#bribery makes gotham go round

[corameiwrites]

𖦹 i want somebody to want 𖦹

pair: jason todd x gn!reader

plot: When you turn 21, the name of your soulmate appears on your forearm. Not everyone is born with a soulmate, and Jason Todd never thought he would have one. 

wc: 2k

authors note: I remember reading in a fic somewhere about the Wayne Scholarship, and I forgot who/where I read it exactly, so credit to them whoever they are. Also, some characters may seem a little ooc and tbh I don't really care. I had fun writing this which is all that matters, and I hope you have fun reading it!

The place Dick had dragged Jason to wasn’t all that bad, considering it was located in Blüdhaven. Unless it was near the University area, there was always something sinister and more corrupt happening under the alcohol, vomit, and blood-stained floors of Gotham bars. Normally no amount of bribery or guilting could make him voluntarily dress up and go out drinking with his older brother, but today was not normal. 

It was his twenty-first birthday. 

Meaning that by 11:59 tonight, if a name didn’t appear somewhere on one of his arms, he was destined to be alone. Not everyone is born with a soulmate, and realistically, after all the shit he’s been through, Jason Todd never thought he would have one. Despite that, there was some sort of dread slowly filling his body the more he thought about it. Maybe it was that small flame of the little boy he used to be—before Robin and the Bat and the Joker—igniting at the chance of finally having one. It was the same boy who would trace his parents’ names on their wrist, asking them to tell him once more how they met, what they felt seeing the names appear on their skin. Unfortunately, that little boy would be let down yet again by the end of the night. 

His plans had originally been to stay in his main apartment (the one where he stored all his books and indulged in a comfy couch), buy a 6-pack of the cheapest beer and get drunk alone. That was ruined, however, when he received multiple annoying texts from Dick, begging to go out for drinks tonight, specifying multiple times that it would be on him. Jason told himself the only reason he agreed was for the free drinks and to keep himself from checking his forearm every five goddamn seconds (a night out with Richard Grayson was known to be entertaining and unpredictable).

If it was Dicks plan to get Jason blackout drunk, he was doing a pretty good job of it. After agreeing he would be the designated driver, Dick had laid back on the drinks and only taken 3 of the five rounds of shots they had already ordered. Jason was opening up bit by bit, reminiscing on their childhood together. By his fifth shot, smiling seemed to come easier to Jason. 

Currently, they were both watching the flatscreen hung behind the bar showing a news channel covering Batman and Robin putting an end to another bank robbery. 

Dick pointed at the screen. “Damian learned that move from me.” 

“No, I taught him that.” 

“I’m the one who taught you that move when you were younger, big dummy,” Dick teased. 

“Oh, I forgot.” Jason's tone lost its joking edge, and Dick looked over at him. “You know,” he continued almost somberly. “Ever since coming back, I seem to forget a lot of things.” 

His eyes were glued to the screen, watching as Batman jumped out a window in pursuit of the bad guy. Robin shouted after him.

“You’ve been through hell and back, Todd. Normal people wouldn’t have been able to handle it the way you did.” 

“No, you see, that's the thing.” Jason's voice was frustrated, his previous smiles gone. His brows furrowed the longer he ranted. “I’m not normal. I cycle through apartments and bunkers like crazy to help me lay low. I sleep in until 3 pm and I put a helmet on to chase down crazy guys with guns for hours at night. The public knows me as some traumatized kid who somehow survived a terrorist attack.” He pauses to take a gulp of beer, slamming the glass onto the bar, lifting his arm to wipe his mouth. Dick watched his jacket slip down his arm.

“Jason–”

“I don’t have a home, I don’t have a stable routine, I don’t even have life insurance!” Dick had somehow managed to get the former deceased and outlaw brother of his drunk and ranting about life. And the worst part? Nobody was ever going to believe him.

“Jason,” Dick puts a hand on his younger brother's shoulder, gripping him like a vice. His eyes never left his arm. “Your soulmate.”

