#both Batman Begins and The Batman covered this of like

[eleanor-bradstreet]

Okay I'm back from a whirlwind zip through London and Florence, heart full of love and eyes full of Benophie so let’s make a breakdown of my errant unhinged thoughts on the season 4 sneak peek!

Benophie: They are somehow both my parents and my children 🥹

Goobie hurts either his ears or his delicious slender fingies and then tries to play it off hoping no one saw

Beneloise are going to continue to be the best, obviously

Violet. VIOLET 🥵 Mama is ready to SLAY. Marcus better be disguised as a cat at this party because that man should be on all fours ready to lap up whatever treats she gives him.

Also: don't even get me started on Eloise of Arc there in the background and how the show dressed her in the coolest possible iteration of this costume. Holy shit, season 4, slow down. I’m starting to think this is a quality tv show…

LOOK at the masquerade! LOOKADDITT!! This is not the cacophony of metallic technicolor vomit season 3 taught me to expect. This is not chintzy flowers and sequins. This is a reversion to season 1’s muted palette. This is dark fantasy. This is the masquerade in The Labyrinth. It’s spooky, it’s moody, and it’s better than I had ever hoped for from Jess Brownell. She said herself Bowie covers may make it onto the soundtrack. I’ll start to pray now.

Uh, Jess Brownell...is that you?

The unicorn-head lady is absolutely sending me 🤣🤣

My sweet, beloved, beautiful John all returned from Scotland and having fun 😭😭😭 why do you do this to me

So clearly costuming decided both to grant mercy to Penelope and bypass her Leprechaun-ification (presumably problematic given Nic is Irish) and give Pirate Colin his Behemoth-Hatted Pirate Wife, Penelope the Blonde. I think Pen has just become Nicola at this point. It's...a lewk and I'm here for it. But who exactly wants to speak to Mrs. Bridgerton now that she's a known mole for the Queen is beyond me.

There she is, the people's princess, absolutely radiant 🥹🩶

Benedict being a smart ass: "Please enter my mother's domicile to begin your tenure of servitude while I begrudgingly permit you to have free will, all the while intending to grabass you in the halls and woo you into being mine forever."

Cinderella era, here we gooooooo

God, they already look like bitches. I'm going to love to hate them.

*screaming, crying, throwing up* as he holds her like she's made of glass; like she's a dream that will evaporate if he looks away, as he touches her for the first time and teaches her to dance 🫠 The way I have DREAMED of this for YEARS 💙

MY COTTAGE MY COTTAGE MY COTTAGE MY COTTAGE WET MY COTTAGE

EX-FUCKING SCUSE ME, WHO INVITED CLIVE OWEN ONTO THE SET? I legitimately had to pause to realize this was him because I saw both Clive Owen and EDMUND first and now I'm remembering how a critic ages ago described the similarity to Clive and also how good the casting is that he looks just like his father and I fucking CAN'T and he's not the only thing that's soaking wet and heaving 😰 giving her those fuck me eyes right from the get

Apparently because his disguise is so shit, his masquerade tekkers is to whip out his gravely Batman voice. Okay, Bruce Bridgerton, calm down. You won't tell your mother? I recall this was also your concern three seasons ago. Always sneaking behind Violet's back, aye? Just kidding, baritone daddy. Let's keep our dirty gazebo secrets together uwu

They did it. They fucking did it. They gave him the phaeton.

THEN WHY DON'T YOU GO AHEAD AND RIP MY OVARIES OUT WITH YOUR BARE HANDS SHONDA? GO RIGHT AHEAD AND SHOW ME CANON PAPA BEARDTHONY AND WATCH ME DIE RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY COMPUTER SCREEN. THANKS.

So, in summary...

Season 4 already looks waaaaaay better than I had dared to hope for. The palette. The vibes. The obvious book accuracy. I have...no notes, other than to squeal in barely-contained excitement for *checks watch* about 18 months. Here's hoping it ultimately does satisfy. I'm at least grateful for the very juicy crumbs we're getting in the meantime 💙

[wahbegan]

Something something Batman is a billionaire fascist discourse ignores the fact that Batman has his roots in the hardboiled detective story, which thematically was written at a time when trust in the police was at a catastrophic low and as such mainly deals with private detectives kinda extralegally cracking cases that the cops are either not solving or actively obstructing and his conflict with the police has remained a fairly consistent point in most of his stories outside the Golden Age of Comics, Commissioner Gordon is the exception not the rule something something

[fancyfeathers]

Okay so I see a lot of Yandere!Batfam with a darling who is one of the children in the family but what I don’t see is Yandere!Batfam with two darlings, a single mother with a daughter.

Based on this quick post I made (link)

Like just picture the mother!darling being a rich sweetheart of Bruce Wayne’s at one point, perhaps even being his fiancé bit was the engagement was called off by her because of his work as Batman. She did not want her husband keeping secrets from her, and then imagine if they had a child one day, what sort of life would it be for them?

Well that question certainly comes to life when she finds out she is pregnant just days after leaving Bruce. She has far too much pride to go back to him and scared what life her baby would live with their father being in danger every night. She gives birth and raises her daughter herself, beginning to travel in the world for her work, leaving Gotham just as Bruce takes in Dick Grayson.

Years go by and she raises her own child and Bruce takes in his own children. Of course they hear about each other in the press but really have not paid much mind until she is back in Gotham, attending a charity event at a hotel. Her daughter is up in their hotel room, asleep or so she hopes anyway, and she is sipping on a glass of champagne while making meaningless small talk and then like as if out of a scene from a movie both she and Bruce spot each other from across the room. Conversation between the two is unavoidable especially with Dick trying to push the two together but it is sour quickly with her quietly chewing him out for choosing his vigilante identity over her and-

“Ma’am, your daughter just woke up, a nightmare.”

The conversation is cut short by one of the hotel staff speaking out to her while holding a little girl’s hand who is standing there in her nightgown, eyes full of tears while she clutches her stuffed animal. Bruce just watches as his ex-fiancé takes care of her daughter, his daughter, excusing herself from the party to put her back to bed. Then when the end of the party comes and people have started to leave he finds her again and asks her the question…

“Is she mine? Your daughter…”

“…Yes… she is… I-I am sorry Bruce, I have to go.”

She runs off upstairs and he is just left there starstruck and with his own kids not too far away and listening into their conversation. So when they all arrive back at the manor Bruce is due to give an explanation about the woman who is the mother of Bruce’s daughter, Damian’s half sister, and who might as well be the little sister of the rest of the lot.

So with a bit of planning the kids come up with a way to add a few people into their family, a mother and a little sister…

Dick goes to visit them at the hotel, calling beforehand and asking her to meet husband in the hotel lounge to talk. He tries to convince her to come back, her daughter needs to know who her father and brothers are, and Bruce misses her and she cannot deny that she love Bruce at one point and-

That plan goes up in flames as she runs upstairs, rejecting Dick’s idea.

Then that falls to plan B with Jason.

This wasn’t actually intended to be a plan, just Jason keeping an eye on the little girl from afar to make sure nothing happened to her while she was out with her nanny, after all Gotham is a dangerous place. She and her nanny were just supposed to be out running errands before they leave Gotham but she just happened to be separated from the nanny and alone in the dangerous streets. It is only a matter of time before someone tries to snatch her up, the daughter of a rich woman, she would be perfect to hold for ransom. Luckily Jason, or rather, Red Hood is there in time to save her, telling her to go in the corner and cover her eyes while he deals with them. He hushes her as he wraps her up in his jacket, telling her to keep her eyes shut as he carries her out of there, he doesn’t want her to see the pools of blood he is walking through as he is carrying his little sister out of there.

Then when he returns to Wayne Manor with her, Damian looks after her while Jason explains what happened to Bruce. It isn’t safe for them, she could have been killed or worse if it wasn’t for him. Eventually Bruce caves and agrees to their plan of getting them both back.

Bruce goes to go see his ex-fiancé who is in a state of panic because her daughter is missing. Bruce sits her down and tells her daughter is safe and taken care of at Wayne Manor but there is a problem, her daughter’s kidnapping will be seen as child neglect if Bruce chose to file for custody of his daughter. If that was not enough to get her cave in he shows her a file of blackmail Tim had gathered on her which also shows old not look good to the court, so he asks her one thing with only one answer to it…

“Will you marry me?”

“…fine…”

Then not to far down the line there is a white wedding that should have happened years ago, and as Bruce and his wife exchange rings, say I do, and kiss, their children watch…

Her daughter is not a fool, she knows something wrong, she just has no way of telling anyone as Dick holds her on his hip as if she weighs nothing, and Jason fixes her flower girl dress for the pictures that Tim is already taking and has been throughout the ceremony.

[timmydraker]

Tim who’s a femme boy but not in a ‘skater skirt and thigh high socks’ kind of way.

No, he was raised by two people who value tradition and fashion, teaching him the ways of old money.

He watched his mother, who worked with woman who married into families and worse low cut dresses and diamond necklaces, hold the same power over men with only her wrist and head bare. He learnt that modesty was as equally powerful as nudity, that a woman could be devastating in any fabric if she out in the work.

Tim has always known he isn’t a woman, is comfortable being a man, but by all that’s natural does he not look at the way they dress and feel longing.

He’s twelve when he tries one of his mother’s dresses on for the first time.

It’s far too long, puddling at his feet, but he feels so beautiful in the mossy green fabric. The elbow length sleeves go to his wrist, but it still feels almost scandalous in a way that isn’t about the dress being on a boy.

He puts the dress away and begins to buy his own.

Naturally, he doesn’t risk his parents ire and keeps them hidden, but with them being gone so long it’s easy for him to spend some time by himself to dress up all he likes.

By the time he’s fourteen and has been around in for a while, he’s managed to go through a few different styles and find what truely feels like him.

He still wears his stupid science shirts and baggy hoodies over his formal dress shirts, it’s just that now he might add a simple long skirt instead of his dirty jeans. He won’t skate in a skirt, only because he doesn’t want to damage them and jeans are safer, but he also doesn’t leave the house in them for a while.

It’s not long after he’s recovered from Jason’s attack, his former idol still having trouble coming to terms with the lies he was told by the LOA, that he decides to see what Bruce thinks.

Ironically, it’s Jason that gave him the confidence.

Jason had made a comment when he was going on his rant to Tim about how Robin shouldn’t exist and he should get out, that he was warning the boy he should cut and run from Bruce. All he had said was that he was cutting his life short by being Robin and Tim felt that comment hit him harder than the bullet to his leg.

His time was short, most likely he would die before he got to marry or maybe even graduate (though he was considering dropping out anyway), so why hide?

Tim had been just about to get changed before he left to go see Bruce for a checkup on his mostly healed injuries when he caught his reflection and stopped.

The white shirt he wore was long sleeved and covered his neck, the buttons going up the front made of wood and shaped like hearts. His skirt, a dark brown flannel pattern prove that went just above his ankles, had a corset like fitting at the top that hugged his waist carefully. While he would prefer a more womanly figure, he wasn’t going to implement old Victorian body horror to get that.

Tim did go back to his room, but only to put on some simple heeled shoes of brown leather with a gold buckle on the side.

He put on a big shall over his shoulders, picking up his phone and putting on his headphones before he made the walk to Wayne Manor.

As usual, he didn’t need to knock as Alfred opened the door.

The man didn’t give any inkling as to surprise or shock at Tim’s outfit and simple said, “Glad to see you putting some effort into your appearance, Master Timothy.”

The snide comment made Tim relax greatly, quipping back about him being able to wear more than just jeans and t-shirts to the older man. The two talked normally and that made everything feel so much better than some grand speech on Tim accepted who he is.

Dick and Bruce are talking to each other in polite voices, both still a little awkward with each other even if they have gotten better, and both turn to great Tim as he enters the dining room for dinner.

Bruce looks shocked, showing he isn’t feeling too much like Batman at the moment, but he covers it up and says nothing and lets Dick speak.

Tim immediately feels stupid as Dick walks up to him with a big smile and opens arms, because Dick Grayson was raised in a circus! If anyone was going to accept ‘oddities’ in the family it would be him, “Timmy! Oh my little baby, you look so good! What’s the occasion? Oh! Do you have a date?”

His brothers teasing mg tone at the end makes him smile and shove him gently. “Not a date or anything else, I just… thought I’d wear something more my style out for once.”

Dick beamed, hearing the unspoken confession of trust and picking his brother up and spinning him around, “Oh, Timmyyyy! My baby, you look so beautiful! You can wear whatever you want, all the time, anywhere! I’ll will straight up eat anyone who has a problem, I swear I will do it, just say the word-“

Bruce finally talks just to cut Dick off, “Dick, no ‘eating’ anyone who hurts your bother. A lawsuit will surfice.”

Tim can’t help but beam at Bruce, knowing full well that those words are his weird way of showing his approval and acceptance. Him being more forward with it would have been nicer, but he was the most fluent in the language of Bruce Wayne outside of Alfred and so he was okay with it.

Dick went to whine, acting like a spoilt child while he secretly raged inside that he was being told not to commit a violent act. Honestly, Tim wasn’t sure if it was because it was in defence of his brother or because Dick was always secretly searching for something to get aggressive with.

Tim smiled happily, taking off his shawl and thanking Alfred when he swooped in to take it away for him.

As Tim sat at the table, he felt a peace build in his heart that he hadn’t felt… well, ever.

[theredcuyo]

Little Dick (like, between his teen rebellion and actual gremlin child fase) wants a little sibbling after having a little summer job of babysitting his neighboor, Tim

Convincing Bruce turns out easier than he thought, but Alfred is unfaced to his pleas and denies any chance, so he and B work out a plan

They don't have a real plan (Bruce didn't have a plan when he adopted Dick to begin with) but during Patrol a few nights later, Robin finds a kid looking for food in the trash, gives him five dollars to actually buy something nice, takes a good look at him and goes "Yeah, this is brother material"

And after the kid comes back, he wonders if the rest could buy medicine for his mom, who wasn't feeling good that morning and 'fell sleep very very deeply'

A bit of panic takes over Dick, and the worse is the truth unfortunately for this boy, but it doesn't take away the chance for him to quickly get a brand new older brother

Alfred can't stop them, the kid needs a family

By the way, his name is Jason, he's still processing what just happened, but someone is feeding him now, that's good

Two years later, is Jason who wants a baby brother, and it just SO happens that as of late, when he goes with his brother to babysit their neighboor (When he feels like Dick might need company but not Bruce's, they're arguing a lot as of late) he starts to notice weird things, like, who besides them is taking care of him?

The kid also has trouble speaking, he read in a book that if babys don't get enough talk done to them they have trouble learning to speak. The kid's eyes also get teary if you say something like 'Sorry, forgot you were there for a second' even on accident.

When he snoops around the house during Tim's (And Dick's) nap time, that by the way, was hard to do because Tim likes sleeping between both of them, literally baby brother material, and he finds documents that state he's not had anyone come look after him save for them in the weekends since a year and a half ago he knows they have to intervene

And if that gets him the baby brother he wanted that's just added price to getting justice done!

Tim never really felt like he wanted another sibbling, it could be nice if he had one, You know? One that could help him scape Dick's hug hours or one just so Jason would stop calling him a baby, but he knew better than to ask for anything.

Lucky for him, the league had him covered, and yeah, he wasn't exactly allowed to hack into their base, B said it could be dangerous, but he was curious of the possibility and if by chance he saw a little boy running around thanks to the security cameras, then it was good, wasn't it?

The league wasn't a place for a child to grow in, Batman, we have to intervene!

It wasn't just because he'd be the perfect little sibbling material, pfff, of course not...

Just look at him, this one comes trained already!

Yeah, Tim was happy.

|||

Dunno what i just did, but i do love those the kids get into the family earlier fics ngl

[ice-cream-writes-stuff]

.𖥔 ݁ ˖🦇 ݁˖ ݁𖥔 . |Webs And All|.𖥔 ݁ ˖🦇 ݁˖ ݁𖥔 .

《When a Spider falls into a new world, she didn't expect it to be so.. "Batty" than the others she's been in.》

-

Hurriedly swinging on rooftops and walls, you gaze in awe of the night sky. Warmth filling your body as the night air floats on your suit. Taking in the night sky...

