#but also he’s a little sad he hasn’t seen red hood yet

[piedpiperart]

This is so cute 😭💖

IMPORTANT NOTE: I don’t know English, please use Google translate to convey the idea.

Recently there is an idea that has been going around my head, and I want to read it, if anyone knows a story like this send me the link.

Danny and Tim are dating.

Neither knows the secret identity of the other.

…

So our coffee addict boys have been dating for a while, both very, very, very in love with each other. Tim knows that his boyfriend is a Red Hood fan, however, he can’t help but get a little jealous whenever they talk about heroes (because Danny honestly talks about Red Hood a lot), so he tells Red Robin in every talk. Danny mistakenly thinks that Tim’s favorite hero is Red Robin.

One night Danny meets some Gotham heroes (Red Hood, Red Robin, Robin and Spoiler), Danny gets excited. He gets very excited.

And here comes the fun part. Danny asks Red Robin for an autograph, and Red Robin blushes. He wonders if Danny finally has it-

Danny: Sign it with Tim Drake.

Red Robin: ?

Danny: My boyfriend is a big fan of yours, every time we talk about heroes he always mentions you. I want to surprise him with this.

His brothers proceed to taunt him. Great, he will receive a gift signed by himself. Seeing Danny’s excited smile he ends up giving in, well, the intention is what counts.

The next morning, Danny wonders if Tim really liked his gift.

…

IMPORTANT NOTE: I don’t know English, please use Google translate to convey the idea.

[cafeinthemoon]

From the Human Heart - Chapter III

Chapter: 3/4

Wordcount: 2905

Title: The Lamb and the Knife

Fandom: Jujutsu Kaisen

Pairing: Ryomen Sukuna X reader

Previous chapters

1 . 2

Symbols: ⭕ . ➕ . 💛 . ▶️▶️

Warning (s): Mental breakdown, mental instability (one occurrence in the beginning of the chapter)

N. A.: I confess I was a bit afraid that this chapter ended up too sad or depressing during reader's return to the village, because what she sees there is something that could break anyone's spirit, and with her things are not different. However this story has a happy ending, so I guess I can make up for it 😅 Also, I was planning to finish the story in this chapter, but the text ended up being too long, so I had to add a fourth chapter. I usually avoid establishing a number of chapters in my wips because they always get longer than I plan, but this one should be a short story (guess I failed in this smh)

A shiver ran all over your body and woke you up in an instant.

You didn’t open your eyes yet, but you knew you were lying on something cold, having your cloak to protect you from the chilling breeze of the morning. Morning? Something was telling you that it was morning already. Well, in that case… when did you fall asleep? What happened to you while you were not awake?

The rustling noise of the leaves was heard when you moved on your spot, your right arm aching after spending a long time in the same position. You opened your eyes at last and found a gray, autumnal day around you, the fainting light barely breaking through the dense top of the trees. All you could see was brown, red and yellow, as expected. Fortunately, winter hasn’t reached you yet.

That was strange, to be honest. Why would you think you’ve spent more than one night in that place, long enough to not see the change of seasons?

You sat on the forest’s ground and checked your own state. Everything was in its place: your dress, with the slit in the cleavage made by the King of Curses; the cut in your cloak’s stripe was still there, but the stripe was tied up again around your neck, a bit tighter; your empty bag was on the ground, serving as a pillow in that wild, improvised bed. Was it you that arranged things this way? Was it him? You didn’t know, and you didn’t think that finding out the truth would bring you any comfort.

In an urge to make sure you were alright, you opened your cleavage and checked your skin in the spot touched by Sukuna to seal the pact. There was no stain, no wound, no mark there; you weren’t feeling pain, burning or ache. Nothing changed in it. Of course not, you old yourself: what he did was an enchantment to change your soul, not your body. Any change that could come from it would not be visible to the eye.

With effort, you took your bag and stood up. You shook the leaves and tugs off your dress and cloak and took a second look at your surroundings. That was the same clearing in which you met Sukuna, and you were lying among the roots of the same tree you stopped at to read the sentences of the ritual.

The clearing didn’t seem so large and mysterious now that you were seeing it under the day light. It was silent, unlike the moment when you found it, full of sounds of night birds and small predators rushing their paws through the leaves, out of your sight. All that life was now gone, as if it has never existed.

A blow of cold wind twirled and passed by you before you could see where it came from, carrying leaves and dust with it. You took it was a sign to leave, as if it was saying to you that there was nothing there but death and oblivion. You protected your eyes and once the column of dust moved away, you ran out of that place.

You didn’t know how you managed to run through the same way that brought you to that cursed forest without ending up breathless, aching and out of your mind. Your feet were carried down through its declined territory, full of traps and roots, not stumbling in a single one of them, nor your clothing were ripped or got stuck while you ran.

To you, you’ve been running forever: the more you moved forward, the more the scenario around you looked the same. Was it part of the enchantment or were you just tired, eager to return to your village and see the results of the treaty?

You relied on this latter and continued to move.

***

The village, seen from the high spot of the hill, was the same since you left it. Not that you should expect something else – you were changed, nor your old home. Besides, you couldn’t have left for so long. But it felt like years in your heart, and the night before landed as a dream in your memory now. You adjusted the hood upon your head and tightened your grip around your cloak: the cold breeze ran free without the trees to obstruct it and you wanted to protect yourself; and, despite your trust in the results of the enchantment, you still had no ways to know exactly who were going to see you or not, so that you didn’t want to expose yourself before you had the chance to explore the territory.

Well, when you were reaching the lowest spot of the hill you were left with minimal choices regarding this.

A commotion was happening at the village’s entry, not so far from the place you where standing: a group of people stared with desperation to two or three men who you recognized as members of the Jujutsu council, the ones your father used to refer as his closest allies among them; these men were trying, with great effort, to contain a man who screamed incomprehensible words in a harsh, animalistic voice and scaring the villagers. The man was dressed in the same traditional clothing of the sorcerers, but all the noble aspect of it was gone, replaced with rips and blood as if its owner was kept locked inside a cage and tried everything in his reach to escape it, fighting with people and weapons.

Your blood ran cold in your veins when you recognized the insane man as your father.

After that, it was like your ears were uncovered and you started to understand what he and the other men were saying. They were arguing under a case of thievery: a treasure has vanished from the Jujutsu collection at your father’s house; the masters were convinced that the responsible for the crime was now far away from the village and must have been a clever Jujutsu sorcerer since they managed to deceive all of them, including your father; however, they were confused by the story your father was telling.

Between one growl and another, this was what you could understand from his speech.

- I know exactly who did this! My daughter did this! My own daughter! And I will hunt her till the end of the world!

His own daughter. You.

Your feet stepped back in an unconscious urge to run, but somehow you stood to listen to the rest. You immediately understood the agitation among the Jujutsu masters: the treasure that disappeared was the flower, without which they could not stand a chance against its true owner. Without the jewel, all the lies told by them and their leader were going to be brought to the surface and the whole village was going to pay for their dishonesty.

But none of this has hit you like the realization that your father was talking about you, that he still remembered about you and was willing to come after you to recover the jewel.

And that the situation was not the same to anyone among the people around him.

- Please, enough with this nonsense, master y/sn! – one of the sorcerers was saying, struggling to hold the furious man by his arm.

- Enough with this! – a second man shouted with less patience – You have no daughter! You’ve never had!

Yes, it wasn’t that surprising that the elders couldn’t see you – they never hid their distaste towards you, the greatest obstacle to their ascension in your Jujutsu society. But you didn’t take too long to notice that they weren’t the only ones who have forgotten about you: the entire village has, or at least all the people who were at your sight, some of them known to you for years. Some of them you yourself used to love and respect, and have trusted with your life in the worst moments of your relationship with your father – people you could swear to love you back.

Could it be that you, known by your connection with the most important sorcerer of the village, was an unpleasant presence to them as much as your father must have been? Could it be that they only tolerated you because of him?

A tear rolled down your left cheek, dried by the cold wind that passed at that moment, strong enough to take off the hood of your head. You still weren’t sure of what was more painful: to realize that your father was the only one who remembered you or to see that not even the people you liked were able to reciprocate you just enough to not forget you after an enchantment.

Something died inside you while you saw that. So you just put your hood back and turned your back on your old home, restarting your way up the hill again and hurrying up before your father noticed your presence.

***

It wouldn’t make a great difference if you decided to stay in that forest if the next night reached you there, for you had nowhere to come back as much as you had no place to go to. You were no longer on a hurry: running up that hill twice in so little time has taken the remaining energy in your body and your spirit, so you started walking; if you were passing by the same paths you’ve crossed before, you didn’t know and didn’t care.

To say you were walking was too much. Your legs were shaking, and your numb feet were stumbling even before reaching the obstacles; your hands were doing their best to hold on to the branches and any other support they were able to find, since you couldn’t count on your eyes to guide you: you hadn’t go blind, but you weren’t seeing anything in your way. Your attention was all in what you just witnessed, not in what you had in front of you.

It was as if you just died and had the opportunity to come back to see how the people you knew were dealing with your absence. If you were honest to yourself, you would have already accepted that what you saw wasn’t unexpected at all; still, it wasn’t something that you could completely understand until it happened to you.

At some dense spot of the grove you stopped, despite not having any hopes of finding some rest. You held tight on a low branch to not fall of exhaustion and concentrated on your breath. It was when you noticed you didn’t sense the expected harshness of wood while touching its surface.

You looked at your hand and screamed – your skin, exposed until your fist, was blue. Blue, but not just as a way to say it was cold: it was indeed blue, as a frozen lake reflecting the winter sky. You stepped back as if that was the hand of a stranger, but it followed you and obeyed all your commands, not letting any space for doubts; it belonged to you. You turned it to see its back and noticed variations in the blue, stains of a darker shade, and saw that your nails were now indigo, all of them in a sharp shape, just like…

Just like Sukuna’s nails. A curse’s nails.

You gasped at the memory of his warning. This was what supposed to happen in case you didn’t accept the result of the enchantment. You looked again at your palms and saw no cut nor wound that the branches could cause to a human’s delicate skin – yours were intact, as expected from a resistant curse’s body part. You rolled up your dress’ sleeves to see if your arms were blue as well and observed in horror as the slow transformation reached them.

You adjusted the sleeves and stopped looking. There was no use in desperation. You adjusted the cloak around you and crossed your arms around yourself, accepting the punishment.

- For someone who was so determined just one day before, you do not seem so happy now… child.

His voice grew from the depths of the forest and reached you as if it vibrated by its own will, shaking every nerve you had in you, waking you up to the darkness of your new reality.

You turned to find the King of Curses in the middle of the clearing, just like the first time you’ve met, but now the day was still there above you, with no sign of the red shadows of the summoning. That could only mean one thing: he hasn’t left after the treaty; instead, he remained in those lands, perhaps observing you while you were unconscious or waiting for the next events in the village to take place.

Having him witnessing your downfall in all its bitter details disgusted you in a way you didn’t think to be possible. Still, you found strength to give him a verbal response.

- Haven’t you had enough fun by now? – and after a gasp – Why are you still here?

Sukuna shrugged, not even a little upset by your hostile reception.

- I was just passing by and happened to meet you again – he raised an eyebrow –I am surprised to see that you are still here, to be honest. I thought you have left these lands yesterday. This is the reason why you wanted the enchantment, is not it?

Before you could formulate an answer, he approached and lowered his four eyes to your hands; you clenched your fists and tried to hide them behind your back as a last attempt to save your dignity, but your move was ignored by him, who passed his hands around you and brought yours to his sight, examining their skin with simulated preoccupation. You gave up on any attempt to pull them back: though there was no harshness in the way he was holding them, you knew he had enough strength to break them in such case, or cut them off with the same easiness he has cut the stripe of your cloak or the lock of your hair.

- So it is happening already? – he frowned while caressing them with his thumbs, speaking more to himself than to you – So soon…

- Soon?! – you spat the word – Are you telling me you deceived me?!

Sukuna’s gaze turned to you in surprise at this accusation.

- What do you mean, brat?

- I gave you back the jewel my father stole from you and didn't ask for anything near its price in return, and yet look at me now!

- You knew that I was going to… that this was going to happen to me anyway… is this what you’re telling me, right?

- Hm?

His carefree manners were making you more and more furious and desperate.

- What did I do for you to deceive me like this?!

- Who said I deceived you? – he sighed – I thought you were smarter than this, dear. I was honest with you in our whole treaty. The seal was established according to the rules and the enchantment worked as well. Otherwise you would not have noticed any difference or, in a worst hypothesis, you would have died in the process. Well, not even I would be here in such case. If I broke the rules, I would be punished. You must know that.

You fell silent. That was true: in the Jujutsu world, if two individuals established a pact, both of them were under the obligation to respect the rules of the said pact, otherwise they would be punished – with death in the case of a human and with exorcism in the case of a curse. Still, you were convinced that something was wrong with your own deal.

- It cannot be…

You felt your eyes burning, full with tears that you weren’t able to contain. The weight of what you have done has reached you at last, and from it you couldn’t escape. But were you capable of carrying it? You doubted that.

You felt his hand wiping the tears of your cheek.

- Shhh… No more whining, dear – he lifted your chin to make you meet his gaze – Now, tell me what is going on... What is it that is upsetting you so much regarding the enchantment?

You were impatient, of course, but didn't offer any resistance. You spoke all at once before your voice could crack in a new burst of desperation.

- I came back to the village and found out that the only person who was able to see me was my father. No one else remembers me. And this situation made him insane… – you sobbed – Tell me, how is this possible?!

He giggled and assumed the tone of a Jujutsu teacher.

- You want me to confirm what you are not willing to tell yourself even in thoughts? Alright. I think I can do this for you. You know the rules as well as I do. If someone does not love you, they will forget about your existence. If they do, they will remember you, whether they are the only one in this case or not – and then, he had nothing for you now besides the logical conclusion of the case – So, if your father is the only one who can see you now… He must be the only one who loves you.

[stxleslyds]

Have you watched the Teen Titans animated series or Young Justice? If so, what do you think about their characterization of Dick Grayson?

And while we're at it, what about the animated movies? How does his characterization compare there?

Hi! Thank you so much for the ask!

I have to be honest, Teen Titans wasn’t a show that I was able to watch when it came out because I didn’t have cable tv yet and by the time that I had it I was actually into other TV shows, I watched a few episodes from what I believe was the last season but I didn’t really like the Titans lineup so I didn’t pay much attention to it. So, I can’t really say anything about his characterization there.

Young Justice I have watched! I believe I watched it for the first time in 2018 on Netflix. I loved the first season, it was amazing and it kinda made me want to read DC comics again. I had “taken a break” from reading DC because I was consuming another type of content, mostly MCU and Marvel Comics. I watched seasons two and three but I didn’t like them as much as the first one because I felt like there were too many characters and it overwhelmed me a little bit.

So, to answer your question, I love Young Justice’s characterization of Dick Grayson (as Robin, Nightwing, and just Dick). Although the universe where YJ is very different from the comics one, they did make an excellent job developing Dick and the other team members in the first season.

It was weird seeing Dick in the YJ team instead of the Titans one but I am glad that they did it that way because they took their time to develop Dick and then Tim as the Robins in the different seasons.

Dick not being the leader of the team was also weird but it led to so many interesting plotlines for him. I also felt that their take on Dick Grayson was very in tune with the times in which the show came out he was very tech-driven (which he used to be in comics but then they gave that characteristic to Tim and took it away from Dick) and is Bat training was shown plenty, he truly seemed like one of the most valuable assets for the team even though he was the youngest and he had no powers.

His personality felt real for his age in the show, he was funny and smart, his acrobatic skills were there. I really loved the way they handled his change of mind when it came to wanting to lead the team at all costs and wanting to become Batman in the future. That episode was wonderfully done and seeing that therapy session that Dick had still makes me feel sad for him.

He was friends with everybody and tried to make everyone feel welcome which I think is also very in tune with Dick Robin in comics. He seemed to be learning from everyone and every experience too which was also nice. The Circus episode really showed us another side of Dick, he was being protective of his first family and he was also starting to feel comfortable as a sort of co-leader of the team. He had a very deep connection with his teammates and that was also similar to his relationship in comics with the Titans.

As I said before I really couldn’t enjoy the other two seasons the same way that I did the first but the Dick Grayson that I saw in them was a really cool one, it did give me Outsiders (2003) vibes from those seasons so I am a little bit biased. But I really liked the idea of Dick and Kaldur having this secret plan that could help everyone in the end even though it might have cost them their friends. When that situation repeated itself in the third season I still sided with Dick (and the people that were on “his” team), it really felt like Dick could see the bigger picture of the problems that they were facing, I wouldn’t say that Dick puts the mission in front of everything else though, that’s Batman’s thing. Dick really just wanted everyone to be okay and he saw that people were trying to solve the problem inefficiently, which would eventually get more people hurt. He was very selfless but also realized that by doing what he did he didn’t only help to save the world but he did make some people think twice before trusting him completely.

That last scene where Dick calls everyone for a meeting and he is surprised when everyone shows up is a very Dick Grayson scene, people really understood that as a team leader Nightwing had to make some very difficult decisions so when he called, they all showed up. Bruce saying that Dick commands more respect than he realizes was so true and iconic of him.

One of my favorite episodes was “Private Security” where Dick teamed up with Will, Roy, and Jim harper, it was super fun and it also had some very interesting moments that showed how Dick was grieving the death/disappearance of his friend, and how he needed someone to tell him that he was going to be okay and that there were people who needed training and he was the best option to do it. That interaction between Dick and Will made me remember Dick and Roy’s chat at the beginning of Outsiders (2003).

Overall, I really enjoyed Dick’s characterization in that show, it respected the original material and made Dick a solid character even though he had differences from his comic counterpart.

-

I have seen very few animated movies from DC that had Dick as a featured character. I watched: Under the Red Hood, Son of Batman, Batman vs Robin, Batman: Bad Blood, Teen Titans: Judas Contract, and Batman: Hush.

In those movies, Dick’s characterization hasn’t been consistent, in each movie they manage to get something right but they butcher everything else. Mostly I enjoy Dick’s interactions with people, he had a fun moment with Damian, Kory, Bruce, and Selina. But he is never the real center of these stories so they kinda throw him to the side and nerf him a bit too much.

In “Bad Blood” he was Batman to Damian’s Robin but that movie didn’t do much for their relationship. He kinda is reduced to Batman’s most loyal friend or something like that, there isn’t much depth to him or his characterization.

He really wasn’t loved or respected in these movies, “Batman vs. Robin” had the Court of Owls as the main enemies but they didn’t use Dick as a plotline, they had Damian and Bruce having a conflict instead.

“Batman: Hush” was a mess, from every point of view, Dick was done dirty in that scene in the cemetery (I can’t really remember if it was a cemetery the place where he got dosed with fear(?) gas and Selina had to save him), he is treated as if he were an unexperienced vigilante, it is very sad to see.

Also, they had this very annoying “trope” where Dick dislocated his shoulder someway, somehow in every movie. I don’t know why that was, but it happened too often.

-

As you can see, I haven’t watched that much DC animated content so, from what I have seen Dick’s best characterization is the one from Young Justice, I think they did a great job mixing their own version of Dick Grayson with his comic counterpart. They really respected and worked with the original material.

But! “The Lego Batman” needs to have a special mention because this movie was a gift from the gods. This is a masterpiece, it’s Dick Grayson makes my heart melt, I adore that little Robin, he makes me happy. Bruce and Joker’s relationship is a perfect dramatization of what Batman and Joker’s relationship is in comics and I will be forever glad that DC took the initiative and made fun of themselves like that.

It is just the perfect comfort movie!

Another special mention is “Batman: Under the Red Hood” but I am not mentioning it because of Dick’s appearance there, I just think that this movie is neat and amazing and that everyone should watch it. It has Jensen Ackles voicing Jason! Best Jason Todd/Red Hood that we have ever had out of comics!

Anyway, I am sorry it took me so long to answer your ask, I hope you have a marvelous week!

[mochegato]

Covert Pregnancy

Covert Dating     Covert Romance     Covert Wedding     Covert Marriage

Okay, yeah, the title gave it away but Adrien doesn’t know yet so shhhhh.

 This was exactly what Adrien had been worried about. This is why he showed up in Marinette’s room before her wedding asking her if she was sure.  He backed off because she promised him she was.  She was confident this was the best move for her.  And at first, it looked like she was right.  Everyone could see the difference in her.  That spark she used to have was back.  That beaming smile returned and finally reached her eyes.  They hadn’t seen Marinette like that since he first met her. And they all knew exactly what changed: Jason.

Jason was amazing to her.  In their short marriage he had been nothing short of the ideal husband.  It had been eight months of sickeningly sweet adoration and showering each other with affection.  He showed her love and understanding, patience and support.  But lately, Adrien had been noticing things.  Little things. Things other people might not notice.  Things that individually didn’t mean much, but taken together…  Comments that Marinette made.  Looks in her eyes.  Excuses she made.  Or as she was doing now, crying for no apparent reason.  

One minute they were sitting on the couch, talking about nothing while some show they weren’t paying attention to played on the television in the background, the next she was sobbing.  When he asked her what was going on she said it was nothing, she was just tired.  She yawned and told him she was going to go to bed and he could let himself out.  

There were only two things wrong with that.  First, when she left she didn’t go to sleep.  Jason hadn’t been home for a few days, which meant he wouldn’t be home to comfort Marinette, and Adrien was worried about her.  So he took a bit longer to leave than he normally would have, which meant he heard her continuing to cry after she went to lay down instead of sleeping.  Months ago, she would have called Jason when she felt like this, or she would have talked with him about it.  But she wasn’t doing either.  She was suffering alone, just like she did before she met Jason.  

Second, he’s known Marinette for years.  He knows tired Marinette.  He might know Tired Marinette better than well rested Marinette.  Tired Marinette is hyper.  Tired Marinette bounces from thing to thing.  Tired Marinette can’t focus.  Tired Marinette is inspired, sometimes with the most heinous ideas ever thought of, but inspired nonetheless.  Tired Marinette isn’t emotional at least not until she is so sluggish she can’t stand up straight.  And even then, she isn’t like this.  Tired Marinette is extra loving, not sad.  This isn’t Tired Marinette.  This isn’t well rested Marinette.  This is something else.

The next few days seemed to go about the same, neither improving nor worsening. Marinette looked withdrawn, but she wouldn’t tell him that anything was wrong.  But one thing he knew about Marinette was that she loved Christmas, and with Christmas only a little over a week away, he was sure she was getting more and more excited.  She loved the friendly atmosphere, she loved the family baking, she loved the snow (watched through the window of a warm room while drinking hot chocolate), and she loved making presents for everyone she loved.  And talking about Christmas and her plans for presents always made her happy.

“So, have you finished all your presents already?  Or are you planning on using some of the time we’re closed next week to finish them?”  

She looked up at him a bit startled, “Oh… um” she looked down like she was thinking about what to say.  “I, um… I thought this year I might buy presents for everyone.  It’s not like the family will notice, so…  It’ll be fine.”  She gave him a weak smile.

That wasn’t like her at all.  Making presents was one of the ways she liked to show she cared about them.  It was her love language.  He had never known her to not make a present if she could. “What!  Why?”  He exclaimed before he could stop himself.

“I just.  You know this year I thought maybe I’d give myself a break and… um… and this year go a bit more traditional.”  She offered uncertainly.

He stared at her incredulously.  Why would she change it now?  Why would she think she should change what she had always done now?  What had changed… Jason.  Jason had changed.  What had he said to her that made her think her handmade presents weren’t good enough for his family?  Adrien hadn’t known the Waynes very long but he knew for certain they would absolutely love a present from Marinette.  They loved Marinette’s designs and they loved Marinette.  If Jason hadn’t married her, he was certain the Waynes would have made her a part of the family another way.  