Both of them are silent for a moment. Jason sighs, shaking his head. 

“Damn, you're good at this.Yeah, it's about the soulmate thing.”

“You fucking idiot,” Dick slaps him on the back of his head. “Look at your arm!” 

Dick watched as Jason stared him in the eyes, his brain clearly trying to catch up with what his brother was insinuating. When he finally looked down, it was comedic the way his eyes bulged at the fresh ink on his left arm. Dick tried his best to keep his excitement at bay, biting back his proud smile. His grumpy, tough, and borderline psychotic little brother had a soulmate. After a couple more seconds of silence, Jason cursed under his breath.

“I’m too sober for this,” Jason mumbled, chugging down the rest of his beer.  

Dick laughs, waving the bartender over and handing him a card to close their tab. Jason slams the empty cup down, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. “I have a soulmate.”

“Yeah man, congratulations!” Dick pats his brother on the back, but recoils at Jason turning abruptly and staring him dead in the eye. 

“I have a soulmate.”

“I…yeah, you do bud.”

“...I have a soulmate.” He repeats, annunciating each word, as if he can’t believe it. “I need to find them,” Jason says, standing and walking towards the exit of the bar. 

“Woah, Jason–” Dick hurriedly stands, apologetically yelling for the bartender and grabbing his card. Rushing outside, he sees Jason recklessly crossing the street to the parking lot. “Slow down!” 

Jason stands awkwardly next to Richard Grayson's blue convertible, clambering over the door and into the passenger seat. Dick watches from across the street, shaking his head with a smile, making his way to the car. He couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed with Jasons drunken behavior. 

Hopping in the driver's seat, Dick puts the keys into the ignition. “Alright loverboy, where are we going?”

“The mansion,” Jason struggles to get his seatbelt on (Dick intervenes). “The Batcave’s computer can find anyone.”

“Huh. That’s actually really smart considering you're drunk.” 

“I’m not. Just shut up and drive.”

Dick laughs, hitting the gas pedal and doing as he was told.

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Bruce was home early, having quickly left the bank robbers tied up as Gordons responsibility. Currently, he was sitting in the library going over a case file. Damian had already gone to bed when he had gotten an alert of a vehicle coming up the manor's driveway. He checked the security cameras in the garage and was shocked to see his eldest rushing to the passenger side of the car to stop his sluggish brother from falling out. At first, Bruce had thought that he was poisoned or impaired in some way. He called for Alfred, asking him to prepare the medical rooms to tend to Jason. A few short minutes later, he heard faint voices approaching. 

“I used to live here before I died, I know where I’m going.”

“Clearly not, we passed the entrance already.”

“The old man has a sensor on that door. We need to take the entrance in one of the bookshelves, they don’t notify him when someone enters.”  No one but Alfred was supposed to know that. 

“I doubt it’ll matter, he’s out fighting crime with—oh shit!” Bruce watched through his freakish peripheral vision as two figures hurriedly backed away from the doorway of the library. “Code Bat! Code Bat!” Dicks voice had dropped to a whisper, though not so quiet that Bruce couldn’t hear. 

“B’s here?” A head with a white streak of hair popped through the doorway before quickly vanishing. “Oh no.” 

“It’s only 11:45, what is he doing lounging around?”

Bruce chuckled quietly, now coming to the realization that they weren’t drugged or in danger; they were just drunk. Jason especially, which made sense. Quietly, he sent Alfred a message telling him to disregard the request. He feigned ignorance to their presence, going as far as flipping pages of the case file in his lap while they bickered, attempting to formulate a plan. Listening in to their not very secretive conversation, Bruce deduced that they had come to find Jason's soulmate on the Bat computer. It was his 21st afterall, and why else would he come drunkenly to the home he tried so hard to stay away from? Bruce found himself smiling for the boy. He had been through so much, and he deserved to have some good in his life. He only hoped that whoever they were, they took care of him in places where Bruce failed. 

