#batman be like “he's clearly still breathing” as the guy can only move his eye balls

[gothamite-rambler]

Superman: He's not moving.

Batman: He’s twitching. Yep, he’s alive, but he’ll spend the next few years in physical therapy, quietly accepting he’ll never regain the regular movement of his body.

Batman hummed while wiping dust off his suit as Superman stared at him with eye widened in horror.

Superman: You might as well have just killed him!

Batman: Why would I take a life? Living and suffering is a far better punishment, and he had it coming.

Superman: You were investigating a small drug ring, not fighting a pedophile!

Batman: It’s a slippery slope. You don’t understand.

Batman grabbed the paralyzed man’s leg and dragged him away, while Superman tapped his foot, wondering just how far his friend would go to punish criminals in his city.

Superman: I’m still concerned about the fact that you kicked him in the spine!

Batman: He tried to shoot you! You’re welcome!

[darling-i-read-it]

Muffled Laughter - Laugh Part 2

Laugh Part 1 

Any!Bruce Wayne x fem!reader, Any!Joker x reader 

Word Count: 2.9k

Warnings: the reader is having a lot of moral dilemmas, blood/injuries/cleaning up injuries, fighting (between bruce and the reader), let me know if I missed anything! 

Author’s Note: I am keenly aware I’ve been asked to do this multiple times but I loved the first part so much that I wanted to be able to give it my full attention. I think I liked how this part turned out lots <3 Again, I personally didn’t have a batman or joker in mind! I think my joker is very comic centric and therefore vague! 

Tagging those who asked for a part two in the comments here (I hope you guys don’t mind &lt;3): @lover-of-nights, @einxoxo, @joeykissymissy, @twinkledinkle, @burningfanflowercash, @mysteriouslydeafeningwerewolf, @theitchbbbb, @b4b3ttee, @kitwalker02, @violetparis, @russian-soft-bitch  (holy cannoli i didn’t realize how many people wanted a part 2 lol) 

Summary: When you wake up, the Joker is gone. You’re eager to move on with your life, away from the night of neverending accidents. He however, is not. 

Song: I listened to The World We Knew by Frank Sinatra an unholy amount of times while writing this 

I don’t own these characters. They belong to author/director/creator

(not my gif)

The sun seeping through the windows seemed like a traitor. Gotham never got the sun it so direly needed. Then it would illuminate the gloomy corners, the drug deals, the robberies that littered quiet edges. Your eyes opened slowly and you almost didn’t remember what had happened to you the night before. For a moment it was just you and the sun, relishing in the feeling of it on your face, trying to remember the last time you had seen it so clearly through the window. 

Then your legs started to ache again and it all came back. 

The night before was long. Your hair was still wet from the shower, damp as though it was too stressed to air out. You sat up, looking around. Your small apartment room was untouched. You threw the blankets off, the cold hitting you. Goosebumps littered your legs as you walked into the hallway, entering the living room. The clock above the kitchen counter said it was only seven am. People were going to work now on this nice Thursday morning. They were getting their coffee and trudging through the streets, passing the aftermath of the night before. They had no idea why some of the roads were closed. Most didn’t care to ask. This is Gotham. They didn’t want to know. 

The couch was empty. The blanket was folded. A note was on top of it. You rushed over to it, nimbly picking it up. You sat down, eyes scanning over it quickly. 

Thanks for the water :)

Too another night of chaos

J

The note was the only proof you had housed a criminal for the night. No one would know if you shredded it and tossed it aside. You held it in your hands, like it would run away if you let it. You weren’t sure how long you sat there, rereading the short phrases, looking at the way he signed the J. This could be police evidence. He had pointed a gun at you! 

You looked down at the blanket. He had slept here! You had let him sleep in your house!

It seemed even more ridiculous of a thought in the sunlight. 

A knock on the door startled you out of your thoughts. You could feel your own breath again. You folded the note and tossed it onto the kitchen counter. You looked through the peephole to find Bruce, standing with a worried look on his face and his hands on his pockets. You closed your eyes tightly. To your left was your broken phone, still shattered down the middle. You opened the door a crack. 

“Hey,” you murmured. You rubbed your eyes. 

“Can I come in?” he asked. You pursed your lips. He didn’t feel inviting. In fact, it felt like he wanted to argue. You were too tired to argue. 

“What happened to hello? Nice to see you? How are you?” 

Bruce wasn’t sure how to approach the events of the night before. He had scoured the streets for you, returning home and finding you gone. He interrogated Alfred more than he had intended. A desk had been broken. 

But here you were, alive, unharmed. 

“It’s nice to see you,” he said deeply. You wearily opened up the door. “What happened to you last night?” “My phone broke when I was walking home.” Would you hold the rest of it to your chest? Did Bruce even deserve to know? He had left you out there by yourself and he hadn’t even come to your house to see if you were alright? “I dropped it.” 

He wanted to push. Is that all? He scanned the room, the blanket on your couch. He needed to know what had happened. 

“Why did you leave the manor?” 

“I got tired of waiting for you.”

“You should have let Alfred call you a cab.” His voice was gentle but it made you feel like a child. 

“I can take care of myself.”

“Obviously not. You broke your phone.” I saw the Joker almost kill you. 

“I made it home didn’t I?” The Joker let me be. 

You should’ve hidden the note better. It stuck out like a sore thumb, sitting on the kitchen counter. Bruce looked around your small apartment, wondering how often he had been in here. You always met at the manor, having no need to visit your place. He sent cars to get you. He tried not to be judgemental. 

“I was worried.” You crossed your arms. 

“I’m fine Bruce.” Why weren’t you telling him what really happened? He expected you to dump it all immediately, to explain that you saw Batman, ever the menacing creature, protecting you from Gotham’s worst. Why didn’t you trust him with that information? 

How did you get home? You had been lost. 

What happened from the time he called you and the time you went to bed? 

“You said you were lost. How did you get home?” 

“I found the street signs. I was just turned around.”

“Why are you lying to me?” 

You bit your tongue. This was a confrontation you didn’t want to have. You shook your head. 

“Leave me be Bruce. Clearly you don’t care to be home when I’m there. We’ve known it needed to come to this.” 

“Come to what?” His eyes went wide. “Are you breaking up with me?” 

You hadn’t wanted to. In fact, you didn’t even mean that when you spoke. You just wanted him gone and this was the quickest way to get him to do it. 

“I’m fed up waiting around for you to decide I’m important to you,” you admitted. “I can’t do that anymore. I can’t see Alfred more than I see you.” 

“I have responsibilities-”

“Everyone has responsibilities Bruce. You’re avoiding me.” 

“Why are you lying?” he begged. You shook your head, backing away. 

“Rich, coming from you. What girl has your attention on the late nights in the office Bruce? You expect me to believe that you’re always home so late because of paperwork?” It was a low blow and you knew it. You had no proof he was cheating. 

You wanted him to leave but you were telling him everything else except to get out. 

There was a genuine hurt over his face. He quickly washed it away. 

“What happened last night?” His voice was more demanding than questioning. He needed to know how you got home. He had to know why you weren’t telling him the truth. He had never felt more like Batman with you than he did now. 

“Nothing,” you said. 

There was a long silence. 

He backed away and out the door. He shut it quietly behind him. 

You were left alone in the apartment once again, feeling like you had hidden a massive part of your life and not a ten hour period. 

-

It was surprisingly easy not to go to the Wayne Manor that night. It felt wrong to back out of the routine but once you had, it was simple. You remained on your own couch, the TV on, the sun down once again. 

You had gone out to get a new phone but called out of work. 

You kept the same number, in case Bruce called. You weren’t sure what you wanted him to say. You had been rude and secretive to him and you didn’t even know if he deserved it. Your morals had been all out of whack lately and you weren’t ready to let him know that. He would scrutinize you like a psychiatrist. He would forget his own issues and pretend you were far worse, like he needed to understand the workings of your brain. 

If you told Bruce Wayne you had housed a fugitive then he would turn you in. At the least, he would break up with you for good. You couldn’t blame him for it. But you weren’t sure if you were ready for that. 

You pictured him staring at his phone, unsure why you were lying, wondering if you were deflecting the cheating allegations onto him because something happened. You focused on the television as your eyes drooped with exhaustion. You hadn't even cheated. Why did it feel like you had?

You were starting to drift into a light sleep when there was a violent knock on the door. 

You sat up and stared at the door, willing another knock. When you were in between sleep and awake, even the most aggressive noise could seem fake. Just as it had the first time though, the knock came, longer now. 

You kicked the blanket off you and dragged yourself over. Through the peephole you expected Bruce, coming to make amends.

The peephole made the Joker look distorted, more so than usual. He had his face down so you couldn’t see him but you recognized the shaky demeanor. You unlocked the door and opened it fully. 

“What are you doing here?” you asked. He pushed past you into the kitchen. You shut the door slowly as he rummaged in your cabinets and pulled out a glass. He put it under the tap, filling it up with water. 

His hand gripped the counter, knuckles turning whiter than usual. There was a tenseness in his back that hadn’t been there the night before. His hair was damp or greasy, hanging over his shoulders. 

“Jay?” 

He craned his neck to the side. You saw the side of his face. The makeup was smeared, a dark look over his features. You weren’t sure where the red paint started and the blood began. He drank the water quickly, Adam's apple bobbing. 

He slammed it down onto the counter. You narrowed your eyes, still deeply unsure why he had come back here. You figured he would either want to have you killed or never see you again. A chill went down your back, wondering if he was here to kill you. That look in his eyes was not comforting. 

“Needed some water,” he said darkly. You furrowed your brows. 

He turned to face you completely. 

You tried to suppress your gasp.

He had a large gash over the left side of his face. His shirt was torn, shreds down the front. There was blood all over him. You weren’t sure how much of it was his. He didn’t look like he was in pain but his right eye was swollen shut. He smiled, toothily, dirtily. 

“I was parched.” 

You were still taking it all in. You had seen some bruises and a cut once or twice but this was a whole different ball game. You approached him slowly, eyeing what seemed to be an endless amount of dark red. 

“What happened?”

“Don’t stay dehydrated for too long! I’m the new poster child.” He put his hands on his hips, doing a superhero stance. He relaxed quickly, not able to keep up his ridiculous grin. You met his gaze. It softened a bit. Whatever was running the crazy wheels back there slowed. 

“Can I help?”

“Well don’t just stand there.” You walked away to find a first aid kit. You felt his eyes on you as you walked, searching the cabinets. The last time you had needed it was when you had a cooking mishap. You had no idea how to fix him how he was now. “Bad guys got handsy with blowtorches today,” he explained whimsically. “You should see the other guy.” 

“I’m shaking in my boots.” 

“You’re not wearing shoes.” You laughed gently, shakily.

“It’s an expression.” You grabbed the box, turning back to him. He sat on the table.

“Your laugh is truly unparalleled.” You flushed and looked away. 

 You walked up to him and placed the first aid down, opening it up. “I don’t even know where to start.” 

“People tend to start with the lips and then work their way lower darling.” You shook your head. You rummaged around as he watched you. His gaze felt intense and unwavering. You turned the tap on warm. You ran a cloth underneath it. 

Finally you raised it up to his face. 

“Want me to take off my shirt sweets?” He was wearing a suit, though it was hardly distinguishable anymore. He had lost the coat, all that was remaining was the button up and suspenders. Even those were hard to read with how torn up they were. 

“You might have to. You hurt there?”

“You trust me to tell you? Well then I’m hurt everywhere.” You gave him a look. He smiled, that familiar exaggerated smile. To your silence he rolled his eyes. “You’re no fun.” He slid off the suspenders and warily removed his shirt. He had cuts down his chest but nothing nearly as bad as his face. 

“Did the Bat do this to you?” You tried to keep your gaze on the task at hand. No need to admire him. “Some of it. He never gets as close as he’d like.” He shrugged. “His whole ‘no kill’ motto allows for plenty of play time.” 

“This might hurt.”

“I can’t feel a thing.” 

You started to gently dab at the cuts on his chest. He didn’t react in the slightest, allowing you to get rid of the blood.

“Why did you come back?” 

You finally asked the question that had been nagging at you since you saw him through the peephole. You caught his eye only once but refused to make eye contact otherwise. He stared at you shamelessly, admiration or lust in his eyes. 

“I was thirsty.” You opened your mouth to speak again. 

Your phone rang. 

You both looked towards the living room where it was laying on the couch beside your blanket. The TV was on a low hum. You had forgotten to turn it off. You put down the rag and walked over to it. 

“That’s an annoying ringtone.” 

Bruce’s face covered your screen.

“Who is it?” You hit decline and tossed it back onto the couch. 

“No one.” You turned back around to the Joker and instead of facing your moral dilemmas, you picked the rag back up to clean his face. “I think I can clean this with alcohol.” 

“You got any gin? Or grape juice?” 

“You drink those together?” 

“I’m a character.” 

“You can say that again. Also, I meant rubbing alcohol.” 

“I know.” 

You grabbed his chin. He smiled through his pinched cheeks. 

“Don’t move.” 

His eyes remained on you as you started to gently rub his chin. You winced for him because he apparently had superhuman pain tolerance. The gash didn’t look as bad when you got down to it. You starred with a focused gaze, careful over his eye. His makeup smeared. 

You moved back a bit to see how it looked. 

You finally met his gaze. 

“I intend to stay the night,” he explained. “You have a lovely home here Y/N.” You narrowed your eyes at him, unsure what he was getting at. “If only you had a more comfortable place to sleep than the couch,” he teased. “Got any ideas for me?” 

You examined his face, the sly smile on his lips. You bit the inside of your cheek and looked away, breathing gently out of your nose. 

“I don’t let just anybody sleep in my bed.” 

“Selective. I like that in a woman.” You put some rubbing alcohol on a fresh rag. 

“That phone call was from my boyfriend Bruce.” 

“I don’t think cheating is beneath you,” he observed. “You’re going to house a fugitive either way sweets.” You wanted to argue but knew he was right. There was no use in arguing with someone who would win. 

Bruce could come back tonight, you thought. You dismissed it. Why would he? He had never cared before. 

You raised your new rag to the Jokers face. Before you could make contact he swooped in, lips crashing into yours. Your fingers extended out of surprise, dropping the rag onto the counter. He hummed against your lips. 

It was almost like he was laughing. 

Your phone rang again on the couch. You ignored it this time. 

Final Part

[izukumidoriyashusband]

I. Midoriya,, confession

—

—

Izuku Midoriya x Male!Reader

Word count: 604

Characters mentioned: Izuku Midoriya

Alternative ending

Part two

note//: All of this is fiction and has nothing to do with the actual characters. I do not claim to own these characters or have made them. This is fiction and for personal entertainment. Thank you and enjoy. NOT PROOFREAD. I apologize for the mistakes. Do not repost anywhere, I do not mind reblogging, please and thank you. (Had to add the bold text and all that I made in Google docs b/c it didn’t transfer over. Didn’t know that.). @izukumidoriyashusband

tw !! : angst, crying, rejection.

Summary:

Izuku has liked you for years, he understands the fact that he’s your best friend and he wouldn’t do anything to ruin that but he just can’t hold his feelings in any longer. Will you accept his feelings or will you shatter his heart? There’s only one way to find out.

Sitting on his bed, Izuku always wondered what was so great about you. Was it the way you style your hair?

Maybe it was the way you walked around the world like you owned it and nobody, and I mean nobody, could tell you otherwise.

Or maybe it was the way you actually gave a shit about him.

You don’t care about how powerful his quirk is.

You’ll still challenge him head on and shit, maybe sometimes you will lose. Other times, you’ve managed to outsmart the boy

‘How do I get rid of this feeling in my chest’ Izuku thinks to himself

‘You tell them.’

Another voice other than his own responds to him.

‘That’s it! I’ll tell them.’

He’s constructed a plan to tell you everything.

Was it better in his head?

It’s 2pm on a Friday. Training took up a lot of the day but for some reason, the UA students had nothing to do now but relax.

“I’ll make my move now,” Izuku whispers to himself.

“Uhh. What move?” Y/N asks in a whisper as well, startling poor Izuku and having him jump back.

“Oh! Uh nothing! I’m just thinking of ways to study better…! Heh.” He responds in a panic, receiving a ‘I totally believe you’ look from you.

“Sureeee. And I’m Batman.” You respond in a very sarcastic tone. The one Izuku loves to hear, it makes his heart skip a beat.

“But um, Y/N?” “That's my name, ‘Zuku.”

“Can I talk to you for a moment? In private? Please?”

Y/N stares at the boy for a moment before giving him a silent nod.

Izuku wastes no time, grabbing Y/N by his wrist and heading outside of the UA building, he receives weird stares from people he passes but he’s too focused on making sure his heart doesn’t jump out of his chest.

When they’re outside, Izuku finds a tree under the shade, he’s breathing heavily and he’s visibly shaking.

He lets go of Y/N’s wrist and takes a deep breath.

“What’s up, bro?”

God that word brings so much pain.

“Well um… Y/N I’ve liked you for so long and no matter what happened, you were always right there. You made me feel like the best person to ever walk the earth and-“

Izuku is too busy talking to notice your wide eyes and how you look almost…disappointed?

“I wanna cherish you forever. I wanna give you the love that no guy ever will. I wanna be the one you come home to. The one who holds you at night when you don’t feel well. I wanna have arguments and the times we forgive each other. I want to have those late night talks with each other about nothing and make it into something, all I wanna say is I love y-!”

“Let me stop you there.” You interrupted his sentence and he takes a look at you finally.

Did you always look this aggravated?

“I’m sorry but you’re only my friend. For fucks sake, I call you my little brother to my friends and family.” Y/N’s tone is no longer warm but cold.

Izuku’s heart. Shattered into two.

‘Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.’ He repeats in his head over and over, drowning out your voice. He cannot bear the rejection, even though he knew it may come.

He runs off in a flash, not wanting to hear it. The last thing he heard from you clearly was you yelling his name.

Izuku is now in his room. Pillow in his chest and crying.

“H-how could I be so stupid..?” He cries into his pillow.

‘How could he ever love me..?’

[daddysfangirls-dc]

The Arrangement

Ch 13 - Signal

Damian wayne x oc! female

Prev | Next

Signal took a deep breath, closing his eyes with his arms spread out. He basked in the morning light, the breeze, the warmth. Simply feeling the morning listening to the people. 

"Good Morning," He did not scream. No, he didn't, and he'll deny it if anyone asks. Slightly startled-slightly, Signal turned around to see a woman in a full white suit with a hood, mask, and sword strapped to her back. The confusion must have been evident on his face.

"It is me, Syn. I thought you could use some company this morning."

"Oh, guess it's my turn for a date?"

So word has gotten around about her little individual family dates." Yes," Signal could hear the amusement in her voice. " Today is your day. I know you have school during the day, and I didn't want to interrupt, so I figured I'd join you on patrol. I know you're usually alone."

Signal was indeed alone in his patrol, besides Oracle. It was rare for the others to join him in the light. While the silence was sometimes nice, he also longed for the friendly sibling banter that his siblings had every night. Sacrifices needed to be made for the greater good.

"What's your name?" she tilts her head in confusion. " Your code name? Can't walk around calling you by your name?" She looks down at herself.

"White?"

He thought for a moment " I guess for the moment. We'll work on it."

An echo of police sirens filled the air. " That's our queue. Keep up." Jumping off the roof he grapled following the police sirens.

-

A bank robbery. Criminals were often braver in the light, with no fear of Batman and Co. hiding in the shadows, And with Singal being the only daytime vigilantly. But they forgot just because Signal was alone doesn't make him weak. And be proved by a simple robbery.

Four robbers, one as a lookout, one for the money, two for the hostages. Signal, being the public figure, went to save the hostage while White got lookout and money man. The lookout was relatively easy a quick punch to the face and they were out. She moved them out of view. She makes her way to the back unseen.

In the vault, one person was running around trying to stuff valuables into duffle bags. This person wasn't a pro, obviously, with the way they struggled to pry open the lock boxes. She could hear the clear panic as they stumbled and dropped things. White just sat for a moment, watching them run around in panic. The sounds they made led White to believe they were females or pubescent. 

"You dropped a diamond."

"Thank you." A female. She freezes the woman? Girl? The female stops and slowly looks over to white, who is standing by the duffle bags.

"Hello," she waves. " Are you trying to rob the bank?"

"I-I wasn't-"

"You were, you are." But you can stop now." she cries out, falling and crawling back as White approaches her. " Oh, relax. I'm just pinching." White said. Finally reaching the female, she pinches between her neck and shoulder, and she is out like a light. White dragged her body to the duffle bags, Ziptying and leaving her with the bags.

-

"Good work," White said as Signal landed next to her on the roof. " Everyone was saved, and no blood was spilled."

"Yeah, feel bad for the old guy, though." While no one was shot, an older gentleman was pushed down and messed up his hip. The EMTs said it was just a bruise but would take him in for care just in case. That's what they were watching now, them loading him up as his grandson fussed over him. 

"Still, this was a good save. Well done."

"Thanks, you did good as well." she waved him off. Signal started walking backwards." Listen, I've got to start heading out. I've got class."

"Oh, I didn't realize how much time had passed." White was disappointed they barely spent any time together. She didn't get to know him at all. All their time was spent on the pesky robbery. The whole thing was a bust. Even with a mask, Signal could clearly see how frustrated and upset she was. He doesn't want that.

"I enjoyed this. I like having company. Maybe we can do this again."

"Yes, I'd like that as well." He gives her his number and promises to patrol with each other again. 

-

Syn removes her mask as she sits on a secluded rood. She pulls out her flip phone and dials Damian's numbers. " How did it go?"

"Shouldn't you be in school?"

"Why are you calling them?"

"Touche," she sighed. " It didn't last long. We stopped a bank robbery, and then he had to go to class. We didn't talk much."

"Oh, surely you got something out of today." Damian leaned against the sink.

"His number and a promise to patrol together again."

"That's good, no?"

"I suppose"

"You'll have more time with him, I promise. It'll happen. I'll make it happen."

Syn chuckled." No, no, I'm just being silly. After Tim, I guess I'm desperate for more. I really thought I'd learn more about him today. The league has very little on file about him. All I know is what you've told me."

"You're pouting because you don't know Duke."

"I've been given a deadline."

And just like that, all amusement for the situation was gone. Damian didn't understand what she meant by a deadline, but the change in her tone made him realize it was serious. The school bell rang, but Damian didn't move. " Deadline? Elaborate."

"My father is not happy and believes our relationship isn't progressing as fast as he wants," Syn said as she picked at her shoelaces, nervously waiting for his response. This was the first time Syn had ever spoken of her father's displeasures about their relationship.

The bell rang again. " I have to go," he said, moving to hang up but stopping. Communication. "We'll talk later. Be safe."

"Okay"

[soulmate-game]

Hawkmoth was a bitch, and Marinette meant that with every fiber of her soul. Fu was also a bitch, and Marinette actually had good memories of the guy. Not many, but she had some. The fact that the guy got two ten-year-olds to become super heroes and fight a supervillain for him kinda soured those memories, though. But with Chat Noir not allowed to leave his house? Yeah, even as young as they were it only took about a year to find out who HawkMoth was and another year to take him down.

Except, that left Marinette alone. The final battle took her mom away, and Chat had to move out of Paris after his dad was arrested. Luckily Jagged allowed her and her papa to move into his house in Gotham, and everything was…

Well, it was okay. For about a month.