Before smog and gas cover it as you jump down on the roof top. Pouting at the loss of the clear sky as you frown.

"I forget how polluted this city is.." You grumble, going to the ledge as you place your arms on the railing. Gazing down at the city lights and billboards.

Blinking innocently at one of the paid advertisments, you squint at it curiously.

"Wayne Enter.. Prizes? Technology.." You giggle at the guy on the board. His charming smile and flirty wink was not something you've seen often for an ad for tech.

Well...

You start re-calling a few worlds that did, but with a another billionare..

"Hmm, well. That's enough day-dreaming!" You shake your body, wanting to get your jitters out before taking a deep breath... Shooting out one of your webs to a near by ledge as you run and jump off.

Feeling your body pulled downwards, you pull your web as you glide through the air. Twirling slightly as you smile underneat your mask. Laughing once more as you swing forward.

..Let's do things differently this time.

Your name is (Y/N) (L/N), you were bitten by a radioactive spider..

Yet you weren't the only one.

But now.. Your on your own, though you weren't the only one.

With a fleeting glance at you, the supposed.. Dark Knight: pays you no mind. Eagerly taking down villians left and right, as the two of you finish them off together.

You were supposed to be back at HQ.

Things didn't go as planned.

You made it work, with this "new" life of yours.

Stumbling over your shoes in a hurry, you place down the box of donuts on the big fancy board meeting table. Glad that the stairwell was open, sighing in relief, you miss the eyes that watched you leave the building. While you headed to your next job!

In this Au, Spider!(Y/N) is a temp-worker and delivery girl. Just an odd young gal doing jobs around Gotham, ordinary and sweet.

She has a multiverse-watch, handmade specifcally for her by Miguel. Being one of his first recruits to the Spider Society, yet with the new Multiverse-Canon she's stuck in, the watch forms within her body to make it more acceptable to deal within the world.

Due to this, she doesn't "glitch" is the best term

"Welcome! Lord Hades!" The man dressed in a toga greeted cheerfully. You squint in confusion. Glancing at your companion as you walked closer to his side.

"Ah.. And fair Persephone, it seems you've taken form as garden spider. How quaint!" He spoke jovially as he held out a golden goblet to the two of you.

"Be serious Max! That's Batman and-"

"But Batman is a mere mortal! And what mortal has reached the summit of Olympus and survied!" Placing a hand on Batman's shoulder, the man gestured to his cup.

"Come! Brother! Unveil yourself and your bride in the nectar of the gods!"

-Batman The Animated Series 1992 Ep: Fire From Olympus

Spider!(Y/N) doesn't know Batman's idenitiy, and funny enough. He doesn't know hers, in the beginning. I'd like to think maybe down the line there's a possibility! I just think it's silly-er.

I'd like to think the dynamic between the two is Batman served as a comedic foil to Spider!(Y/N). Sorta, "brooding guy-and happy guy". Also, I like to point out, they can both can be silly in their own ways!

Just them figuring it out with Batman is hilarious in itself.

Biting into the dish, you beam in joy! It tasted so sweet! And.. Tangy, with a bit of sour. Invested with the tasty dish, you fail to notice the striking blue eyes glancing at you from a distance. Naively standing alone in your waiter uniform as you nibble on the treat.

"Ah, Mister Wayne, good to see you." Jim Gordon, dressed outside of his usual detective get-up greets. Flattening down his suit before grabbing one of the fancy champange glasses from one of the servers.

"Oh, Commissioner!" He spoke in suprise, greeting him as the two started to chat. "-And there it was... Mister Freeze and that giant lizzard."

"Dinosur." Gordan corrected.

"Whatever, doesn't make any sense. What does Victor Freeze gain by destroying a bunch of bones?" The billionare huffed.

"That's the question alright, I wish I had the answer." The Commissioner sighed, brows lowering in thought.

-Batman The New Animated Adventures 1994 Ep: Cold Comfort

-

[This was a small personal project for me, I had this idea since Into the Spiderverse! I would honestly love some feedback for this! I also would love to hear your guys own ideas in the aak box!]

[hypewinter]

Hal bent down as the little girl approached him. Even then, he still managed to tower over her with how small she was.

"Hey there little lady," he said. "Anything I can help you with this fine evening?"

The little girl looked at him anxiously, fiddling with her hands. Ok so not a nervous fan. Hal immediately switched to serious mode, scanning the crowd for anyone who could be her parents. He didn't see anyone running up to the two of them or even so much as keeping a watchful eye from a distance.

"Is something the matter?" Hal questioned, making sure to keep his voice even and calm.

The girl continued fidgeting, her big blue eyes scanning from side to side. Finally she spoke. "You wiff da space po-eece yes? Not da am-ear-ree-ca one?"

Hal smiled at the girl. "Yes, I'm with the space police." Honestly that was oversimplifying the Corps a little but he had long since gotten to citizens calling him a space cop.

The girl offered up a small nervous smile of her own. "So you won't tell da gov-ment what I tell you wight?"

Hal was on high alert now. Just what was this little girl trying to tell him? "I won't tell. I promise," he said after a second.

The girl broke into a big smile at this. "Really? Dis way den." She started tugging Hal along and he began to follow.

"Where exactly are we going?" he asked.

"You see," was all she replied.

Hal was led down a couple different alleyways and was beginning to think he was walking into a trap when they reached an abandoned building. The girl dashed in and up the old rusted stairs, with Hal following closely behind her.

If this really is a trap, I'll never hear the end of it from Batman, he thought morbidly as he cleared the last step. Instead of finding himself facing an ambush however, he saw a boy curled up on an old mattress. The girl was already by his side as Hal approached.

"Don wowee Danny, I got help. Like I said I would," he caught the little girl whispering as he knelt down next to the boy. He had to have been older than the girl. Three years older maybe? Yet he was still so small. Hal took sight of his condition. He was in pain. That much was certain by his little face scrunched up in agony and his quiet moans. He was also sweating profusely. His raven black hair sticking to his forehead. Fever maybe?

Hal continued his observations as he scanned down the boy's body until he got to his stomach. The boy was clutching it and Hal could make out blood bleeding through from underneath. Oh no.

He quickly yet carefully removed the boy's arm to get a better look at the wound. The kid let out a groan as his arm was peeled away. Hal couldn't help but thank Oa for all his training that helped prevent him from letting out a gasp.

The boy's chest was covered in blood. Dark red mixed with flecks of green soaked through his shirt and there were bandages that had been amateurishly tied around the wound.

"How did this happen?" Hal asked, turning back to the girl. He did his best to keep his tone as gentle as possible.

Her smile was gone now, and her eyes welled up with tears. "He pwotected me," she said. "Dey wanted to huwrt us. Dey shot at us. Danny pwotected me."

Anger boiled within Hal. Who would shoot at these children? They were only little kids. If what the girl had said earlier was anything to go off of, the answer had something to do with the government. He would have to take care of that later though. For now, this boy needed medical attention.

"Let's get Danny to a hospital," Hal said resolutely, as he got up.

"No!" the little girl screeched. "No has-pee-tail. Too dan-er-us!"

"But he needs-" Hal started but then he met the girl's eyes. There was abject fear in them. As if going to the hospital would be a death sentence for both children. Where else were they supposed to go though? The boy- Danny needed medical attention stat. That much was certain.

Hal paused. There was one place. He sighed. Batman was going to kill him for this.

"Okay okay. No hospital. But what about space?"

"Space?" the girl repeated.

Hal nodded.

The little girl smiled. "Danny lobes space!"

"Well then. That's perfect."

Hal constructed a new bed for the boy, carefully easing him onto it before putting a protective dome around both children. The little girl giggled as he lifted them up. He then turned to the wall where he created a giant hammer to knock it down. Then they were off. Flying higher and higher, towards the atmosphere. As the Watchtower got closer in sight, Hal couldn't help but groan. Taking civilians to the Watchtower? Oh yeah, Batman was definitely going to kill him.

[chernobog13]

Cover artists: Jack Burnley - #20, 23 & 27 (both with Charles Paris); Win Mortimer - #54.

I love these early World's Finest Comics covers with Superman and Robin messing with each other (sometimes with an assist from Batman).

This was the period before Superman and Batman and Robin actually teamed-up inside the book, which was an anthology title, but they shared every single cover. The covers usually showed the three pals having fun playing baseball, or basketball, skiing, going to the swimming hole, or other activities boys liked to do.

Inside Superman and Batman (with Robin) had solo stories, along with whatever other characters were featured.

It wasn't until Superman (vol. 1 ) #76 (May, 1952) that Superman and Batman actually met in a comic book story, and accidentally learned each other's secret identity at the same time.

And they wouldn't begin teaming-up in World's Finest Comics for another two years, in #71 (July-August, 1954). As a cost saving measure, the book's page count was cut, along with the anthology format. The editors decided to put their most popular characters together in the one story there was room for, and a tradition was born. The Superman-Batman team-ups would, except for a short period around issue #200, be the format of the book until it was cancelled in 1986 with issue #323.

[ew-selfish-art]

Dp x DC AU: Danny didn't want to rely on his rogues, but Tucker's computer skills only got them so far and if the media black out continues... Danny knows it's not going to be pretty for them. Nightmares begin to plague the Justice League.

---

Danny gets back from a shitty conversation with Clockwork and in his frustration, accidentally sets off one of the new GIW sensors that his parents allowed to be installed in the lab. Their collaboration seemed to be going no where but when Danny had new holes blasted through him... it must be going somewhere. Damn it.

The commotion is loud enough that Jazz hears it from her room above the lab (he knows she listens to more than just the lab... it's cause she cares, even if it is a bit invasive.) and rushes in to play the distraction while Danny gets away. This time it works- the Drs. Fenton might have the worst aim in the city but they demand all shots cease if a civilian is nearby- Next time his mom might be aiming her gun at him and not the ground. Danny decides he'll buy Jazz a coffee on his way home.

But first, new holes. Yikes. That like, needs medical attention- He heads to Tucker's place and he's pretty sure Sam is already there.

"Danny! What the fuck, did Clockwork-" She starts, her meticulous cat eyeliner making her glare all the deeper.

"Nah, it's the stupid GIW sensor, the stupid one I told you guys about that has a spring lose in the back?"

"I thought we decided those weren't a concern?" Tucker looks him over, face covered in undisguised and very blatant concern.

"Yeah well, Clocky pissed me off so I forgot about them when I came back in through the lab portal-"

"you were supposed to be practicing making your own." Sam interrupts.

"-And when I did, the thing got knocked and I was swatted like immediately. Jazz launched herself into the lab so Mom made them stop shooting and it gave me enough time to get out." Danny continued to explain, ignoring his friend's 'i told you so' faces.

"Dude. We're pushing it close this week. Sam already had a confrontation with the lab guys and I already got blacklisted on my new persona accounts. We're like seriously threading the needle for getting caught." Tucker, pulls his glasses down to pinch the bridge of his nose and Danny and Sam both get what he's really saying. They need to lie low.

"What did CW say to piss you off?" Sam asks after a silent moment.

"He said nothing really, just like he always does, but insinuated I should try getting a rogue to help." Danny sighs.

"What, Like getting Ember to announce the GIW invasion on her tour? We already agreed that-" Sam is getting angry as she speaks so Tuck cuts her off- "It's a bad Idea. She is- They are all just as likely to get captured and hurt as you are if you go out of town." He comes to the same conclusion they've agreed on for weeks. No rogue involvement.

"Maybe we just need to sleep on it... Hey... wait." Danny sighs, but then his gears start to turn.

"Nocturn. We need Nocturn to help us. He can get the message out through dreams." Danny comes to the new conclusion and his friends look hesitant but at least like they're considering it.

"Isn't he an ancient? He's not going to help us for free." Tucker, ever the Egyptian god in these moments.

"Most people don't take their dreams literally." Sam, ever the skeptic in these moments.

"Yeah but, if they dream it enough times, and they're the right people to do something... they can look it up and then at least see that there is a problem?" Danny sounds hopeful and its the first time he's sounded that way in months.

"What, you're gunna give Batman nightmares?" Tucker snickers but Sam looks inspired.

"That's exactly what he's going to do. We need to haunt the Justice League. They'll see past the fake facade the GIW put up online and they'll be able to get the right legislation passed." Sam is practically buzzing.

"Okay, so lets get scheming- What do you get the primordial beast of the unconscious? Should I google 'what to get someone who has everything'? " Danny laughs.

_____

Bruce and his children rarely do feelings when they have breakfast in the morning after a night of separate patrols, but it seems as though the room is plagued with unease. Tim looks about as tired as ever, so his unease is probably attributable to WE board meetings, but its unlike the rest of his children to be so... disturbed. For some reason, after Alfred has excused them all from eating more than a few nibbles, they make it to the cave. Bruce is glad for the noise his children bring.

The nightmare's he's been having are following a dark plot. A town, a boy who looks like he was kin, and so, so much death. Bruce has had vivid dreams before in life, but this nightmare is... unreal. He tries to remind himself that it's just a nightmare.

When his JL emergency communicator goes off at the computer desk, he's not expecting it to be Dinah Lance. She and her Birds are typically wary of him in Gotham, even if they work well together in the League. He answers it like he would any Batman call, with silence.

"Bats, we have a problem. Any chance you've been having weird dreams about a kid getting experimented on or a town being burned down? Ghosts? Lazarus portals?" Dinah sounds exhausted, but Bruce snaps to her voice with rapt attention. As do all of his children.

"I-" Bruce takes a look around the room, everyone's heads except for Tim's nodding up and down with distress," We all have."

"Something tells me that they whole JL is. Everyone I've talked to this week has had a variation of the same dream. We either have a telepath trying to tell us something, or something even worse than that."

"I'll call emergency meeting, we need to collect details and try to determine the complete message."

"I'll send you what I've noted down so far, sans personal details of course, it's definitely in a town called Amity Park though. My client this morning saw the sign."

Batman grunts and the call ends. It's time to get to work.

----

When the Justice League finally arrives, the town is glowing, and everything feels like... sleep. smothering. snoring. smoking. smoldering.

And then, despite the exhaustion that echos within them, the trudge onwards. The noise of laser guns certainly wakes them up a bit.

[glow-worms-are-believers]

Tim Drake: Ugly Duckling (dp x dc)

So this is the last day of pride month, and so also the last day of me trying to write as many LGBTQ+ canon dc characters. It’s been fun (and I got to read a whole bunch of comics which was actually much more fun than the first time I’d tried to read those!!)

Now even though this is the end of June, feel free to send an ask if you want me to write a blurb with any character. I make no promises, but I will very much try! (It might take a while especially if I’m in a Tumblr hibernation phase.)

Anyways, for the last day of pride month I wanted to do Tim Drake coz he’s dc’s “it girl” with the gays. I’ve been working on this Dead Tired fic for ages, based on the post about Tim getting turned into a swan and meeting Danny, who as a prince has to give him a kiss to change him back (I can’t find the prompt but it was hilarious so this was my take on it).

Here’s the beginning of the fic:

Red Robin was on patrol duty, while Batman and Robin were following a lead on possible joker safehouses. All in all, It was a pretty quiet night with only two muggings, both low-energy as both perpetrator ran away as soon as a bat-shaped shadow moved. 

So Red Robin had spent most of the night chatting with Babs. He was grappling around town, as they started on the new date app they’d both found out Jason was using.

“I told him he can’t put only photos of his motorcycle but- wait I’m getting a call,” Oracle interrupted herself. Tim waited before the earpiece came to life again.

“Sorry to cut this short Red Robin, got a full-attention request from Canary. If you need anything, beep me, and Keep your coms open.”

“Bye, Oracle,” he said, and like that, Red Robin was alone once again.

 He stopped on Grand Avenue Station and just let himself take in Gotham. The city was beautiful at night, and Tim was itching for a camera. He seen hundreds of pictures of the city’s skyline but they always managed to be unique. The night sky may always be covered by dark clouds above, but Gotham had its own stars in the lights shinning on top of the skyscrapers. So lost in his thoughts, Tim was, he almost missed the soft noise that sounded behind him. The voice that sounded behind him was harder to miss.