Sighing exaggeratedly, he stood, stretched and slowly made his way to the doorway, listening as the two brothers hushed. He allowed himself one last second of respite before wiping the smile off his face and walking out into the dark hallway. Dick stood alone, leaning against the wall and whistling. He turned his head, seeing Bruce standing, observing him. 

“Oh, hey Bruce! I’ve been looking for you.” Dick pushed off the wall, going to stand next to his Father. “I thought I’d visit, wait for you to get home, but you’re here!”

“What do you need?” 

“Oh nothing much,” taking Bruce's arm, he began to drag him in the opposite direction, past the library. “I just got nostalgic, and wanted to take a trip down memory lane with my Pops.” 

“You smell like alcohol.”

“Like I said, I was feeling nostalgic!”

Dick rattled on, leading him down the dark halls, and Bruce noticed Jason slipping into the library. He smiled, turning his attention back to his eldest. He couldn’t find himself to be angry about his sons keeping secrets from him. If he felt anything about tonight's endeavor, it was disappointment. Bruce Wayne had taught his sons to be sneakier than they had been tonight. 

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩  ♡  ✩˚｡⋆𖦹｡°⋆✮

Jason, in his drunken haste, had almost tripped down the short flight of steps leading to the massive computer. He couldn't really blame the alcohol though—it was his fault for looking down at his arm every couple seconds, as though the black ink would fade away before he ever found out who you were. Even if it did, he had already committed the name to memory.

He knew how many letters were in your name, the number of syllables in the different parts of it. Despite this, he hadn’t yet spoken it out loud. For the last 30 minutes of his life, every breath he took held a certain weight to it, and the beating of his heart had persisted to be about 120 beats per minute.

He blamed it on the alcohol, but logically he knew the reason.

 That little boy—the one he thought was dead and buried—was coming back to life, crawling his way out of the depths of Jason and settling into his gut. 

His hand shook as he typed the name, every click of the keyboard ringing dully in his skull. Inhaling deeply, Jason hesitated for only a moment before clicking enter. Your name popped up surprisingly quickly, specifically registered under the “Wayne Scholarship” file.

His hand moved by its own volition and the link was clicked, a government ID popping up on the display. 

Staring up at the photo of you in awe, his eyes flickered to the name and back to the photo, unbelieving that this was you. Your simple beauty was evident even through the low quality government ID.

He stared for a while, just taking in you. It was a little odd looking at the huge screen, knowing that you two were made for each other. The thought only made his heart speed up even more. 

Digging into your file, he finds that you’re 20 and won’t be turning 21 for another seven months. The knowledge that he knows and you don’t makes him nauseous.

Clenching the edge of the table, he remembers that the reason he found you so quick was due to the Wayne Scholarship. You moved to Gotham for your third year of college to attend Gotham University, with most of the tuition paid for as long as you agree to stay away from any and all crime. Suddenly, he had found another reason to be thankful that Bruce was filthy rich. Your current residence was an old apartment complex in the University area, which was for the most part, free of crime. The more information he got from Bruce Wayne's files, the more his stomach fluttered. 

That little boy was practically jumping up and down inside of him, chanting over and over again, “I knew it! I knew we would have a soulmate!”. As the information sunk in, he began to shake more violently, and he felt like his legs were barely holding his weight. In fear of throwing up or collapsing on the floor (or both), he fell backwards into Bruce's chair. A tear slid down Jason’s cheek, and then another, and another. 

For the first time in a long time, Jason Todd sobbed.

[thegrimllama]

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10

Lena Luthor wasn’t usually a nervous person.  She could command an audience, she could dominate the boardroom, but right now?  She was panicking.

Honestly, Lena never really thought her friendship with Kara would reach a stage where she was slowly being introduced into the group, one by one.  Maggie had been first.  She and Lena had long since discussed the whole Maggie-arresting-Lena debacle, Maggie spending the better part of ten minutes apologising before Lena could get a word in edgewise.  She and Maggie had hit it off fairly quickly, bonding over their mutual love of Italian cuisine and various scientific magazines.

