you had moved."

          She smiled, it was cute that he remembered enough of her to know that she didn't stay in Gotham for a couple of years. "I did move," she explained. "I came back for college."

          "Why?" He asked, confused by her statement. "Gotham is a shit city, you should've stayed elsewhere."

          She tried not to take offense to it. "It has its appeal," she shrugged. "Besides the science program in Gotham U is very good, it was the best move."

          Jason smirked. "Science huh?"

          "Yeah," she breathed out. She slid the package to him, a sign that she maybe was done talking. 

          Thank the gods his phone rang. She couldn't handle anymore of that. She averted  her attention once more to her drawing, his voice talking angrily on the phone only a background noise to her. "I gotta go," he said and her eyes went back to him. "It was good seeing you, Y/N."

          She tried not to notice how her heart picked up the pace at the sound of her name leaving his lips. "You too," she smiled shyly and he left the store, the bell ringing as he closed the door and her mind plagued by the image of him. 

#

#

#

If she thought Jason Todd had plagued her mind and dreams before she had seen him at the bookshop, now he was downright living in her head rent free. She just couldn’t get him out of her mind. The dreams about him, the ones where she would be tenderly loved by him, were getting more frequent and more intense. When she woke up, she would still feel his arms around her and an emptiness would settle in her chest. 

          Why did it have to happen to her? She just wanted to go through life unnoticed, why did the gods have to pull this prank on her?

          She huffed as she closed the shop, the sky already dark enough to be considered dangerous to stay out. It was only a couple of blocks to her car, she could get through the walk unscathed, she had done it before. 

          But then again, it seemed that Fate had it out for her. 

          She could feel someone following her the moment she had left the shop. The looming presence of a threat made her hyper aware of everything, her heart beating out of her chest. She tried to think of ways to lose the guy--she assumed it was a guy, it usually was--but her mind came blank. She thought in passage if her friends would miss her, who would contact them if she were to die. She shook the thought quickly out of her head and hastened her pace. 

          But the guy gained on her, and as soon as she could blink, she felt his arm snake around her neck. She gasped for air desperately, clawing at his arm trying to take it off. It was then that she felt a cold metal press against her back. A gun. She felt the tears coming to her eyes. If the guy were to pull the trigger, the best case scenario was she wouldn’t be able to move her limbs anymore. The worst, well, who would tell her friends she had died in a robbery?

          “Give me your bag,” the guy--now confirmed for his gruff and raspy voice--whispered in her ear.

          “Please, take it,” she begged. “Don’t hurt me.”

          She heard the guy scoff as he pressed the gun further on her back. She whimpered. “We’ll see about that,” he said, his voice laced with malice.

          It was then she heard a loud bang coming from behind her. She thought the guy had pulled the trigger, and she was ready to feel the wetness of her blood sipping through her clothes. Instead, all she felt was a splash on her shoulder and his grip on her loosening considerably. The guy had fallen to the ground behind her, clutching his shoulder and screaming in pain. She turned around to see him and a pool of his own blood forming beneath him. She was paralyzed in fear of the sight.  

          “The police’re on their way,” a distorted voice sounded. She looked up and found a massive man, standing menacingly on top of the thieves body. His red helmet glinted in the moon’s glow. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said softly. 

          She breathed out. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I--I--,” she teared up again, “I would’ve died. You saved my life.”

          “It’s what I do,” he shrugged. “I’ll walk you.”

          “How about the…” she pointed towards the guy laying on the floor in pain.

          “If he wants to live to see another day, he’ll stay exactly where he is,” he said, his voice serious and threatening. 

          “Shouldn’t I give the police a statement?” she whispered. 

          She swore she heard a chuckle of amusement through the voice disruptor he had in his helmet. “I have a video to prove he was tryin’ to rob you, you don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna,” he explained softly. “So, wanna lead the way?”

          She looked down at her feet, nervous to look at him. She nodded and started to walk once again towards her car. He walked behind her respectfully, and she felt the difference between him and the robber. He wasn’t trying to get something out of her, and his large physique felt like there was a literal wall following her to her car. 

          It was a blink till she got to her car. Her hand rested on the door handle and she gave a deep breath, trying desperately to calm herself, trying to remember the breathing exercises her psychologist had taught her. She opened her mouth to say something to the Red Hood, her eyes searching for him next to her. 

          But he was gone. And what was left was just the memory of him in her mind. 

#

#

#

“So how was your week?” her psychologist asked, sitting on her armchair, Y/N sitting cross-legged in front of her. 

          “Crazy,” she rolled her eyes in disbelief, her mouth quirking in a weird shape. “So much stuff happened.”

          “Oh do tell,” the psychologist urged her. 

          She sighed, thinking where to begin. “Well, you remember the boy I told you about?”

          “Yes, Jason wasn’t it?”

          “Yep,” she popped. “He showed up at the store the other day.”

          “You’re kidding.”

          “I wish I was, honestly,” she replied breathily. “I didn’t even realize he had come in.”

          “No way,” her therapist responded in disbelief. She seemed invested in the pranks the fates were pulling on her patient.

          “I was too invested in my drawing, mind you,” she smiled. “It’s been weeks since I’ve done a decent piece of scribble so I was excited.”

          “Yes, yes right,” her therapist acknowledged. “And how about Jason? Did you talk to him?”

          “Briefly,” she responded. “I was hoping he wouldn’t recognize me, but he did.” 

          “What did he say?” she quizzed, making notes on her paper. 

          “He asked if he knew me, which I denied at first,” her psychologist looked at her angrily and she shrugged. “Then he finally placed me and asked what I was doing in Gotham. I answered, said I was in college. He said I should’ve stayed elsewhere ‘cause Gotham apparently sucks.”

          “He isn’t wrong,” her therapist pondered. 

          “He isn’t but I like Gotham,” she shrugged once again. 

          “Did you get his number?” her therapist quizzed her. 

          “Nope,” she denied. “He left pretty quickly.”

          “Why don’t I believe that?” the psychologist smiled. 

          “It’s true!” she laughed. “He answered a phone call, got angry at something I didn’t really understand and left pretty quickly.”

          The therapist hummed. “You think you’ll see him again?”

          “I don’t know,” she sniffed. “He got pretty big books when he appeared, I think it’ll be a while before he needs another.”

          “You never know,” she conceded. “What if he does? Do you imagine what you would do?”

          “I mean,” she trailed off, “what I want to do is talk to him and maybe ask for his number,” she finished coyly. “What I will do is be very weird and awkward and scare him off.”

          “Y/N,” the therapist warned. “We’ve talked about this.”

          “I know, I know,” she waved off. “I won’t do it. I’ll try to be friendly.”

            “Good. What else happened this week?”

          “Almost died,” she swallowed, nervously, “quite literally, I’m afraid.”

          “What?”

          “Was leaving the store, it was pretty early in the night, I think. And a guy got me by the neck and pressed his gun to my spine,” she recounted quietly. “I thought I would die.”

          “But you didn’t,” her therapist comforted her. “What happened after?”

          “The Red Hood showed up,” she sniffed. “Shot the guy in the shoulder and then knocked him out.”

          “When did that happen?” her therapist’s voice was filled with worry.

          “2 days ago,” she replied quietly. 

          “I’m so sorry this happened to you,” the psychologist cooed. “Are you alright?”

          “I’m okay,” she nodded, her eyes filled with tears that did not dare to spill. “The Red Hood was very gentle, he walked me to my car and made sure I was safe.”

          “Uhum,” the therapist hummed, jotting down something. She always wondered what her therapist wrote down about her, but maybe it was for the best that she didn’t know what was written down. 

          “I did some research on him afterwards,” she diverted the subject out of her. “Turns out he’s very famous for protecting street kids.”

          “Is that so?” 

          “Yeah,” she nodded enthusiastically. “There’s a couple of stories going around social media of people who witnessed him, you know…” she trailed off. “He seems to look out for people in poorer neighborhoods. Like Crime Alley. He seems very active there,” she added.

          “I didn’t know that,” the psychologist said. 

          “Yeah, you’d get mistaken by the bat symbol on his chest, but there’s very few reports of him getting involved in Batman-esque adventures.”

          Her therapist laughed. “And what might those be?”

          “You know,” she shrugged. “Aliens, psycho-clowns, riddles, those kinds of stuff. Although there are a couple of people that said he did have a crazy huge fight with Black Mask once, there doesn’t seem to be any other. If there is, he sure made a good job hiding it.”

          “You seem very excited about this Red Hood,” the therapist noted. 

          “He was nice,” she shrugged once more. “And I’m thankful he does what he does. I wouldn’t be here if he didn’t,” she added quietly. “Literally.”

          “Well, then we got to make sure you live your best life after this second chance you got granted.”

#

#

#

As soon as the words ‘what if you see him again’ left her therapist’s mouth, she knew she would see Jason Todd again. Because the Universe was out for her like that. It was only a matter of when. 

          Turns out ‘when’ was a week later after the first time she saw him. She concluded he was either a hoarder or a very fast reader. She hoped it would be the latter. 

          This time, she was paying attention. She was organizing the shelves calmly, and as odd as it seemed, that was the best part of her job. It eased her anxiety to know everything was where it was supposed to be.

          She jumped at the sound of the bell, her heart beating faster and her mind racing at the worst case scenarios. But it was just him. And she was entirely relieved that it was just Jason. She settled the book that was about to go on the shelf--‘there you go Little Women, back to where you belong’--and got out from behind her hiding spot. “Hey, Jason,” she said and his eyes found hers. 

          He opened a smile that knocked the air out of her. “Oh hey,” he breathed out. 

        She swallowed her nerves down. She would make her therapist proud, goddammit. “How can I help you?” she asked, opening a smile she hoped it was charming. 

        “I finished the books I bought the other day,” he said, his face a tad bit nervous. Did she make him nervous? “Do you have any recommendations?” he finished, his hands shoved in his pockets, shifting his weight slightly. 

        “It depends what you’re looking for,” she trailed off, returning to behind the shelves. Her fingers trailed lightly over the spine of the books she had just organized. She heard him walk behind her accompanying her to wherever she intended to go. “What are you looking for?” she turned around to see him, and saw him gulp nervously. 

        “Romance,” he blurted out. “How about a romance?”

        “Ummm,” she hummed, her eyes once more trailing over the spines of the books. “A love story or a real romantic type of book? You know with loads of self pity and drama. Or maybe just a very long and nice novel?”

        He laughed airly. “Surprise me,” he teased, and it seemed all his nerves were gone. 

        She smirked. “Okay then.” She pulled a book off the shelf. It wasn’t a big book, it couldn’t be longer than 300 pages. She gave it to him. “Epitaph of a Small Winner,” she said. “A romance, a realist one but nevertheless a romance.”

        He grabbed the book, looking tiny in his big hands. His fingers tracing the title delicately. “What is it about?”

        “A dead person narrating their life and reflecting upon it,” she shrugged. “A very interesting read indeed, but you’d have to do a bit of research. It’s set in 1880s Brazil.”

        “I’m okay with that,” he smiled looking at her. “Any more recs?”

        “Not for now,” she smirked. “How else am I going to have you come back if I give all my recommendations at once?”

        His smile faltered for a split second before taking permanent residence on his face. “Who’s to say I wouldn’t come back even if you did give me all your recommendations?”

        She was left speechless. She felt heat coming up to her cheeks and he looked somewhat proud he left her flustered like that. “Well then, do make sure you come back after you’ve finished.”

        “I will, Y/N.”

#

#

#

Jason didn’t know why he went back to the bookshop. He truly didn’t. 

        He wasn’t expecting to see her working there. He wasn’t expecting to see her at all, actually. He barely even remembered her from his middle school days. He vaguely remembered finding her pretty and he knew she was very smart. Other than that, she was basically a stranger to him. Just like that version of himself was a stranger to him now. 

        It was a surprise to say the least. She had grown up marvelously, from what he remembered at least. She wore glasses now, and in his opinion it only made her prettier. His breath caught in his throat just remembering the sight of her that first time. His brothers caught up in his behavioral shift, and teased him endlessly. Jason stopped that rather quickly: it’s easy when you’re bigger and more intimidating than them. It also helps that they’re desperately trying to maintain the thin and fragile relationship they had. 

        Jason wanted to say he hadn’t rushed to finish those books to see her again, but he did. He wanted to say he hadn’t rushed to read her recommendation, but he did. He finished it in a day. He wished he had read it sooner. Somehow he felt like that sometimes, a dead man narrating his own story. At least he was strikingly different from the protagonist. At least he wasn’t an asshole. Not most times anyways. 

        He went back to the shop the next day, around closing time--he realized they were closing early and he wondered if it had anything to do with the incident Y/N was involved in. He was sure she would be there. Something told him that she would. He got in, as quietly as he could. The store was empty, after all it was a Thursday afternoon. The door made the usual bell sound behind him, and Y/N appeared behind the shelves, her face stony. 

        “I finished it,” he said with a smile.

        She smiled back at him, and his heart did a somersault. “That was fast, it is not an easy read.”

        “Well, it was a very good book,” he pointed. “It’s easier when the book’s good.”

        “What did you think of it?” she asked curiously.

        “It’s very complex,” he began. “You want to believe Brás but he’s just so….”

        “Insufferable?”

        “Exactly. And he’s a hypocrite too. Which just drives me fucking nuts,” he ran his hands through his hair. “The parallels you can make to the present, though, are just… very daunting,” he added. “It’s impressive the guy wrote this stuff in the nineteenth century and...” he trailed off.

        “Society hasn’t changed one bit since then,” she completed him, her eyes glinting. She was smiling pleasantly, and Jason found it confusing, after all they were talking about something entirely serious.  “So, you here for another rec?” She changed the subject.

        “If you have one, I’d like that,” he said sheepishly. 

        She smirked. “Let’s see,” she moved to behind the shelves once again, her eyes trailing the books expertely. “How about a nice little love story, huh?”

        He shrugged, his heart beating harder in his chest. “Sure, why not.”

        She smiled at him and took out a yellowish cover with a dagger drawn across it. The title was written in the middle of the cover in nice flowery letters. “It’s about a girl that has a special power. And she kinda is trained to be an assassin of sorts, and she is set to a quest with a prince that has the same gift as her. Kinda. But you get the gist.”

        “Yeah, I do,” he nodded, his fingers trailing slightly over the title. 

        “It’s an YA novel so be kind to it,” she warned. 

        “I’ll be.”

        They both made their way to the cash register. She was behind the counter when Jason’s phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and answered it without even looking at the caller. “Hello?” he said, trapping his phone between his shoulder and ear, to fish the money for the book out of his pocket.

        “Is this Mr. Todd?” the person--a woman--said.

           “Yes. Who’s speaking?” he asked. Jason could feel anxiety rising in his body and mind and he tried to push it down. Who the fuck was this person and, most importantly, how the fuck did she get his number?

            “I’m Principal Genoise-Beckham, from Gotham Academy,” she explained. What kind of name was Genoise-Beckham? “I’m calling because of your brother Damian. He got into a fight during the end of the school hours and you’re the next on his contacts list.”

            Jason sighed, a twinge of anger sounding through it. “So no one’s available?”

            “I’m afraid not, Mr.Todd.”

            Not even Alfred, and he knew that for a fact because Jason was the last on the contacts list. Bruce wouldn’t put him any higher, because Bruce doesn’t quite trust him. Not anymore. “I won’t have to sit through any meetings right?”

            “No, Mr. Wayne already arranged one,” the principal said, tiredly. 

            “Tell the kid I’ll be there in 20 minutes,” and then he hung up. 

            She looked at him quizzically, his book neatly packaged in parcel paper with a nice little bow on top of it. “Is everything okay?” she asked, concerned. 

            “My brother got into a fight at the Academy and now I have to pick him up,” he said grumpily. 

            “Oh,” her face fell, and Jason felt guilty. “I hope your brother’s okay.”

            “The little shit probably is,” he gritted through his teeth. He saw a twinge of sadness go through her expression. “Listen,” he started, “I really wanted to stay, but if I don’t pick him up, it’ll start a whole thing with my family and I…” he didn’t complete but he was sure she understood. 

            “It’s okay, Jay,” it was the first time she had called him by a nickname, and his heart beated faster at the sound. “I was about to close up anyways.”

            “Oh,” he breathed. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

            “Yeah,” she nodded, her eyes a bit glossy. 

            He turned around, his book on his hands, when he heard a small ‘Wait’. Jason turned back to her, she was looking at her feet, maybe embarrassed that she had called him, maybe she just didn’t want him to go. He didn’t want to go either. “Can you give me a ride?” she asked. “I mean, I live pretty close to Gotham Academy, it wouldn’t be too much of a detour.”

            His heart picked up the pace, and he fought a smile. “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

          She smiled at him. “Great,” she replied. “I just need to pick up my things and we can go.”

          She was very quick. She turned the lights off of the entire store and returned to the front desk with a small backpack and a few notebooks in hand. She smiled at him. “Lead the way.” 

           Like the gentleman he was raised to be, he took the notebooks from her hands and led the way, Y/N only a few steps behind him. She fished out a key out of her pocket and locked the front door. She tied a chain around the doorknob in a very specific way that almost seemed like a sailor’s knot. She put a locket in the end of the chain, and dragged a metal door down, then locking it to the ground. It seemed excessive, but it was Gotham, and Jason knew first hand what the city was like. 

           They walked a few doors down. Jason’s car glistened in the fading sunlight. He was fucking proud of that car. He had fixed everything in it, he knew that machine inside out. He made it what it was, a beautiful and powerful car. It was one of the few things he had done he felt proud of it. 

          He unlocked the doors with the alarm--yes, a 1962 black Corvette with electronic alarm, he had done that--and he heard a gasp beside him. He turned to see Y/N and her eyes glistened with amazement. “What?” he asked, confused. 

           “You have a ‘62 Corvette?” she asked, shocked. 

           “Yeah,” he dragged, still confused. 

           “I fucking love this car,” she said completely ignoring him and getting closer to the car, analyzing it carefully. “It’s so beautiful.”

           “It really is,” he got around it, looking at the street to see if there were any cars coming down. He then opened the door of his car and got in. “Get in,” he smiled at her. 

           She opened a beaming smile. She opened the door and sat on the passenger seat, her bag resting on her feet, her notebooks now on her lap, she noticed the roof of the car on--the better option for the approaching winter--the head rest he had added, the bright red color of the leather seats, and the original panel, even though she knew he most likely altered everything behind it. She looked like a little kid in it, and Jason could get used to the sight of her beside him. 

           He started the car and she squealed excitedly at the sound of the motor. He looked at her, a small smile on her face. “Is it the original motor?” she asked. “It doesn’t sound like it, it sounds electrical.”

           “That’s ‘cause it is electrical,” he responded. “The original one was very poluent so I switched it.”

           “That’s so cool,” she said, closing her eyes. Jason hinted she was trying to hear the sounds of the car, like someone you’d listen to music. “This is so cool,” she breathed out. 

           He hummed in amusement. “Never met someone who was as passionate about this car as me,” he noted. 

           “You didn’t meet people with good taste then,” she joked. “I’ve loved this car since I was a teen. Always wanted one, but I never had it in me to buy it.”

           “I found this one in a junkyard basically,” he said. “It was in pretty good condition considering where it was. Spent a year tryin’ to fix it to the original conditions, gave up and then another year buildin’ it to what it is today.”

           She looked at him, he noticed out of the corner of the eye, incredulously. “You’re so fucking cool, Jason,” she said. “You’re beyond cool, you’re just…” she trailed off. He looked at her quickly and she had a shy smile and she was looking at her hands. 

           “Thank you,” he thanked her. “People haven’t found me cool in,” he let out a breath, “forever.”

           “Well, you haven’t been walking with very nice people then,” she said. “No offense to your friends, but you’re just… you’re special, Jay.”

           And, fuck, did he love hearing that from her. She left him speechless. She turned to him and saw his stony expression--an expression of panic and chock, not of disgust as she thought--and she inhaled sharply. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” she said, desperately trying to correct her mistake. “I said too much. Forget I said anything, please,” she completed, smally. 

           “It’s okay, love,” he replied softly, the car stopping slowly at the intersection. He turned to her. He grabbed her hands, that were twisting nervously in her lap--a nervous tick he remembered noticing she had in school--and looked at her softly. “You’re fucking special too, Y/N.”

           She looked at him and her eyes filled with tears. “I--” she hesitated. She smiled at him, sniffing and wiping her eyes with one of her hands, the other still intertwined in Jason’s. “Thank you,” she said. “You have no idea what this means to me.”

           He smiled at her. “I’m just saying the truth, love.”

           That made her even more flustered. “You’re just being kind,” she said, shyly, looking at her hands entangled with his. She removed her hands of his, the traffic light turned green and Jason resumed driving the car. 

           “No, I’m not,” he denied her. “I’m telling you the truth. You’re special, and you’re amazing, Y/N.”

           She shook her head in denial, her bottom lip trapped by her teeth. “I’m not all that great,” she whispered. “I’m pretty annoying in fact. You just haven’t seen it yet.”

           “I don’t believe you. Why’d you think that?”

          She shrugged. “When you spend your whole childhood and teenagedom hearing that you’re nothing but an annoying crybaby nerd, you start to believe it at some point.”

Jason swallowed tickly at her remark. He couldn’t believe what she had just said. “Who said that to you?”

        She shook her head. “You don’t have to worry,” she replied, dismissing his concern. “It’s over now.”

           “But it still hurts you,” he noted. He noticed how this could easily apply to him. How he easily would get worked up on the little things Bruce would mention and Jason would brush it, say it’s over, it doesn’t matter, when it clearly does. It fucking does. 

           She looked at her hands, and sniffed. “It’ll always hurt, I guess.”

           Jason was rarely speechless. But, at that moment, he didn’t know what to say. Because he remembered hearing those things about her. He remembered people talking about her in that way, saying she was weird, and that they only talked to her when they needed help with homework. Admittedly, he never ever said those things about her--he didn’t even believe those things--but he never said a word to those who called her that. And that, arguably, was worse than saying those things. 

           He struggled to conciliate that guilt with the fact that he didn’t even feel like that boy--he wasn’t that boy anymore. That boy died by the hands of a clown. What had emerged from it was something entirely different. And yet, he still felt guilt over something he hadn’t done when he was that kid. 

           “I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

           “You don’t have to be sorry, Jay,” she said, her hands finding his, on the gear shift. “You didn’t do anything.”

           “But I--” he started, “I didn’t say anything about it. I knew about those things and I didn’t stop them.”

           She looked at him, and he saw by the corner of his eye. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m sure you were going through other stuff and you just wanted to fit in.”

           How was she so fucking understanding? He scoffed lightly. The thing is: he wasn’t trying to fit in, he was trying to stay out of sight. So he just listened and said nothing. “How are you so good?” He said, incredulously. He was the first person to say Gotham was rotten, head to toe, and yet there she was, fucking pure soul. 

           “I guess I just am,” she shrugged. 

           And then they fell in a comfortable silence. Her hand was still in his, and he fought the urge to bring her knuckles to his lips and plant a kiss on it. Every now and then he would steal glances at her, and he swore she was glowing in the orange sunlight peaking in the window. 

           “That’s me,” she said, pointing to a tall modern building a block before Gotham Academy. 

           “That’s a big fancy building,” he noted slowly. 

           “It’s one of my parents’ apartments,” she explained. “I live in it rent free, but I have to pay for electricity and food and stuff. It was the condition for using it. They insisted they’d pay the tuition and I demanded this apartment in return, ‘cause I wanted to pay the tuition and they wanted to--” she trailed off noticing a weird look in his eyes. “I’m sorry I ranted.”

           “It’s fine, I like to hear you talk,” he said, smiling. 

         She smiled back, looking at her feet. “Well, I should get going,” she said opening the car door. “Thanks for the ride, Jason.”

           “No problem, love,” he shook his head slightly, and looked at her softly. 

          “Yeah,” she whispered, her eyes fixed on his, already out of the car. “Bye,” she finished awkwardly and quickly walked to the building. 

           Jason watched as she floated to her home, mesmerized by her. 

           Fuck. 

#

#

#

“Red Hood has been following me,” she manifested her psychologist looking at her with wide eyes. “It’s weird to say it out loud.”

        “Why do you say that?” her psychologist asked. 

        “‘Cause I’ve seen him,” she replied. “A couple of times actually.”

        “Are you sure?” the therapist asked. 

        “Yes, I am,” she nodded enthusiastically. “I just don’t get why he’s following me.”

        “Isn’t he supposed to be a good guy?” her therapist quizzed. “Following people doesn’t seem like a good guy thing to do.”

        “Yeah,” she whispered. “I’m not scared though. I know I should be, but I’m not,” she commented. “I know I haven’t done anything wrong, there's no reason for him to be following me, at least no reason like that. I don’t know,” she sighed, “maybe he just wants to be my guardian angel,” she shrugged. 

        “It sure is a weird angel,” the therapist noted. “Have you talked about this with Jason?”

        “I did mention it to him,” she nodded. “But he got all weird about it and changed the subject quickly.”

        “That’s strange.”

        “Yeah, he definitely knows something about this,” she said smugly. “I really want to find out.”

        “Well, on the topic of Jason,” her therapist said as if she hadn’t brought him up, “how’s things with him?”

        “They’re okay,” she shrugged. “He comes to see me at work almost every day. Then he walks me to my car or gives me a ride home.”

        “I see,” the psychologist noted. “And what do you guys talk about?”

        “I don’t know,” she mumbled under her breath. “Mostly about books. Sometimes about life,” she recounted. “He’s very reserved. He doesn’t talk much about himself.”

        “And you? Do you talk about yourself?” 

        She hesitated. There was no point in lying to her therapist, it would go against the very definition of therapy and if there was one thing she hated was hypocrisy. “No,” she shook her head quietly, “I-- everytime I try, something happens and…” she shrugged. “I guess I’m too scared of scaring him off.”

        “Y/N…” the therapist warned. “You need to open up to him. How do you expect him to stick around if you don’t share things about you?”

        “To be fair,” she said raising her finger as if it would make the point she was about to make more believable, “I’ve talked about myself once with him and it was… fuck, it was hard.”

        “How did he react?” the therapist inquired. “Was he a dick?”

        “No!” she was quick to reply. “He was the sweetest. But I’m just…”

        “Depriving yourself of a potential relationship,” her therapist completed for her. “You’re sabotaging yourself, Y/N.”

        “No, I’m not,” she denied, fooling herself. “I just don’t want to get my hopes up and end up heartbroken.”