Then her dad was gone too, and she had no way to talk to Jagged, and the police were scaring her—

Yeah, that was the basic order of events that led to where she was now. Pushing fourteen years old, ex-superhero, protector of a magical box of gods, stealing the tires off of a very nice motorcycle.

Marinette was tempted to just take the whole thing, she loved bikes and knew she could drive it. But the thing had more security than she knew what to do with, and the fact that it belonged to Red Hood… she didn’t want to deal with trackers today, thanks. So the tires it was.

Should she maybe care more about the fact that she was stealing from a vigilante with a violent streak? Maybe. Did she? Hell no. For all she knew, maybe Red Hood was a bitch too. (Yes, she was still learning English slang. She was fluent by educational standards, but learning how to curse in a foreign language was fun and she still had a little bit to go. Her few street friends were very happy to help).

A shadow dropped down in front of her, and Marinette’s hero instincts kicked in. The tire iron she was using cut through the air, slamming right into the side of Red Hood’s knee.

—*—*—*—*—*

“Hood,” Batman’s voice grumbled over the comms, instantly grabbing the attention of everyone else who was on the comms. It wasn’t as gruff as he usually sounded, in fact it almost sounded like… he was trying not to laugh?

“Did you get gassed by Joker?” Dick asked before Jason got a chance to respond. “Need backup?”

“No,” Batman responded, sounding a little more composed. “Not a rogue. But Hood, I need you to join me at my location as soon as possible.”

Finally getting the chance to talk, Jason responded a little warily; “Sure, B. Wait,” he blinked at the location that was sent to him. “Isn’t that where my bike is parked?”

Batman didn’t respond at first, only the sound of labored breathing— again, as if he was trying not to laugh. “Just get here, Hood.”

Sighing, but not too mad since the night had been fairly quiet so far, Jason decided to humor the old man and head over. When he could see the cape-clad back of Batman, he easily leapt over the last roof and sauntered over.

“Okay, B,” he had his thumbs tucked in his pockets as he drawled. “What’s the issue?”

Batman was grinning. As in, actually showing amusement. And he just pointed down, straight at Hood’s bike.

Jason rolled his eyes under his helmet, turning to look. At first he didn’t see anything amiss, until he saw movement and looked harder. Oh. Oh, holy shit.

“Is that a kid?”

“Yep,” Batman’s grin grew.

“Is she… stealing my tires?” Hood was so, so glad he wore a helmet that hid his expression. Because… wow.

“Yep,” Batman finally lost his composure, chuckling. “This seems like Karma, don’t you think?”

“And you just watched her so you could rub it in,” Jason groaned, throwing his head back in exasperation. Of course he would. Nobody knew it (except the other heroes who knew him) but Batman was a petty little jerk when he wanted to be. He bought the whole Daily Planet just to spite Clark, for crying out loud.

“Don’t adopt her,” Batman said as he stood up, patting Red Hood’s shoulder. “It looks like she’s almost done.”

“Shit,” Jason hissed, looking down to see that she was, actually, very close to being done. She had already had one tire completely free by the time he had arrived, and now she was only seconds away from getting the other one completely free.

He took a quick assessment— she was tiny, and really thin. Definitely a street kid, he thought, though he didn’t recognize her. He knew most of the street kids that stole to get by, nowadays, which meant she must have been fairly new. But even though she seemed to know what she was doing, her small frame made her take longer unscrewing the tires than it normally would have taken. Sure that she wasn’t a threat by any stretch of the imagination, he jumped down. His plan had been to startle her a little by showing up out of nowhere, but he didn’t want to scare her too badly. Just make her jump a little.

But he had underestimated her, it seemed. Without wasting a second, she jumped up and swung her tire iron at his knee. He cursed, she was a lot faster than her had been expecting. He was able to move so that the weapon only clipped the side of his knee, his knee pad thankfully taking the worst of it. She still hit hard enough to make him stumble and hiss in pain though, which was an accomplishment.

That’s when she abandoned her weapon and her tires, darting to try and escape only for Batman to drop down and block her escape. Though really, it was the grin Batman had that scared the girl most of all, apparently, making her slowly back away from him.

“Please stop smiling,” she begged with a faint French accent to her words. “It is not natural.”

That made Red Hood laugh, already recovered and right behind her. He plopped a gloved hand on her head.

“I know, it’s creepy right?” He joked. “What’cha doin’ stealing my tires, kid? I kinda need them to drive anywhere,” he was careful to keep his voice light and devoid of any anger. He wasn’t really upset, all told. It would be hypocritical of him if he was.

She looked between the two vigilantes for a moment, clear intelligence behind those bright blue eyes as she seemed to consider something. Suddenly she pulled away from Red Hood and stepped away from his reach, straightening up and trying to look tall.

“My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” she said as firmly as she could. “My father was Tom Dupain, he was killed in a mugging three months ago. We were living in a house that our family friend leant to us after my mother’s death six months ago, and we moved here from Paris. I haven’t been able to contact him, and the police… I don’t trust them,” she admitted, clearly seeing this as the chance she had been waiting for. “I have been living on the streets since my father died. I am sorry for trying to steal your tires, Monsieur Red Hood. But it was a risk I had to take.”

“Did you expect us to catch you?” He asked, crossing his arms as he re-evaluated the girl. She was a lot stronger than he had assumed earlier, both physically and mentally. She seesawed her hand to indicate ‘kinda’.

“Even if you didn’t, I could make good money off your tires,” she justified with a shrug. “To me, I would win either way.”

“Who is your family friend? Can he help you now, take you in?” Batman asked, moving forward and kneeling down to be closer to Marinette’s height. Neither he nor Jason had missed the part where she was an orphan, but they had expected that considering what they had caught her doing. And they both knew that she wasn’t likely to take any apologies they tried to offer very well. It was best not to show pity, or she might get angry.

Marinette frowned. “... Our family friend is Jagged Stone. He lets me call him Uncle Jagged,” she told them, clearly expecting the disbelieving grunts they gave. “I mean it! You can call him, he might even be looking for me! I—“

“We know,” Hood assured her, now kneeling down as well. Man, she was short. “Calm down, we know you’re telling the truth. Jagged has made several public announcements about his missing honorary niece, we just didn’t recognize your name right away. And Jagged doesn’t have access to very many pictures of you, those he does have the Mayor isn’t allowing him to show because that spineless jackass—“

“Language, Hood.”

“—Cares more about keeping bad press off the air than finding a kid, even if it’s a world famous rockstar who’s asking. That’s probably why you haven’t heard anything, the mayor’s keeping it off the radio and not many reporters are brave enough to take the story and get on his bad side.”

“Oh…” Marinette took a deep breath, fighting the tears that were threatening to rise up. “He has been looking…” she sniffled, curling in on herself a little. “Can you take me to him?”

“I think we can do that,” Batman agreed, standing up. “I’ll contact him. Red Hood, can you handle everything here until I give you a place to meet up with Jagged Stone?”

Jason nodded. “No problem, B. Come on, little rabid pixie. Step one of gettin’ you back to your uncle is to help me fix my bike back up.”

Marinette sighed, shoulders dropping. “All my hard work, undone…” she playfully complained. But in the end she didn’t argue or fight against it, she just sat down and helped him reattach his tires.

All the while, Jason’s family kept teasing him over the comms. Clearly they were also thoroughly amused by the cosmic display of karma.

“...Monsieur Hood,” Marinette asked once they were done repairing the motorcycle and he had given her his too-big extra helmet. He tilted his head a bit to show he was listening. She squirmed. “Can… can we stop by my hideout? I have something really important I have to get.”

Jason smiles gently under his mask. She might not have been a street kid for very long, but she really did bring back some memories for him. He got on his bike and held a hand out to her.

“Sure thing kid. Wanna grab something to eat after? Can’t have a reunion on an empty stomach.”

She gave him a lopsided smile— not quite overjoyed, but definitely hopeful and thankful. Maybe this was the end of her streak of bad luck, she could only hope.

“Only if you don’t mind, Monsieur Hood,” she agreed before taking his hand and letting him help her onto the bike.

“No skin off my back, pixie,” he assured her. Then they were off. He followed her directions until they got to an abandoned building about three miles away, not in a good part of town at all but at least not in crime alley. Marinette easily led him through the building, skirting around other piles of ratty blankets and up broken stairs until they got to the badly-maintained top floor. She led him over to an almost invisible door in the concrete wall that pulled out to reveal what was probably a broom closet once upon a time. It was crowded with what looked like junk and empty boxes, along with a few blankets and two or three changes of clothes that were clearly her’s. A few belongings scattered around— a book, a small pink purse, and… Marinette came out of the pile of mess holding what had clearly been a very carefully hidden box. She also grabbed the purse and slung it over her shoulder, but didn’t seem worried about anything else.

Jason frowned at the box. It wasn’t that big, but it was clearly made of old wood. There were intricate carvings that were painted pink, in a symbol that was itching at the back of his mind. He recognized that symbol, but from where?

“Ready to go, kid?” He asked as he thought about it, getting a nod from Marinette. Twenty minutes later they were at a Batburger, sitting in a shaded booth that couldn’t be seen from the street.

She never let the box out of her sight. She kept it on the seat next to her, and Jason noticed that she tried to keep one hand on it at all times. But when she spoke, now her French accent stood out to him even more than before. But why—?

And then it clicked. Paris. Hawkmoth. Ladybug, Chat Noir, magic artifacts called Miraculous. Wonder Woman had raised a fuss when the heroes disappeared, declaring that something was wrong but she couldn’t put her finger on what. Then the magic users they trusted were called in, and returned from Paris with the grim news that the former Guardian of those artifacts had activated a failsafe and passed the guardianship on to someone else while erasing his own memories at the same time. But nobody knew who he could have passed it on to, so Batman had been given the green light to do all the research he and his team could into the Miraculous box to try and help track it down.

And here it was. The carvings were in pink now, which might have been the “cosmetic change” that Constantine had mentioned might happen when the box changed guardians. He had found the box full of super powerful magical artifacts… in the hands of a newly orphaned street kid who couldn’t have been older than fourteen at best.

What the hell?

“...” Red hood reached into his pocket and pulled out an old receipt and a sharpie. He scrawled on the back of the receipt and handed to Marinette. The girl was halfway into a bite of her burger when he did, and blinked at him owlishly before swallowing and cautiously reaching out to grab it. She frowned at the numbers scrawled there.

“What’s this?” She asked.

“My contact info,” he explained. “I won’t ask questions about why you have that box,” he watched her instantly stiffen but continued as casually as he could; “but it doesn’t matter. You can call me if you ever need help with anything, kid. Help with that box, help if you get in trouble in Gotham again, or even if you’re having a bad day. You can call me for whatever, got it? I don’t care if you think it’s stupid, if you can’t talk to anyone else in your life you can always call or text me and I’ll do whatever I can. Got it?”

“...” Marinette sniffled for a second and looked down at the table in silence for a second. “... what if I want your motorcycle?” she joked, but the watery tone of her voice gave her away.

Jason laughed, patting her head. “I need my bike, but we can talk about getting you your own once you are old enough to get a license. You almost done? Bats says that Jagged is ready to meet you, I can take you to him right now.”

“Yeah, lets go!” she was newly energized and shoved the last bite of burger into her mouth greedily. “And Red Hood?” She asked as they headed out to where he had parked.

“Yeah, kid?”

“Thanks.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Permanent tag list (I remembered it this time!)

@rosalineandrosemary @neakco @justanotherfanficlovinbitch @trippingovermyfeet @certainmuffinbagelcalzone @bigpicklebananatree @fantasylover-92 @prongs-flowers @jumpingjoy82 @prettylittlebutterflie @queenz-z @literaryhiraeth @waffelyunsure @deathssilentapproach-blog @waiting247 @theirlmikan @unoriginalmess

[invisibleanonymousmonsters]

Childhood – Toxicology 1/4

Damian Wayne x Daughter of Poison Ivy!Reader

He was an arrogant boy, struggling as he was pulled between the legacy of being born to kill and the promise that he could change for the better. She saw the world through the eyes of her fatalistic mother, but was forbidden to make sense of it on her own. They shouldn’t work together. But Gotham made their lives align despite all of that.

Word Count: 7,000+

Damian sprinted through the streets of Gotham. It was just another average criminal, which was why his father allowed him to go after them without his supervision. But they still needed the man for questioning. And right now, he was their only lead.

Suddenly Damian came to a stop and growled.

“What is it?” Batman asked in the comms.

“He ran into Robinson Park,” Damian sighed with annoyance. “As if he has some sort of death wish. Clearly he doesn’t realize it’s 3 o’clock in the morning…”

“Or he doesn’t care,” Batman offered darkly. “Should I send backup?”

‘Backup’ as in Damian's older brothers.

It made the 8-year-old boy roll his eyes.

“No,” Damian shot back. “I can handle it.”

“That’s Poison Ivy’s territory, Robin,” Batman warned.

“I’m well aware.”

But the park had only improved since Poison Ivy had claimed it as her own. It used to be filled with junkies and creeps. Ill maintained and unloved, Pamela Isley changed the park almost overnight. She had made it her own personal oasis, and then remained completely uninvolved during the Gotham turf wars between crime bosses.

However, that didn’t mean the park was safe – especially for Robin: the sidekick of the vigilante that tossed Poison Ivy in jail more times than anyone could count.

As soon as Damian crossed the threshold, he felt like he was no longer in Gotham City.

Dare he say the park was... beautiful?

The intention during its creation was to give Gotham its very own Central Park. But the city once again proved that nothing good lasts in Gotham. It was quickly ruined by disrespectful patrons, lack of funding, and criminals that saw it as theirs for the taking.

But now Damian saw the original vision.

Somehow the sounds of Gotham almost completely disappeared. Mumbled by the thick forests. And the air didn’t smell of sewage. No, this was what fresh air smelled like. Damian had almost forgotten.

“Do you have a visual?” Batman asked.

Damian blinked and refocused. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the area around him.

The park was over 300 acres of land. But the guy Damian followed wasn’t all that fast and he could easily catch up to him.

There was a shadow disappearing into the distance.

“Yes,” Damian confirmed as he returned to a sprint.

“Stay alert. Poison Ivy doesn’t appreciate visitors,” Batman warned.

The boy didn’t bother responding. He didn’t need to be babied.

“I have to handle something. I’ll be off comms for the next 20. If you need backup, call Nightwing,” Batman grunted, clearly fighting someone.

Damian rolled his eyes again. Dick would just baby him even more.

Finally he came across an enormous willow tree. The branches were so thick with leaves that he couldn’t even see the trunk. It might be one of the biggest trees Damian had ever seen – at least in Gotham.

The slender and agile branches swayed a bit.

But then Damian realized there wasn’t even a slight breeze. Nothing should be making them move.

As he looked around, Damian realized he was being watched.

Had the criminal double backed and snuck up on him?

No, he was far too much of an imbecile to pull that off.

But Damian felt on edge and unsheathed his sword from behind his back.

As soon as the metal caught the reflection of the moon, the tree seemed to come alive.

The branches rose into the air, like a million tiny arms.

Damian swore under his breath as he looked up at the now animated tree.

“Put your sword down,” a voice called out, almost like it had travel to his ears by the wind. It wasn’t demanding, but softly suggestive.

“Who’s there?” Damian growled. “Show yourself!”

But before he could get a response, his sword was ripped out of his hands by one of the branches. Then another whacked him across his middle, knocking him to the ground. He landed on his stomach.

Damian jumped to his feet and flung a batarang to the branches that were now holding his sword hostage, 25 feet in the air above him.

His shot landed, cutting through the branches and freeing his sword. It embedded itself in the earth.

“Stop! You’re hurting them!” The same voice called out. This time it didn’t sound timid. Now it was angry.

“Come out and I won’t cut this monstrosity to pieces,” Damian warned as he quickly dove for his sword as he dodged the branches that tried to snatch him.

The tree calmed all of the sudden. Which was somehow more unsettling than when it had come alive.

Damian held his sword at the ready. Maybe this person was one of Poison Ivy’s minions. And he wasn’t going to let his guard down.

There was a slight hesitation before the branches parted like a curtain. A figure was clearly hiding just behind them. The night still protected them, holding them in shadow so Damian couldn’t make out any features.

“Who are you?” Damian shouted.

But his tone seemed to make the figure take a step back in fear.

Damian wasn’t known for his conversation skills or diplomacy.

But he suddenly heard Dick’s voice in his head. ‘Sometimes people are more scared of you than you think, Damian. Ya gotta be patient.’

Damian sighed and thought of how Dick would handle this situation.

He slowly sheathed his sword again and held out his hands to show that he didn’t have any weapons. But clearly they were hidden all around his body still.

“I won’t hurt you,” he called out.

The words sounded so unlike him.

But apparently they were enough for the figure because, after hesitating, they slowly walked out of the shadows and into the moonlight.

It was a little girl.

Her eyes wide in fear. Leaves and tiny flowers were woven into her y/h/c hair. But it looked so natural and beautiful. She was wearing a white cotton dress, simple and light. Her feet were bare. Her petiteness from being a child made it even more obvious that she was slightly shaking. Even in the night, Damian was still able to see the y/e/c of her eyes.

Was it because…Were her eyes glowing y/e/c?

“Who are you?” He asked bluntly.

She narrowed her eyes. “Who are you?” For how terrified she looked, her counter was surprisingly confident.

“I’m Robin.”

Her eyes seemed to flow brighter when she asked, “Batman’s Robin?”

“Sure.”

Then Damian took a step toward her.

But the willow tree didn’t like that one bit, and instantly erupted back to life.

Just as Damian reached for his sword again, the girl jumped forward and held up her hands.

“You’re scaring them!” She cried out. “They’re just trying to protect me.”

Damian froze. But stopped reaching for any weapon.

The girl seemed to finally relax and smiled at him. “I don’t really know why they’re so scared,” she giggled. “You’re just a boy…can’t be older than me, even.”

“Just a boy,” Damian repeated in a growl. “I was trained to be the ultimate soldier. I was born to be a master assassin.”

Instead of getting scared or even apologizing, the little girl once again giggled.

“Stop laughing,” he snarled.

She managed to contain herself and stepped forward another step.

But Damian took a step back. ‘Always keep a certain distance between you and your enemy,’ he was reminded of his training.

“You still haven’t told me who you are,” he told her.

But just as the girl was going to answer, Damian was tackled to the ground.

When he looked up at the body that was on top of him, he realized it was the thug he had tracked into the park. When the hell did he get so bold?

Damian growled as he shoved the grown man off of him, putting distance between them so he could get back to his feet.

When the man tackled him though, Damian didn’t realize how close to the girl and the tree they’d gotten.

Then everything happened so fast.

The girl’s skin erupted into a green glow, her y/e/c eyes flared the brightest tonight had seen.

Vines appeared from the ground out of nowhere and latched onto the criminal.

The man cried out in fear and fought the vines that wrapped around his limbs and torso. But they looked to be stronger than metal chains. Before Damian could help him, the ground opened up and dragged the man down, swallowing him whole. The opening in the earth closed and the vines disappeared as if they had never appeared.

“I’m sorry!” The girl shouted out in fear. “I-I-I didn’t m-mean to!” She sounded both terrified of herself and what Damian would do to her now.

“Where did he go?” Damian asked in shock.

“I-I-I don’t know.”

“Did you just kill him?”

It was a stupid question. Clearly he was either buried alive or asphyxiated by the vines.

“I don’t know,” the girl started crying. “I didn’t mean to! I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” She kept repeating it, getting more and more hysterical.

Damian didn’t know what to do. He stepped forward as if he was going to comfort her. But who was he kidding? He had never done that in his life. And he had no idea how to start now. Dick would know what to do. Hell, probably Jason even would.

Suddenly, the girl gasped. Her entire body tensed with alertness and her eyes zeroed in on something in the distance behind Damian.

The boy heard nothing but whipped around to see what she was looking at.

There was nothing.

When he turned back around, the girl was gone.

Damian looked to the tree, but there was an emptiness there now. Somehow he knew the girl wasn’t hiding in there.

“Robin,” a voice said behind him.

It was Batman.

“Where is the fugitive?”

Damian hesitated.

“I lost him,” he mumbled.

Batman narrowed his eyes. “You OK?”

Maybe it was his parenting senses going off that made him think Damian looked a little bit shaken.

“Fine,” Damian huffed.

“Come on. Let’s get back to the cave.”

“But it’s still early,” Damian shot back.

“Nightwing and Red Robin will handle the rest of the patrol. You and I are going home.” Batman’s tone left no room for argument.

Damian tried not to sigh as he followed his father.

Just before getting too far away to see it, Damian turned around and looked at the willow tree.

Who was that girl?

And why did he lie to his father for her?

Damian was never one to put his on the line for others – especially a literal stranger. His actions were out of character.

The girl’s ability were similar to Poison Ivy’s. Was she experimenting on children now?

The obvious thing to do was for Damian to explain what he saw to his father and the family would investigate together. But there was something inside telling him not to keep this little girl a secret.

Robin would handle this on his own.

Sneaking away from his family on patrol was the real challenge. Being 8 years old meant that they all felt the need to babysit him. Even Jason, who acted like he hated Damian, would keep an on the kid.

Damian saw an opening when he knew his family would be preoccupied and in their own patrol territories.

He quickly deactivated his tracking device. Well, he froze it, making him appear to be sitting still on a map. A tactic he learned almost immediately when he arrived in Gotham. He hated the idea of his father always being able to track him.

He had about 30 minutes before Bruce noticed he hadn’t moved.

Damian hurried to Robinson Park.

Since he knew exactly where he was going, he made it to the willow tree rather quickly.

“Hello,” he called out to the tree, feeling rather stupid.

The tree swayed in greeting, almost like a wave.

“It’s Robin. I just…I came to talk.”

He already felt like an idiot, since he was notorious for not talking at all.

To his surprise, the willow branches opened their curtain once again. But the girl wasn’t walking out. Instead, it was telling Damian to go in.

He hesitated before walking forward.

Was this a death wish?

But his concern vanished when he looked around.

Hidden behind the thick branches of the willow tree was the most elaborate and beautiful treehouse Damian had ever seen. It looked so natural as it snaked around the wide trunk, almost as if the house had grown with the tree and was a part of it.

There were fairy lights wrapped around it, making it look even more magical. Apparently, the branches were thick enough to completely shield any and all light from escaping beyond the leaves. So no one would ever know the treehouse was there.

“Are you here to arrest me?” A tiny voice interrupted Damian from his observations.

He looked up to see the little girl looking down at him from what appeared to be a little balcony.

She looked so scared and…ashamed.

“Should I arrest you?” He asked.

Even though he had no such authority.

She didn’t seem to know that, though.

“It was an accident. I didn’t mean to,” the girl quickly defended.

“OK,” Damian said surprisingly gentle, trying to prevent her from falling into another panic attack. “Can you tell me who you are?”

She just stared at him for a moment.

Suddenly the same murderous vines from that night and appeared. They crawled up the trunk, wrapped around the girl’s waist, and then gently brought her down from the balcony so she was standing just a few feet away from Damian.

“Y/N,” She answered. “My name is Y/N.”

“Are you a prisoner here?” He quickly asked.

“Prisoner?” She laughed. “Does this look like a prison to you?”

“Guess not,” he admitted. “Did Poison Ivy do this to you?”

'This' clearly meaning her...abilities.

The mentioning of Poison Ivy seemed to wipe all amusement off the girl’s face.

She didn’t respond.

“Look, I’m not here to turn you in. I just want answers. Did she kidnap you?”

“She didn’t kidnap me.”