“Marinette, you’ve never been traditional.  Making presents is your tradition.  Everyone loves your presents.  It wouldn’t be the same if it didn’t come from your hand.”  He told her gently.  She had to understand her gifts were more than good enough for everyone who loved her.

She looked down anxiously again but nodded at him, “Yeah, okay.  I’ll see what I can do.”  Instead of looking more confident, she seemed to shrink in on herself.

He smiled encouragingly at her.  She would see.  As soon as the family opened her presents, they would be so excited, she would forget any nervousness or insecurity she had indulged in to convince herself she shouldn’t do it.

By the time patrol came around, she did seem happier and more confident.  It helped significantly that Jason had returned from his mission and was going on patrol with them again.  It was also sure to be appreciated by the Redbird shippers, who had cropped up quickly after Ladybird made her debut with the bats a few months ago, working primarily with Red Hood.  She was a rarely seen but much loved addition.  

Before patrol, Red Hood gave her a seemingly sweet kiss to the temple and whispered to her sternly.  She smiled back weakly and nodded in response, turning to the family with a serious expression, ready to go out.  He noticed even when she turned away, Red Hood kept a strong grip on her waist, not letting her wander too far from his side.  And whenever Blackwing tried to get close to her, Red Hood would step between them.  Adrien could feel the glares Red Hood was shooting him even through the helmet, but for the life of himself he couldn’t figure out what he had done to deserve it.

After a few moments of Blackwing awkwardly trying to catch Ladybird’s attention to see if she was okay, Batman brought the attention to himself, “Let’s pair off and head out.  Nightwing, you’re with Robin.  Spoiler, you’re with Red Robin.  Red Hood, you’re with Blackbat.  Ladybird, you’re with Blackwing.”

“No.” Red Hood spoke up gruffly.  “Ladybird is with me tonight.”

“Hood…” Batman started out.

“Ladybird. Is. With. Me.” He growled out threateningly.  Ladybird put her hand on his arm to calm him down.

Batman sighed and nodded.  “Fine. Blackwing, you’re with Blackbat tonight. Ladybird, you’re with Red Hood.”

Blackwing scowled at Red Hood, but moved next to Blackbat.  It wasn’t unusual for Jason to want to patrol with Marinette but he normally wasn’t so aggressive about it, almost like he was protecting her from them… or separating her from them.  Or maybe it was him Jason was trying to keep her from.  It was fine.  He would see Marinette in the office tomorrow and he was sure Batman would not let Red Hood change the patrol partners next time.

Instead of quelling his concerns, the next day only made them worse.  All the excitement from the night before was gone. Instead, she looked beat down and weak. She offered halfhearted smiles, which seemed to convince the other’s in the office that she was fine, but Adrien knew her too well.   He eyed her closely as she walked through the office with a few models they were planning on using for their next show.  She was having difficulty focusing on their conversation.  It was nothing significant and anyone else might not even notice, but he noticed her periodically glancing critically at people as they were eating.

He watched her until he realized he hasn’t seen her eating lately.  It wasn’t uncommon for her to do when she was stressed out.  But, when she was reminded to eat or food was brought to her, she would always eat.  That was the solution then.  She might not be willing to talk about whatever was wrong, but he could at least do this for her.  He could provide her favorite comfort foods.  

By the time she was out of her meeting, he had her favorite foods laid out on her desk for her.  She walked in with a sigh before she looked up and noticed him and the food.  She gasped and her eyes bugged out as the smell hit her.  “Adrien, what is this?”

“I noticed you haven’t been eating lately so I thought we could finish up any loose ends we have before we close down for the next two weeks while we eat.” He answered cheerfully.

She pursed her lips tightly, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “That was thoughtful of you, Adrien, but… um… I’m trying to lose weight.  Yeah!  Trying to lose weight before the gala, so… uh…  I think this isn’t the best idea.”  She turned her eyes to him and gave him a guilty smile.  “But I really appreciate you thinking of me!  We should talk though before we close for the holidays tonight, just… not right now.  I… have to… I’ll be right back.” She rushed out of the room.

When she came back, they decided to meet in the conference room instead. After making sure they had responded to everyone that was waiting, they decided to close the office early so the other employees could finish any holiday shopping they needed to do.  It was the perfect opportunity to spend time with Marinette.  They always had a lot of fun shopping and maybe he could get her to stop at a café with him and eat something.  He didn’t know why she thought she had to lose weight but he did not approve.  She was already extremely thin.  If anything she was too thin, especially considering their vigilante work and how many calories that burned through.  It was bordering on unhealthy.

“Hey,” he started tentatively, “since we’re closing early anyway, do you want to help me pick some things out for Christmas?  I still have a bunch of presents to get and you know the Waynes a lot better than I do.  We could spend my money and hang out?”

She gave him another weak, tired smile.  “I would love to, Chaton.  But I am still so tired.  I think I’m going to go home and take a nap.  Maybe we can do it tomorrow?  And I think we’re paired up tonight so I’ll see you then and we can talk and turn off the coms to plot presents.”

“Yeah, sure.  That sounds good.  I’ll see you tonight.” He nodded looking down.  It felt like he was losing her, but more importantly, it felt like she was losing herself again and it was breaking his heart to see it.

When he got to the meeting point for patrol that night Ladybird and Red Hood were nowhere to be seen.  They were later than usual.  He was starting to get a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.  “Hey, Nightwing?  Where are Ladybird and Red Hood?”

“Oh, Red Hood said they weren’t going to make it tonight.” He shrugged it off unconcerned.  He leaned conspiratorially toward Blackwing, “It sounds to me like they are going to be pulling back from patrols entirely for a little while.  I think Red Hood wants them to focus on each other since they never really got a honeymoon.”

“Huh,” Adrien looked away, his brows furrowed.  “She was looking forward to patrol tonight…”  Nightwing clapped him on the back.

“Newlyweds, right?” He laughed before jumping off to start his route.

Adrien stared after him, the pit in his stomach growing bigger and more acidic. It was fine.  He would call her to go shopping tomorrow and talk with her then, preferably without Jason standing over her shoulder.  He huffed, shook his head to refocus himself and jumped off the roof to start his route.

But the next day wasn’t better.  Neither were the next few days.  He called and texted Marinette each day to check on her and ask if she wanted to do something but each time she said she was too busy to do anything.   It was like she cut herself off from him.  Maybe he shouldn’t be so concerned.  He knew he was clingy sometimes, so maybe she just needed a short break from him.  But lunch with Duke made him rethink his that.

“Wait, so you haven’t seen Marinette for the last few weeks either?”

“Yeah.  We were supposed to go out for lunch last weekend and she was going to go Christmas present shopping with me but Jason called at the last minute to tell me ‘you’re a big boy, you can do it on your own.’”

“Really?”

“Eh, yeah.  Just Jason being his normal obsessive, controlling, asshole self.” He shrugged it off.

“You think Marinette didn’t want to go?”

“No, I think she did, but probably Marinette needed more time for her presents and he didn’t want her stressed out so he interceded.  You know Marinette, she’ll take too much on and doesn’t say no.”

“I suppose…” Adrien trailed off.  That was true but Marinette would have told him that.  She would babble endlessly, excitedly about the presents she was working on and the details she was putting into each one for each person and why.  But she wasn’t doing that.  She wasn’t talking with anyone, not just him.  

Concerned didn’t begin to describe what Adrien felt right now.  He needed to talk with Marinette and see how she was doing and see what was going on.  He understood wanting a honeymoon period but it just was not like Marinette to close herself off from everyone around her, not if she was happy, not if she was mentally healthy and flourishing.  It was what she did when she started spiraling. It was what she did during and after Hawkmoth.  It was exactly what they had thought Jason was bringing her out of.  But now it looked like he was helping to push her back to that state.

This was finally it.  Jason was not going to be able to keep her away tonight.  This was the Wayne family Christmas gathering.  Jason and Marinette could not miss this without the family hunting them down and invading wherever they were.  Adrien was going to be able to see Marinette and check on her, make sure she was okay.  

When he got to the manor everyone was already there chatting, laughing, and snacking before the gift exchange and dinner.  Damian was scowling at something Dick said, or maybe it was at the reindeer antlers he was wearing while Cass smiled approvingly at Dick.  Tim was chatting with Barbara and Stephanie about something that required outlandish gestures from Tim, eliciting belly laughs from Barbara and eye rolls from Stephanie.  Bruce was pretending to read a book in the corner of the room while he watched his family interacting with a contented smile on his face.  Duke had just poured a few glasses of wine and passed one off to Marinette before walking over to greet Adrien.  

Adrien gave him a warm hug but kept his eyes on Marinette, which is how he noticed Jason take Marinette’s wine away while she watched after it longingly with a pout but not an objection.  Adrien cocked his head to the side and studied her expression.  After a few moments he noticed it.  He had enough experience in makeup to know when it was covering something.  She had caked the concealer on around her eye but there was the telltale darkening there.

Before he even realized he had moved, Adrien had crossed the room to where Jason and Marinette were standing.  “Hey” he yelled, getting Jason to turn around and face him.  Adrien reeled back and punched Jason as hard as he could, putting his full weight behind the hit.  The punch wasn’t enough to drop Jason but it was enough for him to stumble back a few steps.

“What the actual fucking fuck, Agreste!” Jason yelled holding his jaw and moving a little so he was between Adrien and Marinette.

Everyone in the room turned their attention to them. Only Dick and Duke had moved to intercede.  The family was more than used to punches getting thrown.  Standard practice was to assess if they were in the fight zone and might get caught in the collateral damage.  If not return to what they had been doing before the fight broke out. However, this was different.  Dick and Duke wouldn’t have even gotten up except it was Adrien.  Adrien had never hit any of them outside of a sparring mat.  Whatever was going on must be something extremely upsetting to Adrien and have been wearing on him for a while.

Duke looked between the two, his eyes flashing golden for a moment before he looked back to Marinette with a look of wonder in his eyes. “Oh my God,” he said so quietly Marinette could barely hear him despite standing right next to him.  She looked over at him with a questioning look on her face.  He gave her an excited grin and nodded to her and moved to stand between the boys who were still locked in a staring contest before Adrien could throw any more punches.

“I don’t know exactly what you are doing to her, but it stops now!  I don’t care who your family is.  If you ever lay a hand on her again, I’ll make good on the promise I made to you before you got married.” He yelled at Jason, struggling against Dick, who was barely holding him back.  

“What the ever loving Fuck are you talking about Agreste?” Jason yelled back.  He pushed to move forward but Duke held up a hand and shook his head with a stern expression.  Jason glared at him before looking back at Adrien.  “If you are suggesting I have ever so much as laid an unwelcome hand on Marinette…”

“I can see the black eye, you bastard.” Adrien growled back.  “You’ve been keeping her from going on patrol so I know she didn’t get it there.  That leaves you.  God only knows how many others you’ve caused on her.  That explains why she’s been crying so much lately, why she doesn’t go out with friends anymore.  She’s not even eating.  And, what?” he yelled motioning to the drinks Jason had taken from Marinette.  “You don’t want your wife drinking in front of your family?  She’s not the one embarrassing them self.”

Jason continued glaring at him for a few moments before he looked down and let out a deep sigh.  Marinette moved closer to him until she was leaning against his side. He reached back blindly for her hand. They were a team, they would get through this.  Dick looked at Marinette again, examining her eye.  Adrien was right, now that he really looked, he could see the makeup hastily applied around her eye.  He looked to Jason in shock, “Jason?”

Duke gave Dick a pointed look and shook his head to let Dick know it wasn’t what it seemed.  The rest of the family took note of Duke’s actions and stared at Marinette like she was a puzzle.  Cass was the first one to figure it out.  Her eyes widened and she gasped as soon as she did.  She looked to Marinette with a questioning look and formed a fist with her hand and shook it by her cheek.  Marinette smiled back and nodded.  Cass squealed in delight.

Tim and Damian caught the sign and whipped their heads back to Marinette.  Tim jumped up to hug Marinette but Damian sank further back into the couch.  “Oh for the love of… Tell me this isn’t true.”

Dick immediately glared at Damian.  “Of course it isn’t true!  Jason would never hurt Marinette.  There is something else going on.”

“Obviously, idiot.  Take a look around and rethink your assumptions.  They’ve given more than enough clues.” Damian huffed out with a roll of his eyes.

“Marinette?  Jason?” Dick prompted them.

“Yeah.  I’d love to hear what the explanation for all of this is.” Adrien jeered trying to push past Dick again.

“Not exactly the way we wanted to do this, we actually had presents to announce it, but…” Marinette started but she looked to Jason for help, squeezing his hand for comfort.

Jason took the hint and turned to her so he could wrap her up in his arms. He gave her a wink and a devilish smile before answering the question, “I didn’t knock her around, I knocked her up, asshole.”  Marinette glared at him playfully.  

Bruce groaned and ran his hand over his face.  “Really, Jason?  That’s how you chose to tell us?”  He let out a deep sigh and smiled at them.  “Congratulations Marinette and Jason.  That’s really exciting.”

“Tell us what?  What’s exciting?” Adrien looked around confused, “What does that mean?”

Marinette smiled kindly at Adrien, “It means, I’m pregnant.  That's why I want to drink the wine but I can't.  That's why I have no appetite lately, because I throw up anything I eat and just the smell or thought of the smell does the same. That's why I can't go out with you guys at night anymore even though I keep trying, because I start out fine but I’m so utterly exhausted and the world is usually spinning for me by the time patrol ends.  It's why I cry at commercials on the TV, because I'm so ridiculously emotional right now.  And I know I’m being overly emotional but I still can’t stop the tears.  The more I try, the more I cry.  It’s infuriating.  I’m emotional and nauseous and hungry and exhausted and scared. But more than anything else, I'm excited and really happy. I can't wait to have a family with Jason.” She smiled lovingly at Jason.  He reached down and stroked her cheek.

“You're going to be a mom?” Adrien asked tentatively, excitement already shining in his eyes.

She smiled shyly at him.  “There are consequences for being impulsive.  This is it.  Plus, you know, wielder of Creation,” she pointed at herself. “Apparently that greatly increases my likelihood of getting pregnant.”

“And the black eye?” Dick asked for clarification.

“Ugh.  I don’t know if it’s because of the miraculous intensifying things or just natural hormones but I’ve had ridiculous morning sickness.  Honestly, I’m so beyond excited about the baby, but I’m ready to be past the throwing up constantly part.  Have you ever thrown up so violently you gave yourself a black eye?” She pointed to her eye.  “I have.  0/10 Do not recommend.”  

“You’re going to be a mom.” Adrien repeated with a huge grin.  Completely ignoring the last part of her statement.

Marinette laughed. “Yes, I'm going to be a mom. Jason is going to be an amazing dad. And you, if you can stop punching my baby's father for 5 minutes, are going to be an awesome uncle.”

“I'm going to be an uncle?” Adrien looked at her in wonder before it all finally settled in.  He turned to Dick and yelled excitedly, “I'm going to be an uncle!” He turned to Duke and grabbed him into a hug, “I’m going to be an uncle!”  He turned to the next person and said it again.  However that next person happened to be Jason who was not as amused by his excitement as the rest of the room.  “Yeah, I know.  I’m going to be the father.” He said flatly.

Adrien’s expression quickly switched to guilt.  “Oh God, Jason, I’m so sorry!  I’m sorry for hitting you and I’m really, really sorry for thinking you would hurt Marinette.”

Jason waved him off, “Nah, it’s okay.  I’m glad she has you to protect her.  I worry about her, you know, especially now.  Late nights, all-consuming design kicks, asshole businessmen…  I know she can handle herself, but it’s good to see you’ll have her back if she needs it, even if it had to be from me.”

Adrien watched them with a soft look.  Jason was watching Marinette so lovingly and stroking her cheek so gently.  The smile on his face as he looked at her was pure bliss. And the look Marinette was giving him displayed a peace and elation he had never seen on her face.  Looking at them now, he doesn’t know how he could have ever thought otherwise.  Jason was going to be an amazing dad and she was going to be an amazing mom.  He started as a sudden thought struck him. “Hey, Marinette?  Have you told your mom already?”

“Oh God yes!” Jason exclaimed before Marinette could respond. “I’d like to live to see my child, thank you.”

She smiled wryly at him and chuckled.  “She almost knew before Jason did.  I wasn’t willing to risk her wrath again.”

Tim looked at them with an incredulous expression. “Seriously?  I’ve seen her mom.  She’s shorter than Marinette, and that’s saying something.” He ignored the glare she sent his way.  “Are you seriously saying you’re afraid of her?”

“Yes.” Jason responded without hesitation.

“Is she really that scary?  Really?”

Jason, Marinette, and Adrien looked at each other with grim looks and haunted eyes, “Yes!” they responded at the same time.

“We didn’t tell her about the wedding until a few weeks after and I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous and scared.” Jason shuttered.  He reflexively hugged Marinette closer at the thought.

“I can’t believe you seriously thought Jason would hurt me at all let alone risk my Mom’s wrath.” Marinette shook her head with a smile, snuggling into Jason’s chest.

“How was I supposed to know?  You said you weren’t eating because you were trying to lose weight!” Adrien exclaimed. “That’s not what I expect a pregnant woman to say.”  Marinette winced at that.

“You said you were trying to lose weight?” Jason straightened up.

“I panicked!” Marinette exclaimed.  “We weren't telling people we were pregnant yet and I just said the first thing that came to my mind.”  She looked down sheepishly.  She really should be better at thinking under pressure by this point.

“And that was to lose weight?” Jason asked cautiously.

Marinette sighed, “I had just been talking with some models who said another brand told them they needed to lose weight.  I was thinking I should talk to Adrien about a company policy against things like that.”

“Oooo, that’s a good idea.  We should do that.” Adrien nodded.

“I know, right?  So it was on my mind.”

“Okay… so you're not worried about your weight, right?” Jason searched her eyes for confirmation.

“No,” Marinette shook her head, eyes shining fondly at him.  “My priority is making sure our baby and I are healthy, not my weight.”

Jason sighed a relieved breath, pressing his forehead to hers and smiling adoringly at her.  “Good because I love you like this…” he kissed her cheek, “and I’m going to love you like you'll be in 3 months…” he kissed her forehead, “and how you'll be in 6 months…” he kissed her other cheek, “and how you’ll be after the baby, too.” He pressed a gentle but passionate kiss on her lips and hugged her even closer.

“Ew! Guys we do not want to see you reenact how you conceived the baby.” Tim groaned in disgust.

“Relax.  We’re not going to do anything here.” Jason snapped.  A relieved sigh was heard from more than one person in the room.  “But we can get the video out if you want.” Jason added with a smirk.

Marinette squawked and turned a deep red color, furiously waving her arms. “There is no video!  He’s joking.” She slapped him arm before burying her head in his chest trying to disappear in embarrassment.

“Yeah, it would be hard to figure out which video it was…” he added grinning devilishly down at her.  He wanted to see just how red he could get her to turn and embarrassment in front of his family was the best way to do it.

“There are no videos.  He’s just being an ass.” She turned quickly to the family to reassure them.

“That’s what she wants you to think.”  Jason smiled even wider.

“Jason…” she growled.  Jason noticed the subtle switch in red on her face from embarrassment red to annoyance red and decided the game was over.  It was no longer teasing.  It was now picking on her.  She was having a rare period of not feeling like she was going to throw up or pass out and he didn’t want to ruin that for her.

“Okay, sorry.  I was just kidding.” He rubbed her arms and kissed her temple gently. “It’s too magical to be caught on film anyway.” He couldn’t stop himself from adding with a cheeky grin.  Marinette let out a deep, long suffering groan but let him wrap his arms around her from behind and nuzzle into her hair.  He chuckled lightly, his hands finding her not-yet-showing belly to caress it, and whispered into her ear, “I love you.”  She sighed again, covered his hands with hers, laid her head back on his chest, and whispered with a contented smile, “I love you, too.”

 <><><><><> 

Fun Fact: I threw up so much and so violently during one bout of morning sickness, I broke a bunch of vessels in my eye and around it, effectively giving myself a black eye.  Hence it’s mention in this fic.

Also, we’re pretending there was never a Blackwing before.

Also also, the sign Cass did was the sign for “aunt”.

[iamdunn]

Miraculous Flash Forward Part 5: Return to Paris

A Miraculous Fan-Fic

Written by 

AJ Dunn

Adrien pulled his coat on tight around his shoulders. It was a freezing winter night as he made his way back home. He avoided the urge to transform, though it would be quicker to scale the roof tops than trying to walk. It wasn’t the best idea for the tiny Kwami who was already feeling a chill. Now that Fu is gone, there was no one to heal the Kwami if he got sick. It’s not like there was a listing for guardians. 

The metro had already stopped running for the night but Adrien made his way home. Plagg didn’t waste any time flying off to sit on the heater to warm himself. Adrien pulled the Manchego from the grocery bag he was carrying and broke off a large chunk then tossed it into the air. Like magic, it disappeared into the Kwami’s mouth. Adrien tore up the package that came today It was a fleece Ladybug footed onesie with a zipper up the front. 

“It’s here Plagg.” Adrien beamed. He had created a fake social media account and used it to message Marinette. He was surprised that she responded happily to his request for the commission of a onesie. He wanted to feel close to her again, but he couldn’t let her know it was him. He stripped down right in the seating area and slipped the fuzzy thing on. It fit perfectly. He kicked the box to the side but realized there was something else in it. He moved the tissue paper to the side and found a fleece black garment folded up. It had the red trimming same as her costume design. He pulled it out and found it was a Cat Noir footed onesie with a hood and ears. The feet even had paw prints on the bottom. 

OH Plagg.” he called holding the onesie up. “Look what I got.” waved the onesie around like a child on Christmas. A holiday he’s not had the pleasure of really celebrated since his mom went into a coma. Even while living with Amelie he had avoided it as a sad reminder of his parents. 

“Think you dropped this.” Plagg picked up a piece of paper. It was a pink polka dot stationery folded in half. He opened it up and read the note tossing the Cat onesie over his shoulder. 

“There is no Ladybug, without her Cat Noir” 

It was a simple statement, but it brought Adrien to tears. He dropped heavily onto the couch letting the letter fall from his hands. 

“You know.” Plagg started. “It’s only 5 months until the 5-year reunion. Will you go?” 

“At this point, I doubt they would want me to come.” Adrien surrendered to stood up and headed for bed. Adrien’s phone dinged a new notification as he laid silently on his bed. He picked it up. It was another post on Alya’s Lady blog. 

“It’s 5 months away from the 5 year anniversary of the defeat of Hawk Moth. Now that Paris has finally begun to heal from the pain caused by this villain, the citizens have been asking if our saviors would come together for a celebration. So I managed to rope Ladybug herself into an interview.” The camera zoomed at showing Alya sitting in a room with two armchairs and a simple round table between them. Ladybug sat next to her.

“Thank you for coming Ladybug.”

“Thank you for having me.” Ladybug smiled. She was so beautiful. Her midnight hair had grown out and was no longer in her customary pigtails. 

“First of all, the defeat of Hawk Moth was quite the feat.” 

“That is an understatement.” her serious face looked from Alya to the camera and back. 

“How well do you think the people of Paris have recovered from it? Do you think they are ready for a celebration like this?”

“I think some of us still suffer certain losses even in the wake of Hawk Moths final attack.” Ladybug was looking at the screen now. 

“Are you referring to the disappearance of Cat Noir?” Ladybug closed her eyes and drew a fist to her chest. 

“There is no Ladybug without Cat Noir.” She said looking into the camera again. “Where ever you are if you are watching. Cat it’s time to come home.” tears jerked at his heart as he tossed his phone down on the bed and walked to the railing overlooking at his seating area.