        The psychologist sighed. “I know you’re scared of getting hurt, but you’ll never know unless you let him in,” the therapist stated. “You might be pushing him away and sabotaging yourself when investing in this relationship could very well be something right for you,” she finished.

        “I know,” she mumbled. “But I just,” she sighed, defeated. “I’m scared.”

        “I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to try,” her therapist added softly. 

        “Okay,” she nodded, softly. 

#

#

#

She waited at the edge of her seat for Jason to come in at the store. She was going to try. Fuck, she hoped she didn’t mess anything up. Up until that moment she didn’t know what she was doing, she just did it. She hoped she knew what she was about to do. 

        The bell rang and Jason walked in, his hair swept by the chilly wind and his hands stuffed in his jeans’ pockets. He wore that leather jacket she loved so much, it made him so much more beautiful. She just wanted to grab him by his shirt and kiss him to no end. She smiled at him and he smiled back. 

        “I was waiting for you,” she announced happily. 

        “Yeah?” he said, leaning on his elbows. His face was inches away from hers. His pupils were blown wide, his blue eyes twinkling with something she couldn’t quite place yet. “Excited for the next rec, huh?” he smirked. 

        “No, actually,” she corrected him. “I needed to tell you something.”

        “Oh,” he said. “Go ahead then, I’m all yours.”

        “Okay,” she whispered, her heart racing at his comment. She swallowed nervously, looking him in the eye. This was it. She was going to open up to him. “I was talking to my therapist actually,” she started, “and we agreed--actually no,” she laughed. “She said that I need to open up and be vulnerable more. And it may seem a bit weird that I’m saying this to you but I swear there’s a reason.  So here it goes,” she breathed out. “I really like you, Jay. Like, really really like you. And I’m sorry if I’ve seemed weird or standoffish or anything, I’m trying to work on that. So if you want to, I don’t know, take this, um, friendship somewhere else, maybe somewhere romantic, I’d be, you know, happy to take it there too. With you, I mean.”

        He smiled genuinely at her. His eyes shifted to  her hands. She was twisting her fingers nervously. He rested his hand on hers, her hand immediately relaxing under his touch. “I’d like that,” he responded quietly. “Wanna go on a date tonight?”

        She smiled, her eyes a bit teary. Her heart raced in her chest, the worst case scenario hadn’t come true. He liked her too. He wanted to date too. Her anxiety was wrong. Thank God for that. “Yeah, I do,” she confessed. 

        His smile got bigger somehow.  “Great,” he breathed out, and she could feel the nerves leaving his body. “I’ll pick you up at 8,” he stated. 

        She smiled at him. “Great.”

#

#

#

“I need you to cover patrol for me,” Jason said to Tim, his phone pressed between his shoulder and ear. He carried a bouquet of flowers, bags from the market and a suit he had it pressed and sent to the Iceberg Lounge.

        “Why?” Tim quizzed him. 

        “‘Cause I have a thing,” Jay responded. 

        “Yeah, Imma need more than that, Jay,” Tim said. “What thing?”

        “You’re a little fucker”, he answered, resting the bags on the floor. “You just want gossip.”

        “No, I want a reason why I’ll have to add the Narrows to my patrol tonight,” Tim argued. “It’s quite far from my usual route, y’know.”

        “Fuck you, Tim,” Jason muttered. 

        “Why such hostility?” Tim teased. Jason could practically hear his brother’s smirk over the phone. “Is someone going on a date tonight?”

        Jason exhaled deeply, trying not to lose his temper and drive to Wayne Towers to choke his brother to death. He was on a schedule, he had dinner to prepare. “Will you cover for me or not?”

        “Will you tell me why you're ditching patrol?”

        “No,” Jason gritted through his teeth. 

        “Then no,” Tim said plainly. Jason knew he was messing with him. 

        Jason sighed. There was no way he’d cancel on Y/N. Not because his motherfucking brother was toying with him. “I swear to God, Drake, if you tell anyone I'll kill you the most painful way possible.”

        “So you are going on a date,” Tim stated. 

        “Fuck,” Jason sighed. “Yes, I am. Now, please Timothy, would you cover patrol for me tonight?”

        “Who’s the girl?”

        “Tim,” Jason started.

        “Or boy, I don’t judge.”

        “Will you cover the motherfucking patrol?”

        “Yeah, yeah,” Tim dismissed. 

        “Thank you,” Jason sighed relieved. 

        “Will you introduce me to t--”

        Jason hung up on his brother. He had a date to get ready to. 

#

#

#

Jason spent the rest of his afternoon getting everything ready for the date. The food, the flowers, the ambiance of the roof. Everything was perfect, just like she fucking deserved. 

           He was nervous out of his mind. His hands were sweating and he couldn’t stop running his hands through his hair in a nervous habit. It was so long ago the last time he had gone on a date with someone he cared this much about. He didn’t want to screw it up. 

         She was so precious, so good. He didn’t know what someone like her saw in someone like him, someone tainted and broken. But she saw something, and she wanted him. And he wasn’t dumb, he wasn’t going to let her go. Even if everything in his life told him to run from her, protect her from a distance, don’t get close ‘cause she’ll become a target. 

         And he was doing just that, he was protecting from a distance as the Hood. He was being fucking dumb about it too, cause she had seen him more than once. But being distant was not enough, not anymore. 

          So there he was, in front of her apartment, black ‘62 Corvette, crisp black suit and blood red t-shirt. His hair was messy and his hands were in his pockets. He leaned on the hood of the car, waiting patiently for her to come to his encounter. He was early anyways, he could wait, even if he hated the looks of pity he was receiving. She would come and those fucking pedestrians knew nothing. 

           She opened the doors and stepped on the sidewalk. She was wearing a beautiful red knee-length dress with black heels and Jason was just paralyzed at her sight. Fucking hell. How can someone be so perfect? How can someone so perfect want him?

          She stopped in front of him, a smile framing her face beautifully, her glasses crystal clean. “You look great, Jay,” she stated. 

          “I--” he opened his mouth but no words came out of his mouth. Her face fell and her eyes flashed with worry. 

          “What’s wrong?” she said. “Is everything okay?”

          He breathed out and smiled at her. “Everything’s perfect, love,” he said. He picked up her hand and kissed her knuckles gently. “You look breathtakin’.”

          She looked down shyly. “Thank you, Jay.”

          He opened the door of the car for her. She thanked him kindly, and he closed the door for her. He entered the car and started the engine. “Where’re we going?” she quizzed him.

          He looked at her with a smirk. “It’s a surprise,” he stated. “It’s part of the charm.”

          She smiled at him. “You don’t need to surprise me to charm me, Jason.”

          “Cute you think that, but you’ll see,” he responded. “This is going to be a perfect night.”

          She looked at him and sighed quietly, like she was considering something. “It’s already perfect. I’m here with you,” she said coyly. 

          Jason looked at her quickly, her gaze fixed on him. He smiled shyly. One of his hands left the wheel and found hers, holding it tightly. He brought her knuckles to his lips and kissed it softly. He wanted to say three little words, and he almost did. But she was too precious and he couldn’t just waste those words in a moment like this, an immature moment at that. No, he would cherish her like she was supposed too. He would love her in secret for now, and when he was sure she reciprocated his feelings he would say it with all his heart, he would shout it from the highest rooftop. 

          But, for now, he just looked at her, hoping his look was enough to say what he couldn’t. She smiled like she understood what he was trying to say. 

          Yeah, she was perfect. He wasn’t going to let her slip through his fingers. Fuck the voices in his head saying to run. For once in his life he was going to welcome this feeling with open arms. 

#

#

#

“So, how was your week?” her therapist quizzed. 

        “It was great, actually,” she said. “Jay took me to the museum in Metropolis. I did well in a test and I got my salary early so I bought a new pin for my collection.”

        “You’re sure spending a lot of time with Jason,” the psychologist noted. 

        “Yeah, yeah,” she sighed softly. “I really like him, you know.”

        “I do know,” the therapist replied. “How does it feel to be in a relationship?”

        She looked down at her hands, flustered. “It feels nice and weird and...and…” she trailed off. “I have no words to describe it.”

        Her therapist smiled at her. “He seems like a nice guy, Y/N,” she commented. “How do your friends like him?”

        She twisted her hands nervously. “Henry was suspicious of him at first,” she started. “You know, Jay’s a bit shy and intimidating, Henry was concerned he’d hurt me.”

        “And how did you react to his concern?”

        “I mean,” she shrugged, “it’s a valid concern. But Jay wouldn’t…” she hesitated. “We’ve talked about this, y’know? He knows where I stand, he knows where my fears come from and he gave me his word,” she sniffed, her voice strained. “He promised. And so far he didn’t break any of his promises.”

        “You do trust him a lot,” the therapist noticed. 

        “I trust him with my life,” she added. “I hope he doesn’t break that trust.”

        She hummed and wrote something down. “What about your other friends?” her therapist questioned. “I know Henry means the world to you, but he’s not your only friend.”

        “Julie thought he was okay and the other boys were just very neutral about it,” she explained. “You know how they’re like. As long as I’m happy they’ll be supportive.”

        “Are you happy?” the psychologist inquired. 

        “Yeah,” she replied enthusiastically. “Fuck yeah. Jay’s just… He’s the best, you know. He gets me. He’s respectful and he’s smart and handsome. I really like him.”

        Her therapist smiled. “I’m glad you’re happy, Y/N,” she said. “It’s been a long time coming.”

        “It sure has,” she chuckled quietly. 

        “How about the Red Hood?” the therapist asked. “Have you seen him lately?”

        “All the time,” she replied. “Ever since I started dating Jay, I’ve seen the Hood when I wasn’t with him.”

        “Doesn’t that concern you?”

        “No,” she shook her head. “It’s weird but it doesn’t.”

        “Why’s that?”

        “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “He seems familiar, you know? Not because I’ve seen him up close or seen him more times than I can count but…” she pondered. “His posture and his stance, it’s so so familiar to me. I wonder if I’ve met him as a civilian.”

        “You could have,” her therapist pondered. “How does Jason think of this?”

        “He doesn’t,” she answered. “He always changes the subject very quickly every time I bring it up.”

        “That’s weird.”

        “Yep,” she agreed. “I know he’s up to something. I just haven’t had the courage to ask him. Yet.”

#

#

#

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. 

        Jason messed up.  He messed up bad. 

        He could live with the fact she had seen him a couple of times lurking in rooftops making sure she was safe. He could live with the fact she was onto him, that she knew he was hiding something from her, something related to the Hood. Jason knew eventually he would have to tell her, this double life would become unsustainable, and he’d have to merge it into one. As much as he dreaded that day, he would fucking do it. 

        But when she sat him down in her living room and said that she knew he was the Hood, he knew, he was fucking sure, he should have been more careful. 

        “I’m not mad, y’know,” she said quietly. “I get why you hid from me.”

        Jason remained quiet, trying to make sense of his thoughts. “How did you find out?”

        A smile passed on her face. “You were just so familiar, I guess,” she explained. “You felt so familiar even from afar. So I just started connecting the dots.”

        “I see,” he whispered. His heart beated faster and faster with anxiety. He couldn’t handle it, he thought he would have more time to tell her. He hadn’t realized she could very well discover on her own, he had given her enough clues to do just so. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

        “It’s fine, Jason,” she replied quietly. “You don’t need to feel sorry.”

        “I feel like I should,” he said. He sighed and grabbed her hands softly. “I owe you an explanation, Y/N.”

        “You don’t owe me anything besides your safety,” she cut him. “I don’t care about what you do at night, Jason. I care about you, I--” she looked at him, trying to search for something in his eyes. “I love you, Jay. And I don’t think I could bear to lose you.”

        Jason opened his mouth in shock. He wasn’t expecting that. “I love you,” he replied to her. “I’ve fucking loved you ever since I laid eyes on you, Y/N,” he grabbed her face and rested his forehead on hers. “I was just so scared to let you in on the secret. ‘Cause I know of the dangers, I know first hand how fucking dangerous this life is, and loosing you would kill me,” he explained. “For the second time,” he whispered. 

        Her hands rested on his cheeks, her thumb caressing him gently. She kissed him, softly, and he reciprocated it. 

        “I want to tell you,” Jason whispered, against her lips. “I have to tell you, how I became what I became.”

        “You don’t n--” she began. 

        “I do, though,” he interrupted her. “I do,” he whispered. He sighed, and looked down. He held her wrists carefully. “If you don’t want to see me after everything I tell you, I’ll understand. I won’t blame you.”

        “Imma stop you right there,” she looked him in the eyes. “You think I don’t know anything, but I know a couple of things, Jay. I did my research on the Hood,” she commented. “You don’t scare me.”

        “There are things that I’ve done that…” he shook his head. 

        “It’s okay, Jay,” she said softly. “One step at a time, love.”

        So he took one step at a time. He told her everything carefully. Some details were left behind, he couldn’t say them out loud, not even if he wanted to. She held his hands through it all, and he was truly grateful for it. 

        “I had no idea,” she whispered. “I’m sorry you had to go through all that.”

        “You don’t have to be,” he shook his head and squeezed her hands. “It led me to you.”

author’s note: here is the link to my jason playlist once again and the link to my masterlist.

[thr-333]

Mismatch- Part 9

Bio Dad Bruce Wayne Month 2020

“yeah sure thing pal”- my friend when I asked for something to put here

First< Previous > Next

-----

“Ok, we’ll be arriving at the museum soon,” Marinette tells Marion, who is focusing on his phone.

“Great, by the way how do you feel about a meet and greet before the concert?” Marion confirms the dates with their manager for said meet and greet.

“Hm, It’ll be tough to fit it in, maybe in our free week?” Marion nods knowing it was already set up in their free week, “I don't know Ri,”

“It’ll be fun,” Because a large event in Gotham is always fun and goes off without a hitch, “Besides it’d be kind of rude to do meet and greets in every other city we’re visiting but Gotham,”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Marinette smiles, looking out the window of the bus, “Oh no Kate's going to kill us for deciding last minute,”

“Don’t worry she already agreed,” Marion ignores her confusion, “It’s a week from now, so it’ll be in our free week,”

“What! You already set it up and didn’t ask me!” Marinette raises the volume of their whispered conversation.

“I did you agreed,” Marion reminds her, "Remember we were in the airport, you were staring at Adrien, and I asked quietly,"

“... and you don't see anything wrong with that?" Marinette deadpans, "Or even considered that maybe I couldn't hear you or wasn't listening.

“Huh, didn't consider that,” Marion looks away with a smile not needing to see Marinette's glare

“You are unbelievable,” She lectures raising her volume, "You know I'm not coherent when he's around!"

“When who’s around?” Adrien pops up behind them from his seat next to Nino.

“No one!” Marinette yells, drawing all eyes on the bus towards her blushing.

“Marinette you please keep your voice down, it's aggravating my tinnitus,” Lila says as sweetly as poison.

Marinette rolls her eyes and they both ignore Rose and Sabrina fussing over her.

“Alright class,” Madame Bustier addresses them after they exit the bus, “You’re parents are all quite concerned over yesterday's events, so we all must stick together today, this isn’t like Akuma attacks where you’re expected to go home, I have to know where you are,”

A chorus of ‘yes Madame Bustier’ is heard as they follow their teacher into the museum. They meet their tour guide for the day falling into a similar pattern of Lila’s posse talking throughout the tour. This tour guide seems to be more accustomed to school kids ignoring him, although he does seem pleased that the twins keep asking questions. The class had been given time to look around the Atlantean exhibit. The twins deciding to look over a mural that seemed to depict a past miraculous holder.

“Hey,” They both turn towards a young man with his phone up like he was recording, “You’re the Wayne twins right?”

“Excuse me?” Marion exchanges glances with Marinette, equally confused.

“Bruce Wayne's new kids right?” The guy pushes, taking a step forward.

“We have no idea what you’re talking about,” Marinette tries to explain, taking a step back.

“Alright I get it, want to keep it on the down low, don’t worry I won’t tell anyone,” He assures, Marion looks doubtfully at his phone he makes no effort to put away.

“You’re recording,” Marion states the obvious, which seems to irritate him.

“No I’m not, just tell me!” He demands, Marinette pushes Marion back slightly to try and get away.

“We don’t know what you’re talking about and you’re being very rude,” Marinette scolds, as the camera is pushed nearer her face.

“Why won’t you just admit it!”

“They owe you no explanation,” Kagami appears, grabbing the man's arm and forcefully pointing the camera away from the twins.

“And you don’t have permission to film or take pictures of them,” Chloe plucks the phone out of the startled man's grasp.

“I just-”

“You just nothing- now shoo,” Chloe chucks his phone onto a nearby bench, presumably with the footage deleted, and guides the twins to an empty hallway, “What was that about?”

“No idea, he approached us out of nowhere,” Marion tells the two seething girls.

“He was calling us the Wayne twins,” Marinette supplies more helpfully, “We should probably call Aunt Selina, she might know something,”

She usually did. Kagami and Chloe nod leaving them to the call, but Marion spots them waiting just outside the hallway.

“Hello?” Their Aunt says through speaker phone.

“Hey, Auntie something weird just happened,” Marion can think of no better way to describe it.

“What happened, you weren't attacked again were you?” Her tone is joking but with a hint of doubt, knowing that it was absolutely a possibility with them.

“No this guy came up to us filming, asking if we were the 'Wayne twins'?” Marinette sums up, wording it far more politely than the actual interaction.

“Wayne twins? Just a minute” She hangs up with a beep, leaving them in the empty hallway.

“... So that exhibit huh?” Marion tries to fill the silence, “You think we should investigate it?”

“I wonder if the Atlantean's part of out order of guardians or if they have their own,” Marinette keeps her voice hushed, she opens up her purse slightly "Do you know Tikki?"

“I’m not sure, we Kwami’s were rarely aware of the whereabouts of Kwamis from different miracle boxes," Tikki tells them from the purse.

“Maybe a branch off the order, I mean the miraculous can be powered up to go underwater so working together wouldn’t have been improbable,” Marinette theorises.

“Then any miraculous they held would have likely been in circulation when the temple was destroyed,” Kaalki adds.

"If thats the case then the order probably can't locate them," Marion frowns, glancing at Marinette's backpack that held their miracle box.

"And those that hold them might not know what they are," Marinette adds, after all Alix's family had passed a miraculous down for generations.

“We could-”

“We’re not going to Atlantis,” Marinette cuts Marion off.

“But-”

“No,”

“I thought it was cats that were meant to be scared of water,” He pouts, getting ignored by Marinette.

“To be fair the last time I was in Atlantis things didn’t go so well,” Plagg says, "Plus it was above ground,"

"Then I'll take Kaalki,"

"We aren't going to Atlantis," Marinette scolds, as the phone starts ringing.

“Here's the thing,” Aunt Selina says as soon as she's put on speaker phone, “Apparently some people took pictures of you the past few days with the Wayne family and figured you must be Waynes too,”

“That's ridiculous!” Marion has apparently been spending too much time with Chloe.

“.... yeah people come up with some crazy theories,” Selina sounds strained, “Look don’t worry about a thing, just enjoy your trip we’ll handle everything,”

“Ok,” They both agree hesitantly.

“Alright call me if you have any other problems, anything at all,” They agree, saying goodbye before the call is disconnected.

“Just a heads up, the whole class saw what happened,” Chloe warns them as soon as they reenter the exhibit, “We looked up the whole ‘Wayne twins’ thing-”

“A ridiculous rumour,” Kagami has apparently also been spending too much time around Chloe.

“Long story short, Lie-la’s trying to convince the whole class you two made it up for attention,” Chloe finishes glaring over at the group gathered around Lila. Minus Max and Alix the latter of which looking at the mural the twins had been earlier.

“And succeeding,” Adrien adds pityingly, as some of their classmates glare at the twins.

“By the way,” Chloe elbows Marion playfully, “You didn’t tell me you were child billionaires,”

“Of course we didn’t,” Marion grins slyly back at her, “Wouldn’t want to make you jealous of our diamond toilet, we know how insecure you get with only a gold toilet,”

“Honestly Chloe, how do you get by?” Marinette sighs over dramatically.

“Does this officially make us the rich kid club?” Adrien chimes in, as they walk out of sight of the rest of the class.

“I suppose it does,” Kagami agrees, with her usual stoic tone, but clearly in on the joke.

“We would make a great reality tv show,” Chloe declares.

“Well we have enough money to buy a camera crew apparently,”

“I like your thinking Dupain-Cheng,” Chloe teases, getting a mock curtsy in response.

They continue with the tour doing quite well at ignoring the slides from Lila against them. That doesn't mean they aren’t glad to go back to the Hotel away from her.

“I think we should just order room service,” Marinette cuts through the arguing.

“It’ll probably be safer,” Kagami hands the menu to Nino, who had been trying to convince them to get pizza.

“How unglamorous,” Chloe sneers, like she had with every other option presented, especially Nino's pizza. He had made it his personal mission to get Chloe to eat pizza. Marion was all for it, but not tonight they had to meet up with Batman later.

“We can paint our nails,” Kagami offers, tired of them arguing for the past half hour.

“Yeah if I still had my nail polish,” Chloe pouts.

“I brought some,” Kagami says, much to the other girls surprise.

“I have some back in my room,” Marion adds.

“And I have face masks!” Chloe exclaims running to her room to get them.

“I’ll invite Max and Markov,” Marion offers shooting them a text, “I’ll tell them to pick it up,”

“They don’t have a key,” Adrien leans over Nino’s shoulder to read the menu.

“Max built a sentient robot when we were, like 13, do you really think he needs a key?” Marion finishes typing, getting an instant confirmation.

“Touche,”

“Why don’t you shout us billionaires?” Chloe picks through her food. Sitting at the table with Kagami, both refusing to balance dinner on their knees.

“What? I thought we were the rich kids club, can’t you pay for your own meals?” Marion cringes at the feeling of chewing while wearing a face mask.

“Atlas the rest of us are lowly millionaires,” Chloe slumps back dramatically, fork in hand.

“I’m not a million are or billionaire,” Nino sounds annoyed but it's probably more at his painted nails that Marinette promised they would remove later.

“Neither but I plan to be,” Max had managed to avoid his nails getting painted, but got a face mask to match Markov.

“Oh-ho confident words from the nerd, alright you get early admission, Nino you have to leave,” Marion teases, pointing Nino towards the door.

“What?! I’ll be making millions with my music in no time,” Nino crosses his arms, startling a second later at the nail polish now smeared on his shirt.

“Yeah right,” Chloe scoffs, watching as Marinette fumbles to remove the stain before it sets. Adrien trying, and failing, to help with his still wet nails.

“Thanks, Anyway dudes it was probably a bad idea to spread that rumour on purpose,” Nino says with genuine concern, after Marinette had gotten the stain out.

“What? Nino we didn’t do it on purpose,” Marinette cleans up the tissues and nail polish remover that had ended up ruining her own nails.

“I know,” Nino has a look that screams he definitely didn’t know, “but you probably could have been more careful instead of parading around,”

“We didn’t know we had to be careful,” Marion starts collecting everyone's empty plates.

“Is this what Lila’s been telling you?” Kagami demands, standing to help Marion who immediately sits her back down. Kagami has many skills, house work is not one of them.

“Calm down dude, she just doesn't know the whole story,” Nino picks his plate back up, being the only one still eating,“She’d probably ask but you dudes aren't exactly close,”

“Lila shouldn’t be talking about them behind their backs at all,” Chloe criticises, coming to sit down on the couch now.

“She isn’t-”

“She is,” Chloe challenges Nino, helped by a death glare.

"..."

“... Anyway Nino, do you have any dates planned with Alya while we’re here,” Adrien breaks the silence, not at all searching for ideas on where to take Marinette.

[ectonurites]

Okay, so I kinda wanna know your thoughts about how weird the fandom portrays the bat characters. Canon is ... not my favorite, but it actually offers a lot of nuance to the characters that I think makes them all interesting. Unlikable, but interesting. I noticed fanon tends to boil the batkids all into these superflat caricatures. Like, cereal obsessed manchild Dick Grayson or bad boy who's literal crimes are only because of the lazarus pit Jason Todd. Its not really a major problem, just weird

Oh I have a LOT of thoughts about this. I try so hard not to shit on how other people interact with content because like, it’s comic books! We’re all just here trying to make the best out of a mess of stuff and have fun, but admittedly a lot of fanon stuff drives me fuckin’ nuts as someone who reads a ton of comics.

Like, I like memes, obviously, I draw tons of memes with the batfam (+ yj) characters and make lighthearted jokes etc etc, and honestly if it’s just for jokes then I don’t mind people having whack interpretations of the characters quite as much. The thing that drives me up a wall though is like... when serious works and analysis and discussion are very clearly based on just the fanon interpretations without any bearing on canon aside from what you could skim from a wiki page, and it’s spoken like it’s fact! There’s ‘having fun with jokes that aren’t taking things that seriously’ and then there’s ‘blatantly mischaracterizing based on misinformation’. Way too often I see things fall into that second category.

Now, a lot of people in the batfam fandom don’t... actually read comics (or at least not frequently) and that’s not even a bad thing necessarily, like you’re 100% allowed to enjoy content however you want to! (I don’t wanna be gatekeepey, especially since comics are confusing to get into)

But the problem is that when a lot of people aren’t reading the comics, then the people who do’s opinions have a lot more influence if they’re loud enough. All it takes is one person who read something and interpreted it a specific way that might not even be correct, and then it can echo chamber and suddenly half the fandom thinks it’s 100% canon that way because ‘oh so and so said that and they actually read it’.

I also think that’s a problem with the popularity of out of context panels/blogs, while they are super funny sometimes, when people make assumptions about characters based on just a few things without context... it can lead to problems. If enough people say something enough times people just... start to think it’s true, even if it exists entirely devoid of context which changes the meaning.

Like, for example, according to canon there’s no actual confirmation Tim stalked Batman on foot for an extended period of time! We know from Lonely Place of Dying that he followed him once to get a picture to convince DIck that he still needed a Robin. Otherwise his ‘stalking’ & how he figured out Batman’s identity was more through media appearances (like newspapers and tv). This is wildly different from the common fanon idea that little Timmy was sneaking out regularly to follow Batman & Robin around with his camera.