Damian could see that he shouldn’t push her, so he waited.

“She’s my mother.”

He couldn’t control himself as his eyes grew three sizes.

“She gave birth to you?” He sputtered out.

Y/N giggled again. “That’s usually how it works.”

“Huh,” was all Damian managed to let out.

“Would you like to come inside?” She suddenly asked softly.

It was in that moment that Damian realized one of the biggest things about the little girl.

She was lonely.

Where was Poison Ivy? Did she just let Y/N have free reign of the park and go about where she pleased?

Damian felt like he should say no. Y/N was technically the daughter of an enemy. Poison Ivy had somewhat of a moral compass and wasn’t blindly evil by any means. But she was still a criminal, and one that faced off with the Bat family more times than they could count.

But the yearning in the little girls eyes. It felt so familiar to Damian. An emotion that he refused to let himself reflect on.

“Sure,” he finally answered. “But only so I can ask all my questions.”

‘Good. Give yourself an out. Make sure she knows you’re only here on bat business. This isn’t a social call,’ Damian thought to himself.

Y/N beamed when he agreed to stay. Her y/e/c eyes glowed brighter, making Damian realize that their brightness must correlate with her emotions.

“Uhhh…Where are the stairs?” Damian asked when he realized there wasn’t so much as a ladder.

His head tilted back down, and he jumped when he found Y/N standing just inches away from him.

She smiled at him.

“Do you trust me?” Y/N whispered.

“Of course I don’t,” he snapped back.

“Well then…sorry.”

Next thing Damian knew, the vines grabbed the two children and carried them up into the air, carefully plopping them down at the balcony of the treehouse.

It made Damian uneasy being grabbed by the same things that killed that man. But he wasn’t one to show any fear.

“Would you like some tea?” Y/N asked.

She seemed so delighted to simply be able to offer it to someone for the first time.

“So you can poison me?” He countered with a glare.

Her face immediately dropped and she looked so heartbroken by the very idea.

“Why would I do that?” She mumbled quietly.

“That’s what your mother does. In fact, she probably planned to have you poison me to get back at Batman.”

“My mother sometimes does bad things, yes. But she only does them to people who deserve it.”

“Deserve it?” Damian challenged with a scoff.

“Yes,” she snapped back. “People that have hurt her or the people she loves. And people that stand in the way of her cause.”

He rolled his eyes. “And what cause is that? Crime?"

“Saving the environment, obviously.”

Damian huffed.

“Would you like some tea or not?” Y/N asked, less polite this time.

“Fine.”

“Good. I promise I won’t poison you.”

Damian looked around. The treehouse was like a tiny home. More like a studio than anything. He noted the full bed tucked into a corner. And then the tiny nook of a dinner table with three seats. There was a little kitchen with a sink, stove, and small fridge. Somehow there was running water and electricity available. There was even a small, enclosed bathroom off to the side.

“You said you had questions…” she hummed as she boiled water.

Apparently she’d already gotten over Damian’s poisoning accusation.

He hesitated, thinking of where he wanted to begin, “Who’s your father?”

“Don’t have one,” she answered with a shrug.

But Damian didn’t believe her. “How is that possible?”

“Mother is a renowned scientist. So…she figured it out.” Then she smirk, “And she would rather die than depend on a man to conceive a child.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Do you not know how babies are made?” Y/N asked with a teasing smile.

“Of course, I do!”

“Well, she used bone marrow stem cells in place of sperm to fertilize her eggs. It’s rather fascinating, actually.”

“If you say so.” Damian scratched his chin. “I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised. Batman said Poison Ivy used to house so many orphans. But that was years ago.”

Y/N frowned.

There was silence as she poured the tea and then handed a mug to Damian before she sat down at her tiny table. She gestured to the other sit, silently telling him to join her.

“What happened to them?” He asked.

“My mother’s story is a sad one,” she said as her eyes stuck to the floor.

Damian stayed quiet.

“She had been experimented on by a terrible man. She didn’t know the full extent of her new powers. She always loved children, wanted to make a home and take care of the ones that Gotham spit out.”

Her eyes glazed over as she tried to remember a past that existed long before she was born.

“She didn’t know,” Y/N whispered.

“Didn’t know what?”

“That she was slowly poisoning them. And she couldn’t stop it – didn’t know how. Some of them–” She hesitated and swallowed, her throat clearly dry. “Died. The others… well, she sent far away. Found them homes away from Gotham.”

“I didn’t know that,” Damian admitted. “I don’t think Batman did either.”

“They were all orphans. Or came from broken homes. My mother said Gotham didn’t care about them. So...who would report them missing?"

A silence settled in the treehouse as they both processed that.

“When were you born?” Damian asked, quieter this time.

“A few years after that.”

“And you have the same… abilities as your mother.”

Y/N smiled at his observation. “My mother wanted a guarantee that she wasn’t a danger to me. It would’ve broken her heart. So she made sure I was immune – did a bunch of experiments and research.”

Then she frowned. “But she didn’t think I’d be twice as strong as her.”

“Is that why you can’t control it?” Damian asked darkly.

Y/N’s head hung as soon as he said it.

To Damian’s shock, he suddenly felt guilty for what he said.

Guess there was a first for everything.

“Y/N?” He pushed softly.

The only other time he spoke like this was when he was talking to his pets.

When Y/N finally lifted her head, she was crying. “I don’t mean to,” she whimpered. “I’ve been practicing. I don’t want to h-h-hurt p-p-people.”

Damian didn’t know what to do.

He had never even tried to comfort someone before.

But his stomach hurt. Why did it hurt?

Why did it bother him so much to see this girl cry? This girl that he hardly knew.

“You’re going to arrest me,” Y/N sniffed.

“No.” Damian surprised them both with how steady and strong his reply was. He sounded like his father.

“No?”

“Like you said, it was an accident.”

“But what…what about Batman?”

“He will never know,” Damian shrugged.

“But jail is what I deserve,” Y/N whispered.

“How old are you?”

“8.” She was the same age as him.

“Exactly. You’re a child,” it came out harsh, even though Damian didn’t mean it that way. “Furthermore, the man you killed was a criminal. He had over 15 sexual assault allegations against – amongst other things.”

"Mother says rapists should have their penises cut off," she managed to say as she sniffled.

Damian smirked.

She tried to rub the tears from her face. “How old are you?”

After everything, Damian still felt like he shouldn’t even share that.

“Same age as you.”

She smiled at that. “You seem older.”

“Thank you,” he crossed his arms arrogantly.

Y/N giggled. “I wasn’t complimenting you.”

Damian huffed at that.

“Why don’t you live with your mother?” He changed the subject, looking around at the treehouse again.

“I do,” she answered, as if it were obvious. “The park is our home. She let’s me have my own space. Mother mostly sticks to the greenhouse. I'm there a lot, too."

He slowly nodded.

Damian knew his window of freedom was quickly closing. He had probably already spent too much time here. And surely his father would notice his faulty tracking device soon.

“How can you just tell me all your secrets?” He blurted out.

Did this girl have no self preservation?

Damian had been raised by both his mother and father to never fully trust anyone. Yet this girl held no suspicion towards him. Even when she thought he was there to turn her in, she still invited him into her home.

Y/N shrugged innocently. “I figured the way to make friends is to trust them. I don’t think keeping secrets about my life is how you give trust…”

The truth was, Damian didn’t really know how to make friends. For a long time, the closest thing he had to them were his brothers. Even that was pushing the actual definition.

It took awhile until he got a real one: Jonathan Kent. Though Damian would never call him that.

Clearly, Y/N didn’t have any friends. But she seemed to have a better understanding on how to make them – at least far better than Damian ever did.

“But I didn’t tell you anything about myself,” Damian argued.

In Damian’s mind, everything was a score, a game. And this new affiliation was not an even playing field. He knew Y/N’s life story. She gave him enough information for it to be used against her. And in return, he had given her nothing.

Y/N gave him a shy smile. “Maybe you can come back another time and tell me then.”

Damian just stared at her with amazement. “I…I have to go,” he managed to stutter out.

Instead of waiting for the vines to grab him, he gracefully jumped over the railing of her treehouse balcony and landed in a controlled roll.

Y/N rushed to the balcony to look down at him, worried that he hurt himself. But quickly saw that he was perfectly fine.

“Robin!” She called out before he could disappear past the willow tree’s branches.

He turned around.

“Thank you for listening to me,” she told him shyly.

That wasn’t the last time Damian and Y/N saw each other.

They continued their secret little meetings, always at Y/N’s treehouse.

At first Damian convinced himself that he was on an undercover mission. That he’d find a point of weakness of Poison Ivy – and maybe even Harley Quinn – through Y/N.

He could prove his independence and full capabilities to his father.

But he couldn’t lie forever. Eventually, he allowed himself acknowledge that he’d grown fond of the little girl.

Little girl. She was the same age as him.

Maybe Y/N seemed younger because of her innocence and her kindness. She wasn’t stupid or naive, that’s for sure. She was just as smart as Damian. Poison Ivy clearly had prioritized her daughter’s education – even if it was through her own gaze.

Both Damian and Y/N could probably be college students in another world.

Y/N loved reading books. And she loved watching movies even more. And despite being shielded from the world, she knew an impressive amount about it.

She was a romantic, sometimes allowing herself to only see what her heart wanted to and ignoring the dark realities.

But often she would have moments of clarity, clearly coming from the teachings that her mother and Harley Quinn had made sure to ingrain in her young and impressionable mind.

Y/N hated the government. She understood that not only was it the reason for the planet slowly being destroyed, but that was just the beginning of the issues. It also oppressed so many groups of people, including women and people of most sexualities.

And she had a certain distrust towards men, as well – also compliments of her mother and Harley. Both of them had been in abusive relationships with a man, and had no hesitation on telling Y/N their tragic stories.

“But I’m a man,” Damian explained once.

Y/N giggled. “Not yet. You’re just a boy, Robin. Whether you like to admit or not.”

“So, does that mean you’ll stop seeing me when I am?” He challenged.

Her eyes teared up from the thought alone.

Damian immediately regretted even suggesting such a thing.

Y/N was sensitive and not afraid of her emotions. ‘Hiding your emotions was a disease started by the patriarchy,’ Harley once told her. Y/N cried openly and without shame. She knew it didn’t make her weak.

“We’ll always be friends. You’ll never be like them,” Y/N clarified.

“Always,” Damian repeated. “You can’t promise something like that.”

“Of course I can,” she shot back.

“And who said we were even friends,” Damian scoffed. “You don’t even know my real name.”

Y/N glared at him.

She understood that Damian had a hard time opening up. But she knew what was real and what was the walls he put around himself. But that didn’t mean it wasn't exhausting to constantly hear him in denial.

“You just haven’t told me your real name,” she tested.

Damian whipped his head in her direction.

“Damian Wayne,” she whispered, watching his reaction closely.

Damian's entire body tensed. “How long have you known?”

“Months. I’m not as stupid as you think,” she added.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Y/N shrugged. “I didn’t want you to stop seeing me. I thought it would scare you away.”

Damian was lost in thought. Should he panic? Should he leave Gotham? Was his identity out in the public? What would his father think?

“Damian,” Y/N said softly as her hand reached for his. “Your secret is safe with me. I’ll never tell anyone. Trust, remember?”

He quickly shot to his feet, making her jump.

Hearing her say his name for the first time had done something to him.

“I have to go,” he blurted out without making eye contact.

“Damian, please. Stay.”

“Stop saying it!” He shouted.

“Why?” There was nothing but sincerity and innocence in her question.

“Because. Because…”

But he didn’t really have a reason.

Because he knew he could trust her. She had never given him any reason not to.

Y/N slowly stood up now, too. “We are friends, Damian. Even if you refuse to believe it. That’s what we are. And friends trust each other.”

Then she held out her right pinky.

“What are you doing?” Damian asked.

He had never seen this gesture before.

“A pinky promise,” she answered as if it was obvious. Because it was. “When Harley does this, I know she’ll keep her promise to me – no matter what it is.”

Damian was still confused what he was supposed to do.

So Y/N gently grabbed his hand and adjusted his fingers so they matched hers. Then she grabbed his pinky with hers and pulled them closer.

“Pinky promise,” she declared.

"Sometimes, if ya really mean it, you kiss right where your thumb is," she explained with enthusiasm.

"Gross."

Y/N giggled at his reaction and did it just to mess with him.

Instead of being disgusted, he was taken aback.

And Damian finally acknowledged that Y/N really was his friend.

His best friend.

The two children thought they could live in their secret bubble forever.

In that sense, they were both naive.

To their credit, they almost made it year without being discovered. But it all came crashing down eventually.

Y/N and Damian were laying in a field late at night.

Bruce and Alfred were out of town, which meant that Damian was left under the supervision of Dick. But he’d received a called from Barbara that she was sick. Dick immediately went to her place when she refused to be taken care of at Wayne Manor.

It left Damian unsupervised. He packed a backpack and made his way to Robinson Park with the intention to have a sleepover with Y/N.

Damian tried to hide his smile as he sat on the ground. Y/N was running around him, giggling, with her hand outstretched. With her powers, she surrounded Damian with Moon flowers. They glowed in the dark and even the Gotham smog couldn’t stop the moon from making the flowers brighten the space around them.

“Do you ever get tired?” Damian pretended to be annoyed with her antics.

“Nope!” Y/N called and continued making herself dizzy with her circling.

Finally she had to catch her breath and threw herself on the ground beside him in a fit of breathy giggles.

“They like you, you know.”

“Who?” Damian asked.

“The plants. The trees. The flowers. All of them. They like when you come to visit.”

Little did she know, they liked that he made her happy when he visited.

“You can talk to them?” Damian asked with skepticism.

He always had thought she was just able to control them, that they were just an extension of her.

“Of course,” she laughed. Then she tilted her head. “It’s not like we have conversations about philosophy. But it’s like…I don’t know how to explain it. I know what they’re feeling. I know what they need.”

“Huh,” Damian sighed.

Suddenly, the surrounding flowers disappeared, burrowing into the ground as if they were hiding in fright.

Y/N looked around in a panic and Damian realized it was not her doing.

Next thing they knew, roots shot up from the ground, latching around Damian's neck, pulling him off his feet to hang and strangle.

Y/N jumped to her feet and turned to find her mother walking towards them.

“I knew you’d been keeping secrets from me,” Poison Ivy growled to her daughter, “But I never expected this.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Damian managed to choke out.

Poison Ivy brought him slightly down, closer to her face. “Well, you should be.”

“Mother! Please!” Y/N begged. “Let him go! He’s my friend!”

“You choose him – him – over your family!?” Poison Ivy yelled.

“I’m not choosing anyone over anyone!” She cried. “He’s my friend. My only friend. Please, mother, please don’t hurt him.”

Poison Ivy had never seen her daughter react in such a way. Suddenly she remembered how Y/N was so used to hide in the trees, watching kids playing in the park. Y/N had always been cautious of the outside world, scared she might have an episode or accidentally entrance someone with her powers – or worse, poison them to death.

So much of Y/N childhood was filled with isolation and fear.

And her mother suddenly had a depression realization: her daughter was lonely.

Poison Ivy’s anger was traded for sadness.

Slowly, she lowered Damian to the ground.

He fell to his knees and was overcome with a coughing fit.

Y/N rushed to his side and comforted him.

“I’m fine,” he told her, feeling how stressed she was for him.

Then Poison Ivy’s feet walked into his line of vision.

Damian looked up to see her towering over them.

“Listen to me and listen to me carefully,” she hissed. “If you do anything to hurt her – anything – I will end you.”

Damian wanted to say he would never do such a thing. But he didn’t want to validate such a threat with an response.

“I know who you are now,” Poison Ivy added as she looked him up and down. “And I’m not above using it against you if you should do anything to my daughter.”

“He won’t,” Y/N spoke for him as she glared at her mother.

She now shifted her glare to her daughter. “And you…we’re going to have a long discussion about keeping secrets from us and fraternizing with the enemy.”

Y/N was smart enough to at least look guilty.

Her attention shifted back to Damian. “I think it’s time for you to go home.”

It wasn’t a suggestion.

“I’ll walk him out,” Y/N said gently.

Her mother hesitated before nodding.

As Y/N escorted Damian to the edge of the park, a silence had enveloped them.

They didn’t speak until Damian reached his hidden opening.

“Please come back,” Y/N almost whimpered, frightened by the idea that her mother might’ve scared off the only friend she'd ever had.

“I meant it when I said I wasn’t afraid of her,” Damian promised.

Y/N pulled him into a tight hug, holding on for dear life as if it was their final goodbye.

“I’m not leaving you,” Damian whispered into her hair.

Slowly, he was getting better at comforting others. Well, he was getting better at comforting Y/N. He didn’t really care much for trying with anyone else.

Finally she allowed him to pull away from her embrace.

“Believe me,” Damian smirked. “It would’ve been much worse if my father found out.”

“Well, I hope we never have to worry about that,” Y/N sighed.

“Will your mother really allow us to be friends?”

“I know you only see my mother as just another criminal of Gotham,” she muttered. “But she is still my mother. And she only wants me to be happy and safe. And you make me happy, Damian. She would never take that away from me.”

“And she’ll keep our secret?”

“Well…” Y/N cringed. “Yes. But that means telling Harley, too.”

“Oh, great,” Damian moaned.

“But they are overprotective of me. And they’ll know telling your secret is more dangerous to me than anything else.” She placed her hand on his shoulder. “I promise.”

Damian nodded, believing her.

Even though all his training was screaming at him that this was the worst possible outcome.

He shook his head. “Hey, I was planning on giving you this tonight.”

Then he pulled out a cellphone and handed it to her.

“I know you don’t like technology,” Damian shrugged. “But this way we can keep in touch. It’s completely untraceable, and all of the calls and messages will be encrypted.”

Y/N seemed shocked at first, and a beaming smile slowly formed on her lips.

She tackled him into another hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“It’s not a big deal, Y/N.”

“Yes, it is!” She argued.

And by the time Damian returned to Wayne Manor, he'd already received a message from Y/N, asking him to tell her when he got home safely.

Y/N hadn’t been lying about her mother and Harley keeping her friendship a secret and keeping Damian’s identity a secret.

It made the children’s friendship easier. Who knew it was better to only keep it a secret from one family instead of two? And who would've thought the family to be the first to accept it would be the villainous one?

But Poison Ivy made it clear she still hated Damian. But at least she tolerated him.

Now that the two kids had phones to communicate, they grew even closer.

Everyday, Y/N would send Damian videos of flowers she’d magically grown or her trees waving hello.

In return, Damian would send photos of his pets. Usually it was Titus playing in the yard or Alfred the cat sleeping in his lap.

Y/N fell in love with all of Damian's pets and constantly begged him to bring them on his next visit.

Harley thought the two of them were adorable, but Poison Ivy would roll her eyes and scoff whenever her girlfriend made that known.

Y/N Isley and Damian Wayne's friendship continued for years.

Damian never told a soul about her.

And Y/N kept Damian’s identity close to her heart.

3 YEARS LATER

“This is ridiculous!” Damian growled as he paced in the cave.

“Our dads said it was pretty dangerous,” Jon offered with a shrug.

“You might as well be a pet for how compliant you are,” Damian snapped back. “I’ve trained my whole life to be capable enough to handle missions like this. We could be helping them right now. But they treat us like we’re children!"

“We are children,” Jon deadpanned.

“We’re 11 years old.”

Jon rolled his eyes.

Damian was going to continue his tangent, but something on the cave’s monitors caught his attention. He shot forward to get a better look.

There was a fire – a huge one – in Robinson Park. Then he zoomed in on the live feed of the news broadcast that was reporting it.

“The Joker,” Damian growled.

“The Joker? But that’s not who our dads are dealing with.”

“This is Gotham, Kent. The Joker is probably using that as a distraction to make a move on Poison Ivy.”

“Poison Ivy? What beef does he have with Poison Ivy?”

“Harley Quinn,” was all Damian had time to explain.

He whipped around and tightly gripped Jon’s shoulders, staring into his eyes.

“Jon, I need your help.”

“Okkkkk,” he said slowly. “I’m not gonna like this, am I?”

“I need you to fly me to Robinson Park.”

“Dami, I don’t know. Dad’s told me about her before. She was strong enough to hypnotize and control him! He almost killed your dad because of it!”

“Do you trust me?” Damian challenged.

“I-I-I…”

“Do you or not?” Damian didn’t have time for this.

Jon glared. “Yes.”

“So then take me there.”

Jon had never seen Damian desperate before – or even stressed.

The boy didn’t fully understand what was going on. But from Damian’s reaction, he could tell it was important.

“Fine. Hold on, OK?” Jon asked before wrapping Damian’s arms around his back.

They shot out of the cave.

Damian managed to scream directions to Jon, but the boy already knew where the fire was from his super hearing.

Jon managed to land right in front of the Y/N’s willow tree.

Damian was horrified when it was completely engulfed in flames.

“No,” he gasped. “No, no, no.”

He jolted into a sprint.

“Damian, no!” Jon tried to cry out.

But he ignored him.

“Y/N!” Damian screamed at the top of his lungs.

In a panic, Jon started blowing out the fire with his freeze breath. He knew there was no stopping Damian, so all he could do was try and help – even though he didn’t really know what he was helping with.

Why was he worried about a single tree?

The willow tree should’ve been protecting her. It should’ve been keeping her safe. But the branches hung limp. The fire had already killed it.

Damian’s Robin suit barely protected him from the heat of the fire.

“Y/N!” He screamed again.

Once he got through the flaming branches, the treehouse had somehow remained untouched by the flames… for now. But behind the branches, smoke had taken a home.

With the fire, the vines wouldn’t bring him up to the treehouse. Damian quickly put his gas mask into his mouth. He would do no good if he passed out from smoke inhalation. Then he grabbed his grappling hook and shot it upward.

He perfectly landed onto the balcony.

When he walked into the treehouse, he found Y/N on the floor, unconscious.

She must not have noticed the fire and her creepers were already killed before they could get her out.

Damian rushed to her side and checked for her pulse.

Y/N was alive.

But she wouldn’t be for long if he didn’t get her out of there.

Damian picked her up in his arms and used his grappling hook to bring them back down to the ground.

With Jon’s freeze breath, there was a window in the fiery branches for Damian to escape.

As soon as he emerged, Jon rushed to them.

“Who is she?” He asked.

“A friend,” was all Damian supplied.

“Is she dead?”

“No.”

“Y/N!” A voice screamed.

Jon shot up with wide eyes to see Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn sprinting to them.

They were both covered in blood, proving that they had to fight through Joker and his men to get here. They must've been on the other end of the park with the way they were panting.

“She needs to be taken to a hospital immediately, I found her passed out from all the smoke. She needs treatment,” Damian reported to her mothers.

“No hospitals,” Ivy explained. “I have the necessary equipment here.”

Damian just nodded.

“I’ll carry her,” Jon chimed in as he lifted Y/N into his arms. “Tell me where.”

Harley took over, giving the boy directions as she ran after his flight.

It left Damian and Poison Ivy, surrounded by flames.

“You saved her life,” she whispered. “I tried to get here. But Joker–”

“I saw the attack on the news,” Damian interrupted.

Poison Ivy kneeled so she was at the same level as the boy. She slowly put her hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, Damian. I can never…there’s nothing…just…thank you.”

To his shock, her eyes filled with tears.

She had been scared. Terrified.

When she and Harley had arrived, she probably thought they'd been too late. And they almost were. If it hadn’t been for Damian and Jon, Y/N might be dead.