“Wither away so late, Little Red Bird?”

Red Robin turned to see a tall woman standing half in the shadows

“Sorry, can I help you?” Answered the vigilante despite the bad feeling creeping up to him.

“I’d like to know where I can find your guardian,” the woman said, still in the shadows.

“You mean Batman?” He chanced.

The woman nodded and Tim resisted the urge to sigh.If this was another one of Bruce’s ill-advised fling, Tim was going to hack every electronic device the man had to play sex-eds on loops for at least a week.

“He’s busy at the moment.” Then feeling like he shouldn’t assume what the woman wanted Bruce for, he continued. “But if you need any help, I’ll do my best.”

The woman stepped forward, and Tim could see her better. Her face was bare, but her distinctive outfit seemed to indicate she was some kind of vigilante-slash-criminal. The outfit did, in fact, ring a bell in the back of his mind, but it was dim. Tim didn’t tense up, but he did angle his body in a way to accommodate for a better escape through grappling. She continued walking until she was within arm’s reach of Tim, towering over him. She extended a hand to lightly caress his cheek, and Tim went still at the touch.

“Such a kind Little Bird you are,” she said gently. “You know, you remind me of my daughter.” She sighed. “Oh, what pretty children you both are.”

“Thank you,” said Tim as he sidestepped out of the way. “I’m sure she’s a lovely person.”

“Oh she was,” the woman said and through his growing wariness, Tim spared a thought for the girl. “She had dark hair and the fairest skin, just like you. The most beautiful girl in the land some would even say.”

That niggling feeling came back as a feeling of familiarity poked at him once again. “You must’ve been very proud.”

The woman let out an airy laugh before saying playfully/contemplating. “mustn’t I?”

A shiver ran down his back. Alright, there was something wrong with this woman, and Tim wasn’t waiting around to find out what. Not without any information or backup.

“Well, if there’s nothing I can do for you, I really have to get going,” Tim said as he took out his grapple gun. In a second, the gun was ripped from his hand , and he was slammed to the side of the staircase leading up to the roof. He let out a gasp at the impact and his features tensed in pain. The woman hadn’t even touched him.

“Not so fast, Little Bird. We don’t want you going back to the Batman just yet.  I’m not ready to make him my Knight yet.”

“Your knight?” Tim managed to get out. He tried to move his arms, but some unseen force was pinning him in place. Shit, that meant he couldn’t reach the comm to send out a distress signal. Hopefully Babs would check in soon.

The woman smiled as she approached him once again. “What better for a Queen, than a Dark Knight?”

And just like that it clicked. “You’re the Queen of Fables.” 

“Well look at this, you’ve got the brains and the beauty,” she teased, her voice as smooth as honey.

“What do you want with Batman?” Tim asked though he could guess from previous encounters she had had with the Justice League that the villainess wanted to turn Bruce into a fairytale character of some sort. She’d done the trick on Clark, and twice on Diana, so it was probably Batman’s turn now. So, yes, Tim could guess, But the longer he kept her talking the more time he had to figure out a way out of this.

“I told you, he’ll be a Knight of the Queen,” She extended a hand and tilted Tim’s face up. “Do you know what that would make you Little Bird?” 

Most villains assumed the batclan worked like a crime family. So the family of a knight? “Nobility,” Tim guessed, unsure where this was going.

“Exactly.” She smiled, and then she moved. Tim braced for the hit.

Instead of a punch though, he only felt a tingling sensation. Cautiously, he opened his eyes, only for them to grow bigger as he took in his uniform. Or the lack thereof.

He was in something-century clothing, in some sort of frilly shirt and pants, all in white. This was worse than a punch. Then, as the thought hit him, Tim’s hands flew to his face only to come in contact with the silky fabric of a masquerade mask. He sighed in relief, and as he calmed down, he realized he was now free of the force pinning him down.

“The color is for my daughter,” the Queen said. Then, she let her head fall to the side before tracing a line across his forehead and Tim could feel something like a circlet setting down on it. “There you go. Now, it’s perfect. You could practically be siblings.” 

“No thanks.,” Tim answered.

The Queen tsked him. “That’s no way to behave Little Bird, has nobody taught you to say thank you when you receive a gift.”

“I don’t want anything from you,” Tim disagreed mildly as he took stock of his weapons. Everything was gone, including the earpiece, which meant Babs had to have been alerted and someone was en route.

The Queen frowned. “I was going to be merciful, for you guardian’s sake, but I no longer feel generous.” She raised her hand and Tim tried to roll away, but the magic beam swerved and hit him in a blinding flash of light.

When he managed to open his eyes once again, the world seemed quite a bit bigger than it had been moments before. 

“What did you do to me?” He said. Or tried to say.

Instead a strange squawk echoed and Tim took a step back in surprise. However, he lost his balance and started to fall and as he tried to catch himself with his hand, two large white wings unfolded. He dropped down, which wasn’t as far as he would’ve estimated and laid stiff. He moved his left arm, and a white wing followed suit. 

Oh, no. Oh no no no.

A grating laugh interrupted his freak out. “There you are my pretty Little Bird, all better. White really is your colour, don’t you th-“

With a loud hiss, Tim propelled himself towards the woman. Making use of his newfound beak, he pecked and bit everything he could, as he flapped his wings.

“Blasted creature- Get off! Stop it, you despicable, puny-“ 

Finally she managed to grab Tim and throw him away from her. He landed with a squawk, but managed to get himself back to his feet quickly. “You little/awful brat,” she snarled. “You’ll pay for this!”

But as the Queen threw out her hand, something rippled in the air between them and the magic beam seem to explode midway into a green vortex. Tim’s clumsy attempt at waddling away had him head straight towards it, and it was in vain that he tried to redirect the course. She and Tim made eye contact as the swan-boy tipped right into the swirling green vortex, both of their eyes wide-open in surprise.

Danny was exhausted. He was currently on week one of the full month of Royal Duties he’d promised Clockwork. Being Prince of the Infinite Realm was not all that it was cracked up to be, and that was saying a lot since he had already been expecting it to be awful. 

When Clockwork had made the request, Danny had proceeded to freak out about his new status, and then tried to abdicate. It was only the master of time reminding him of all the terrible possible candidate for the throne per rites of combat (such as Vlad) that stopped him from washing his hands of this mess. And now Danny was forced to spend one whole month of his summer vacation in the Ghost Zone to fulfill his duty as a Prince. 

He thought it would be some paperwork, maybe a battle or two, nothing too bad, but nooo. Because, of course nothing was easy, Danny had to show up at Events, and be Diplomatic. It was meeting, after meeting, after weird parties that were a mix between Medieval Banquets and Debutante balls. 

And worse of all were the marriage proposals. Danny could sorta understand, marrying into royalty was a definite plus for a lot of more powerful ghosts but when they called him a half-breed behind his back, only to smile in his face with a marriage contract in one hand and flowers in the other, that was where he drew the line. 

Plus there was also the fact that he was, like sixteen.

Suffice to say, Danny was exhausted and hiding out in Pariah Dark’s old castle as a last resort. It wasn’t his favorite place all in all, but the gardens were absolutely beautiful, which was where he was walking. He was currently headed to the hedge maze, since it was the best way to get rid of any tails he may or may not have. 

The maze was nasty if it didn’t like you, and it didn’t like anybody but Danny, and even then, it still tried to take a bite every once in a while. Despite the snaking vines and roots trying to capture anything that moved, the flowers that wailed softly when disturbed or the sharp thorns of the hedge plants themselves, it was still a beautiful place. Uniquely, the closer you got to the centre, the more colorful (and dangerous) everything got, which was why he liked it best. 

He reached the centre much quicker than the first time he tried, thanks to the maze actually helping him, and something pale caught his eye right in the middle of the open area, right next to the bench Danny loved to use. As he got closer, he realized it was a swan laying on the floor, seemingly unconscious.

“Oh no,” Danny said as he approached. “What happened to you?”

As if awakened by the sound of his voice, the swan started to shift, its wings twitching and it rose its head groggily. As soon as it clocked in Danny, it let out a surprised squawk, followed by a long hiss as it struggled to move away.

“Hey, hey, none of that, Duckie, you’re ok.” Danny raised his hands placatingly. “I don’t want to harm you, ok? I just want to make sure you’re ok.”

The hiss subsided by a bit, but that may have only be due to the swan managing to get further away.

“Sh, sh, it’s ok,” Danny repeated as he slowly inched forward. The swan stopped hissing but still observed him warily. “I don’t want to hurt you Duckie, but I do think we’d better get you out of this maze.”

Danny took another step, and this time the swan stayed still. “How about bringing you back to my rooms just for now.” The swan hissed louder at the statement. “Don’t worry Duckie, I’m not keeping you prisoner it’s just this maze has been known to eat people. And you’re too pretty to be eaten,” Danny flashed a smile at the swan which had it stare back with a gaze saying really?

“So what do you say, wanna crash at my place?” Danny asked. The swan didn’t move forward but he didn’t move away either.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t trust a guy who talks to birds either,” Danny allowed. “And the place where I’m staying is a little gloomy, so I don’t blame you, but I can’t leave you here. The maze is honestly really dangerous, especially for a nice bird is like you. “

The swan seemed to hesitate before it hesitantly made its way to Danny. Ghost animals were usually smart but the swan seemed to understand English, which made communicating that much easier. Danny smiled and opened his arms. “I can carry you.” The swan just looked at him, with what Danny would’ve thought was a deadpan stare. “It would go much faster.”

If the swan was human it probably would’ve sighed, but instead, its wings just fell a little before it waddled towards Danny and looked up as if to say ‘get on with it’.

Danny smiled and gathered the animal in his arms. “Buckle up,” he said before flying off towards the maze exit, which was accompanied by a low hiss. Making sure there was nobody there to ambush him, Danny made it back to the castle in record time.

“Here we are Duckie.” Danny set the swan back down and it plopped down on the ground and just steadied themselves for a while.

Tim was a swan. He had wings and no fingers, and his feet were webbed.

He was handling it though. By which Tim meant he was shelving the impending panic attack for later when he wasn’t stuck in a swan body. 

Ok, so he’d been turned by the Queen of Fables, so there had to be an answer in a fairytale,a way to make him normal again. He knew the ugly duckling story. That had a swan in it, right? He didnt know any other swan stories, except maybe as a dish during the wedding banquet of whichever princess. He vaguely remembered a Barbie movie that had passed on the TV when he was younger but the only thing that came to mind were a scary-looking Troll thing, and ballet.  So with lack of better alternatives he was going to go with the ugly duckling. The ugly duckling’s happy ending was reuniting with family, so maybe all he needed was to make his way back to Gotham.

“Are you ok?” 

And that was another thing. The guy. The one Tim had at first wanted to get away from. He seemed nice and all, but he also had neon green eyes, and fangs. Unfortunately, while they suited the boy very well, they also marked him as an unknown. 

On the other hand, if the glowing portal wasn’t enough of an indication, the green tinge of everything around was clear indicator that Tim wasn’t in Kansas anymore. The guy seemed to want to help him, and having an ally wherever he was could only help.

Tim nodded as best as he could with his long weird neck, and he had to take a few steps to regain balance.

“That’s good,” the boy smiled with his white pointy canine. “How did you end up in the middle of that maze?”

Tim just looks back tiredly. He didn’t know how to even try and explain when he couldn’t say a word and had no opposable thumbs.

“Yeah, sorry.” The boy winced. “Maybe stick to yes or no questions.”

There was a sharp knock at the door that had the boy turning away.

“Prince Phantom!” A voice rung through the door.

Prince? 

The newly-dubbed Prince Phantom got up to open the door, “yes, what can I do for you?”

“Your meeting with Queen Dora is approaching. Do you still prefer to forgo an escort guards?” a purple lady was saying.

“I’ll be fine without, Maj but thank you very much,” Phantom answered with a polite smile.

“I’ll pass it along, my Prince.” She bowed and closed the doors behind her.

Phantom walked back to lay on the bed with a sigh. “I really hate that they call me that.” He turned towards Tim to continue. “I bet swans don’t have royalty. You guys had the right idea.”

[itaehynz]

HII BABY! ahem SOOO for the event i’d like to request for “welcome to the movies”, the movie batman BUTTTTT villain catwoman!reader x CHOI YEONJUN . HEAR ME OUTTTTUH (a little plot but mostly smut ykyk 😇)

ONE NIGHT ONLY.

pairing: batman!yeonjun x catwoman!reader.

genre: forbidden love, superhero x villain au, smut, a little angst & fluff.

word count: 4.4k

warnings: profanity, argument before intercourse, yeonjun and reader are both dicks in the beginning, mention of killing, includes an explicit sex scene; harddom!yeonjun at first, sub!reader, big dick jun implied (it’s real), public sex, oral (both receiving), cunnilingus, fingering, dacryphilia, marking, hair pulling, throatfucking, choking, overstimulation, spanking, unprotected sex, squirting, nipple play, breeding, degrading + praising, soft sex toward the end (but not for long), kissing, spitting, breeding kink, name-calling; pretty/pretty girl, good girl, gorgeous, slut, whore, baby.

“Pretty girls like you like to get fucked in alleys? That's new.”

ni’s notes; the event masterlist is coming soon but here it is!! i hope you enjoy this fic, my love. also thank you to my proofreading friend, if you see this, ily babe. happy reading my lovelies! 💕

SPECIAL MASTERLIST!

With the arrival of night comes danger—dangers this city has been dealing with for years on end, dangers caused by you. And, of course, Batman is always the one to the rescue. He has always been their superhero, the person they can always count on. But not anymore. A rumor has begun. A rumor you started. A rumor to ruin his reputation.

You two have been secretly meeting at night to avoid being seen by others. This is all because of him - he's the one who made this rule. He's the kind of man who always gets what he wants and never takes no for an answer. However, the rumor that the two of you are in a committed relationship, which isn’t true, has officially ruined his reputation. But where's the fun in telling the truth?

It doesn't matter how much you love him; you love to toy with him even more. Getting under his skin, and ridiculing him, makes you feel giddy. The knowledge of how angry you could make him with a simple action. The adrenaline hurries through your veins at the thought.

But that's before you hear something rustle behind you. You think it could be a random citizen, so you simply ignore it, until your mouth is covered by a black leather glove.

“Stay quiet,” the voice says. It’s deep and rich. You recognize the voice—actually, you know it. It’s him.

The man who never denies himself pleasure, the man who always knows what he wants. The man goes by two names, Batman or as you’d like to call him, Choi Yeonjun.

When he appears behind you, you don't gasp or panic. You knew he was coming sooner or later. Once the news spread, you knew he'd have no choice but to come to you. Eventually, he'd try to figure out who spread the word, only to be led back to you. Besides his assistant, nobody knows about the two of you, except you and him.

Soon, he uncovers your mouth and begins leading you to god knows where; however, you're not complaining. This is exactly what you wanted. You wanted him to seethe with anger. You truly looked forward to hearing from him, whatever he had to say. Every time you two have a conversation, it almost always ends with sex. This time should be no different.

He pulls you into a dark alleyway, a blind spot away from the citizens of Gotham. "Tell me," he says, bringing a finger to his temple and inhaling deeply. "Tell me what led you to this point, Y/n."

To your dismay, it's as if every reason you had has been wiped from your memory entirely. Under his mask, you see his eyes piercing into yours. You find yourself feeling more intimidated as you look away, making an effort to avoid his intense gaze.

He grasps your face firmly, bringing your eyes back to his. After doing so, he takes his mask off, throwing it somewhere. What you're now faced with is an expression you’ve never seen before. He’s furious. His eyebrows furrowed and a firm wrinkle was prominent in the center of his forehead.

He looks at you with raised brows, expectant. Expecting a reasonable answer from you, not whatever random bullshit you can think of.

“I wanted to see if I mattered to you,” you draw in a large breath, “If we mattered to you.” He looks at you dumbfounded, has he not been the best he could be to you? What more could you want from him? He scoffs, “You’re joking, right?” he questions while looking at you, once again, expecting an answer.