I primarily blame Geoff Johns for this misconception because of these panels in in tt 2003 (from issue 29)

But like, think about it for a second, literally how would Jason know that? This is one of the first times he’s ever interacting with Tim, and he was dead/catatonic when that would have been happening! He is either making a wild assumption or perhaps Talia told him this when she told him about Tim, whichever of those it was it’s secondhand information not something he witnessed. Taking his word as fact here makes no sense, he was just trying to get under Tim’s skin while fighting him. But seeing those panels out of context if you haven’t actually read Lonely Place of Dying/only read a vague summary of it, and don’t necessarily know the details of the Jason situation, it could absolutely lead you to believe otherwise!

Dick as a cereal manchild is a weird one because like... okay yeah sure he likes cereal, I can think of like two panels I’m too lazy to find right now off the top of my head of him having it, but... that’s not something we see all the time! Its not like Ollie & his chili (which IS a running joke- seriously I have not read that many Green Arrow comics but the amount of times I’ve seen that man bring up chili in just in the few things I have read is wild. there’s even an official recipe. his chili has it’s own dc wiki page). Then, because Dick isn’t quite as emotionally closed off in the same way the rest of the batfam tends to be, people project literally all the pent up feelings onto him, making him this hug-crazy crybaby manchild... again it’s just very clear people who perpetuate those ideas (outside of like, maybe as jokes) haven’t actually fully read that many comics with him. I’d also even blame the Young Justice cartoon version of Dick for some other traits fanon Dick has, bc that version of him is def a bit of a Hot Mess™️ once he’s Nightwing 

Jason I understand misconceptions about probably the most because of how wildly inconsistent his writing was before the new 52 and how consistently Not Great it was once Lobdell took over. Jason’s one of the few characters I have read like, 90% of appearances for so I’m speakin’ from experience here. But still... acting like Jason as Red Hood is just a ‘bad boy rebel’ that could have a relatively happy connection with the whole Batfam is fun but unrealistic. You can not blame everything on the lazarus pit... he still has killed people! Lots of people! Willingly! Yes he has reasons and when he’s being written well it’s clear that he’s not just ‘random murder happy’ but rather ‘I kill when I feel they deserve it and that it’s necessary’ which is what keeps him an anti-hero rather than a full fledged villain most of the time, but that still keeps him so at odds with the rest of the Batfamily! Writers in more current continuity have had him compromise by only using rubber bullets in Gotham so they can have him interact with the family, but he’s still killed and will do it when he deems it necessary.

Also like... at the time of Under The Red Hood in the comics... theoretically... he hadn’t even been in the lazarus pit for well over a year. Go read Lost Days (it’s short! And except for the thing with him & Talia towards the end of the last issue it’s pretty good!), he spends a lot of time traveling the world and learning things/training before the events of UtRH. Yes you could interpret there still being some Lazarus influence going on there but I think the movie version of UtRH especially leads people to believe there’s a lot less time between his dunk in the pit and his first actions as Red Hood.

Fanon also has a lot of ideas about pit madness that vary wildly from what we have seen in canon, like yeah it’s been said to be a thing to some extent, but there’s not really the Danny Phantom Glowing Green Eyes™️ or anything like that... it’s fun to explore cool new ideas for sure but I just think it’s important to recognize the distinction between things that are actually canon and things that are popular fanon. (Also there are things that fall somewhere in between, there’s definitely stuff that isn’t 100% confirmed canon but could still be plausible/has been hinted at by some writers/is only canon in some settings)

Other things that drive me nuts are ‘quiet does-no-wrong angel Cass’ and ‘the Normal One™️ Duke’ because those just make literally no sense if you’ve read any comics with either of them... but fan content either does those versions or just completely ignores their existence a lot of the time! So! That’s a whole bigger problem!

In general though, this is fandom it’s not like this... matters that much on the grand scheme of things in life, we’re just people on social media talkin’ about comics. And this kind of misconception/flattening of characters does happen in literally every fandom ever. But it still does suck to see characters that have a lot of nuance and interesting history to play around with get reduced to a few traits that aren’t even actually that relevant to who they are.

[imagines-by-a-typical-fangirl]

Dangerous Love (Pt. 05 of 13)

Pairing: Bruce Wayne (Batman) X Harley Quinn's sister!Reader

Word count: 2.5K

Summary: You're Harley Quinn's sister, Havoc, one of the many villain's of Gotham. But you've been caught, and has been tortured constantly for an year in Belle Reve. But when your think your life can't be anything else than the nightmare you find yourself into, Bruce Wayne, the Batman, takes you in for a project. He has a program to rehabilitate villains, and you're his lab rat. But soon enough confusing feelings start getting in the way. You know falling for Bruce is stupid. But can you keep your heart under control?

<- Previous part (04)

Next part (06)->

{Justice League - DC Masterlist}

You just finished the book. Four days must be a world record. So you put it down on the nightstand, going to the window. Your heart starts beating fast when you see Bruce down there. He told you he'd have a busy day today, so Alfred will be bringing the meals. Bruce looks good, suit and tie. A small group of people is with him, with cameras and microphones. Another interview.

×

Dreams Are Better Than Reality

He suddenly looks up, straight at you. The smile that comes to your lips can't be controlled. And... There's a small smile on his lips too. Hesitantly, you wave at him, placing your hand on the glass. He nods, slightly. But his attention is claimed by a woman. She comes walking, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek. She's beautiful, blonde hair and a dark red dress.

There's a knot on your stomach, and you quickly step away, closing the curtains. A man like Bruce is never alone. He can have anyone he wants, and many women want him, you're sure. It's stupid to feel this way. Bruce is a free man and you... You're a criminal.

Deciding not to think about it, you take the book, reading some parts again. Hours later, after dinner, when you're curled up in bed, you take the drawing you made of Bruce. It's hard to see the details in the darkness, but you already memorized his features. But you force yourself to put it away, back inside the book. Closing your eyes, you try to get a little bit of sleep.

• Bruce's POV •

The reporters follow me, and I tell them to choose a place for the interview. Today had been a hectic day, and it's far from over yet. Guiding them through the gardens, I look down at my feet. Did she eat something already? Did Alfred remind her that I won't be able to visit today?

“By the pool seems like a good place.”

“Maybe over there.”

Nodding, I don't pay attention to the chattering. I suddenly realize I'm by her room, and something makes me look up, at her window. My heart starts beating faster when I see her face, looking down at me. (Y/N) seems so different from when she got here, more innocent. Even though the distance, I take in her beautiful eyes, and her lips, breaking into a smile. I'm smiling back before I can notice, admiring her delicate face. She waves, her hand laying on the glass.

“Bruce.” Angela, today's interviewer, gets my attention. Our long term friendship gives her the opening to hug me, and place a kiss on my cheek. But as I loosely return her embrace, I'm aware of (Y/N), looking at me. At Angela and I. What will she think of it?

“Angela. I hope you're having a good day.” I tell her, my eyes quickly going back at the window when she pulls away. But the curtains are closed. She's gone.

The interview is the same as many others. I smile politely, answering the same generic questions. Hours later, I'm at the gala I'm forced to attend. The music, the people, nothing makes me stop thinking about her.

My mind starts wandering, and I picture her here, with me, in a beautiful dress, with her hair rolling down her shoulders. I would have her by my arm all night, show her around this place. Something tells me she would like it.

I can't think of (Y/N) like that. I've been telling myself over and over again, but it doesn't seem to work. I even considered the possibility of stop visiting her for a while again, but I couldn't. I have to see her.

It's past midnight when I'm back home, after leaving the gala earlier than usual. I go straight to my room to shower and check Gotham streets before deciding if I should go out today. But on my way to the cave, I walk by her room. Stopping on my tracks, I look at the closed door. Maybe she's awake.

Careful not to make any noises in case she's asleep, I unlock the door. (Y/N) is lied down, curled up. Slowly, I walk in. Her book is opened beside her, and a piece of paper is coming out from among the pages. Walking closer to the bed, I bend over to take it. The paper is from the book, folded. Opening it, I hold my breath to see a drawing of my face. She's talented. But why is she drawing me?

Putting the paper back where I found it, I walk around the bed so I can see her face. She's not peaceful. It looks like she's in pain. The nightmares. (Y/N) must be having another one. Carefully, I sit on the bed, trying not to move the mattress too much. I need to give her something for a dreamless sleep. She furrows her eyebrows, clenching her fist. She's scared.

I want to tell her I'm here, that whatever is happening in her head, it can't hurt her. What haunts her? And how can I chase it away? Reaching out my hand, I touch her cheek, softly. Her skin feels so delicate under my touch, so fragile. It kills me to imagine everything they did to her. The image of Belle Reve's guards beating her is too much to handle. Rubbing my thumb on her chin, a smile comes to my lips. I was right. (Y/N) is improving, and I meant what I said when I promised I'd never let her go back to that prison.

My eyes wander through her face. The roots of her hair, and all the rest, in a light shade of lilac. Her eyebrows, nose, and lips. When I look at her eyes, I find them open, innocently looking at me. I freeze, unable to move my hand away from her face.

• (Y/N's) POV •

In your sleep, you're drowning in darkness. You're struggling to breathe, but suddenly, you feel something. Whatever it is, it brings you back, slowly returning into consciousness. You feel something on your face, so softly, that it can only be a dream. It must be a good dream this time because when you open your eyes, it's Bruce you see.

Not Joker, or Harley, or some of the guards... Bruce. You're finally having a good dream. His touch feels so delicate, like it's not even there. Smiling, you take his hand.

“Bruce,” you say, pulling him. “Stay with me.”

He doesn't resist, so you keep pulling him until he's lying down, your head on his chest. You know this may turn into a nightmare any time soon, but for now, you can enjoy it. It feels so good... So peaceful. You hold onto him as if you could force the good dream to remain for a while longer.

“If you stay here I won't have nightmares,” you mutter, taking in his scent. You love his cologne, it's familiar. You wish it was real. You're listening to his heartbeat, feeling his chest moving as he breaths. You wish it was real, that this was really him. But it's ok. At least in your dreams, you can have him this close.

“I think I could fall in love with you.” It comes out, as you close your eyes again, bracing yourself for whatever may happen next.

“Me too.” His illusion answers and you giggle.

You really wish this could be real.

•••

You're happy. Beyond happy. Maybe, whatever Bruce is doing is actually working. Brushing your hair, you need to tell him about last night. He will be happy, right? To know his project is going well. You hear the door opening and run out of the bathroom, as fast as you can despite the pain, smiling to see Bruce.

“Hi.”

“Good morning, (Y/N). How do you feel?”

“Good.” Taking the cup of juice from the tray he's carrying, you take a sip.

“We need to talk about something.” He sounds serious, and whatever is it, it might just ruin the mood.

“Sure. But I need to tell you something first.” You sit on the bed crossing your legs. “Yesterday, I had a good dream. A really good dream.” Of course, you would never tell him what it was about. How you held on to him, your head on his chest... That he can never know. “It started bad but... It changed and then it was good. I can't even remember the last time I actually had a nice dream.”

Bruce seems confused, thinking. You watch as the puts the tray on the nightstand, as usual. He doesn't seem so serious anymore, just... Different. “That's very good to know.”

“What is it that you wanna talk about?”

“Nothing. Let's begin with your therapy session, as you like to call. Eat.”

Weird to say the least. Shrugging your shoulders, you eat the sandwich before sitting on the armchair before him.

“Alfred told me you went to a party yesterday. How was it?” You take a blanket with you, wrapping it around your shoulders.

“Boring, as usual. But the place was beautiful, I think you would like it. The Hall had high walls, with a huge crystal chandelier and its light reflected through the place as if starts had fallen to Earth.”

The image fills your heart and you smile. It sounds amazing, but... The people there would make you nervous, you're sure. “Did you dance?” You ask him, and the memory of that woman comes back to your mind. How she hugged and kissed him. “With that friend.”

“I didn't dance at all. I had a lot in my head. By the way, I'll be hosting a gala next Saturday. So Alfred will be the one to bring you dinner.”

“Alright... So... Batman does know how to dance. That's impressive.” Smirking, you tease him.

“You must be a great dancer too, to speak like that.” A smile crosses his face.

“Not really. Someone like me doesn't get the chance to go to parties like that... All we have are the night clubs. And I never enjoyed night clubs.” Every passing day, you take less pleasure in remembering your life. Before coming here, before Belle Reve. The adrenaline of some moments still get to you sometimes, and you find yourself missing it. But sometimes... You feel embarrassed to tell Bruce those things. You're starting to see that what you used to do wasn't right. But then again, how were you supposed to have anything in life? You're supposed to be graduated from college, and maybe be in a good job. But the truth is that you don't have anything but the money you stole. Being a villain is the only thing you know how to do.

“You're different from the others. It gets more clear every day.”

“Then you must be proud of yourself for choosing me.”

“No, I'm proud of you. When I first got in touch with the direction of Belle Reve and exposed what I wanted to do and who I wanted to try it on, they told me I'd fail.” Bruce's stare is intense, like fire. Not the type that burns, but the type that keeps people warm... Or maybe you're just cold today. “That you fight and run, constantly, never allowing any human being but those you command to approach. Never would open up, because they think there's nothing in you.”

“Maybe they're right.” Looking down, you pull your legs up, hugging your knees. “When nobody believes in you, you stop believing too. So that's what I did. They treated me like an animal, so I became an animal.”

“I believe in you.”

Your eyes meet his again, and you can't control the smile that comes to your lips. “I did give you a hard time, didn't I? In the beginning.”

“You definitely did. But I'm glad I didn't give up on you. It would be a huge mistake.”

Nervously, you run a hand through your hair. It's hard to admit, even to yourself, that you're glad too. “Well, Bruce Wayne. What is it we'll talk about today?”

“Harley.” He simply says.

“My dear sister. Is she still out there?”

“Yes, but I'm closing in. How's your relationship with her?”

You wanna tell him about the dream... The last thing you want now is to talk about Harley. What the hell is happening to you? Why did you dream of Bruce in that way in the first place? Was it because you got jealous of that woman? A beautiful, normal, mentally healthy woman Bruce could fall for? Wait, were you jealous? Is that what jealousy feels like? Like you want to punch that woman in the face until she's bleeding mess? No, you shouldn't do that. How do normal people deal with jealousy?

It doesn't really matter because you can't feel this way towards Bruce. It's like emotional suicide. Focus on Harley, focus on the therapy. “Harley cares about me. In her own way. She just cares more about herself. We...” Closing your eyes, you can't shake the image off my head.

Bruce's fingers caressing your cheek, so delicately. Your head on his chest, his arms holding you. It felt like... Home. How can someone feel like home? It's illogical.

“(Y/N)?” Bruce's voice gets your attention and you open your eyes again. “What are you thinking about?”

“The dream, I... It was good to have a nice dream, that's all.” His expression softens as if he's remembering something too. Maybe he remembered a good dream he had. “Harley and I were close when she started taking me out with her. As I learned things for my own, we eventually parted ways. It didn't help that I was in constant war with her beloved Joker.”

“Don't you have anyone who's a friend? Someone you would trust?”

“Boomy is like my best friend, I guess.”

“Boomy?”

“Captain Boomerang. We're rarely in touch, but whenever we bump into each other, I know he'll have my back.” You smile to remember him. He's a nice guy. At least to you. “Deadshot too. He's the one you look for when you need some actual advice.”

“Do you miss them?”

“Yeah, a little...” Why is he asking that? “It-It doesn't mean I want to go back–”

“You're not going back to Belle Reve,” Bruce reassures you, reaching out his hand, which you're quick to take. “Never doubt that.”

His touch is warm, and it burns like pure electricity. You don't know why he doesn't let go, his fingers caressing the back on your hand. “Thank you for... For not believing them. For... Everything. Everything you did for me, I... I never thought anyone would be this kind to me.”

“You deserve it. You deserve more than being treated like...”

“It's ok. I get it.” Smiling, your eyes fall on your hands, still together.

You have to be careful not to misread the signs. Careful not to confuse gentleness with something else... Bruce would never look at you differently. He needs a woman like the one you saw. Elegant, beautiful... Normal. You're too much of a trouble, and you always will be.

×

@redwolf-7 @glitterypinkkitty @mybabyboytony @chipster-21 @agustdpeach @yaakimoon2 @chloe-skywalker

[peppersonironi]

For @duketectivecomics‘s Duke Week Day Six: All in the Batfamily

Summary: Duke gets woken up at night and is roped into a strange initiation ceremony into the bats. Despite initial chaos, Duke finds that he is actually enjoying himself, and that maybe being a part of this family isn’t such a scary thing. Throwing a glitter bomb at Batman is definitely scary though.

“Are you ready?”

Duke opened his eyes, to find Dick Grayson hovering a few inches away from his face. “Gah!” Duke let out, scrambling backwards on his bed till he hit the headboard. “What are you doing?”

“Poor reflexives,” Duke looked past Dick to find Damian frowning at him, “And he should have known we were present before waking.”

“Settle down, kid,” This time Jason spoke, “Not everyone is as freaky as you.”

Duke blinked the sleep away from his eyes, and surveyed the scene before him. Dick was still by his bed, grinning. Damian and Jason stood behind, along with Cass, Tim,  and Stephanie. Wow, when was the last time he’d ever seen all these guys together in the same room without killing each other? Duke had a worrisome feeling that he was the reason for this strange behavior.

“Um,” Duke asked, “What’s going on? It's 2 am.”

“We’re welcoming you to the family!” Dick’s grin grew impossibly wider.

“But I’ve been here four months?”

Tim shook his head. “But you haven’t had a proper welcome, yet. We had to wait till everyone was here, and Steph insisted she be a part.

“Heck yeah!” The blonde teen said, “I’m a part of this family, whether you like it or not! Bruce even gave me an allowance!”

“You tricked him into giving you his credit card,” Jason replied dryly.

“Like you haven’t done that before.”

“I don’t bother tricking him.”

Duke looked back and forth at the exchange, trying to wrap his mind around what was happening.

“That doesn't answer my question.”

Damian sighed. “In order to truly be a Wayne, you must go through the initiation period.” “That's not ominous at all.”

“Tour,” Cass said, “You learn things. Not bad, fun.”

Duke nodded. “Thank you, Cass.” He was still confused, but at least she was trying.

“If you would get dressed, we have much ground to cover.” Damian sniffed, but even Duke could tell the kid was excited.

Dick backed away from the bed. “We'll be right back, Duke, get ready!”

*****

Five minutes later, Duke found himself hastily dressed and standing in the entrance hall of Wayne manor. His siblings were arrayed in a semi-circle before him, all of them in weird red robes. They had managed to set up tiki torches at intervals around the room, adding to the atmosphere of doom.

“We are gathered here today to celebrate the bonding between two families. That of the Thomas' and that of the Waynes.” Duke blinked at Tim. “Why are you making it sound like we're getting married?”

“Shh!”

“In this great ceremony, We accept you, Duke Thomas, into our fold. After this day henceforth, you will be one with the bats.” Tim took a deep breath and continued reading from the scarily large book in his hands. “The bonding day is set in three parts. The first, a display of power. You shall be shown our places, and our things, so that you are made privy to the goings on in the lives of Gotham's most secretive family. Next, You shall be given tasks by each member of the clan – excepting Bruce – that you must complete. Fail even one, and be warned.” Tim stared Duke down. “You have been warned. The final and most dangerous stage of all …” Tim stopped reading, and every single one of the gathered Waynes began to stomp their right foot. This went on for several seconds. “Is … Cake. Do you accept the challenge, Duke of the Narrows?”

Duke sighed. He didn't quite like the sound of this, but he might as well. “Sure.”

Jason whooped, and even Damian cracked a smile.

“Well,” Steph said, “let's get on with it!”

* * * * *

“And it was in this room that Dick broke his first chandelier.”

Duke paused, staring at Jason who had taken over as tour guide after Tim started foaming at the mouth. “First?”

The now recovered Tim grinned. “Yup! He's broken twenty three and a half in his fifteen year stay at the manor.”

Duke nodded. “Alrighty then.”

“Over here are some pictures of Bruce's great-great-great-great-great-great-great something aunts. If you look closely, you'll see the outline of mustaches. Bruce made us erase them.” Stephanie bounced by, pointing out exactly which paintings she had decimated.

The tour had been going on for almost an hour now, and Duke would be lying if he said he wasn't having fun. Sure, he had seen most of the stuff here, but the stories that went along with them were amazing. It was sweet to know which room Dick insisted they have a family movie in, back when it was only him, Bruce, and Alfred. It was hilarious to find out that the strange purple splotch on the love seat in one of the east wing's drawing rooms was from the time Damian insisted on trying slushies. Or the many tails that arose from the kitchen. From Bruce attempting to cook (He'd always wondered why Alfred had banned him) to the time Jason sleep walked himself into making beignets.

Cass had insisted they tour the air vents (He didn't know you could get into them, let alone that they could fit people, and wasn't quite sure what to do with the information) and trying to get Jason squished in was a highlight of the night. Cass also showed Duke the best hiding places in the manor, in case he ever needed to hide during a prank war. Or Bruce.

Stephanie knew the places with the thinnest walls, and also other tricks for listening in on conversations. She said she'd never had to use the information, but Duke wasn't convinced.

Dick explained the pros and cons of each chandelier in the manor, along with a very detailed instruction pamphlet on getting yourself onto one. Duke promised himself he'd never try.

Tim knew all the best wifi spots in each wing. Somehow, the wifi wasn't the exact same in every part of the house.

Jason knew the best sniper perches, and how to get there. Also, the coziest spots in the library, primed and ready for any avid bookworm. (Duke was actually excited for the second. He really did enjoy reading, but usually stuck to his room)

Damian was very solemn as he brought Duke to random places around the house that were apparently Alfred's (The cat's) and Titus' favorite hang outs. “In case you need a friend who is not as fallible as humans.”

The tour ended on the roof, each sibling taking to their claimed section. Duke was permitted to choose his own, and did so. He ended up picking a quiet outlook on the forrest, over the west wing.

Duke was given a few minutes of peace, not noticing till a little ways in that he was alone. Huh, he thought, this is kind of nice.

“Alright, Narrows,” Duke turned to find everyone staring at him, “You ready for the fun part?”

* * * * *

“Now lift up your left foot two inches … got it!”

Unfortunately, the first challenge that was given to Duke by Dick, had him breaking his earlier promise to himself. For you see, Duke Thomas now found himself wrapped in the crystal and gold of Wayne Manors largest chandelier.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Duke asked for the seventh time.

“Perfectly!” Dick replied, but the snickers and filming phones of his siblings made Duke question the acrobat's words.

Duke shifted on the chandelier and heard a soft cracking noise. He froze, terror rushing through his entire body.

“That was just me!”

Duke looked to down to find Stephanie pulling a couple twigs from her hair, and snapping them in two. She had a manic grin on her face. Oh, she knew exactly what she had done.

“Just don't do it again!”

“Don't worry, Duke,” Dick called, “You're almost done! You just need to chill for a bit longer. I'm gonna toss up this candy bar, and you need to eat it. Just try not to look like Superman when he sees kryptonite. If you don't catch it, you fail.”

Duke took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Okay, I'm r-”

The candy bar was flung up a second before Duke expected it, causing him to fumble and reach out a bit to far to grab it. The chandelier swung dangerously, and Duke let out a scream. A moment later, however, the swinging calmed down, and Duke paused long enough to register the roaring laughter coming from bellow him.

“Stop!” Duke said, “This isn't funny!”

“Yeah, it kinda is.” Tim was the first to speak, after having to lean heavily on Steph. “You forget, Duke, that each and every one of us had to go through this. It's great to see someone else panic. One of the few pros to Bruce's adoption addiction.”

Duke glowered. “Just stop laughing.”

“Chill, Duchess,” Jason grinned up at him. “Just eat the candy and you can come down.”

Duke sighed and unwrapped the kit-kat that had given him the worst fright of his life – and that included everything he saw on patrol. He gingerly broke it in two, put on a gruesome grin, and took a bite.

Everyone cheered, and Duke's grin became slightly more genuine. “You have completed the first task,” Tim said in a solemn voice. “Let us move on.”

Everyone filed out of the room, and Duke started to panic. “Hey wait! How do I get down!”

* * * * *

“I don't know if I can do this.” Duke sat in the batchair, Alfred having moved graciously to allow Duke to complete his task.

“It's simple Narrows,” Jason said, “Just press the button and ask the question. Simple.”

“But does it have to be … that?”

Jason looked very serious as he answered, “yes.”

Duke sighed. “Here goes nothing.” he reached forward and press the unmute button. “Hey, B?”

Batman's growl came through the speakers. “What are you doing awake, Signal? It's the middle of the night.”

“But you're awake.”

“I'm part of the night patrol. You're not. So what are you doing awake?”

“I need to ask you a question.”

Bruce sighed. “Go ahead.”

Duke sighed and looked back at his sibling who were all grinning maniacally. He turned back to the computer. “Does Santa exist?”

Bruce let out the most long suffering sigh Duke had heard that week. “One of your siblings better not have put you up to this.”

Duke looked at Jason, who was frantically shaking his head. “No, B. It's just, the freaking devil is real, right? And the greek gods, and a whole bunch of other stuff? So why not santa?”

Bruce sighed. “Good night, Signal,” and he logged off.

“Not our best,” Jason said, shaking his head, “next time we should ask how babies are made.”

“NEXT TIME?!?!?!!?”

* * * * *

“You can get it down in one gulp if you try hard enough!”

Duke looked over skeptically at Tim, who was making Duke drink a special blend of espresso, five hour energies, and Monster.

“You just need some ambition!”

Duke gulped. “Ambition to die?”

Tim sighed. “Just do it. If you don't, you'll fail the challenge, and you DON'T want to find out what happens then.” His point was emphasized by every single one of the bats unleashing their personal batglares upon him.

Duke grimaced, grabbed the venti Starbucks's cup, and gulped it down. He swayed for a moment. “I'm never sleeping again.”

Tim grinned, “Nope!”

* * * * *

Damian's task was relatively simple. His pets had to approve of him. They'd already gotten Alfred's, Titus', and Bat-cow's approval, and they were outside trying to find Jerry the turkey.

“Got him!” Stephanie called from bushes, and a loud squawking ensued. She walked over, carrying the bird and placing in front of Duke.

Everyone stood still for a moment, then Damian spoke. “He approves.”

Duke grinned. “Great, what's the next challenge?”

Damian smirked, and Duke's stomach dropped. The eleven year old turned around and whistled sharply. Large wing beats sounded from far off and a huge shape appeared on the horizon. As it approached, Duke could make out what appeared to be a large, fuzzy dragon. The animal landed right in front of Duke, and Damian continued.

“Thomas, meet Goliath.” the tiny terror turned to the beast. “Goliath, decide his fate.”