Jon landed a few yards away, trying not to interrupt.

“I must go before my father realizes what I’ve done,” Damian told her.

Ivy nodded.

--

When Jon and Damian returned to the cave, there was an awkward silence.

Jon didn’t know what to say. And he didn’t want to push Damian to explain. Clearly he was still distressed from tonight’s events.

Out of all their years of friendship, Jon had never seen Damian scared – not once.

Until tonight.

“Jon,” Damian had never sounded more serious. “You can never tell your father about this. Do you understand me? He can never know about her.”

The very idea clearly made Jon uncomfortable. Secrets were slim to none in the Kent family. Jon’s relationship with his father was built on honesty, patience, and understanding.

But Jon understood how important this was to his best friend.

So, he nodded.

Damian stepped closer. “No. I need to hear you say it.”

“I’ll never tell anyone about her, Damian. Never.”

Damian still seemed nervous.

“Pinky promise,” Jon added as he held up his pinky.

Damian blinked.

After that night, there seemed to be a significant shift.

And there seemed to be one surprising benefit from Y/N nearly dying…

Poison Ivy no longer just tolerated Damian Wayne.

She grew to care about him. And she swore she’d protect him after what he did for his daughter that night. It made her realize that Y/N befriending a hero was a good thing.

And that was the beginning of the Poison Ivy and Wayne alliance.

However, no one from the Wayne family knew about it beyond Damian.

And that was the problem.

--------–

I'm very, very excited about this serious, so please let me know if you liked it. 🍃

If you're new here: I don't do taglists and I don't have a publishing schedule.

Follow the series masterlist.

Juvenile – Toxicology

[yaya4302]

Red Hood Drabble

Red Hood (J. Todd) x GN!Reader

Warnings: Non-beta'd, mobile typed, bleeding, cursing

A/n: My first drabble on tumblr, not my best work but it is something :/

Edited: Also, tell me if you'd like a part 2 :)

_________________

"Holy shit." I breathed out.

I took deep breaths, feeling anxiety and fear course through me like a tide. The only thing I had a grip on was my hair. I stared down the man that broke through my window, still, breathing so shallow I thought he was dead.

When it happened, it took my mind a minute to recognize who I was looking at, but when I did, I felt like I was doomed.

Why the hell was Red Hood on my living room floor, bleeding on my new carpet?

I kept staring at him for what felt like forever, when his groan of pain snapped me out of my fear induced daze.

"Holy shit!" I quickly kneel next to him, slowly moving him over to his side. His helmet cracked, and his Kevlar vest was torn in various places. His leg had a blade longer than my hand lodged into the muscle.

"Hey, sir? Hey, can you talk?" I ask, adrenaline making my words come out too fast.

He didn't respond, which made me even more scared. Scared that this man was going to die on my floor. The reporters would have a field day with that.

"Okay, if you can hear me, I'm going yo take off your helmet, alright?" I settle him on his back, making sure to not move his leg too much. "I need to make sure your breathing right."

Anyone who has heard of Gotham also heard of its vigilantes. First it was Batman, then his Robin's, then Nightwing, Red Hood, Red Robin, and Batgirl. They made sure to protect the people, but with heroes come a lot of bad guys.

And by the looks of it, Red Hood either lost tonight or barely won.

I slowly remove the helmet, hearing a hissing noise as it opened up more. When I fully remove it, I find another mask stuck to his eyes.

"Smart." I mumble, setting his helmet aside. His cheek is split open, blood clotting by his hairline, and his nose bleeding and probably broken.

This guy went through it tonight.

I get up, racing to my bathroom to get my first aid kit, water, a towel and some swabs.

I come back, turning on all my lights so I can see him clearly. This bleeding man on my floor changed my night of eating, sleeping and reading into an episode of a medical drama.

"Looks like I'm calling off tomorrow."

[squishneedsahero]

Reasons

Awesomest of Them All 2.0

Part 4 of 13

Word Count: 1809

Batman x Batmom!Reader

You know what the bat family needs? Someone to pull them together and give them all the love they deserve. Who better to do that than you? An author rising to stardom in Gotham who catches the eye of a billionaire with your standoffish attitude at a huge social gathering. You are yourself and never pretend to be more or less than that. Plus you're the most stubborn person in the world, refusing to let good things go without reason.

This is a rewrite of my story Awesomest of Them All, I wanted to see how much I've improved over 3 years.

"You're breaking up with me?" You say it like a question, offendedly and confused, from your point of view everything was going good, but apparently it wasn't.

"I am. I'm sorry y/n it's not you it's-"

"Nu-uh, Bruce Thomas Fucking Wayne you are not going end things with that cliche line," you say sounding pissed. "I love you and if you want to end things that is fine but you better as hell give me one good fucking reason why.

"But-no-were done y/n," he says, sounding confused as to why you're arguing with him. Why did you have to be so stubborn?! If anything it only made him love you more.

"No we aren't done at least until you give me a good reason. If you're going to end things with me then I deserve to at least know why when as far as I know everything is perfect according to Gotham standards," you cross your arms and pop your hip. This was the first real relationship you'd had in your life and him ending it without warning wasn't something you could handle. You needed to at the very least know why. Why had he invited you over? Why had Dick and Alfred greeted you normally? Just for him to try and end things? It made zero sense.

He looks away from you, with the angry tears in your beautiful eyes. You the first woman he has genuinely fallen head over heels for that he was currently trying to end things with. It was hurting him just as much as it hurt you, but he had a good reason. He didn't want you getting hurt because of his night job.

Both Alfred and Dick had tried to tell him you could handle it, and he knew they were right. You would be able to handle the fact that he was Batman, but he knew he couldn't handle you getting hurt. He knew that was his breaking point.

It's as you're staring at him with the tears beginning to run down your cheeks that he reaches his other breaking point. Seeing you hurting and confused, he couldn't bring himself to lie to your face another time.

"What?" You ask, seeing the slight changes to his posture and expression.

He takes a breath, "I'm trying to keep you safe y/n-"

"You're trying to keep me safe?" You ask your own expression softening. "Bruce," you reach a hand up to cup his cheek as you always had, but he catches it before you can touch him.

"Yes, I can't handle seeing you hurt. Even now, when I know I have good reasons for trying to leave you, I can't bring myself to actually do it because I can see how much it's hurting you even if you're yelling at me," his hand drops yours and comes to cup your cheek, a slight smile coming to his lips.

Your breathing hitches for a moment as he speaks, you can feel how genuine he is being, "Bruce-" actual tears begin to run down your cheeks at his proclamation of love. Your arms wrap around his torso and you lean your head against his chest, "Bruce, my love, that is the opposite of a good reason to break up with me. I hope you realize that."

His deep laugh echos through your ears, and his hand runs through your hair. "I know my dear, I can't do it. I can't bring myself to end things with you. If you had walked out after I tried the first time I would have, but I cannot bring myself to argue with you when I know deep down I'm wrong even if I like to think I'm keeping you safe."

"Well, as sweet as that is I'm glad you at least are acknowledging the fact that you're a dumbass for thinking it might work," you laugh gently and lean back to look at his face. "So, can I know what has you so convinced I'm going to be hurt if I continue my relationship with you?"

The two of you stand in silence for a few minutes just hugging each other before he says, "it'll be better for me t show you, as knowing you if I were to just tell you you would laugh and think I'm joking."

This of course causes you to laugh, "me? Laugh at you? What in the world makes you think I would do that?"

He laughs gently, "I don't know what would make me think that, dear." He doesn't wait for a real answer, instead taking your hand and leading you into the study and up to the beautiful dark colored oak wood grand father clock. He doesn't say anything as he moves the hands on the clock and it opens like a door revealing a staircase. He leads you down, still holding your hand.

You, are of course confused by this, because who the hell has a secret room in their house?! Well, billionaires, that's who. But that still doesn't tell you why he had a secret room. You look to him for an answer but he simply continues leading you down the stairs.

Once you reach the bottom of the stairs you stop, and look around amazed at the vast cave you found you were in. It's dark, and you can't see much so you revert back to default settings and ask, "you have a sex cave?"

He laughs, clearly amused with that question. The fact that he had expected any other reaction just showed him how often you surprised him. "No, y/n," he leads you a little further into the cave before letting go of your hand and saying, "wait here, I'm going to turn the lights on."

You nod, and wait as you hear him move off through the dark. Your mind was reeling, what in the world was this place? Whatever it was, it was important to him and he was trusting you with it.

It's after a few moments that the lights light up the large space. A gasp leaves you as you see on one end of the cave a huge computer screen built into the rock, on the other end a car, helicopter and a whole ass airplane. It's as you slowly turn in a circle that Bruce comes back over to you and catches you in his arms.

You were facing a taxidermy T-Rex as he leans down to softly say in your ear, "I'm Batman."

A chill goes down your spine and you know it's true, not that you could really question it when he has a bat-mobile and T-Rex in his basement. Your hands find their way down to rest on his, "I guess this would be a good reason to break up with me, if you're still wanting too."

He shakes his head, "I love you too much to do that to you. Plus, me telling you defeats the purpose of any of that stupidity," he says, grabbing your waist and pulling you into a deep kiss.

"So, this is why I couldn't spend the night?"

"Yes," he laughs softly and kisses you again as he picks you up. Your legs find their way to lock around his waist, as he carries you over to the chair in front of the computer. He sets you on the desk, kissing you deeply yet again, one of his hands traveling up your shirt to draw circles on your side.

How could he be the worlds greatest detective and also not have guessed that you, the woman he loves would argue with him when he tried to leave you? He had almost made the biggest mistake of his life that day and now all of his emotions were overcoming him, he wanted, needed you close to him.

Sooner than he wants you break the kiss and end the make out session. You gently kiss his lips one time and ask, "so, how much am I allowed to know?" You press another quick kiss to his cheek as you stand up, and say, "I love you."

He doesn't let you move far from him, sitting himself in the desk chair and pulling you into his lap. "Anything you want to know you can," he brushes your hair back from your face and tilts his head to press a kiss to your neck.

"Hey!" You laugh and push his face back from you. "I want you to answer my questions, not try and distract me!" You spin yourself to straddle him, a hand going to rest on his hip, "after questions, then maybe, I'll let you kiss me." You purse your lips in thought, "maybe I'll let you do more than just kiss me, but that depends on if you behave," you tease gently.

He laughs and shakes his head slightly, "alright, I'll restrain myself from kissing you anymore, until you have your questions answered. After that though," that smirk comes to his lips as he suggestively lets his hand go up the back of your shirt to rest on your shoulder blade.

You sigh dramatically, and roll your eyes gently, even if you were excited to see him like this. "Okay, I'll make it fast. Does this mean Dick is Robin? Is that Clark Kent guy actually Superman and that's how Dick knew him? Finally I'd like to formally apologize for doing your job that first time we met when Joker tried to shoot me and I went on autopilot and told him he had lipstick in his teeth."

Bruce laughs, "yes, Dick is Robin. I'm surprised you already put that together with Clark, usually Superman is far away so him wearing glasses works. And, my love, it is more than alright that you did my job for me. I couldn't have done it better myself, though I probably would not have fallen on top of Joker after flipping him," he teases gently and kisses your cheek, "but no, I should have known from that that you can handle yourself."

You smile and press a kiss to his lips, "well, at the very least I'm sorry for insulting you when I did thank you that night."

He laughs again, "y/n, I love every part of you and if I am honest with myself that is the night I started falling for you. You amaze me with your ability to laugh and stand strong in the face of danger, I save people every night and have never seen anyone else react like you."

You push a hand against his chest, "stop, you're making me blush."

He rolls his eyes and laughs at you again, before growing more serious as he looks at you, saying in a low, sexy, voice, "a deals a deal, y/n, I'm going to make you do more than blush tonight."

[robinofgothamcity]

♡ prompt: “i thought you were dead? for years, i thought you were dead! and i hate that i still love you and never moved on!” 

♡ pairing: tim drake (red robin) x fem! reader

♡ lyric inspiration: “you’re riding high in April, shot down in May but I know I’m going to change that tune when I’m back on top in June. I said that’s life and as funny as that may seem, some people get their kicks stomping on a dream.”

♡ note: not checked for grammar or spelling mistakes / please check the pinned tweet please! since i’m very low on inspiration.

Tim Drake stared at you, mouth wide open, not knowing what to say or do. he felt like he saw a ghost. you were standing across the room, talking amongst others as they instantly crowded around you. everyone had thought the same thing Tim did and only a selective few knew about your whereabouts. 

you were giving Dick a hug, whispering in his ear about how much you missed him as Damian stood there dumbfounded. Jason was not in the room or else you knew that he would be giving you an earful about the entire situation. Jason always did think of you as a sister when you first started dating Tim. 

“what the fuck happened to you?” Damian screamed, finally coming into the realization of the situation, “you were dead! we saw you die! all of us did!” he continued. you bent down, giving him a hug as he didn’t bother to try and deny it. 

“it’s a long story. i was under secrecy for a long time and couldn’t tell or say anything without me getting caught,” you told him. you looked to Dick who still couldn’t believe what was going on, “it must’ve been a monumental mission if you were technically dead for three years and I couldn’t know about it,” he replied. 

you nodded, whispering to him that you’d tell them the details later, “is...he around?” you asked, referencing Tim. Dick moved a bit to the left, revealing the man you were still madly in love with. you felt yourself gulp, scared on his reaction, “oh god, I never realized how bad this is,” Dick whispered to himself, sensing the tension immediately. 

+

you swinging around the Batcave, Batman clearly annoyed with your antics as you finally plopped down next to him, “aww c’mon Bruce! live a little! this Batcave is so depressing and need I say, dark?” you said, hearing the door jingle open. 

“great, the boys are here,” he murmured, realizing that introductions had to happen between you and his sons. Bruce had taken you in a few months ago, under the guise that you needed a better mentor, “you haven’t met them, right?” he asked. 

you shook your head no, “course I haven’t! it’s my first week in Gotham!” you exclaimed happily. you did hero work out of the west coast and happened to finally land in Gotham for the first time ever, “although I did run into Damian earlier in the week so I think he’ll recognize me!” 

Tim and Dick were the ones who walked in, conversing about some Gotham football game. you smiled at the two boys as they stopped dead in their tracks, “uh....Bruce, who is this?” Dick asked, pointing at you. you stood up, shaking their hands, “I’m ( your name )! Bruce’s new apprentice!” you explained. 

the two sighed, Dick’s first thought being if Alfred knew about you. Tim on the other hand didn’t exactly respond as quick. you were oddly excitable, not exactly the personality that ran rampant across the ‘family’, “apprentice or daughter?” Dick asked, a bit playfully. 

“she’s an apprentice. no need to adopt someone who’s already an adult,” he replied as he stood up himself, “she came from the west coast so she doesn’t exactly know her way around here. it’d be helpful if one of you showed her around. I don’t trust Jason or Damian enough,” he said, walking to another one of the computers. 

“Stephanie isn’t around?” Damian asked, walking inside of the cave, “she’s already acquainted with her and she isn’t available to do it right now so it’s up to Dick or you Tim,” Bruce repeated. Dick looked to his brother with his eyebrow lifted up, “well?” he asked Tim. 

the two of them went to look at you who was already not paying attention to what was going on. you were nose deep into a computer with music blaring inside of your headphones, “I swear that girl has ADHD or something,” Damian murmured to his brothers, “but I think Drake should do it! you just love getting to know people, don’t you?” Damian pressured. 

Bruce nodded in agreement, “it’s settled, you’re showing her around!” Tim stared at Damian, ready to attack the gremlin with his bare hands, “appreciate it Tim!” you yelled from your seat, surprising the three who thought you couldn’t hear what they were saying. 

+

it was already a few months into your internship with the Batfamily. you had gotten closer with Jason, Stephanie, and because of your relationship with Dick, you befriended Starfire as well. even though your work was constantly surrounding you around Tim, you weren’t around him much unless it had to do with work. 

“where you heading off too?” Jason asked, seeing you all dressed up, “Star, Barbara, and Steph wanted to go out for the night since we aren’t on duty so we’re going to get drinks up the street,” you told him. he nodded, looking to Tim and seeing the way he was checking you out, “why do you go with them, Tim?” he asked. 

Tim looked at Jason with a bewildered expression, “why would I be the only guy in the group?” he asked sarcastically. you on the other hand jumped up in joy, “you should!” you exclaimed, “come on! it would be amazing! you know you want too!” you poked Tim’s side in anticipation. 

he sighed, slipping a bit on the couch, “fine,” he muttered, making you excited all over again. you gave him a few minutes to get himself together, “you know he likes you, right?” Jason told you. you laughed out of genuine shock, “who? Tim? yeah right!” you let out another laugh, not believing he was lying to your face, “fine, don’t believe me but it’s pretty obvious.” 

you couldn’t say much else as Tim walked out, hair restyled and threw on a different jacket, “ready?” he asked, hands deep in his pockets. you nodded, throwing Jason a scrap piece of paper before heading out the door as Dick walked inside, “meeting the girls?” he asked. 

“yeah and I’m taking your brother as a hostage,” Dick was surprised, “did you finally?” he started to ask before Tim screamed at him to shut up, “how about we leave,” Tim told you, discreetly hitting Dick on the back of his leg as retaliation. 

the two of you walked out as you told Tim that the place you usually went out with the girls was in walking distance, “I think they’re going to be surprised you even decided to leave your apartment,” you joked as he rolled his eyes playfully, “I don’t think they’ll mind. at least Stephanie can stop saying that I never go out,” he said. 

you laughed softly, “yeah you might be going out with a bunch of girls but it sure beats being stuck inside playing video games or doing work,” you replied, “yeah, guess your right,” you two walked inside of the restaurant, already seeing Steph, Starfire, and Barbara sitting at the usual table. 

the three girls had their mouth hanging as they saw you walking in with Tim, “he actually came out?” Barbara screamed, not believing Tim was actually out, “yeah, figured it was better than staying in for the night!” you said excitedly. 

“I couldn’t even get him to come out with me at times and I dated him,” Steph murmured under her breath to Star. she laughed as you pulled chairs for you and Tim, “I’m getting first round of shots!” you told the group excitedly. Star and Barbara had followed you to the bar, leaving Steph and Tim in a small awkward silence 

“you like her don’t you?” she asked. Tim nodded, figuring it was better to just tell the truth than to lie, “that’s cute! she’s a great girl. I’m happy you finally found someone else but I will say one thing, I think you better get a move on with your feels with her because I know a few others who have an interest in her and one might be on your team,” she said, not so subtly hinting at Connor. 

Tim was taken back by what Stephanie was telling her but remained silent, “and I think she’d say yes on Connor so you better be quick,” she laughed, seeing Tim’s slightly jealous eyes. you returned to the table, giving everyone their glass as you raised yours in the air, “to Tim! for actually leaving his house for once!” you screamed as they all raised their glass and took the shot down.

throughout the night, Tim saw the way you were singing and dancing with Steph and Star, your terrible drunk singing voice getting louder as they played ‘poker face’ by lady gaga towards the end of the night. 

+

you stared at Riddler, seeing that he was ready to attack Tim with full intentions to kill him. you debated for a moment, saving a few civilians from getting mildly hurt or seeing your boyfriend get killed? you chose the latter and ran to Tim who was not paying attention in the slightest at what Riddler was doing. 

“Red!” you screamed, your feet moving as fast as they could and pushing him out of the way. you felt the slice of the knife into your stomach as you had successfully pushed Tim to safety, “fuck,” you whispered, seeing the blood already pooling underneath you. 

although you getting hurt was already pre-planned, you had no intentions of getting hurt this badly, “fuck, fuck, fuck,” you continued, trying to grab your cape to stop the bleeding, Tim stared down at you, seeing the blood gushing at a rate too dangerous for his liking, “hold on, please hold on!” he screamed, moving you out of harms way. 

Bruce had saw you giving him the signal, weakly but you still gave it to him. it was your only chance for your pre-planned mission to actually succeed and the start of that plan was to make you die in front of everyone. Bruce had swung down from the stairs, seeing the way your eyes closed. 

“she needs to go to the hospital,” he told Tim, making him rush you to the hospital himself. he knew this was the only time he would be able to say his goodbyes to you and he need to make it count, “go now!” he yelled. 

Tim dragged your almost lifeless body to the nearest hospital, screaming at the staff that you needed help immediately. the nurses grabbed your body, hauling it to the OR as Tim sat there, blood all over his uniform as he watched you get wheeled into the hallway. 

it felt like hours by the time they gave an update to all of them. Bruce, Tim, Dick, Jason, Steph, Barbara, and Damian, were sitting in the waiting area, munching on food nervously as the nurse came out of the hallway, eyes bleary with tears. 

“she didn’t make it out of surgery. she passed.” 

all of them (for the exception of Bruce), immediately bursted into tears. Tim more than anyone had fell to the ground, having no control of his body as he screamed that it couldn’t be true and that you weren’t actually gone. a part of Bruce’s heart broke seeing his son having a mental breakdown but he knew for their safety and yours, he couldn’t say a word. 

the following days were left to plan your funeral as the nurses who relied your wishes stated that you wanted a closed casket for no one, not even Tim, to see your dead body. Tim hadn’t spoken a word to anyone as he only spoke up when it came for him to plan your arrangements. 

they buried your casket with your uniform laying on top of it as they all saw your casket get lower and lower to the ground. Tim was by this point sobbing as he couldn’t have cared who saw and who didn’t. 

+

Dick grabbed Damian, moving themselves to another part of the room as you walked slowly to Tim. he had yet to say anything but as soon as you locked eyes with him, you both let out sobs to each other. Tim grabbed you by the arms, bringing you into a hug as he sobbed into your shoulders. 

“what the fuck is going on?” he yelled, not knowing what to say, “I’m alive Timmy. I didn’t die that night,” you practically sobbed back to him. he released you, now anger and sadness crossing over him, “what the fuck do you mean you didn’t die?” he screamed, scaring Dick and Damian in the process. 

you sat on the ground, trying to compose yourself, “I went on an undercover mission for league. I had to die in order to protect not only myself but all of you and the entire league. which explains why I look different,” you murmured the last part. 

“I thought you were dead. for years, I thought you were dead! and I hate that I still love you and never moved on!” he exclaimed, seeing the way you stared at him heartbrokenly, “you think I wanted this to happen? it was for the betterment of the league if I took on this mission. I never wanted to leave you or Steph, hell I didn’t want to leave any of you but I had too! it broke my heart knowing what I had to do!” you yelled back. 

Tim bent down, taking you into his arms, “what the hell are we going to do?” he whispered in your ear, not knowing how to respond to any of this rationally. you shrugged as the two of you tried to calm yourselves down from the hysterics you both were throwing, “I just need you here with me,” you whispered back. 

Tim nodded, not releasing you from the hug you were giving him. “I won’t. I won’t let you go! not anymore!” he replied. you laughed through your tears as you heard someone else walk into the room. 

“what the fuck.....” you heard Steph and Jason’s voice scream through the Batcave, “what the FUCK is going on?” they screamed in panic. 

hehehe a cliffhanger 

[stressedoutcanary]

Hold On - Jason Todd x Batgirl!Reader [PART 2]

WORD COUNT :- 2.3k

Warnings ⚠️: I don't even know if there are any...Swearing maybe?, mentions of kidnappings, actual kidnapping oh and also violence and angst :)

A/N 😋: I got lost while writing this so judge accordingly people. Also forgive me for any mistakes. I TRIED.