“Stayed tuned for an interview with Marinette, the class president of the class who graduated during the final attack of Hawk Moth.” Adrien turned around and found Plagg holding the phone watching the blog. 

“Must you watch that?” Adrien asked irritated.

‘What’s wrong, afraid you’ll lose the battle and get on a place?” Plagg egged him on. Adrien shook his head and turned back to his bed. He took the phone and went downstairs. Plagg turned the TV on and Adrien mirrored the phone to it. Suddenly there was Marinette on the big screen. He was wearing a cute dress, a black coated top with a flared pink Polka dot skirt. She did love her polka dots. There was a little black kitten embroidered into the skirt batting at, a ladybug? 

“Is that…” Adrien said looking closer at her skirt.

“An ode to Ladybug and Cat Noir?” Plagg finished. “I think it is.”

“Marinette, it’s been nearly 5 years since your class graduation was interrupted by the final attack of Hawk Moth, how do you think your classmates are fairing today?”

“I can’t speak for all of them, but those who I have been in contact with are really looking forward to it. In fact, they are excited and hopeful to see each other again, and the superheroes that saved us.” 

“After 5 years it’s no surprised that we have lost contact with some of our classmates, so how many have you spoken with?”

“All, but one.” the downcast look on her face spoke to her heart’s disposition regarding Adrien’s disappearance. “After that past four years, and all the searching on the internet, they have been no sign of our missing classmate. If you or anyone who know have any idea where our beloved friend has gone, please, let him know we are his family and we miss him.” Adrien turned the television off and went to bed. 

The closer it came to the reunion the more his phone alerted him to updates of Marinette and Alya preparing for the festivities. Marinette had always given her entire self to her friends, helping them, and picnics, how could Adrien have not seen what a true superhero she was and she didn’t even need a mask. 

Adrien picked up his mail in the mailroom then headed out to the school. It was spring now, and only a week away from the reunion. He noticed a thick envelope with a card inside. He opened it as he sat on the metro. It was an invitation to the reunion. Addressed to him. He checked the address and noticed a label had been placed on top of the original label. Thanks, Amelie. Or Emelie. They were both now living together, though Adrien hadn’t spoken with either. Emelie was still incoherent though conscious and living at the manor with Amelie. Adrien looked over the card again and noticed a finally written note in the corner of the card. 

“I’m still waiting for your answer.” He knew Marinette’s handwriting all too well. He smiled as his heart warmed at the message. 

“I will go,” he said out loud, hoping only Plagg heard him from his pocket. Adrien had a lot of arrangements to make if he was to go. He had grounds to maintain. He would need to put someone else in charge of these tasks. Adrien wasn’t sure how long he would stay, but he would start with a week just in case. He was surprised to find someone was at the temple when he arrived. An older man was cleaning up the grounds as Adrien walked up. 

“Laoshi Mao?” the man asked. “I am Orisuma.” 

“I thank you for your hard work, what brings you?” Adrien asked. 

“I had been noticing you doing all this work on your own. Such a hard working young man” Orisuma offered. “I have been released from my job and have nothing to do during the day.” Adrien smiled.

“You have come at the right time.” Adrien motioned for the man to follow him. He keyed open the temple and the two walked inside. 

“I have to go away for a few days, and I was just thinking to myself this morning how I need someone to tend to the grounds until I return.” Adrien walked him and around showing him all of the tasks he had to carry out every day and the onles that only needed to be done weekly. Since classes were still on hold for another couple weeks due to the mourning of Cheng Sifu, there wasn’t laundry. Many of the students left their yi-fu here. 

“I would be happy to provide this survice to you, if you will allow me to continue when you return.” Adrien smiled at him.

“I would be honored to have your aid.” Feeling at ease and knowing he had nothing else to do for the day he returned home to prepare for his trip. His excited and nerves argued in his stomach as he arranged his flight, and packed his bags.

“Felix,” He said on the phone as his cousin answered. “I’ll be on a plane this evening for Paris.” A silence on the other side of the phone told him Felix was surprised.

“Wow, what brought this on?” Felix must be so busy with work that he hasn’t been following the buzz. 

“The reunion is this Saturday, and I have been invited.” 

“Are you finally ready to face them?”

“I am not sure, but what better time to do so.” Adrien gulped trying to not lose his nerve.

“Well, are there any arrangements you would like me to make on my end?” 

“Just see that my room is ready.” 

“You plan to...stay there.” the hesitation in Felix’s voice reverberated Adrien’s own hesitation.

“It makes sense.” Adrien tried to justify it, rather then getting a motel. “People would ask to many questions why the Heir to Agreste manor stays in a hotel instead of his own home.” 

“I see your point.”

“Besides, it’s been 5 years, you’d think a man would have gotten over such a thing by now.” He wasn’t sure he was quite yet, but the prospect of finding out, while it made him wince in emotional pain, it also lightened his heart to the prospect of finally finding out who the love of his life was. His Lady.

“Pick me up at the airport.” Adrien said before they ended the call. Adrien checked the refrigerator for anything that would spoil while he was gone. Aside from cheese which would sustain, he had very little else. His evening meal was still made with Cheng Sifu. Ah, he remembered. He picked up his phone and called him.

“I will be going back to Paris for a week, so I won’t be coming in.” He heard Cheng make some sound on the other end of the line, it sounded like a cheer. 

“You say hello to my nieces for me while you are there.” Another cheer came from the other end of the line. “Before you go, I would like to send them a treat if you don’t mind picking it up.” Adrien agreed and hung up the phone. 

The box was larger than Adrien had expected, but not to large to fit in the back seat of his cab. Luckily he only carried one suitcase and a carry on bag. Mostly for the snacks Plagg would eat on the plane. It was a good thing Kwami’s couldn’t be seen or heard through technology. Otherwise there would be some explaining to do at airport security. He checked the box and suit case then found a seat at the boarding gate to wait for his boarding call. He had a while to wait as he had been in a hurry to get their that he arrived an hour early. Sitting in a nearly empty waiting area where no one else could see him he pulled out his phone holding it up to his head as he pretended to be on the phone.

“Who do you think I should visit first.” he asked Plagg as he used the voice to cover the secret conversation. 

“I’d visit the Bakery first, they have amazing snacks and or Leons Cheese store for some yummy Camembert.” Plagg was more excited than anything at the prospect of the snacks. 

“I can’t go to the bakery first” Adrien gupled. “What if Marinette is there?” 

“She said she wants you to come home.” Plagg reminded him.

“She wants answers, and I doubt my answer will be good enough, Plagg I ran away like a child.” 

“Well, you were in a very unique situation Adrien. No one would blame you for reacting like that.” Plagg was just happy to be going home. “You told Felix to stock up on cheese right.” 

“I think we can handle that on our own, we don’t need someone else doing everything for us anymore.” Adrien had made himself into an independent man. He didn’t want someone preparing his meals for him, or buying his clothes. That was Adrien Agreste and he wasn’t that man anymore. 

“I know the first person I want to see, and I know exactly how to ask her for forgiveness.” Adrien had been following the news in Paris and keeping up with everyone from a distance. It was Ladybug and Marinette he owed the most too, and he would start with Ladybug.

Adrien shoved the box into the back seat of Felix’s car then the suit case. He climbed into the front seat. His hood was still pulled over his head hiding his face. A common thing while he was in public. 

“Will be we making a formal announcement at any time.” Felix asked. 

“Is that wise?” 

“You will be attending your high school reunion. And no matter what I say, I can’t erase Adrien Agreste or take away their memory of you.” Felix had played off to the press that he was the face of the Agreste brand saying that there was no Adrien Agreste. It wasn’t a lie, Adrien Agreste no longer existed but that was only to give him the privacy to recovery form what his father had done to this city. The Graham De Vanily Brand was a refreshing new start for the former Agreste brand and they needed to make sure no scandals rose up to destroy that image. 

“Transperency is important here. If the media got wind of a secret like this, say, you showing up to a high school reunion, it could be bad for the company’s image.” 

“Can it wait until Saturday. I have some sleuthing to do without a bunch of people showing up.” Adrien asked. His stomach began to tie in knots at the thought of Nino showing up on his door, or even worse, Alya. That girl could be scary at times, and he knew Marinette would have told him about the last conversation they had. He couldn’t bear it. 

“Fine.” Felix huffed. “I will contact Marinette to arrange a formal announcement at the reunion, so you can make your return public and televised.” His face burned at the thought of such a public re-entrance as his heart skipped a beat. 

“If you insist.” He forced a smile as they pulled through the gates of the Agreste Manor. The insignia on the gate as well as all over the house spoke to Gabriel as the symbol was a G inside of a circle. 

“I wish we could change that.” Adrien said.

“As long as Emelie lives, we can’t the house is hers.” Adrien didn’t know if that made it any better. 

“She can have it.” Adrien thought. “I think I am happy in Shanghai.” 

“What if things work out with you and…” Felix stopped the car infront of the entrance. “Marinette?”

“What makes you think I even have a chance with her after all these years?” Adrien looked at him. “You said yourself she stopped asking about me awhile ago.”

“Ask the same question and get the same answer too many times, people tend to stop asking.” Felix was right. Adrien pulled his suit case out of the back seat then leaned into the open window. 

“Would you mind taking that to Tom and Sabine’s bakery, it’s a gift from Sabine’s uncle.” 

“Shall I tell them you brought it for them?” Felix gave a mischievous smile then pulled away without an answer. 

“Please don’t.” Adrien said to himself as he watched Felix drive away. He carried his bacg into the house hoping no one saw him. Felix had even excused the staff for the entire week as Adrien had requested. If Emelie never recovered, this house would become his officially, even though she was a year away from being declared dead before she was found in the basement of the manor. His bedroom was the same as the last time he had been in it. It had been cleaned but everything else was still the same. Including the fact that there were clothes still in the closets. He had bever been ablet to even pack his stuff. 

“I don’t think any of it will fit anymore.” Plagg laughed then flew to his cheese fridge. It was a small fridge and was now empty. Plagg sighed in sadness. 

“Shall we head out to Leons?” Adrien asked him. Adrien walked to the car garage. There were sever cars in their. He opened the lock box by the entry door and fished for a set of keys, there were three cars in their a tiny black coup, a silver sadan, and a black sadan. He picked up a set of keys and clicked the key fob to unlock the doors. The lights on the black sadan lit up. He clicked the lock but and put them back. Another key fob lit up the lights on the coup. He smiled then climbed inside. He had never driven this car. He had only ever been allowed to drive the silver one, but generally he always had his body guard drive him around. 

He had a little bit of shopping to do so he started with Leon’s cheese store, then went to the market to get the supplies for dinner. He intended this to be a picnic unlike anything she has ever had before. 

[yeojaa]

( GHOST IN MY BED. )

Sometimes, hating someone is the only thing you can do.

pairing.  jjk x named f!reader.  a bit of jhs x named f!reader (but not really)?

genre + rating.   rockstar!au.  e2l (exes n enemies!).  general flangst?  anguf?  a blend of angst and fluff, tbh.  mainly angst tho.

tags / warnings.  sibling dynamics, introspective sadness, talk about not-so-healthy relationships (obviously), dumbass!jk, asshole!jk, jealous!jk, how many more jk tags can i add?, a silly reference to scott pilgrim.  nothing serious. 

beta reader(s).  @hobi-gif​ aka the loml!!!

wc.  3.1k

chapter four.

You and Yoongi don’t fight.  It’s always been a point of pride - something to look at and smile on. 

That must be why it feels so terrible now, with his knuckles blown white and enough rage to start a war simmering within his veins.  You’ve never seen him like this:  a world away from your soft Yoon, your best friend, your beloved brother.

“Yoongi, really--” 

“No.  Stop saying that.”  Despite the fact that you know his anger isn’t directed at you - that you’re the farthest target in his mind - it still hurts, like getting caught in friendly fire.  Pinpricks of guilt spill across your skin, nerve endings shot to hell by the way his mouth curls and tears, venom laced between his teeth and draped across his tongue.  “He came here and you didn’t tell me?  I told you - I’ll kill him.”

Hyperbole, you’re sure, but you can’t help the way your heart stutters.  A little oh no for a boy who doesn’t deserve it - whose silhouette still carves a spectacularly painful hole in your chest.

“I didn’t want you to worry--”  It’s not an excuse.  It’s not meant to be.  You never lie to Yoongi.  Frankly, you don’t think you could.  

“You’re my sister.”

It’s enough of a rebuttal that you’re reduced to silence.  He’s right.  You’re family;  family don’t keep secrets.

“I’m sorry,”  you try again, feeble and emphatic.  

There’s an unbearable distance between you - a sea’s worth of sadness that rocks the rickety boat you’ve built.  You can practically see it stretching on and on, sweeping you further and further from his safe shores.  It’s an awful feeling. 

“You’re my sister,”  he repeats, suddenly so tired you worry for him.  For once, he looks that much older than you, as if five years have forced passages of experience within his pages.  “You can’t hide things from me.  Who’s going to be there for you if not me?”  

You want to rebuff him - insist that you’re stronger than he gives you credit for - but you know it’s not what he means.  More than anyone, Yoongi believes in you.  He sees your strength even when you can’t see your own;  he’s been that strength more times than you can count.  

The reality of your situation isn’t lost on you.

He’s the only one who knows everything you’ve been through.  A diary in living breathing form, full of your most shameless secrets, your deepest worries, your worst heartbreaks.  

“I know.”  Apology threads each syllable, stitches them neatly to each other.  The sincerity is blinding, bright white and earnest.  “I didn’t mean to make you worry.”  

The smile he offers is rueful, twisting the edge of his mouth in a manner you’ve adopted over the years.  You return it without thought and then, all at once, the expanse is closed.  He’s laughing - a sound that doesn’t ring true in the way you know it should - but it’s a laugh and you know everything is okay.

“Still worried,”  he returns with a quiet sigh and flick of his wrist.

You’re with him in a breath, curled against his side on the couch you’d cried yourself to sleep on just days ago.  While you’re both far closer in size than you’ve ever been - you were always a tiny kid growing up, even against Yoongi’s own slim frame - it’s reminiscent of your childhood and being caught beneath haphazardly strewn sheets and disorganised chaos in the form of blanket forts.

Dry lips find a home against the side of your head, his arm dragging you to warmth.  “You’re an idiot, you know.”  He says it in the way only an older brother can - with all the frustration and love in the world.  

You do know, intimately well, how idiotic you are.  Have been.  Seemingly always will be.

“I know,”  you mumble, sad into the raised hood of your sweater.  “But I made him leave.”  It sounds like a child begging for praise - to be told they’ve done well.  You won’t deny you need it now.  

Good is the first thing Yoongi says, a little flippant and with a hard set of his jaw.  More comes when he catches your expression and the way the dent forms between your brows, the tiny pout of your lips.  It’s the same face you’ve made all your life - one that hits him right behind the ribs like a Whack-A-Mole game at the carnival.

“You did good, Vivi.  I’m proud of you.”  They’re bandages, sticky and adhesive on the stitches Jungkook’s visit had torn open.  “You’re great and he’s…”  There are words he’d like to use - a million scathing adjectives to paint the asshole in technicolour - but he knows better.  Knows you can’t take it, at least not right now.  “He doesn’t deserve you.  You get that, right?  You’re better off without him.”

You nod against his side but offer nothing further.  The silence speaks worrying volumes.

“You’re not going to answer him again, right?”  

Some half-mumbled non-committal response comes.  Yoongi wants to tear his own hair out.  Better yet, he wants to tear yours out.  Instead, he blows a long exhale through his nose, free hand coming to scrub across his face.  When will you learn?  

“I’m scared.”

It’s so quiet even you hardly hear it, ear tucked against the cotton of Yoongi’s flannel.  You think, for a moment, maybe he’s missed it too.  Then he squeezes you a little tighter:  a silent reassurance.

“Seeing him again just brings back so many memories.”  Every other word is muffled but it’s the most you can do.  Courage is carried quietly - too loud and you’ll shatter it.  “I thought three years would be enough.  It should be, right?”

It’s a rhetorical question;  Yoongi still debates answering it, just for his own sake.

“Maybe he’s changed.  Or maybe I’ve changed.  It could be different.”  It’s a clandestine belief and one you shouldn’t speak to life - especially to your brother.  It spills forth of its own accord, wrong for so many reasons but begging to be asked.  You have no control over it and the hope it sows somewhere within your chest.

“You can’t actually believe that.”  

It’s infinitely more scathing than Hoseok’s reaction, tearing out of Yoongi’s mouth like a bullet.  You can’t help the way you frown, brows drawn and lips pursed.  You’ve known Yoongi your whole life.  Reading between the lines feels like you’re fucking stupid but you know it’s not quite so harsh.  A frustrated you dumb idiot, maybe.

“Don’t make that face.”  

“I’m not making any face.”  

“Yes, you are.  It’s the same one you made when I embarrassed you on your first date.  Also the one you made after you threw up all over Hoseok’s shoes the first night you met him.”  The recollection doesn’t help your cause - you’re grimacing even more deeply, chagrin spilling into misery in the form of red hot heat over your cheeks.  “Don’t resent me for being realistic, Vivi.  You know he hasn’t changed.”

The silence is childish.  You know that.

“You can’t fix people.”

He arrives with flowers.  Two full bunches of your favourite blooms - pretty peonies in shades of coral and lavender.  They’re heavy in his arms, held so gingerly it’s almost comical as he extracts himself from the vehicle he most definitely should not be driving.  He wonders whether you’ll be home - if he’ll get to see your expression when he presents them to you.  He hopes you’ll light up, brighter than the sun in the sky and better than any nightlight.  

What he doesn’t expect is someone walking up the sidewalk, gym bag slung across his shoulder like he’s getting ready to settle in for a long night.  Short - atleast a few inches shorter than himself - with a stupid face that makes Jungkook want to punch it.  Dumb shoes, too.  Who the fuck wears Off-White Jordan 1s in that colourway?

There’s a permanent scowl etched across his face as he watches from behind the tinted comfort of his car, single hand caught around the edge of the door.  He’s vaguely aware of the fact that he’s perhaps crushing the stems cradled in his arms, inked knuckles blown white around quickly crumpling brown paper.

Maybe he’s your neighbour.  Or maybe he’s going to the other house or maybe—

No, he’s definitely walking right up the front path.

The words are out before Jungkook can stop them, shouted into the quiet afternoon more loudly than he anticipates.  “Hey!”

Dumbass with the face turns, full of surprise and wandering eyes.  He hesitates halfway up your stoop, looking stupider than ever as he looks around for the source of the voice.  

Then his stare falls on the brunet with his hands full and it’s like a flip has switched - mouth hardening into a line that raises the hairs on the back of Jungkook’s neck.  He’s glaring at him (or something close to it).  

Seriously - who is this fucker?

“Can I help you?”  Hoseok speaks far more reasonably, at an octave that doesn’t shatter the peace of the residential neighbourhood.  He’s still caught on the steps, fist tight around the strap of his bag as he studies the man - no, boy - that jogs up to meet him, two rungs the only thing separating the two of them.

“Do you know Vira?”

A part of Hoseok flinches at Jungkook’s casual use of your name - like he knows you or deserves to address you like an old friend.  This kid really was clueless.

When he speaks, he’s perfectly composed, tension held tight behind his teeth.  “I said, can I help you?”

Jungkook bristles at the response, some snarky comment threatening to knock the other off his apparent high horse.  He barely catches it, grinding it down into a fine powder beneath his molars.  He has to tread lightly here. 

“I’m a friend of hers.”  Not a lie, per se.  You two were friends;  after all, you’d come when he’d called.  That meant something, right?  Had to. 

“A friend?”  Disbelief slips into place, evident in the tone of Hoseok’s voice, how his brows shift beneath his chestnut fringe.  He knows better than to believe Jungkook - has heard all the heartbreaking stories - but he can’t quite keep the worry from worming it’s way into his thoughts.  They settle uncomfortably, just beneath the surface. “Is she expecting you?”

Everything about Hoseok makes Jungkook hate him.  From the sneakers he wears to the watch on his wrist - understated, all gold, more expensive than a nerd like him should have - there’s something undoubtedly punchable about him.

It certainly has nothing to do with the fact that he’s seemingly close with you.  Definitely not.

“I was going to surprise her.”  The flowers are held aloft, gesticulated in the best manner Jungkook can manage with his arms so full.  “I didn’t know she was expecting you.”  It’s a cheap tactic - recycling words - but he can’t think of much else beyond fitting his foot into this guy’s mouth.

“She’s not.”  Sharp, sparse, with no hint of indulgence.  Hoseok’s not about to get into a verbal sparring match with Jungkook.  It’s not worth his time.  

He is, however, going to put him in his place - and easily at that.

“She’s still at work.”  Slim bundle of keys rise - two unassuming and one for an Audi.  Perhaps unnecessary but Hoseok takes great pleasure in the other’s expression.

Tch is Jungkook’s first thought before the second smacks him straight in the face.  He has a key to your place?  The fact rubs him all the wrong ways despite the fact that he has no right to be bothered;  it isn’t his home any more - hasn’t been in years.  It still hurts, though, right behind his ribs and all the way down to the tips of his fingers.

Is this how you felt all those times?  

Something like nausea builds in Jungkook’s stomach, throwing acid up the walls of his throat.  It burns and strings, licking painfully all the way into his mouth.  His teeth ache - buzz uncomfortably - and his tongue feels suddenly far too heavy.  He wonders if he might choke on it.

Then, slowly, in a voice he doesn’t recognise.  Too soft, years younger, uncertain.  “Can you give these to her?”  He hates it.

He hates even more the way Hosoek looks at him, with such pity Jungkook wants to curl it around his fist and break the older man’s teeth with it.  It’s something he’s seen a handful of times - from you, from your brother, from his worried mother when she thinks he doesn’t notice.  It never gets easier. 

It forces him into a position he hasn’t been in in years:  weak.

“I don’t think so.”  By how calmly Hoseok speaks, it’s almost as if he’s commenting on the weather or passing along a banal bit of information.  It’s far too nonchalant to be breaking Jungkook’s heart, splitting it cleanly in two.

“Why not?”  Jungkook’s petulant, a child denied his favourite toy, forced into time-out.  

That’s not for you screams Hoseok’s expression.  She’s not for you.  “I’m not comfortable with doing so.”  

The sinking feeling hasn’t stopped for Jungkook.  It goes and goes until he wishes he were six feet under, buried under ground as low as he feels.  He should leave.  He knows he should leave - if only to stop the discomfort that’s gripping every nerve, twisting them like an elbow about to snap.  

“Anyway.”  There’s boredom working its way into Hoseok’s stare, relaxing the shape of his mouth until it falls wide around a short, terse sigh.  “If you’re friends, you can get in touch and drop them off later.”  

He’s done playing gatekeeper - can feel his frustration bubbling to the surface in a way he’s not about to entertain.  He nods once, dismissive, before turning away from the so-called rockstar that seems terribly small and the farthest thing from it.

“Goodbye.”  Then he’s disappearing into your home, leaving Jungkook on the steps with his tail between his legs.

You return home three hours later - blissfully unaware of what’s transpired.  

You set your dinner on the kitchen island, deftly unpacking takeout boxes as Hoseok hurries to your side to help.  You don’t mind when he bumps into you, knocking his hip against yours with a heart-shaped smile.

It burns a little brighter than usual.  “Good day?”  

He hums in response, sneaking a yellow tomato from the salad box he’s just popped open.  “Something like that.” 

“Something like that?”  You can’t help but echo him, a pretty parrot with shining eyes and a silk bow in your hair.  “Don’t play coy, Jung Hoseok.”  A digit closes the minimal distance between you, finding purchase against his side - right where he’s most ticklish.