Alex was next.  She’d been a little harder to crack than Maggie, mainly because Lena had to spend a good portion of their first meeting convincing Alex that Kara really was just a friend.  But now, she often ran various projects past Alex before perfecting the science behind them.  It was good to have an impartial party who was willing to tell Lena when she was being too damn ambitious.

Lena hadn’t technically met Lucy.  They’d connected via Facebook not long after Kara convinced her to join the “superfriends group chat”.  Lena still didn’t quite understand the name, but she figured it was something to do with the fact that everyone in the group was in some weird way, connected to the girl of steel.  She was still honestly trying to figure out who knew who and how.   Lucy was strangely comforting, and they’d had many private late night-early morning conversations thanks to Lucy being in… well from what Lena could figure out, she was last posted somewhere in the Middle East.  

Winn… He was a special case.  Lena had sought him out on her own soon after the gala, where he had helped her out of a sticky situation.  It wasn’t until a few weeks later that Lena realised that her friend Winn and Kara’s Winn were the same person.  That certainly made Lena feel a little silly.  Winn had started becoming a little scarce when he had started dating a girl called Lyra, who Lena was still yet to meet.

Which brings Lena’s thoughts back around to the fact that tonight was her first official “induction to the Superfriends”. Which according to Kara, should have happened months ago, but unfortunately due to everyone’s conflicting schedules, there was never a chance.  Luckily enough, Kara’s weekend off coincided with Lucy’s, giving everyone else the drive to take the Saturday off completely.

She’d been texting Kara intermittently throughout the morning, asking if she should bring anything, fending off accusations of bribery when Lena suggested bringing an aged bottle of scotch from her bar, eventually leading to her standing in front of Kara’s loft, three hours early in a pair of tights and her oversized MIT sweater.

Lena chuckled at the stunned look on Kara’s face when she opened the door wrapped in her towel.  "Aren’t you cold…?“

 "I am too hot to feel the cold.  You’re early,” she said disappearing into her bedroom, presumably to finish changing.  Lena was thankful that it gave her a few minutes to help her overcome the blush that had set in at the thought of what could possibly be hidden under that towel.  She could’ve kicked herself.  She might not have many friends, but she knew that letting her thoughts wander there was definitely not a friend thing to do… 

 "I just… usually when I have a Saturday off there’s a bouncing blonde dragging me across the countryside or causing havoc for my PR department…“

Kara’s laugh was positively gleeful at the reminder of the fiasco that her social media post had caused the month before. Lena’s brain nearly short circuited when Kara left the bedroom, still half pulling the shirt over her head.  She was so weak.  And Kara had washboard abs.  

 "How is Jess handling Yousef’s incessant emails and voicemails?”

It was Lena’s turn to laugh as she removed the bottle of scotch from her bag and placing it on the bench along with the pack of donuts she’d deposited on the way past. 

 "Honestly…? I think you should maybe start upsizing Jess’s coffee and adding a chocolate brownie to the usual lunch order.  The words, ‘I’m going to strangle Kara’ actually left her lips yesterday.“ 

Kara had the decency to look a little sheepish, "I will definitely make it up to Jess.  But… you have to admit, the panicked phone call from Yousef was hilarious.”

Lena snorted and flipped open the donut box.  "This is true… donut?“

Two hours later, Lena and Kara were sprawled across the couch, legs tangled together as they silently watched the live feed from the L-Corp satellite that Lena had looped into Kara’s tv.  "What’s that one called…?”  

Kara raised an eyebrow, “There are roughly twenty thousand objects on the screen, Lena…”

Lena rolled her eyes and used her phone to zoom in on the star in question, “This one.”

Kara laughed, “Me completing a masters degree in astronomy does not mean I can name every star in the sky.”