Part 1 , Part 3

•°•°•°•°

“JASON STOP!!!!!”, your voice echoed in the silent warehouse.

Jason stopped in his tracks as soon as he heard your voice, his mind was brimming with thoughts, questions and worst of all, emotions.

“Well, well, well, look who crawled out of her little cave”, He said smugly as he finally turned around to face you. The voice was his, you’d recognize that voice anywhere but it felt cold, devoid of emotions, hearing him like that sent a shiver up your spine. You could feel your determination slipping.

Even though you had your cowl on, Jason could still see how much his rampage was hurting you but he couldn’t stop now, not when all he had left to do was to capture Joker, beat the living shit out of that asshole and show Bruce how much of a failure Batman’s moral compass really is.

“Well? Got nothing to say now?... Why am I not surprised?”, Jason scoffed.

You took a deep breath, you were breaking down inside but you sure as hell weren’t going to let that stop you. You spoke, voice barely above a whisper,  “Jason...Jay...Stop all this...Please, come home, come back to the--”

“Manor? Home? Did you hit your head (Y/N)? Why in the hell would I ever go back to a place where NOBODY GAVE A DAMN ABOUT ME, WHERE HE REPLACED ME AS IF I MEANT NOTHING?!”, Jason didn’t want to lose control of himself, not in front of you. So with visible effort he calmed himself down, took a step forward and gave you a deadpan look.

“You all left me”

Your blood boiled at that statement.

“How dare you?! We lost you! We mourned for you! I mourned for you!”

Tears welled up in your eyes, listening to him you wondered whether he truly believed the words actually coming out of his own mouth.

“The Jason I knew was a roughed up street boy who still cared when many didn't, who called Bruce out every step of the way, who had this ridiculous favoritism for bread, who had the guts to take out a tire from the fricking Batmobile”, despite the dreadful situation you smiled remembering those sweet memories.

You looked him in the eye, pleading in a way, and you spoke softly, “The Jason I knew was The Robin to my Batgirl. This-this is just not who you are Jay, not really...So can you just stop?”

He looked unfazed by your words and cocked his head to the side.

“Princess, the only way you can stop me is if you fight me, knock me down real hard, make sure that I won't get back up again. Tell me Batgirl, can you do it? Do you actually have what it takes?”, he waited for an answer he knew wasn’t coming. As expected, all he was met with was silence.

Long, Painful Silence.

With that Jason knew what he had to do, he put on his red helmet and swung out of the nearest window, you couldn't stop him, for all your big talk, you just couldn't. He was right you failed him.

•°•°

You jumped awake with a start, bolting upright and immediately regretting your subconscious decision, the throbbing pain made you clutch the back of your head with your palm and you closed your eyes again to achieve some semblance of reality as a way of grounding yourself.

‘It was just a dream (Y/N)…just...a...dream’

You tried to lie to yourself knowing deep down that it was a memory, something you have already lived through, something you regret everyday. You swallowed the lump in your throat. It felt dry and your whole body was sore. You really should've called in early and then maybe Dick would've been the one stuck in this crapy situation and not you.

Pushing past your perplexed state you got up and took in your surroundings, there were vines hanging from the open roof, a LOT of flowers and some Venus flytraps by the corner. It wouldn’t even take being a detective to figure out where you were; The Botanical Gardens.

“How the hell did I end up here”, you muttered under your breath. This was getting out of hands.

“See Pammy I told ya Girl-Bat would rise and shine by now”

“I can see that Harls”

‘Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, just great, is nobody in Arkham these days’

The duo descended down from the open roof through one of the vines and stood in front of you. Harley looked as happy as a 10 year old about to get their favorite toy and Ivy seemed to be interested in anything and everything that did not concern you. Classic.

“Why the hell did you both kidnap me?”

You jumped forward and grabbed Harley by the collar of her dress, in retrospect it wasn't the best move but it's not like you were thinking straight at the time anyway.

A vine wrapped itself around your waist and you were tugged back by such force that you were sure there was gonna be a big bruise there tomorrow. You skidded across the floor and finally stopped when your back connected with a bench. You were just too drained to fight back so instead you just crawled up and sat on the bench with a grunt.

‘Not fighting my way out of this one so for once let’s try talking’

“Whoa, should ya really be this obnoxious when ya got a concussion?”, Harley burst your thought bubble as she looked you over.

“Wait, Did you just call me obnoxious?!”

“But don'tcha worry I am a doctor and I got a PhD”

“In psychology!”

“I will fix ya in no time”

“Are you even listening to me?”

Just like that you saw Harley leave the room to go get some medical supplies, or well at least you thought that that's what she was going to do, you turned your face towards Ivy hoping that she can fill in the blanks.

“So you both finally done babbling? And here I thought it was never going to end.”, She looked at you from where she was petting her plant, and made her way over to you, something about her seemed genuine. You got the feeling that whatever she had to say, it won't be a lie.

“Try and not mind what Harley does, she's just happy to make new friends for girls night.” She sighed before continuing, “As for your question, last night we were near the Gotham Central Park when we saw a masked man dragging your unconscious body out of a building and into a van parked in the alley, so we kil-- we took care of him and brought you here”, She shrugged as if that explains why the Poison Ivy just saved your life.

"Wait that means Red isn't here", you whispered more to yourself than to others.

“Pam is Red!”, Harley said cheerfully as she came back out nowhere with a bunch of boxes which would've made you very uneasy if your mind wasn't already preoccupied.

“What Harley means to say is that if you are trying to ask about that gun loving leather jacket vigilante who wears a red helmet, then no we don't know where he is”

Her words sunk in and yesterday's memories flashed in your mind, your eyes widened under your mask as the realization hit you like a bus.

The missing people, the creepy mannequins, the medical journals regarding surgeries, the weirdo in the white mask instead of a face, the poster of some Pretty Dolls parlor; Now it all makes sense!

“Pyg!”

"Huh?", the women in front of you almost jumped at your sudden revelation.

“Lazlo Valentin aka Professor Pyg that's the son of a bitch who is behind all this mess, he's the one who has got Red Hood And it's all my fault! Now, He might be dead already! I should've known, I-I should've figured it out quicker, I should've done something, DAMN IT!!”, you buried you face in your hands due to the building frustration within you.

“Don't be like that”, you heard Harley's voice as a hand was placed on your shoulder, she sat down on the bench next to you, you turned your head and eyed her warily, seeing nothing but concern.

“Don't give up. Clearly this Hoodie person means a lot to ya so you get off your ass and go get him, don't you Bat People always find a way”, you looked at her for a moment, then jumped up on your feet.

“Can't believe I am saying this but you are right Harley, I need go and I will find a way to save him, but before leaving I wanna know something”, you looked Ivy in the eyes as you worded your next sentence, “Why save me?”

“It was just my way of replaying you for saving Harls from that clown once”, instead of elaborating Ivy just crossed her hands over her chest waiting for you to leave. You gave her a warm smile, something they are not used to seeing, from a bat of all people.

“Thank you Pamela”

With that you were out of that detour and onto finding the path leading up to Jason.

•°•°

Somehow you reached the safe house without running into some kind of trouble, with how your day has been going, you were completely expecting something else to go wrong. Thankfully it didn't. You took out a spare comms unit, keys for your bike and some aspirin to dull the headache.

Soon you were whizzing past vehicles at full speed triying to contact anyone available at the moment.

“Come on pick up, pick up, pick up! What's the meaning of giving us an emergency button when no one picks the damn thing up”, you spoke into a dead line, wishing you could just bang your head against a wall, on second thought not a good idea.

Two minutes later the call was finally picked up and a screen appeared on the dash of your bike, it was from the batcave and you could see Dick, Damian and Bruce in sitting in front of the computer, Tim was connected from what you assumed to be the titans tower. However Dick was the first one to pop the question.

“(Y/N) what's the emergency? Are you okay? We haven't heard from you since last night”

“Look no time to explain. Jason's been taken by Pyg and I need you guys to give me a location. Now”, you said gritting your teeth as you narrowly missed a truck for the second time this evening.

“Todd's captured? *tt* his incompetence precedes that of Drake”, Damian's snarky remark made Tim snap his head up.

“Hey!”

“Boys”, Bruce's stern voice made them quiet enough for the time being, “Batgirl you are injured and your emotions can compromise the whole rescue, go back to the safe house and let us handle this”, Bruce ended the transmission and it made you angry.

'He said that they are going to handle it, that means they know where he is, so now all I have to do is to get Dick to spill it out'

You dialed Dick back, hoping he would understand what you are trying to do.

“I know why you specifically choose to call me back and No I am not letting you go head first into danger without any of us with you especially when you are compromised”, Dick's tone was stern but laced with concern.

“Dick the last time Bruce said he will handle it, Jason died, look I know what he is trying to say, I get him, I can't blame him for wanting to look after me but you have to understand I have to be the one to get him back”

“Why?!”

“Because I can't lose him again! The last thing that I said to him was that I might never forgive him! Never forgive him for something that's not even his fault! You are my only hope at getting him back, please don't take that away from me, please”, you pleaded with him as you slowed down the bike to a stop.

The line was silent for a while, the thought about saying more to him crossed your mind; what you are feeling about Jason, how much he matters to you, how you've failed him more than once, but ultimately decided against it and instead you just waited for his reply.

You deflated as soon as you realized that the line was cut but the ping of a notification caught your attention; The map to the possible location of Jason.

“Dick Grayson, you big softie”, you smirked, your bike roared as you made your way on to the free way heading fast towards the Gotham outskirts.

Meanwhile at Professor Pyg's 'supervillain headquarters' :

Jason slowly woke up, assessing the situation he quickly came to the conclusion that he messed up and now he is tied up to what seems like dentist's chair.

“Great, there has got to be a new record I've set in this family for messing up and getting kidnapped”, Jason muttered under his breath, he tried to tug at his restraints to get free but it turned out to be fruitless. A blinding light was switch on above him and he grunted due to the intensity.

“Man, what is up with you people and light?! Turn it off already!”, Jason said as he tried to adjust his eyes accordingly, when he came to, he was met with his captor himself.

Jason just stared at the man in front, moving towards him, wearing a pig mask and holding a butcher knife. He has seen enough crazy but this guy might just rival the Joker himself.

“Pyg know you broken. Pyg make you perfect”

“WHAT THE F--”

°•°•°•°•

(I like to think I am funny)

Cute little extra note: Yes it is the second time I'm leaving you guys hanging and NOPE I do not regret my decision.

Tagging: @ladyperceval

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Stalker X Stalker, Part 7

First

Previous

Next

Perma tag: @nathleigh @peachmuses

Stalker x Stalker taglist: @aespades @jayjayspixiepop @blueslushgueen @fan-written @seraphichana @nerd-nowandforever

No I didn't get carried away with writing domestic fluff and forget to do the one thing I was supposed to with this chapter I'm a professional and would never do that

It took a long time for Tim and Cass to convince Marinette that, no, it wasn’t a trap, it was just a normal Halloween Party. It took even longer to explain what a Halloween Party really was, because apparently it wasn’t a huge deal in France.

But, eventually, she got it:

“Okay, so every Rogue and vigilante has to go to his Halloween Party in stupid costumes… or else?”

Tim nodded. “Rogues have to go because he’ll be insufferable, we have to go because otherwise we’re leaving a bunch of Rogues alone together without supervision.”

“And it really is just a Halloween Party?”

Cass flashed two thumbs up.

Marinette still looked a little confused. “And we… we want to babysit the Rogues?”

“They mostly behave themselves. Again, Crane can be insufferable when he wants to be and they have to spend a lot of time with him in Arkham.”

“I guess that’s cool then…” Then, a thought seemed to occur to her because she brightened up. “Is Nightwing coming?”

Tim nodded, suddenly a lot more wary. “Yeah, both he and Flamebird drop by for most holidays, anyway, so they might as well… why?”

She blushed a little. “I kind of wanted to see if I could get him to train me. I think his fighting style is pretty cool.”

Tim was not jealous or annoyed that Marinette might like two of his brothers more than him. He was fine if she liked Cass more, because Cass was, well, Cass. But Dick? Damian? Come on!

At least he had a month before the party to prepare himself.

For now, he glared at Cass, because she was laughing at him behind her hand.

Then he remembered that Marinette was still there and was watching the two of them interact with a vaguely confused expression and he pulled himself together: “I don’t know if he can teach you much since he’s usually in Bludhaven, but I used to be obsessed with the guy and I know all his moves by heart.”

She tipped her head to the side, considering, then smiled at him. “Sure. Thanks, Red, I owe you one.”

He tried to hide his relief behind a smile. She smiled and blushed, so he was pretty sure it worked.

~

Marinette smiled as she scrolled through the Batinternet on her phone (they’d finally given her the password! She no longer had to waste data!). The batkids were all working on the computer, trying to hack into their father’s files to see their Christmas presents.

She didn’t get why they were doing it then, it wasn’t even Halloween yet. Still, they insisted that Batman was always prepared well before the holidays hit. She was curious about what they’d find, if anything, so she waited as Red Robin hacked their dad’s files.

Loud cheers erupted from the others, which meant they must have found something.

“... right, Ladybug, yours is easiest to get into… he probably didn’t expect you to try… he’s getting you an Xbox and a bunch of games to go with it.”

Her gaze shot up and she surged to the front of the group to see. “Really?”

Red Robin pointed at the screen and she blinked a few times. Yep, that was a customized Xbox. Wild.

Then her shoulders slumped. “Damn, I was only kidding. If I knew he was actually going to get it I would’ve asked for a Playstation.”

She continued looking at all the ‘random’ games Batman had bought her (he was suspiciously good at guessing what she liked), completely oblivious to the fact that she had accidentally started World War III right behind herself at the casual mention of a thing she wanted.

She glanced back at them once during their fight and they straightened instantly, innocent smiles in place. The hand Red Robin had in Robin’s hair turned into a hair ruffle. Black Bat had turned the way she gripped the collar of Spoiler’s shirt into pulling her down for a hug. Signal’s eyes stopped glowing under his domino. She smiled a little and turned back to the screen to look at the rest of the games. Fighting resumed.

Or, at least, it did until Marinette saw the file name.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

“I knew you fuckers took my blood,” she hissed irritably.

She wasn’t exactly scared, the bats seemed generally well-intentioned, just paranoid, but that didn’t mean she liked it. They stole her blood to figure out her identity without asking.

They all tensed up behind her and looked at each other awkwardly.

Robin was first to snap out of it. He swatted Red Robin over the back of the head. “Look what you’ve done, Drake.”

Marinette blinked and then pulled her gaze back to Red Robin. “Drake?”

The batkids looked at each other awkwardly. Except for Red Robin, who was glaring at his youngest brother.

Spoiler was the first one to come up with an excuse: “It’s an older codename. We told him to come up with something original since everything else he’s used has belonged to someone else first… and that’s what he came up with.”

She considered whether Drake really confirmed that Red Robin was Tim Drake-Wayne. On one hand, yeah… but, on the other hand, was he really that stupid? Would he really use his own last name for a codename?

She supposed that, in all her time knowing Tim and Red Robin, he had never shown himself to be original. Smart, sure, but a little unoriginal.

So, yeah, Tim was almost definitely Red Robin.

But she was prepared to ignore it for now. Every bat seemed tense at the idea of her learning their identities, so she played dumb:

“It’s not that bad of a codename. Dragons are pretty cool.”

She could feel Black Bat still staring at her, but everyone else relaxed almost imperceptibly.

“He didn’t base himself off of dragons, he chose male ducks,” Robin informed her.

She blinked. “Why the hell would he choose ducks?”

Signal snapped his fingers and started pulling out his phone. “Oh, Mari -- can I call you Mari? -- you should see his outfit.”

Red Robin realized he was about to get murdered for his younger self’s outfit choices and tried to snatch the phone away.

Unfortunately for him, while he was concentrating on Signal, Black Bat had sidled over to Marinette. She tugged her arm to pull her attention from the two fighting boys and then showed her the picture.

Marinette stared at the ugly cockroach outfit for a long time before taking a deep breath: “Alright, first of all...”

~

Tim… he was fine.

Okay, no, he wasn’t.

The tracker was better, he would admit. She had even started wearing more red and black so she could wear the necklace more (something that made him feel all fuzzy inside), but she wasn’t wearing it every day and he couldn’t exactly tell if the necklace was there because she was home or if it was there because she’d worn a different outfit.

So, he only had one solution: randomly dropping by to do chores with her.

It started off with the ‘might as well’ principle. They were already out for photography and getting ideas for outfits, why not pick up some groceries while they were on their way back? She could even carry more since there were two of them.

He quickly dropped pretenses, though. The one time every few days that they hung out wasn’t enough to keep her in the house, and even if it was she clearly wasn’t fond of staying inside for long periods of time. He started dropping by every day to just go out with her.

He could tell his family was getting a little suspicious about what he was doing, Steph and Cass both narrowed their eyes at him whenever they saw him leaving the office at a normal time and once he had caught Duke following him to see where he was going… but it was fine. They weren’t going to complain about him actually getting some sort of down time.

And, he had to admit, it was nice. Not only did resting his brain for an hour or two a day do wonders for his mental health, he just… enjoyed doing chores with her? He didn’t think he would. He’d expected to like it the first few times, the novelty of going on his first grocery shopping trip or figuring out how a laundromat was always going to make it interesting and new for a bit, but it didn’t seem to be wearing off.

He was pretty sure that was because of the person he was doing it with, though.

He smiled as he watched Marinette half-climb the supermarket shelves for a bag of Takis.

“Need help?” He called.

“Nope!”

He watched her jump a few times on the lowest shelf before, eventually, climbing up another shelf.

Tim winced and surged forward to support her weight a little.

She huffed and grabbed the Takis. He set her down.

She crossed her arms. “I said I could get it.”

“I trust you. The shelves? Not so much. Do you want to die crushed under a bunch of chips?”

Her halfhearted glare morphed into a grin. “If I die any other way you have to promise to resurrect me so I can do it again.”

He rolled his eyes. “How about I resurrect you and you try not to die again for a while?”

“Hm… I guess that’d be alright.”

Then, at the laundromat, Tim saw a bunch of Two Face’s henchmen. How did he know that they were henchmen? The black and white suits kind of gave them away.

He was just wondering whether it was worth it to try and call Duke over so they didn’t risk something happening when he realized that Marinette had slipped over to them.

But she wasn’t concerned as she offered some of her detergent. “Hey, if you need to wash lights and darks together like that… you’re going to need a different detergent. I know those are cheap but there’s a reason for that.”

“Isn’t that just an old detergent problem?”

“No, separating every single color into a different load is. But, if you want to do pure black and white like that… you don’t want to risk it.”

Then she turned and glared at another goon, who was pulling their luckily still okay clothes out of the washer.

“You’d better not be putting that in the dryer.”

The sheepish look on the henchman’s face was answer enough.

She huffed. “That is airdry only why would you do that --?!”

And that’s how they ended up friends with -- and possibly under the protection of? -- a bunch of henchmen. Tim had to admit, they were really nice when he and Marinette weren’t trying to get them thrown in jail. He almost found himself slipping and hoping that Frank managed to achieve his mob boss dreams. He actually did offer to babysit Sam’s kids while she had a shift because she seemed very stressed.

“Tim, darling, do you even know how to take care of kids?”

Tim didn’t know whether to blush because she had called him darling oh my god or due to embarrassment at that massive oversight.

“Uh… would you be willing to help?”

Marinette gave him an exhausted look. “I’ve only ever babysat one kid at a time without their older sibling being there to help.”

He quickly changed the offer to paying for a babysitter. Sam was thankful regardless.

When everyone had finished laundering their clothes to Marinette’s satisfaction, the two of them headed back towards her apartment.

Tim changed the position of the laundry basket on his hip so it didn’t dig into him as much. “You know, you didn’t have to help them.”

She snickered. “First of all, you’re absolutely wrong. I couldn’t just sit by and watch them ruin their clothes right in front of me!”

He rolled his eyes, trying to hide the fond smile on his face. “And second of all?”

“Secondly…” She let him into the house and closed the door behind him. A cheeky smile formed on her face. “Well, they’re henchmen. Don’t you think it would be a good idea to have them on our side in case things go wrong rather than indifferent to what happens to us?”

It was here, with her smiling in front of him, intelligence sparkling in her eyes and the necklace he gave her hanging from her neck, that he realized that he was going to fall in love. He might not be there yet but, if they continued doing things like this, he was sure he would.

He wouldn’t mind that, he thought, as she leaned forward to take the basket from him, pressing a kiss to his cheek on the way over. He watched her disappear to her room, no doubt to fix whatever damage he had done while carrying it that would be invisible to anyone but her. He shoved his hands in his pockets and went to start up the coffee machine.

~

There are no botanical gardens more beautiful than the ones in Gotham. Whether that was because Poison Ivy herself tended to them or because they were kept in tip-top shape to appease her, Marinette didn’t know. Whatever the reason, it was gorgeous and Marinette had gotten quite a few different ideas. She pretty much had an entire spring collection planned out…

It was unfortunate that she’d gotten ideas for a spring collection in the middle of autumn, but she was ignoring that.

Now, they were sitting on her couch. They needed to relax after all that walking around on top of a rather exhausting night the night before (Scarecrow had broken out of Arkham to start preparing for his Halloween Party). She was completely in his space in an attempt to mess with him. It, unfortunately, didn’t seem to annoy him as he lazily rested his head on top of hers.

She huffed a little but allowed it.

He fiddled with the settings on his camera, biting his lip.

She looked down at the camera and asked: “How’d you get into photography?”

“... it’s a kind of personal story,” he said carefully. “A little sad, too, I guess.”

She tried to pull back, an apology on her lips, but he just rested an arm around her shoulders and held her close.

“It’s fine.”

She nodded as much as she could with the head resting on top of hers.

They were silent for a long time. She tried to relax herself. There were no akumas in Gotham, it was okay to accidentally upset someone and it was okay to ask them if they wanted to elaborate. They were people, people are supposed to feel sad sometimes. It’s healthy.

She took a deep breath before curling more into his side. “Would you like to talk about it?”

The arm around her tightened almost imperceptibly. “I… I guess I can, sure.”

“You don’t have to,” she said quickly. In fact, she might be a little more comfortable with that. Emotional conversations weren’t a Parisian’s forte.

But he sighed and shook his head. “It’s fine. Our relationship can’t progress all that healthily if we never tell each other anything.”

Yikes. Way to accidentally call her out on the fact that she hadn’t formed a healthy relationship in years, Tim.

“Not that I’m all that great at healthy relationships,” he said after a minute.

At least she wasn’t alone, she supposed.

“No easy way to say this, I guess… my parents weren’t the best. They’d go on trips -- they were archaeologists -- and I’d be left home alone, usually for months at a time.”

She cringed internally and took his hand in hers, rubbing comforting circles into his palm.

He sighed lightly. “So… I was lonely, obviously. I started by taking pictures of my parents. Sometimes it was all I’d have of them for months. They could leave, but the pictures weren’t able to.”

She felt him bury his face in her hair.

“I started following the bats after a while. I don’t know if it was because I wasn’t sated by pictures of just the two of them and decided to expand, if it was because they had a happy family despite a distant father and I wanted that for myself, or if it was because I wanted my parents to find out and be worried about me, or a mix of all of that… but…”

She slowly moved the camera off of his lap and pulled him into a hug. “But?”

He was silent for a bit, thinking over his answer. He shrugged and wrapped his arms around her. “It was an old coping mechanism. A way of feeling connected to people when I couldn’t actually be.”