He shrieks, nearly upending the fries he’s tried to dump onto a ceramic plate.

“Hey!”  Hands swat, then fold, catching your fingers between his in an awkward hand-hold.  “Keep your hands to yourself, Vi.” 

“You don’t complain normally,”  you retort.  You’re not wrong.  Skinship with you is one of his favourite things, fourth only to his dog, dancing, and a certain green-labelled soda.

“Well, today’s a special day.”  

Hoseok really doesn’t know where he’s going with his words - only hoping that he’ll find their destination somewhere along the way.  He doesn’t want to tell you too soon, all too aware of how the mention of your ex will bring this perfect moment crumbling down.  He wants to hold it, perhaps a little too tightly, for as long as he can.  He thinks he’s doing you a service, giving you these few extra minutes.

“Oh yeah?”  You’re twinkling eyes and pealing laughter, so far removed from the bag of bones and sadness of only days prior.  It’s hard to believe there’s something broken inside of there - tucked right behind your breastplate and out of sight.

“Yeah.”  

You wait for him to continue, opting instead to fill the silence with mouth noises.  He’ll tell you when he’s ready.  He always does.  

“Jungkook came by.”  It comes halfway through a bite of a french fry, the carb nearly bringing you to an early death when you choke on it.  All at once, everything spins, as if just the name is enough to upend your entire world.  Hoseok’s clapping your back, rubbing soothing circles over the cotton of your shirt, and you’re struggling to find words or breath - heaving around the sudden heaviness.

“What?”  So small, it’s hardly a word.

“He was here when I got here.”  You’re not oblivious to the careful way he speaks, choosing his words with utmost care.  You don’t miss his grip either, gentle and unyielding at your side - as if he might steady you beneath the sudden tidal wave of emotion.  

You do well, keeping your voice level once you’ve found it again.  “And?  What did he want?”

Hoseok does you the great service of pretending as if he doesn’t hear the hope in your voice.  You’re grateful for that. 

“He came with flowers.”  Not quite a laugh comes - more unimpressed and derisive than amused.  “Two bouquets, actually.”  You can feel him studying you from your periphery, his careful stare trained on your face and the dozen emotions that run rampant through it.  “Your favourite flowers too.”

Your laugh matches his own, though far heavier, as if the sound won’t form without immense effort.  “Wow.”

“Yeah.”  It’s a word you’ve heard a lot tonight.  It feels right.  One syllable to encompass every feeling you can’t properly articulate.  “He asked me to give them to you.”  

It should surprise you but it doesn’t.  Jungkook’s never been one to ask - instead taking what he wants - but it’s still funny.  Of course he’d ask that of Hoseok, as if the act itself weren’t terribly strange, the flowers an unwelcome, begging apology.  Jeon Jungkook only did what he wanted - etiquette be damned.

“I don’t see them anywhere.”  

“I told him I wasn’t comfortable doing it.”  There’s a touch of pride, glimmering gold painted over consonants and vowels.  It’s understated in the way that Hoseok always is - not how he looks, but is;  you’re drawn to it nonetheless, squeezing your fingers around his own in a silent thank you.

“I hope it wasn’t weird.”  It must have been.  It’s still the thought that counts.

Hoseok hams it up, scoffing like it’s just been another day.  “Weird?  Of course not.  I have to deal with my friend’s horrible exes all the time.  I’m practically Scott Pilgrim.”  

“Does that make me Ramona Flowers?”  

“No - but you’re my flower.”  He says it in jest, only to make you smile, because he knows you need it right now.

You try not to think of how you prefer Pumpkin, instead.

tag list.  @jalexad @aa-ronpa @kookiesbreaky @celestialflamefairy @xjoonchildx @pars-ley @seokjinssi @youwannabelostandnotbefound @patpus @dazedjjk @koozui @jinhitwhore @always-wishing-for-rain @neverthefirstchoice @snackhobi 

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

More Than Allies

Prompt: If you ever consider writing for the Sweetheart AU again (it's completely ok if not) I'd love love love to see a time where Frisk was the one to comfort Sans by being their pure, adorable self; there's just something lovely to me about the thought of Frisk realising Sans is sad and knowing exactly how to help him - anon

DISCLAIMER: This is part of a Flowerfell!AU I've got on my Ao3. I'm not posting the rest of them on here because that would take too much time and I ain't about to clog up y'all's dashes with that shit. SO imma link to this work AND the series on Ao3 so y'all know where this fits

Read THIS on Ao3

Sweetheart series

Warnings: this is a flowerfell!au, where Frisk has flowers growing out of them, so slight warning for body horror but nothing graphic

Pairings: all gen

Word Count: 1650

Patching up wounds is one thing. So is keeping someone alive.

But making them happy?

Whoever invented the concept of snow seriously needed their head dunked in a bucket of the stuff. For at least a day. When they could deal with having cold shit shoved into places it shouldn’t be shoved for hours on end, then they could say that they made a good decision.

Sans continues to grumble to himself as he trudges back through Snowdin. Grillby’s place isn’t inconspicuous enough right now, seeing as he just spent most of the night there looking after the child.

“…you better be keeping ‘em alive in there,” Sans mutters, turning the corner to make it to the edge of the town, “or else i swear, grillbz…”

He doesn’t bother finishing the threat. He knows the fire monster would burn the entire fucking town to the ground before letting harm come to someone under his protection. Hell, Sans has seen that explosive rage once or twice. He’s not very keen on seeing it again, especially not if he’s on the wrong side of it.

As he walks, his hand finds its way into his pocket, absentmindedly fiddling with one of the bandaid wrappers.

Shit.

He swerves around one of the icebergs—flipping off the wolf as he did so, he received a threatening snarl for his troubles—and hustles down the path in the bottom of Waterfall. The mushrooms blink innocently as he tromps down the path, finally making it to Temmie Village.

One of the Temmies looks up at him and snarls.

“yeah, yeah,” Sans grumbles, “i just got business with the shop. keep your temmie flakes in order.”

Luckily the Temmies still seem to hate the red glow of his eye. The rest of them part easily as he strides into the shop. The cardboard box hiding the real shop front is still soggy and mold-eaten, much like the Temmie behind it. It glowers at him as he pulls out the payment.

“wouldn’t kill you to keep it a little less decrepit.” He glances around at the artfully arranged trophies on the walls. “though it might make it harder to excuse not cleaning your shit.”

The Temmie just glares at him. Sans shrugs, the absence of the child cold at his side.

“just sayin’.”

The Temmie grumbles something Sans doesn’t understand as it puts the package on the counter. Sans nods and turns to go, thanks forgone. He’d paid. And the Temmies tended to get word after dark anyway, so he’s better off just hurrying back to the child.

‘Child.’ Yeesh, he sounds so fucking formal.

Well, Sans thinks as he scrambles into the cave and restocks the first-aid kit, death does have a way of making things sound really fucking formal.

The kid could’ve died.

Yeah, yeah, he fucking knows, they’ve died too many fucking times already. The flowers aren’t going away any time soon and they’re hurting. But that’s different. It’s different watching them die.

Sans growls as he forces one of the long gauze strips into the plastic box. The hinges wheeze and groan in protest as he finally jams the thing shut again and stuffs it under his coat. He’s been away too long. He’s out of practice.

Not at killing motherfuckers, no, he’s got that down pat. But caring.

Shit, is he even doing this right? The kid’s practically glued to his side day in and day out, partially at his bidding but mostly because the kid just decided his hoodie is perfect to cling to. It’s no different than that damn stick they won’t fucking leave behind. It’s like another limb or something.

…and he would be lying if he said the kid didn’t feel like another limb too.

Sans grits his teeth as he makes it to the shortcut chamber. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and taps out a quick message.

me: package in tow

hothead: Too many customers wait for 22h00

Sans sighs and slumps back down. There are just not enough hours in the goddamn day, apparently. He’s got a bone to pick with whoever invented time keeping the way it is too. Seriously. Sometimes it really got under his non-existent skin.

“time is fake,” he grumbles to himself, hand going to his pocket again, “so fake.”

He has to stifle a wince when the expected tug on his sleeve doesn’t come.

When did he get so fucking attached?

…okay, listen, when a kid growing fucking flowers out of them decides they’re your friend now, they’re your friend now. Sans doesn’t make the fucking rules, he just follows them.

That doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing.

The kid seems to remember what happens when they die. They always come back looking a little different—more flowers—but they seem to know what’s going on. Of course, that doesn’t mean Sans always knows what’s going on, but he knows enough to recognize the way they seem a little more sure of themselves. Which is good; that means they won’t be walking defenseless into any big shit storm, but that also means that if he fucks up, they’ll remember.

That’s the part he’s worried about.

He’s been doing okay…hasn’t he? He remembers they like Echo Flowers, they like the quiet burble of Waterfall, he always keeps an extra blanket at his Sentry stations, he keeps them the fuck away from his brother, and they…they like his voice.

He talks to them when he can. They seem to like being able to hold onto him—which, okay, he gets. He can’t imagine not being able to see anything, much less be a kid and have to rely completely on someone who might just kill you.

Unbidden, a bone forms in his hand. He growls and puts it away.

No. Never.

A buzz from his pocket startles him out of his thoughts. Grillby informs him he’s good to come over and he doesn’t waste another second before teleporting straight to the fire monster’s backdoor.

“Good,” Grillby mutters, already striding upstairs, “they’re almost awake.”

“any changes in their condition?”

“They’re almost healed. They’ll make a full recovery. Well…” Grillby trails off as he sits back down in the chair. “Except for…”

Grillby doesn’t need to finish. Sans’s SOUL clenches as he looks at the kid lying on the couch. They look so…so…

…fragile.

The flowers haven’t grown anymore, at least not that he can see. As he watches, a few of the petals catch the very edge of Grillby’s flames and the purple light makes them look almost white.

“how long’ve they been asleep now,” he mutters, “twelve hours?”

“Nearly.”

Sans mutters a curse and scratches the back of his skull. If they don’t wake up soon…

No sooner does the thought cross his mind—and get swatted away with the force of a blaster—the kid starts to shift on the couch.

“easy, sweetheart,” he says, worry growing in the pit of his chest as he watches them shift, “hey, kid. kid.”

“They’re having a nightmare?”

Sans bites back another curse and rushes forward. “hey, hey, sweetheart, it’s alright, i’m here.”

As soon as he gets closer, his chest starts to glow a soft white. Grillby stifles a noise of surprise as the kid reaches up for him, wrapping their hands around the lapels of his hoodie and pulling. Sans eases himself down onto the floor next to the couch and lets them bury their face in the fluffy lining of the hood.

“Shh, shh, sweetheart,” he rumbles, his hand coming up to steady them, “it’s okay, nothing’s gonna hurt you, ’s just me and grillbz here, we ain’t going anywhere.”

There’s a soft sigh against his clavicle and then clumsy signs appear in front of his sockets.

“you want me to talk to you, sweetheart?” A little nod. “uh, okay. there’s a, uh, a new cave in waterfall we should check out.”

Their little hands settle in his hoodie as he murmurs to them, their head starting to loll against his shoulder. He hears Grillby stand up and come over as well, hushing the kid’s confusion with a quick explanation that it’s okay, they won’t be hurt, Grillby just needs to check their wound.

The kid just tugs on their sleeve. They butt their head lightly against Sans’s and slowly reach out.

“what, you wanna hold my hand, kid?” Fingers twine with his. “okay, then.”

Grillby chuckles over his shoulder only for it to choke off when the kid grabs for his hand too.

Sans laughs. “guess you’re stuck now too.”

“…worse fates I can imagine.”

There’s another little tug on his SOUL. He frowns, looking back at the kid’s face, only to see their head aimed at the spot on his chest where his SOUL would appear. Then they lean forward and—

“Wow,” Grillby chuckles again, “you’re in this bad.”

Sans, cheeks still warm and bright red from the kiss pressed to his forehead, just stares. The kid seems to be satisfied with the light mortification they’ve just caused. Nodding proudly to themselves, they settle back on the couch. One hand firmly in Sans’s, one hand in Grillby’s. Without being prompted, Sans cards his free hand through their hair, smiling as they let out a hushed sigh, head flopping back onto the pillow.

“They trust you,” Grillby says, something like awe in his voice, “they really trust you.”

“…seems so.”

And yet, even though Sans will readily admit he has no idea what he’s doing still, he wouldn’t give it up for all the hot dogs in the multiverse.

[zootopiathingz]

Into the Wilde

Meet (Not So) Cute

There are many steps of a hustle. The first one being that you have to have the confidence to actually do it. Not a lot of mammals I know have the guts to try. But when you're like me and you've been doing it since you learned how to talk, it basically becomes your whole personality. My lifeline is based on tricking other animals to get what I need so I can sell my product and earn some money. At first I wasn't proud of this, but now I've gotten used to it after 20 years.

Today's just another day of work for me. I'm going to meet up with my business partner, Finnick, at an elephant ice cream parlor to scam our way into getting a giant popsicle. Then we're going to resell it as our own branded "pawpsicles", and to earn some extra cash we'll sell the leftover sticks to some construction workers, maybe some rodents. It sounds convoluted but it's worked so far. I don't see why today should be any different.

Right about at noon, I make my towards the ice cream parlor known as Jumbeaux's Café. Sure, the place is meant for bigger animals, but that's the point. We need the biggest popsicle we can get so we can melt it down to smaller sized treats. And so no one suspects us, we have the perfect story that's sure to fool the owner.

As I cross the street, a Fresh Doe truck drives right past me, nearly running me over. I look back at the ram driving it, and he shouts at me to watch where I'm going. What an asshole. Eh, I expected him to blame me for it. Everyone in Zootopia's always blaming the fox. That's just how it is.

Moving on, I walk in front of the café, but I have to make sure no one's watching me. You can never be too careful with this kind of stuff. Once the coast is clear, I follow an elephant lady inside, and now begins the plan. I see Finnick waiting for me by the door, wearing an elephant onesie costume.

Finnick and I go way back. I've known him since I started doing this type of business. He showed me the ropes and was the first to suggest that we do this together. At first I didn't want to, since I was dead set on becoming independent. But after a few years I decided to accept his offer, since we could make twice as much money working together than by ourselves. Besides, what was the harm in having a friend? Well, we never exactly referred to each other like that, but that's pretty much what he is.

He walks past me to get in line, murmuring, "Let's get this over with." I follow him quickly and we make our way towards the front of the line, and since we're smaller than the elephants, no one notices that we cut.

The owner (I think his name is Jerry, so I'll call him that) turns around to take another order. He almost doesn't even see Finnick and me, so I have to call out to him to get his attention. He looks down at us, and I see in his face that he's not happy. I don't need to guess why.

"Can I help you?" He asks, eyeing me up and down. I get why it would be weird for a fox to buy something from a shop for elephants, but damn, he hasn't even heard me say anything and just assumes I'm up to no good.

"Yes sir, I'd like to buy a jumbo pop, please." I say politely.

Apparently I wasn't polite enough, since he just glares at me. I can tell he's observing my behavior very closely, so I try to stand still in the least suspicious way possible.

"Listen, I don't know what you're doing skulking around during daylight hours, but I don't want any trouble in here." He says. "So hit the road!"

Geez, if this is how he treats customers, then it's a mystery why this place has a four-star rating. But I want to avoid arguing with him, at least not aggressively. That would get me nowhere. I have to keep up an act. "I'm not looking for any trouble either, sir." I say in my own defense, "I simply wanna buy a jumbo pop," I gesture down to Finnick, who trots to my side. "for my little boy."

Yeah, the plan is to pretend we were a father and son. Acting cute and pulling on heartstrings is the best way to hustle, so that was our usual routine. I bend down to ask Finnick, "You want the red or the blue, pal?"

He walks up to the glass displaying the three jumbo pops. As expected, he points toward the red one. We always got red, it was just how we liked it and it always sold the best.

Jerry, however, just shoos him away with his trunk. "Okay, come on, kid. Back up." He looks down at me, "Listen buddy, what? There aren't any fox ice cream joints in your part of town?"

"Uh, no, no. There are, there are. It's just, my boy," I pat Finnick on the head. "this goofy little stinker, he loves all things elephant, wants to be one when he grows up."

Finnick pulls up the hood of his costume, which has the ears and the trunk of an elephant. It even has its own trumpet, which he uses now to emphasize my point. "Is that adorable?" I ask as he leans against my leg. "Who the heck am I to crush his little dreams, huh? Right?"

But Jerry isn't impressed. Honestly, he could not care less, it seems. "Look, you probably can't read, fox," He takes a sign and points at it with his trunk, "But the sign says 'we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone'! So beat it!"

Refusing service to someone because they want a jumbo pop seems extreme to me, but hey, I'm not a café owner. Still, we can't give up yet. We need that jumbo pop, and we have to get it one way or another.

"You're holding up the line." An elephant lady says as she pushes me from behind.

Finnick trumpets sadly and I rub the top of his head 'sympathetically'. We have to appear as cute and as sad as possible now, so maybe we can be pitied by Jerry or another one of the workers. But these elephants have no mercy. Great. Now how are we supposed to sell today? There aren't any other ice cream parlors that sell big enough popsicles that we can get in time.

Suddenly, I hear a voice from beside me. "Hello? Excuse me?"

I turn around to see a bunny speaking to the owner. She's wearing a hat and an orange mesh vest, so I guess she does parking duty. Why she's even here is beyond me, but I get the sneaking feeling it has something to do with me and Finnick.

"Hey, you're gonna have to wait your turn just like everyone else, meter maid." Jerry says to her.

"Actually, I'm an officer." She says, pulling back her vest strap to show off her badge. Huh, that's weird. I didn't think they let bunnies on the police force. Then again if she's doing parking duty, she must be new. Makes sense. Police work isn't meant for animals like her.

"Just had a quick question," She goes on, speaking a little louder. "Are your costumers aware they're getting snot and mucus with their cookies 'n cream?"

A couple elephants sitting nearby hear this, one even spits out his ice cream all over the other's face. I have to hold in a laugh.

Jerry looks down at her confused, "What are you talkin' about?"

"Well, I don't wanna cause you any trouble, but I believe scooping ice cream with an ungloved trunk is a class-three health code violation." The bunny says, "Which is kind of a big deal."

Wait, is she trying to help me? She might also be trying to help out the customers by not getting snot in their ice cream. But still, she just randomly shows up while I'm trying to buy a jumbo pop for my 'son'. It can't be a coincidence, right?

Jerry glares at her for a moment before she continues, "Of course I can let you off with a warning if you were to glove those trunks and, I don't know," She gestures for me to step forward, in which I oblige. "Finish selling this nice dad and his son a...what was it?" She whispers to me.

"A jumbo pop." I say, smiling up at the owner. "Please."

"A jumbo pop." The bunny repeats.

Wow, I honestly did not expect anyone to actually help us. I was starting to think our little ruse wasn't going to fool anyone. I almost feel bad that we're having to trick her, too.

Jerry sighs in defeat, deciding to give in. And I don't blame him. "15 dollars."

"Thank you so much." I say, then nod at the bunny. "Thank you."

But as I reach into my pocket, I'm surprised to feel nothing there. Or so, that's how it looks to the others. Of course I have my wallet with me, I'm not an idiot. It's just all part of the ploy. "Oh no, are you kidding me? I don't have my wallet!" I chuckle nervously, pretending to be frustrated with myself. "I'd lose my head if it weren't attached to my neck. That's the truth. Oh boy," I sigh and kneel down to Finnick, "I'm sorry, pal. Gotta be about the worst birthday ever."

I might have improvised that part, only to further guilt the animals around us. Hey, a fox has to have a little fun.

"Please don't be mad at me." I say, cupping Finnick's face in my paws, kissing his head. I know he hates that, but I have to do whatever it takes. I stand back up and take his paw. "Thanks anyway." I say sadly to the bunny before walking out of the line. I can feel Finnick trying to reach out to the jumbo pop, probably pouting like a child.

Before I can even walk out the door, I hear someone slam something onto the counter. Not to my surprise, the bunny pays for the jumbo pop for us. I'm surprised she actually fell for our little fib. She really is a rookie.

After we're given the red jumbo pop, the three of us walk outside the café. Finnick holds the bunny's paw while I carry the jumbo pop over my shoulder, surprisingly it's easy to lift. Just a few pounds heavier than myself.

"Officer, I can't thank you enough. So kind, really." I say to her, "Can I pay you back?"

As I get a better look at her, I catch a glimpse of something in her belt. It looks red, maybe pink-ish. But just from that one glance, I can already tell exactly what it is. I've seen it many times in my life. Hell, I'm used to seeing it almost everyday. Fox repellent.

Of course a bunny would be carrying that around. They were all afraid of us. But then why did she help me when she obviously isn't fond of foxes? I guess she's just trying to make herself feel better. Now I feel less guilty about tricking her.

"Oh no, my treat." She answers, releasing Finnick's paw. "It just— you know, it burns me up to see folks with such backward attitudes toward foxes."

Really? Then explain that fox repellent, two-faced meter maid.

"I just wanna say you're a great dad and just a..." She pauses to find the right words. "A real articulate fella."

"Well, that is high praise." I put a paw to my chest, deciding to play along. "It's rare that I find someone so non-patronizing. Officer...?" I ask, hinting that I want to know her name.

"Hopps." She tips her hat. Of course she has a last name like that. "Mr...?"

"Wilde. Nick Wilde." I hold out my paw, and she gladly shakes it.

I probably should've used a fake name so this can't be traced back to me. But I'm not worried. It's not like she's a real cop, anyway. And I'm not doing anything illegal, so it doesn't matter.

She bends down to look at Finnick, smiling widely. "And you, little guy, you wanna be an elephant when you grow up? You be an elephant. Because this is Zootopia." She pulls out a sticker from her pocket and places it on his chest. "Anyone can be anything."

Now I know she's not from around here. Anyone who actually grew up in Zootopia would know that that stupid saying doesn't mean jack shit. You can't just be whatever you want. God, someone needs to open her eyes and introduce her to the real world. Oh well, she'll figure that out soon enough.

"Ah, boy. I tell him that all the time." I say, then hand the jumbo pop down for Finnick to hold. "Alright, here ya go. Two paws!" He holds up the jumbo pop easily, probably better than me since he's actually stronger despite his size. "Oh yeah, look at that smile! That's a happy birthday smile! All right, give her a little bye-bye toot-toot!"

Finnick toots twice, and the bunny mimicks the sound with a small laugh.

"Bye now!" I say as I turn around, walking along the sidewalk with Finnick.

"Goodbye!" She says, but I don't bother to turn around to see if she waves. I honestly don't care less.

Well, that was a painfully long five minutes. But it worked. Now it's time to move into phase two of our popsicle procedure.

[watchtower-feed]

Death Do We Part (Part 15)

SSA Spin-off ✧ Jason Todd ✧ Physical Link ✧ 1 ✧ 2 ✧ 3 ✧ 4 ✧ 5 ✧ 6 ✧ 7 ✧ 8 ✧ 9 ✧ 10 ✧ 11 ✧ 12 ✧ 13 ✧ 14 ✧ 15 ✧ Words: 2,700+

     You rest your head on your knees as you look at Tim. Your lips tremble as you watch him struggle with his thoughts.

     He stares at his hands with narrowed eyes before you hear his broken voice.

     “... I don’t know if I want to be Robin anymore.”

     The morning dragged on agonizingly slow with Tim hiding in your room, Bruce nursing a drink in the kitchen, and Alfred sitting beside him. But when Bruce’s phone rang and the hospital told him that his son, Richard Grayson, was just admitted into Gotham General, everything sped past like a blur.