* * * * *

“So, what do you have for me, Cass?” Duke asked warily. He knew Cass was the nice one, but he wouldn't put it past her to choose something … questionable.

Cassandra smiled sweetly, leaned forward, and whispered in Duke's ear, “hug Jason.”

Duke sighed. That wasn't too bad. He turned around and faced Jason head on. “So, what did she sa-”

Jason was cut off by Duke launching forward and wrapping his arms around Jason's huge chest.

The young man sighed. And wrapped his arms around Duke. “Eh,” he said when he saw the looks he was getting, “Duchess isn't too bad.”

Dick grinned. “Does that mean I get a hug?”

Both Duke and Jason tensed. “On the count of three,” Jason whispered, “We run.”

Dick grinned and opened his arms.

“One.”

He took a step forward.

“Two.”

Dick smiled. “Come on, guys!”

“THREE!! RUN!!!”

* * * * *

“Now pour delicately, Master Duke,” Alfred said as he instructed Duke on how to properly have tea. Everyone had insisted on going to Alfred before Stephanie's challenge, which had Duke worried slightly, but he honestly enjoyed having tea.

“Don't forget to have good posture,” The butler continued. Duke frowned slightly. Maybe this would be longer than he thought.

* * * * *

“Now a tad more glitter. You can never have enough!”

Duke followed the instructions, finishing up the glitter bomb which Stephanie had taught him how to make. He wasn't sure what it was going to be used for, but he knew it wasn't gonna be good.

“Great job, Duke!” Stephanie grinned, then turned to Dick. “How much longer till Bruce gets back from patrol?”

Ah. Yeah, this definitely wasn't going to be good.

“Five minutes,” Dick replied, “Everyone in position!”

And so Duke found himself dragged into the Batcave, glitter bomb behind his back, and a hastily memorized instruction to throw and run in his mind. Five minutes later, the batmobile rolled into the cave. Bruce jumped and and came over to Duke.

“What are you still doing up?”

“Bruce, would you ever disown me?”

Bruce frowned and pulled off the cowl. “No, Duke. Of course not.”

Duke nodded. “Would you ever break your no-kill rule just for me?”

Bruce smiled and shook his head. “Never.”

“Okay, most important question,” Duke paused and took a deep breath, “Would you ever blame me for something that isn't my fault?”

“Not if I can help it, I promise you that.”

Duke took another deep breath and nodded. “Alright.” He then in one swift movement pulled out the glitter bomb from behind his back, and threw it at the Dark Knight of Gotham. The Caped Crusader. The Batman.

Duke turned and bolted, leaving a stunned Bruce Wayne in his wake. Once he was in the stairwell, he turned in time to see Bruce completely covered in purple glitter. He looked down at himself, then up to the heavens.

“STEPHANIE!!!” He yelled.

* * * * *

“That was legendary, Narrows!”

Duke grinned back at Jason. Sure, lobbing a glitter bomb at the guy who was currently giving you a home (not to mention said guy was  THE BATMAN) had been one of the worst experiences of his life, but even he had to admit it was funny.

“Seriously, Duke,” Tim replied, “I don't think I could have done that.”

“And the dialogue leading up to it!” Dick grinned as he sat next to Duke on the couch.

“It was worthy of cake,” Damian replied, a smile on his face.

“Speaking of cake!” Stephanie announced as she strolled into the room, a large cake in hand. On the top read 'one of us'. She set it down on the coffee table in front the sofa.

Cassandra grinned as she handed Duke the cake knife. “One of us,” she said, and the chant was soon picked up.

“One of us! One of us! Once of Us!”

Duke grinned as he sliced through the cake. Everyone cheered.

“So how do you feel, Duke? Got the crazies yet?” Stephanie asked as she collapsed on the sofa.

Duke grinned. “Not yet.”

Jason laughed. “Give it some time, kiddo.”

Duke settles back and took a bite of his cake – blue velvet – and pressed play on the movie. Everyone settled down, eating cake and enjoying The Incredibles.

* * * *

A few hours later when Duke was the only awake, Bruce quietly walked into the room.

“How'd initiation go?”

Duke sighed contentedly. “Good.”

Bruce smiled. “Get some sleep. You did well tonight.”

Duke didn't bother trying to figure out the implications of that sentence, opting instead to settle back into the cuddle pile. Cass, tucked under his arm, Damian on his lap, Dick wrapped around his other side, Stephanie atop Jason, and Jason and Tim woven into the chaos of limbs. It was warm and strangely comfortable.

Duke sighed, smiling. It's nice, he thought, belonging.

[sparkleofpizza]

Goodbyes - Damian Wayne x reader

Requested: no

Warnings: blood, death mention, swearing

Summary: Damian leaves reader without a proper explanation, making her wonder why he did what he did and with a broken heart. But then things take an expected turn and Tim is there to help her out.

Word count: 4.135

The door had slammed a few minutes ago. The apartment was almost silent, the windows had been locked. 

You were sitting on the floor, between the couch and the coffee table, and haven't moved in a while. There were still fresh tears streaming down your face, you were still staring at the key in front of you and were still reliving the horrible events that had taken place a few moments ago. 

"I literally can't stand looking at your face anymore." He spat, staring you down as you stared at him in confusion "I am so tired of this, of you! I was happier before you, I thought what we were doing was the right thing, but I just got bored. I think I wanted to experience how it would be like to be in a relationship. I did, now I don't want to do this anymore."

"What?" You quietly asked "I don't understand... We've been dating for three years, how could you... How could you be experiencing something for three years?"

He didn't answer, instead grabbed his key and placed it on the coffee table.

"We are done."

You watched him grab his suit cases, watched him stand at the door and look you in the eyes with no emotion on his face.

"Goodbye, y/n." And then he slammed the door shut

You were still trying to process everything, trying to find a reasonable explanation for his behavior, for what he did, but there was none. All of the things people told you about him was right, you were just too in love to see the truth lying right in front of you. You were just too drunk in his kisses, touches and tender words to realize how fake all of this was. But at the end, everyone was right.

Damian Wayne broke your heart.

The weeks went by like a blur, trying to get your life back together. Throwing yourself at work so you wouldn't have to remember you were going back home every night to an empty house. 

His family used to come a lot to visit you, now you only saw them staring at your window from across a rooftop. You would stare at them for a while, they would wave and you would wave back, but turn back around because looking at them reminded you of him. Red Hood would check up on your apartment a lot, Nightwing, Red Robin, you even saw Batman once or twice, but never Robin and that only broke your heart even more. 

There was no point in still holding on a bit of hope, so you grabbed a box and put in it all of the stuff that reminded you of him. His old t-shirts and hoodies you'd wear to sleep, in the box. The drawings he made of you and gave you as a gift, in the box. Pictures you had with him around the apartment, in the box. His coffee mug, in the box. The gifts he gave you along the years, in the box. That blanked you two used to wrap yourselves up on the couch and snuggle together, in the box.

It felt like a fresh start once you had gotten rid of everything that reminded you of him. And it actually was, throwing yourself at work did help too because it earned you a promotion and a new job location, far away from Gotham and all the way to Upper East Side in New York. Life really seemed to be taking a new direction to you, and that was all you needed at the moment.

Soon your apartment was empty, it was sold and soon the new owners would arrive. Red Hood frowned when he saw your lights hadn't been turned on five nights in a row. He always saw your lights up, this was weird. 

"She moved out." Was all he said after investigating, just in case you had been kidnapped or something worse 

Damian nodded, not bothering to look at his brothers. If he did, everyone would have seen how his eyes were red and how he was trying hard not to cry.

You, on the other hand, was crying because you weren't alone anymore. There was a baby on the way. How the hell are you supposed to take care of a baby on your own in a new city where the only people you know are your co-workers and they are still very unknown to you? 

Thankfully, as the months passed, you actually got friends who would help you manage all of the baby stuff. Carter would always be around to make sure you were eating just fine and not overworking yourself, Lizzie would always be around to keep you company and even moved in until you had the baby, just in case something happened. 

You always pictured yourself having a family with Damian by your side, life is funny. Now you had different people by your side while pregnant with his child. You just wished the kid to not have his eyes, that would be a bit too much for you to handle. 

You didn't want him to know about the kid, you were fine dealing with it alone, but Tim was too stubborn. You had bumped on him on the street - what he was doing in New York was a mystery to you - and he recognized you right away.

"Y/n you're having a baby, Damian's baby! He has to know."

You shook your head "He wants nothing to do with me, Tim. I don't want him to know about the baby, this is my choice. I am the mother!" 

"I am going to tell him." He pulled his phone from his pocket "I'm going to call him and ask him to come to New York."

"You do that and I will disappear. It will be just me and the baby, and no one will be able to find us. You know I can do that."

Tim stopped, phone mid air. You did learn a lot from them, and of course you would know how to disappear without leaving any traces and it would take a lot of time to trace you, and maybe by the time they did it you could already be at a new and different location, far far away from your previous one.

"Ok." He sighted "I won't tell him anything, but I want to be part of the baby's life. I want to be around and be able to help you with anything he or she might need."

You nodded, that was the least you could allow. And that's how he became favorite and lovely uncle Timmy. It actually warmed your heart to see your little baby Nia get to play around with Tim when he came to visit. No one knew about this, everyone always thought he was in New York for Wayne Enterprises business. 

The weirdest part of all of this wasn't one of Damian's brothers knowing the truth and not him, it was mother knowing the truth and not him. 

When Talia showed up at your apartment out of nowhere, you thought you were going to die. She looked at you in the eye and then asked to see her granddaughter, she wanted to see the heir of the League. In the middle of her wanting and swearing to precept her baby granddaughter, your relationship did kind of evolve. She didn't judge you for not telling her son about the baby, she did the same with Bruce. You wouldn't talk much, just about Nia, but it was nice to know there was always someone looking out for your both safety. 

She was a bit extreme, always, but Nia knew who her grandmother was, knew who her uncle was, knew who your parents were, knew who your friends was. She was getting a normal life and lots of love, and that was all you could wish for. 

Nia did love Carter, a lot, and that was a bonus for your blossoming relationship. You didn't know how it happened, it feels like in this three years time passed so fast, and before you could even realize it there was a ring on your finger and a promise of new house, where there would be a start of a new family and future wedding. You were getting that happy ending you dreamed about. 

Talia took you and Nia out of town, said there was an upcoming threat and once you realized it, she had driven you three to the Wayne Manor. Specifically to the Cave, the last place you wanted to be, you never thought you would ever come back to this place, ever again.

"There is a League enemy seeking out revenge. We must keep y/n and the baby safe!" Was all she said, ushering you inside with Nia in your arms - who were trying to break free to explore her new surrounds "You protect them while me and the League deal with the matter."

Everyone just stood still, staring at the three of you. Damian felt like he was being punched several times while being stabbed at the same time. You were standing in front of him after three years. After three years of him missing you dearly everyday you were finally back. 

"Hey, what's going on here?" Tim asked, arriving at the cave with a fresh mug of coffee in hand 

Oh, how you wished he hasn't shown up. Nia's eyes went wide upon hearing his voice, she released herself from your grasp, running for dear life and throwing herself on Tim while screaming the happiest uncle Timmy ever. His eyes went wide as he grabbed her before she hit the ground, securing her with her legs around his waist. She hugged his neck, giggling in his ear.

He looked at you waiting for an explanation, but you were just frozen. 

"What the fuck!" Jason exclaimed 

"Language around the baby!" Talia repreenhed him, glaring in his direction 

This couldn't be happening, no, this is just a dream and you're going to wake up really soon to get to work. That's it. 

They were all staring at you, then Tim, then Talia and doing it all over again in a loop. You could almost see their brains functioning real fast to try and catch up with all of this weird and random stuff going on here. 

"Talia brought you here because there is a League enemy on the loose and therefor you might be in danger..." Bruce stated slowly, breaking the silence "That is your daughter?" He pointed at the baby that was still hugging Tim and smiling at him as he poked her sides. You nodded, too afraid to say something "And she called Tim her uncle because they already knew each other and he is her uncle. For Talia to be worrying about your safety means you can't get hurt because of the baby... And she is only worried about the baby because she is her granddaughter. So, I'm guessing Damian is the father?"

You couldn't even bring yourself to deny and say you had gotten careless after the break up and had a one night stand with a random dude who got you pregnant. There was to many evidences pointing Damian as the father, and of course, she had his damn eyes!

Damian was staring at you with pure love and adoration. You two had a daughter? A beautiful daughter? He looked over at her, seeing her dimply smile and chubby hands hitting Tim's shoulder. He couldn't help the jealousy that over took him, his brother knew his daughter better than him. 

"That's so cool! I have a niece!" Dick exclaimed, taking big steps to where Nia was "Hello! I'm your uncle Dick, what's your name, little one?"

Your daughter frowned at him, resembling Damian when he's mad. 

"Mommy says dick is a bad word and you shouldn't say it."

Everyone laughed at his face, the mood being lighten up a little by what she had just said.

"That's his name, little bird." Tim explained "He's my older brother, so he is your uncle too."

Nia nodded, still a bit taken a back with his name and holding on thiger on Tim, not really trusting the new said uncle. 

You looked at Tim, hoping he would know a way to get you out of this mess. He was going to listen to an earful of things too, I mean he kept your secret from his whole family, you weren’t the only wrong one in this - although you did kind of manipulate him into doing what you wanted, but that was what is best for your daughter.

“Alright, I’m going to give Nia her afternoon fruit and then some cookies if she behaves.” He announced, leaving with your daughter in his arms who waved you goodbye

Dick stood still, frowning sadly.

“I don’t think she likes me.”

“She is very reserved with new people, nothing personal.” You said, hoping it would ease the tension that had installed once more

Bruce cleared his throat “I’m going to talk to Talia about this upcoming threat. Dick, Jason, why won’t you let Alfred know that y/n and the baby are staying over?”

At that, everyone left the room. Your eyes lingered on Talia’s figure waiting for an outburst of her telling she wouldn’t leave and stay there with you. She only glanced at you as if saying talk to him, and then left.

You closed your eyes, it was now or never. You knew he was probably already standing behind you. You've known Damian for a very long time, so when you turned around you had to take a step back because he was too close for your liking.

You took a while to take in his features. He seemed to had gained more muscles over the years, his eyes were soft and he same a small, almost imperceptible, smile on his face.

He was trying to engrave your new looks in his memories. How you hair was a bit lighter and shorter than before, your face, your body. Everything.

“What’s her name?” He questioned

You thought he was going to yell at you, curse you and say he doesn’t want that baby in his life, not ask her name.

“Nia. She’s two.”

He nodded his head, pursing his lips before speaking again.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you leave?”

You frowned “You broke up wit me, said you got bored and didn’t want to see me again. You’re the one that left! I simply didn’t want you in my life anymore, I couldn’t risk it you growing bored of Nia and leaving her the same way you left me. I can handle being broken, but I wouldn’t be able to watch my daughter be heartbroken and thinking she did something wrong.”

Damian’s eyes went wide. Is that what you think of him? That he is just an asshole that gets bored once he gets what he wants? He should’ve handled the situation better three years ago, things would be so much different right now.

“Y/n, no, I would never do something like that. I’m sorry for what I did three years ago, I was trying to protect you! They were targeting you, they were going to kill you if they knew I still cared, so I had to do what I did. I get that I was an idiot and that I couldn’t handled this way better, and I am truly sorry. But never, for one moment, think I wouldn’t want to have been by your side during all those time. I dreamed about getting you back into my arms, and now we have a daughter?! A beautiful and incredible baby girl! I am not letting you go, ever again. I love you so much, I don’t think I will ever be able to stop loving you.”

That you couldn’t answer. What were you supposed to tell him? Obviously Damian had been a big part of your life, and although it ended badly, he was your first actual love, the first person you moved in together, you grew together until it ended and you started growing on your own. A part of you will always love him, but it doesn’t seem worth it anymore, not after all of this.

“Damian... you know that if you want to be part of Nia’s life you can do that, you are her father, but if you ever step out of line, I will no hesitate to cut off.”

He nodded eagerly “I will tell father and we will start the preparations. Until we find a house to move in together, I will make sure Nia has a room here and...”

“What are you talking about?” You frowned “I said you could be part of her life, it doesn’t mean we are moving back here. We are staying in New York, I have a life there, Damian. I have a job, friends, fiancé. I am not leaving all of that behind.”

“You’re... You’re getting married?” He looked like a lost puppy who got kicked, it actually warmed your heart a bit “Of course you are, only an imbecile wouldn’t put a ring on your finger when given the chance.”

You bit on your lower lip. This was getting deeper then you had wanted it to go.

“I’m sorry.” You weren’t even sure why you were apologizing “He’s been around me when I needed, helped me when I was pregnant and Nia really loves him.”

“You aren’t marrying Drake, are you?”

At that you couldn’t help but laugh, of coursed Damian would think something like that.

“No, of course not. Tim is just a really great uncle.”

“Why did you tell him? Why did you tell my mother?”

“None of them were supposed to know, actually. I ran into Tim and kind of trapped him into no telling anyone, in return I told him he could be around, that’s why he’s always going to New York, to make sure Nia is ok and doesn’t need anything. As for you mother, she just showed up on my apartament one day demanding to see her granddaughter. Ever since she kind of just stuck around or made sure there was always a League member near by to keep us safe.”

He nodded, his demeanor down. It was obvious he was disappointed with you being with someone else, he never thought about you moving on - deep down he always knew this could happen, he just didn’t want to believe in it. You are his everything, but he isn’t everything to you anymore.

Staying over at the manor was really weird for you, they had gotten you a crib and placed it on the room you were staying. Jason drove to New York to get some of yours and Nia's clothes only to find the place trashed, someone was really after you and the best plan of action was to the stay at the manor where you were both safe.

You just wished this whole enemy thing to go down as fast as possible so you can resume to your normal life. You couldn't stand looking at Damian trying to get Nia to warm to him anymore, every time you did it was like a constantly painful reminder of what you two couldn't have, and the engagement ring on your finger felt heavy until the day you stopped using it, having broke up with Carter over the phone and spending the night crying on Tim's shoulders for your ruined happiness. 

When Damian showed up the following morning at your bedroom, he almost lost his temper. You were sleeping with your head on Tim's lap, he had his hand on your hair and Nia was sound asleep on the crib. He walked further into the room, feeling his heart sinking once he saw your tears streaked face. There was no need to be jealous, obviously he used to be the one to wipe away your tears and give you some comfort, but he was glad there was someone to give you that. He stopped once he noticed you weren't wearing the ring anymore. That was his chance.

"You can't go out there, you are being targeted!" Damian exclaimed, following you down the stairs 

You looked at him over your shoulder, choosing to ignore him as you kept walking.

"Y/n, do not ignore me!"

"I have work to do, Damian. I got dragged all the way here, I am going to work at the office that's located in Gotham and you can't stop me. I still need a job so I can pay the bills."

He had to bite his tongue to not say what was really on his mind. Sparking a fight with you right now would do no good, it would only make you want to leave even more. 

"I know you do, but can't you work from home?"

"No, I have a meeting and I'm already running late." You pulled a paper from your purse, handing it to him "Since Tim is out, you and the rest of the boys are on baby duty. This is everything you need to know about Nia's allergies, food preferences."

He nodded, defeated he couldn't get you to stay, but glad you were trusting him alone with your daughter. 

"At least wear this, please." He pulled from his pocket a necklace with a small pendent "It will make me feel more at peace knowing you will call if you need me."

"Ok." You put on the necklace, the distress signal necklace "But I am not going to need to use it. Don't worry about me."

He smiled sadly at you. "It is kind of hard not to worry about you, y/n."

You should've known you would have to use the necklace, it was life being a bitch to you one more time. 

Everything was as good as it could be, one moment you were discussing business and taxes, the next one of the executives had pulled out a gun and shot you two times in a row. How did this happen? Was the only thing you could think of as you lied on the floor, a pull of blood forming around you as you tried your best to apply pressure on your wounds. 

"Hey, it is ok." Robin kneeled down beside you, taking in your almost limp form, tears in his eyes "It is ok, beloved, I've got you. You're going to be ok."

"Dami, I am so glad to see you." You tried to smile thought the pain "At least we will be able to say a proper goodbye this time since I am the one who's leaving."

He shook his head "Don't say this, beloved. I am still going to take you out on a second first date and get you back. There are still so many things for us to do together."

"Is... Is Nia ok? You will take care of her for me, won't you?" Your words was slurring out, he was running with you on his arms, yelling at people to get out of way as he reached the batmobile, pushing Nightwing away from the door

"We will take care of her together." He stated before barking at Batman "Drive faster!"

When you woke up, your whole body was sore and the lighting was too bright for your liking. You tried to sit up only to end up moaning in pain. 

"Hey, hey, easy there." Damian showed up on your line of vision, gently pushing you back down "You are still recovering."

"What happened?" You closed your eyes briefly "Am I dead?"

He chuckled, pushing some hair away from your face. 

"The enemy was dealt with. And no, you are not dead. Alfred managed to help you up, Nia is with Jason and everything is alright."

You nodded, smiling a little as he grabbed your hand. You squeezed it before allowing him to caress your fingers with his.

"I was so worried I was going to loose you, that I would never see your smile or hold your hand ever again." Damian sighted in defeat "I love you so much, y/n. Please, stay here. With me, we can work things out."

"I am not going anywhere, Dami. Not now and not ever." 

He leaned down, pressing a kiss to your forehead. 

"I promise you I will try my best, everyday, to be the best father and husband ever. For my two girls."

You hummed, content with him showing affection. Too lost in finally having his love back to think about the word husband. You would think about that later that week when he asked you the big question. 

[engagemachine]

I accidentally answered this ask by @chuckhansen​ privately and submitted it BEFORE I COULD FINISH TYPING EVERYTHING OUT... sigh... so she was gracious enough to screenshot everything for me and send it back... so here we go again. 

TAYTAY. :’) Okay here we go.

25. What does it take for your OC to trust someone?

UNFORTUNATELY, NOT MUCH. This kind of goes hand-in-hand with what I was saying in a previous ask. She’s entirely too trusting/gullible for her own good, wanting so hard to believe that others always have her best interests at heart, even despite some of the Joker’s repeated teachings and rhetoric towards her about how Gotham will eat her up/spit her back out/how men will only ever want one thing from her… he’s evil, but so far she’s managed to refrain from buying into the lies he’s selling, at least some of them.

26 has been done!

27. Do they like to be the center or attention or do they prefer to be in the background?

I love this question for her. She’s embarrassed very easily/is a very blushy girl. Gets uncomfortable when all eyes are on her and is prone to bouts of intense self-consciousness if forced to be the center of attention. Definitely the type to mumble through any sort of assignment that requires her getting up in front of the class and delivering a speech, or writing out an answer on the chalkboard in front of everyone.

28. Do people think they’re pretentious?

Probably not. I don’t think people (chiefly, her former school peers) would have thought much of her at all, and certainly not that she was pretentious.

I think in regards to adult Taylor (in Blackout) I would say that people probably do find her a little pretentious—but those people are usually jerks and probably very disingenuous. Those types of people find it hard to comprehend how someone can be so genuine, so they just often end up thinking she’s very “fake”.

29. Is your OC detail oriented or do they focus more on the big picture?

Because of Taylor’s life circumstances (and her current living arrangement with a mass murderer) she is somewhat incapable of looking beyond the here and now. The future is scary and uncertain, and Taylor wouldn’t like to spend a lot of time dwelling there for that reason. All that matters is her and Mr. J. As she starts to mature, you will definitely start to see her look beyond the scope of what’s right in front of her, but, doing so will have some pretty devastating consequences.

On another vein, when I think about this question in the context of Taylor’s art and how she perceives the world as a whole, she’s very detail oriented, often honing in on the very small parts that make up the pieces of the whole. She’s very curious and inquisitive. She has to break things down into their baser components to really understand how they work. And she likes to take in the small details that others might not have taken the time to notice.

30. Which high school movie stereotype would they fit best?

Also tagging @charliestokers​ here since she wanted an ESSAY on this very same question… ma’am… the short of it is this: she’s not a jock, she’s not athletic, she’s not popular or exceptionally pretty. She’s not particularly talented with music, nor has she ever tried to run with the art crowd (even though she draws!), she’s not emo/punk, she’s not particularly academic or into social justice, and she’s not even particularly nerdy in the sense that she’s really into movies/video games/music… I would have to classify her as a loner. She’s the skinny orphan kid with the ill-fitting clothes who always stares at everyone else and people think she’s weird. She doesn’t mean to stare, but she just wants so badly to belong. :( 

31. Are they good at giving advice? 

Oh gosh, as much as I want to say yes... probably not. But she would absolutely mean well if she were to give advice. I think she’d have a tendency to think about what she would do in any given situation, and then her advice would consist of what she would do and not necessarily what’s actually best for the other person. But she has a big heart and she’d want to help. 

32. Which one of the 7 deadly sins fit your OC more? Do they see it as a flaw?

This question is so weird to me and yet I always see it on these OC prompt lists. I always end up having to Google the choices because I don’t know them off the top of my head. It’s one of those things so clearly steeped in Catholicism, and I wasn’t raised that way, so I’m always like *shrug emoji* 

:p

Anyway. Taylor is either greed or lust. I lean more towards lust just because, while she can be a little greedy, most of that kind of behavior has been born out of deprivation of basic needs (shelter, food, love) rather than her just being greedy for no reason at all. She was raised in the kind of environment where you had to take what was offered before somebody else took it for themselves, kind of a “survival of the fittest” -- so now when offered these basic necessities like food and clothes, I think she’d almost have a tendency to want to hoard these things just because she is so scared of having them taken away. She is, like, a little feral orphan girl in that sense. Ugh. My babie. 

And finally, 33 has been answered! 

Thank you so much for all of your Q’s!

[theyearoftheking]

Book Fifty-One: Everything’s Eventual

“There comes a time in most lives when we must face the deaths of our loved ones as an actual reality... and, by proxy, the fact of our own approaching death. This is probably the single greatest subject of horror fiction: our need to cope with a mystery that can be understood only with the aid of a hopeful imagination.” 

I had dinner once with a guy who was trying to either relate to me, or impress me... the jury is still out. Once he found out I was from Milwaukee, he told me how he had once seen Ted Bundy’s apartment in downtown Milwaukee. 

Slow blink.

Ted Bundy was never in Milwaukee, dumb ass. You’re obviously talking about Jeffrey Dahmer, and comparing the two is like chalk and cheese. Completely different victim populations, MO’s... basically the only thing they have in common is both being white men. Oh, and Bundy is considered more conventionally attractive. If you were to listen to the Parcast Serial Killers podcast on Dahmer, they described him as, “good looking, by Milwaukee standards...” So, there’s that. 