“‘Was?’ What changed?”

He laid back on the couch and she allowed him to pull her down beside him. “People around me… started ‘leaving permanently’.”

She winced. Oh.

“It hurt a lot more to look at the pictures after that. It just felt like a reminder that I was alone.”

She frowned. “But… you’re taking pictures of me, now.” Her eyes widened. “Shit, did I accidentally trigger --.”

He shook his head quickly. “No, no. Well, kind of, but it’s okay! Every time they’ve died, it was because of some sort of shortcoming on my part. I think I’ve learned from all my mistakes. You… I won’t let you get hurt, okay?”

Marinette didn’t know how to respond. On one hand, she was pretty sure that she should be assuring him that, even if she did end up dying, that he shouldn’t blame himself… on the other hand, she had no intentions of dying and she was pretty sure it was nearly impossible for her, so maybe it was a good thing that he had chosen to protect her of all people? Maybe the problem would solve itself?

She didn’t know.

She carefully took his face in her hands, pulling him to look her in the eyes. “I’m not going anywhere, okay, darling?”

He gave her a tentative smile. “I sure hope you’re right.”

~

He had been asked to stay the night. Her excuse was that she was almost done with an outfit for him and she wanted to give it to him the second it was done and, by the time it would be, it would be too dark to go out safely.

Tim kind of felt bad that he had worried her but he wasn’t going to turn down the offer of staying over and watching her finish the outfit.

But, first, food. They dropped a million takeout menus on the desk. A long silence stretched between them as they looked at all the options.

“... what do you want?” Asked Marinette.

“I’m not in the mood for anything in particular, you?”

She sighed. “I don’t know, do you want anything?”

“I don’t want anything, what about you --?”

This continued on for about three minutes before Tim got a brilliant idea. He dialled Damian’s number and put it on speaker.

“Drake. Why are you calling? Have you been hurt?”

“No, Dami, I’m getting takeout and I was just wondering if you had any ideas.”

Marinette gave him an affronted look, but he clapped his hand over her mouth before she could warn Damian that, no, he wasn’t buying food for him he was just going to be an asshole.

“... I suppose I wouldn’t be averse to Chinese.”

“Thanks, Dami! Hope you can get Alfie to make that for you.”

“What do -- ?”

Tim hung up on his very confused younger brother.

Marinette frowned as he removed his hand from her mouth. “That wasn’t nice of you, that’s a kid.”

Tim was not about to get beaten by his brother in both identities, thank you very much.

“Alfred can cook better than anyone in the world, he’s not going to suffer.”

She snorted. “I doubt he can make food better than…” She picked through the takeout papers for a few moments before holding up a menu. “... this place!”

He squinted at the menu. “... I really hope you can speak Mandarin.”

“You’d be hard pressed to find a language I can’t speak, Timmy,” she said, absently dialling the number.

Well, he supposed that explained how a person from France knew ASL and could speak English like a native. Damn. Now he kinda wanted magical god-earrings so he could speak every language in existence.

She spoke cheerfully to the person on the other side of the line for a moment before turning to Tim. “What do you want?”

“Uh… shrimp fried rice?”

She rolled her eyes and flicked his nose. “Alright, fine, white boy.”

“It’s a safe option okay --!”

She wasn’t listening to him explain why fried rice was the best choice for him because she was relaying the order to the person on the other side of the line. She hung up with a smile.

“Food will be here in about three minutes. Do you rich people have small bills or do you just use them for tissues or something?”

He raised his eyebrows. “They go down to a hundred, right?”

She pressed her lips together thinly, clearly unsure whether or not he was joking.

He snickered and shook his head. “Nah, I think I have twenties and fifties…”

“Yeah, that won’t do. We’re going to get robbed,” she said, reaching into her purse.

“We? Didn’t know I lived here, too,” he joked.

She barely even glanced up from where she was counting money. “Honestly, with how often you’re here, you might as well move in.”

He choked. He wanted to say something smart or funny or smooth, instead all that came out was: “You --? I --? Uh --!”

She snickered behind her hand. “Love, relax, I’m just kidding. You don’t have to leave your fancy mansion with all your siblings --.”

“Wait, don’t make living here sound even better. I will do it purely to get away from them, don’t test me.”

She rolled her eyes with a grin. “Maybe that's the plan, you’ll never know.”

Tim had exactly zero idea whether they were joking or not anymore. The tone and reactions made him pretty sure they were kidding, but… what if they weren’t?

He was just gathering the courage to ask when the doorbell rang, pulling their attention to the food. She continued counting for a second before running to the door and swinging it open.

He walked up beside her awkwardly as she chatted politely to the guy to take the food inside. He knew, logically, that Marinette was actually way stronger than he was… but his stupid brain saw a thin, short woman in need of someone to help her carry things. So, he took it from the guy with a smile.

The delivery guy glanced Tim up and down before asking Marinette something. She laughed and gave a shrug. Tim did not know what was going on but he felt vaguely insulted.

He was definitely learning Mandarin after this.

The moment the door closed he whined about being insulted. She looked amused.

“You know what he said?”

“... no,” he admitted.

Her lips twitched.

“... you’re not going to tell me, are you?”

She snickered and leaned over the two bags of food in his hands. “So, you got the fried rice, right?”

“Mariiiiiiii.”

“Your food is going to get cold.”

“Beeeaaaan,” he complained.

She raised an eyebrow at him, a blush spreading across her face. “Bean?”

He grinned, feeling heat creep to his own cheeks. “I don’t know, I couldn’t think of anything for a nickname. First thing I thought of was coffee beans, so: Bean.”

“Wow, you’re such an addict,” she teased.

He continued pouting at her until she gave in.

She leaned forward to press a kiss to his nose. “He asked if you could use chopsticks or not so he could get you a fork if you couldn’t.”

He felt the blush on his face deepen. “Oh… I can’t.”

“That’s fine.” She grabbed a tote bag from the floor of her pantry and pulled out a set of plasticware.

He blinked. “... you keep plastic forks?”

She shrugged and tossed the bag back in her pantry. “Plastic forks, grocery bags, napkins, a few sets of chopsticks…”

“... why?”

“Some of us are minorities, darling.”

“What --?”

~

She hummed tunelessly as she worked.

Tim had fallen asleep on her shoulder. Had most of this been an elaborate plot to make him finally get some sleep? Possibly.

She didn’t feel all that bad, though. With how much he overworked himself both as Red Robin and as Tim Drake-Wayne… honestly, she was beginning to doubt that he slept at all. And, really, if a vigilante coffee addict with a magically enhanced physique is worried about your sleep schedule, you’ve got problems. Intervention was needed.

Don’t get her wrong, though, she was going to make up for lying to him. She’d move him to her bed and leave a cup of coffee for him on the bedside table. Maybe she’d even make him breakfast, it depended on how tired she was in the morning.

But that was for when she was done. For now, she was working on the last part of the outfit: she needed to lace up the corset. His posture needed a little work and she didn’t have the heart to tell him that to his face.

… besides, corset vests are cute. She wished more guys would wear them.

She smiled to herself as she pulled the last bit of lace through and tied a loose knot. Done.

She looked down at Tim. Loose strands fell in his face as he slept. The tiny wrinkles in his forehead disappeared, making him look much younger. His lips curled into a slight smile at whatever he was dreaming about.

He looked so genuinely at peace. She hated that that was abnormal for him.

She couldn’t help but worry a little about what he’d said earlier. He’d claimed that the reason he had gone up to the top of that building the day they’d met (as Tim and Marinette) was to scout out a location for photography, but now that was seeming like a lie because he apparently preferred taking pictures of people over locations… so, why was he up so high? He’d known it was illegal to be there, so she doubted he thought anyone else would be…

She swallowed thickly.

She didn’t think his mental state was that bad… but, just in case it was, she waved Tikki over for a bug and sewed it into one of his sleeves.

Tikki was looking at her disapprovingly. Marinette ignored her.

It was Ladybug’s job to make sure everyone was doing okay mentally, and she wasn’t going to fail a person she cared about of all people.

His head slipped from her shoulder onto her stomach and she sighed, trying to lightly push him off without disturbing his sleep. It didn’t work. He made a quiet sound in the back of his throat and buried his face in her stomach, his arms wrapping around her tightly.

Well, this is her life now.

… she supposed it wasn’t so bad, though.

[legends-live-in-memories]

Focus On Me

i want yall to pretend i dont have outstanding wips i need to finish lmao. Have this instead:

Dickinette One-shot 1.9K words

Summary: 

“Dick is pissed as hell after arguing with Bruce.

His solution? Go to an underground fight club to get the shit beaten out of him.”

without further ado

Richard Grayson was many things. He was a professional acrobat. He was a dedicated vigilante. Son of freaking Batman himself. And now? Now he was pissed as hell. The fallout between him and Bruce wasn’t supposed to get this bad. Wasn’t supposed to go on this long. The radio silence was deafening and the cold shoulder burned hotter than any flaming hoop he jumped through as a kid. He knew Bruce had issues about Dick’s decision but that had nothing to do with his capabilities as a vigilante and everything to do with Bruce’s own fears and insecurities. Thinking about it just gets him riled up and he keeps replaying the harsh words they threw at each other before fists started flying too.

He needs to get out of his head for a few hours before he plans what his next move is. No. He needed to get out of his head, yes, but he needs to breathe and maybe punch someone who he doesn’t fear disappointing or someone who hasn’t dumped a ferry’s load of emotional bullshit on him. Planning what comes next can have the decency to at least wait a week. 

Trying to distract himself, he went to an underground boxing club he discovered when he was sixteen. The club was deep in the East End, hidden between the Black Bass Bar and 83rd Street. He’s been sneaking there every now and again when he wanted the time to recenter himself and get grounded before facing the world. It was therapeutic, the bruising knuckles, the blistered lips, the burning sweat in his eyes. It was rough, jaded and unpolished. Everything he wasn’t allowed to be. 

He snuck in through the regular back entrance that was reserved for fighters. The air reeked of tequila and piss and cigarettes. He could already hear the cacophony of roars and jeers from the club’s patrons as a match went on in the center ring. Making his way to the side of the ring to put his name into the bracket, he sees the current fight come to a close with a knockout. The poor guy was lying limply with a twisted ankle and a suspiciously dark bruise forming on his left side. The mat is soiled with blood, spit and what was possibly bile in one corner. Dick swung his gaze over to the fighter left standing. 

His breath feels punched out as he takes in the absolute powerhouse before him. A lean figure clad in simple matching black spandex and sports bra that left nothing to the imagination. Her bare feet were bruised and taped in seemingly random places but Dick recognised an arch to them that was only achieved through professional dancing or gymnastics. She was light on her feet, strong on her toes. Chiseled abs that put Superman to shame were marred by scars on pale skin and a fresh bandage over what could possibly be a recent stab wound resting near her hip. He eyed her wrapped fists that were caked in blood and dirt as she flexed and curled her fingers repeatedly. 

If he was left breathless by her physique then her face left him dead and buried. Bold blue eyes narrowed in concentration with her busted lips curled up in a sneer. Her cheeks were flushed and her entire face was covered in a light sheen of sweat. Her hair is pulled back into a regular ponytail with loose strands framing her face. Her hair, pure black, except for bleached blonde ends, looks greasy and unkept, highlighting her lack of care regarding her appearance. Her shoulders are hiked up to her ears and her muscles twitch and flex with pent up energy. She carries herself like someone who’s addicted to pain and the worst parts of themselves, desperate for a quick fix; the perfect reflection for how he feels right now.  Dick can’t wait to get in the ring.

“I’ll pay you $50 to get me in the ring with her right now.” He turned his neck to the fight coordinator who was counting a wad of cash. The balding man barely looked at him and just held out his hand for the payment. Dick couldn’t get his money out fast enough and before he even confirmed that he was the next fight, he was already taking his shirt off and going between the rope barriers to the floor.

The loser of the last fight was being dragged off with no concern for his well-being, while the victor stood off to the side guzzling some water. She barely side-eyes him, a quick sweep of her eyes without turning to face him, and he already feels himself flushing hot from the attention. He preens and starts stretching out his shoulders, rolling his ankles and warming up his legs at the same time. 

He barely registers the presence of the announcer, ears filled with cotton and eyes narrowing at his opponent. He looks for weaknesses, anything that would get him an edge, as he crouches into a starting position. Her wound is an obvious target and she’s short enough for easy face and neck shots. Hair pulling is also an option if he feels particularly brutish. She mirrors his stance, crouch closer to her feet and legs wider to increase lunging distance, and the full force of her gaze almost bowls him over. His eyes harden into ice shards, not willing to be swayed by twin pools of blue fire. The bell dings. He charges.

He swings an uppercut that just grazes her chin and she recoils, spins back and jabs an elbow in his ribs. He grabs her by the same elbow and twists his wrist. She twinges in pain but the hold doesn’t last long. She follows the rotation of her arm and faces him. He smells faint traces of beer on her lips and his mind swims. Pain erupts in his nose as she smashes her forehead into him. She kicks into his knee and sweeps his other leg out from underneath him. She clasps her fists together and drives them into the protruding knobs of his spine, ramming him into her awaiting knee. She moves to pin him and he uses this to his advantage. He grabs the arm that was about to press into his throat and spins her around on top of him, his chest to her back. He locks one leg around hers and cants his weight to the side, pinning her face first into the disgusting mat; he completely blankets her with his much larger body. This position doesn’t hold for long either. She still has an arm free and she uses it to punch into the side of his head. It’s not a particularly strong hit, but with the pain in his nose, and his brain feeling like it’s underwater, it is enough to disorient him and she pushes him off by her hips. 

Her narrow escape lights a fire under his skin and he reaches to grapple for her again. She slips away, again, and stands. He scurries to stand as well and immediately ducks from a leg swinging for his ribs. 

“What brings you here?” Dick almost gets whiplash from how fast he has to move. He was not expecting her to engage in conversation, much less initiate it. But she doesn’t sound malicious, just curious, and she pauses in her assault in attacks to display how genuine she was.

“Same as everyone else,” he says. He swings right for her head and follows left when she ducks, knocking her in her shoulder. “I want to pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist and get slapped around for a while. You?”

She snickers at his honesty and drops into a leg sweep. He jumps over the leg but clearly she was expecting it. She rides her momentum into a roundhouse that knocks him flat as he descends. She doesn’t hesitate and charges to pin him again. 

He lets her.

“Why does someone as pretty as you want to risk ruining that nice face of yours?” Her face is close, much closer than this pin requires but he doesn’t want to push her away. But the show must go on so he kicks her in the stomach, digging his toe into her bandaged side to get her off. She recoils like a snake about to spring and regards him with cold resentment. She clearly doesn’t like the reminder of her injuries. 

“I could ask you the same thing, sweetheart. What’s a lovely lady like you doing here getting down and dirty with the local dogs?” She is many things he regards, but lovely is not one of them. ‘Stray cat’ would better describe the scrappy woman before him. The address sets her on edge and he almost regrets describing her as such. Almost. Her next series of punches have him on the defensive and he’s pushed back all the way until he feels the ropes rubbing into the bare skin of his back. The flurry of sensations is exhilarating. Suddenly it’s too much and not enough. He ducks the next punch and grabs both wrists. He made the mistake the first time and knows better now. She won’t escape him unless he lets her. Not one to be outdone, she pulls one more trick out. She doesn’t resist his grip and instead leans up closer to his ear. Her chest is pressed flush against him and he knows she’s tipping just to reach him. Her lips, damp with sweat and cooling blood, brush against his ear and a weight settles at the base of his spine.

“Got a firm grip there?” her voice is soft, almost delicate, and he almost doesn’t register the question. His tongue feels like lead and his mouth has run dry; his brain can’t make the right connections to form words. He tightens his hold on her as an answer instead. She gets it though because she chuckles a swift ‘Good’ before she’s leaping and bracing her feet against his stomach. She leans back and uses her weight to pull them both to the ground, then she lifts her feet and flips him over. His fingers loosen and she slips out of his hold again. She follows the momentum of her roll and sits firmly on his hips, one leg pinning each of his down. She grabs both of his wrists in her small hand and uses the other to tip his chin back, his skull crashing into the mat harshly, blunt nails digging into his skin.

Her face looms over his, again closer than is strictly necessary, and she smirks at him. Her tongue peaks out and swipes at the sweat above her upper lip. He holds his breath, waiting to hear what she has to say next. His patience doesn’t reward him that satisfaction, however. A ding echoes into the room, cutting through the shouts and growls of their captive audience. She won. 

Her victorious smile is a thing of beauty, he can’t really lament his loss. Before he could overthink and get lost in his head he takes a dive headfirst and gives into his impulses.

“I’m Richard Grayson. Call me Dick.” He sounds breathless and rung out. 

“I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” her name is perfect like her. She releases his arms and moves to get off him. She offers a hand to help him up and he takes it. Before he could say something stupid she continues her introduction.

“You can call me Nette. I hope to see you next week.”

She will.

[rent-a-bat]

Drabble #3

Promt: #1 “You don’t have to do this alone”

Pairing: Dick Grayson x Reader

Requested by: Anonymous

A/N: Aaaaaand it's done!! I really liked writing this one, it made me soft all over. I really hope you like it!! There was a dialog I really wanted to include but didn't really know how, let's see if you can find it. Enjoy!

Requests open

The first time it happened, it took you by surprise.

He arrived with a crash, falling from the ceiling, and getting straight into action. The way he moved, how he fought, everything he did was calculated, yet it flowed so easily like a second nature to him. If Batman was all brawl, Nightwing was all movement, he moved like he was giving a show, one you couldn't help but watch. Nothing like the clumsiness you moved with, relieved if only a little that your lack of any formal training could be helped by your abilities.

The warehouse you were in was one of the many you’ve been taking down for a while, a place where people gathered for illegal purposes, too small for the big guys to notice, which meant it was a job for you, nothing unusual, except for the number of people you were not ready for.

A job that should have been easy but escalated as more people started to come. He arrived just as a jab had you on the floor, not before you took out the one responsible, if he was surprised at the number of bodies already taken out, he didn't show it. The moment you realized who he was had you hiding as fast as you could, careful not to be seen and happy to let him finish with the rest.

You watched him fight until the last one fell unconscious. He lingered for a while after that, making a call to what you guessed was the GCPD, looking around as he did so, like waiting for you to come out and then, just as fast as he came, he was gone. You stayed hiding even after he left, you were sure he hadn't seen you, but one can never be too sure, so you waited, in case he wanted to come back. Minutes passed but he never came. Before you knew it the sounds of sirens surprised you, the police were getting closer, which meant you also had to go.

Gotham was your home, born and raised, and like many who did so, you were used to its antics but cared for the city nonetheless, even when this city was a danger to people like you, people with abilities that will have them either fighting for you or trying to kill you, if you were not with them you were against them, something they needed to get rid of.

You knew you were different from a young age. After your parents died you went into the system, a place that's not easy on those who've lost it all, where the first lesson you learned was that in order to survive, you had to fight for everything, literally. And the more you fought, the easier it was to see what made you different.

Your abilities were far from super, but where enough. Just fast enough to dodge a bullet, just strong enough to lift a car, just invulnerable enough to keep going, just enough to save a life, to help those who needed it, to keep the weak safe. And that's what you did.

It took you time to be ready, training yourself to control your power. Too much force might break them, too fast and you’d be doing more damage. Your suit was easier, something light so you could move freely, but strong enough not to break. All black to hide yourself at night, your hair neatly pinned down and a hood to cover yourself, attaching to mask that hid half of your face. It was a long way, but when you were finally ready, you took it to the streets.

While the big ones took out big organizations or fought against the ever-growing list of rouges, you helped the ones that thought were lost, that thought they weren’t important enough to be saved. A girl trying to get home safe, a student getting mugged, doing the little things, because you knew that helping the people of Gotham was the real change.

Trying to go unnoticed in the city where the greatest detective resided was a feat in itself, but you had managed to do it so far, until the little problems you were trying to fix got bigger.

The second time it happened you were expecting it, still, you couldn't hold your surprise when you saw him appear.

A growing number of disappearances and a little digging through the streets of Gotham had you at the docks. Turns out, the warehouses you had been taking down were part of a larger operation, still small, but if left alone it could grow into something much more troublesome, which explains why Nightwing appeared that night and how your chances of staying anonymous were closing to zero.

He arrived just like the first time, so when he landed on the floor and all eyes were on him, you took it as your queue to go, freeing the people your top priority.

The Intel you had was scarce, rumors here and there, bits of information you heard passing by, so you weren't sure how much you could trust it. Luckily for you, that information proved to be true. The area you were headed remained heavily guarded, even with all the commotion on the other side.

Deciding it was now or never, you charged. Taking advantage of your speed, you made your way to the farthest corner of the warehouse, to some merely a blur, a well-placed hit taking them down, but even then you weren't invisible, the moment they saw what was happening they began to shoot. Bullets grazing you as you made your way to the container where they kept them, the hits weren't strong enough to pierce but they still hurt, leaving bruises and scratches on your skin. Moving through the pain you kept going, until you took down each of them, clearing the area enough to check on the people while Nightwing continued fighting with the rest.

The container was chained close, nothing a good pull from you couldn't break, but before you could do anything else, a quick glance to the other side made you stop. Nightwing was a good fighter, you could tell that from the last time you almost met, but they were closing in on him, you could see he was getting tired, his body losing the previous easiness he had, there were more than last time, and he was fighting alone.

You had to make a choice, taking the chance, and freeing the people now, leaving him to his luck, or risk everything you've worked on remaining invisible and help him. Letting out a groan, you moved before you could regret it further, hurrying to meet him in the middle, knocking out a guy as you reached him. He paused for a moment to look at you, smiling a little before he went back to fighting.

You worked in tandem. He moved with you. Every open you had, he covered it, the ones you fought, he made sure they stayed down sending some your way so you could do the same. It felt like dancing.

The both of you working together managed to take them all in no time. You hurried to check on the people, making sure everyone was okay and no one was hurt, confirming they were the ones that'd been reported missing. Leaving the rest to him you quickly made your way out, before being stopped just as you crossed the door.

"Hey! Wait!" He grabbed you from the arm, his grip firm but soft. A little tug had you turning around to look at him, his face flushed from the fighting, smiling from ear to ear.

You looked down to the hand that was still holding you, following your gaze he let you go, holding up his hands as a sign of peace. You rubbed at the spot his hand left, it felt warm.

"What?" You said, not trying to hide how much you did not want to have this conversation. You had done enough showing yourself like that when you helped him, talking was another mistake you didn't want to add for tonight.

"I saw what you did back there. You handled yourself well." He kept smiling, ignoring the sharpness in your voice.

You remained silent, eyes locked on him. Seeing nothing else was coming from you at the moment, he kept talking.

"You're welcome, by the way" you laughed at that. His smile grew as he looked at you, making you do the same.

"Cocky much?" The question leaving your mouth before you could think

"Some might say that." He winked, getting another laugh from you.

“I could've handled it on my own.”

“I know you would.”

“I would! I ha- I had a plan.” Your emotions were getting the best of you. You took a deep breath to calm yourself. “I didn't need help.”

“I know.”

“Don't be condescending.” Now was his turn to laugh. You glared at him, his laugh making you feel things you were not in the mood to acknowledge.

“I'm not! You seem more than capable enough to me, but I can't help saving someone so clearly in distress.”