     The city traffic buzzing through the car’s window. The loud reporters hounding you at the entrance. The doctor’s mouth moving in silence as he reads from a chart, explaining Dick’s condition. You were only picking up words like critical and surgery.

     The first thing you became conscious of was Alfred’s hand on your shoulder. “Y/N. He’s going to be okay.” You didn’t even notice your tears until he was wiping them away.

     It’s past midnight in the hospital room. Tim is sleeping on the couch. Alfred is  in an extra bed. Bruce had just stepped out for coffee. And you’re still awake, curling up in the armchair closest to Dick. You’re holding his hand and looking at the fringes of his hair lying on his forehead. Slowly you loosen your grip to brush them back, but Dick’s fingers curl around yours.

     You’re too busy staring at his hand when he opens his eyes.

     “Hi…”

     You cover your mouth to trap the sob that’s lodged in your throat. “Dick--”

     He smiles. “H-hey hey. I’m okay.” He sounds exhausted but he still tries to laugh. “It’s just-- what? Like broken ribs again?”

     You frown at him, “One punctured your spleen, Dick. They had to stitch it up during surgery.”

     Dick chuckles, “Another one? Man. I swear I get one every other month. I probably passed out on Jason.”

     “You were with Jason?” your voice hitched a little but you lower it right away and check on Alfred and Tim.

     “Oh yeah… we had a nice little chat…” Dick’s looking at you now while frowning. “So… you’re leaving.”

     You pause and then look down when you answer, “I don’t know. I haven’t heard from Jason since yesterday morning.”

     Dick raises one eyebrow and teases you, “The morning after?”

     “Shut up,” you snap at him in a whisper, making him snicker quietly. You blush but you can’t help give a small laugh as well.

     Dick smiles at you.

     “He told me you were leaving and I was hoping to charm the two of you into staying.” He gives you a look, one that’s both sad and disappointed. “But I don’t really think that’s an option, huh.”

     Dick squeezes your hand and your voice is a lot softer when you answer, “He killed the Joker, Dick. In front of Bruce.”

     “Yeah. He told me.”

     “And you almost died, too.”

     Dick laughs, “Ye of little faith in me, Y/N. I had those guys--”

     “But the bomb. That one was real--”

     Dick shushes you. “Jason’s friends got me off the bridge before it went off. Guess you guys were too busy watching Jay and Bruce’s fight.”

     Dick slumps back against the pillows and stares at the point where the ceiling and the wall meet. “I hate to say it but Jason thought of everything.”

     Tim grumbles in his sleep and you both turn to him. Once the rise and fall of his chest becomes even, Dick speaks again.

     “This must be hard on Tim, huh?”

     Tim has been tossing and turning in his sleep. When he was in your room, he checked on his wound and was surprised to find that Jason had changed his bandages when he was unconscious.

     You watched Tim’s surprised look slowly morph into one of anguish. He didn’t know how to believe that Jason and the Red Hood were one and the same. Or is he just a persona Jason created to do what he can’t do. To protect the hard truths he wanted Bruce to realize.

     You close your eyes and slowly climb into the bed next to Dick. He makes room for you and you carefully curl up next to him.

     “He told me he didn’t want to be Robin anymore,” you whisper.

     Dick pats your head and hums to himself.

     “If I was Jason and Tim-- I was them. I was Robin and I always thought… I always saw Bruce as more than just Batman. He was my dad and my friend. He was my protector.”

     When Dick’s hand stops moving, you wrap your arms across his chest and hug him tightly. You can feel the even breaths he’s trying to maintain but failing.

     “But after what Jason did--” you can hear him clenching his teeth as he speaks, “After realizing that Bruce will always be Batman--to everyone-- more than anything else in the world… it shatters something in you, like you’re not special...”

     Before your life turned into this living tragedy, you always thought Batman was just a myth. You’ve seen him sure, leaping and gliding over rooftops from your window and from the streets, but you always knew he was just a man playing pretend. Maybe a police officer finally fed up with the red tapes and the joke that is the Gotham justice system.

     You always thought Batman was just another Gothamite who just got sick of being battered and bruised.

     “It doesn’t mean I agree with Jason, though.” Dick’s voice is a little lower. He’s giving you a long look with the same sad and disappointed expression. “His heart’s in the right place but Y/N, he’s the one who doesn’t understand.

     “When Bruce first brought me in, my parents were murdered by this guy-- Tony Zucco-- just a typical low life mobster in Gotham you know-- no one like the Joker. But when I became Robin, Bruce’s greatest concern was whether I would seek vengeance against that guy.”

     Dick’s gaze strays away from you. He’s looking somewhere past his feet, seeing something that’s not there.

     “I had him, Y/N. I tied him up and suspended him over a ten-story building, half hoping he would die, or break every bone in his body from that height and live out the rest of his days as a vegetable.

     “Then Batman came out of the shadows. He didn’t stop me. He didn’t talk to me-- he just put his hand on my shoulder the whole time, while I stood there and held this man’s lifeline in my hands.”

     Dick closes his eyes and takes a deep breath but he doesn’t open them again. The skin at the corner of his eyes crease and there are folds in his brows. When he speaks again, it’s rushed and he sounds exhausted.

     “In the end, I couldn’t do it. I dropped him from the third floor. He broke a few bones and that was it. It didn’t make me feel better. Killing him wouldn’t have brought my parents back-- it also wouldn’t prevent another family from ever being murdered…

     “Jason thinks he can get rid of evil in the world by killing criminals but he can’t. Because everyone is nursing evil inside of them-- I have something evil inside me.”

     Dick’s lips are quivering when he opens his eyes again.

     “Batman is the only one that doesn’t because all he wants to do is protect... everyone.”

     Bruce has heard enough. He’s been standing outside the hospital room with his hand on the handle when Dick started talking about avenging his parents. Desperately, he wants to go in there and join you and Dick. But the writing on your arm pushes him to visit the rooftop instead.

     He steps out to meet Gotham’s foggy air and reaches the end of the ledge when he calls out, “Worried about Dick?” He doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t hear Jason’s footsteps approaching him from the shadows, but he knows he’s there. “You should be. He’s here because of you.”

     Jason stops abruptly and clenches his fist. “Wrong. He’s hurt because of your self-righteous courtesy toward the psychotic filth of Gotham.”

     Bruce turns around. Jason doesn’t have his helmet or his mask. He’s wearing a black trench coat but Bruce can still see the Red Hood symbol peeking from his chest. Bruce lifts one corner of his lips. “How does it feel?”

     To Jason it looks like a smirk on its ways to becoming a snarl. Any semblance of a smile on Bruce is unsettling.

     Bruce faces him fully with his hands in his pants pockets. “Now that you’ve killed half of the inmates in Arkham, how does it make you feel?” He watches Jason and lowers his brows and his mouth turns into a straight line. “Like it’s not enough. Right? Like there’s still a few more loose ends-- and you just have to be sure.

     “I know you went after Penguin and Dent after the club last night. I also know you’re still after Harley.” Bruce eyes his clothes.

     Jason tips his head to the side and replies to Bruce with a small smile.

     Bruce tries to control the urge to arrest Jason then and there. He tries to stop being Batman for just one second before he loses his son for good. He takes in a breath and releases it like a sigh. He takes out his hands to gesture to Jason.

     “If I could give you one last piece of advice. As a father. As a friend. Ask yourself if this is the type of person you want Y/N’s soulmate to be. Do you want her to be with a murderer?”

     Jason didn’t expect that. He was ready to have another go at Bruce, maybe their last showdown before he leaves town, but now he just feels insulted.

     “Fuck you, Bruce. I just want her safe-- To do a better job than you did for me. Be better than you.”

     Bruce shakes his head. “You can do that without taking another person’s life, Jason. Killing people will only put your lives in more danger.” He points to Jason’s chest. “And you-- the Red Hood-- are a testament to that.”

     Jason looks down, the crimson symbol on his chest peeking at him from his loose coat. The Red Hood is supposed to be just a means to an end. A myth strong enough to withstand the Bat’s. A new player to hook in the Arkham villains. Not someone who’ll join their ranks.

     Jason looks back to glare at Bruce.

     “I didn’t come here for a lecture.”

     The pause Jason gave didn’t go unnoticed to Bruce.

     “I assume you’re here to see Y/N,” Bruce replies. “She’s talking to Dick. She hasn’t noticed your message yet.”

     Bruce walks up to Jason and sizes him up. Jason watches as his demeanor changes. Bruce stands taller, his shoulders seem to go wider. Jason doesn’t need to see the cape to know who’s standing in front of him now.

     “Leave Gotham before sunrise.” 

     Jason can see himself reflected in Batman’s eyes. He suddenly looks like a child. The kid sleeping on the streets of Gotham. Scavenging in the garbage just to get by. Stealing to survive. 

     Bruce sees his own reflection in Jason’s and it terrifies him. He relaxes his shoulders and leaves his eyes half-lidded. Slowly, he lifts his hand and places it on Jason’s shoulder.

     “Take care of each other, son.”

     Bruce takes back his hand and starts walking to the door but Jason slaps something against his chest. Bruce looks down and sees that it’s an envelope. He looks back at Jason but he’s looking away from him.

     “Give it to Alfred… please.”

     Bruce smiles. He gives Jason a small nod before he takes the letter and leaves the hospital rooftop.

     When Jason hears the doors close shut behind him, he lets the panic settle in. He first feels its claws scratching at his throat on its way up to his mouth, prying it open, making him gasp for air. Jason jumps when the door slams open.

     You see your soulmate standing on the rooftop.

     “Jason?” 

     You run to him and wrap your arms around his shoulder, as far as you can reach. He bends down and you hold him tighter. “You’re okay!” you exclaim against his coat. “I passed Bruce on the way here and I thought--”

     “Y/N.”

     Jason’s voice is shaky. You pull away to take a look at him but he holds you tight against him. You feel it now, the way his lungs are expanding rapidly and his heart is beating hard against his chest. He’s gripping your clothes as he pulls your body closer to him, afraid to let go. Afraid you’ll let go.

     “I want to stay…”

     The Joker had killed him and it killed you. The League had planned on using you against Jason. Scarecrow poisoned you. But now they’re gone. Dead. The Joker. Scarecrow. Black Mask. Bane. Croc. Clayface. Penguin and Dent.

     Jason killed them all.

     “You told me to find a better life. Away from all of this, remember? And I wanted that.” Jason hides his face on your shoulder and you can feel his tears seeping through your shirt. “I wanted that for both of us. But how could I do that if we have so many enemies? How could I do that if they can come after us at any second?”

     Battered and bruised.

     Dick’s wrong. Jason doesn’t have evil inside of him. None of them do. Everyone is just broken. Cracked under the pressure of the city’s heavy fog and manipulated into playing a never ending game of survival.

     You glare at the horizon of the drab cityscape. Yellow lights left on all night. Sirens blaring at every corner. Sewer stench wafting toward the roofs. If Gotham hasn’t broken you yet, it will tomorrow.

     You hold on to Jason tightly.

     “It’s okay, Jason. Everything’s going to be okay.”

     “It’s not, Y/N. We can’t stay-- I can’t stay.”

     “I know…”

     You rub Jason’s back to soothe him. 

     “It’s not just the Joker,” you whisper. “Gotham did this to us. It’s taken something beautiful from us-- our link-- and used it to abuse us. It tore us apart and made us forget who we are.

     “We can’t stay here. We need to leave Gotham not because we’re not welcome. But because we need to heal, Jason.”

     Slowly, you pull away from Jason to take off his coat. He watches as you unzip his kevlar vest and lets you take it off of him.

     You stare at the symbol in your hands and silently thank it. Then you drop it on the floor. Jason is too stunned to stop you when you reach for one of his guns inside his coat. You fire two shots into the vest.

     This is something you feel you need to do. Jason got to kill the Joker, the phantom menace that has haunted your dreams and waking moments. You only get this. The barrel is still smoking when you return it to him.

     You pick up the vest and walk to the ledge of the roof. You pull back to gather as much momentum as you can and throw the vest out and down into the busy streets. You watch the Red Hood fall to its death until you can’t see it anymore.

     Jason holds your hand and you turn to face him. He watches the look on your face, determined and unmoving. As if you hold all the cards and you know exactly where to go. He’s never seen such an expression on you.

     He squeezes your hand

     “I’ll go anywhere with you, Y/N.”

     Just before the sun rises over, you’re already on a bus heading West, far enough away that even Wayne tower’s shadow can’t reach you. You pat the bag on your lap that has some clothes and your new identities.

     As the bus crosses the bridge, Jason is watching the subtle pink and orange light peeking over the ocean that meets Gotham harbor. It’s a rare sight and one you’ll both miss. He turns to you.

     “Hey,” Jason calls. “Look at your arm.” He takes out a pen. You watch as Jason writes on his arm and finally finishes his last words to you.

     I love you.

END.

✧ Watchtower Masterlist ✧

[jinmukangwrites]

Vulnerable

Batfamweek2020 Day 6 / Fluff / @official-batfam-week​

Summary: Jason finds a little intruder in one of his safe houses. He tries to convince himself he doesn’t care until he finds out he really, really cares. 

Yeah I know this is two days late. Listen, time is relative and the week isn’t over until I say it’s over. Also yes, the prompt is fluff and this seems to be mostly angst, but there’s cuddles at the end which is about as fluffy as you guys can get out of me.

AO3

-o-o-o-o-

When Jason entered his safe house, he honestly wasn’t expecting anything to be amiss or out of place, yet here he is, walking up to the run down apartment squished between some Chinese takeout shop and a weird voodoo shop just to see the front door slightly ajar.

On instant high alert, Jason grabs at the gun on his hip and considers digging out a domino mask to hide his identity. He’s in street clothes, a civilian if you will. He’s just gotten back from grocery shopping to fill up his various houses with a resupply of food storage. He’s not really in the mood to fight anyone, and for all he knows whoever is inside his safe house could just be a squatter.

Though, no typical squatter can bypass his security measures. Whoever is here is competent enough to discharge his surplus of alarms and boobytraps.

And besides, whoever went through the trouble of breaking and entering into his safe house wouldn’t be there for Red Hood. They’re here for Jason.

He slowly places his bags of canned goods and such onto the ground and pulls his gun out so it’s held out in front of him. He stalks towards the door and takes a calming breath, not wanting to think about who could possibly be in there but also thinking of the worst case scenario.

Maybe just a smart squatter. Could be the Joker. Maybe Bruce. Jason doesn’t if Bruce falls in the good or bad category, but Jason swears to god if he barges in there and it’s just that stupid bastard Jason will categorize him as the absolute worst and might just shoot the jerk-face anyway.

Jason kicks the door open hard enough to make it’s hinges squeal in protest. His gaze instantly locks on a figure sitting on his moth eaten sofa he placed in front of a display TV that he took from the local Walmart.

What? It was “broken” and they were going to throw it away even though he could easily fix it. No harm no foul.

The figure on his sofa looks up from a phone in their hands with a glare, and Jason lowers his gun with a scoff and returns the narrowed eyes with his own.

“What the heck are you doing here, tater-tot?” He demands.

“Tt,” Damian rolls his eyes and returns to his phone, Jason leans his head forward a little to see what the brat is doing on it and it looks to be... that Animal Crossing app. Huh. “It’s none of your business, Todd.”

Jason scoffs, putting his gun back in his holster. “This is my safe house, to which the door you left open. It’s every ounce of my business.”

“Fine,” Damian snarls, standing up abruptly and shoving his phone inside his jacket pocket. “I’ll leave then.”

Jason has to fight to not make any of his utter bafflement physical as he makes a grab for the kid’s arm before he can retreat through the door. “Oh no you don’t. You’re not leaving until I get a straight answer out of ya-“

Damian jerks his arm violently and Jason just manages to keep a grasp on him. “Unhand me, you imbecile!”

“Ah, nah,” Jason retorts, grabbing his other arm as Damian goes to throw a punch. Damian squirms and Jason fights off a sigh as he has to kneel down and hold the brat in an almost white knuckled grasp so he doesn’t escape. He really hopes no one steals his groceries while it’s just sitting out there ripe for the taking. “You broke into my house, you can leave and go throw a tantrum somewhere else after this, I could seriously care less, but if I have to tie you to a chair and play Justin Bieber until you talk I will.”

Damian shoots Jason a look of pure loathing before he glares at his shoes, no longer struggling but still looking like he’ll dart for the nearest exit the moment Jason lowers his guard. “It’s nothing. I shouldn’t have come here. Let me go.” A second. Then a small: “Please.”

“Okay,” Jason says, and if he didn’t have both his hands keeping Damian still, he would be rubbing the bridge of his nose. Where’s the golden boy when you need him? “Okay, something is clearly up with you. What’s up? Did Titus poo on your bed? Break an expensive pot? Accidentally kill someone-?”

“I don’t kill,” Damian snarls suddenly, and the ferocity of the statement has Jason blinking in shock. Damian is refusing to look up now, eyes blinking quicker than normal. “I don’t. Not anymore. I don’t.”

Jason narrows his eyes and gets down on his knees to become level with the little midget. “Kid. Talk to me. What’s going on?”

Damian sniffs, uses his shoulders to rub at his eyes, and there’s a suspicious glint in his green irises that has Jason suddenly feel a rush of panic. Oh heck nah. This is Goldilocks’ problem. Jason should have just let the kid go. Yeah, he asked what was bothering him but the last thing he expected were tears. However, Damian looks just as shocked with himself as Jason is and quickly bites his lip.

“Can I stay the night?” Damian asks suddenly, throwing another red flag up in Jason’s mind. Whatever is going on, Damian doesn’t want to go home where his daddy-dearest and perfect oldest brother are probably waiting for him in a panic. He know’s Dickhead is in town. He posted a picture of Alfred the Cat on his Instagram just a few hours ago, saying it felt good to be home.

Jason is almost tempted to grab the brat and stuff him a duffel, lock the zippers with a cable tie and drop him at the front gates for Alfred to find, just so he doesn’t have to deal with this, but then he studies the kid for a moment, seeing a vulnerability in him that he can’t say he’s ever seen before. He sighs.

“Fine. Don’t explain. Go to the couch and play your cute game thing. I’ll be back.”

Damian gives him an unimpressed glare. “It’s not a cute game.”

“I know what Animal Crossing is, sweetie-pie,” Jason says back, ruffling the younger’s hair and biting back a chuckle that tries to escape his throat as Damian tries to whack at his hand. “It’s a cute game.”

Jason watches Damian retreat back to the sofa, but this time the brat puts in some earbuds and curls up between the arm and the back of the couch, bringing his knees to his chest and his hoodie over his head. Jason has to gather all his will power to not roll his eyes as he stands up and goes out to grab his—thankfully untouched—groceries.

He walks in and begins to take everything out of the bags. He watches Damian out of the corner of his eyes as he does so, but the brat doesn’t move. Just flicks his finger over the screen, perhaps trying to catch a fish or something. He doesn’t dwell on it though, thinking about the tears that had threatened to fall a moment ago. They could have been a trick, a way for Damian to get Jason off his back because it would undoubtedly make Jason too uncomfortable to push more, but at the same time he knows Damian is awful at fake crying. He has a lot of pride stuffed in that little body.

He shakes his head and begins to sort the cans for storage, leaving a few out for dinner he guesses. He was planning on just going to the Batburger—because the Chinese restaurant next door gave him a night in the bathroom to remember the last time he ate there—and grabbing something filled with carbs, but now that the little bat-brat is here that’s sort of thrown out the window. He’s still hungry though.

Lets see, he has a can of sloppy joe, some buns in the pantry that are hopefully not moldy yet, and some mixed vegetables. Easy.

He begins to pull out various pots and pans to begin the last second dinner. It doesn’t take long for the meat to start sizzling while the vegetables just barely begin to warm. He sets a pan lid over the meat and lets it simmer as he goes to grab the buns and some American cheese slices. He eyes Damian as he does so, noting how the kid hasn’t moved since Jason had told him he could stay.

Whatever. It’s not his problem. He’s not worried about the tyke at all...

When everything is finally heated and warm it suddenly occurs to him that Dick has mentioned here and there that Damian was actually vegetarian. Jason curses and opens the fridge, looking for anything that’s leafy and green. Thankfully, he manages to scrape together a sad amount of green lettuce and half a tomato. He sniffs a bottle of ranch and looks at it’s expiration date and wrinkles his nose. He’ll let Damian choose if he wants ranch or not. He grabs two plastic plates and places his own Joe with cheese down on one plate and scoops out a helping of corn, peas, and carrots while he makes a terribly depressed salad on the other. He sighs and adds double the helping of vegetables onto Damain’s plate. If only he had shredded cheese or croutons or even garbanzo beans...

He plops himself down next to the kid and clears his throat, placing Damian’s sad sad meal down on the coffee table with his bottle of devious ranch and then digs into his sloppy joe, grabbing a remote to turn on the TV to something probably boring and dumb.

He watches as Damian wrinkles his nose slightly at his meal, and Jason almost prepares himself to snap that he did his best, but Damian surprises him and takes the plate into his lap. He takes out his earbuds and clicks his phone off, shifting so he can see the TV better.

Thankfully Jason manages to find a channel that’s replaying Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire so the silence between the two of them isn’t as awkward as it could be. Damian picks at his browning salad and makes a move to communicate.

They watch the movie in silence, and Jason finds himself not being able to actually concentrate as his mind keeps wondering what could be up with Damian.

-o-o-o-o-

“Alrighty,” Jason says, clapping his hands together as the movie credits begin to roll. “Goodnight.”

Damian doesn’t say anything as Jason gets up and gathers the paper plates to throw them away. Jason is determined to just go to bed and not deal with any of this in the morning. Sure, he should go out as Hood and take down some gangs, but Damian doesn’t appear to have his costume—let alone a change of clothes—with him and there’s no way Jason is leaving him here alone.

He should just call Dick. Call him and he’d gladly drop everything he’s doing to take the kid away. However, he can’t help but feel a sense of unity when he notices Damain’s phone ding with a little text notification and Damian quickly sliding it away, not even reading it.

Besides, Jason said he could stay the night. What kind of person would he be if he couldn’t make good on his word? He’s an ex-killer not a complete jackass.

He retreats to his room, releasing a sigh and shutting the door. It’s a small house, nothing but a living room, kitchen, master bedroom, and bathroom. Damian will have to sleep on the couch because there’s no way Jason is letting him take his bed. He takes off his shirt and changes into a pair of looser fitting pants as he crawls into the rickety old bed that was discounted at IKEA because someone broke some pieces. The blankets he slips into are thin but many. Well, three. It’s decent enough, he can survive most cold nights with the warmth three thin, threadbare blankets could scrap up.

He closes his eyes, thinking about nothing other than sleep.

He wonders if he has a blanket out there for-

Woah wait. Hold up. Nooope. Go to bed Jason. Go to bed...

Sleep...

It’s a colder night and the living room gets colder than the bedroom...

But it’s warm in his blankets so he won’t worry about it... sleep... sleep sleep sleep...

He peeks his eye open and looks at his phone sitting on the mattress beside his head.

Not even fifteen minutes has passed. He growls and forces his eyes closed, curling his knees so they’re almost touching his chest. Did he lock the door? He’s pretty sure he locked the door. Though, if he didn’t that would mean someone could barge in and the first thing they’d see was a small kid in his day clothes shivering in the cold of the living room with no pillow.

No, he definitely locked the door. He definitely locked it just like how he definitely doesn’t care if a certain demon brat is crashing on his couch in day old clothes with no pillow or blanket.

He opens his eyes, looks at how only a minute has passed and silently curses to himself.

Shit.

He cares.

He throws the blankets off from his body and slips off the side of his bed to his feet. He looks around his room and grabs at one out of two pillows he was using and then tears off one out of three blankets and stomps towards his door, just to stop and growl as he turns around and finds the smallest shirt and sweats he could find.