This conversation still upsets me years later. It should have upset me more that the “Bundy in Milwaukee” guy went on to talk about his wife’s STD, but that’s a conversation for another time. 

I didn’t choose the Dahmer life, it chose me. When he was captured in 1991, I was my daughter’s age, and it was the most sensational piece of news to hit Milwaukee... well, maybe ever. The details about the half-eaten corpses, the body parts in the freezer... I couldn’t get enough of it. Had I not stumbled across my mom’s copy of Small Sacrifices years earlier, it’s possible Dahmer could have been the catalyst for my murderino obsession. Sadly, Diane Downs got to me first. I was obsessed with the pictures in the middle of the book... it was the first time I realized monsters are real, and human monsters are scarier than anything Stephen King or Dean Koontz could dream up. 

Sidebar: check out the Two Face podcast, told by the daughter Diane put up for adoption. I’m obsessed. 

But, Dahmer is my local serial killer, so my knowledge is complete and wildly inappropriate at dinner parties (remember when those were a thing?). There’s even a local neighborhood bar that does a Dahmer walking tour; where my sister talked me out of buying this especially cool t-shirt... she felt it was too on-the-nose. She might be right. I even dragged a friend with me to see My Friend Dahmer... because I was scared of looking like a creeper at the theater alone. Every time we drive past Columbia County Correctional, I make sure to remind my (very annoyed) daughter that Dahmer was killed there. 

My point is, I know a lot about Jeffrey Dahmer. What’s one of the key things I know? HE’S NOT BURIED. HE DOESN’T HAVE A GRAVE. HIS PARENTS HAD HIM CREMATED AND SPLIT HIS REMAINS. 

Once more for the cheap seats in the back: 

JEFFREY DAHMER DOESN’T HAVE A GRAVE. 

Why all the shouty caps? 

Because Steve doesn’t know this. Steve is blissfully unaware that he has a character bragging about sleeping on Jeffrey Dahmer’s non-existent grave. I can’t even give you a good review of Everything’s Eventual, because this bothers me so much. It’s like the fucking Starbuck’s cup someone forgot to remove from the Game of Throne’s scene. It bothers me that much. 

Here was my reading process on this short story collection...

Autopsy Room Four: Creepy! This is the shit that haunts my dreams. Good start to the collection!

The Man in the Black Suit: Fun! A Castle Rock mention

All That You Love Will Be Carried Away: Are we to the Little Sisters short story yet? I need a Dark Tower fix...

The Death of Jack Hamilton: I love a good mobster story. And this one mentions the Dillinger gang shoot-out at Little Bohemia, so yay for a Wisconsin reference! Great story. 

In the Deathroom: Escobar. Meh. If we’re going to do back-to-back mobster stories, the Dillinger one was better. 

Little Sisters of Eluria: Swoon. Double swoon. Steve uses the line, “tintinabulation of the bells.” Tintinabulation is a word Edgar Allen Poe completely made up, but it’s an excellent example of onomatopoeia. This is an example of what I have to show for all my student loan debt (thanks, Cares Act for the deferment!): the fact I can both recognize and give an obscure example of onomatopoeia. And spot Poe like a boss bitch. This story is set post Wizard and Glass, and ties back into The Talisman; and almost makes up for the Dahmer slippage. 

Everything’s Eventual: Thought provoking, but I’m really looking forward to finishing this collection and diving back into The Dark Tower universe. 

L.T.’s Theory of Pets: Trigger warning for violence towards animals. I once had Blood and Smoke- an audio book collection Steve did; and this story was included. I’ve never forgotten it. It’s a classic. 

The Road Virus Heads North: A Derry mention! Oh, and Dahmer too. That’s fun. 

Lunch at the Gotham Cafe: Weird. This is the second story that includes a Dear John letter, and a jilted husband. Wonder what was going on with Steve and Tabby... Oh gross, a Donald Trump and Ivana line. *Swallows vomit*

That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French: Oh good, 1408 is next! 

1408: DAHMER DOESN’T HAVE A GRAVE!!!!!! 

Riding the Bullet: Oh, a Castle Rock mention. But, um, DAHMER DOESN’T HAVE A GRAVE!

Luckey Quarter: Why is lucky spelled wrong? And also... DAHMER DOESN’T HAVE A GRAVE!!! 

So, yeah. Full disclosure. Re-living the Dahmer’s grave story just made me crack open a juice box full of sangria. Fun fact: the friend who made this sangria, is the same one I dragged along to My Friend Dahmer. She is a lovely, wonderful, generous human being; who is not the least bit fazed by my serial killer knowledge. And her sangria is delicious too. 

Total Wisconsin Mentions: 35

Total Dark Tower References: 51

Book Grade: B- (generous, considering the Dahmer gaffe) 

Rebecca’s Definitive Ranking of Stephen King Books

The Talisman: A+

Wizard and Glass: A+

Needful Things: A+

On Writing: A+

The Green Mile: A+

Hearts in Atlantis: A+

Rose Madder: A+

Misery: A+

Different Seasons: A+

It: A+

Four Past Midnight: A+

The Shining: A-

The Stand: A-

Bag of Bones: A-

Black House: A-

The Wastelands: A-

The Drawing of the Three: A-

Dolores Claiborne: A-

Nightmares in the Sky: B+

The Dark Half: B+

Skeleton Crew: B+

The Dead Zone: B+

Nightmares & Dreamscapes: B+

‘Salem’s Lot: B+

Carrie: B+

Creepshow: B+

From a Buick 8: B

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: B

Storm of the Century: B-

Everything’s Eventual: B-

Cycle of the Werewolf: B-

Danse Macabre: B-

The Running Man: C+

Thinner: C+

Dark Visions: C+

The Eyes of the Dragon: C+

The Long Walk: C+

The Gunslinger: C+

Pet Sematary: C+

Firestarter: C+

Rage: C

Desperation: C-

Insomnia: C-

Cujo: C-

Nightshift: C-

Gerald’s Game: D

Roadwork: D

Christine: D

Dreamcatcher: D

The Regulators: D

The Tommyknockers: D-

Next is Wolves of the Calla. I am so stupid excited to finish off The Dark Tower series. Only 18 years of Steve left to go, and a little over 3 months to get it done. Stay tuned.

Until next time, Long Days and Pleasant Nights, Rebecca

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader -”On Cloud Nine”

The Clown Prince of Crime died protecting his girlfriend and now The Afterlife Assessment Bureau doesn’t know what to do with him: although J’s actions didn’t change the outcome, it scored major points in his chart and they have to recalculate the final score. Until that happens, The Joker was allowed to wait on the Lower Clouds right below The Higher Clouds where the woman he tried to save is spending eternity.

“Hey lady!” you hear as you watch the beautiful blue skies from your fluffy cloud. ”Hey!”

Y/N looks towards the source of the noise only to notice this strange man with green locks waving at her from the cloud below.

“Yes?”

“Where are we?” the guy asks, having a hard time processing what’s happening to him.

The two don’t recognize each other: once you’re dead, you’ll have no memory of your past; they definitely don’t recall being together while they were alive.

“Not sure, but it’s beautiful,” you sigh and he huffs, annoyed.

“Ugh, it’s boring. Nothing to do besides sitting down and analyze… whatever the hell this is!” J flares his arms around as a voice coming from everywhere echoes in the stillness:

“Please mind your language, sir!”

“Who said that?!” The Joker tries to find the person that just admonished him and there’s no other soul besides the woman he’s having a conversation with.

“I don’t know,” you lift your shoulder up, intrigued. “Kind of weird,” you dangle your feet above the abyss, totally unconcerned about the invisible presence. “What is that?” you point at the sketchbook he’s holding.

“My drawings,” The King of Gotham sulks, restarting to doodle on the almost blank page.

“Can I see?” you curiously inquire.

J bites the pencil and frees his hands, then shows you his current masterpiece.

“Could you hold it higher?” you squint your eyes. “Higher!!”

The expression on your face demonstrates you can’t perceive too much.

“Why don’t you come over?” the man proposes and your stalling makes him snicker: “Don’t worry, I’ll catch you.”

“Hmmm…” you debate on the offer not because you’re afraid of a little jump but because you’re uncertain it’s worth the trouble.

“C’mon!” The Joker wants to get up and help yet Y/N is already hopping down on his cloud: she’s always been independent, one of the qualities he secretly liked about her before they both unexpectedly kicked the bucket. “Nice landing!” J chuckles as you take a sit by him, the artist reprising his work. “What do you think?” he proudly boasts.

You glimpse at the clumsy lines depicting an apparent landscape filled with pumpkins and can’t hold in a smile.

“I think there’s a lot of potential hidden behind the primitive naivety of this little gem,” you give him your honest judgement and J scoffs, intrigued.

“Primitive?!”

“I like your style,” you sweetly reply since you realize you shouldn’t have blurred out the comment; he might be offended by your genuine critique. “The pumpkins are super cute,” you add in order to divert his attention.

“I like pumpkins,” The Joker growls. 

“Me too,” you continue. “That would be an adorable nickname for someone, don’t you think?”

“I suppose,” he shakes his head and mentions: “Why are you staring at me? Do I have something in my teeth?”

“They’re silver,” you bring your face closer to his, puzzled to discern the detail.

“Are they?!” The King touches his mouth, appalled.

“Yes, but it suits you,” the sincere tone calms down his frantic movement.

“Am I ugly?!” his ego emerges even beyond the grave and Y/N has the perfect answer:

“No, you’re handsome in a sort of eerie way.”

J frowns, suspicious.

“So I look creepy?!”

“You don’t look creepy to me,” you candidly emphasize. “In my humble opinion, you’re attractive.”

He straightens his back, pleased at the statement and your rosy cheeks give him a boost of confidence.

“Are you going to ...e-hem…” you cough, flustered at the stupid confession, “…draw another pumpkin over here?” your finger taps on the corner of the paper.

“Might as well,” J agrees and you have no clue that what he’s doing is basically thanks to you.

God knows how much you encouraged his practically nonexistent skills just to keep him away from problems he created for himself and others! You were actually his number one fan and to be honest his only fan: as long as The Clown Prince of Crime was immersed in his unique hobby, it meant Gotham and its citizens were safe.

The Penthouse was filled with The Joker’s phenomenal paintings and sketches, extravagantly framed by yours truly to overcompensate the lack of substantial talent.

“Ma’am, please return to your cloud!” the voice you heard earlier resonates all around once more.

“Why?” you glare left and right, annoyed you can’t see anybody.

“You belong on The Higher Clouds,” the elusive response doesn’t enlighten the mystery. “Hold on, we’re sending our representative over!”

After a few seconds Y/N and the former King distinguish an individual dressed in a black suit carefully jumping from cloud to cloud, steadily approaching his objective.

“Apologies for the delay,” he addresses the stunned couple once in The Joker’s space. “Sir, we had to compile a lot of paperwork for you,” the guy flips pages of a thick file, annoyed. “After adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing your points, turned out your final score is still a negative number.”

“Huh?!” J puckers his lips, confused.

“It seems you were a very bad person, sir; did a lot of despicable things and dying while protecting the girl you loved doesn’t mean diddly squat in the end!”

“Awww,” you gush at the revelation. “That’s so romantic,” you whisper and the man bends over, completely overwhelmed:

“Ma’am, allow me the honor of shaking your hand,” the agent grabs your fingers, softly squeezing them. “You are a true legend and we are forever indebted to your greatness: you put up with him and saved numerous lives also,” he gestures towards The Joker and you gasp, finally understanding the bigger picture.

“He died…for me?!”

“I died for her?!” the awkward pair asks in the same time.

“Yeah, no big deal. You were killed anyway and I’m so, so sorry for that,” the emissary extends his regrets to the woman he admires, entirely disregarding The Joker’s sacrifice.

“No big deal??!!” the latest shouts. “Dying for someone is no big deal?! How the fuck am I still in the negative?!!”

“Language!!!!!!” the omnipresent voice surfaces again.

“WHO.IS.THAT?!” Y/N gets vexed at the multiple invisible interruptions.

“Steve Rogers,” the representative notifies. “He’s in charge of The Profanity Control Department.”

“Who?!” J crinkles his nose, fed up with the messy situation.

“It’s not important,” the agent cuts him off. “What’s important sir is that you can’t be here; we have to move you.”

“Move me?! Where?”

“Yes, where are you taking him?” you quiz the black suited guardian.

“Far away, unless…”

“Unless what?” J crabbily interrogates.  

“Unless someone is willing to transfer their points to you, sir. It hasn’t been done in centuries though; lots of bureaucracy involved and frankly, if I may: why would anybody donate their hard earned credits to you??!!”

The Clown is scandalized at the brutal affirmation while Y/N has a magnificent idea:

“How many points do I have?”

“Mmmmm…,” the man flips more pages and finds the information: “Ten gazillions.”

“How many does he need?”

“Three gazillions.”

“Oh,” you cheerfully clap your hands. “I have plenty so I’ll donate my credits to him.”

“Nah, you don’t want to do that,” the man shrieks, already unhappy with the perspective of putting in overtime for this project. “We’re out of clouds; we’ll have to make more and that takes forever.”

“There are plenty of empty clouds around!” The Joker barks.

“Not empty. They are inhabited by others but you can’t see them: you can only see the people you are connected with, true love type of deal,” the emissary indifferently blurs out.

“So…that’s why I can only see him and he can only see me?!” Y/N’s burning, red face matches J’s stellar entitled smirk after the astonishing revelation.

“Precisely,” the flat tone prompts The King’s logical question:

“Then why can’t I stay on this cloud?”  

“The Lower Clouds are similar to a waiting room; we can’t have them occupied for long periods of time.”

“I’ll share my cloud with him!” you firmly suggest as the emissary is panicking:

“That means more paperwork!! We usually don’t have two residents spending eternity on the same cloud.”

“Make it happen!” J commands. “The lady wants to give me her points and share her cloud. You can’t say no, you said it yourself: she’s a legend!” he preys on the guy’s hesitation.

“I would really appreciate your help,” your disarming smile gives the guardian a nudge in the proper direction.

“Of…of course ma’am,” he stutters because how can one say no to a legend?!

And you surely count on it.

“I have to stipulate a reason for all this, what should I write on the formulary? In a simple sentence, it needs to be specific and concise: why are you gifting him credits and share your personal area?”

Your brain slots are hollow yet there’s one motive:

“I like his drawings.”

The impeccable suit ogles J’s silly scribbling, muttering under his breath:

“Another Picasso…” then louder:

“I’ll do the paperwork; for now, please vacate the premises and go on the Upper Cloud; we have new arrivals that require the Lower Clouds,” he exhales and starts leaping away, leaving you and The Joker behind.

Your cloud descends so you both can step on it and then floats higher in the air again.

Y/N gazes at the stranger in silence, until he breaks the shell:

“Thank you for your generosity, Miss…” J sniffles, realizing an important detail is absent from the whole dialogue. “What’s your name?”

“…I don’t know…” you regretfully answer. “I can’t remember…”

The Joker scratches his chin with a brilliant solution on the horizon:

“You said Pumpkin would be an adorable moniker for someone. Do you mind if I call you Pumpkin?”

“No, not at all,” you gladly accept his proposition. “And you’re welcome, I had so many credits, might as well use them. I have to thank you too for dying for me, Mister… What’s your name?”

“Bits me; I can’t recollect.”

Y/N pouts, upset she doesn’t have a name when a genius recommendation escapes her lips:

“You know… you have this small “J” letter tattoo under your left eye…” you gently poke it and he feels a sudden warmth taking over his body. “Is it ok if I call you J?”

“U-hum,” the hypnotized King gazes at the woman in front of him. “So I have tattoos on my face?”

“Yes, a few: a tiny star and a big one on your forehead that spells ‘Damaged’. And playing cards on your neck…” you describe his ink, mesmerized.

“Do they make me look horrible?”

“You don’t look horrible to me,” you praise and J inflates his chest at the declaration; oh boy, you definitely have a way with words.

“Thank you Pumpkin,” the flirtatious Clown winks and you play with the hem of your shirt, about to burst out with delight. 

“You’re welcome… J.”

“Oh my God!” The Joker snaps out of it since the artist in him is begging for attention:  “The sunset’s gorgeous! I have to sketch this!”

He sits down on the cloud and you scoot over until your thighs touch, interested in his new project.

“Your cloud is a better quality than the one I was on,” he bounces on the white, velvety texture. “It will certainly improve my technique!”

“Absolutely!” you enthusiastically exclaim, determined to assist no matter what.

Heaven knows your new friend J evidently requires steady guidance regarding his hobby: he’s no Picasso yet, but with a legend’s help he might eventually get there.  

Also read: MASTERLIST

You can follow me on Ao3 and Wattpad under the same blog name: DiYunho.

[sunlitroom]

Gotham s4e04 -  The Demon’s Head

As I watched it, and some random observations here and there.

Previously on Gotham.

Jim took some stupid pills, and decided that going to Falcone for help in dethroning Oswald was a good idea.  His visit was seized on by Falcone’s daughter – Sofia – who just might have something to prove to her father, and ideas of revenge for Mario.  She manic-pixie-dream-girled Jim, then showed up at GCPD.  Ra’s al Ghul wants his magic knife back.  Bruce wins it at auction.  Ed is defrosted, but seems to have dropped several IQ points.  Barbara and Ra’s kissed.

As always, long post will be long - reaaally long.  There are likely to be rambling digressions. Gobblepot may appear (although I welcome all shippers and non-shippers alike :)).  There will be naked favouritism and naked not-favouritism.  Broader comments at the end on plotlines and parallels and general direction.

At a museum, the magical knife is being examined by a Dr Winthrop.  Bruce says he wants to know as much about it as possible, and Alfred says he should have considered that before spending quite so much money on it. A boy around the same age as Bruce enters the room.  He’s much more childish than Bruce (not in a bad way, in an age-appropriate way), and very knowledgeable – given his analysis of the knife.

Alfred draws Bruce away and points out involving an ‘old geezer’ is one thing, but he’d also be endangering a young boy.  Bruce doesn’t care, though, and simply asks them both to keep this business secret.

(An aside – old people, apparently OK as collateral damage)

We move now to  a room in some abandoned warehouse  - upside down – which is reflective of the mental state of its inhabitant, Ed, who is labouring painfully over some riddles.  He’s frustrated and dishevelled.  He’s also constructed a revenge wall for Oswald. There’s a seeming lightbulb moment – and he pulls out a knife, stabbing a picture of Oswald.  

Tomorrow night is the night you die

(An aside – that’s a great picture of Oswald.  No wonder the citizens are all a bit taken with the dapper gangster who says that he alone can clean up the city).

 Back at the museum, Dr Winthrop has decoded some important information

He who rises from the waters, death shall not touch. With this sacred blade, final savage destiny earth quake, bloods flow, demons head, all tremble,  dogs and cats living together, etc etc.

Dr Winthrop and Alex talk about the knife, and the legend of a man who couldn't die: Ra's al Ghul. Apparently he was a warlord.  Winthrop says that the stories might just be stories, but that people are willing to kill for them, and that Bruce stumbled on something more dangerous than he imagined.

As they talk – we see R’as approaching the room

There’s a knock at the door and Winthrop sends Alex into the office with the knife and tells him to stay quiet.

Ra’s enters the room and smoothly introduces himself.  

(Just an aside at the point – his dialogue and manner of delivery are both so much better in this episode, I think.  It’s much lighter and more casual but – if anything – it makes him seem more dangerous. I think the slightly more overblown ‘fantasy’ style just seems daft.  Plus Ra’s has been a man of the world for a long time.  He knows how to adapt.)

Winthrop is suspicious. Ra's is making no effort to conceal himself, and shows off his age and knowledge. He says he's looking for a knife.  Winthrop claims that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  Ra’s smiles.

You know, the best liar I ever met ran a brothel in Shanghai. You knew she was lying but, you didn't care – you so badly wanted to believe her.

Glancing over Winthrop’s desk he sees a picture of Alex – and lifts his school hat.

The fire alarm rings suddenly ��� which also means the police will arrive.  Ra’s asks again about the knife – but getting no further, breaks Winthrop’s neck.  As he leaves the room, we pull away too – and see Alex hiding behind the doorframe, crying.

Back at the museum, we open on Winthrop’s corpse – cold and blue.  Jim is there.  Harper arrives.  Jim asks brusquely where Bullock is, and is told he’s taking a sabbatical.

(An aside – that’s odd that Jim didn’t know that – no?)

Jim’s assiness intensifies and he asks Harper if she’s babysitting him.  She asks him if he needs babysitting.  Apparently so – given that snit he just threw.

Glancing over the visitor logbook – Harper is about to tell us the last visitor was Bruce Wayne, when Jim beats her to it, spotting Bruce approaching over her shoulder.  

Bruce asks what happened, staring wide-eyed at the corpse.  Hayfever, Bruce.  A fatal attack.  What do you think happened?

Jim stops him approaching further and asks if they’d met.  Bruce seems a little discombobulated – but can still answer. He asks when he was killed, and also mentions Alex.  Harper says no-one mentioned a boy being here.  

Bruce quickly starts obsessing over the knife again.  Jim asks him what the knife is.  Bruce doesn’t answer, but says that he’ll come to GCPD as soon as possible.  Jim tells him that a man is dead, a child potentially missing, and this is no time to play detective. What does he know?

Bruce lies and says it’s a very old knife that he paid a lot of money for and wanted to know about, and mentions Barbara bidding on it.  Jim looks troubled.  He tells Harper to find Alex and tells Bruce to go home – he’ll deal with Barbara.

 Barbara's house.  She is looking at something we can’t see – apparently less than happy.  As Ra’s arrives, she needles him for being late.  He apologises, but smiles – pleased to see that his guests have arrived. Barbara doesn’t like them – but Ra’s points out they wouldn’t have been necessary if she’d got the knife.

He approaches the raised platform where Barbara displays guns, and we see a small Sandor Clegane lookalike, and someone Ra’s refers to as a dog – Anubis – but who actually turns out to be a man on a leash.  Ra’s tells him that he’ll let him kill the boy, and pets him like a dog.  That’s quite a lot of nope right there.

At the Iceberg Lounge, Oswald sits at his desk and stares at Ed’s bowler hat. It’s looking in good nick for being stored in ice.

Victor strolls in

Boss

Oswald shuts his eyes in irritation, and reminds him about the conversation they had about knocking. I’d happily trade any other storyline this season to see domestic life at the Iceberg Lounge.

Victor is completely unbothered by this.

Uh huh

It’s essentially like scolding a cat.  

He tells Oswald that ‘she’ is here.

Sofia enters the room. She’s not wearing the gangster get-up she wore to GCPD.  Instead, she’d gone for a much more demure and traditionally feminine outfit – a long-ish dress with a flared skirt.  The long gloves are just weird, though.  

Oswald smilingly welcomes her to Gotham – but he’s just about buzzing with repressed energy in that way that lets us know he’s on the edge of being very, very angry.

Sofia smiles innocently, and says that she learned from her father that when the King of Gotham summons you, then you go as requested.

Oswald asks after Carmine – but Sofia says they should address the elephant in the room.  She claims she’s here to administer to Falcone charities.  Oswald, however, is sceptical and hostile – and says he doesn’t see why these have to be handled in person.

Sofia says his concern is unfounded.  Oswald rises from his chair.  He tells her that her father taught him many things – one of which was a healthy paranoia. Some of Falcone’s old capos went underground.  They may have vanished, or may want a Falcone back.  He laughs

Who knows, but I hear your father’s voice whispering

He leans in close

Be careful now

He tells Sofia that is he finds this is a fool’s errand to reinstate her father then – he nods over to Victor, who quietly says

I'll stab you

Sofia rises and takes a few steps away.  She tells Oswald exactly what she told Jim about being sent away because Gotham was too dangerous, but feeling that it is her true home.  Her eyes have filled with tears.

Is that enough?

Oswald blinks and walks towards her.

Gotham -  mother to us all

He stands close behind her and looks at her side-on.  She can’t see him without turning round, and we see her eyes flickering – wondering if he’s convinced.

Oswald’s face clears

I think we have nothing to worry about.  Give my father your best

He does look after her as she leaves, though.

(Hmmm – ambiguity everywhere.  Oswald seemed reasonably convinced, but the look after her as she left would suggest that he’s not actually settled in his mind.  Sofia recycles the story she told Jim – which might just mean it’s the truth, much better to use the truth when possible if trying to deceive - but hearing it twice, worded identically, does mean the story now seems suspicious, too rehearsed, part of an act. Was she telling Jim the truth in the first place?)

Jim is at Barbara’s house. When he enters, there are lots of punk rockers hanging about, and White Rabbit is playing. 

Seated at her desk, Barbara is calmly playing patience.  She greets him in cool, measured tones.

Jim – what a lovely surprise

Jim gives his usual wary look of suspicion where Barbara is concerned, and comments that she seems to have landed on her feet as usual.

(An aside.  The only time I can think of Barbara seeming to have landed on her feet – would be when she opened Sirens with Tabitha.  Even then, I’m assuming that took work.  The rest of the time, she’s lurched from one disaster and one captor to the next.  Does Jim just try not to think about her attempted suicide or something?)

She smiles, and tells him that a woman has to stay busy.  Jim frowns, and says she seems different.

Do you like this me better?

Jim moves to safer territory and asks about the knife.  Barbara raises a wry brow – but says she was here with witnesses, and asks if they’re done. Jim bristles a little, and says they aren’t.  He wants to know who's bankrolling her.  She’s says it’s a client – but that, while tempting, she can’t give a name.

Bruce appears from nowhere, and mentions Ra’s name.  Barbara has her back to Bruce and Jim, but we see her eyes widen, and there’s a slightly wobble in her composure.  

Jim looks generally unsettled and hauls Bruce out

(An aside – there’s much more in this episode of Jim treating Bruce like a child. I think it works well.  Bruce is a child.  Alfred is way too acquiescent with him. Jim being willing to actually step up and tell him off adds something to their relationship.  It reminds us, too, that Bruce is a child – and lets Jim do something other than just being angry all the time).

Meanwhile, the music plays out, and Barbara turns over the King of Hearts.

(Another aside – I like Barbara’s newfound calmness.  I know some of it comes from Ra’s training/brainwashing/whatever – but I’d guess that Barbara’s upbringing and education must sure have drilled some of that cool composure into her?  The icy Betty Draper thing suits her well.  I know that type of demeanour is often represented as restrictive and repressed – but there’s a power in being able to embody it).