“I'm not some ‘lady in distress’ for you to come and save me or whatever it is that you do”

“Are you sure?” he was having fun, if the amusement and the ever-growing smile on his face were any indication, and you were in no shape, physically or mentally, to keep up with his games.

“Dick.” you huffed, no malice in your voice as you said it.

“At your service.” he said with a wink. Was it a habit of his?

"I'm Nightwing." He introduced himself as if he wasn't one the most famous vigilantes in Gotham, extending his hand towards you, expecting.

You looked at his hand for a moment, thinking what it would mean to take it.

"And I'm leaving." You finally said, turning around as you began to walk, leaving your speed for when you were further away from him, hurrying to leave before the GCPD could arrive.

"I didn't hear your name." His shout making you pause for a moment. "It'd be nice to have a name for the mask."

You thought about it for a moment, how fast were you to change your mind for someone you'd just met, but he had something that made you want to open up and break your own rules, something that made you want to reach out.

"I'm Nobody!" You shouted without turning back. Your name was a little play on words. If they say nobody is going to save you, you could at least give nobody a body to do so.

"See you around, Nobody!" You could hear the smile in his voice as he shouted back.

You walked a little more before breaking into a run. Your conversation leaving a warm feeling in your chest.

A third time became a fourth, and a fifth, and before you knew it you began to wait for him to come and vice versa, working together on the case and sometimes more. Keeping each other company on patrol in the nights where you could barely catch your breath and the ones where all you did was talk. He became your friend, someone you could rely on, who you could talk and tell things no one else would be able to understand. The life of a vigilante was lonely, you both knew that well, but the nights you spent together made you feel otherwise.

The night you finally decided to reveal your identity was one you'll never forget. After years of being almost invisible, of not daring to appear, fearing who might find you what they'd do if they knew about you, the time spent with him had you tossing all of them away. And when you finally did, taking down your hood and removing your mask, your heart roaring in your ears as you looked at him, waiting. The joy, the calm, everything you felt when his hand went to his own mask revealing his face, his permanent smile and his beautiful eyes for you to see, where nothing you'll ever be able to describe.

“I’m Dick.” he extended his hand to you, much like the first time he did so, only this time, you took it, no longer afraid of the meaning.

“And I’m y/n.”

The more involved you became with him, it was a matter of time before you finally met the big guy. Batman was imposing, but you could see why Dick respected him so much. He welcomed you, offered help, if you needed. The rest of the group was just as welcoming, chatting and joking with them. Dick was more than happy by your interaction, beaming as he looked at you. Here, with these people, you felt welcomed, safe, all thanks to him.

Today was one of the few nights where Gotham was calm, it wasn't like nothing happened, but it was slow enough that you could still rest and take your time. You were sitting with Dick on a rooftop, enjoying each other’s company in silence, you always felt comfortable with him, that's why you took it as a now or never.

“Hey, Dick?”

“What is it y/n.” the way he said your name leaving goosebumps all over.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.” You took a deep breath. You could do it.

“I wasn't the best with you at first, and you didn't know me, we were strangers. So why keep coming back?” You finally asked the one question that’d been rounding your head from the beginning. He remained silent for a while before he could answer, his cheeks and ears getting redder with every second.

“We, uh, heard from you a long ago.” he started to say, visibly flustered. “Nothing specific, just that there was someone helping out in the streets.” he glanced at you as he rushed through his words.

“Batman let it pass because it wasn't anything dangerous and it was pretty on the low, we actually lost track of you a couple of times.” he smiled, “That was quite impressive, you were really good at that.”

“That was the point.” you blushed at his admission, not that you weren't as invisible as you thought, but that he was still impressed that you managed it, if even a few times. He left out a chuckle, low enough to for you to miss if you weren't by his side, his sight lost in the horizon like lost in thought.

“But then, we found each other that first night, you had taken out half of them already, I was impressed. I couldn't see you, but I knew you were there, that's why I stayed, I wanted to talk.” he looked at you once more, his sight fixed on you as he continued. “Then I thought that if you were trying so hard to cover your tracks then you'd show yourself when you were ready, so I left, but the feeling lingered.” you felt his hand on yours. Not daring to look down, you took it and held it firmly, relishing the warmth it gave you.

“I guess, what I wanted to say that night was that, you don't have to do this alone.” your heart clenched, tears threatening to come out as his words echoed in your head.

“That's why I kept showing up. I wanted to support you, let you know in a way that there are people you could count on. That you could count on me.” he was the first to look away, taking both your hands in his as he waited for you.

You knew words wouldn’t be enough to convey what you felt, not enough to thank him for what he did, of how he did that and more, the lump in your throat not helping either. He gave you a place to come back, someone to trust. So, you did the only thing close to that. You took your hands away from his, ignoring the question that flashed through his eyes, placing them on his face, holding it carefully as you pulled him down to you, hoping he could feel everything you did as your lips touched. He let out a surprised gasp, before he took your face and deepened the kiss, his mouth moving with yours like an answer, that he understood. Tears freely flowed down your face, not touching the ground as he wiped them away with his thumb, caressing your cheek. When you finally broke apart, foreheads touching while you caught your breath, you smiled, a laugh passing between the two. You held each other after that, holding closer as you enjoyed the night. The start of many to come.

[mochegato]

Capturing a Dream

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 - First Mission

 She was late.  She was late. She was sooooooooo late. Stupid last minute fabric misorder that caused a backup in production, which left everyone scrambling and rushing to figure out a solution.  Bright side, they figured out a solution that was better than the original and Marinette was a huge part of it, gaining her accolades from her supervisor and the director of design.  Down side, Chimera was now extremely late for the mission briefing. Her first mission briefing.  She would be lucky if she made it there before it was over.

Marinette ducked into an alley close to the zeta tube and transformed. She grimaced as she stood in front of the opening.  There was no way to make this discrete.  It was going to announce her lateness for everyone to hear.  She couldn’t portal in just to avoid embarrassment because that was considered “personal use” and she didn’t know how much time they would have before they had to leave so she couldn’t take the chance that she would have to detransform, feed Kaalki, then retransform.  So she was just going to have to deal with the extreme embarrassment. She took a deep breath and walked through the opening.

“Recognize Chimera B12”

Chimera let out a deep sigh.  Yeah, there was no way they didn’t hear that.  She looked at the Team and noted their expressions.  Not as bad as she had been expecting, but she still felt terrible. She rushed over to the Team, standing behind everyone and trying to give Batman’s image on the screen her full attention.

When Batman paused to pull up a schematic of the area they were focusing on, Superboy leaned over to her.  “You’re late.” He said in a quietly gruff voice.

She looked up and scowled at him.  “I’m aware,” she hissed back.  “Couldn’t get away.”

“Right.  It’s not like we’re doing anything important here.” He sniped quietly.

“I know we are.  But my personal life is important too.  If I don’t keep my… outside deal happy, I don’t stay here. I get sent home and I am no longer on the Team.”  He furrowed his brow in surprise.  She frowned at him, feeling guilty for not being faster and looked back toward Batman. “It’s a balancing act.  A balancing act I’m clearly failing at.  Sorry.”

He watched her for a few more seconds before returning his attention to Batman as well.  “Sorry,” he grumbled out of the corner of his mouth.

“Now that Chimera has arrived, I’ll review roles.  Aqualad, Artemis, Kid Flash, Robin, and Superboy, you will all be on tracking duty. You will work together on the ground to track the subject.”  They nodded at him.  

“Chimera, you will be on distance reconnaissance, observing the team from a distance.  I don’t want you interacting unless necessary.  Nobody knows about you yet and I want to keep it that way.  I want you calling out positions when needed and using mirage if necessary.”  She nodded at him.  “When you find him, report in, and I’ll recover him.  DO NOT ENGAGE.  If at any point you need assistance, CALL IT IN.  Don’t try to prove yourselves by doing it on your own. Everyone needs help sometimes. Make sure you are reporting your movements.” His voice made clear there was no room for argument or leeway in his statement.  He stared at each of them to make sure they all understood how serious he was.  “You leave in 5.”

The ride to the site was shorter than Chimera expected.  As soon as they landed, they tested out their coms and moved off the ship.  Aqualad and Superboy led the way off the ship. Artemis and Chimera followed behind, with Kid Flash and Robin bringing up the rear.  After a few seconds they heard Kid Flash over the coms “What do you think I need to do to get Aqualad to pair me up with Chimera on the next mission? I’d kill for some alone time with her.”

Everyone froze immediately. Kid Flash’s eyes went wide in embarrassment looking at each of them as they reacted.  Aqualad shot him an exasperated look.  Superboy stared daggers at him.  Robin chuckled and moved away from him, leaving him to deal with the repercussions on his own.  Chimera stared straight ahead, her eyes wide in shock.  Artemis continued looking straight ahead as well, but instead of staring at nothing like Chimera, she stared at Superboy.  “If he gets alone time with you, I get alone time with Superboy.” She grinned at him when he gave her a confused look.

Chimera groaned and let out a frustrated breath.  "Are you guys kidding me?” She exclaimed loudly looking at them.  “It’s like Felix all over again.  Can we focus on the mission, please?"

Robin stopped walking and turned back to her.  "Felix?"

Chimera’s eyes bugged out for a second chastising herself for giving away that clue to her identity, before her face went slack.  She turned away from the group and started walking away.  "How about we agree whatever personal information we find out about one another during a mission we ignore?  Now let's track this guy down.  I’m moving to my position."  The rest of the Team looked at each other and nodded.  They would table that conversation until later.  Right now, they needed to focus on the mission. Once Chimera was in her position, they’d move to their own positions.

After about 5 minutes Chimera still hadn’t checked in.  The Team gave each other anxious looks.  They were ready to get moving and didn’t appreciate having to wait to move.  “Chimera, are you in position?”  Aqualad asked through the coms.  

There was a full 20 second pause before her response came.  “Having a bit of trouble getting into position.  I’ve come across a problem.” She grunted.

“If you are lost, you should be able to follow the map on your flute.  Get in position.  We can’t start until you are.” Aqualad chastised her.

They heard a few noises coming from Chimera’s com but no response to Aqualad’s question. “Chimera! Stand down and get in position.”

“Your first mission and already disobeying orders?” Artemis snorted. “Damn, I’m not even that cocky.”

Chimera’s com finally crackled to life again.  “To be clear, you want me to stop fighting the guy that jumped me and is currently trying to kill me?”

“There’s a guy attacking you?”  Robin whipped around toward the direction he thought she was in.

“You thought I was making these noises for fun?” She huffed at him.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”  Superboy demanded starting to run towards her position.

“I’m just getting my breath back.  He caught me by surprise and got in a lucky hit.” She grumbled.

“Who is it?” Aqualad asked sternly moving toward her as well, but slower than Superboy.

“I’m not sure.  Hey scary looking guy trying to kill me, my teammates want to know your name… uh huh. Really?  I would have thought… I mean, not to criticize,” she grunted a few times as she jumped away from him or struck him, “but isn’t that a little… You know what, I really don’t have the right to critique names as being too on the nose.  He says his name is Killer Croc.”  She paused for a few seconds giving a grunt before speaking again.  “He says to say hi.”  She said slightly strained.

“Damn it.” Robin cursed.

“We’re on our way.”  Aqualad assured her and nodded to the Team to start moving.

“Here already.” Kid Flash reported.  “He’s not even part of the mission!  How did you find him?” He asked incredulously.

“I didn’t go looking for him!  I’m just lucky apparently.” She chuckled out wryly. “Look out, Kid Flash!”

“I’m almost there.”  Superboy called to her.

“Take your time.  We’re just getting to know each other.  He said he wants to have fun with me later.”  Chimera commented with a fake casualness.

“I think your definitions of fun might not match.” Robin remarked drolly.

“Only one way to find out.” She shrugged.

“We’re super excited you’ve decided to come out from the sewers.  We’re looking forward to chatting with you.”  Kid Flash added coldly, running to hit him.  Killer Croc turned just out of his reach and caught him with his tail instead, sending Kid Flash flying down the street.

“Kid Flash!”  Chimera yelled moving toward him.

“I’ll be there in about 20 seconds.”  Superboy stated.  

Chimera nodded even though none of her team could see it and turned back to Killer Croc.  “I’ll have him ready for you.” She whispered to her coms.  “Hey evil killer guy, I heard you were difficult.  You’re really embarrassing yourself here.  I expected better.” She loudly taunted Killer Croc.

“What are you doing?” Superboy yelled into the coms.

They could hear Killer Croc growling at Chimera before she whispered, “Mirage…” but nothing around her seemed to have changed.  Slightly louder she said, “Superboy, expect him from above you in 3, Voyage…. 2, 1.”

Killer Croc lunged at her, throwing his full weight at her in an attempt to break as many bones as he could with his impact.  Instead of hitting her, he found himself falling from a portal in the sky a few stories up.  He braced himself to hit the ground, but it never came.  Instead, he got hit from the side with the force of a building collapsing. He hit a nearby building with a sickening crack.  The force of the impact crushed the bricks where he hit and caused cascading cracks radiating out from the impact site.  

Killer Crock shook his head as he fell to the ground on all fours and looked over where the first hero had been.  Everything looked exactly the same until suddenly she disappeared and a portal stood where she had been.  She reappeared a few feet away at Kid Flash’s side.  He shook his head to try to make sense of the change and looked back to the building that had hit him.  He barely had time to take note of a boy in a black shirt and red ‘S’ stalking toward him, eyes glazed with rage, before the boy raised his arm and punched him again, knocking him back into the building.  

Superboy hit him again and again until Killer Croc passed out from the beating. Superboy raised his arm again but stopped when Chimera laid her hand on his shoulder.  “It’s okay,” she said softly but firmly.  “He’s down.  He isn’t a threat anymore.”

He lowered his arm breathing heavily, still glaring at the villain.

“Where do we want him to go, Aqualad?” Chimera spoke quietly into her com.  “I need a destination to move him.”

“We’ll do it the old fashioned way today and call the police.  I’ll make sure they show you Arkham later.” Aqualad stated calmly coming around the corner to observe the scene.

“Guess you’ll never know if your definitions match up now.” Artemis commented coming up next to Chimera.

“Shame.  He looked… interesting.”  Artemis let out a quiet laugh.  

“How’s he doing?” She asked nodding toward Kid Flash as she moved to check on him. He was now starting to push up onto his knees, though he was still swaying a bit.

“He seems okay, more dazed than anything.  We’ll have to give a better checkup when we get back.” Chimera reported. “I have to recharge anyway. Should I take him back to the ship?” Chimera asked Aqualad.  He nodded.

“Artemis, go with her.  Robin, I want you here to deal with the police.  This is your town, I’m sure you know them.  I’ll call it into Batman and see what he wants to do with the original mission.  Superboy, I want you to keep an eye on him until the police get here.  Do not hit him again unless he wakes up.”  Superboy nodded, never moving his glare from the villain’s collapsed body.

Superboy waited restlessly to check on Chimera, his hands curled into white-knuckled fists the entire time they spoke to the police.  After about an hour, Superboy, Aqualad, and Robin returned to the ship.  Superboy automatically sought out Chimera.  She was sitting with Kid Flash and Artemis, Kid Flash talking and making wild gestures while Artemis and Chimera laughed at him.  Superboy looked up to meet Chimera’s eyes and kept eye contact for a few seconds.   When she smiled at him, he let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding since she was first attacked and relaxed his hands. Chimera walked over to him and gently laid her hand on his arm.  “You okay?” Her eyes were filled with concern.

“I’m fine.” He growled.  “Are you okay?” He looked her up and down, searching for any signs or injury.  “How could you let him get you like that?”

“I’ll be fine.  I’ve had worse and still won the fight.”  She gave him a small smile.  “He hits hard, but not as hard as some super teammates I’ve gone up against.” He huffed at her, his eyes still furrowed and frowning at her.  “He got a lucky hit in.  It happens.  I recovered and I had teammates there to help.  Thank you.”  Her eyes were shining with gratitude and softness.  Superboy’s eyes softened too and nodded at her.  

She could see he was still tense.  Watching a teammate get hurt had that effect on people.  She certainly had that reaction when Adrien or Alya or Nino or any of her old team took a hard hit.  “Can I give you a hug?” She asked tentatively.  Hugging her friends after the fight had always calmed her down. She hoped it did the same for him.

He stared at her uncertain how to respond for a few seconds but finally nodded again and opened his arms to her.  She smiled at him and walked into his embrace, holding him tightly.  He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her firmly to his chest.  He rested his head on hers, holding her close for a few minutes, slowly relaxing in the knowledge she was safe and close.  

<><><><><> 

Superboy watched Chimera as she sketched in the common room.  She sat with her back against the armrest of the couch, her legs stretched out across the couch.  Luckily, she was short enough that it still left room for Superboy. She had turned on some old looking movie she was barely paying attention to.

He walked in, sat on the free cushion, and watched the movie for a few moments.  “What even is this?  This is terrible.”

She looked up startled like she hadn’t noticed him sit down.  “Hey.  This is Highlander.”  He looked at her with a raised eyebrow.  She gave him a sheepish grin.  “One of my friends is a movie guy.  He thought I might like it.  Good period costumes, he said.  Fun sword play and light shows.”

He nodded and looked back to the movie.  After a few minutes of glancing at Chimera from the corner of his eye he finally asked the thought that had been on his mind since their mission.  "So… who's Felix?"  He didn’t look away from the movie when he asked.

Chimera glared at him.  "I thought we agreed we forget any personal information we find out during a mission."

He finally looked over at her with a dubious look.  "No, you suggested that. None of us agreed to it."  He leaned back and rested his elbow on the back of the couch.  "So, tell me about Felix and how do I find him? I just want to talk to him."

She snorted.  “You’d be the first.  Most want to punch him in the face.  Which is exactly what I did and I can assure you it is in fact as gratifying as you hope it would be.”  She gave him a grin.  He huffed out a laugh before turning his attention to the movie.

After a few more moments, she looked back up at him.  “So… are you excited for school?”  

He groaned.  “No.”

She furrowed her brow.  She really wished she could go with him to help him at school.  She was nervous about making friends in her new school too, but at least she was used to school.  This was going to be Superboy’s first time going to school at all.  She really wanted to forget about the whole identity issue and go with him, or get them to send him to her school so she could keep a covert eye on him, but they wanted to keep him close.  “Sorry,” she mumbled instead.  “Do you know what you’re going to wear?”  

He looked at her for a second or two as he thought about it.  He motioned to his shirt and gave her a confused look.  She looked back at him in horror.  “You can’t wear that!  Secret identity.  You have to wear something different.”

He groaned and huffed at her.  He thought for a second then took off his shirt, turned it inside out, and put it back on that way.  Her eyes opened wide in surprise and she blushed heavily before turning back down to her sketchbook.  “Yeah, um… No.”  She stammered out, focusing solely on the blank page in front of her and willing her blush to go away.  This is not how teammates react to other teammates.  “I’ll come up with something else for you.  What colors do you like? “

He furrowed his brow and looked down at his shirt.  “Black… red…dark.”

She nodded, “Broody colors.  Got it.”  He scowled at her.  She gave him a cheeky grin.  “I’ll have something for you tomorrow.  We’ll work on what your style is as you decide what you like.  I should get your measurements though.”  She looked down at her notebook and started sketching again. After a few moments of sketching, she looked over shyly.  “But, so you know, maybe don’t do that at school.”  She said motioning toward his shirt.

He frowned at her, “Why?”

She stared at him incredulously for a few moments, trying to decide if he was serious or not.  She finally realized he was when he continued to frown at her, confused about her concern.  She wasn’t sure whether his innocence was incredibly sweet or concerning.  “Oh, my sweet summer child, I really wish I could be there to protect you tomorrow, but… identity, you know?  So I’m going to need you to protect yourself.”

“I’ll be fine.” He grumbled, turning to the movie.

She continued to stare at him a bit longer before speaking up again. “You know you’re handsome, right?”

His head whipped toward her, his eyes wide.  “You think so?”

She let out a disbelieving laugh and smiled at him.  “I know so.  Extremely handsome and broody.  A bad boy with a good heart.” His cheeks started turning pink as she spoke. Every word turned them darker.  “People are going to be falling all over themselves to get close to you.  Boys, girls, thems.  You’re going to get all of their attention.  Some will show it like Artemis, some more subtle, some less subtle. You’re going to get a lot of attention at school, people wanting to get close to you because you’re handsome, not everyone, but some.”  She paused to look at him earnestly.  “Just be careful.  Make friends with people who make you feel better, happier, lighter.  You don’t have to make friends with anyone, but if you meet someone you like, you should.  Although if it seems like something someone says is too good to be true, it probably isn’t.”  She warned him with a dark look crossing her eyes quickly.

“I don’t need more friends.  I have enough friends. Friends who think I’m extremely handsome.”  He grinned at her.

She burst out laughing not expecting him to be that bold.  She rolled her eyes.  “You don’t need more friends, but more friends can make life better sometimes.  If it’s the right people.”  He grunted and turned back to the movie.  

They sat in a comfortable silence for a while, Chimera sketching different outfits for Superboy, Superboy watching the movie and frowning occasionally.  The silence was broken occasionally with Chimera asking him if he liked some element of a character’s costume or not.  About half an hour into the movie Superboy grumbled, “This movie is depressing.”

Chimera looked up from her third sketch and took notice of the movie again.  “What makes you say that?  The effects aren’t that bad, not for that time anyway. I mean the sword fighting could use some work and the accents are terrible, but… I think it’s fun.”

Superboy continued to watch the movie for a while longer.  “I don’t age either.”  He said quietly.  Chimera looked at him questioningly.  He sighed and looked down.  “I’ll be this age, physically at least, for the rest of my life.  Part of the cloning process.”

Chimera gave him a sad look and reached out her foot, the only part of her body that was close enough to touch him, to pat his leg.  “At least you’ll be hot.”  She offered with a sympathetic smile.  He huffed at her and returned to watching the movie, but he couldn’t help the small smile on his lips.

She watched the movie with him for a while longer watching as the main character’s wife died of old age in his arms while he was still the same age as when they met.  She frowned at the screen and said quietly, “I’ll age, but much, much slower than everyone else.”  Superboy looked over at her in surprise.  She offered him a mirthless smile.  “It’s part of the powers I have now.  I’ll live for centuries if I want to.”  She looked back to the movie and frowned as the main character buried his wife.  “I’m not so sure that’s a good thing.”

Superboy nodded at her.  “At least you’ll be hot.” He offered with a smile.

She laughed out loud at him.  Once she settled down she gave him a crooked smile.  “I’d take that more to heart if you had any idea what I look like.”

He gave her a small smile and watched the rest of the movie in silence.  When it was over, he looked over at Chimera to find her examining him with her eyes narrowed as though sizing him up.  “What?” he demanded.

“You should use the name Conner for school.”

“Like the guy in the movie?”

“Yeah.  You need a name.  Conner’s a good name.  I think it suits you.”  She nodded as she said it, like it was decided.

He fought the blush that wanted to appear again.  If she liked the name, that’s what it would be.  “I can live with Conner.” He nodded nonchalantly, trying not to give away how significant he thought it was.

“No, I live with Conner.”  She gave him a cheeky grin and started laughing at her own bad joke.  He groaned and threw a pillow at her.  Thankfully, she was in her suit because he threw it with enough force to burst the pillow open when it hit her.  She laughed harder as the fluff rained down on them.

“But, so you know, maybe don’t tell jokes like that at school.” He said in mock distain.

She smiled wistfully at her sketchbook.  “Yeah, I think my old partner rubbed off on me.  He would have loved that joke.”