He barges into the living room and Damian practically jumps from his curled up position on the couch. Jason ignores the subject of his lack of sleep as he goes to the door, grabs the handle, and giggles it to make sure it’s locked.

It’s locked.

He turns heel and Damian is watching him as if he’s grown a second head. Jason ignores the stare and dumps the pile of fabric in his arms onto the kid. Damian squawks but Jason ignores that and storms back to his room, trying to ignore the goosebumps on his arms and chest from the cold of the room and how he’s making a thirteen year old kid sleep out here and- NOPE! He’s not worried about it. He gave him a blanket and pillow and even some of his own clothes. Damian will survive and Jason will sleep.

He hits his pillow, trying not to mourn the girth he’s lost beneath his head because he’s too nice of a guy sometimes, and curls up in his two blankets, fighting off the threat of shivers from going out into the chilly air. He eventually warms up, just like actual sleep begins to lure him, and soon he’s not thinking about much of anything...

...

Was that a sniffle?

His eyes creek open against his will. Time has felt like it moved, and when he glares at his phone to see two hours has passed he curses the gods for making this night as difficult as possible. He’s about to close his eyes again when the something that woke him up that he had almost forgot about sounds again.

A sniff. From the other side of the door. It sounds wet, like it belongs to a runny nose and his eyebrows come together. Yeah it’s cold out in the living room but not that cold. He closes his eyes, blaming dramatics, when the sniffle sounds again, but with something else this time that has Jason practically jumping out of his bed like he’s been electrocuted.

A whimper. That was a whimper.

He creeps towards the door, something heavy in his gut, and places his ear on the thin wood.

He can hear it all clearly now. The sniffles, the tiny choked off whimpers of someone trying to not make too much noise, the panting breaths.

Crying. Someone’s crying on the other side of his door and it’s two in the morning and Jason is all of a sudden thinking about the ignored texts, the silent acceptance of not even sub-par food, the cute distracting animal game, the caught in the headlights look when Jason stormed out earlier, the almost desperate way he asked to crash the night here, the angry outburst the he’s not a killer.

Jason doesn’t care. He doesn’t. This is Dick’s job. Not Jason. Jason is the family black sheep who people avoid unless they want something, and Jason avoids them right back. Dick is the big, caring, older brother while Jason is the distant outcast. Jason doesn’t care if Damian is in his living room crying. He really, truly, awfully, lyingly doesn’t care.

Shit.

He cares.

crying opens his door slowly and the sniffling and whimpering instantly cuts off. The door swings slowly open and Jason is left standing in his doorway watching as Damian wipes furiously at his eyes and glares at the opposite side of the room, curling up and biting his lower lip to perhaps stop it from trembling.

“What do you want, Todd,” Damian snarls, but his voice tremors and Jason has to fight down the panic threatening to escape his throat because he has no clue what to do. Here’s some kid who’s legally his youngest brother who’s swimming in his too big clothes with tear tracks down his cheeks and Jason cannot think of a single thing to do.

What would Dick do? Dick would smile and probably gather the kid up in a hug and say everything will be okay and other soppy comforting crap. Jason runs the scenario out in his head, imagines him trying to approach the kid with open arms to give him a hug. Strangely enough, while he can easily imagine Dick and Damian ending up cuddling or whatever, Jason can only see himself writhing on the floor with a knife between his ribs.

So, the Dick-protocol is out. Jason needs to do something else, and quick.

He grinds his jaw and forces himself to leave the safety of the room. Damian watches him warily as he slowly sits up and backs up to the corner of the sofa, furthest from where Jason is approaching from. Jason gives the kid a side eyed glance before he grabs at the remote and turns on the TV.

Jason isn’t the best with cuddles or comfort, but the least he can do is sit it out and let Damian decide what the next step is, even if Jason has to sit here shirtless in the chilly living room with the TV turned low on some Spanish soap channel for the rest of the night.

Somehow, Damian doesn’t fight that. He just wipes his eyes again, getting rid of most evidence of tear tracks, and then settles into his corner, stubbornly watching the TV.

Forty minutes into the soap marathon, right when someone is revealed to not be the father—gasp—something finally happens.

Damian speaks.

“Do you regret it?” Says a small voice in a whisper. Jason turns his head and he almost has to squint his eyes to make sure he’s seeing things correctly. Damian is valiantly avoiding his gaze, staring straight at the TV. His hands are nervously pulling at the strings of his borrowed sweatpants though, which is a sight Jason never thought he’d see.

“Regret what?” He questions.

Damian worries his lip for a second and something shiny swims in his eyes. Jason remains silent until Damian finally speaks. “Killing those people.”

Finally, Damian looks at Jason and he looks so vulnerable and scared and Jason is pretty sure this is all just some sort of fever dream because what the hell. His brain short circuits and restarts as he tries to gather his thoughts, but suddenly all his thoughts are nothing more than green anger as he hacks through the necks of drug dealers and stuffs heads in duffel bags. Thoughts lined with lividity as he shoots at rapists and murderers and gets blood splattered on his red mask. Thoughts of holding the Joker against his chest, pressing the point of his gun against the psychopaths temple and screaming a choice at Bruce.

The Joker, or him.

He absentmindedly reaches for the scar on his neck; it’s a unique one for the fact it’s not one that he gained in death nor in his autopsy. It’s thin and precise and did just enough damage for Jason to accidentally let go of the Joker and grab at the sharp batarang sticking out from his neck, blood already leaking through his fingers. Proof that Bruce would rather slice his neck than let a mindless murderer continue to breathe. A permanent reminder that Jason isn’t as important as some no-kill-rule. A warning he should never attempt something like that ever again.

He’s been doing better. He hasn’t killed anyone since... since forever. His bullets are not ones made to kill. His aims are not lethal. When he shoots he shoots because he has to, and he’s been forcing himself to use his fists first.

Does he regret it? Does he regret getting so angry and hurt and confused that he killed dozens of people just to get Black Mask angry so he could get to Joker and therefore Batman? Does he regret the blood on his hands? The hours clutching his chest in the shower after the first life he took, scrubbing at his skin so it’s red and raw, repeating over and over and over to himself that this will all be worth it. The days avoiding the freezer where he stored the severed heads until he had all of them because he was afraid he’d puke? The months convincing himself that beating his replacement senseless would be worth it?

Does he regret it?

He clutches the material of his pants with one hand and rubs the length of his scar with his other, taking a deep breath.

“No.”

Damian’s eyes widen slightly in shock, and Jason realizes he was expecting a different answer. He clears his throat, fights the urge to hug himself like he’s raw and vulnerable. An animal on display.

“I don’t regret killing those people. But if I was sent back in time and given the option to redo everything... I wouldn’t have done it.”

“I don’t understand,” Damian says and Jason releases a bitter chuckle.

“I’m a different person now, and back then killing those people I felt was the only thing I could do. I used to... sit and wonder about what I could have done differently, what I could have changed, but I decided it isn’t worth it. I killed those people in cold blood, and if I regret it now then I won't be able to move on. So no, I don’t regret it.”

“Oh.”

There’s a moment of silence and Jason sighs. “Look, I enjoy talking about my past as much as the next guy, but why do you bring it up?“

Damian bites his lip again, and Jason almost worries that sooner or later he’s going to draw blood with his sharp canines, but Damian brings his legs to his chest and stars absentmindedly at the TV as some chick slaps another chick for whatever reason.

“I regret them,” Damian whispers, and Jason decides now would be a wise time to remain silent. “I killed people because my mother and grandfather said it was my birthright too. I was superior and they were worthless. I never... thought anything of it. Until now.” He takes a shaky breath and continues, rubbing his eye with his shoulder. “I promised Grayson I would never kill again, and I’ve always intended to keep that promise for myself if not for him. B-but father doesn’t trust me all the time and it’s hard t-to think that I’m ever going to live up to that promise when he’s constantly telling me how I could have slipped up or how I could have killed... killed somebody a-and it’s been three years since- and why doesn’t he trust me? Why does he always think I’m... I’m gonna...”

He breaks off into a painful sounding sob and Jason watches wide eyed, completely at a loss of what to do. He sits there and watches as Damian explains through sobs that someone died yesterday, a criminal he was chasing. The man accidentally slipped off the docks into the freezing, churning, unforgiving water of Gotham Bay and drowned before Robin could safely get down to him. Batman arrived just as Robin pulled his dead body back onto the docks. Batman tried to resuscitate him, but with no luck.

Robin was benched, blamed for his death, and Nightwing didn’t take his side.

Bruce said he could have reacted faster. Dick chose to try and stay in the middle but ended up just getting Bruce mad at both of them and Damian feeling betrayed.

It’s no wonder Damian ran out and was ignoring every text message sent his way. He feels like his whole world has turned against him. Jason is almost tempted to let the kid stay more than the night.

Somehow, Jason’s managed to scoot closer to the crying kid, and somehow, Damian’s ended up under his arms. Leaning against his chest, crying and letting the warm tears run down his cheeks and against Jason’s skin. It feels personal. It feels open. It feels secret and sacred.

Jason clutches the kid closer, and he doesn’t say a thing because he doesn’t know what to say quite yet.

He just holds him, then when Damian tires himself out and his eyes become puffy and half-lidded, Jason gathers him up and carries him to the bedroom, his arms too full to turn off the TV. Damian instantly curls up into his side as he lays them both down onto the bed, dragging the sheets.

People die on patrol, yet Bruce seems to be the hardest on them when it’s the criminals who die. Victims, choking on their own blood and crying, eyes going milky, but Bruce only sees the criminal that Jason aloud to get shot by their own partner, he only sees the thug Jason aloud to get stabbed through the gut when Joker got sick of them. It’s a whole, vile system Bruce has. When victims die, it’s no one’s fault, but when the bad guys die, they should have been strong enough and brave enough and fast enough to stop it.

Jason doesn’t think Bruce will ever trust Jason not to kill. He doesn’t think Bruce will ever trust Damian not to kill.

So the least Jason can do right now while Bruce seethes and Dick tries to mediate is hold Damian a little tighter as a promise that Jason is on his side instead of the people who are supposed to be.

He hopes it’s enough. Because it’s truly the least he can do.

[unavenged-robin]

Leaping and hopping on a moonshadow

or, the one where after a long, long time the Batman and The Red Hood meet on a rooftop. 

(Also on AO3 bc this stuff is long)

-

He had known from the very start of this particular mission that there would be very little need of secrecy involved, but the years of training under Batman and the League had shaped the way his body moved in such a deep manner that it was just too unnatural not to try to blend in with the shadows around him. Instead than controlling that impulse, it would be easier to go in the opposite way and make himself known; he could do it too: after all the Red Hood has not a common sight in Blüdhaven for some years now, but he isn’t a secret either and criminals usually have a long memory.

He still finds himself hesitating. And it’s not because of the Batmobile approaching on the street just across from the building he’s currently on top, no. Batman knows he’s here, it’s a legitimate assumption that he’s always aware of the Red Hood’s movements. He finds that he doesn’t mind it that much. Before, when he was still a kid, that constant surveillance had bothered him like nothing else had, but in time he’d got used to it. Now their paths had been severed for too long for it to be a problem or even a nuisance anymore. It’s just a reminiscence of that what was once done out of love and is now done out of suspect, fear, maybe anger. He, himself, had stopped caring a long time ago, he just finds it sad that the old man could not let it go.

Several floors beneath him, in the yard outside the antique shop he's keeping his eye on, three masked men start moving the crates from the storehouse into the back of a black van. The man he's here for tonight hasn't shown up yet, but he isn’t surprised about that, Owain Dorsey had a reputation for being a hard one to locate, and as much as it pains him to admit it, hearing about this operation was more of a stroke of luck than the result of months of hard research. Luck was also a debatable term in this case, since he would have very gladly avoided coming back on the continent, let alone on this very city. Sure, Gotham would’ve been worse, but given the circumstances, not even that much so.

He picks up the binoculars from the floor and scans the west side once more. Batman would come in from the north, unless he decides to go around the store, in which case he would have to find a way to distract him long enough to make sure he wouldn't go after Dorsey before him. He has no reason to believe Batman knows anything about his operation, but better be careful anyway: he knows there are other eyes around, and he knows they are no longer on his side (if they ever were, that’s it).

He checks the gun strapped to his left leg, making sure that the holster is unfastened, then he runs his gloved fingers along the edge of the katana at his other side. He’s not nervous about having to use either of them, but he’s not looking forward the discussion he’s going to have with Talia if any of this goes wrong. Not to mention the one he’s going to have with the asshole that is the new Demon’s Head, who’s never agreed with this plan to start with.

He sucks in a sharp breath, closes his eyes for the split of a moment and, finally, he jumps.

*

Batman gets there before him, which was somehow expected because if there’s a talent he can recognize to the man, it’s his timing: never there when you most need him, always in your way at the least opportune moment. He’s not too worried, though. Tonight should not be hard, there will be no killing involved and no moral conflict about what needs to be done. What he needs is one single information, and a bit of violence was never frowned upon too much, not even when he was a kid and the adults around him were so, so busy settling an example for him.

The back of the van spews out three more masked goons the exact moment Batman lands in the middle of the yard, and he smiles behind his helmet, looking at their guns. One of them is holding a gold plated Desert Eagle, and that’s what he was looking for: the stupid and very distinctive little quirk that had made Dorsey instantly identifiable, linking him to a series of robberies targeting antique shops and jewellery stores.

Batman doesn’t even look at him as they fight back to back against the small group of thieves. He tries to hold back enough not to cause serious damage, but all in all he doesn’t worry too much about the punches he’s landing: as long as the gun stays where it is, Batman shouldn't have anything to complain about. He keeps an eye on Dorsey, but doesn’t show too much interest in him either, merely knocking him back a few times.

“On your left”, Batman growls, and he ducks immediately, his body so trained he doesn’t even give himself the time to discuss the order. It upsets him a little that the instinct to obey that voice is still so strong in him, like it hadn't been years since he'd worn the Robin's costume, like all the blood and betrayal that has happened between then and now means nothing just because they’re together again. And he hates that a part of him really believes that, he hates that this feels so familiar it makes his heart hurt, he hates finding out that he had missed this.

“Think about yourself”, he growls back, and he takes advantage of the clumsy attack of one of his opponents to grab the man by the arm, twirl around on his feet, and throw him against Batman's back. Low blow, he knows, but if the old man hadn't seen it coming, it's not his fault.

Batman goes down on one knee for just one moment, and that’s all he needs. He grabs Dorsey by the collar of his jacket, pulls out his grappling hook and shoots it above their heads. They’re both gone in a matter of seconds, and Batman shouting behind him only adds some sweetness to his victory. He won’t be able to follow them right away, not with five other men trying to keep him on the ground.

He lands on the roof of the building that had served him as a point of observation all night long. The bag he had purposely left open is still there, sporting a few tools that would come quite handy in the unlikely event this discussion should not go down the way he wants it to. He makes sure Dorsey understands this by throwing him down on the concrete just next to the bag, his nose almost touching one of the sharp tips poking out of it.

“Where is it?”, he asks, the helmet warping his voice into a metallic rasp.

The mask on Dorsey’s face is long gone: small eyes stuck into a lump of fat vaguely shaped like a human face look up at him, bloodshot and scared.

“I don’t know what-”

He doesn’t give him the time to finish and pushes his right foot right into the man’s trachea long enough for the man's lips to take on a vague bluish tinge, as Dorsey wriggles underneath him and tries, without success, to get rid of the combat boot that is crushing him.

“The book”, he repeats in the same even, scary voice. “Tell me where it is, if you want to be still able to talk about anything ever again.”

He removes his foot, allowing the man to take in two quick breaths, and then, before Dorsey even tries to answer him, he thrusts the tip of his boot under the man’s chin, as a warning.

“If your next word is not the one I want to hear, I'll make you swallow your teeth”, he informs him. One thing he doesn’t dislike about his costume is the look on his opponents’ faces when they look at him and see nothing but their own reflections. He doesn’t need this kind of tricks to make sure they believe him when he threatens them, but surely it doesn't hurt.

Dorsey licks his lips, then swallows down, evaluating the chances that the Red Hood could maybe be bluffing. He’s not. They all should know that by now.

“Dishna”, he whispers.

“Egypt, then”, the Red Hood says. It makes sense. They already have a small contingent of people looking for the asset there. Talia will be happy to know she was right: cowards and traitors, when they don't know where to go, they always go back home.

The rustle behind him warns him of what’s about to happen. He’s quicker than the old man this time, and he gets to knock Dorsey unconscious with a well placed kick before the batarang flies so close to his face it actually make a small cut into his neck.

He rolls on his feet and takes himself to the other side of the roof before standing up to face his old mentor.

“Good evening”, he salutes him, making sure to sound as sarcastic as possible. “There are nicer way to say ‘welcome home’, you know.”

He brings a hand to his neck and withdraws it covered in blood. Not much, but still enough to annoy him. He had pointed out the flaw of an uncovered neck under a full-face helmet several times: that strip of naked skin is practically an invitation to be beheaded, but his predecessor had retorted that no one else was ever supposed to wear that costume apart from him - he least of all. Stupid Todd.

“Did you kill him?”, Batman asks.

“Unless you’ve gone blind in your old age, I’m pretty sure you can see he’s still breathing”, he answers coolly. “And you can take him and tie him up with the others, if you want, I have no use for him anymore.”

Clearly distrustful of that immediate hand-over, Batman takes a step closer to him.

“Then why did you take him?”

“That’s none of your business, I’m afraid. He’s alive and I’m not going to fight you for him, it should be enough for you to be happy”, he retorts. “It's definitely an improvement compared to the last time we saw each other, Grayson.”

That makes Dick stop, physically and mentally: he can see it. It’s been years, yes, but they can still read each other so well, it’s frankly unnerving.

“Take off that helmet”, Batman says. “Please, Damian.“

Damian pretends that the please is what persuades him to comply. The truth is that he’s never liked the constriction of that stupid thing all over his face, dulling his senses and forcing him to rely only on its technology - and as advanced as the League had made it, he still doesn’t entirely trust anything outside himself. The truth may also be that, after all these years, he wants to look at Grayson with his own eyes, and maybe, at the same time, he wants Grayson to look at his real face.

“Take off that cowl”, he still demands in return.

Grayson hesitates, but only for a moment. He pushes the Batman’s mask back with a sigh almost as satisfied as Damian’s. Before this moment he had never considered the fact that now both of them are wearing a costumes they never wanted in the first place. The irony of a vigilantes life, Damian supposes.

There are grey strands in Grayson’s hair now, and wrinkles around his eyes. Damian’s surprised to see him so old, to find out that time has left such an evident mark on him. Not that he expected to find him identical to how he remembered him but… almost, maybe. Not so similar to Father, that’s for sure.

“You look just like Bruce”, Grayson says softly, mirroring his thoughts. “I mean, you look more like him than before. It’s scary.”

Jason and his mother use the word unsettling instead of scary, but they say it in the exact same way as Grayson.

“It's not a pride of mine”, Damian answers sharply. “And I'm sure the feeling is reciprocated.”

Dick shakes his head.

“He misses you”, he answers, almost smiling, and he uses that gentle voice that Damian knows so well. “And so do I.”

“The feeling is not reciprocated.”

Dick takes another step towards him.

“Don’t”, Damian warns him, and his brother stops again.

So many times Damian had wished for this moment, and so many times he had imagined a reconciliation that he was not possible, but, more than that, so many times he had feared that Grayson would never even try to make it happen. Knowing that he was wrong is a small victory he doesn’t intend to share, not even with Grayson himself.

“How’s Jason?”, Dick offers after a moment of quiet.

Damian shrugs, feigning indifference. He could lie, or say anything else, but he doesn’t see the reason to do hide something that’s not going to be a secret for more than a few days.

“Sitting on Grandfather’s throne, last time I checked.”

It's a pretty hard blow to take, but Damian has to admit that Grayson cashes it with a certain grace.

“Is it true, then?”, Dick only asks. “Is he the new Demon’s Head now?”

“That’s what my mother has decided.”

And what a conversation that had been. Damian had never seen Jason so angry or Talia more unyielding. A clash of titans indeed.

Richard looks at him like he wants to say something but can’t bring himself to do so. Maybe because he doesn’t want to hurt him, maybe because he knows it’s not his place anymore.

“Are you okay with it?”

“He’s the one who killed Grandfather”, Damian answers. “And I owe him enough not to kill him right away to take what's mine, at least.”

In truth he hasn't wanted his grandfather's throne since he was eight years old, but neither Grayson nor Todd need to know that, even if they had probably known even before Damian himself had realized it. He’d still like to keep both of them on their toes, if he can, and Talia would never forgive him for that unnecessary admission of abdication anyway.

Grayson doesn’t answer him right away, instead he kneels down next to Dorsey’s inert form and ties the man’s hands behind his back. He does it slowly, as if it were a difficult task that required a lot of his attention.

“Is it what you think?”, he asks eventually, when the last knots is tied, in a calm and almost curious tone. “That you owe Jason for what he did?”

Damian stiffens, immediately aware of the turn the conversation is going to take. This is what he had always wanted to avoid.

“He saved my life.”

“I know”, Dick answers.

“He saved my life when you and my father refused to.”

It hurts him to say it out loud. He hopes it hurts just the same for Richard to hear it.

Still on his knees, Dick looks up at him with a plea in his eyes.

“Don’t say it. We tried, kiddo. You ought to know that.”

Damian shakes his head, feels the sting of the cut on his neck and the deeper ache down in the pit of his stomach, that quiet rage that still tightens his throat like a knot on fire.

“You were never going to kill Ra’s”, he argues. “Neither one of you has ever even considered the idea.”

“That’s what you think.”

“That’s what I know”, Damian almost yell.

Grayson sits back on his heels, a position of surrender Damian doesn’t really want to see him in right now.

“Todd did what neither of you could”, he continues, cruel and honest. “And I owe him my life for it.”

Dick’s mouth twitches in a grimace that Damian is not able to identify. Could be guilt, could be anger, could be something else entirely.

“Is that what he told you?”, Dick asks.

Damian doesn’t like that implication at all.

“No. He never told me anything about it.”

It’s not completely true. It’s, in fact, a blatant lie. Jason had only spoken about it once, and Damian still remembers what he’d told him. It was his life or yours. It wasn’t a hard choice. And the simplicity of those words was the thing that had hurt him the most, at the time. Because he had known, right here and right there, that it was the same thing he would have done, and just as easily as Jason had done it, if it had been his choice, if it had been Richard’s, or Father’s, or even Todd’s or Drake’s life on the line. He would’ve killed for all of them, but only Jason would - and did - kill for him too.

And even at seventeen Damian had known that that limitations wasn't a proof that they didn't love him enough. They just loved him differently. But that only meant that the problem was not them but him, Damian, and how better solve it than by not leaving? Stay in the court where his Grandfather had dragged him, away from the family that had not come after him, claim the altar where his body had almost been sacrificed to the Demon’s Head glory as his own new throne. Back then it had made more sense to him than the idea to go back, like Jason had wanted him to.

So he’d stayed, and Jason had stayed with him, and Talia had made it work. And it had broke his heart to leave one family for the other, but he’d already learned oh so long ago that he could survive that particular pain, after all. And Talia was not Bruce, and Jason was not Richard, and Alfred was long gone by then, but Cassandra shows up at the new League’s quarters sometimes, and Drake and Brown still call him every now and then, and always, always, on his birthdays.