In the alley outside – Jim tells Bruce off for following him.  Bruce insists that he should have let him come with him.  Again, his tone and wording reminds us of his age.  Jim is angry – and asks Bruce who Ra’s is. Bruce starts a lie – but Jim sees through it and tells him to stop.  Bruce spills the beans.  

Jim asks why the knife is so important.  His phone rings – and Harper tells him that they can’t find the boy.  He tells her, meantime, to search for Ra’s.  Jim tells Bruce no-one saw Alex – he must be hiding and scared.  He tells Bruce if he wanted to play detective so bad – then he can help.  What was he wearing, what did he say – there must be something Bruce can give him?

(An aside – and again, much, much better characterisation for Jim here – reminding us that he is an actual detective.  He likes puzzles, he wants to solve things, he thinks.  Can we please have more of this Jim?)

Bruce remembers the room Alex said he was using at the library.  Jim says if he’s hiding, then he may not trust the police.  He takes Bruce with him to put Alex at ease. (Again – actual thought from Jim instead of just barrelling in.  I’m begging – please – more of this)

Oswald is seated at his desk, scowling at two men – sent by Ed – who are about to rap a riddle at him. Everyone saw this clip repeatedly – so I can spare my wrists.  Long story short: Ed’s riddle is dreadful, and Oswald resolves to go meet him and have him frozen again.  Victor is hot throughout.

Jim and Bruce are at the library looking for Alex.  Bruce convinces him to open the door to the private room – but he panics when he spots Jim. Bruce tells him that he can trust Jim, though.  

When we enter the room, we can see that Alex is pale and shaky and still plainly in shock.  He looks at Bruce.

It was the knife - did you know it was dangerous?

Bruce lies – and said that he didn’t.  Jim glances at him – plainly not very pleased – but doesn’t say anything.  

Jim promises he’ll protect Alex, but he says that the man (Ra’s) won't stop until he gets the knife. Bruce asks if he has the knife, but Alex says he hid it.

There’s sound of a commotion.  Jim tells Bruce to take Alex to the station.  As they run off, Jim walks through the library slowly, gun drawn. He’s pounced on suddenly by Anubis and Clegane.  He manages to fight the dog off.  He asks who sent them.  Clegane delivers a very long name.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Meantime, Anubis grabs and bites Alex – but is recused by Bruce.  Bruce – however – is nearly killed by Clegane – but Jim topples the bookcases and flattens him – at least temporarily, and yells at Bruce to run.

When Jim gets back to GCPD, though there’s no Bruce – and Harper can find no trace of Ra’s.  Just as she’s saying that, Ra’s himself shows up looking damn fine.  He claims to be the cultural attache to a small country (missed the name).  Jim has heard of this country, much to Ra’s surprise – and he invites him politely to speak in the Captain’s office, all discreet and smooth.

(Again – a broken record, but so much better.  I feel like any other week, Jim would have just growled at him and maybe swung a punch.  He’s not supposed to be a stupid man.  Please let him be smart more often)

When Ra’s enters the office, Jim quietly tells Harper that Barbara must have talked to Ra’s, and Ra’s now presumably thinking Alex gave Jim the knife.  He tells her to call Alfred to try and find Bruce and Alex.

In an abandoned something or other, Bruce is trying to treat Alex’s wound.  Alex is ashamed of being afraid, and of freezing when he was attacked. He wants to know how Bruce stops being scared.  Bruce says fear is normal, and that he froze when he saw his parents killed.  There’s nothing wrong with being afraid, and once you recognise it’s normal you can put it in its place – and then act and fight back.

Alex sits on a step and Bruce sits beside him.  He tells Bruce that he felt bad for Bruce when his parents died – and that all the kids talked about him.  Bruce asked what they said.  Alex said that he lives alone in a big mansion and doesn’t go to school, and flies around in a jet.  They made him sound weird.

Bruce looks sad and tired.

Maybe I am

Alex disagrees and tells him that he’s cool – and says that he (Alex) is weird.  He pauses, and then comments that Bruce is maybe a little weird too, he guesses.

Bruce smiles

Alex smiles too, and adds weirdly cool

They sit quiet for a moment, and then Alex says he’ll take Bruce to the knife.

 GCPD, where Jim offers Ra’s coffee.  Ra’s comments that they both know why he’s here.  He spins a nice story about how the knife is part of his country’s cultural heritage, but is politically loaded and sought-after – hence the discreet bidding. Unfortunately, Barbara failed to obtain it.

Jim listens.

Ra’s says that he understands there’s been a murder.  Jim, still watchful, tells him that it was the museum’s curator

That's awful

Ra’s says he will press a claim to the knife on behalf of his government.  Jim asks why the knife is so important.  Ra’s recounts the tale of the man who could not die, who committed terrible acts and raised a kingdom – but then vanished, promising to return when he had this knife.  He says it’s justa story – but meaningful to his people.

Jim frowns.  Ra’s smiles -and says he hopes this satisfies his curiosity.

Jim looks at him carefully and begins to speak.  He doesn’t bother hiding that he knows who Ra’s is -he’s trying to make a discreet deal/test Ra’s:

My chief concern is that the grandson of curator being hunted – maybe for the knife, or because the killer thinks he saw something

Ra’s smiles slightly

Did he?

Jim says no.  Ra’s sighs in mock relief

Well then - he's safe

Jim plays clever. He’d want assurance before releasing the knife.  Ra’s plays back – he wants to see the knife first.

Uh oh - here comes Alfred. He barges in yelling about Bruce and punches Ra’s as soon as he spots him.  Jim hauls him out of the room.  Alfred tells him that he doesn’t know what he has there.  Jim tells him he’s beginning to – but he needs time, and he needs time. Unfortunately, though, Harper calls his attention to the fact that Ra’s has already searched the bag and left. Jim tells Alfred they need to find Bruce.

The Falcone mansion, where three men – presumably the capos Oswald mentioned – are greeting Donna Falcone. She tells them she doesn’t want to be called that or hear from them.  They persist.  They want Falcone’s return, which they assume is coming now that she’s back.  They want to ‘put Penguin in his place’.  She tells them ‘this is Penguin’s city’ – just as Oswald arrives with Victor in tow.  He smiles – and asks Victor how many graves he dug

Two…but they’re roomy.

 Oswald and Sofia are alone in the room.  We see her flinch and tear up at the gunshots – presumably for show – as Oswald is watching her.  He smiles

There we are - paranoia put to rest

Sofia puts on a little act about being used – but if she’s as smart as she seems – then it’s likely she suspected Oswald would do this.  She says she was the worm on his hook

With one difference, my dear – the worm is usually eaten

She asks if he trusts her now, and he observes that she’s alive, isn’t she?  He advises she plant roses to cover the smell.  As he leaves, she makes an attempt to reel him back in. She says her father wouldn’t have killed those men.  If he’d been in Oswald’s shoes – then he’d have taken her to dinner, had them seen in public – show that he had old order support and then those men would have pledged loyalty – but now…they’re fertiliser.  Her father built on a strength of others.

Oswald watches her. It’s hard to say how much he’s just digesting this information, and how much he is also reassessing her.

Oswald smiles brightly

New city, new methods

And leaves

Sofia smiles slightly, seemingly satisfied, a tear rolling down her face.

Bruce and Alex back at the museum, where Alex hid the knife in plain sight.  He tells Bruce about the legend, and says that terrible things happen because of this knife – and says the man that killed him can’t have it. Bruce promises he won’t let him take it. They hear breaking glass and run.

It’s Clegane-lite and Anubis, hunting them down.

You know, Anubis is actually pretty slow – on account of the fact that we’re not designed to run about on all fours.  I can’t help but feel that an actual Doberman (which looks pretty Anubis-y) would have been better.

Back at GCPD, Jim can’t get through to the consulate and there’s still nothing from Bruce.  Alfred asks why Bruce was tagging along anyway. It’s a fair question – but a bit rich, given what Alfred has been allowing to go on lately.

Jim says Alfred doesn't get to lecture him on honesty.  Alfred weakly says it’s Bruce’s decision to tell – but Jim, rightly, points out that Alfred is Bruce’s guardian – he can violate privacy for safety. Alfred blusters about sticking to the point and asking what he’s doing to find Bruce.

They argue a bit more before somehow searching Alex’s bag again and figuring out where he likely is. Alfred is going to come, but Jim refuses:

The access I gave you depended on trust – you’ve not been honest with me.

He tells Harper that if Alfred tries to leave she should arrest him.  Alfred asks on what ground – and Jim says she’ll think of something.

 At the museum, Bruce and Alex are still hiding.  Bruce is sweating

Oswald is sitting in a booth at the club.  Ed didn’t show at the pier, and has sent another rap riddle.  It’s dreadful again

Honestly, that could be anything

Victor asks if they can’t just please torture them for information

Why not?

Oswald knocks back a stiff drink.

 Back at the museum, where dropping the knife alerts Anubis and Clegane-lite to Bruce and Alex’s location. They run – but Anubis has Bruce. Alex stops and looks back.  Jim arrives in the nick of time, though, and shoots – telling Bruce and Alex to run.

Jim takes on Clegane and Anubis and beats both, tossing a bone out the window for Anubis, and stabbing Clegane with a tusk, I think.

Bruce is still on the ground, coughing and rubbing his throat.  Jim looks at him

It’s time to tell me what going on

Excellent question, Detective

Ra’s approaches – and he has Alex, with a knife to his throat.

He tells Bruce to give him the knife and he’ll release Alex.  He grins mockingly down at him

You'd like that

Alex cries silently. Jim reaches out a hand to Bruce

Bruce - hand me the knife

Bruce doesn’t move. Jim repeats it.

Bruce - hand me the knife

Bruce still doesn’t do it – and Jim stares incredulously.  Bruce blurts out about Ra’s killing Alfred and bringing him back to life – and says that he can’t give it to him.  Jim tells him to hand it over now so Alex will be safe – that’s all that matters.

I can’t

Ra’s smiles – well-pleased by his refusal.

Well done, Bruce. You’re finally beginning to see things clearly.  The question is – are you strong enough?

He slits Alex’s throat. Bruce screams and rushes towards him, sobbing no.  (Not sure what you expected here, Bruce – the terms were pretty clear).

Ra’s lets his knife (the non-magical one) fall and drops to his knees.

Arrest me.

At GCPD, Bruce is seated by a table, crying.  Jim sits down alongside him and gently tells him Ra’s is at Blackgate.  He adds that he is a psychopath, and Bruce is not responsible for his actions.  Jim says he wants to help – but he needs something he can believe, not all the stuff with people coming back from the dead.

(An aside – has Jim forgotten Theo?)

Alfred snidely says perhaps Jim now understands why they held back.  Bruce doesn’t care, though.  He says it doesn't matter what they say – it’s all his fault.  Alex is dead because of him.

I killed him

Ed barges into a seemingly empty Iceberg Lounge, yelling that he waited again, but Oswald didn’t show. He must be a coward.  

Oswald walks into the room

I’m here.  I may be many things, but I’m not a coward.

(An aside – I do love Oswald.  He fucks up, and he does terrible things – but he’s more reflective than most, and open about who he is.)

He tells Ed his riddles suck – quoting one for good measure and telling him it simply describes a range of human behaviour.

(A random aside – Oswald’s limp looks particularly pronounced here.  But then, it seems he’s been particularly busy – so presumably it’s worse when he’s tired)

Ed flails – but Oswald says that he can't make riddles to save his ass anymore.  Myrtle was clearly right-  there’s something wrong with him.  He’s not smart anymore.

Ed says he is too smart: he’s the Riddler.  Oswald rolls his eyes, and asks how long it took him to come up with those riddles – which turns out to be an embarrassing 6 hours.  Oswald is incredulous – and asks if that sounds anything like the old him. Ed points out the damage might be due to being frozen in a block of ice.  Does he want an apology, or something?  He can whistle for that.

He aims a gun at Oswald as he walks away, and tells him he’s going to shoot him.  Oswald tells him he can never truly have revenge on him – because he’s not the man he froze at the pier anymore, only some diminished version. That Ed would have killed himself before writing those riddles.  In fact – he’s barely even Ed Nygma, because he’d have noticed something....

Ed frowns, confused

Doesn't it feel kind of chilly?

Victor Fries shoots the gun from Ed’s hand.  Oswald asks if he’d forgotten

My other Victor

(Hoarding all the hot Victors is greedy, Oswald)

Oswald says he’s going to put him on ice again.  Victor asks if he wants the same pose.  Ed puts his hands up defensively.

Got it  - same pose.

Ed hangs his head.

OK - Oswald.  I'm not the Riddler.  Just do it.

Oswald looks at him, considering.

I've changed my mind. I'm not going to freeze you.  I’d only be freezing Ed Nygma, who cares about that? Better revenge is having you live knowing you’re not him -  and never will be again.  

He smiles, settled.  

Goodbye Ed.

He walks away without a backward glance.

Ed’s been spared – but is still in turmoil – back to the question that continually gnaws at him, but worse now, with the loss of a crucial part of his identity.

Who am I?

Sofia is standing in front of the fireplace in an evening gown.  She’s recounting another tale about her father.  There’s a deliberate parallel here with how she played Oswald earlier that introduces a note of doubt into her interactions with Jim.  Is Oswald the only one she’s fooling?

She was 7 or 8 when she saw her father stab a man in the neck in this room who had been on his knees before him, begging for forgiveness.  The next morning, all the blood was gone, and they had breakfast at this table as though nothing had happened.

(An aside – I don’t know how they’ll develop the character, but given that she must have seen more than one terrible thing, there’s scope to make her an awful lot more unstable than she appears right now.)

She smiles.

You'd think I want to stay far away

But no – this house and the city are both in her veins.  This is her home.  

Jim comments that three of her father’s former associates have gone missing.  She says that Oswald used her as bait (although if Sofia is as smart as she claims, then she presumably knew this was what he was up to from the outset).

Jim is still keen to dish out more blame, though

And you let him

Sofia doesn’t let Jim away with his usual bullshit projecting, though.

Don't act the innocent, Jim.  You came to Carmine Falcone for help: you knew it was never going to be bloodless

Jim frowns.  He says she’s presumably going to get close to Oswald, gain his confidence, but….

What then?  I need to know what you're going to do

(An aside – This is the first time we see Jim seem uncertain about his scheme – seemingly squeamish about what Sofia’s eventual plans might be for Oswald.  He’s been rash and thoughtless, and the lesson Bruce learned earlier might just be scratching at the back of his head.  Oswald’s not an innocent by any stretch of the imagination – but Jim seemingly can’t actually bring himself to voice or accept the next logical step in Sofia’s plan – obvious as it might be: Oswald’s death.)

Sofia tells him that he doesn’t need to know.  If he wants the city back from Oswald, then she can give him that – but he has to trust her.

(An aside – and exactly how dumb is Jim if he thinks that Sofia’s going to meekly hand Gotham back to him and trot off back home after this?  This is just asinine).

For some reason, this motivates Jim to smash a glass and then push Sofia down onto the couch.  

(An aside – I’m… kind of mystified by that bit.  Was he just tense and angry and looking for a release?  Was it an assertion of control?  Was it a ploy to keep her unsure as to what he’ll do next – try and retain some power?  The reason I’m asking is because there just wasn’t really enough heat or chemistry there to justify the sudden sex.  If they’d been eyeing each other, and a definite indication of tension, then fair enough – but even Sofia looked startled by the sudden move.

 Ra's is being led into Blackgate.  He looks disgruntled until he gets close, and then we see him smile.

General Observations

 A strong episode – especially after last week’s mish-mash of storylines.

Bruce has been arrogant of late, rushing headfirst into dangerous situations, and not really caring too much who got hurt in the process. He hasn’t seemed to mind about worrying Alfred, and he glibly implicated Selina in his rooftop escapades.

That all came screeching to a halt this week, though.  He knowingly endangered both Alex and his grandfather in his need to learn more about the knife.  Even seeing the Dr Winthrop cold and blue on the museum floor wasn’t enough to deter him. Jim can try to make him feel better by saying that Ra’s is responsible for what happened – but that’s cold comfort to Bruce, because he knows he made the conscious choice that the knife was more important than Alex’s life.

Hard to say where he’ll go from this point.  He’ll presumably carry on – now feeling a sense of mission, that he owes it to Alex and his grandfather – but probably a bit more chastened and conscious of repercussions.

Jim is due a similar chastening.  When he and Sofia talk at the end of the episode, the blame for the death of Falcone’s three associates might be variously assigned to Oswald or Sofia – but it’s really Jim who has blood on his hands.  Sofia essentially says as much: Jim knew what he was going to get when he went to see Falcone, and he doesn’t get to act the innocent here.  

Jim assumes that Sofia is going to win Oswald’s confidence, but wants to know what will happen next. The logical answer, of course, is that she would kill Oswald and take power.  The fact that Jim is asking at all – I think – points to his first real misgivings.  His confrontations with Oswald so far have been noticeably childish, squabbling over who is seen as the protector of the city.  I don’t think that quite translates to wanting him dead, and I think that might prove to be a sticking point later on.

Or maybe I’m just a hopeless shipper….. :D

Sofia’s hard to read.  We’re in on the fact that she’s playing Oswald.  We’re not quite so clear as to what extent she’s playing Jim.  She told them both exactly the same thing: she belongs in Gotham, it’s her home, in her blood.  She gave them both little anecdotes about her father.  Both ended up letting her off the hook – albeit temporarily.

It’s interesting to wonder what shape her revenge might take – if that’s what she wants.  I’d say that getting Jim to do what Falcone couldn’t – put a bullet in Oswald’s head and become her GCPD stooge - might be a fair shout, but we’ll see.

I’m also interested to see exactly how stable she is.  Who knows exactly what she witnessed growing up.  

Oswald’s most important storyline this week was really his first interaction with Sofia.  His interactions with Ed were more about drawing a line under that aspect of their storyline. It was mostly played for laughs, and was drained of a lot of the angst and noise of s3.  

Not putting Ed back on ice really served two purposes.  First, yes – it is a much more perfect revenge.  Ed’s sense of who he is is something that troubles him at the best of times.  Now that he’s lost his defining characteristic – his distress and confusion is acute.  Secondly – it provides closure.  Keeping him on ice was metaphorical as well as literal: a state of endless limbo.  Oswald doesn’t need that anymore, and it was interesting that he walked away without even a backward glance.

As for his conversations with Sofia – it’s hard to tell how successful her many ruses are.  There are a few moments where he looks at her very hard. I suspect she’ll gain the upper hand, mostly because ‘Oswald fails due to hubris’ basically seems to be a pattern now – but hopefully they’ll try to keep it even-handed and ambiguous up until that point.  Partly because it’s entertaining, but also because – come on – Oswald worked for Fish Mooney.  I’m not buying that he’d fall hook, line and sinker for this. He’s smarter than that.

Thoughts?

[lopithecusfanfiction]

A Life So Changed: Chapter Forty-Five

Author: Lopithecus Pairing: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne Rating: Explicit Word Count: 5813 Alternate: AO3, fanfiction.net Author's Note: N/A

Chapter Forty-Five:

Later that day, after Bruce wakes from his nap, he sits in the lounge and idly chews on a granola bar. He has the news on and it shows that the Justice League are fighting Luthor along with Metallo. Bruce itches to join them and he curls a hand into a fist on his knee as he bites a piece of the granola bar off viciously. It’s been a very long time since he’s gone out as Batman, taking out all his frustrations and anger on the criminals of Gotham or alongside the League. He misses it and wishes he could be there with them now, loathing the fact that he can’t.

The League itself is currently short two members, him and Wally, but as he watches the superheroes, he can tell it might as well be three members they are missing. Superman is being sloppy and reckless, getting hurt more than he should be. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the alpha is distracted or even tired. Bruce thins his lips as he witnesses Superman getting thrown into a building by Luthor, green Kryptonite beams shooting from the megalomaniac’s gauntlets. They hit Superman dead on but then Wonder Woman steps in and blocks them. That’s when the news feed cuts back to the host. Bruce doesn’t listen.

“Bruce?” A small voice says from behind him, causing him to jump. He shakes it and the embarrassment off. No one should have been able to sneak up on him like that. He’s losing his touch.

When he spins his torso around, Wally is standing there, holding his abdomen and hunched slightly. Bruce stands immediately and places a steadying hand on the omega’s shoulder. “Wally, what are you doing up? You should still be resting.”

“I can’t anymore.” Wally shakes his head and rounds the couch, sitting down. “It hurts.”

Bruce eyes Wally carefully, sitting beside him. “I would offer you some pain medication but-”

“It won’t work,” Wally finishes for him. “I know.”

“Are you okay?” Bruce risks asking.

Wally stays silent for a long time, watching the TV screen. They’ve gone back to showing the League’s fight. “It’s weird,” Wally finally starts. “I feel… relieved that I did it but I also feel…” He shrugs. “I don’t know Bruce. I just feel like I lost something, something inside of me, something important. I feel…” Wally’s eyes travel down to Bruce’s stomach where the baby bump is prominent. The omega’s eyes quickly look away. “I feel sad and guilty, like I’m mourning a baby I didn’t even want, like it’s all my fault that my child isn't here anymore.” Wally continues to not look at him, his eyes averted to the floor. “Those articles you gave me to read never explained just how much heartache was involved in this. I don’t think… I wasn’t prepared to feel this way. They said I would be relieved and I am but…” Tears start pooling in Wally’s eyes and some roll down his cheeks. “It hurts Bruce.” The young omega wipes at his eyes. “Am I supposed to pretend like nothing has changed? Just go back to the way my life was before?”

“I wish I had an answer for you, Wally, but I don’t,” Bruce says gently. “I’m sorry.”

“You know, the only reason why I asked Dick to help me with my heats in the first place was because I loved him so damn much, that being just his friend wasn’t working anymore. I had thought that if I can’t have him as a mate, then at least I could have him during my heats. Kori’s an alpha so I didn’t… I didn’t think it mattered all that much. Neither Kori nor Dick go through heats Bruce, they don’t know what they’re like, they don’t know how lonely they can be.” Wally sniffles. “I didn’t mean to hurt Kori, I just… I just wanted Dick for a little while, that’s all. And now I don’t even have that… I’ve lost him… I’ve lost everything.” Wally curls in on himself, drawing his legs close to his chest and wrapping protective arms around them. “Dick has already made it perfectly clear that he doesn’t love me back and that he wants to earn Kori’s forgiveness. He doesn’t want me.” Wally sniffles again and wipes at red, puffy eyes. “And now Dick is going to hate me for not bringing him along.”

“I think,” Bruce starts hesitantly. “Dick will understand. If I were to do it again, Wally, then I certainly wouldn’t bring Clark like I did before. It was… harder with him there.”

“I just didn’t want him there, Bruce.” Wally moves as if he’s about to look at Bruce but then stops short, looking away again. Bruce thins his lips. “I don’t think I could have done it if he was there.”

“If who was there?” Bruce looks away from Wally, who has stiffened, to look at the intruder. Dick is holding a chocolate frosted donut in one hand and a glass of milk in the other. He’s standing in the doorway, the angle not making clear of Wally’s emotional state quite yet. Dick bites into the donut as he approaches, rounding the couch and then stopping abruptly. “Wally?” Dick quickly sets his milk and donut down onto the coffee table, sitting down next to them, facing Wally. “What’s wrong?”

Wally is staring at him with wide eyes, mouth open to speak but nothing coming out. Bruce doesn’t know if he should say it or not, if it will be overstepping boundaries. When Wally finally looks away from Dick, dejected, the beta turns to him with questioning eyes. Bruce squirms under the scrutiny but relents, telling Dick about what has happened. “Wally had the abortion today.”

Dick’s eyes widen in response and the beta swallows, eyes snapping back to Wally who flinches under the gaze. The beta stays silent for several seconds before finally speaking. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you have me come with you?” Dick doesn’t sound angry and instead sounds concerned.

Still, Wally says, “I-I couldn’t. I just-I just couldn’t. I’m sorry.”

Dick stares at the young omega some more, shoulders relaxing and eyes turning sympathetic. “You don’t have to be sorry, Wally.”

Wally finally looks at Dick, surprise evident on his face. “You’re not mad?”

“No.” Dick shakes his head. “If it was something that you needed to do alone, then that’s just how it is.” Neither Bruce nor Wally mention anything about Bruce having been there. “And it’s not like I would be mad at you for having it done. We already agreed upon it.” Dick runs a hand down his face, going silent again. He takes a deep breath. “Are you okay?”

Wally nods sluggishly. “It’s just painful. The doctor said I would have some cramping after but I burned through the medication too quickly, as we thought. The procedure itself was…” Wally trails off, not being able to finish. He looks to the floor once more.

Bruce’s heart fills with sympathy, not even being able to imagine how painful the actual procedure must have been. “I can try to come up with something that you won’t burn through so quickly for the pain.”

“It’s a little late, though, Bruce, isn’t it?” Dick asks him, placing a comforting hand on Wally’s knee. “I mean, how long is the cramping supposed to last compared to how long it might take you to come up with something?”

“It’s only supposed to last a few hours, a couple days tops,” Wally answers. “Thanks, Bruce, but I don’t think I will need it.”

“I’ll do it anyway. You never know when you’re going to need pain medication, Wally,” Bruce explains. “I’ll also see if I can come up with your very own special birth control that you won’t burn through so quickly as well.”

A ghost of a smile appears on the speedster’s mouth, yet he still doesn’t look at Bruce. “Thank you, Bruce.” Wally stands. “I think I’m going to go and try to lie down some more.”

Dick is immediately up, hand reaching out. “I’ll help.”

Wally avoids Dick’s touch. “I think I would rather just go alone.” Dick frowns. “I’ll be okay, Dick, I promise.”

“Okay,” Dick murmurs, watching the omega leave. When it’s just the two of them left in the room, Dick sighs heavily, taking Wally’s spot on the couch. He lowers his head into his hands and stays like that.

“Are you okay?” Bruce asks.

With a deep, shuddering breath, Dick answers. “I don’t know yet.” The beta runs a hand through his hair. “Jeez, Bruce, I almost had a child and now…” Dick lifts his head and peers at the TV screen, eyes unseeing. “Now it’s gone. I… I didn’t want the baby, not at twenty-one, but I don’t know how to feel about this whole thing. It just feels so surreal and seeing Wally in so much pain… I didn’t realize how much it would impact him, especially since he was pretty adamant about not wanting the baby either. It’s just… Bruce, Wally and I aren’t you and Clark. We’re twenty-one and you’re thirty-seven with four other kids already. Clark is thirty-six and wanting a family with you. You two are ready for this. Wally and I… we’re just not.”