You laugh, “Of course I am! Why would I care about how much I mean to you? You're Batman, you don't care about how others feel about you,” you add, rolling your eyes in a joking manner. He scoffs at your ability to joke in situations like this, soon falling into a small laughter. Withdrawing his hand slowly, slapping your cheek twice in a ridiculing manner.

He seems completely disinterested in continuing the conversation, as your responses didn't give him anything to engage in. He's convinced that you started the rumor because if not you, then who else?

Deciding not to think about it any further, he runs a hand through his hair before walking away from you. You grab for your mask, taking it off before calling out to him. As you call out to him, he pauses in his tracks before turning his head in your direction with a raised eyebrow.

“I just,” you murmur, rolling your eyes once again. “I just wanted to get a rise out of you. I admit, it was a stupid way to do it but I just wanted to have a little fun, that’s all.” He looks at you once again, amazed by your reasoning. He’s never found anything more stupid than that.

"Are you serious?" is all he says. The more you think about it, your reasoning for doing this is pretty dumb. Not only does it ruin his reputation because it's said that he's dating the city's worst villain, but it also ruins yours. Obviously, your reputation was trashed the moment you started this job, but now it's worse than it was before.

You simply nod at his words as he scoffs for the nth time, shocked by how far you've gone. You know how hard he's worked to get into his position, and the fact that you were able to break all that down with a simple news article baffles him, to say the least.

“I should fucking kill you.” He threatens, scowling at you. You’re taken aback by the sudden change in his demeanor as the distance between the two of you gets smaller and smaller. “What?” you question, already knowing that he’s fuming. This is your way of trying to get more of a rise out of him. You trust yourself and know what you're doing, he wouldn't dare to kill you… right?

“First, you ruin my reputation and now you're standing here acting like you’re an innocent ass fucking fool, acting as if you don't know why I’m here,” he pauses, seeming as if he wants to hear your side. “Yeonjun, I’m the fool? If anything-” “Yes! You are! So, don't even try to go there with me, Y/n. You need to fucking learn your place and keep our business in between us. Stop doing stupid shit to get a rise out of me because I already knew what you were doing once that dumb excuse came out of your mouth.”

“I need to learn my place?” you scoff lightly, beginning to walk closer to him. “You should be the last person talking about learning their place. You’ve never known yours! You're always intruding into someone’s life and trying to fuck things up for everyone. You’ve never known your place, and now you're shocked when someone else doesn't know theirs? Well lucky for you, I’ve had a great fucking teacher! So since you wanna talk big, why don't you show me what my place is, huh? Show me exactly what my fucking place in this world is, Choi Yeonjun.”

Those words were all he needed. Just like you needed to provoke a reaction from him, he needed you to say those few words. The moments it took for your heart to beat were the few seconds he needed to get you right where he wanted you.

He is aware that you can be a brat sometimes; that's for sure. However, this time was extreme. Not only did you argue with him, but you also kept giving him illogical reasons, even after he explicitly told you not to.

If you wanted him to fuck you, why not just say so? You went as far as revealing the relationship between the two of you, and just for some dick? Hysterical. Absolutely fucking ridiculous, is what he thinks.

“You’re just a fucking whore, aren't you?” He says, venom creeping its way into his voice. His cape drops as he makes his way to you, eyes blown out with lust and a tinge of fury. He almost laughs at the way your face shows pure worry, but your eyes say otherwise.

You're almost caught off guard by his sudden switch-up, but what can you say? You like how he’s acting. You like the way his calloused hands feel against your skin, the way his unoccupied hand feels against the flesh of your ass. Grabbing weighty amounts of your flesh and groping it roughly, he has no intention of being soft with you but maybe, just maybe you can change his way of thinking.

“You like it when I’m rough with you, huh? You like it when I treat you like shit—don’t you?” he growls softly in your ear, you can’t deny that. The pleasure you gain from arguing with him for no logical reason is immense. You know you should feel guilty, but the feeling of his hands on your body takes away all the guilt you’ve ever had.

He removes his hand from your face, both hands now resting on the apple of your ass. He rubs around it softly, reminding himself what belongs to him. “Hm. This is a pretty suit, are you sure this is the same as the others?” He whispers, kissing from your lips to the sweet spot of your neck. You hum in affirmation, causing him to put a stop to his ministrations. “Words, Y/n,” he taps your cheek with two fingers softly. “Yes, it is.” He hums, continuing to kiss in the same spot he was before.

You feel his hands gripping roughly at your flesh once more, soon hearing a tear. You jump in shock, grabbing at his arms for some sort of balance. He coos in your ear, telling you to stay quiet once again. You feel his hands spread your legs further, right before he presses a firm thigh between them.

“Pretty girls like you like to get fucked in alleys? That's new.” He brushes his knee past your tender clit, emitting a soft moan from you. His soft kisses soon turn to bites, his finger now rubbing back and forth past your slit. He brings his other hand back around to stretch the tear of your suit, slapping your clit lightly. You gasp in satisfaction, causing him to wrap a hand around your mouth.

“I told you to be quiet, didn't I?” He questions, not expecting an answer. He runs a finger past your clit, rubbing small but rough circles into it with his thumb. His finger slightly teases your slit, going in and out to build the stimulation within you. His finger enters you in a swift motion, eliciting a whiny moan from you and into his palm.

He kisses your forehead softly, beginning to pump his finger faster before adding one more. You cringe at the stretch but soon adjust to it, squirming in pleasure. He tightens his hold on you, pushing your stomach down which does nothing but increase your volume.

“You hear those sounds, baby? Those beautiful, dirty sounds coming from you? Those are the sounds of a whore.” he says, slapping a hand on your clit once more. You whimper into his palm, watching as he smirks at the sounds coming from your cunt. He bites back a chuckle, seeing how easily he can have you writhing in the palm of his hand.

He draws his fingers from your soaking cunt and brings them to his mouth. He looks at you as he does so, wrapping his tongue around the digits as he flutters his eyes shut in delight. “Such a dirty mouth, yet you're so sweet.” He pulls his fingers from his mouth before lowering himself down to your cunt, humming in adoration once he’s faced with your wetness. “Look how pretty she is, so wet—so perfect. You have such a pretty pussy, baby,” he says, bringing an agonizingly slow stripe of saliva to your cunt.

“You still wanna do this here? Or would you prefer to go back home?” he asks, pausing his actions. “N-no, please, this is fine, Jun.” He smiles at your desperation, chuckling softly to himself before licking another long stripe up your cunt. His hands grip your thighs roughly, spreading your legs more than before for better access. Before doing anything else, you feel his hands reach up your chest to tear another hole in your suit. He moves the fabric aside to release your perky tits from their enclosure, rolling one between his fingers.

You moan quietly, to abide by his rules. He flicks your clit with his tongue, keeping your thighs apart with his free hand. He laps at your clit, wrapping his pretty lips around your sensitive bud. He relishes in the taste of your juices, sucking at your cunt as if his life depends on it. Your moan increases in volume, causing him to hum into you. He watches you writhe in pleasure as he inserts two fingers, watching every pleasure-felt expression that appears on your face.

You begin gripping his hair, pulling at the brown locks as you roughly ride his nose. He groans at the feeling, fluttering his eyes closed in pleasure. He feels his pants getting tighter as your pretty moans fill his ears and shoot straight to his cock.

You feel your orgasm creeping up on you as he continuously moans into your squelching cunt. With a plan in mind, you tug his head away from your clit. He looks up at you, dumbfounded. He's confused as to why you did that before seeing you drop to your knees. He watches you pull down his pants, releasing his cock from his slacks. He groans in pleasure, bucking his hips toward your face frantically.

You lick at the tip of his cock, jerking the rest of him off. He watches you with lust-filled eyes, bringing his hand to your face. You melt into his palm, looking back up at him with doe eyes. His breath quivers as you wrap your lips around his tip, licking at his leaking tip. You swallow the drops of precum before licking at his slit once more, watching as he bites his lip in attempt to contain his moans.

You chuckle, “It’s so pretty, Yeonjunie,” you mutter, loud enough for him to hear. You watch his hips buck upward in pleasure as you begin to hold his waist, preventing him from doing it again. He moans at the restriction, watching as you finally take all of him in your mouth. For some sort of stability, he grips your hair in his fist. He gains control over your throat as he bobs your head back and forth on his cock, seeing how you easily give in to him. He closes his eyes, stalling your head and fucking himself down your throat.

You grip his hips tighter, allowing him all the relief he needs as he fucks your throat. “F-fuck, baby… yeah, j-just like that, fuck, yes,” he moans, bucking his hips into your mouth. The noises coming from the alley would induce any type of curiosity in a person who just so happens to be passing by—the lewd sounds coming from your throat as he moans above you. The pretty noises coming from him as he shoves all of his length down your throat makes wetness form between your thighs, pooling at your entrance.

As you continue to let him fuck your throat, you reach down and rub rough circles into your clit. He opens his eyes for a split second to see how you’re occupying yourself and sees one of your hands away from his hip. Even though he feels himself nearing his orgasm, he yanks your hair to pull you away from his cock. He watches drool leave your lips as you stare up at him, breathing heavily and jaw nearly slacking.

He pulls you up by your hair, forcing you around to press you against the concrete wall. “You thought you were gonna get away with touching yourself? You thought I wouldn't catch you?” He rubs the soft flesh of your ass, tearing the rest of the bottom half of your suit off. “Look at you, baby. So pretty and wet, just for me.” He whispers in your ear, landing a firm slap on one of your asscheeks.

Watching as you wince, he soothes the pain with a soft knead into your flesh. It doesn't last long as he lands another one, telling you; “This is for lying in my face,” Another one. “This is for telling the press our business,” Another slap. “And, this? This is trying to make me look like a fucking fool,” Another one. “This one is for touching yourself without my permission, acting out, and all those times you treated me like I was a fucking joke; laughing in my face, lying to me, creating bullshit excuses for your actions, and thinking everything is a fucking game.” He raises his hand higher, before landing a harsh and rough slap on your ass once more.

You feel tears rolling down your face as he coos into your ear, kissing your neck and rubbing the bruising flesh. “Aw, my poor baby. You’ll be okay, just don't act like this again, okay?” He says, wiping your tears with his free hand. He kisses you one last time before pulling away to line himself up with your cunt. “Look at this,” he smiles to himself. “Doing all this crying, just to find out—you’re getting off on this shit, what a fucking slut.” He chuckles once more, inserting himself carefully.

You moan at the way he hits your sweet spot almost immediately, feeling his hand creep up to your breast. He pulls you against his chest by your throat, wrapping a firm hand around it. You watch him gather his spit in his mouth before telling you, “Open.” With quickness, you open your mouth as the spit drops from his to yours. “Swallow it,” he whispers, watching you carefully. You stare up at him, swallowing the spit just as he told you to. He smirks, kissing down your neck. He slowly starts fucking into you, pulling at your nipple between his fingers.

A moan erupts from your throat, slowly feeling a bit of overstimulation overtake you. You feel his pace slowly but surely pick up in speed, his pace becoming unrelenting. You feel his arm wrap around your torso to stop your squirming, his grasp tightening the more you move. You hear him groan in your ear along with the soft slapping emitting from your ass. His arm that was once wrapped around you is now creeping down to play with your clit, rubbing your bud in a circular motion.

“H-hah— fuck, keep—keep going, shit,” you moan, putting a hand over his. He kisses your neck once more, tilting your head back to rest on his shoulder. “You're so, fuck, so fucking gorgeous.”

He goes from kissing to sucking purple and blue splotches on your neck, making you moan directly into his ear. The moan seems to spur him on as his pace somehow picks up. You feel yourself teetering over the edge as you claw your nails into his arm, causing him to bite down on the sweet spot of your neck.

The bite itself emits a loud moan from you, his freakish pace adding to it. He feels you clench around him, clawing into your hip. “You gonna cum f’me? Go ahead, baby. Let it all go, I know you need it.” His words bring you over the edge as you seem to cum on his command. But that doesn't stop him.

He still hasn't came yet, you remembered. He fucks you through your orgasm, pace not seeming to be letting up anytime soon. The quickness of his hips, his balls slapping your cunt at the ferocious speed he’s kept all this time. He flips you around, making you face him. He captures your lips in a sloppy kiss, his grip on your throat tightening.

You feel his warm tongue explore your mouth, groaning into the kiss. His other hand goes back to playing with your nipple, tugging and rolling the bud between his fingers. One of your hands reaches up to his face, holding his cheek as he continues to fuck into you. He decides to change the position as he releases your throat, turning you back towards the wall, and bringing both of your hands behind you. He holds both your hands in one of his and rests his hand atop your head, his hand tangling in your hair and pulling your head back.

He begins pounding into you from behind at an erratic speed, chasing his high, “You're doing so good, baby. Keep moving your hips, shit, just like that.” He groans, slapping your ass as he continues his ministrations.

Feeling overstimulated, you pull your hand out of his and try to brush his thigh back, in an attempt to slow his pace. “F-fuck, ohmygod, p-please,” you hiccup, watching his face turn into a scowl. “What? Don't tell me you can’t, oh fuck—d-don’t tell me you can't fucking take it now?” he chuckles, bringing another hand to your ass and gripping the rose-colored flesh.

“That’s n-not, fffuck, yes— That’s not w-what I said, don't stop please, shittt,” you stutter out, he chuckles at how incoherent you’ve become and coos from behind you. “Uh huh, okay. Of course, what was I thinking? Thinking a slut like you would’ve wanted to stop,” he laughs. You whimper at his words, “I’m not a s-slut!” — “Aw, you sure?” He taunts, watching tears well up in your eyes. “Oh, pretty baby, why are you crying?” he asks, faux concern lacing his tone, “I thought you liked it when I fucked your brains out?” He taunts once again, listening to you whimper at the overstimulation.

“No words now?” You hear him ask as you mumble incoherently, reaching out toward his hand for stability. A small smirk ghosts over his lips at your neediness, his fingers ghosting over yours as his other hand continues gripping the meaty flesh of your ass. “Look at you—jumbling all of the words that come out of that pretty mouth, so pretty.” You moan pathetically, feeling your orgasm approaching once again.

You feel his cock twitch inside of you, hearing his breaths become more erratic as he also feels his climax approaching. “F-fuckkk, baby. I’m right t-there, keep moving, please,” he moans, releasing your hand and placing his on your hips. You place your hands on the concrete wall, trying your best to keep yourself stable. You bounce back towards him, letting him take a break from doing all the work. His hands caress your back, reaching to pull you up. He holds you close to his chest, catching your lips in a kiss that's different from the last one.

The kiss is so passionate that you nearly forget your surroundings. His plush lips press against yours, hungry and intense. The adrenaline rushes through both of your veins, the pent-up anger and constant arguments have built the tension between the two of you. Your hand tangles in his hair as his hand grabs your chin, deepening the kiss. You start to feel a warm sensation in your chest, butterflies fluttering in your stomach.

In the midst of your shared kiss, both of your orgasms creep up on you and take you by surprise. He moans out of bliss; groaning into the kiss. Your back arches intensely as his hips still, releasing thick strings of cum into your fluttering pussy, your orgasm following soon after.

Your second orgasm hits harder than the other; you’re squirting on his cock, body jerking in his arms as he kisses your neck, easing you through your orgasm. You moan loudly, loud enough for him to have to cover your mouth. “Shhh, you did so good. So perfect f’me, my perfect girl.” He kisses your neck, watching as you come down from your orgasm. You let out cracked sobs, hearing him coo as he wipes them away.

“Breathe, baby.” He rubs your hip, massaging it softly. “You took me like such a good girl, so proud of you,” he kisses your lips, turning you back around toward him. He stares at you; his eyes are no longer lust-filled but full of love. He looks down at the shreds of your clothes, shocked. He knows he did that but it's still pretty shocking, which he laughs about.

You look at him, cracking a smile. He catches your eyes and begins smiling as well, “I really did that, huh?” he asks, a bit of shyness overtaking him. You smile timidly, nodding your head as he picks up the pieces of your suit.