Lena tilted her head from her spot on Kara’s shoulder, an eyebrow raised in challenge until Kara sighed, “Rigel.  It’s the seventh brightest star in the night sky when viewed from Earth…”

 "You can view it from places other than Earth?“

There was a definite smirk in Lena’s voice.  Kara dug her fingers gently into Lena’s side, causing the CEO to squirm away, "You can if you’re an offworlder, Ms Luthor.”

 "So, what has Supergirl told you about Rigel?“

Kara laughed, "We don’t usually talk about the stars.  But I can tell you that it has a surface temperature of 11000K and a radius of 54.29 Million kilometres give or take…”

 "That’s almost double the temperature of the sun… right?“

Kara was about to answer when the loft door swung open, revealing Alex, who was holding six large pizza boxes and a pained expression, "You know, you could’ve got the door… so much for…  Oh, hi Lena!”

Lena quickly climbed off Kara and rushed to take the boxes from Alex, who thanked her and hung her coat.  

 "Where’s Maggie?“ Kara said, looking over the back of the couch.

 "Finishing paperwork at the Precinct.  Wine?”

 "You and I both know that I don’t drink wine…“

Alex threw Kara a sarcastic smile, "Well it’s a good thing I was asking Lena then, because your lazy ass didn’t even attempt to help with the pizza…”

Honestly, taking Alex up on the offer to drink, when all she’d had to eat was donuts, was probably a bad move on Lena’s part.  She was tipsy before anyone else arrived.  On a positive note, Maggie had ended up bringing along a dark maroon bottle of something with foreign (alien?) on the label.

Kara held up her hands and groaned, attempting to shield herself using Lena’s hair, “I hate all of you…”

Lena leaned over and sniffed the glass in Kara’s hand, “What the fuck is that? It smells like that time I burnt out the wiring on the circuit I was working on…”

Maggie laughed, “That is oddly specific, yet strangely accurate…”

 "So, Kara Danvers, any particular reason your poison is battery acid?“ Lena chuckled as Kara tossed back the glass draining it in one.   A knock at the door spared Kara an answer, "Lucy!”

Game night went well, at least, as well as it could for Kara and Lena who were kept at a pleasantly buzzed level after Lena completely decimated the squad at Jenga and then again when she paired with Kara for charades.

The Superfriends had all slowly trickled out of Kara’s apartment, shortly after midnight, leaving Lena and Kara to tidy up the empty pizza boxes.  The silence was comforting, Kara occasionally giggling would set Lena off and they’d dissolve into another round of laughter.  The loft was once again clear, and Kara and Lena were back in their spot on the couch, once again watching the stars via Kara’s tv.  

 "We need to talk…“ 

Lena rolled herself over, "Is this about the fact that you only get drunk on battery acid…?”

 Kara laughed, “It’s Zakarian Ale and yeah… kind of…”

Lena had had her suspicions for a while, and honestly, if Kara wasn’t ready to tell her, then Lena wasn’t going to force the subject.  She tugged on one of Kara’s braids, feeling much braver than she had six hours ago.  "It’s okay.  I know you trust me… and if you need to keep your secret then I’m not going to ask you to divulge it…“  

Kara rolled her eyes, "What if I want to?”

 "Then I’m gonna have to find a new best friend, because I don’t think I can be friends with someone born in Gotham…“

Kara laughed and pushed Lena off the couch, catching her easily before she hit the floor, "I wasn’t born in Gotham.”

 "Metropolis…?“

 "Lena!”

Lena laughed and allowed Kara to tug her back onto her stomach, “You know, I think I’ve known for a while." 

 "Really?”

Lena’s breath caught in her throat at the sound of Kara’s voice.  She sounded so small, so scared.  "Yeah, I mean, there’s no way that blonde is natural…  Seriously though, I don’t care where you come from.  I don’t care that you could probably easily lift me one handed… I know what you are…“

Kara smirked, "Say it.  Out loud.  Say it…”

 "Vampire…“

Kara laughed loudly, mingling with Lena’s giggles, "You’re an idiot.”

 "But you’re still my best friend, so what does that make you…?”

 "One very lucky Kryptonian.“

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