“You’d be surprised,” Bruce mumbles, knowing very well that he is certainly not ready to have a baby, no matter how much he wants her.

“You want to know the funny thing though?” Dick asks, not having heard Bruce. “I had always pictured Wally being a surrogate to mine and Kori’s baby in the future.” The beta laughs bitterly. “Kori’s an alpha and I’m a beta. It’s nearly impossible to get a female alpha pregnant let alone trying with a beta. It’s hard enough for a beta to get someone who isn’t an alpha pregnant, so I didn’t think Kori and I would end up falling in that small margin of miracle babies. So, I thought Wally would be able to be our surrogate, most likely using Kori because she would have the easiest time impregnating.” Dick shakes his head solemnly. “I don’t think Wally will be able to do that anymore.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Bruce agrees. “Are you going to try and get back with Kori?”

Dick sighs heavily. “Do you know how awful it is to go through two broken bonds at the same damn time? Mine and yours and mine and Kori’s. It’s hell, Bruce.” He chuckles. “But yeah, I’m going to try and earn her forgiveness.”

Bruce nods skeptically. “Because that worked out great for Clark.”

“But I’m not Clark.” Dick looks at him. “Clark figured out that he is in love with you and wants to have a family with you. I don’t love Wally, Bruce, and I don’t want a family with him. I want that with Kori.” He pauses again and looks away. “Besides, it’s not like Wally loves me.”

Bruce’s lips thin, his chest filling with empathy for Wally. “Are you sure about that?”

Dick rolls his eyes. “Why do you keep saying that every time I bring it up? Yes, I’m sure.”

“You’ve heard Wally tell you that?” Dick doesn’t say anything and Bruce stands, getting ready to leave. He doesn’t want to have this conversation anymore. “I think you should talk to him about that, Dick.”

Bruce starts walking away when Dick calls after him. “Wait, do you know something that I don’t know?”

Bruce turns to look back at his eldest son. Dick’s eyebrows are furrowed in confusion. “Just talk to him, Dick, when Wally is feeling better.” He exits the room then, leaving Dick to stew in his puzzlement.

*~~~*

An hour later, Bruce is in the Kents’ guest room with Alfred, watching the beta pack their things. The Kents are currently out with Kara, visiting a museum in Gotham. Bruce figured it would be better to already have their stuff packed and ready to go when he told the two to leave. That way they wouldn’t be able to stay any longer than necessary.

Bruce’s mind wanders to Clark and what the alpha might be doing currently when the doorbell rings. Bruce follows Alfred down to the door and is shocked to see a sheepish Lois on the other end. They stare at each other briefly before Lois starts to talk. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything. I wanted to talk to you.”

Bruce places a hand on his stomach, already feeling on alert. He pushes it down and stands to the side, gesturing for the beta to enter. “Come in.” He leads her to the lounge where they both take a seat, Bruce in a chair and Lois across from him on the couch.

When they are settled in, Lois gives him a shy, careful smile. “I wanted to apologize for last night.” Bruce says nothing. “I didn’t realize that Martha hadn’t gotten your permission to have me over. Even still, I should have declined the invitation, even if I had thought you were okay with it. I’m sorry for coming into your home uninvited by you and intruding.”

Bruce watches her for genuineness and finds it in the way her lips thin and her eyebrows furrow a bit. “Thank you for the apology.” He clasps his hands together. “In all honesty, Lois, I’m not mad at you. The way you acted last night already told me you didn’t know that I didn’t know. It was Martha and Jonathan and… and Clark that had pissed me off.”

The beta huffs a small laugh. “Clark, yes. He,” her lips purse in amusement, “gave them quite the stern talking to at supper.”

“He did?”

Lois looks surprised. “You didn’t know?”

Bruce swallows. “He told me he had talked to them but it wasn’t very successful.”

“No, I don’t think it was very successful no matter how many times he stated that they were in the wrong.” Lois chuckles. “You see Bruce, one thing I have learned about Clark over the years of being his mate, is that the man has a very hard time defying his parents. I don’t know why he can’t either. If it was my father who talked to you like that or invited someone into my house without my knowledge, I would have told him to fuck off.” Bruce huffs, smiling and Lois’ smile grows. “It’s virtually impossible for Clark to do that with his parents.”

Alfred walks in with two mugs of tea, handing one to Bruce and then one to Lois. Lois nods her thanks and then brings her attention back to Bruce, sipping on her tea. Bruce watches her, taking note of how she had just looked when talking about Clark. “Do you still love him?”

She sighs wistfully. “Oh, Bruce, how I do. I don’t think I will ever stop loving him.”

Bruce’s insecurities come plummeting back, Dick’s words about true love ringing in his ears. He swallows some of his tea with difficulty, a lump of dread forming in his throat. He asks a question that he’s afraid he’s going to regret. “Do you wish you could have him back?”

Lois surprises him by laughing. “Oh goodness, no.” Bruce tilts his head in confusion. “I don’t want him back at all. Not with,” her eyes dart down to his stomach and her easy smile falters before going back to Bruce’s eyes, “knowing what he did, how much he hurt me. I can’t… I wouldn’t be able to live with that as his mate. He hurt me too much, Bruce.”

Bruce bows his head, his guilt coming back. “I’m sorry, Lois.”

When Bruce looks up at her, her smile has turned sad. “It wasn’t your fault.” Lois takes a deep, steadying breath in and her smile becomes bigger but a bit more forced as well. The beta is trying to lighten the mood. “Besides, he loves you and wants to be with you. Not me.”

“How can you be so sure?” Bruce asks, peering at his tea. He can see his reflection in it. He looks tired.

“Because I saw the way he looked at you last night, I heard the way he tried but failed to defend you and the baby during dinner, and when his parents went up to the counter to pay for our meal, I had to sit through three minutes of him talking about you and the baby and how much he loves you both.” The beta’s smile finally turns thoughtful. “He seemed really happy. Happier than I have ever seen him with me actually. And you know what Bruce,” she pauses briefly, “I was happy for him. I am happy for him and you.” Lois shrugs. “It still hurts but it’s getting better and all I want is for you and Clark to be happy.”

Bruce gives her a small smile. “Thank you.” She smiles back and suddenly Bruce has a thought. If Clark has been still talking to her because they are still friends, does that mean the alpha has told her things about the baby? “Did Clark ever tell you that we know the gender of the baby?”

Lois perks up. “No, he didn’t. You can find out this soon?”

“I probably could now, using an ultrasound,” Bruce says. “But at the time that we did find out, it was too soon do so with one.” Lois tilts her head in curiosity. “Clark had seen the baby’s gender with his x-ray vision.”

“And am I allowed to know?” Lois asks.

Bruce shrugs. “Depends on if it’s going to be put into a newspaper.”

Lois chuckles wryly. “I promise I won’t put it in an article.”

Bruce nods and takes a deep breath. “The baby is a girl.”

“A girl? That’s fantastic,” is Lois’ immediate reaction. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you. We’ve already come up with a name for her too.”

“And,” Lois starts. “Am I allowed to know this too?”

Bruce’s smile falls from his face, remembering the disaster of last night. “I… was actually going to tell the family last night.”

The beta’s smile falls as well. “And obviously, that didn’t work out.”

Bruce shakes his head, looking down at his baby bump and placing a hand there. “No, it didn’t.”

“I really am sorry, Bruce,” Lois says.

Bruce nods solemnly. “Me too.” He then looks up at the beta. “Do you want to know her name?”

“You’ll tell me? The first to know?”

Bruce huffs. “Lois, you were just as much a victim of last night as I was.” Bruce takes another deep breath. “Her name is going to be Lara.”

Lois’ smile comes back, smaller but genuine. “Clark’s biological mother’s name. I like it.”

“Yeah.” Bruce chuckles. “It also saves us the trouble of trying to figure out a Kryptonian name for her.” He shrugs. “Kill two birds with one stone and all.”

“Good idea.”

“Lara Kal-El,” Bruce says. “How does that sound?”

“Why Kal-El?” She asks.

“Female Kryptonians take on their father’s name. Like Kara is Kara Zor-El, Zor-El being her father’s name. And this baby can’t exactly be named Lara Bruce-Wayne in Kryptonian.”

Both Lois and Bruce laugh. “No, she can’t, can she?” Lois takes a sip of her tea. “I think the name will suit her.” She stands and Bruce stands as well. “I hope you get a chance to tell the rest of the family her name as well, soon. It’s a beautiful name.”

“Thanks.”

She smiles warmly at him. “So, we still good?”

Bruce mulls over what Lois had just said throughout their entire conversation, holding a hand out to her. She takes it and they shake. “We’re good.”

Lois’ smile goes wide and the edges of her eyes crinkle. “Good.” They let go of each other’s hands and she turns towards the door to leave. “I’ve got to get going, Bruce. I have a meeting with a lead on a juicy article I’m writing.”

Bruce chuckles and walks with her to the main entrance of the Manor. “Good luck with that.” The beta nods once. “And Lois, thanks for coming.” She smiles warmly at him once more and then leaves. Bruce closes the door behind her, feeling a little better.

He continues to ponder on what Lois had told him about Clark loving him and how he had tried to stand up to his parents. The way Clark is doing it still isn’t enough but hearing it from a third, non-involved party, changes things a little. Plus, she had basically said Clark truly loves him and wants to have a family with him. Bruce thinks about how he had ended things, how heartbroken Clark had looked, especially at the notion that he might not see or be with his daughter every day. Guilt forms in his chest again and he contemplates on what he should do.

He’s about to walk away from the door when the doorbell is rung again. Turning back around, he opens it. Clark stands there on the other side and as soon as he sees Bruce, his eyes go wide with surprise. “Oh… I thought Alfred was going to answer.”

“I was closest.” Bruce steps aside. “Come in.”

Clark doesn’t move. “I’d rather just stay here.”

Bruce rolls his eyes and he says with irritation lacing his words, “Clark, just come in.” Clark’s shoulders droop and he finally walks into the house. Bruce shuts the door, facing Clark. “What are you doing here?”

“I…” Clark looks around the room and then his eyes fall on Bruce. “Came to see if you had kicked my parents out yet. I need to find them a hotel somewhere because I can’t very well bring them to the Fortress but I haven’t had the time yet to find a place because-”

“I saw the news,” Bruce interjects, cutting Clark off.

Clark blinks at him. “Right.” Clark looks in the direction of the room the Kents have been staying in. “I see Alfred is packing their stuff. Have you told them yet?”

“No.”

Clark nods. “Do you… I know you want them gone but could you please just give me an hour so I can find a hotel for them? And I need to know if you are kicking out Kara as well. I mean, Kara can stay in the Fortress but she came with Barbara so… I just need a little bit of time. I swear I would have done it sooner but-”

“Clark.” Clark shuts his mouth. “It’s fine. Kara can stay and you have plenty of time. Your parents are out right now anyway.”

Clark nods again. “Okay, thank you.”

The alpha reaches for the doorknob to open it and leave but Bruce remembers what Lois had told him and stops the Kryptonian. “Clark, wait. I’m glad you’re here. I want to talk to you.”

Clark rolls his eyes, tilting his head back. “And what?” Clark turns to him. “Break my heart more? Tell me again how I lost you and how I’m losing my daughter too.”

Bruce shakes his head. “You’re not losing her. I wouldn’t let that happen.”

Clark scoffs. “So, you call only having her for two, maybe three if the judge is being nice, days out of the week not losing her? What happens, Bruce, when you get a new mate and then they replace me in her life?”

“You’re still worried about that?” Bruce asks, remembering how Clark had the same fear when he was dating Oliver. “Clark, I promise no one will replace you.”

“You don’t know that,” Clark says, sounding frustrated. “Another alpha will challenge me and-and what do you expect me to do Bruce? Challenge the alpha back? How am I supposed to do that when I’m Superman?”

Bruce looks at Clark, knowing exactly what he is trying to get at. Clark has all the power in the world and if an alpha challenged him over Lara, he wouldn’t be able to challenge him back, not exactly at least. Clark wouldn’t be able to use his powers or risk exposing himself or, if he does use his powers, then he takes the risk of seriously harming the other alpha. When Clark had made Jason submit that one time, Jason could take it and Clark had been holding back quite a bit. But Bruce had seen the struggle in the Kryptonian and he doesn’t want to think about how hard it would be for the Kryptonian to hold back if it was something to do with his daughter, someone Clark will share a bond with.

Still, Bruce must try to convince the alpha differently. “Clark,” he says gently. “I would never in a million years allow another alpha to steal your daughter away from you.”

“Right,” Clark says, not sounding as if he believes Bruce one bit. “The moment I screw up with her is the moment you’ll take her away from me.”

“Clark-”

“No Bruce!” Clark has started to shiver and his breath shudders. His eyes have gone shiny and Bruce knows an impending panic attack when he sees one. Bruce takes a hesitant step towards Clark but the alpha steps backwards away from him. “You don’t know what it’s like to have to hold back all the time, what it’s like to be afraid that you’re going to hurt someone or worse kill someone, you don’t know what it’s like to be afraid that you’ll be-”

Clark cuts off and Bruce holds up calming hands. “Take a deep breath Clark.” He mimics it but Clark doesn’t do what he is told and only backs up more. Tears roll down the Kryptonians face and Clark started to hyperventilate. “Clark, I need you to listen and do what I’m doing, okay? Breathe.” Bruce breathes in slowly, holds it, and then lets it out. He has to do it a few times before Clark finally follows along, the alpha’s hands shaking. “There you go, just like that.” When Clark can finally breathe normally, Bruce asks, “Now, explain to me, staying calm, what that last part is that you were going to say.” Clark only stares at him and shakes his head. Bruce sighs. “Clark, please. I’m trying to understand. I want to understand.”

Clark adverts his eyes and takes a deep breath. The alpha whispers, “Afraid of being rejected.”

Confusion replaces Bruce’s concern. “Rejected? Clark you’re loved by a lot of people.”

“And when does that end?” the Kryptonian asks, louder. “Superman makes one mistake, just one, and people hate him. It’s not easy to come back from that stuff Bruce and I know because I’ve been mind controlled plenty of times.”

“But you’ve always come back from it.”

“And what if next time I can’t?” Clark shrugs. “You’ve seen the other universes Bruce. Superman doesn’t always come back from it.” Bruce remembers long ago, when he and Clark and Lois were having dinner to discuss the circumstances of the baby. He remembers how Clark had brought up the fact that Superman isn’t allowed to make a mistake. He hadn’t realized just how much that simple statement meant to Clark, how much the alpha worries about it. “What if I…” Clark looks down to the floor. “What if I lose Ma and Pa because I kicked them out of the Manor?” He looks back up. “I can’t lose them Bruce.”

Bruce’s lips thin. “I don’t think that would happen.”

“You don’t understand.” The alpha shakes his head. “I’m an alien, Bruce. My parents found me in a wheat field and decided to adopt me. Do you know how terrifying it is to think your parents aren’t going to want the alien freak anymore? That they will disown you because you’re not human. That if you hurt them, even if by accident, that they will give you up.”

“They don’t seem like the type that would do that, Clark,” Bruce says. “They love you.”

Clark shakes his head. “Apparently not enough because they don’t approve of the person that I love and who I had decided to be my future mate.”

“But you’re an adult now,” Bruce continues. “If they’ve kept you around this long then-”

“They can still kick me out of their life.” Clark shrugs. “Besides Kara, I’m the only Kryptonian. I don’t have Krypton to go back to and I don’t belong to Earth because I’m not human. Ma and Pa, Bruce, they don’t have to love me. They don’t have to have me in their human lives. I don’t belong… anywhere, and I’m scared of… of making them hate me and then abandoning me.”

Bruce’s eyebrows furrow. “How long have you had that fear?”

Clark shrugs again. “Since I first started getting my powers and Ma and Pa told me that I am an alien and was adopted by them.” Clark avoids eye contact again. “I was six.” Bruce’s shoulders relax. He had no idea Clark had such a fear and for so long. “‘The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.’ F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

Bruce huffs at Clark quoting the famous author. “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.’ Confucius.” Clark looks up at him finally and Bruce sighs. “Clark, your parents might not approve of me but they love you and always have since the day they found you in that wheat field. They won’t abandon you, they won’t disown you, and they certain don’t care that you’re an alien. And standing up to them, Clark, it’s not going to kill them or you. Yeah it might piss them off for a little while, but that’s not going to stop them from loving you. Look how many times I’ve pissed off Alfred or the kids have pissed me off or vice versa. We still love each other. Being not human doesn’t change that.” Bruce chuckles. “And an even better example. Look at how many times you and I have pissed each other off. We still love each other.”

Clark is looking at the floor again. “It’s just… it’s hard, Bruce. You don’t know what it feels like to be so… different, to be put on a pedestal.”

“You’re right, I don’t, but if I do know something, it’s that humans, and especially parents, are very forgiving.” Clark’s head bows and his hand reaches up to wipe at his eyes. “Your parents will continue to love you no matter what. That’s the thing with parents and their children. They have unconditional love for them, no matter how mad or how sad they get because of them. Do you understand?” Clark nods minutely. “I can see it’s hard for you Clark and I know how… sensitive you are about the alien thing. You’ve made that pretty clear over the many years I’ve known you, and I’m sorry I didn’t know the extent of it, but you have to also understand why I was hurt.”

Clark’s head snaps up. “I do. Why else do you think I was submitting earlier? I knew you were hurt and I knew you were mad.”

“But do you know why I was mad?”

“Because I went to dinner with my parents and Lois. But I told you that I tried to talk to Ma and Pa about how they are treating you.”

“But obviously, as we have just established, you haven’t been able to be firm enough with them,” Bruce says. “I’m sick of hearing them put me down and having you do nothing but failed attempts at talking to them.” Clark’s head is bowed again and Bruce sighs once more. “I’m glad I understand better why that is but it still doesn’t make it right, Clark.” Clark nods, wiping at his eyes again. Bruce takes a short moment to note how much of an untraditional alpha Clark is and wonders if it’s because he’s Kryptonian. It’s not a good time to bring it up but he notes it in the back of his head to investigate it later. “Listen, I’ve had some time to think and talking to you now has made up my mind.” Clark looks up at him, eyes glistening with unshed tears. Bruce takes a deep breath. “I’m going to give you a second chance because I really do love you Clark, and I really do want to be with you. But things have got to change.”

Clark sniffles. “Okay.”

“First,” Bruce begins. “You have to change how you stand up to your parents. No more of this cowering bullshit. Start acting like an alpha, an alpha that will make a good mate. Prove to me that you can make a good mate.” Clark opens his mouth to speak but Bruce doesn’t allow him to. “I won’t take it anymore, Kal, and if you can’t, then this really will be done. No more chances.”

Clark’s mouth slowly closes and he nods. “Okay.”

“Secondly, when I say I don’t want someone to be in my house, you do not defy me and allow them to stay.” Clark’s shoulders droop in guilt and the alpha nods. “I don’t care if it’s the pregnancy that is making me more territorial, but what you did was not okay, Kal.” Clark nods more. “And thirdly, we need to start communicating better. I’m not saying that is all your fault, I’m guilty of not communicating too. You know how hard it is for me. But the way we are going right now, Kal, it’s not working and it needs to change now or it will be permanently over. Do you understand?”

Clark nods again. “I understand. I can do that.”

“Good, because it’s your last chance Kal. I mean that.”

“I know,” Clark says, his shoulders sagging even more as if a huge weight of tension and stress has been lifted from them. “Th-thank you.” Clark’s voice cracks and suddenly, to Bruce’s surprise, the alpha breaks. Tears start streaming down Clark’s face and the Kryptonian’s shoulders shake with the effort of crying.

Bruce immediately wraps Clark up into his arms and holds the Kryptonian tightly, running a soothing hand through the alpha’s hair. He shushes Clark and Clark buries his face into Bruce’s shoulder, mumbling apologies repeatedly. “It’s going to be okay Clark. You’re not losing me or Lara, ever.” Bruce waits until Clark’s crying slows and the alpha slumps against Bruce’s shoulders as if all his strength has been sucked away. Clark falls silent. “‘Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.’ Buddha,” Bruce quotes quietly, still running a hand through Clark’s black curls.

Clark chuckles, sounding exhausted. “You’ve got a bunch of quotes.”

Bruce smiles. “An encyclopedia full.”

A/N: Thanks for reading!!

[itsybitsylemonsqueezy]

Gotham 4x04: A Liveblog

Once again, friends, I come to you with review and summary of the latest Gotham events. And Ed’s back this time. ...god help us all.

TL;DR - I wonder what’s happening in the REAL Gotham where character motivation still makes sense

Ben, whatever happens, I’m holding you personally responsible

Side Note: what exactly IS an embalming knife? Like... where does a knife come into the embalming process? Is this the knife you use to carve out the mushy bits, is that it? Because like... to my knowledge, embalming is a primary function of embalming liquid. Like... mostly it’s preserving and shit. And I don’t know how a knife preserves fuck all. But maybe someone who knows anthropology or mortician practices can explain this to me.

“That cuneiform is definitely pre-Venetian” ...did... did I just hear that right? Oh, PHOEnician... that makes way more sense. I was just... had a heart attack for a second. Carry on.

Look Bruce, you could have a friend your own age! Or... you know, continue to live alone with your butler like... all normal kids do. I suppose you have Cat but... mmm. mm.

...Ed’s fine. He’s fine. Upside down in his... obsession pit. He’s fine.

It’s a TOTALLY NORMAL and HEALTHY thing to paste thousands of pictures of your ex all over the walls while you contemplate revenge, yeah that... this is fine. It’s all Fine.

You’re uh... looking a little ramshackle and disheveled there Ed, OH HEY KNIFE. HI, uh... Okay. Did you fucking... DRAW sketches of Oswald yourself? Oh my god Ed... oh my god. See you haven’t changed at all really.

Yeah, he seems fine

Meanwhile, stuffed birds all over the place. I’m sure that’s... fine

You know, it’s pretty great how ancient cultures are always keen to write their hellish prophecies on their murder weapons, always appreciate that

UHHHHHH SABER SKELETON. UHHHHHH. UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. *Randall Tier flashbacks* UMMM UMMM UMMM UMMM. I JUST UH. I FEEL LIKE YOU GUYS MIGHT WANT TO BE CAREFUL WITH THE ALLUSIONS YOU’RE MAKING GUYS. YOU DON’T HAVE A WILL GRAHAM TO SAVE YOU.

Just... just all of the safe. All of the safe.

Maybe uh... maybe don’t talk about the Demon’s Head being a person and then cut to a saber skeleton. Maybe we don’t encourage brutal fledgling serial killers hahahahaha. 

That uh... sure is some hair, there, Alexander Siddig. God this show’s aesthetic is fucking weird. 

...this whole sequence has been nothing but Hannibal allusions.

They are REALLY pushing for the Hannibal aesthetics. Got a real crush on that show.

Look Bruce! Your new friend has ALSO been traumatized by witnessing the death of his guardian! You have so much in common!

*frowns* Harvey left and didn’t tell Jim??? Like, given what happened this summer, I can totally understand Donal not being around for filming but... write it better than “Harvey left and didn’t tell Jim” Because that’s bullshit.

I also DO NOT WANT TO PARTICIPATE in a love triangle where 2 women fight over Jim’s soul NO NO NO NO NO. So if that’s where this is going FUCK OFF, FUCK EVERYTHING, AND FUCK YOU.

Welp, seeing another dead guardian should stir some shit up for Bruce

At least this sends Jim back to Barbara... I mean, that’s not really a positive, but at least I don’t hate Jim and Barbara, mainly because they have the stamp of canon on them

I don’t know how I feel about Babs hair this season, it’s... different

Okay, HARD NO on Ra’s-al-Ghul’s underlings, HARD NO. I just came from American Gods and THAT IS NOT ANUBIS. For one thing he’s white. What.

Intense staring contest with bowler hat. Oswald’s So Over It.

What’re you expecting Ed to jump out of it? Holy shit Oswald, calm down

I... you didn’t want to be disturbed... during your staring contest with the hat??? I... okay. Also, maybe close your fucking door then, it was wide open. Just saying.

Huh... Oswald and Sofia are meeting. Okay. Better put the masturbation hat away then Oswald, it’s a little too revealing

Hmmm... be careful Oswald. You’re right to be wary of her, don’t let her fool you. Also, Maybe Talk To Jim About This.

...White Rabbit. Really. *long, put upon sigh*

AAAAAAAAAAND the worst rap of all time! Well DONE Ed!

Oswald’s reactions to this are everything. Bless you Oswald. I love you. 100% everything I feel too.

Belated Side Note: Zsasz used to work for Falcone, and Falcone has taken control of him back from Oswald on occasion. Why then does Zsasz offer to stab Sofia? Is he truly loyal to Oswald now? Or was his relationship exclusively with Carmine? OR is it a bluff and Sofia’s already tapped him? Or will she tap him later? Lots of questions... lots of questions.

Yeah because WHY would you murder the guy??? It’s WAY more healthy for your psychological state to just... keep him on ice forever. That’s progress.

“I want Ed Nygma” we... we know Oswald. we know.

Always, ALWAYS the fucking docks. Goddddd. PLEASE GET A NEW SPOT YOU TWO.

Also, Oswald, DID YOU NOT LISTEN TO THAT??? That WASN’T a riddle, that was... statements. His brain is SHOT. God knows what a second spell in the ice will do.

Also also, I can guarantee that Ed won’t even be at the docks because he’s a dumbass now. And somehow the obvious answer will be wrong.

Um, frankly, I wouldn’t trust Bruce if I was Alex, Bruce is 100% the person who got Alex’s granddad killed. I’d be super pissed at Bruce. But... y’know, okay, whatever. Moving the plot forward.

Ahhh, Alex is giving Bruce the benefit of the doubt, I see. Nice kid. Very generous in his grief.

Also, why the shit would he come after you? He wanted the KNIFE, that’s it. I mean... I guess you’re a witness, but he didn’t see you so he doesn’t know about you. You’re not in danger kid. At least, not so much danger the police can’t take care of it, for once. You’re very much safe as houses until the plot inevitably fucks this up.

It would be a good idea to give up the knife tho, then you’re really in the clear

How the FUCK is Ra’s-al-Ghul at the library! How does he know to come here? Presumably he knew to come to the antiquities room because he was tracking Bruce because Babs told him to... I guess he could have tracked Bruce here then. Meh.