“I’ll get this sewn back together for you—if you want me to,” he insists kindly, looking at you awaiting a response. You wave your hand in front of his face, “I don't need you to, I have plenty of others at your place.” He smiles at your insinuation of staying over and chuckles softly. You watch his eyes turn into crescent moons, followed by his sweet laugh.

He raises a hand to your face, caressing the soft skin of your cheek. “I’m sorry,” you pause, looking up at him to show how genuine you truly are. “For telling our business to the press, I really just wanted a rise out of you and-” “It’s okay baby.” He smiles, pinching your cheek softly.

“Even though you do get on my nerves at times, I still love you, y’know this. Plus,” he pauses, looking away for dramatic effect, “You know I hate false accusations.”

He winks at you, catching you slightly off guard. “Yeah, trust me I know. You’ve always wanted to prove a point,” you scoff with a minor eye roll. “Whatever do you mean? I’ve never wanted to prove a point in my life,” he hums, pulling up his pants. You raise your eyebrow at him, leaning back against the wall. “Don't even, you don't remember that one time when you-”

“Shhh. You're prettier when you're quiet, baby,” he says, placing his finger on your lips. You roll your eyes, smiling at his response. He smiles back at you, ticking his head to the side, “You wanna head home?” — “Please, I’m quite literally bare.” He laughs at your comment, pulling out his grappling hook and latching you on his side.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

© 2024 iTAEHYNZ.

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[reaching-writing]

In A Week

His throat felt tight. He scowled, shaking his head, and took a breath. It wouldn’t matter, soon enough. Either he would fix everything or he would die. Simple logic. Either way, it would cease to be a problem before long.

He was betraying Gotham City. He was betraying his principles, his most deeply held convictions. He couldn’t bring himself to regret it in the slightest.

Bruce's sons are dead, his body is broken, and his mind is in shambles. Not for nothing, though, he is the Batman, and he is never out of back-up plans. Unfortunately, this back-up plan involves summoning an otherworldly entity and trading away the very essence of his being.

As it turns out, his soul is worth a lot more than he'd initially bargained for.

-

Important Tags: Temporary Major Character Death, Marriage Contracts, Ghost King Danny Fenton, Bruce Wayne Has Issues, Crack Treated Seriously

AO3 Here or Read More ⬇️

-

The Watchtower was nearly silent, save only for the quiet scraping of John Constantine’s chalk against the metal floor. He’d been working on the summoning circle for nearly an hour, under the watchful eyes of an unmasked Batman.

Bruce looked back down at the book in his lap, twisting the wheelchair around to look over Constantine’s work one more time. He surveyed the chalk circle with tired, dark eyes, and he could feel Constantine’s own gaze boring a hole into the side of his head. He pointedly did not turn to look at him.

“That’s it,” Bruce said quietly, moving his wheelchair backwards. He rolled further from the circle, nearly backed against the Watchtower’s control panel, and released a slow breath through his nose. “You don’t need to stay.”

“Like hell I’m leaving,” Constantine said, but his tone lacked any bite. He tossed the chalk aside and stepped back, seemingly looking over his work once more. After a long pause, he turned to look at Bruce, his expression grim. “I know I said it already, but this is a stupid fuckin’ idea. Proper bad.”

Bruce snorted humorlessly. ‘Bad’ didn’t even begin to cover it. It was the most idiotic, poorly-conceived plan he’d ever dreamed up, and he had no other choice. Constantine clearly knew that, too, if the dark circles under his eyes were any indicator. They’d both been awake for days, planning and refining the details of a final Hail Mary that would almost certainly get them killed.

Bruce was ashamed, but he didn’t care. The slim chance of success was worth it. If there was even a possibility of hope, they had to try. He owed it to them.

“If it were that bad of an idea, you wouldn’t still be here,” he finally said, though the words felt sour in his mouth. He didn’t want to push Constantine to leave, but it would be cruel to allow the man to stay and die alongside him.

Even so, he found it difficult to prod the man into leaving. Despite his reputation as the Batman — an uncaring, unfeeling vigilante — he still felt human emotions. He tried to not let them cloud his judgment, of course, but he could hardly deny the icy trickle of fear that gripped his throat. Death was always a possibility on the streets of Gotham, but here in the Watchtower, it had always felt so distant. Now, faced with the inevitability of it all, his fingers trembled and his chest was cold. He was afraid.

Constantine scowled, his fingers twitching towards his coat pocket before pausing with a jerky movement. His fingers shook with the tell-tale stress of nicotine withdrawal, and his eyes lingered on the circle, as if deep in thought.

“…I’ll be honest, Bats,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, “I don’t see us walkin’ away from this one.”

And that was the crux of it. If John Constantine, a man who openly mocked demons and frequently weaseled his way out of soul-binding contracts, had such low expectations… Bruce carefully schooled his expression, privately mourning the absence of the cowl. He still couldn’t bring himself to wear it.

He said nothing. There was nothing to say, not really — he was asking a fellow Justice League member to die with him. He had fallen so far in just a month without—

His throat felt tight. He scowled, shaking his head, and took a breath. It wouldn’t matter, soon enough. Either he would fix everything or he would die. Simple logic. Either way, it would cease to be a problem before long.

He was betraying Gotham City. He was betraying his principles, his most deeply held convictions. He couldn’t bring himself to regret it in the slightest.

“Let’s do it,” he said quietly. The candles around the chalk circle flickered, as if registering his statement. He didn’t dare to meet Constantine’s eyes, his gaze focused solely on the small dagger in his lap. He wrapped a shaking hand around the hilt, the fabric around the hilt rough and scratchy against his palm. He took in another slow breath, his heartbeat steady in his chest.

Constantine made a quiet noise. Without any aplomb, he stepped forward, his back to Bruce, and held out an old book. He slowly began speaking, an old Latin chant, with another language that Bruce didn’t recognize mixed in.

“Eliru, reĝo de la damnitaj. Gustumu la sangon, kiu fluas el via sindonemo. Accede ad nos, rex. Accede ad circulum regni tui!”

The candles flickered from orange to green, their acidic glow flaring up and sending shadows dancing around the Watchtower’s command room. Bruce gritted his teeth, leaning forward from his wheelchair and holding his hand out, the dagger primed to strike at his palm.

“Eniru la rondon trankvile kaj aŭskultu nian rabataĉeton!”

Bruce yanked the dagger across his palm, hissing as the blade bit into the thin skin and muscle. His blood spilled over the floor, coating the edge of the circle, and he was hit with the sudden, gut-wrenching realization that this was it. They’d long since passed the point of no return.

The circle glowed white as Constantine’s chanting reached a crescendo. He was almost shouting the final words of the spell, and the white light started bleeding into green. The toxic color of the Lazarus Pits filled the room, just as the sound of static began to surround them.

Bruce dropped the dagger, his stomach dropping as the temperature began plummeting. He nearly turned around to check the Watchtower’s monitoring system, purely on instinct, before he realized that his back was still warm. The cold was not a mechanical failure, but simply the result of the entity they had summoned. It was the icy touch of death’s king, not the reaching void of space.

The green light grew nearly blinding, and Bruce faintly heard Constantine shout before he, too, was drowned out by the light and deafening static. He squeezed his eyes shut, nearly flinching away, and felt a breeze of cold air against his face. The blood on his palm had frozen in place, and the wound burned as if the skin had been cauterized.

Spots danced across his vision when he finally opened his eyes again, the light gradually fading away to reveal a man. Bruce felt a chill run down his spine, but it was not the cold.

The King of Ghosts was tall, that was the first thing he noticed. The entity had broad shoulders and wore a crown wreathed in green flames. His hair tumbled down his shoulders in waves of cascading white, flowing strangely as if he was underwater. His skin was pale and pallid, as if he, himself, was a corpse that had been left in a cold body of water. At that, Bruce looked down at the entity’s fingertips, which were a ghastly black color at the tips. He wondered if the King of Ghosts had once been alive, maybe in the early days of humanity, and had died of hypothermia in a snowbank somewhere.

The King’s face was stern, with the tell-tale wrinkles of age at the corners of his eyes and the sides of his mouth. He couldn’t have been more than 40, but there was a look in his green eyes that spoke of a bone-deep weariness. He wore a long, dark tunic, but it glimmered strangely, as if it contained the stars from a far-away galaxy. Behind him, there was an enormous pair of glowing, white wings, their light nearly blinding to look at. The King held a thick book, though it snapped shut as he seemed to realize that he was, very suddenly, in a new place. His green eyes widened for a fraction of a second before he made eye contact with Bruce.

Finally, he spoke, his voice deep and faintly buzzing with that familiar static. “...You must be Mr. Wayne. I wondered when we would meet.”

“You know who I am?” Bruce asked without thinking, but he internally winced as soon as the words left his mouth. He couldn’t give away how utterly lost he was, how much of a disadvantage he was at.

“Gotham’s local bird-keeper, of course I know who you are,” the Ghost King said, his tone warm. “Your flock is lost to you now, but they still fly in my domain. They are what you seek.”

Bruce’s breath left him all at once, as if he’d been punched. He couldn’t speak, his eyes wide.

The entity continued on, perhaps uncaring for his shock. “You’ll have to forgive me, but I’ve been expecting to meet you for a while. Maybe that’s a strange way to open a conversation… It has been many years since I’ve spoken to- well, a mortal.”

Thankfully, Bruce didn’t need to say a word, as Constantine stepped forward, holding up his spell book. “‘Ello, your Majesty. Er, you already know what we want, so how’s about a trade? The book, in exchange for… Well, y’know.”

The Ghost King raised a white brow before his eyes narrowed. “John Constantine… I’ve been meaning to speak with you, as well. You have saved me a trip to the mortal realm. It isn’t every day that I get to accomplish so much with just one meeting.”

Bruce froze, his heart sinking. He’d known what to expect, but to hear the King say it so bluntly… He cleared his throat, fighting to keep his composure as those intense, unblinking eyes returned to him.

“Constantine doesn’t have anything to do with this, he’s here in an unofficial capacity,” he said quickly, his words steady despite his heart threatening to beat out of his chest. “He is…”

“I’m like his lawyer, here to negotiate on his behalf, your Majesty,” Constantine said smoothly, pulling a cigarette out of his trench coat’s pocket. He leaned down and held it up to one of the candles, still glowing a deathly green, and lit it. With that, he straightened up, taking a deep drag, and breathed out a cloud of smoke. “Pay me no mind, yeah?”

The Ghost King huffed, his head quirking to the side like a bird. “We will address the matter of your soul at a later date, then, magician. And no, the book is not a fair trade. For now, I’d like you,” he pointed towards Bruce, “to tell me what I can do for you.”

Bruce refused to allow himself to be taken aback. He nodded, gritting his teeth for a moment before releasing the tension in his body.

“One month ago, the Joker learned of my secret identity. He took me and my sons hostage, and…” Bruce paused. Flashes of blood and bone flashed behind his eyes, and he could almost hear a high-pitched, shrieking laugh. He would never forget the sound. “My sons are dead. Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake-Wayne, and Damian Wayne. The Joker killed them. I want them back.”

The King hummed, a strange sound that hovered somewhere between static and the crashing of waves upon a distant shore. “The dead do not often tolerate being disturbed.”

“Come off it, mate- erm, sir,” Constantine cut in, sharply correcting himself as the King sent him a dark look. “Your, uh, your Majesty.”

“I invite you to finish your statement, John Constantine,” The King of the Dead said slowly, the room growing colder as he watched the magician. They were rapidly losing control of the situation.

“I just meant, uh-” Constantine floundered, his eyes wide as he held up his hands. “Those kids, they aren’t resting, are they? They’re probably raising hell trying to get back ‘ere.”

The King rolled his eyes, waving a hand towards Constantine absentmindedly. Ghostly chains wrapped around the man’s ankles, sending him toppling down to the floor with a sharp yelp. He opened his mouth to shout, his cigarette falling to the ground, and a gag appeared around his head.

“The adults are talking now, John,” the King intoned, a sparkle of mischief twinkling behind his eyes. As Constantine let out a muffled yell behind the gag, the King turned to Bruce.

“You are not the first to request an audience with me, in regard to your sons,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards before settling down into a neutral countenance. “Though she could not bargain with me, not as you can.”

“Who was it?” Bruce asked before he could think better of it. He immediately went still, hoping desperately that the entity wouldn’t somehow use his words against him. He wasn’t seeking information, he was seeking a deal.

“You are familiar with her. You belong to her, and in a way, she belongs to you,” the King said, waving a hand idly. A glowing green figure appeared beside him for just a moment, their features too foggy to make out clearly. It was a woman wearing a tight cocktail dress, a cigarette raised to her lips.

The image vanished after a fleeting second. “She is the spirit of Gotham City. It is within her shadows that you roam, and within her walls that you bled. She watched the demise of your sons, and she brought their spirits to my realm, when it was time. She is called Lady Gotham. She is… fond of you and your cohort.”

Bruce’s eyes widened. The spirit of Gotham City… The fact that a city could even have a spirit was news to him, but he tried to move past the surprise as quickly as it had occurred. Lady Gotham’s favor was an intriguing prospect, and he was privately glad that someone had been waiting to help his boys when they’d finally passed, but he moved on.

“She requested an audience with you. Did she bring…” He couldn’t quite finish his sentence. He hated to imagine his kids, dead and scared and confused, standing before this imposing entity without any way to defend themselves. It made him sick to his stomach.

“She did not bring them before me, no. She begged for their return to the world of the living, though, and she mourned when I told her that I could not help her.” The Ghost King looked mildly uncomfortable at the thought, his lips pursing together. “If it is any comfort to you, they have not been frightened. Inquisitive and upset, perhaps, but never frightened. They know what happened to them.”

Bruce’s breath caught in his chest. Out of everything he had been expecting from the King of Ghosts, it was not comfort. Cold indifference, perhaps, or even derision. His hands shook, even as he balled them into fists to rest in his lap. He nodded slowly, trying to settle his nerves.

“...Are they happy?” He asked very quietly, unable to speak any louder. As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. Either way, he didn’t think that the answer would be pleasant to hear.

The King seemed to sense this as well, and his features softened. His pointed ears lowered. “They were happier in the mortal realm. Death is difficult for ones so young, but there have been people to help them adjust. They have not been alone.”

The pain that had rested in Bruce’s chest for the last month finally made itself known. As if a dam had finally broken, had finally worn away after years of damage, and his eyes burned. His vision blurred slightly as the tears finally welled up, and he fought to breathe around the lump that had suddenly taken up residence in his throat.

There was a moment of silence before the King stepped closer, pausing at the boundary of the circle. A flicker of movement behind his figure had Bruce looking up, and he watched as the entity’s wings shuffled slightly, reminiscent of an uncomfortable bird.

“For what it’s worth, I am… sympathetic to your struggle,” he said, his eyes creased in sympathy. “After hearing Lady Gotham’s case for their revival, I spoke to a few of my closest colleagues. They have agreed that the death of your children was not meant to happen.”

Bruce blinked, the tears spilling over his cheeks. He felt as if he couldn’t breathe, and his entire body felt hot. He was safe, but for some reason, it felt like he was watching his boys die all over again. “...What?”

“The passage of time is a tricky thing,” the King explained, gesturing out in a straight line. “Some things are meant to happen, some are not. Certain timelines must never come to pass, for the good of our reality. Part of my job is ensuring that, well, those timelines cease to exist. Whether that means removing troublesome players or correcting a fatal error, my duty is to the continuation of my realm. Do you follow?”

“You said… You said that they weren’t- they weren’t meant to die,” Bruce said numbly, meeting the King’s eyes with disbelief. “Then why did they?!”

To his surprise, the King did not scold him. In fact, he merely inclined his head, looking sufficiently guilty. “Your sons died because of an error within the timeline. It can be reversed with a bargain.”

Constantine shouted behind his gag, squirming violently against his bindings. He scooted closer to the circle, slamming his hands against the floor, and Bruce frowned.

He sent a look towards the King, motioning down to Constantine. The entity sighed before waving a hand, and the gag over the magician’s face fell away.

“-mph, finally… Right, your majesty, if this whole situation happened because of a ‘timeline error,’ then why does Batman need to make a deal to fix it?!” Constantine argued with a dark scowl, which would have looked more intimidating if he were not tied up and laying on the floor.