With Father and Richard there had been no other option but to cut ties, because anything else would’ve just hurt a lot more. And he had known from the very first time he had stolen Jason’s old Red Hood costume, that going around into the world with that helmet on his head was going to keep them away. He had wanted it. And that, he regrets sometimes. All these years gone by in silence, with this affection that still burns his anger to ashes. And all it took was seeing Batman once, for Damian to want to run into Dick’s arms just like he used to do as a kid, to want to see Bruce too, and to feel the warm weight of his father’s hand on his shoulder just one more time.

But a wish is only that, a whim of the imagination, and reality is quite a different thing.

Richard stands up and the Batman’s cape behind him twirls into the wind. Instinctively, Damian takes a step back.

“Stay”, Dick says, and it’s so out of the blue Damian almost believes he’s misheard.

“What?”

“For the night”, Dick adds. “Let’s go home, Bruce will be so happy to-”

“I’m here on a mission”, Damian interrupts him. “And Gotham is not my home anymore.”

When Dick moves again Damian senses immediately what's about to happen. So he raises his hand to ask for one more moment of truce.

“If you try to stop me, we’ll have to fight”, he starts. “And whatever way it ends, I can promise it won't end the way you want it to.”

He can see the struggle behind Richard’s eyes, he can actually feel it like it were his own, and in some ways it is. Damian’s always had very few certainties in life, but Grayson’s love had always been one of those. He knows exactly how much his brother’s hurting right now, he knows what his instincts are yelling, what he wants to do, the things he wants to say. Because this fracture between them is not beyond repair, and they both know it. But what would a fight and then forgiveness bring at this point? Nothing but more pain.

And Dick knows this too, and that’s why he pulls the cowl back over his eyes.

“Say hello to Jason for me”, he says, as he lifts up the unconscious man over his shoulder.

“Will do”, Damian agrees.

He watches him jump then, and follows him with his eyes for a minute or two. It doesn't escape his attention that Batman doesn't tie up Dorsey with the other men - left in plain sight near their missed heist for the police to find - but that he pushes him inside of the Batmobile instead. Damian knows Grayson’s going to interrogate him, and he knows Dorsey will talk. It doesn’t matter. There’s no way they can stop them now, and ultimately, there’s no reason either for them to meddle with League’s business anymore.

He picks up the red helmet and pulls it over his head, hiding his face again.

It’s time to go back home.

[deathflares]

» ffxivwrite day #15 — ache

wolexarch, 1.3k words, T.

[ao3 mirror]

He finds her in the Quadrivium.

It’s raining. Pouring, actually, most of the people in the Crystarium having retired to their homes or to places they might find shelter. But she is here, under the open sky, alone and drenched, and she is dancing.

It’s a slow thing—a gentle sway from side to side, an occasional spin, her arms slightly outstretched at her sides and the long skirt of her dress twirling in tandem. Her eyes are closed but she tilts her head upwards, raindrops rolling down her face, her hair, her clothes, drenching it and making it cling to the soft arches of her body.

It’s a beautiful sight to behold. It is also excruciatingly lonely.

“Shiori,” he calls out, but his voice is drowned out in the downpour. He does it again, louder, and she stops mid spin, finally noticing him standing there.

Then she smiles.

“Exarch!” she calls out, waving at him. “Come join me!”

He blinks.

“My friend,” he says mildly, “I do not think you’re immune to the cold just yet.”

“Perhaps you should come then, to make sure I am warm.”

He’s thankful, far from the first time, for the hood covering his face. Does she do this on purpose?

She giggles, but it feels mirthless. “Come on, old man,” she says. “Live a little.”

It’s plain to see she has no intention of leaving, and he has never had the willpower (or the desire, for that matter) to deny her anything, and he’s certainly not about to muster it now. He sighs, resigned, and steps forward into the downpour, his robes immediately drenching under it. Shiori laughs, delighted.

“Tell me, Exarch,” she asks when he approaches her, “can you dance?”

He coughs. “I—That is not one of my skills, I’m afraid.”

“Truly? Not even a simple waltz?” she hums thoughtfully. “I guess I’ll have to show you, then.”

She reaches for his hand and pulls him forward before he has a chance to react, intertwining their fingers and pressing her chest flush against his own. He tries, very pointedly, to not stare at the way the rain rolls down the patch of bare cleavage her dress exposes. He fails miserably.

“My friend—”

“Indulge me,” she says, reaching for his other hand and placing it on the small of her back. She’s so close. Not close enough. He can’t tell anymore. “Please.”

He prays to every god he can name for her to play this as a joke, lest he lose the last few bits of sanity he still manages to hold onto when she’s this close to him. They don’t answer.

“... We have no music.”

She laughs, his sorry attempt at an excuse falling flat. “We’ll be fine. Follow my lead.”

She begins to move and he follows. They’re not dancing as much as they’re stepping side to side, Shiori humming a song he doesn’t recognize under her breath, eyes closed. Her long white locks stick to her skin, and he resists the urge to reach up and brush them away from her face.

It’s grown so long, her hair. How much has he missed in the time he’s been away, asleep? He’s lived far more than hundred years at this point, yet he feels like he hasn’t seen even a fraction of what she has in the last four. So much about her has changed. She’s a little calmer, a little more mature. A lot more tired.

She still has her old tells, however. The smallest bit of tension in her brow, the way her shoulders are just a little more stiff than usual. And, well, the way she was dancing alone in the middle of downpour. Something’s wrong, he can tell.

“This isn’t like you.”

She opens her eyes. Her lips curl around a smile, but her gaze is terribly melancholic. She tilts her head innocently, as if she has no idea what he’s talking about.

“Whatever do you mean?” she asks. For all the parts of her that have changed, this one hasn’t. Never letting anyone in. Never baring her heart.

“Something ails you,” he says. It’s not a question. She casts her eyes down, smile growing wistful, but stays silent.

She continues to sway the both of them to this inaudible song. He waits.

“Minfilia’s gone,” she says after a long moment, so quietly he barely catches it. “For good, now.”

Ah.

“I’ll never see her again. I’ll never hear her voice, or speak to her. I thought I had already let go, but I haven’t, have I? I never do. And it hurts. It really, really hurts.”

She chuckles, but it’s bitter and self-deprecating. Her eyes are red and misty and he realizes with an ache that there may be a reason she chose to hide in the rain.

“Shiori,” he whispers.

“And I can’t talk to the one person who would understand, the one person who needs me most right now, because we said terrible things to each other back in Il Mheg and now we’re not on speaking terms at all. And I can’t bring myself to go talk to him, because I’m afraid. Afraid he won’t forgive me.”

Thancred, he thinks. He’d noticed they haven’t spared a glance towards one another since their return from the Faerie Kingdom, but even the Scions seem disinclined to explain what exactly happened. He’s important to her, he has noticed, and a deep, ugly part of him twists in a jealousy he has no right to feel.

“So I came here. I came here because the rain and the earth remind me of home, and I danced because it reminds me of my mother. And I asked you to join me because I am terribly, terribly lonely, so much that the company of a man who won’t tell me anything about himself feels soothing.”

It stings. She still smiles, even as the wavering in her voice makes it clear that she’s crying.

“If there’s anything I can do for you—”

“Will you kiss me?”

He stops in his tracks.

She releases his hand and moves to loop her arms around his shoulders, and he instinctively brings his hands down to her hips. Closer, impossibly closer. He can feel it—her warmth, the swell of her breasts against his chest. A few more ilms and he could feel the softness of her lips, as well.

“My friend,” he whispers. He does not move. Coward, a voice inside of him mutters.

“Will you kiss me?” she repeats quietly, looking at him through her long lashes. “Will you bring me to my room and warm my bed, Exarch? Will you undress me and touch me and make me so tired that I can no longer feel this ache that has consumed me for years? Will you do that for me?”

His grip on her hips tightens painfully. She smiles, crooked and vulturous, but the twinge of sadness in her eyes remains. She leans forward the slightest bit, their lips now barely a couple ilms apart. You don’t deserve this, he thinks to himself, even as his eyes begin to flutter closed. He doesn’t deserve this, could never deserve this. Yet so many years he has dreamed about this, about her—

And then she stops.

In a second, she’s out of his arms.

“Forgive me,” she says, now a full fulm away from him, gaze pointed towards the ground. “I am tired and hurt and, well,” she laughs, acrid. “I never learned how to deal with my emotions in a—healthy way. I meant you no offense.”

She rubs at her arm with one hand, gaze shifted to the side—to anywhere but him. The lack of her warmth feels colder than the rain rolling down his body.

“Shiori—”

She turns to him and smiles. He recognizes this one—practiced and rehearsed, the one he would most often see on her face back when they first met. “Thank you for indulging me, Exarch,” she says, offering him a brief, dispassionate bow. “Have a good evening.”

She leaves, and he watches her retreating back not unlike he had done many, many years ago. As the rain falls around him, cold and merciless, he wonders why the passing of centuries have not made him any less of a coward.

[ladybugsfanfics]

Seven Days [1/7]

→ Pairing: prince!Loki Odinson x pirate!reader 

(eventually prince!Loki x pirate!Steve Rogers x pirate!reader)

→ WC:  3.1k

→ Warnings: Smut, some blood gore, idk, awkwardness, nightmares, (countless) sexual innuendos

→ Summary: Prince Loki has run sick of not feeling welcome at the palace and asks to join you and your life forever. You give him seven days to try the new life, seven days to realize how much he loves you. And in those seven days, he learns to know you, and himself (and the first mate) a little better… In the end, he only has one question left to answer. Will he stay?

A/N: I’m so excited for this, and it’s finally here. This was originally a part of @nastybuckybarnes​ writing challenge but that ended in september so I think that ship’s sailed (still tagging you tho, i’m sorry). anyways, i hope you like it as much as i do ^_^

Series Masterlist | Masterlist

PROLOGUE

His cloak flutters as the wind brushes past him. It nips at his exposed skin and nearly drags off the hood covering his face. He wraps the cloak tighter around him, tells his rapidly beating heart he’s making the right decision. 

The night life of Asgard is full, he notes, as he walks into the market square. Most of the booths have closed shop for the evening, yet people walk in hushed whispers and loud yells across the cobblestones. Heels clank against the rough surface, his own along with everyone else’s. The air smells of booze and saltwater, of sweat and perfume. 

He walks past an open inn. Loud noises of music, games, and drinks clattering against each other in celebration fills the open streets. He rushes past, the inn being too close for someone not to recognize him. 

Moments later, the port welcomes him. The booths and a few inns exchanged with taverns and ships lining the docks. Seawater fills his nose as he grows closer. The sounds of earlier fades into the background to leave space for the louder noise of drunk sailors and maids having their fun. A smile tugs at his lips at the sound of the ocean splashing against the stones of the dock. 

A deep breath gives him the courage to walk past the numerous amounts of people around him. He avoids eye contact, keeping his head low as he weaves through the crowd. The wind tugs at his hood again. Trembling fingers pulls it back over his head. His heart beats faster, making its presence in his rib cage known. 

Finally, he sees it. 

In the dark of the night, the ebony wood that lines the ship mixes into the dark blue of the water. The masts rise into the air, sails wrapped around them waiting to be let loose and feel the wind push against them. His eyes scan the people, seeing a few walking the gangplank onto it. 

One person catches his eyes, standing at the helm. The shadow moves along the railing, looking out at the sea. Hair blows in the wind, creating the image of a captain ready to get back on the water. 

His breath hitches at the sight, and he moves his feet faster. Boots clank against the stones, a rhythm he doesn’t mean to make. He stops by the gangplank, waiting for the acceptance to be let on. 

You smile as you catch his eyes in the dark. Not the typical teasing smirk that usually spreads across your features when you meet. Not the happy one you sport when you tell him you love him. Not the sad one you have when you let him know it’s time to leave. 

No. 

This one is special. This smile lights up in your eyes, tells him to take those few steps aboard. Your smile is one he hasn’t seen before. It covers all your emotions. The happiness of him coming. The disappointment of him coming. The excitement for the coming seven days. 

He takes the last step onto the ship. His boot connects with the ships wood, making that one sound he has been dying to hear. Your hands are clasped behind your back. You stand straight and, despite the smile on your face, the authority reeks of you. 

He likes this new image he can see. 

He doesn’t regret it one bit that he asked the question. Seven days is what he has to prove that he can survive on a pirate ship. Seven days to prove that he does love you. Seven days to prove that, even if it’s hell on Earth, it’s hell on Earth with you and he wants to spend every moment in your presence. 

Seven days to prove himself worthy.  

 DAY ONE

Compared to what Loki is used to, everything about the little food he got tastes stale. He drowns the bread down with a glass of wine, and it still leaves his tongue dry and itchy. He’d gotten an old apple at the side, too. ( “A little something on me since it’s your first day,” was what the first mate had added when the man placed the apple next to him. He’d given him a tight, fake smile and patted his back a little hard.)

The apple tastes nothing like apples are supposed to. The usual juicy and sweet bite he expects is bitter, dry and soft. His first reaction would be to spit it out and demand another, but he can’t do that now. He swallows the bite, pinching his eyes shut at the sour taste, and takes a sip of wine to drown out what lingers on his tongue. 

And then he repeats the process until the whole apple, save the core, is gone. His shoulders slump and he takes the last of the wine in one big gulp, in a desperate attempt to completely rid of the dry aftertaste of the apple and the bread that remains in his mouth. 

“Easy there, bud,” says a voice behind him, “wouldn’t want you to down everything on the first day.” 

Loki turns his head. Behind him stands a male clad in a loose shirt and a pair of pants―no shoes. The man has unusually well-groomed, brown hair and a goatee. He smiles at Loki, a lopsided smile that doesn’t really tell Loki anything other than let him know this man might not be of that much importance. 

“I’m Tony,” he says, “most people ‘round here call me Stark.” 

“I’m Loki Odinson, the―” He cuts himself off before he says his title. Not only did he get on this ship to escape that life, it also holds no authority. Maybe he should have dropped the Odinson? It would be an easy connection. 

Tony nods. “I know, everyone knows. Welcome aboard Vicious Storm, prince. Don’t expect special treatment.” He smiles, or smirks? “Or, maybe you should?” 

“Stop bothering him, Stark.” Your voice drags Loki’s attention away from the man in front of him. You stop at Loki’s side, a small smile on your lips as you divert your gaze to Tony. The man does a salute, which has you roll your eyes. The smile stays, though. “Go do something useful.” 

“Will do,” replies Tony. He smirks as he walks down to the other end of the ship. 

Loki looks to you. “What’s in that direction?” 

You widen your eyes, as if you realised something. “Oh, you don’t know where things are yet.” You shake your head. “Down that end you find our surgeon, Dr. Strange. Would recommend saying hi to him every once in a while, though the man doesn’t talk too much with anyone but Stark.”

“Why?”

“Oh, you know, he doesn’t really want to be here.” You shrug. “But, that’s not why I’m here now. You done eating?” 

Loki nods. 

“Good.” You nod. “Come with me. Gonna introduce you to some people, though I hear you’ve already met Rogers?”

Loki makes a grimace at the sound of the first mate’s name. “It is not something I would like to repeat.”

You chuckle. “I’m not even sorry when I say that that’s gonna be hard.” You take Loki’s hand in yours, dragging him up from where he sits and with you out into the sunshine that bathes the main deck. 

You walk over to the end (it’s the rear since it has the wheel, right?―Loki notes to learn more about what things are called). In a huddle stands five people, talking and laughing with each other. You cough to get their attention and they all stand up straight.

“What the hell are you doing?” you ask, a frown coating your face as your gaze drags over the five people saluting you. 

The first mate relaxes, shooting you a smile (and winks at Loki). “You said to have manners. Ain’t this manners?” 

“This,” ―you gesture at the other four who all relax back into normal postures― “is not what I talked about.”

Rogers smiles. “Sorry, I tried my best.”

You roll your eyes, but an amused smile plays on your lips. Loki finds he rather likes the look in your eyes, only he wishes it wasn’t directed at the first mate―he tries to drown the sting in his heart at your playfulness with him, but he can’t deny the jealousy that comes with you being close to someone as good looking as Rogers. 

“Anyways,” says one of the other men, “why’d you ask us to meet you here?” The male is bald, with a dark complexion Loki hasn’t seen with many other’s of the crew. He noticed a few, but for the most part, there are crew with the same pale, white skin as he himself has.

“Yeah, I want to introduce you.” You nudge Loki a little closer to you and the group, hand still holding onto his. He’s grateful to rely on some of your strength. Being in a different environment than he’s used to makes for interesting jabs at his pride and confidence, jabs he hadn’t thought would come when he’d asked to join you. 

“Loki, this is Wilson. He’s our pilot.” Loki hides his surprise as the man holds out a hand for him to shake―the first one to do so in the little time he’d been aboard the ship. He takes the man’s hand, giving a curt nod to the smile the male sends him. “Bet you’ll get along, at least a little.”

The next person is a male with longer, brown hair that flows around his head and lands past his shoulders. Loki notes that one of his arms is metal, but he decides not to comment and makes a mental note to ask you later. “Barnes.” He doesn’t hold out his hand, but gives a nod which Loki returns. 

“Welcome aboard Vicious Storm, my prince.” The red-headed woman makes a mock-curtsy, looking up at him through her lashes with a bright smirk. The men around her snicker. Loki makes no reaction. 

You roll your eyes. “Mature, Nat, mature.” 

Nat stands up. She gives Loki a more genuine smile, which he returns with a tight-lipped one (that gives away his ‘poker’ face). “Call me anything but Romanoff and I’ll make sure you regret it.” 

Based on her tone, Loki believes her. “Noted.”

“Clint,” says the male next to Romanoff and holds out a hand for Loki to shake. The man, though with a slightly lighter brown shade, has the same styled hair as Tony. Clint also has a goatee, though less prominent. Loki takes the man’s hand and shakes it. He returns the grin Clint gives him, though a little hesitantly. “We’ll be best friends, promise.”

Loki glances at you, and you roll your eyes with a small smile. Of the four he’s been properly introduced to, he has to admit he likes Clint the best. 

And then he turns to the first mate, who eagerly holds out his hand for Loki to shake. “Steve Rogers,” he says, a wicked grin coating his (stupidly handsome) face―jawline covered with a full beard that suits him very well, and longer, blonde hair slicked back (he looks too well-groomed for a pirate). 

Loki, who was raised with manners, takes Rogers’s hand and shakes it. The pressure is slightly harder than Wilson’s and Clint’s, but surprisingly lighter than Loki expected. Rogers leans in, the wicked grin still on his lips. His breath is hot on Loki’s ear. “Please, call me Steve,” he whispers and pulls back. 

You and the four other people raise your brows at the first mate’s behaviour. Loki tries to steady his beating heart (to be honest, Steve gives him a ...weird and almost frightening vibe). 

“Okay,” you say, “that was… I don’t know what that was but I ain’t gon’ ask either an’ now we’re gon’ go before more happens.” You tug on Loki’s hand―the one that has been holding onto his this whole time it’s weird you haven’t pulled away by how clammy it has gotten―and Loki swallows the lump in his throat as he pulls his gaze away from Steve. 

As the two of you walk, Loki takes a glance back at the group. Steve looks after you and Loki, and the other four whisper with each other whilst looking at Steve―had that behaviour been that odd? Loki vows not to be alone with the first mate.

Ever. 

 ---

He’d noticed the smell when he’d first stepped on board the ship. The mixed stench of human sweat and rotting fish, an odor that gets a little better at the main deck where the breeze filled with the smell of sea can take away some of the vile one that hurts his nose. 

It’s first now, bored to death as he leans against the railing trying to tame his queasy stomach that he really notices it. Loki can’t say it helps very much to how he’s feeling. 

He swallows the little that makes its way up his throat, though quickly regrets it as it only heightens the feeling and he leans over to rid himself off it. His throat hurts as he uses his sleeve to wipe away the excess. 

“We’ve all been there, buddy.” Clint pats his back and nods. “Heck, most o’ us are still there. Does get a lil’ better, but everyone’s emptyin’ their guts every now and then.”

Loki swallows―something he quickly regrets―and rubs his temples. “I have to admit, when I asked I thought the worst part would be the blood and gore, not… sea sickness.”

Clint nods. “Trust me, thought so, too.” He gives Loki a tiny smile. “But instead o’ this, what’cha say to a round? Got some mates up there, bettin’ some good money. And I’ll give you somethin’ to wash that taste down with.”

“A round of what?” 

A mischievous glint lights up in Clint’s eyes. “A round o’ whatever.” He winks. “Won’t give up an opportunity to beat Rogers, now would you?”

Loki nods. “He’s playing?” 

Clint nods. 

“Well, lead the way.”

They make their way to the helm (Loki asked you what the back with the wheel is called, the answer; the helm). Where he got introduced to some of the crew earlier in the day, is now a group―bigger than the five he was introduced to―sitting in a ring. In the middle he sees a pair of dice. 

“Ey, look who decided to join.” The first mate smirks in Loki’s direction and makes room for him to sit down next to him. “Time to place our bets, gentlemen.” Steve winks at Loki and looks onto the crowd around him as Loki sits down in the space made for him.

Everyone holler out a number between five and nine. Loki keeps his mouth shut, not sure what they’re playing. Steve picks up the dice and rolls them, creating a total of seven. A few men groan and move out of the circle to stand and watch. 

The remaining men holler out another set of numbers. Steve rolls the dice again. Five. Two of the men move out of the circle. There are five men left, each holler out a number. Steve rolls; eight. Two men remain in the circle. They give each other a wicked grin, and yell out a new number. 

Steve rolls the dice. As they spin around on the deck, the silence is deafening. The wind brushes past Loki, nipping at his cheeks. It makes his hair flap around him, annoyingly slap his face. He tucks it away, eyes still glued to the dice that come still on the ebony wood of the deck. 

Nine.

Both men groan and glare at Steve, who shrugs with a smirk. “Hand it over, boys.” His voice is cocky, too arrogant for someone surrounded by a gang of annoyed pirates. But, Steve himself is a pirate. And the men pay up, putting down different sets of things in front of Steve. 

The first mate picks some of the things, putting them in his pockets and then pushes the rest of the heap into the center. “Play me for it?” 

Loki is well aware of the little glance the male gives his way, as if the question is directly meant for him. He nods as the men come back to form a new circle. Everyone hollers out a number. 

Steve rolls the dice. Eight. Loki keeps his place, though he suppresses the smirk he wants―so he doesn’t have that good a poker face, this is rather a game of luck. 

They holler out a new number. Steve rolls. The dice spins on the deck. Stop. Six. Loki can feel the tug of his lips as he lets his shoulders fall down. 

They six men seated in the circle holler out a new number. Steve throws the dice; eight. Loki can feel the glares stare daggers in his back; already heated by the scorching sun the glares only add to the feeling of finally being somewhere else. 

They’re three men left now. All three yell different numbers. Steve rolls the dice. One lands quickly at a four. The other spins, and spins, and spins. It loses momentum and Loki can see the number it’s going to land on; one. Subtly, he flicks his wrist, giving the little extra it needs to fall on the two he needs. 

All eyes land on him as he lets the smirk color his face. Steve shakes his head, though if Loki doesn’t see hallucinations he believes he saw the hint of an amused smile before the man went back to his rather teasing look. 

“Who won?” 

Loki perks up at the sound of your voice. 

“Your toy,” replies Steve, though nothing layers his voice as Loki would have thought. 

As he sorts through the pile of garbage they played about, Loki can feel you roll your eyes behind him. He smiles and, finding something of value, he leaves the heap and stands up. He turns to you raising a brow in his direction. 

“Having fun?” you ask.

Loki smiles. “I will be in a moment.” A little ‘ooooh’ goes through the crowd of men as he takes your hand and tugs you with him. Newfound energy can do a lot. 

Also, he would rather have you in his arms where he can trade the rotting stench he’d forgotten a little with your smell. He wishes to trade the sound of grown men groaning at losing a game designed for them to lose, to the sound of your voice hoarsely and breathlessly whispering his name. 