Ah yes. The creatures. Fuck that.

White people speaking ancient Middle Eastern languages. Mmmm nothing like it.

Ah, the old collapsing book case technique! Because no one thinks to GET OUT OF THE WAY of that shit. Nah, just gotta stand here and be crushed by the 3 ton weight of literature. It was my destiny to die this way.

Oh, I see, you’re just going to make like a harmless academic and this knife has been in your family for generations, of course...

You’re awfully paranoid kid. I mean... I suppose you were attacked now, so... I guess that’s justified

Uhhhh, kid, Bruce is not a Good Example of literally anything. He’s been training to become the world’s most popular vigilante for a few years now and that was born out of this very trauma so... y’know, don’t compare yourself to him. Please don’t. We don’t need more Batmans.

“No, you’re cool” I think you mean wealthy. Wealthy and cool CAN intersect but I feel like this is a classism thing. Let me provide you with a book on Marxism, kid.

If this doesn’t turn into another exploration of sexuality subplot, I’m gonna be disappointed

Uh, if he’s here on international business, like... check his visa Jim, he should have legal paperwork and shit to take that knife back to Nepal

JIM. WHY ARE YOU TELLING A MURDER SUSPECT THAT THERE IS A LIVING WITNESS. YOU’RE ACTIVELY PUTTING THE KID IN DANGER HOLY SHIT. HOLY SHIT NOT GOOD PROTOCOL JIM. Unless you were planning to trip him up on a lie, THIS IS NOT GOOD PROCEDURE JIM. THIS IS A HANNIBAL LEVEL FUCK UP. AS PEOPLE CONTINUE TO TELL HANNIBAL, THE ACTUAL CHESAPEAKE REAPER, SENSITIVE CASE DETAILS ALL THE FUCKING TIME. HOLY SHIT NO.

This... this whole interrogation is a shit show, oh my god, not great work, very bad work, the both of you. Awful lying, Get Good.

Welp. I guess Ra’s-al-Ghul can teleport. Or turn fucking invisible. Glad that’s very justified. Everyone know if you get resurrected you get Special Powers. The divine amniotic sack gives to all.

Yeah because Sofia Totally Won’t Challenge Penguin For Power. That Defs Won’t Happen. And It Especially Won’t Involve Jim.

Oswald You Good. You Good Good Good Villain. How I Love Thee.

Brilliant babe who is rightfully suspicious after 3 seasons of this bullshit. Y’all fucking forget that Oswald is a sewer rat, you cannot trick him.

Oh boo hoo Sofia, I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you

Her criticism may be valid, BUT, on the other hand, as I said, Oswald’s lived through 3 seasons of this bullshit, while you lived the high life in Cuba. You might have your father’s perspective, but you don’t have any of Oswald’s hands-on experience. I still stand by Oswald’s decision to just murder them, he’s played the politics here long enough to know there is no loyalty amongst thieves. Not for him.

You know, it’s very considerate of Ra’s-al-Ghul to break shit every time he enters a scene so we know he’s here. Very thoughtful of him.

Oh it’s his fucking creatures again... ugggghhhhhhh...

More quality rapping! Good job Ed! Continuing to be the Best!

HAHAHAHAHA *more Randall Tier flashbacks* HAHAHAHAHAHA! ALL of the Hannibal allusions! Phew!

...no. no to the bone gag. just no.

Yeah, kid’s dead. Good job Ra’s-al-Ghul, at least you come through on your weird ass threats.

I mean... Ra’s totally made you make that call tho Bruce, this is his sick game, it’s on him. No one should have to decide between the death of one innocent or the deaths of millions of innocents. That’s a bullshit moral quandary that doesn’t actually exist. He wants you to think like he thinks, that’s all, this is psychological warfare, that’s the whole point. Remind yourself he did this, not just for the active murder, but more so because he thinks there is something to be gained by making you do this. He’s the asshole responsible.

Ed, I’m just... sweetie, pumpkin, if your point is to prove Oswald is a coward or an idiot, then... you proved it. Running after him sorta... disproves your point. If you want to meet him and murder him then... make that the point. Just... show up and murder him in the first place. *siiiigh* Or invite him to a cordial murder, whatever, but don’t make it a contest of wits if what you rally want is a confrontation. Get your shit together.

*nods* He’s right, they do suck, they were AWFUL

This... that... was bizarre. This was bizarre. What... exactly does Oswald want? I don’t understand. I know Ed isn’t himself anymore, but... you could help him. You could help him become himself again. And you both hate and are afraid of the Riddler. Why... would you want him back? As you just said, you want him only to freeze him. And just... that personality wasn’t even WHOLE, it was a fractured disaster. That wasn’t even a person. Just like this isn’t even a person. Why would you taunt Ed with saying “you’re not him”? I know you want Ed as an equal, but... do you think he can only be your equal as the Riddler? Who you hate and fear? You’ve got some weird ideas floating around in your head, Oswald. I would make the argument that you don’t hate or fear the Riddler nearly as much as you claim to and you want to bang the living daylights out of him, but like... *siiiigh* I dunno. You didn’t always want that. You wanted Ed to be whole and your equal. Nothing you’ve seen of him since he was your chief of staff has been real. None of it, all of it was a mistake, aborted attempts at personalities. And I just don’t know what you want anymore if you won’t take this broken, defunct Ed and help him.

You’re pushing him towards becoming the Riddler again, so I guess that’s what you want. And maybe you’re tired of being his mentor, after all, you tried that, reluctantly, and that went SO well. Maybe you hope/expect him to work it out for himself, and come back to you when he’s ready. That would put your relationship in a WAY different paradigm than it has been... but... okay??? I guess??? I’m having another time of not knowing what the hell the writers want for them

Why. why why why why. I hate everything.

I hate Jim so much

Ben You Done Fucked Up.

[samanthasroberts]

50 Thoughtful Last Minute Christmas Gifts For Procrastinators 

http://bit.ly/2Eq5KzI

Cataloged in Holidays

50 Thoughtful Last Minute Christmas Gifts For Procrastinators 

January Nelson Updated December 11, 2018

If you still haven’t finished your holiday shopping, you should think about buying these last-minute gifts suggested by Ask Reddit.

1. Mason jar + equal parts granulated sugar and veg oil + either a few drops of essential oil OR some lemon zest OR vanilla extract = boutique grade body scrub.

2. Buy tickets online for a upcoming play, dinner & show, concert, game, etc. Print out page of ticket confirmation and put it in a nice Christmas card envelope. It’s an awesome gift because people tend to love it more than clothing or other junk you usually give. And if you’re parents are like mine, they barely take the initiative to go to these type of events themselves or don’t even know about them. Experience > material goods.

3. Run to the grocery store, pick up chocolate morsels, butter, and cream.

Takes about five hours to make 200 chocolate truffles. Easy to make them different flavors as well. (Orange, Bailey’s Irish Cream, and Cinnamon Honey are the good with milk chocolate. Peppermint, Khalua, and Matcha are good with dark chocolate. Peppermint and matcha are fantastic with white chocolate.)

4. At least for men, my go-to is always a beard or personal grooming kit. It’s likely something that they wouldn’t buy themselves, and many haven’t felt the exhilaration of a peppermint shampoo. Men deserve a little pampering and self care too!

5. I think mugs make a good last minute gift because they’re available at most stores, pretty cheap for a gift, and will actually be used by the recipient.

6. Socks. High-end, badass, toasty warm (if you live where it gets cold) socks. Smartwool/Darn Tough/etc.. They may “meh” at it early on, but will thank you later. Maybe even very later, but it’ll be appreciated (a lot) eventually.

7. Most people I know don’t have bluetooth hook ups in their car, FM Transmitters are absolutely fantastic, they’re relatively cheap and life changers for folks that like to listen to music while driving, Probably $15 and under.

One of those copper chef/gotham steel type skillets. They’re fantastic, less than $20, endless use.

8. Cookie/brownie mix in a mason jar with instructions on a card and a bow.

Or a visa gift card.

9. Fancy pasta, fancy jarred sauce, nice block of parm cheese, in a serving bowl with a kitchen towel. You can do this as expensively or as cheaply as you want.

I also loved a book called The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8 Lee (basically, a woman exploring Chinese food in the USA as well as her own Chinese roots, and the history of fortune cookies… really fascinating). She talks a lot about soy sauce in that book, so I’ve given that book with a bottle of “real” soy sauce many times. I love sharing things I love with other people, so that’s a gift I love to give.

10. Subscription box. Like coffee? Subscription box. Board games? Subscription box. Make up? Subscription box. Ties or socks or yarn or hot sauce or tea or beer or wine or Japanese candy or marvel or harry porter or fitness? Subscription mother-fuckin box.

11. Go to the dollar store and grab some over the hand oven mitts, then head to the grocery store and get cake & brownie mixes, hand write the baking directions on a decorated index card or slip of paper. Personalize each one with a message or somesuch. Bam.

12. If it’s someone you’re fairly close to, print out a photo of the two of you and put it in a frame. It feels thoughtful, but can also be done in less than an hour and is cheap.

13. Depends how well I know them, or if I’ve used the same trick before – but it’s probably a cast iron skillet. Costs $20 for a good one (rhymes with dodge), and I always get thanked for it, like a year later.

14. Aldi.

A million calories of chocolate for about twenty quid.

Enough to distribute to everyone.

15. Here is what I do every year.

I go buy gift certificates for my favorite restaurants, and gift cards from Best Buy. I then put them in Christmas cards with no name on them.

I keep some in the house and some in my car.

If someone gives me a gift, I say “Wait a minute, I have something for you too” and go get the card. I quickly write their name on it and hand it to them.

Its worked out perfectly for me for years. I give everyone that gives me something, and if I end up with extra gift certificates or gift cards, I just use them on myself.

16. I make them an elaborate Christmas card with an etymology of their name. It’s always a hit and has more meaning than a gift card.

17. Good pair of headphones.

18. I make very good gingerbread cookies and decorate them very elaborately, like I’ll draw a portrait of them in frosting or I draw a cartoon character they like. Im pretty good at it.

19. Chia pet. So many varieties. ‘Ironic’ gift for those recipients, awesome gift for the others.

Either way you are a hero!

20. Those soft-ass blankets you find in any store around Christmas time. And then I buy one more for me. Every goddamn year

21. For girls: anything from Anthropologie. They have a great gifts and the quality/craftsmanship is decent. That and they gift wrap beautifully for free! I use this for last minute birthday gifts quite often and it always impresses.

For guy: gift cards or booze. Guys appreciate utility.

22. Nail place… Women will go wild over a free mani-pedi.

23. A bottle of their favorite spirits, or for non-drinkers/kids, a book.

24. BOOKS!

There is a book on literally any topic ever.

Fan of Formula 1? Book.

Fan of Jujitsu? Book.

Like economic news? Book.

Porn? Book.

Lonely? Book.

Want to improve yourself? Book.

And you can get books everywhere. Online, in store, thrift stores, little free libraries, everywhere.

25. Houseplants!

I usually have lots of spiderplant babies and keep a few small pots on hand. Great for all occasions.

26. Those Hickory Farms meat and cheese gift boxes.

27. For a family – Get a tin bucket of gourmet holiday popcorn (caramel / chocolate flavored popcorn) to share.

For a dude – Get a bottle of fancy champagne or other booze like whisky or bourbon.

For anyone younger than 30 – Get an Amazon gift card.

For a kid – Give them a $50 dollar bill. They likely never handle money and if they do, the $50 looks so much better than the $20. Easy way to become the cool uncle.

For a girl – Get them a gift certificate to a local salon, a big blanket, or fun warm socks (not regular socks but those nicer holiday woven socks).

For your mom – Get her an ornament that has sentimental value, or, go to the mall (who does that anymore) and get them to hand paint an ornament on the spot with the family name & year on it.

For your dad – Get him NFL or NBA tickets.

28. Things that are consumable… everyone has way too many junk trinkets just because someone felt they had to buy something.

Ground coffee from a local coffee shop (if you know the person has a grinder, get whole bean, but not everyone does). They usually have fun Christmas flavors this time of year.

A bottle of dry wine or champagne.

Nice candles (go for ones that are soy based and have lids) or liquid hand soap.

29. Who wants lottery tickets?!?!?!

30. If we’re talking non-money gifts you know what’s a great go to? TJ Maxx. They are just a hodgepodge of random stuff and they have bailed me out so much when it comes to gift giving because with all the things they have you are bound to find something for everyone.

31. Home made egg nog, Irish cream, or Kahlúa. Most people will love one of the three, they are easy to make, made by hand, affordable, and our gifts that go away.

32. I’d bake a bunch of stuff or make fancy looking caramel apples. If I give people food, they seem to be satisfied.

33. I’ll do a blanket/candle/bottle of wine/nice beer and fudge,

OR a movie/board game and stop by the dollar store for a shower caddy, fill it with popcorn, movie candies, etc if it’s for a family. Do a caddy and filler per family member.

34. Starbucks gift card. Everyone loves Starbucks.

35. Lego. Lego for the nephew, lego for dad, lego for mom, lego for granny, lego for EVERYONE!

36. Spicery subscription for three months. Print out the confirmation and chuck it in an envelope. I’ve gifted this twice and both recipients said that they never wanted any other present from me – just for that subscription to repeat.

37. If it’s last minute, I tried to go to a clothing store I know they have clothes from. Throughout the year I’ll ask “bro, nice jacket, where’d you get it?” Then I remember their spot and get them a gift card.

Then to cover my ass cause some people are weird about gift cards I say “I saw a _____ while shopping but I couldn’t remember your size/didn’t know what color you’d like/etc.”

38. Magazine subscriptions. The New Yorker. Times Literary Supplement. New Scientist. Private Eye. Done them all.

39. Mom – Candles and epsom salts.

Brother – Steam/eShop card, or go to a second hand store and find a game I think he’d like.

Dad – Itunes Gift Card or some kind of sports paraphernalia.

Girlfriend – something that reminds me of her, or that I think she’d love (last Christmas it was a pair of socks that said ,”I’m a delicate fucking flower”).

40. I buy ten copies of the best book I’ve read all year and wrap em in newspaper.

Proof of success: I do this every year

41. A brick of batteries. Everybody needs batteries, nobody will say no to batteries, and they will think of you when they are in a pinch and realize you got them a BRICK of batteries.

Great practical gift.

42. Throw blankets from the 24-hour drugstore. They’re $15 and nice enough that I use them myself. This is also my go-to for any gift swap at the office/with people I don’t know super well.

43. Pictures! Take a picture of something the receiver will like, or find one you might already have, throw it in a cheap frame and WABANG

44. Go to CVS and get a gift card (they have Amazon, iTunes, random others). Swing buy a restaurant and grab a gift card for that place. Last ditch, don’t have time to get a hard copy of a gift card- just buy one online that you can email.

45. Luxury kitchen stuff.

There’s a great kitchen & dinnerware shop within walking distance of my home. I can get pretty dinnerware, flatware, glasses and linens in a range of styles, and they have durable, high quality cookware for the more practically minded people. It’s my go to gift-shop, because everyone eats.

46. Lava Lamp!

No one has one.

They’re 20$

Oh, and it’s neat.

47. I’d bring them all to a restaurant and pay for their meal-> easy way to make a party and present at the same time without having to worry about what to buy them since they can order themselves what they want

48. Pharmacies always have cheap last minute crap like travel manicure kits and hot sauce samplers.

49. You get a box of chocolate! You get a box of chocolate! And you get a box of chocolate! Everyone gets a box of chocolate!!!

50. Cash, candy, and/or alcohol.

0

Image Credit: Anthony Tran

is cataloged in Last Minute Gifts, Presents

What if kindness was cool?

What if you could live a life that would make YOU jealous? What if you could make just one person’s day better with a few simple words of encouragement?  is a book of inspirational words that will keep you fighting and ask you never to give up on life, yourself, or others. Open a page to start your day, frame a page that inspires you to keep living, share a page with a friend who needs support, or leave one behind for a complete stranger to brighten their day.

Join The Kindness Revolution

Source: http://allofbeer.com/50-thoughtful-last-minute-christmas-gifts-for-procrastinators/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2019/04/22/50-thoughtful-last-minute-christmas-gifts-for-procrastinators/

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50 Thoughtful Last Minute Christmas Gifts For Procrastinators 

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Cataloged in Holidays

50 Thoughtful Last Minute Christmas Gifts For Procrastinators 

January Nelson Updated December 11, 2018

If you still haven’t finished your holiday shopping, you should think about buying these last-minute gifts suggested by Ask Reddit.

1. Mason jar + equal parts granulated sugar and veg oil + either a few drops of essential oil OR some lemon zest OR vanilla extract = boutique grade body scrub.

2. Buy tickets online for a upcoming play, dinner & show, concert, game, etc. Print out page of ticket confirmation and put it in a nice Christmas card envelope. It’s an awesome gift because people tend to love it more than clothing or other junk you usually give. And if you’re parents are like mine, they barely take the initiative to go to these type of events themselves or don’t even know about them. Experience > material goods.

3. Run to the grocery store, pick up chocolate morsels, butter, and cream.

Takes about five hours to make 200 chocolate truffles. Easy to make them different flavors as well. (Orange, Bailey’s Irish Cream, and Cinnamon Honey are the good with milk chocolate. Peppermint, Khalua, and Matcha are good with dark chocolate. Peppermint and matcha are fantastic with white chocolate.)

4. At least for men, my go-to is always a beard or personal grooming kit. It’s likely something that they wouldn’t buy themselves, and many haven’t felt the exhilaration of a peppermint shampoo. Men deserve a little pampering and self care too!

5. I think mugs make a good last minute gift because they’re available at most stores, pretty cheap for a gift, and will actually be used by the recipient.

6. Socks. High-end, badass, toasty warm (if you live where it gets cold) socks. Smartwool/Darn Tough/etc.. They may “meh” at it early on, but will thank you later. Maybe even very later, but it’ll be appreciated (a lot) eventually.

7. Most people I know don’t have bluetooth hook ups in their car, FM Transmitters are absolutely fantastic, they’re relatively cheap and life changers for folks that like to listen to music while driving, Probably $15 and under.

One of those copper chef/gotham steel type skillets. They’re fantastic, less than $20, endless use.

8. Cookie/brownie mix in a mason jar with instructions on a card and a bow.

Or a visa gift card.

9. Fancy pasta, fancy jarred sauce, nice block of parm cheese, in a serving bowl with a kitchen towel. You can do this as expensively or as cheaply as you want.

I also loved a book called The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8 Lee (basically, a woman exploring Chinese food in the USA as well as her own Chinese roots, and the history of fortune cookies… really fascinating). She talks a lot about soy sauce in that book, so I’ve given that book with a bottle of “real” soy sauce many times. I love sharing things I love with other people, so that’s a gift I love to give.

10. Subscription box. Like coffee? Subscription box. Board games? Subscription box. Make up? Subscription box. Ties or socks or yarn or hot sauce or tea or beer or wine or Japanese candy or marvel or harry porter or fitness? Subscription mother-fuckin box.

11. Go to the dollar store and grab some over the hand oven mitts, then head to the grocery store and get cake & brownie mixes, hand write the baking directions on a decorated index card or slip of paper. Personalize each one with a message or somesuch. Bam.

12. If it’s someone you’re fairly close to, print out a photo of the two of you and put it in a frame. It feels thoughtful, but can also be done in less than an hour and is cheap.

13. Depends how well I know them, or if I’ve used the same trick before – but it’s probably a cast iron skillet. Costs $20 for a good one (rhymes with dodge), and I always get thanked for it, like a year later.

14. Aldi.

A million calories of chocolate for about twenty quid.

Enough to distribute to everyone.

15. Here is what I do every year.

I go buy gift certificates for my favorite restaurants, and gift cards from Best Buy. I then put them in Christmas cards with no name on them.

I keep some in the house and some in my car.

If someone gives me a gift, I say “Wait a minute, I have something for you too” and go get the card. I quickly write their name on it and hand it to them.

Its worked out perfectly for me for years. I give everyone that gives me something, and if I end up with extra gift certificates or gift cards, I just use them on myself.

16. I make them an elaborate Christmas card with an etymology of their name. It’s always a hit and has more meaning than a gift card.

17. Good pair of headphones.

18. I make very good gingerbread cookies and decorate them very elaborately, like I’ll draw a portrait of them in frosting or I draw a cartoon character they like. Im pretty good at it.

19. Chia pet. So many varieties. ‘Ironic’ gift for those recipients, awesome gift for the others.

Either way you are a hero!

20. Those soft-ass blankets you find in any store around Christmas time. And then I buy one more for me. Every goddamn year

21. For girls: anything from Anthropologie. They have a great gifts and the quality/craftsmanship is decent. That and they gift wrap beautifully for free! I use this for last minute birthday gifts quite often and it always impresses.

For guy: gift cards or booze. Guys appreciate utility.

22. Nail place… Women will go wild over a free mani-pedi.

23. A bottle of their favorite spirits, or for non-drinkers/kids, a book.

24. BOOKS!

There is a book on literally any topic ever.

Fan of Formula 1? Book.

Fan of Jujitsu? Book.

Like economic news? Book.

Porn? Book.

Lonely? Book.

Want to improve yourself? Book.

And you can get books everywhere. Online, in store, thrift stores, little free libraries, everywhere.

25. Houseplants!

I usually have lots of spiderplant babies and keep a few small pots on hand. Great for all occasions.

26. Those Hickory Farms meat and cheese gift boxes.

27. For a family – Get a tin bucket of gourmet holiday popcorn (caramel / chocolate flavored popcorn) to share.

For a dude – Get a bottle of fancy champagne or other booze like whisky or bourbon.

For anyone younger than 30 – Get an Amazon gift card.

For a kid – Give them a $50 dollar bill. They likely never handle money and if they do, the $50 looks so much better than the $20. Easy way to become the cool uncle.

For a girl – Get them a gift certificate to a local salon, a big blanket, or fun warm socks (not regular socks but those nicer holiday woven socks).

For your mom – Get her an ornament that has sentimental value, or, go to the mall (who does that anymore) and get them to hand paint an ornament on the spot with the family name & year on it.

For your dad – Get him NFL or NBA tickets.

28. Things that are consumable… everyone has way too many junk trinkets just because someone felt they had to buy something.

Ground coffee from a local coffee shop (if you know the person has a grinder, get whole bean, but not everyone does). They usually have fun Christmas flavors this time of year.

A bottle of dry wine or champagne.

Nice candles (go for ones that are soy based and have lids) or liquid hand soap.

29. Who wants lottery tickets?!?!?!

30. If we’re talking non-money gifts you know what’s a great go to? TJ Maxx. They are just a hodgepodge of random stuff and they have bailed me out so much when it comes to gift giving because with all the things they have you are bound to find something for everyone.

31. Home made egg nog, Irish cream, or Kahlúa. Most people will love one of the three, they are easy to make, made by hand, affordable, and our gifts that go away.

32. I’d bake a bunch of stuff or make fancy looking caramel apples. If I give people food, they seem to be satisfied.

33. I’ll do a blanket/candle/bottle of wine/nice beer and fudge,

OR a movie/board game and stop by the dollar store for a shower caddy, fill it with popcorn, movie candies, etc if it’s for a family. Do a caddy and filler per family member.

34. Starbucks gift card. Everyone loves Starbucks.

35. Lego. Lego for the nephew, lego for dad, lego for mom, lego for granny, lego for EVERYONE!

36. Spicery subscription for three months. Print out the confirmation and chuck it in an envelope. I’ve gifted this twice and both recipients said that they never wanted any other present from me – just for that subscription to repeat.

37. If it’s last minute, I tried to go to a clothing store I know they have clothes from. Throughout the year I’ll ask “bro, nice jacket, where’d you get it?” Then I remember their spot and get them a gift card.

Then to cover my ass cause some people are weird about gift cards I say “I saw a _____ while shopping but I couldn’t remember your size/didn’t know what color you’d like/etc.”

38. Magazine subscriptions. The New Yorker. Times Literary Supplement. New Scientist. Private Eye. Done them all.

39. Mom – Candles and epsom salts.

Brother – Steam/eShop card, or go to a second hand store and find a game I think he’d like.

Dad – Itunes Gift Card or some kind of sports paraphernalia.

Girlfriend – something that reminds me of her, or that I think she’d love (last Christmas it was a pair of socks that said ,”I’m a delicate fucking flower”).

40. I buy ten copies of the best book I’ve read all year and wrap em in newspaper.

Proof of success: I do this every year

41. A brick of batteries. Everybody needs batteries, nobody will say no to batteries, and they will think of you when they are in a pinch and realize you got them a BRICK of batteries.

Great practical gift.

42. Throw blankets from the 24-hour drugstore. They’re $15 and nice enough that I use them myself. This is also my go-to for any gift swap at the office/with people I don’t know super well.

43. Pictures! Take a picture of something the receiver will like, or find one you might already have, throw it in a cheap frame and WABANG

44. Go to CVS and get a gift card (they have Amazon, iTunes, random others). Swing buy a restaurant and grab a gift card for that place. Last ditch, don’t have time to get a hard copy of a gift card- just buy one online that you can email.

45. Luxury kitchen stuff.

There’s a great kitchen & dinnerware shop within walking distance of my home. I can get pretty dinnerware, flatware, glasses and linens in a range of styles, and they have durable, high quality cookware for the more practically minded people. It’s my go to gift-shop, because everyone eats.

46. Lava Lamp!

No one has one.

They’re 20$

Oh, and it’s neat.

47. I’d bring them all to a restaurant and pay for their meal-> easy way to make a party and present at the same time without having to worry about what to buy them since they can order themselves what they want

48. Pharmacies always have cheap last minute crap like travel manicure kits and hot sauce samplers.

49. You get a box of chocolate! You get a box of chocolate! And you get a box of chocolate! Everyone gets a box of chocolate!!!

50. Cash, candy, and/or alcohol.

0

Image Credit: Anthony Tran

is cataloged in Last Minute Gifts, Presents

What if kindness was cool?

What if you could live a life that would make YOU jealous? What if you could make just one person’s day better with a few simple words of encouragement?  is a book of inspirational words that will keep you fighting and ask you never to give up on life, yourself, or others. Open a page to start your day, frame a page that inspires you to keep living, share a page with a friend who needs support, or leave one behind for a complete stranger to brighten their day.

Join The Kindness Revolution

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/50-thoughtful-last-minute-christmas-gifts-for-procrastinators/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/184356935077