His argument had merit, and Bruce realized with a start that he had hardly been thinking. It was difficult to think rationally when he was so vulnerable, but he needed to remain impartial. He was grateful for Constantine’s presence, despite his brusque nature.

“I asked the same question,” the King answered, a frown marring his features. “As it stands, there is a balance to all things. You seek the return of the life and body of 4 souls, and doing this would aid in fixing this timeline, but there is always a price to keeping the balance. To be clear, I couldn’t bring them back under normal circumstances.”

“But you can bring them back?” Bruce pressed, his heart leaping up to his throat. The entity nodded. He leaned back in his chair, falling slack with relief.

“But there’s a price,” the King reminded him. “To bring your sons back onto the mortal plane, as they were, you will first surrender to me your soul, along with your life, death, and eternity.”

“Hold on a fuckin’- mphff!” Constantine started speaking, but the gag jumped right back into his mouth. He shouted behind it, his face crumpling in rage, but the King paid him little mind.

“Do you understand this term?” The King asked seriously, meeting Bruce’s gaze evenly. “Your life will not be your own, not after this. Your death and eternity, even less so.”

He gritted his teeth, watching the entity with narrowed eyes. He didn’t need to truly think about it, not when the lives of his sons hung in the balance. He nodded.

“I understand. Is that your only term for their revival?”

The King looked sad for a moment before shaking his head. “Well… It’s complicated. In accordance with the laws of the Infinite Realms, I must bring a soul to trial for this timeline error. After conferring with my counsel, we have agreed that the Joker is responsible. I will be taking him into the Realms to stand trial and atone for his crimes. He has also killed 4 of Lady Gotham’s knights, which is yet another breach of Realm law.”

“You aren’t asking me for permission for this, are you?” Bruce asked, though he suspected that he already knew the answer. “I’m not able to just hand over another person’s soul.”

“Ownership doesn’t matter in a criminal trial, it’s more like extradition,” the King explained patiently, gesturing with his hands. “You signing over your soul is not a matter of ownership, it’s more like a work contract. I fulfill my end, you fulfill yours. In the Joker’s case, he is being prosecuted for using knowledge of the Infinite Realms to kill Gotham’s protectors.”

“So I’ll work for you, once this deal is complete?” Bruce asked, raising a brow and deliberately ignoring any mention of the Joker. He hadn’t been entirely clear on what soul ownership meant, and Constantine had been vague in his explanations as well. It seemed like eternal damnation, which suited him just fine, but he wanted to be sure.

“Well… The things that I have requested from you are required to restore balance, but in the interest of cooperation, I will tell you that I have no specific plans for your soul,” the King said, looking almost sheepish as he admitted it. He rubbed the back of his neck, gesturing down at Constantine, and said, “Despite what this one might tell you, I did not answer your summons for nefarious purposes. I hadn’t even realized that it was you summoning me.”

The way the King spoke was interesting. For whatever reason, Bruce got the feeling that this entity was familiar with modern language and mannerisms, if only because of his strange insistence on being polite (except, of course, to Constantine).

Finally, he sighed very quietly. “Will you let me see them one more time, then? Will I have any time here on Earth with them?”

The King’s face softened, his green eyes creased with sympathy. He nodded. “Of course. Mr. Wayne, I don’t seek cruelty. You will have at least a week with your children before I return for you, I can promise you that.”

A week. It was such a short span of time, but it was more than he’d ever hoped for. He fought the tears that threatened to reappear as he nodded, a smile barely tugging at the corners of his mouth. “A week is… Thank you. I appreciate that, more than you know.”

The King smiled. With a flare of green fire, a small stack of papers appeared in his hands, and a pair of reading glasses appeared, already perched neatly on his nose. He adjusted them and shuffled through the papers, organizing them neatly in his arms but presumably not reading any of them. Had he already drafted a contract in preparation of their meeting?

Finally, he stepped up to the boundary of the circle and leaned closer to Bruce, extending the papers out to him. He took them after a moment of hesitation, glancing down to see…

“King Phantom? Is that your name?” Bruce asked curiously, unable to really help himself. He skimmed the terms, finding that there wasn’t very much legalese in the way that he had been expecting. The terms were clear.

“That is what I’m called, yes,” King Phantom said, and though Bruce wasn’t looking up at him, he could hear a smile in his voice. “I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself properly. That was rude.”

“Mhm,” Bruce hummed, not paying it much mind, but paused on the section about the King’s responsibilities towards him. The language was worded strangely, less like a work contract and more like…

Something wasn’t quite right.

In exchange for all services rendered (see Section 3, “Phantom’s Responsibilities”), both parties will enter into a formal courtship, to begin one week from the signing of this contract.

“Did you write this?” He asked slowly, raising a brow as he looked up at the entity.

“No, my mentor wrote it,” King Phantom said with a smile, and a few things clicked into place. Ah. Bruce schooled his expression with some difficulty. “He and I spoke about this after meeting with Lady Gotham, and he drafted those in preparation of this summoning. Is something wrong? I haven’t had a chance to look over it, but I can.”

“Your mentor?” Bruce pressed, ignoring the question.

“The Master of Time, Lord Kronos, known as Clockwork most recently,” the King explained, gesturing with frostbite hands as he spoke. “He is a dear friend and a trusted confidant. He has taught me much over the years.”

Bruce hummed. He examined the list of his own responsibilities towards the King and was pleased to see that the entity had not lied — he had a week from the moment of signing the contract to get his affairs in order, in preparation of leaving the mortal plane to get ‘accustomed’ to the Infinite Realms.

Finally, he asked, “Would it be possible to allow Constantine to review this?”

The King snorted and waved a hand. In a flash of green, the bindings vanished and the magician leapt to his feet with a scowl.

“Damn it all…” Constantine leaned over Bruce’s wheelchair and yanked the contract from his hands, grumbling quietly as he looked through the papers.

While he was occupied, Bruce thought to ask one more question. “One of the terms in your section said that you would return my sons and myself to perfect health. Why?”

The terms of the contract had been shockingly accommodating for Bruce’s side, to such an extent that he wondered just how valuable his soul was. What would his eternity look like, under the Ghost King? Was it really that bad, that even the contract writer had felt bad for him? And if that was the case, what would the courtship be like? He shuddered at the idea.

“It seems fair, doesn’t it?” King Phantom asked with a frown. “You didn’t ask for this situation, and your injuries are the result of a horrible error. This contract seeks to fix that error, in its entirety.”

Bruce hummed, considering the answer. Throughout their conversation, Phantom had been surprisingly kind to him, always answering his questions patiently and showing sympathy for his situation. He wondered about pushing that kindness, ever so slightly.

He glanced over to Constantine, confirming that he was still reading through the papers, and met the King’s eyes again.

“You were human once, weren’t you?”

Beside him, Constantine stiffened, his eyes going wide. He slowly turned to look at Bruce, his expression dangerous, but Bruce paid the magician little mind.

“I was, yes,” the King said, nodding. He smiled after a moment and gestured to his form, saying sheepishly, “Most of this is the result of shapeshifting. Ghosts are just stronger spirits, and we can change our forms as we see fit. The wings are a ghost thing, I did not have them when I was alive.”

“How did you die?” Bruce asked, and Constantine let out a high pitched, strained sound. He was rapidly shaking his head, clearly trying to get Bruce’s attention.

King Phantom recoiled, his green eyes catching on Constantine’s panicked figure. After a tense moment, he smiled.

“I see. Well, for one, please don’t ask any other ghosts about their death. It’s considered rude. For two, most ghosts are the result of a violent or sudden death. That is all I will say about my death, lest I risk giving the magician a heart attack.”

“The- the magician is fine!” Constantine spluttered, but his white knuckled grip on the papers in his grasp said otherwise. He jabbed Bruce’s shoulder with his elbow, shooting him a dark look.

Bruce pointedly did not apologize. He had established that King Phantom wouldn’t hurt him, at least not until the contract was settled, and he was curious about the entity’s temperament. If he was going to spend eternity with this creature, he had to know more about him.

“Freezing to death doesn’t seem violent,” he observed idly, gesturing up to the King’s dark fingertips. To his surprise, the ghost only laughed.

“Again, shapeshifting. Besides, my core- that is, my soul’s essence- is partially responsible for my appearance, and I have an icy core. The frostbitten appearance isn’t an indicator of my death, though we can go through all of the violent deaths if you really want to guess.”

The most sensitive topic that he could think of was a ghost’s death, and it was one that Constantine had insisted that he needed to avoid. Now, in the wake of the King’s lighthearted but polite nature, it seemed like it wasn’t too much of a taboo.

“Murder?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Drowning? Blunt force trauma? Starving?”

“You’re good at this game, but still no.”

Bruce snorted. He smiled slightly, internally considering the many ways he had almost died.

“Poison? Falling? Blood loss?”

“Three more incorrect guesses, Mr. Wayne. Come on, really think.” The smile on the King’s face seemed genuine, and the way he leaned down, as if excited to hear his next guess, suggested that he, too, was having fun.

“Dehydration? Disease? Animal attack?” He racked his brain for causes of death that would have been especially relevant near the beginning of mankind. If Phantom was that old, he likely had died in a common way.

“None of those, either, but I’m confident that you’ll find it.”

Bruce paused. He leaned back in his chair, thinking seriously about it. There were a few more that he had not seriously considered due to the more modern nature of their applications, but maybe that was what he was missing.

“Suicide?”

“Not quite. You’re getting warmer, though.”

He had his answer. He steeled himself, ready to ask his question and receive some kind of reaction from Phantom. The entity still seemed engaged, his long ears perked up and his eyes bright. It was strange to see such an expression on a (presumably) millennia old creature.

He met Phantom’s eyes evenly and said, “Electrocution, your Majesty.”

Phantom’s lips quirked upwards in a small, sad smile. He nodded. “You are correct. Well done, Mr. Wayne.”

Bruce suppressed the urge to smile in return. He’d expected that selling his soul would be a more unpleasant affair, but Phantom had an even temperament and even a sense of humor. He was surprised by both, frankly.

“Bruce,” he said quietly. “Call me Bruce.”

“As long as you call me Phantom, none of this king or majesty business,” the entity said with a wider smile, stepping back from the edge of the circle. His wings were relaxed now, no longer held so tightly against his back. The white feathers glowed ever so slightly, and Bruce had to remind himself not to stare.

He nodded, glancing back to Constantine, who was staring, slack-jawed at the contract. Bruce glanced down at the page and immediately identified which term had caught the magician off-guard, and he cleared his throat.

“It all looks fine, right, John?”

Constantine met his eyes, finally closing his mouth. After a beat, he nodded. “Yeah- yeah, it looks… fine. Bats, are you sure?”

“It seems fair,” Bruce said, pointedly not discussing the clause that Constantine had been examining. If the King hadn’t read the contract, then this could only work out in Bruce’s favor.

The magician looked at him for a long moment before finally nodding, his expression twisted with pity. He handed the papers over to Bruce, saying quietly, “You’re a good dad, mate.”

“If I was, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” Bruce said very quietly, accepting the small stack of papers. He looked up at Phantom with a steely gaze. “Alright, you have a deal. How do we sign?”

“You may be familiar with other forms of contract signing,” Phantom said, gesturing to Constantine. “Demons and fae often seal their contracts with a kiss. I find that unprofessional and, frankly, very cruel. We sign the final page and shake hands. Is that acceptable, Bruce?”

He briefly wondered if Phantom’s lips would have been cold before immediately shutting down that train of thought. Instead, he nodded. “That’s fine with me.”

King Phantom smiled, exposing sharp teeth as he did. He waved a hand and another flash of green light appeared, summoning a quill and a pot of ink. Both objects floated in the air before him, seemingly weightless, and he grabbed the quill. With a quick dip into the ink pot (which, disturbingly, seemed to contain Lazarus Water instead of ink), he signed the final page of the contract before handing it off to Bruce.

The quill was cold against his fingers. He shuddered, holding it tighter, and dipped the tip into the Lazarus Water. It was more viscous than he’d realized, and it clung to the end of the quill like honey. He lowered it down to the page and slowly penned his signature, his stomach dropping as he did.

Finally, the papers glowed a bright, toxic green, and the King smiled. He held out a hand, and Bruce took it. It was as cold as he’d expected, but soft to the touch. They shook once, and the deal was sealed.

There was a quiet moment of tension before Bruce felt an overwhelming sense of finality. He released Phantom’s hand, clutching at his own chest, and took a slow, deep breath. A tingling sensation ran up and down his spine, which was strange for a beat before he realized that he could feel it. He laughed softly, in disbelief, and slowly stood up from the wheelchair.

Phantom watched him with a soft smile, his head tilted to the side. The ghost stepped closer, placing a hand on Bruce’s shoulder, and said very quietly, “You should head back home. They’re waiting for you.”

With that, the King of Ghosts vanished, his form dissipating like smoke, and there was a thick silence left in his wake.

“I can’t believe you just did that, you bloody fuckin’ idiot,” Constantine huffed, his tone incredulous. He stepped closer to Bruce, digging a cigarette out of his trench coat and immediately lighting it. “You just sold yourself to the fuckin’-”

“We read the same contract, didn’t we?” Bruce asked with a smirk. “He’ll probably realize what happened before he comes to collect me, but still.”

“Being engaged to the bloody Ghost King is still crazy!” Constantine spat, throwing his hands up in the air. He took a heavy drag of his cigarette before groaning. “You know how pissed he’ll be? Bats, you’re mental-”

“According to the contract, it’s an official courtship, not an engagement,” Bruce corrected mildly, unable to help but smile. He stepped away from the wheelchair and breathed in deeply, noting that his legs felt better than they’d felt even before his encounter with the Joker.

“I’ll let you clean this up,” he said with a dark smirk. “I need to get back home.”

Constantine sent him a miserable glare, but nodded. “Fine. Go hug your kids… Bloody nutcase.”

That was exactly what he planned to do.

-

(If you liked, be sure to leave a comment or just reblog! An extended chapter is available on my AO3 and you’ll be able to follow the rest of the fic there. Thank you for reading.)

[casscainmainly]

can you dive more into bruce’s dislike of cass’ femininity?

Sure!! To preface this, gender and Cass is a really nuanced topic that has a lot of interpretations, all equally valid. This is just my own interpretation, and is mainly situated in early Batgirl (2000). I also recommend reading my gender and sexuality posts for Cass' persepctive on her relationship with gender. But since I've gotten a couple questions about it, I'll cover specifically Bruce's evolving opinions on Cass' gender here.

Beginning

From Batgirl #1, Puckett establishes Bruce's view of Cass: she is like him. Both Barbara and Bruce (and Cass herself) acknowledge this, and it allows Bruce to understand Cass in a way Babs doesn't. This isn't gendered yet, but the seed (that Horrocks will pull on) is there - Bruce closely associates Cass with himself, meaning he focuses on the ways they're similar and ignores the ways they're different.

This similarity is comforting not just for Bruce, but for Cass as well. They are equals - they have similar fighting abilities, philosophies against killing, ways of expressing themselves, etc. She doesn't have to hold back, not with him. Both of them wanted her to be 'like him'.

Bruce does not want Cass being taken "away from [him]". "You want me to think she's like you," he tells David Cain in #5. His biggest fear is Cass being like someone else, and not like him.

The Threat of Stephanie Brown

This recurring motto - 'you're not like them, you're like me' - crops up again when Bruce talks about Stephanie in #38. I've discussed how this makes Cass think she lacks something in femininity, but for Bruce this is him drawing a line between Steph and Cass. Steph is a 'girl', treated like one by Bruce: incompetent, not to be taken seriously, belittled. But because Cass is 'like Bruce,' she can "never" be like Stephanie. Cass being like Stephanie challenges not only Bruce's views of both women, but also his own highly cherished belief that him and Cass are the same.

Steph's feminine presence threatens Bruce and Cass' relationship, kicking off a series of issues where Bruce desperately tries to suppress Cass' gender and sexuality.