“Old partner?”

“Yeah… um… I don’t think… identity secrets, you know?”

“Okay.  Can you say, is he still alive?”

“Yes, he is.”

“What happened?  Why isn’t he your partner anymore?”  He paused for a few seconds to gauge her reaction.  “If you can say.” He added quickly.

“I can’t…identity.”  She gave him an apologetic look.  They sat without looking at each other for a while.  “He’s not a hero anymore.” She whispered after a few minutes.  He looked up at her with wide eyes.  “Oh, no.  He didn’t become a villain.” She rushed to reassure him.  “He just… he went through a lot and decided to walk away.”

“Do you miss him?”

“Um…I miss…” She thought how to word her response.  She wanted to answer him honestly, but it wasn’t safe for anyone to know they were still close.  “Yes.”  She answered instead.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.  He was my teammate, my best friend.  I’m happy he did what he had to do to take care of himself.  He’s happier now, or he will be eventually.  And now I have a new team and more friends.  We both did what we had to do.”

Conner nodded and looked around the room trying to figure out how to make the air feel less awkward.  His eyes landed on the end of the credits.  “He’s not the guy that recommended this movie is he?  Because that is not a good friend.”

She barked out a laugh.  “He’s not.  But the one that recommended it is like a brother, so watch it.” She narrowed her eyes at him and pointed her pencil at him in mock threat.

“Maybe I’ll get to meet him someday then.” He kept his voice light but gave her an uncertain look.

She gave him a brilliant smile and nodded.  “I hope so.”  He smiled back at her and helped pick up the pillow fluff that surrounded them.

 Tags:

@mickylikesstuff @mystery-5-5 @roguishredaxion

[lifeexperience]

MariBat March 2021 - New Start

Masterlist - Previous

*

Bruce was nervous.

It was clear to his sons. To Selina. To Bilal.

More precisely, he was a nervous wreck.

“Can you sit down or I can break your legs for you?” Jason pushed him into one of the chairs in front of the computer with a rude move.

“Hood, please…” Dick began standing up but was stopped by Damian.

“No!” the youngest said with a smug glee. “He is right. It’s not the first time when Father is meeting a blood child not knowing about him beforehand.”

“Yes.” Jason nodded in agreement. “He already has practice, so I don’t understand why he is so pissy about it. Like some teen girl in front of her first jock crush.” He adjusted his straps again. A nervous habit. “Babyba…”

“Kitten.” Selina cut in sternly. “He is a kitten.”

His second son rolled his eyes. “The kitten is already a superhero with an established badass partner. He has good emotional control, not like us. And he inherited more from your fiancé than you.” he listed more calmly as he glanced at the glaring Damian. Bruce sighed. Jason always loved to annoy his brothers, but here it could be really dangerous.

“Master Jason, I hope you don't want to be left out of the next month's babysitting routine.” they heard Alfred wise voice from the speakers.

Jason immediately started backing up in his words and trying to sooth out any ruffles in Robin’s uniform. They also heard Tim’s sniggering through the static noise. So he also was there. And if Tim was stalking on them then it was sure this evening’s record would end up with Barbara and the girls.

Bruce didn’t know it was a good or a bad thing. The girls could be more ruthless than the boys. And there were Damian and Jason.

And a new son.

A son.

He didn’t even know if they would learn his identity today. Like Ladybug already found out about them, but it could be dangerous at any time if they akumatized. And if he remembered correctly Ladybug and Chat Noir didn’t even know each other under the mask.

Here comes a headache.

Again.

He stood up to go for a pill. Fortunately Bilal had a really equipped health aid section in his basement. There were a lot of different painkillers. Even some charm from the lady luck herself for magical indicated problems. Those children were indeed badasses.

As the silent minute was broken with a quiet click, every one of them focused on the door.

They were here.

The entrance was pushed open slowly. Bruce heard fast murmuring from the Parisian heroes as they walked in. Ladybug was holding something in her hands while Chat Noir - his son - carefully closed the door.

“Heyya, little bro!” Jason couldn't restrain himself for more. Dick just shook his head resignedly then smiled welcomingly.

“We are happy you two came.” he stepped up and showed them further in the base. Damian growled a little then stopped as he caught Bruce disapproving frown.

He really loved his children, but they were handful.

“What is this?” Dick leaned closer to the bundle in Ladybug’s hands.

The two french looked at each other, and the girl held out a box instead to him. It was a patisserie box, inside a few different cakes and pastry. However her other hand was still full on with some dotted clothes.

“And that?” Jason pointed at it curiously.

The heroine looked down and blinked up shyly. A spreading blush grew from her neck to her ears. “We found him in a rain gutter when... There was no nest, so…”

In the red bundle was a little bird with ruffled feathers. His sons watched it in awe. It had a beautiful blue-grey and yellow plumage with a hint of white and black. For the situation it was in, the little bird was really calm and as it tilted its head, a little curious.

“It’s a Parus Major.” Damian jumped at his feet and ran swiftly to the animal. Of course he would, Bruce thought, watching with a smile as his youngest got excited about the little bird. “Mother never let me foster any Parus Major in the....” he cut abruptly off. Jason and Dick changed a meaningful glance before started asking questions about the bird. Sometimes Chat Noir chirped in shyly while his partner handed the animal over to Damian.

Lost in their conversation the boys didn’t even notice as Ladybug skipped away to the adults. Or more adults than Red Hood and Nightwing ever were.

“Monsieur Batman, Madam Kyle! Nightrunner!” she nodded in greetings to each of them.

“Little Bug, I have to say, you are a little badass!” Selina opened her mouth before Bruce could say something. He also won a disapproving look from his financé as she praised the increasingly embarrassed Parisian.

Bruce turned to Bilal for some help about what he did again, however the vigilante shook his head negatively. And of course, he couldn’t ask Alfred about it, because he was only in the comms and not here in person. Great.

“I am not here for the pleasantries, Madam!” the girl said after gulping her own bashfulness. Her voice was not that hard but carried a little stern edge. Bruce knew this voice, he used so much sometimes almost forgot to not use it. It mirrored his Batman voice.

“Please explain!” he straightened himself out in the chair.

For a long moment Ladybug looked at his cowl like searching for something then took a big breath. She glanced back at the boys and nodded to herself as they were all absorbed in their own conservation.

“Chat Noir is hurt. He is good at hiding it, but he is hurt. And if he isn’t ready to show himself to you, then… I think you have to step back a little.” She was confident. She stood beside his partner’s decision with her full heart and mind.

“I don’t want…”

“I know.” she interrupted him. “He wants you to learn about his new family too. But his life… Our life is not that easy.” She blinked some. “If we are akumatized the world ends. And we can’t let that happen.”

Bruce vaguely sensed how both Selina and Bilal tensed up at once. He also felt how his own muscles froze up to the indication of a new world-ending scenario. Of course, they already knew about the possibility, but to say it out loud from a teen girl’s mouth. It was another matter.

They had to be careful and follow the boy's wants.

“And I have to warn you about your identity. I didn’t say anything in the police station, and you two were really lucky that Chat Noir didn’t notice Madam Kyle. But you have to be more careful.” she explained, frowning. “I am not the only observant person in this city.”

Oh shit!

They didn’t even think about it at that moment. If Ladybug didn’t know about him being Bruce Wayne, that would have been a rookie mistake. No, not had been. It was a rookie mistake.

And he hated to be a rookie.

“By the way, it’s a common occurrence to fight with a fucking hydra?” Jason’s voice broke them out of their tense state.

“Language!” Bruce and Ladybug hissed at the same time with the same tone. Again.

The boys all looked them with surprised eyes then faced back with Chat Noir. Bruce kind of saw how they all debated how the heroine wasn’t his child. It was written in their masked face, and he knew them very well to recognize their mind’s logic.

Dick wanted to shoot sister-rights, while Damian was getting angry again. And Jason… Jason just looked too smug for his own good.

“If we are… kind of there…” the Parisian cat started shakily refocusing everybody. “I would like to say something.”

Fortunately besides Bruce, Dick also noticed Damian’s instinct and grabbed the boy by his shoulder and adjusted the little bird’s nest, distracting him at the same time. So without one batarang they all could concentrate back on Chat Noir.

Bruce tried to look encouragingly, however his new child only glanced at him for moments. He clearly waited for Ladybug’s approval and not his.

The girl searched for something in her partner’s eyes in the same way as not long ago she searched in his soul. It was kind of disturbing how it felt like she saw his mind like an open book. It was surely a magical skill.

When she finally nodded, Chat Noir looked around again. He is scared. His hands shook and his unnatural pupils were dilated. His closed posture said he wanted to be anywhere else than here. Bruce almost stood up to stop him whatever he wanted to do.

However he was late.

With a murmur and a big green flash, on the place of Chat Noir stood a thin boy with blond hair and green eyes.

“My… my name is Adrien Ag... Agreste.”

In the room almost everyone forgot how to breath. At least Bruce was close to drown without his oxygen intake.

This boy. His son. Adrien.

He stepped closer to him while trying to say something. Anything. Reassure him. Greet him. Introduce himself and his - Adrien’s - siblings.

However Jason was faster. “You are that perfume guy!”

*

@maribatmarch-2k21

To be continued in May...

[invisibleanonymousmonsters]

Could you please write Jason and Y/N (Father of Mine Universe) with prompts 48, 31, and maybe 30? could go either way.

Even if you choose not to write this, thanks for creating Father of Mine, it's one of my favorite fics!

Father of Mine

48. Using your body to shield them from attack.

31. Hurriedly checking for their pulse.

30. Performing CPR when they stop breathing.

Jason and Y/N were walking along the water after getting dinner.

Most of the harbors in Gotham were run by one crime lord or another. Which meant that there were very few areas on the water for civilians to enjoy – or feel safe. 

But Jason knew of a strip that was under the radar.

There were a few other couples with the same idea. And random groups of kids and teenagers hanging out and messing around.

Jason was relaxed.

That was his first mistake.

Jason had immediately clocked a random middle-aged man who was covered in sweat and was visibly trembling.

Being far too familiar with the sight, Jason assumed the guy was another unfortunate addict. 

But then he noticed the man was carrying a backpack.

Jason had all of 5 seconds to realize what was about to happen.

He shielded Y/N with his body while screaming as loud as he could, “Get down!”

Jason knew he couldn’t save everyone, and Y/N would always be his number one priority.

The next second, the bomb exploded.

The impact knocked Jason unconscious.

For how long, he had no idea.

He was disoriented from the explosion, his ears ringing from tinnitus and his vision struggling to focus from the vertigo. Yet, somehow he could still hear the beating of his heart in his eardrums. 

People were screaming in pain around him and others were crying as they looked down at their loved ones. Half the harbor was on fire from the explosion. Cement and debris was everywhere. Jason’s hair was grey from it.

He blinked and then panicked.

“Y/N!” Jason screamed when he realized she wasn’t anywhere near him.

He jumped to his feet and whipped around in every direction looking for her.

“Y/N!” He screamed even louder, his throat burning from the effort.

Then he realized when the explosion when off they had been standing next to the railing that blocked off the water. The railing that had now been blasted away and into the harbor.

Jason sprinted to the edge and looked down at the black water below.

Without hesitation, he dove into the depths.

It was almost impossible to see anything.

But just seconds later, he found Y/N unconscious and completely submerged.

Jason had never swam faster in his life.

But when they breached, Y/N didn’t gasp for air.

She was completely unconscious.

Jason’s eyes darted around, trying to find their escape.

By some miracle, there was a rusty ladder that led back up to the pier from the water.

Jason put Y/N’s body over his shoulder as he climbed the ladder, silently praying that the metal didn’t break under their combined weight.

When they reached the top, he gently laid her down and his fingers shot to the pulse point at her neck.

Nothing.

“No, no, no,” Jason mumbled. “Y/N. Come on, baby. You’re not doing this to me.”

He found his Red Hood comm in the pocket of his jacket, and put it to his hear.

“Contact Bruce,” he commanded the AI as he started performing CPR on Y/N.

“What is it?” Bruce answered with slight panic. 

Jason had never called him like this before. And therefore Bruce knew immediately something terrible happened.

“Get the fucking jet here right now,” Jason growled.

“What’s happened?” Bruce asked, but it was obvious he was moving around already to leave.

“There was an explosion. She doesn’t have a pulse and she’s not breathing,” it was all Jason was capable of giving him. “Just get the fucking jet here now!”

He didn’t have time to explain more and hung up. And he didn’t have to say Y/N’s name for Bruce know who he was talking about. There was only one woman in Jason’s life that would have him sounding so panicked and desperate.

Jason continued his CPR, fully focused now that he knew Bruce was on the way.

Still nothing.

He did another round of compressions.

Jason’s eyes started watery as his mind began to believe that Y/N wasn’t going to make it.

He wouldn’t survive.

Y/N had changed his life. She made him better, made him good, made him want to worker harder – do literally anything to become the man she deserved and to continue to be deserving of her love.

“Please,” Jason whimpered. “Please don’t leave me.”

But then Y/N’s eyes shot open and she immediately turned over and started coughing up water.

“Holy fuck,” Jason gasped in relief at the sight.

Y/N continued coughing until her throat was scratched and dry.

Jason rubbed her back, trying to comfort her without preventing her body from getting all the water out of her lungs.

After she finished, she was shaking from being freezing cold and from the shock.

Despite him also being wet, Jason put his coat over her shoulders.

“Don’t ever fucking do that to me again,” Jason begged Y/N as he pulled her into his arms. 

He kissed the crown of her head and hoped his body heat would be enough to warm her up.

“What happened?” Her voice had never been raspier and it was now quivering.

“A bomb went off. I thought I shielded you from it, but the impact must’ve thrown you into the harbor.”

“I’m OK,” she tried to tell him. But her shaking voice was unconvincing. 

Jason wasn’t letting go of her anytime soon.

It was only 5 minutes later that the batplane touched down on what remained of the pier.

Jason looked up to see Dick, Tim, and Damian jump out and immediately start helping the injured.

But Bruce, dressed in his Batman uniform, was walking straight to Jason and Y/N.

“She needs to go to a hospital,” Jason called out when Bruce was a few yards away. “Her heart stopped beating and her lungs took in too much water.”

Jason knew Bruce wouldn’t argue with taking Y/N there immediately.

Bruce was clearly relieved at seeing his daughter alive and conscious. But that didn’t mean she was in the clear. Nearly drowning still had its risks. If her heart stopped beating, she was in danger of brain damage or pneumonia.

“I’ll take her. You help the others,” Bruce ordered as he stepped forward to take Y/N from Jason’s arms.

“Like fucking hell I am,” Jason growled as he stood up with Y/N in his arms.

Bruce was about to fight him on it, but then he met Y/N’s eyes. Her skin was pale and almost had a blue tint to it. She looked so small and vulnerable in Jason’s arms. Not like the strong and grown woman that had first strutted into Wayne Manor.

“I’m not leaving her,” Jason added for good measure.

Bruce finally sighed and nodded. “Take the jet. You know where to go. I’ll meet you there.”

Before Jason could carry her away, Y/N whispered, “What about the others?” 

Her eyes tried to look around her boyfriend’s broad shoulders to see the other victims.

“B is going to help them,” Jason gently told her. He even angled his body to block her line of sight. She didn’t need to see any of it. 

“We already have ambulance and firemen on the way,” Bruce added, hoping it would convince her further not to worry herself. 

There was nothing she could do for them anyway. 

Then Bruce locked eyes with Jason. “Go. Get out of here. Take care of her.”

“Always,” Jason muttered quickly before hurrying Y/N to the jet.

————————

Y/N woke up to two low voices clearly having a serious discussion, but trying to keep their voices down.

When she opened her eyes, Y/N realized she was in a hospital room. But it wasn’t just any room. It seemed like a five-star hotel with how fancy it was. It didn’t have that sterile smell or those harsh fluorescent lights that caused headaches.

“It was a turf war,” Bruce told Jason quietly. “Carmine has jurisdiction over the harbor the two of you were at tonight. But Farrelli wanted it for himself. He forced his latest victim to bring the bomb.”

Jason crossed his arms. “So, the guy was dead either way, Farrelli just thought he’d put him to some use before he murdered him.”

Bruce nodded. “And kill five more people with him.”

“Five people died?” Y/N burst out without realizing it.

Both men’s heads whipped in her direction.

“You’re awake,” Jason sighed and immediately rushed to her side.

“What hospital am I at?” She mumbled, looking around again.

“Gotham General,” he told her as he sat on the edge of the bed to face her.

Jason gently grabbed her hand and kissed the back of it. But he had no intention of letting it go, keeping a tight hold and rubbing his thumb back and forth across her skin.

Bruce was slower to join them as he walked with his hands in his pant pockets.

“This isn’t Gotham General,” she commented with a suspicious gaze. 

Jason scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Well, as soon as Bruce arrived, they realized that you’re Gotham royalty by blood, and brought you to a special suite.”

Then Y/N’s eyes slowly moved to her father. “Five people died from the explosion?”

She needed to know. But she also knew that both men would try to protect her from possible survivor’s guilt.

So Bruce just nodded.

“How are you feeling?” Jason asked, trying to distract her by changing the subject.

“Tired. And my throat is sore,” she admitted with a light shrug.

Then she looked up at Jason and really took him in.

There were dark shadows under his eyes – the eyes that were still a bit bloodshot. 

Had he been crying? She hadn’t registered that. 

His hair was a mess, probably from drying haphazardly after jumping into the water to save her.

“Are you OK?” She asked.

It would be right on brand for Jason to risk his life saving her, but ignore any and all injures that he’d received from the same life-threatening travesty.

“I’m fine. Always am,” Jason reassured her too quickly.

Bruce chimed in,“We were all just worried about you, Y/N.”

Both men knew her next question was going to be about the well-being of Damian, Dick, and Tim.

“Can we go home?” She asked softly.

Y/N had always hated hospitals. And once her mother got cancer, Y/N absolutely despised them. Now all she had attached to them was bad memories that constantly threatened to trigger her. 

“They just need to get a scan back, make sure everything’s good,” Jason tried to comfort her. “Once that’s good, I’ll take you home.”

He knew her distaste for hospitals and was prepared for her to want to escape at the earliest opportunity.

“Scan?” Y/N questioned.

“You didn’t have a pulse,” Bruce explained. “You have a concussion. We need to make sure there was no brain damage or any lasting side effects.”

“Right,” she mumbled, trying not to sound worried.

“You’re gonna be fine,” Jason reassured her as he cupped her cheek.

“Perhaps you should stay at the manor for a few days,” Bruce offered. “You can relax and not be bothered.”

“She can not be bothered in our apartment,” Jason interrupted, giving him side eye.

“Jason…” Y/N warned gently.

She knew the signs of Jason getting worked up. The fire in his eyes was always something Y/N could read – more than anyone else.

Bruce wasn’t offended by Jason’s little snipe. He was used to his temper. But his gaze did turn rather serious. 

“Could I talk to you outside for a moment?”

Jason was about to refuse, not wanting to leave Y/N’s side. But he knew that would just most likely lead to an argument. And Y/N didn’t need to hear or see that. She was already exhausted and recovering. The last thing she needed was to witness was her father and boyfriend going at it – especially over her.

So Jason just nodded and stormed out of the room.

The quicker they got this over with, the better.

As soon as the door closed, Jason was sizing Bruce up.

“What exactly is your next move?” Bruce questioned.

“I’m going after Farrelli,” Jason rumbled, as if it was obvious.

No one put Y/N in danger and got away with it. Jason had already come up with a plan on how to seek his revenge. 

It was going to be gruesome and dirty, but nothing less than what the bastards deserved.

Bruce clearly had expected this answer. “So do you plan on doing that while you take care of Y/N?” And he tilted his head as he challenged Jason.

“Are you really trying to stop me?”

Bruce took a step forward. “No, Jason. I’m trying to protect you from yourself. You get blinded by vengeance. And I let you get away with it. But now your actions don’t just effect you…they effect her, too.”

Jason blinked.

“Y/N needs you right now. Even though she will act like she doesn’t.” Bruce inhaled. “If you’re going to put revenge over her wellbeing, she should stay at the manor.”

This was a somewhat of a warning – an opportunity for Jason to do the right thing before he could make his mistake.

Jason’s head hung low now. “I can’t let him get away with it. She almost died, Bruce.”

“And he won’t. But we’ll take care of it,” Bruce promised.

Jason thought it about a moment, before he finally nodded slowly. “I think the manor would be good. But I won’t leave her.”

“I never said you had to,” Bruce corrected.

Jason nodded again and made his way to the door of Y/N’s room again.

“Jason?” Bruce called.

He turned around with an eyebrow quirked.

“Thank you for saving her life.”

Jason tried not to roll his eyes, but took a few steps back to Bruce. 

“You have your opinions about me and her, I’m sure. But I want to make this is clear: I’m always going to protect her. Always. What happened tonight is never going to happen again. I’d die protecting her.”

Jason didn’t wait for Bruce’s response before turning back around. 

But just as he opened Y/N’s door her heard, “I know, Jason. I’ve always known.”

—————

Jason was able to convince Y/N to stay at the manor.

And she surprisingly agreed – as long as he came with her.

Alfred spoiled her rotten with all of her favorite meals. He was constantly bring her tea or coffee. 

Damian ordered all of his pets to keep her company and cuddle with her. To the point where Jason was annoyed because there was literally no space for him.

Tim downloaded a hundred movies for her to watch. 

Dick sent flowers and chocolates. 

Even Clark stopped by when he heard what happened. 

Unbeknownst to Y/N, all the boys and Bruce were working on taking down Farrelli. 

If Jason was the man from just a few years ago, Farrelli’s corpse would already be rotting somewhere in Gotham. But he had changed. Now they had to do things the right way.

Jason stuck to Y/N’s side like glue. He hovered, watched her like a hawk, wouldn’t let her do anything on her own.

After of a few days of this, Y/N finally had enough.

“You gonna talk to me anytime soon?” She asked him in bed on their third night.

Jason broke their eye contact.

“Jason. Please?” She whispered.

Silence filled the room.

“I can’t do it.”

Her brow furrowed. “Can’t do what?”

For a split moment, she thought he was about to try and break up with her. 

“I can’t watch you get hurt again. I just…I can’t.”

She cupped his cheeks. “But I’m right here. And I’m fine, Jason.”

“When I…” He hesitated. “When I died. I knew it was coming. I saw the bomb counting down and I knew there was no escape. I accepted my fate. I knew I was going to die. And I was scared.” 

Jason shook his head and took in a deep breath, “But Y/N…that was nothing compared to what I felt when I was convinced I’d lost you. I’m never been so fucking terrified in my life.”

Y/N smothered him with her embrace. “I’m so sorry for scaring you. But I’m OK. Please just focus on that. Please.”

“I can’t lose you, Y/N.” Jason whispered into her hair. “This place was hell before I met you. And I have no fuckin’ interest in fighting it without you.”

Y/N wished she could promise Jason that she would never leave him. But she was the child of a mother who passed far too soon. She knew life and death could be so cruel, ripping the loved ones away with or without warning.

No, she didn’t die this time. But who was to say something like this wouldn’t happen again? And maybe next time, she wouldn’t be so lucky. They lived in Gotham after all.

“Fate may have other ideas…But I never plan on leaving your side, Jason. I love you too much to do anything else.”

Jason actually laughed. “I can fight fate.”

He’d done it once before.

----------------

I have a few more of these prompts for bonus material. But let me know what you think 🤗