Vacation

When Cass encounters Tai'Darshan (a boy love interest) and lets him go, Bruce agrees to send Babs and Cass on a vacation. His motivations are extremely murky: Babs implies it was a set-up to get Cass into action again (justified by a panel of Bruce evilly smirking), but a panel right after has Bruce looking sad:

From #40: "You don't really give a damn about Cassandra, do you?" The juxtaposition between these two panels - one with Bruce (sans mask) smirking, and the other with Batman brooding - suggests he does care about Cass, but he struggles with how. For the first time he's realising that Cass isn't like him, that she's a girl with all that girlhood entails, and it frightens him. The cowl (Batgirl) allows him to ignore what's underneath, but Cass is coming through more and more.

But when Babs mentions Kon, the struggle goes out the window.

Thi anger is funny in a girldad way, but it goes to show how much he cannot stand the thought of Cass exploring her sexuality. It's not just that he doesn't want his little girl to date - it's that somehow, Cass embodying her girlhood will separate her from him forever.

Loss

Babs explicitly points out Bruce's feelings in #42. Though she couches it in non-gendered terms ("school, a job"), it's no coincidence that it's specifically a gendered thing - "falling in love" (with a boy, Kon and/or Tai) - that Bruce is reacting to. So far Bruce has threatened Cass away from Stephanie (her first female friend), Tai/Kon (love interests), and has repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction in Babs (Cass' mother figure). He tries to limit any relationships that allow Cass either feminine solidarity or expressions of her femininity.

Bruce sees girl!Cass as fundamentally opposed to Batgirl!Cass. Batgirl is like him - Cass is not. She's "distracted. Unfocused. Unreliable..." That last adjective is super interesting, because it frames Cass' explorations of gender as an insult against him. Cass becoming more girl-like is making her "unreliable" to Bruce, making her harder to trust.

"If you've got better things to do than being Batgirl, Cass, just say so." This can be read as an ultimatum, but also as a genuine question. He's asking if she wants to be like him (Batgirl), or go her own way (Cass). When she picks Batgirl, he tells her "no more trips to Kansas." To be like him, she must give up her explorations of gender/sexuality.

Firing

In the aftermath of a trip to Tai's hometown (during which he dies), Cass grows increasingly distant to Bruce.

Bruce finally realises that Cass is not like him - that her differences, most vitally expressed in her girlhood, means she needs something different from him. "She no longer tells us what she's doing..." Bruce still associates Cass exploring her gender as disloyalty to him and his symbol, but this time he acknowledges that maybe that disloyalty is a good thing.

Then we have maybe the most interesting part:

Bruce's "I wouldn't know" is a response to Babs' second dialogue, but it's interesting to read his words as also a response to the first. Because Bruce wouldn't know what it's like to give into hormones, to "have sex, take wild risks, misbehave". Of course he's had sex, but his life is so consumed by his mission that Bruce has limited opportunities to explore his gender. In a way, Bruce's repression of Cass' femininity reflects his repression of his own gender exploration.

The Fight

In #50, Cass and Bruce get into a fight, during which Babs questions whether Cass is trying to "kill" or "kiss" Bruce. In the broader context of their gender struggles, this fight is the culmination of Cass and Bruce figuring out their gender expressions and sexualities. I'm reading this not as a romantic kiss, but as a symbol of sexual release - of defying sexual and gendered repression.

Bruce finally explicitly asks Cass who's she loyal to, and Cass points to the Bat. For Bruce, this choice symbolises that Cass is still loyal to Batgirl/Batman, but also her own person; he finally understands how Cass is like him, but also unlike him, and that her (gender) difference doesn't make her any less able to wear the symbol.

This fight is often analysed from Cass' perspective, but it was clearly important to Bruce, too. It was the turning point in his treatment and understanding of Cass - after this point, their relationship never hits the same lows again, and Bruce starts treating her like her own person (cultiminating in the Batgirl (2008) adoption). In Gabrych's run, Bruce leaves Cass alone and doesn't stop her from searching for Shiva, a huge difference from the way he previously handled her feminine relationships and soul-searching.

Ending

So I guess to say Bruce hated Cass' femininity (which I wrote in a previous post) is an oversimplification; it's not purely misogyny (though that was a part of it), but his longing for her to be exactly like him that caused him to try to repress her gender/sexuality. Her femininity was a marker of difference, a sign she was not completely subsumed in him and his symbol. However, Horrocks' run also shows how Bruce changes and grows, learning to accept Cass as his wonderful daughter.

I hope that answers your question!!

[timmydraker]

CW: use of R word

Tim who, as much as he doesn’t want it to be true, is a poster boy for typical Neurodivergence. He’s more logically thinking that emotionally and needs obvious signs of someone’s emotional state that he can put together to understand how he should respond to help them.

But that’s not what bothers him because that doesn’t bother his parents.

Instead it’s his passion, though not in technology and detective work as they quickly found use for that in their business, but for bugs.

Ever since he was a kid Tim has been enamoured by insects and arachnids and even fungi. He would only read books that talked about bugs or had one on the cover, but since it helped him learn to read at a steady pace his parents didn’t mind.

At least, not at first.

When Tim got into coding just so he could make his own little web-journal for all his bug finds, they were happy he was learning how to organise and structure at just six years old, but when he only did those things regarding bugs…

Tim had his first panic attack when he watched his father pick up his terrarium filled with Diapheromera Femorata (Stick bugs) and chucked it into the bin. The glass shattered as the corner his something hard and he was forced to watch his bugs struggle to navigate the glass and rubbish, most of them injured.

His mother had gagged when she saw them and demanded the whole bin be burnt with the bugs still inside.

Tim had been so heart broken, but mostly confused. His parents traveled the world to dig up dirt and old items that were mostly the same yet they didn’t like bugs?

When he asked one his Nanny’s she gave him an answer that he would never forget, “Well, you see… only those people like bugs, y’know? The… special ones, like re-“

Tim never even let himself think of the last word she spoke and from then only forced himself to only focus on his computer work. He still loved photography but now he took photos of skylines and trees, not the beautiful beehive a few yards behind his house or the spider webs that sat between branches like art works. He took photos of Batman and Robin and for a long time that was enough to make his longing bearable.

If he still followed several pages and articles about bugs either a secret email account, that didn’t matter.

His parents were happy with him even if they still made remarks about his ‘stupid little fixation’.

It’s when they are going over the paper work for Bruce to be Tim’s legal guardian while they weren’t home with Tim’s older brothers hanging around as moral support (bodyguards) that his parents mock him.

Janet is signing some paper with a stupidly expensive pen and chatting to no one in particular when she says, “You’re all lucky we killed this nasty little bugs of his so you don’t have to deal with them.”

Everyone else in the room freezes, beside Jack who huffs a laugh and adds, “Good thing we did, he’d probably be more of a retard otherwise- talking about ‘habitats’ and bloody spiders.”

All of the members of the Wayne family are dead quiet as Tim sits there with a clear look of disassociation coming into his eyes. Alfred has a calm look on his face that tells all who know him that he’s furious and Bruce is strikingly similar.

Jason looks ready to attack and Dick isn’t even moving to stop his brother or calm anyone down.

Damian is holding onto Titus’s collar like a lifeline but seems to give the hound some kind of silent order as the usually calm dog begins to growl low and dangerous.

Jack and Janet tense and stare at both dog and master, Jack ordering him to control his dog.

Bruce stands, letting Titus growl and taking the half signed papers and throwing them in the bin, “I changed my mind, I will be taking you to court for full custody of my son. Leave my house now so I may obtain a restraining order.”

Janet genuinely flounders for a moment and begins to shout about outrage and audacity but when Dick sees that Tim is starting to cry he stands up and reminds them that he is a cop before moving to pick up his second youngest brother and leaving the room.

Tim doesn’t hear much else, only muffled shouting and the sound of a door slamming.

He distantly realises he’s in the family room, not the one they use to have guest but the real one with beanbags and a snack draw, and is being cradled by his brothers. Even Damian is beside him, holding onto his hand tightly as they wait for Bruce and Alfred.

Tim sobs into Dicks chest for Alamos a whole hour before settling more, Bruce coming into the room and Jason and Dick reluctantly hand him over to he can be held by their father.

“Tim, chum, it’s alright. We’ve got you.”

The boy in question shakes his head, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I won’t talk about the bugs I promise-“

Bruce squeezes him tighter and kisses his head, “I don’t want that. What I want is to hear about your bugs.”

Stunned, Tim looks up at him with confusion and barely gets his mouth to move enough to ask what he means.

Dick coos from beside him on the next couch and runs a hand through his hair lovingly, “My sweet baby brother we love you, and you love bugs! So of course we want to hear about it. I’m so sorry we didn’t know how they had been treating you but it was wrong. There’s nothing wrong with you, I swear it.”

Tim sniffled, nodding absentmindedly. They gave him a moment for their words to sink in before Damian spoke up, “Timothy, I demand you tell me about your bugs.”

Jason makes a noise and elbows Damian as if to tell him to shut up, probably thinking the other was being rude, but Tim knows his brother well and just smiles. “I can do that, Dami. I… I don’t think you’ll be very interested though.”

Damian scoffs, “I will ignore that statement as it implies I would waste my time with something I don’t care for.”

Bruce smiles at his youngest and holds Tim’s hand, “I agree. Could you maybe tell us about why you like them? Or your favourites?”

It takes him a moment to respond, but when he looks at all their open expressions and gets an encouraging nod from Alfred, he stutters out a response before gradually gaining confidence as they ask genuine questions to his facts and descriptions.

They each make an effort to ask him about bugs, Jason asking a few times if he wants to check out some books that he knows use bugs as symbolism’s and Dick asking if he can tell him the difference between insects and arachnids several times. Damian and Bruce are both a bit more subtle with their support at first, but after a month Tim enters his room to find a giant terrarium with several different sections so he can have multiple bugs that might not get along with each other.

Bruce and Alfred don’t even make any comments or give disapproving looks when Dick and Jason reveal they each got a tattoo of the bug that Tim said he associates with them.

[pluvialpoet]

bergamot

Summary: moments of quiet reflection reaffirm what you both already know to be true- he’s always going to come back, and you’re always going to be waiting with open arms

Pairing: dick grayson x fem!reader

Requested: no

Warning: idiots in love, friends to lovers, mutual pining, scarecrow's fear toxin, mentions of death and grief, slight angst, fluffy ending, loosely based off of batman: hush (2019)- but no major spoilers

Word Count: 3,930

masterlist

a/n: I know that dick has a tolerance against/is immune to scarecrow's fear toxin, but let's pretend he isn't...for the plot

Sleep is cruel in the way it continues to evade you when you crave it most. Mocking and teasing, exhaustion morphs into desperation. Even with your eyes shut dreams fail you, and nightmares taunt.

A siren wails, bellowing out into the night and echoing caution even after the initial cry has faded. Could be a police car, or an ambulance. Maybe even a fire truck. You try not to consider all of the possibilities, knowing it’ll only starve your slumber, further. With a huff, you adjust the heavy comforter, pulling it up until it bunches just under your chin.

In a few weeks, branches will be stripped of their leaves. Snow will fall, and the city will suffocate under a blanket of white. July was only yesterday, sticky and never-ending- infinite until finite. Now, January lurks around the corner- weeks away, but daunting, nevertheless.

The pillow tucked behind your back is a poor imitation of the brawn you wish feathers and fill could replicate, just as the one pressed to your chest acts as an imposter mimicking the body meant to be sleeping peacefully beside you. It’s impossible to tell feelings of loneliness apart from being alone, and deep down you know that reminiscence is merciless. Memory is wicked. But you can’t help remembering. It’s the only way you won’t forget- and even then, so much time has passed that you’ve begun to fade, and he’s begun to blur. Spiraling further and further away from reality and control, you drift towards hope, feeding each dangerous possibility until you have nothing left to give, but delusion takes and takes and takes…

Answers elude like comfort- and sleep. When, how, and why is lost upon you. He’s been gone for so long. Even so, your life has continued, evolving to accommodate the gaps he used to fill. Though, it’s about as effective as papier-mâchéing an open wound shut. Everywhere you look, everything you do, every time you shut your eyes, he finds a way to bleed into you, one way or another, and you welcome it every single time. All you really have are memories and a space in your bed which has always been his to come home to.

Outside, the wind howls. Angry and violent, the sound rattles the windowpane and you burrow deeper into the covers trying to block it out. Shadows dance across the ceiling, but none of them belong to the ghost you’ve been waiting for. Another frustrated huff fails to quell burning exhaustion, and you rub your eyes with the back of your hand before checking the clock next to you. Neon green flashes, all too pleased to report that it’s well past midnight and you haven’t gotten a wink of sleep. Already tomorrow, and you’re still mourning today.

Pushing the covers off, you shiver. There’s a chill in the air and little comfort to be found in the fact that the entire apartment feels cold and empty without him in it. At least it’s not just the bed. It’s the entire room, the hallway, and the kitchen, too. You reach for the light above the stove and begin to search the cupboards for a mug. If nothing else, at least a cup of tea will warm you up. Thanks to muscle memory, you act on autopilot, filling the ceramic with water and placing it in the microwave before picking a teabag and waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting, always waiting. Three monotone beeps call your attention back before it has another chance to wander away from you, and you retrieve the cup and place the teabag inside. Steeping time be damned.

You can’t wait any longer.

One leg curls under the other as you take a seat and bring the mug to your mouth. It burns the tip of your tongue, a small price to pay for your greed, and you swallow the too-hot liquid regardless of the consequences. The pain barely registers, anyway. With both palms pressed to the vessel, warmth finally finds you, and a barely contented huff passes your lips to blow the steam from the cup. It’s not always like this. It’s not supposed to be, but for so long, it has been. Never months, always weeks. You don’t know how to do this or how much longer you can put yourself through this torture when every sunrise twists the knots in your stomach tighter and tighter. How much longer until you snap?

You’re so tangled up in your suffering that you miss it the first time, until the hair on the back of your neck bristles. Did you imagine it? Silently, you wait, setting the steaming mug down to listen, and this time, you hear it. Faintly, but there. Real.

Tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap tap tap.

I’m here. I’m safe. Can I come in?

Your feet move before the rest of your body does, and the chair scrapes loudly across the hardwood as you jump from it in shock. A cocktail of excitement, worry, disbelief, and fear bubbles and swirls through you when you spot a familiar glimpse of black and blue through the window near the fire escape.

“Dick?”

Crossing the room without any memory of doing so, you fiddle with the latch that keeps you from him, and him from you, until finally it clicks. With only one foot through the window, you reach for him, desperate to savor the illusion until mass, warmth and a heartbeat prove it to be real. Upon realizing, your breath hitches. He’s real. He’s real, and he’s here. No longer a dream. No longer a nightmare. No longer a vision only sleep can grant or mold, he stands before you. He takes a moment to properly slide the window shut behind him, returning the lock to its rightful position- keeping the rest of the world and the winter, out- before turning to face you once more. He can’t even get a word out before you’re pressed against him, wrapping your arms around him and holding yourself back from crushing him with the intensity of your longing. Overly cautious of injuries you can’t physically see- mindful of bruises, tears of flesh, and wounds that remain eclipsed by kevlar and moonlight- you embrace him with a hesitancy that severely undermines your fervor. Holding him gently- delicately, tenderly- the way you’ve dreamt about entwining with him on nights when sleep has been generous instead of cruel, you finally look up at him.

A sigh of relief dispels the hoarded tension in your neck, shoulders, and chest when you rest your head against his chest and inhale. Sweat and copper muddle his natural scent, but even when he’s covered in his victories, even when he’s drenched in his defeats, he still smells like home- warm, safe, familiar, and comforting.

He hesitates to envelop you with the same thinly veiled desperation, holding himself back.

Every muscle in his body carries the strain of battles fought and won. His head throbs with the force of his thoughts, and the inescapable dizziness that always accompanies crashing down from a high. Then again, he’s never been one to ease into things gracefully. Tiny cuts and scrapes, angry blacks and blues, and even gaping gashes that are still seeping and tender to the touch hardly register as anything other than a stinging, burning sensation. Everything is dull. Ferocity and intensity both subdued. Through the haze of everything that competes for his attention, you’re the one thing that’s clear. As always, the hold you have on him, both physical and metaphorical, brings him back to his senses, but doubt keeps him withdrawn.

Warily wrapping his arms around you, Dick returns the gesture as best as he can. Cages built of muscle, meant to keep you close, refuse to lock you in place, and he finds it increasingly difficult to resist surrendering to you entirely. Just as his nerves begin to settle they spike once more when the gravity of the past few months finally begins to sink in. As you continue to tremble in his arms, he swallows a lump in his throat and fights the urge to hold you impossibly closer. If he weren’t so afraid, he’d never let go again. But he’s not the same man he was the last time you saw him. Having seen too much, he knows that he can’t let this become something more. Fear is rotten. He’s seen the future, and if he keeps leaning on you then he’s only going to drag you down with him. Regardless of what he really wants, he won’t let this become something more, but then he looks down at you in his shirt and realizes it’s always been something more- and it terrifies him more than anything.

When pink swirls around the drain- a muted severity of soapy lather and remnants of crusted, oozing red- he rests his forehead against the cold tiles and lets out a deep sigh. He can’t remember the last time he’d had a proper shower. Under the trickling scorch, he allows his shoulders to slump forward, letting the too-hot water soothe his muscles like a balm, and it stings in a way he welcomes- a reminder that he’s done it again, he’s survived the worst and now he just has to survive the recovery.

He’s never been good with the after, always losing himself in possibilities of what comes next without taking a minute to catch his breath, but he’s trying to be better. He owes it to you. Not only you but himself, too- but mostly you. So, he tries to forget. He pushes memories too fresh to be forgotten somewhere else, banishing them to the far corners of his mind and locking them away until he’s ready to face his demons at his own pace, on his own terms, but his wicked creations fight back. Even when they’re crafted from delusions, mirroring real-life counterparts with a precision too exact to be a figmented replication, he finds himself engaged in an internal match that never crowns a victor. It’s a conflict that never ceases, even after his own surrender. Still, he’s found that the intrusions are less when copper is overpowered by citrus, and when red, inevitably swirls into pink.

Steam amplifies the smell of sweat and body odor, so pungent that the only word to describe it is bad, and he holds his breath while he reaches for your soap once more. He can’t believe you let him anywhere near you. It’s even more unfathomable that you sought an embrace, despite the remnants of battle that’ve woven themselves into his being- lingering, even long after. He’s repulsed by that which exposes him, a stench so strong that it serves as a testament to the fact that he reclaimed you as soon as he could, coming right back to this haven of sorts without any prior stops, and his stomach churns uncomfortably, the once soothing mist tainting each attempt at air, and a weight teases the aching muscles of his chest which breath does not alleviate.

Through the haze, he sees the truth- when reality remains undistorted by the tricks of his own want and longing, he recognizes fact without his own warped perceptions of fantasy- and he realizes just how careless he’s been. By allowing desire to suade better judgment, he’s put you at risk. Guilt punishes with an onslaught of emotions ranging from frustration to anger, sadness to grief, and even regret to sorrow. His own reluctance to accept how dangerous it was, and always has been, to lean on your affections as a crutch has finally caught up to him. After all that he’s seen, after everything he’s been forced to bear witness to over the past few months, coupled with a lifetime of loss, he’s no longer able to ignore the thought that’s broken free from the shackles of elsewhere. What was once dull, always there but never really forgotten, has become intense and persistent.

Every time he finds his way back to you, he invites peril into your life. He’s hazardous. Even if he’s not, being attached to him- in any way- puts you at an even greater risk of endangerment. Trying to justify something even as tame as a friendship is absurd. You’re so much more than that. Whether he meant for it to happen or not, you’ve found a place within his heart. Every beat echoes your name and carries secrets of his devotion. All that remains of the walls meant to protect both of you is rubble, and Dick stands alone in the epicenter of the aftermath, unsure and torn between chaos and order. Selfishly, he wants. Greedily, he craves. Morally, he knows that he should just walk away- but he can’t.

The scene shifts, ceramic tile falling away to reveal an eerie, yet familiar boneyard, and he shakes his head. It’s not real. It was never real- but it was so vivid. Cold fog obscures his vision, and he closes his eyes. This is a trick. This isn’t truth. He knows what comes next. Forced to indulge in his worst nightmares, the shrill, piercing sound of your terror renders him numb. He can’t move. Paralyzed, he fights limbs of lead, but he can’t act. It surrounds him, your agony, and he can’t do anything to save you. He can’t protect you. With each cry of his name, you plead, but there’s nothing he can do. When silence follows his ragged breaths, he refuses to look down. He hates this part the most, but he doesn’t have a choice. Crimson stains the black and blue weave, and he can taste metallic. He doesn’t have any control over this hallucination, born and bred from his greatest fear, and all he can do is witness the fallout of your shared torture- your blood on his hands, his body slumped against your tombstone, and the triumphant laughter of a clown, a scarecrow, a ventriloquist, and a hundred more that delight in your demise.

He can’t catch his breath. Drifting further and further away from reality, he struggles to claw his way back towards the light. When his vision begins to fade, he reaches for more soap. In for three counts, out for four. In for three counts, and out for four, again, Dick feels lightheaded. There’s no limit to how far he’d go to keep you safe, not a single rule or code he wouldn’t break to protect you from anything and everything- and that’s an entirely different threat, in and of itself. His loyalty has the potential to become his ruin, and he’d let it- for your sake- but would that be enough? Could his devotion be enough to keep you safe from the otherwise brutal fate that awaits you with, and without, his intervention?

The bite of a washrag leaves his skin raw. Lost to his thoughts, he’s been mindlessly scrubbing away at his flesh, dousing himself with bubbled distraction. Another breath fails to alleviate his unease. All he can think about is that which is out of his control, and he can’t help but wonder, is there even a chance for the two of you?

Every thought is a contradiction.

He could wax poetic to Bruce about love- how precious and fragile and conscious it is- but he can’t even bring himself to act upon his own advice. Even worse than following in a denialist’s footsteps is being a hypocrite, but there are just too many variables for him to take into account- too many what-ifs and maybe’s that enable him to cower behind words left unspoken.

In spite of this, he dares to dream of a future where you’re his and he’s yours, and nothing else matters. Lost to his delusions, a smile threatens to work muscles that’ve remained dormant for months of disuse. It hurts. Stretching, pulling, and manipulating his face to actually convey what he’s feeling instead of trying to veil it, hurts. However, the worst pain follows. As he reaches for the illusion, it slips through his fingers- so close he can almost hold it, yet just out of reach, simultaneously- and just like that, reality distorts the mirage. Pried from him, ripped away and sporting his claw marks, what could’ve been remains what could’ve been- and it’s all his fault.

Fear suppresses his love.

He’s already lost so much, he can’t lose this, too. He won’t. However glutinous, he craves more- even when he knows he can’t have it, he wants with a desire that’s almost too strong to ignore. Almost. Locking his feelings away, he throws away the key, but his ribs begin to expand with the intensity of his longing, and his chest feels tight. This isn’t like before. It seems as if his secrets have outgrown their cages, and he finds himself at a crossroads. His mind begins to drift and he wonders if this agony is why Bruce kept Selina at arm’s length…

A sigh, and a revelation- he’s not Bruce, and you’re not Selina.

Dick’s been going about this all wrong. Despite everything he’s been taught about love and loss, he’s allowed a life outside of a domino mask and kevlar. He deserves to cherish someone, to protect and devote himself to something other than his work- someone to fight for, someone to come home to- and he deserves to be beloved, too. Even if only for tonight. Even if tomorrow isn’t promised and all you have is right now, you’re here. On the other side of the frosted glass screen and plaster, you’re waiting for him. Another smile, less forced and genuine, feels like a relief instead of a burden. His skin pebbles under the frigid stream left in the wake of molten steam. With a shiver, he seeks your warmth, reaching for the faucet and stepping out of the enclosure.

A worn shirt rests atop the counter, the fabric faded from years of wear and wash, folded neatly beneath a pair of fresh boxers and socks likely left behind from the last time, or the time before that, or even the time before…truth be told, he thought he’d lost it, misplaced it, or given it away. Of course, you’ve had it in your care, all along. The corner of his mouth threatens to twitch into a smile. Slipping the towel from around his waist, he begins to dress, wondering when you managed to sneak in without him hearing you. The door used to creak, and he realizes that you must have fixed it while he was gone. It’s hard not to think about what else might’ve changed since the last time he saw you. Would you have stayed with him, if he asked you to? You always have. Six years and counting, he muses if you always will…

His hair is getting long, again. Droplets fall from the overgrown strands at the base of his neck down his back, making him shiver and reach for his towel once more. He pats his hair down, ruffling it with the towel a few times before wiping away at the mirror. Making eye contact with his reflection he’s the first to look away. He’s looked worse and supposes that's a small win in and of itself, though he can’t stand the sight of himself any longer than he has to. A deep exhale and a shake of his head diverts his attention to the countertop where a spare toothbrush has been left out for him to use. Of course, he already knows where the toothpaste is. He helps himself with a growing smile and places it in the holder right next to yours when he’s done. His chest expands with something he can’t quite name when he finds himself surrounded by gentle reminders of your care. A small cup of water and painkillers act as physical embodiments of your thoughtfulness and he revels in the knowledge that you’re letting him know you’re there for him while giving him space to come down from whatever adrenaline rush the past few months have spiked. It’s in those silent gestures of love that he hears it the loudest, echoing and amplifying all around him.

It must be killing you to act so selflessly, and he tries not to be selfish with your affections, but it’s difficult not to feel like a burden when you’ve rearranged more than just a spot on the counter, or a place for him to keep his toothbrush next to yours, for him- giving him a home without expecting anything else in return.

Down the hall, the mattress protests against his arrival, angry springs squeaking from months of disuse before welcoming his weight and warmth on the side opposite of yours- his side, from the very moment, years ago, when he found his way back to you after a night that left him bloody and beaten but not broken. Never broken- not when he’s always had you. Though most memory of the first evening spent beside you remains a blur, the ability to recall details and specifics stolen from him as his wounds wept crimson tears that stained your hands and upholstery, fondness prevails. Despite robbed recollections, tender warmth, and affection remain. Even then, he knew. Without really knowing, without certainty, he was certain- he loved you, and you loved him, and every gentle, devoted gesture has always reaffirmed the one thing he could never doubt. Every silent offering, every selfless sacrifice, and piece of yourself that you’ve surrendered to him further insists that your heart acts in favor of three words never spoken.

His arm finds your waist easily, and he’s grateful that he doesn’t have to tiptoe around his reluctance to accept what this is, anymore. Not when you’re here. Not when you’re waiting so patiently for him, and snuggle back into his hold the moment he reaches out for you. Some limbs tangle, but not yours- the two of you fit perfectly together, like you were truly meant to be, and the moment that you’re allowed to converge, you press your palm flat against his arm, holding him close to you.

Reacquainting yourself with him after is always your favorite part. Though, your heart cleaves when your fingertips ghost over a new scar- the skin still raised and angry, even if the wound has closed. With something akin to sympathy, an apology for the pain he’s suffered that you can’t take away, you gently trace the new mark in acknowledgment.

Tomorrow, or later today, when the sunlight illuminates the sky, you’ll ask him about it. Or, maybe you won’t. When the first glimpses of warm light threaten to spill over the horizon, you might get answers to the questions you’ve spent the last few months pondering. Or, perhaps everything unasked will remain unresolved. Either way, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is the fact that tonight, you’ll sleep- safe and protected, at ease and engulfed by all things him- and even if it only lasts for the night, you’ll cherish whatever small moments of intimacy the moon grants before the sun, inevitably, rips them away- a fate you’ve grown to expect, time and time again.

Still, you let your eyes flutter shut, basking in the silence for only a moment before it’s interrupted.

“I love you,” Dick confesses softly, words warm and whispered against your shoulder encouraged by a fleeting moment of courage- and the tender caress of your touch- that prompt the secret to spill from his chest, an accident he fears he may have to render excuses for to salvage whatever broken pieces are left of this unspoken relationship.

“I know,” With your back towards him he misses the stretch of a smile ghosting your lips, and finds himself tensing behind you. Could you have really known? All this time? Is that why he always comes back? Is that why you let him? “I love you, too,”

“No, I mean, I really lo-“

“Tell me in the morning, yeah?” You suggest before he can get too far ahead of himself. Torn between wanting to clarify his confession and realizing that maybe he doesn’t have to, Dick relents. He can’t really argue, anyway- having kept this to himself for so many years, another few hours won’t hurt. With a breath- of acceptance, not defeat or surrender- he closes his eyes and finally relaxes into your embrace.

It’s over.

For now, Dick can rest easy knowing that when the smell of bergamot fades, this tacit love will always remain, and he finds enough comfort in the realization to let it lull him into a peaceful sleep.

a/n: I love him so much!!! this has been rotting in my brain for nearly a year and I just found it in my drafts last night lol! anyway, this started as a challenge to myself where I wanted to see if I could write something with only five lines of dialogue, and I'm curious to hear how you all think it turned out! as always, requests are open! check out my request guidelines before submitting! and if you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading! 

everyone who requested to be tagged: @idyllcy @wicked-laugh @ul4lume

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When you stare into the Abyss: Origins

Masterlist

Next part

It started out pretty simple, almost three months after he had began his career as Batman, intent to save the innocent just as much as punish the criminals of Gotham.

“Batman is still just a man, he’s not a god.”

He had overheard the words at a gala the first time, when airhead Brucie is drinking and flirting with all the pretty girls he can see.

The words of course, don’t visibly effect him, don’t make him pause in his step or his voice calling towards a nearby heiress falter.

However, his heart beats in his chest even as he cozies up to the woman.

Because in truth, Batman was just a man, a rich, overly trained and incredibly intelligent man, but a man nonetheless.

He tries to ignore it, but as he keeps hitting the streets to dig out the rotting tendrils of corruption in this horrible place, he keeps hearing it.

A pair of smokers outside a club known for the fact no woman ever escaped without being drugged to hell and back, talking quietly about the rumors of the Batman that had began picking off their friends one by one.

“I ain’t scare’ o’ i’ jus’a man inna cos’ume.”

“He’s a de’il I ‘ell ya, ‘ere ‘o ‘ollect ‘is souls.”

Batman stays still on the roof above him, but even days later with both men in costudy and the bar shut down for health code violations, his mind keeps going back to the conversation.

It’s whispered in alleys and under bridges and inside packed clubs, the words a mantra the criminals begin to say like a prayer.

It’s sneered with distaste inside the mansions and museums of the rich, joked about inside their ivory castles covered in blood.

It’s said fear inside workplaces and coffe shops, whispered in schools and parks for their only protector.

Batman is just a man.

It agitated Bruce, he doesn’t know why at first, because it is the truth, he is just a man.

Then he sees a blurry photo a the Gotham Gazete with a humanoid shape of shadows, it’s nothing more than a Bigfoot sighting, blurry and pixelated and might just be a trick of the light.

But it makes his stomach curl, because he knows he might not be that lucky next time, and how long would it take for people to start looking for Batman, if they think he is just a man and have a photo to prove it?

Bruce, after a decade of crime fighting, will tell anyone he regrets the decision he made that night, what it created.

His family will hug him and tell him he couldn’t have known.

Because in the bar stool of the kitchen where Alfred is plating an enormous plate of breakfast to make up for the calories lost the night before, he makes a decision.

Batman needed to be more than a man, perhaps not a god, but something close enough no one would ever accuse air-head Bruce Wayne of being the terror of Gotham’s underground.

Alfred will tell what followed was a three day whirlwind of creative insperatikn and sleep-deprived insanity mixed with an over caffeinated Billionaire’s pocket money.

Bruce would say it was three days of careful planning and precise research as well as dozens of mock up designs.

In the end it takes longer than a month for Bruce to implement the changes to his original suit design, practically scrapping it and starting over between dodging board meetings and stalking the streets.

But eventually, Bruce finishes his design, and that night the screams of terror are stronger for quite a while, after all, Batman is no longer just a man.