So far, he’d made the right decision. 

[thorin-is-a-cuddler]

With all I have

A/N: So, BLACK WIDOW TRAILER made me go write this, yayy. 7500 words. I called the blonde woman from the trailer Yelena, because I believe there was a Yelena in the Black Widow comics working for the Red Room. This is my imaginative idea of how Clint recruited Natasha. So enjoy reading and if you want let me know what you think. :)

“Who is he?” Yelena asked, her russian accent making Natasha twitch unvoluntarily. This accent had the tendency to make the Black Widow feel threatened. Also she might have reacted to Yelena mentioning him. The man on the video footage they were watching just now. He was wearing a mask, but Natasha had already seen him without it. On their first encounter, when he had been bleeding...

“Er,” She shook her head slightly to wash away the picture of his reddened teeth, “This. Is Clint Barton, Hawkeye. SHIELD agent since six years. He ran away from some circus. Lost his brother. The usual. Oh, and he’s absolutely perfect with the bow, as you can see.”

He hit his mark. He had hit his mark. Natasha still felt somewhat stiff in her shoulder where he had gotten her about a year ago. 

“Perfect is subjective,” yawned Yelena, not at all impressed by Hawkeye’s athletic shooting from rooftops. She didn’t yet know what it was like to meet him personally. The hardness, the force, the ... dumb jokes. He could fool you, confuse you. Natasha had already understood that he acted dumb to strike even harder. He wasn’t dumb at all. Not the slightest bit.

“You shouldn’t underestimate him. He’s been chasing me for months.” 

Yelena snorted. “How’s that anything triumphal? He hasn’t caught you yet.”

“No.” Natasha mumbled, staring at the frozen frame of Clint Barton’s masked face. “But he’s only ever one step behind me.” 

------------------------

“Phil... yeah... uh huh... can we- ... no, I know. ... Would you please- ... okay, okay. OKAY. ... I’m not! ... Yeah, sure. I’ll call you then. ... No, I do not find this amusing. ... She’s good, what did you expect? ... Other villains, other agents. I have my villain to take care of. ... I told you she’s good. This is why I won’t stop. ... When will you eventually resist the urge to make circus references? ... It’s not. ... Fine. ... Yep. ... I’ll hear you tomorrow then.” 

Hawkeye made a face as if he were screaming, but no sound exited his lungs. He merely huffed frustrated at his phone and tried not to crunch it. Phil didn’t understand this mission he was on. Fury didn’t necessarily care. Or at least that’s what it seemed like to him. 

He couldn’t resist throwing the phone rather forcefully on the table he had his equipment laid out on, ripped the sweat stained shirt from his body and walked to the tiny balcony he had on this floor. It was a military hostel. For people with equipment and fake passports like him. 

Cold air washed against his chest. He looked at his scarred body and smirked when his fingertips grazed the new grown skin on his hip. Where Natasha Romanoff’s bullets had hit him twice. 

For a moment he let himself go, relishing the memory of stripping off his mask and congratulating her on her good aim, while he had been sure he would bleed out. What a meeting that had been. Her standing in the shadow of the room, not moving, not talking. Him in the other shadow, opposite to her, trying to hold himself up against a wall, talking nonstop. 

“You know, it almost feels peaceful. Almost. I’m also a little turned on. Not necessarily by the blood. Though that is some people’s thing or so I heard. Are you turned on by blood? Is that why you shot me? Come on, admit it, I’m fanciful am I not? Oh well. Are you okay? I mean, aside from sadistically watching me die. That is really not okay, you know. You should talk to someone about this. Even though I gotta say, if you left me now, I would feel way WAY worse.” 

“Do you ever shut up?” She had stepped into the light and for the first time he had seen the softness in her eyes. It had actually made him shut up for about five seconds. Then he had almost winced at the pain in his hip and so he had continued talking, just to distract himself. 

In all those years of working for SHIELD Clint had rarely felt fear. He had seen too much in his life to experience that feeling anymore. But in this situation, bleeding in front of Natasha Romanoff, he had been the furthest away from fear he had ever been. Dying there in front of her feet had seemed ... good. 

What he had not expected was her saving him. 

What he had not expected was her kneeling before him, kicking his bow out of reach and searching him for other weapons. 

“Careful, I’m ticklish.”

What he had not expected was her holding his sweaty face in her hands and whispering to him. “Shut the fuck up already.” 

What he had not expected was falling unconscious and waking up patched up on a hotel bed late the next morning. 

Why had she done that? They had been chasing each other for months. Shooting, firing, kicking, biting, laughing, okay yeah lauging at each other. Sure, you could grow fond of an enemy. But more in the “Awe, how sad, he’s dead now” sense. She could have felt that the night before. But she had saved him. 

Sure, she had broken into the hotel and sure, the next guests had been sent to this specific room, finding him and alarming the security. But, what is a little bit of swinging out of windows and hiding behind chimneys against being saved from bleeding out? 

Clint stared into the starless night, running his fingers across the scars on his hip and realized he was smiling. Widely. 

----------------------

“How do you know he’s in Russia? Did you see him?” 

Natasha tilted her head in a way that allowed less sunshine into her blinded eyes. She squinted at Yelena. “I just ... know.” They were sitting on the balcony of their old hide out which was now only Yelena’s hide out anymore. They had shared many bottles of liquor up here, many smokes and many bandages.

The blonde woman narrowed her eyes at her. “You know.”

Natasha sipped at her pitch black coffee, avoiding eye contact with her “sister”. Back in the Red Room, they had all been sisters. A ridiculous idea that was supposed to make them less traitorous. Many sisters had been killed by their own kin. No family word could change that.

The silence of the beautiful November morning stretched out and Natasha dwelled in it, the warm mug between her palms and the hot steam in her face. Then Yelena was done with waiting for an explanation. 

“Why is he not dead yet, Natalia?” The sharpness of Yelena’s words rang in Natasha’s ears. Not Natalia, not anymore, never again. Her jaws wanted to clench, her heart wanted to race, her stomach wanted to tremble. Unimportant. She had all that under control. She had trained her body to this state of absolute stillness over years. Yet her voice sounded cold when she spoke.

“What do you mean?”

Yelena’s suspicion annoyed her. They had nothing to share apart from a hide out and the circumstances. Why did Yelena keep pushing her business around as if it were a dead animal and her suspicion a stick of wood? Wow. Had she really just thought that? Bad metaphor. Clint Barton’s dirty laughter rang at the back of her mind. He was rubbing off on her. 

“I mean, Natalia, that people who hunt you down don’t tend to live that long. What did you say how long you have been playing cat and dog? Ten months?” 

“It’s cat and mouse!”

Angrily Natasha pushed away from the table and marched over to the old, out-of-tune piano that had stood in this moldy room for as long as they had known it. Years. She started playing and it sounded horrible which is just what she had intended. 

Yelena groaned and fell back in her chair, staring up at the clear blue sky with eyes of fury. Natasha knew what she was thinking. That they had been trained not to show mercy, not to anyone or anything. That they had been trained to kill. Efficiently, effortlessly, neither cheerfully nor angrily. There was no rest for them. Not along their path. 

But they had gotten off of it. The Red Room was no longer paying for their weapons, their kills, their deals. Yelena was a fear-inducing jewelry thief. And Natasha was hunting down the big bosses she’d suffered under. Whatever that made her, whatever attention it had gained her from SHIELD, from her old enemies, from new enemies, she didn’t care. She was on the run and as long as she could say that about herself, she was not a lost soul with nowhere to go and nowhere to stay. 

So yes, Clint Barton had been chasing her for ten months. 

In her life, he was the only reliable person. He would follow her wherever. He had to be in Russia as surely as she had to get this piano tuned. Whatever Mozart had composed on the yellow sheets that were crumbling under Natasha’s fingers as she turned them, he hadn’t composed it for dead pianos. Or for dead people. 

And that is what she was. 

Because Clint Barton, the only reliable person in her life, was on his mission to kill her. 

------------------------

Clint waited patiently. 

Ten months of chasing could bring a certain ease with them. He splashed around in his coffee with a tiny metal spoon and tried to move a sugar cube with the force of his mind only. He had never quite given up the hope of possessing certain supernatural powers. He was seconds away from a nosebleed when the little bell at the door rang. 

In the mirror opposite to the entrance Clint recognized her immediately. His heart took a short flight through his left ribcage before settling again. Huh, if those weren’t supernatural powers he didn’t know what was. 

She walked to the cashier with her hood over he red hair and her hands in the bag that was attached to her black sweater. She looked just as plain as he did that day. They were both trying, but the mere fact that he had recognized her with one glance made him hunch over his coffee more and try to disappear more into the shadows of the café. 

Natasha bought some bread, coffee to go and two little bagels filled with cream. Then she headed his way. 

He kicked out in surprise, pushed over his cup of coffee and actually fucking blushed. Well, hell to that. The people at the other tables looked at him shortly, figuring he had fallen asleep and then startled awake or something like that, before ignoring him again, the way everyone always ignored everyone. 

Everyone except Natasha Romanoff who had walked over to his table with her food and coffee and now pulled out a few napkins to throw on the big black stain Clint’s coffee had produced on the tablecloth. 

“Whoopsie, I guess.” She actually grinned at him from under her hood and held one of the two to go cups she was somehow juggling in her hands in his direction. “I figured you’d need a new one.”

“How did you know I would push over-”

“You’re very predictable.” 

They stared at each other for a second, before Clint took the cup out of her hand and grumbled about his choices self-pityingly. 

Natasha poked him in the shoulder, making him feel her fingernail, his nose scrunching up reproachfully. 

“Hey!” 

“Come on. We go for a walk.” 

There was another moment of trust-questioning, but it was even shorter than the first one. Clint put on his leather jacket and followed her easy steps. The hairs on his neck were up, alarmingly. He wanted to nod to them and tell them he’d be careful, but he didn’t want to say that out loud in front of Natasha. 

Out on the street she handed him a bagel. Clint burned his tongue on the steaming hot coffee and hissed. 

“It says “Careful, contents hot” on the lid.” Natasha said nonchalanty and sipped on her own coffee without showing any signs of discomfort. 

“You playing tough now?” Clint asked disgruntled, pushing his poor tongue against the cold whipped cream. 

“Don’t need to.” Natasha was quick to answer, pulling his awful Adidas cap off. “This is actually an insult to me.” She threw it in the mudd and stepped on it. “We go this way.” 

Clint looked at her as she gracefully walked away on the pavement and waited for her to notice that he so wasn’t following. He couldn’t help but giggle when she said something to the total stranger hurrying to walk past her, mistaking him for Clint. He looked at her in shock and she stopped walking immediately, leaving the poor confused man whom she had probably just threatened right where he was to threaten the perfectly right target that was actually quick to get away. 

Clint sneaked into the next alley, making sure Natasha was following him this time. Her face was less soft and less mocking than it had still been at the café. Two could play a game of prediction and surprise. And Clint wasn’t walking into her trap, that was for sure. 

He turned around and nodded to the tiny, dark court at the end of the alley. She didn’t react much, merely glared at him. But she followed, when he started walking anew. 

In the middle of the court Clint turned around again and took a quick step back when he realized how close she had gotten during that short time. She was in punching range so that’s what she did. 

Her fist hit him right in the stomach and he dropped and spilled the second coffee that day, as he bent over in pain. “DAMN it.” He wheezed and then started laughing. “You don’t got much of a sense for waste, do you?”

Natasha grabbed his chin and pushed him up against the red brick wall. “What are you doing here?”

“Uh, here? In this specific spot? I don’t know. I can’t even read the street signs, russian letters, ya know, I just wanted to get on your n-”

“Stop the act. I know that you can read the street signs perfectly well.”

Clint’s shoulders sagged a little. His chin felt heavier in her palm now. His stubble felt nice against her fingers. Not that it mattered...

“Does this mean you know I’m not dumb?” Clint shook his head slightly, his voice getting a teasing tone. “And I thought I had you fooled.”

“Stop it.” Natasha wasn’t in the mood for his jokes. Yelena had succeeded in making her feel wary about herself, her own intentions in this game of cat and mouse. What were they doing? This endless road trip, this constant making and following of hints, it was leading nowhere but on. They could keep dancing around each other for another ten months. Maybe hurt each other again, so SHIELD wouldn’t suspect too much. Suspect what they both already knew: they couldn’t kill each other. They were way too curious about the other, way too pulled in by the other. 

Natasha didn’t know how it had happened, how it had come to this. But she was a hundred percent certain that she was fond of Clint Barton and that she was protecting him by leading him on. She always knew where he was, because he always knew where she was. She kept an eye on him, he kept an eye on her. A part of her was still careful, still suspected betrayal, even death. Still, she knew what they said about him, about Hawkeye: he never missed. And he had missed. Big time. 

Her grip on his chin loosened a little and she noticed she was stroking over his cheek. The humor hadn’t left his eyes, but it had transformed. He wasn’t teasing her anymore. There was affection in his gaze. 

“Natasha.” 

She felt his fingers on her elbow and jerked slightly. A soft sound of surprise exited her mouth. She hadn’t noticed him reaching for her. She was letting down her guard, his stupid blue eyes were bewitching her. 

“Stop!” She pulled back suddenly, pushing her hand against his chest and grabbing for her gun which was hidden in her waistband. The weapon she had suspected to be in his free hand was invisible. Meaning there was no weapon in his free hand. He was holding up his arms gently, showing them to convince her he wouldn’t hurt her. She swallowed. 

“Natasha Romanoff, I was sent as an agent of SHIELD to exterminate you, as they put it. You know that. We have been putting up quite a show, the two of us. I got into a lot of trouble for that. Barton, you’re wasting our time. Shit like that. I wasted their time, because...” Clint took a deep breath and chuckled insecurely. He scratched the back of his head and one could have almost forgotten that he was as cute as he was deadly. Natasha quit hunching, hadn’t even noticed that she was doing it. Her face felt frozen. Her eyes were fixed on Clint’s face. The face she’d been looking at again and again for the past months. Hidden by a mask or uncovered, at daylight, at nighttime. She felt like she knew him.

“I wanted to ask you, you know, under my protection and all, I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, that has to be clear. If there are any doubts from you or or ... from my side I won’t even sleep, make sure nobody even thinks about-” 

“You know, you annoyed me enough with letting me walk down the street alone and talk to some complete weirdo, so... get to the point.” She tried to keep up their banter, she had grown fond of it over the time they had been following one another from country to country, but at that specific moment her eyes were too dry and her throat was too cold for herself to be easy about the situation. 

What was he proposing? She could feel hope flare up inside her chest like a magic trick. She couldn’t quite believe it, but she also couldn’t understand how it worked. 

Clint chuckled, but choked on it like he was shivering on the inside. She knew that he was 26 years old, just like her. They were so young. Wasn’t it good and human to still hope?

Something hit Clint so quietly that only his stung reaction proved the collision. He grabbed his neck with wide eyes and Natasha could see blood between his fingers. His cheeks turned pale. With a piously untroubled expression Clint pulled a tiny bolt out of his delicate flesh. It was red. Darker than his own blood. Natasha knew that signature. The Red Room.

A poisoned arrow. 

Her head whipped around and she saw Yelena’s blonde locks disappear inside a window up on the fifth floor.  

Forget about hope, she thought. We need an antidote. 

--------------------------

“The good news is I can still feel my legs. The bad news: I’m sweating on your pretty sweater.”

Natasha stumbled down the street, her right arm wrapped around Clint’s shoulders to support him. He was muscley and heavy and Natasha was strong, but her resources were being strained. She had to get back to the hide out. The antidote was inside the piano. It had always been stashed away there. Multiple flasks of it.

Yes, she was running into a trap. And yes, Yelena might have already destroyed all reserves. But a part of her demanded her to keep going. She couldn’t give up on this man. This god damn nuisance.

“Seriously ‘Tasha, where’d’you get it, that sweater?” Clint wasn’t aware of the fact that his poison-induced slurry slang sparked something inside Natasha’s emotions. She had been Natalia in the Red Room, Natalia in the hide out, Natalia in the last curses of her enemies. She had chosen to be Natasha for herself. And Clint gave her Tasha. 

She looked at his sweaty, grief-marked face and saw nothing but affection. It seemed so easy for him to... 

Quickly she shook her head and shortly butted their foreheads together. It was supposed to be gentle and reassuring, but it whipped his head back rather harshly. 

“Ow.”

“You will be okay.”

“This’ll grow blue.”

“I will ... protect you.”

Clint smiled and stumbled, almost falling to the hard ground, but she kept him up, wheezing from the effort. She groaned, her muscles were protesting, burning. She had to keep going. Just five more turns. They could make it. They had to make it.

“You hesitated.” He chuckled and Natasha couldn’t help but huff at that. Feisty, gentle, good-humored archer. 

“You have to help me move, Clint. How about those useless legs of yours?”

“They feel less alive by the second.” He gritted his teeth visibly and marched on despite the lifelessness. She would have winced, but she couldn’t. She had to keep going. Stay focused. Don’t think about all the ways this could turn out. He’d make it. He’d make it.

“I got the stupid sweater at Primark.” Natasha spat out and pulled him on forward. They did get some suspicious looks from the pedestrians around them. Since they weren’t calling for help though, or breaking down in a pile of death, nobody seemed to care enough to ask or even offer help. Good.

“Primark.” Clint’s voice sounded hoarse. He was hobbling slightly. Natasha knew that his incessant talking distracted him from pain and unconsciousness. Therefore she kept it up.

“Got it for five dollars. I’m a horrible person.”

“Yes. You- you should be ashamed of yourself. I’ll get you a better sweater. It’ll say: “Don’t buy five dollar sweaters at Primark.”” Clint’s face turned even paler than it had been before. Natasha noticed her lip was bleeding. She had bitten it too harshly. 

“Good. Yes. Where will you get that sweater?” Natasha asked, carrying him across the street and futher down the darker part of the district. There was a lot of garbage on the pavement. She could see the broken window in the first floor of the building across the street. The broken window that raised some feeling of home inside her. A home she despised. But at least a place she could go. 

“Primark, of course.” Clint was powerless. He fainted. 

--------------------------

Natasha could hear herself. Her breathing was hysterical. Her body was at its limit. She pulled Hawkeye up the stairs, cursing his name, his weight, the shards on the steps that threatened to hurt the man even further. She gathered him in her arms and activated her last energy to pull him through the door to the hide out, to the tiny, moldy apartment with the piano in the middle. The door broke, she stumbled over it and the next thing she felt was a numb pain on the back of her head.

The next thing she realized was that she was on her hands and tried to blink herself back into her body, because it felt like she had exited it. Yelena walked into view, a blurry view, but a view. In her right hand she was swinging a baseball bat. I mean really? A baseball bat? How original. Natasha almost laughed at that. Clint Barton’s voice had really found a way into her head.

“I’m sorry, Natalia. I couldn’t risk you trying anything.”

Yeah, sure, like this was totally going to stop her. Her hand was fumbling across the floor that felt less real under her callous fingers. Damn baseball bats. She found Clint’s hand, pulled at it. His head met her thigh. She searched his pulse, fingers fumbling around at his collar. She found it, found something else as her fingers brushed against metal. A spark of relief washed through Natasha’s chest. Wonderful genius nuisance archer.

“I don’t understand you, Natalia.” Yelena sat down on a wooden stool. Natasha wished it to break apart. It would have been a fun story to tell Clint when he’d be awake again. She felt tears fill her eyes. God damn heads and their fragility. She had to get that antidote, she couldn’t suffer a concussion. Not now. “What is it about this man that could possibly be more intriguing than your old career? You were glorious, back in the day.”

Natasha held on tightly to Clint’s little gift, her hand hidden inside his horrible sweater. His heartbeat was weak against her knuckles. 

“I suppose you have already guessed it.” Yelena sat back and put the baseball bat over her lap.

“What? That you never stopped working for the Red Room? Yeah... I figured.” Natasha blinked, tried to get her brain into a normal position in her head. Where was it swimming? 

“Hmm. Sorry about that. They kind of want you delivered. This is why I can’t, you know, let you go with him.” Yelena got on her feet again. “It’s tragic. I’ve never seen you like this before. It could have been a happy end for you. He’s pretty.” 

Natasha wasn’t even mad at Yelena. For any of it. She knew what the Red Room could be like. They had probably tortured the blonde mercenary. Unfortunately, in their line of work, nobody was trustworthy. Unfortunately for Yelena. She was getting closer. 

“Maybe they won’t kill you. You were one of their best killers. It is possible that they take you back. After a certain... ordeal of course.” Yelena kneeled down before her, her foot kicking against Clint’s shoulder. Natasha bit on her bloody lip again. Her hand tightened around Clint’s necklace. 

“What did they do to you, Yelena?” Natasha looked up, trying to focus on the slightly widening eyes of the poor lost soul and then, when she was certain the other woman was distracted, she hit her mark. 

---------------------------

The arrow stuck out of Yelena’s eye like a candle out of a birthday cupcake. It wasn’t a nice death, but a fast one. As long as you hit the brain. 

Natasha puked on the blonde strands of hair. Then she scrambled to her feet, fell down again, hit Clint’s head with her elbow. The man weakly awoke. A huff of air coming from his lips. They were turning blue.

“Don’t you” Natasha got on her knees.

“fucking” She hobbled over to the black instrument in the middle of the damn room. 

“die” Her hand slipped between the backside and inside of the thing.

“on me!” She hauled herself up by the side of it, looked inside and saw nothing but broken vials. 

A wail was about to break out of her. Long, loud and desperate. Instead, she dipped her head down until her lips met the wet bottom of the wood. Her brain was not happy about this change of positions. She ignored the nausea that started to build up. Tiny evil shards grazed her lips and tongue. And they would graze Clint’s iips and tongue as well. But that’s the way life goes sometimes.

When Natasha’s mouth had gathered up as much of the life-saving liquid as it could have from the godless puddle at the bottom of a really old piano she fell on her butt and moved herself back to the pretty lifeless Hawkeye on the floor. Her calm hands grabbed his jaw and opened his mouth. Then she bent down. The idea of her basically spitting into his mouth wasn’t a nice one. It certainly didn’t help her nausea. But he was a courageous little dying man and swallowed all of it, the antidote, the shards and her spit. 

Natasha put her palm on his cold forehead and looked at his very still face. She started laughing like a crazy person. Then she cried a little, but shh, that’s between us. She concluded her hysterical session with a loud intake of breath and slumped in on herself. 

-----------------------------

Later on, she wondered how long she had remained in her hunched sitting position. While doing it, it didn’t seem like much of an effort. Clint was either asleep or dead. And she wasn’t willing to find out which option applied. 

As long as she could just sit here, all was possible. All was undecided. 

The night was cold, but short. The morning was cruel with its ever growing light. More and more did Clint’s face reveal itself to her. And she couldn’t make out entirely what it indicated. 

She must have waited about thirteen hours. Maybe a little less, maybe a ittle more. But it took many hours for Clint to wake. 

He stirred on the floor and Natasha’s dry, dry eyes enjoyed a nice little shower. 

“’Tasha?” 

“I’m here.” 

“Crazy.”

“Yeah.” 

That was all he could muster. Then his head rolled back to the floor and he fell unconscious again. 

It was more than enough for Natasha. She wiped away her tears, laughed about herself, got to her numb feet and rolled Yelena under the out-of-tune piano. Her head was better. Way better. She realized there was dried blood sticking to her hair. But she didn’t worry much about it.

She took up the baseball bat, walked to the fucked up instrument and destroyed it. 

---------------------------------

Two hours later Clint woke to the steam of coffee being basically held in his face. He instinctively pushed the white, hot object in front of his nose away and shrieked when hot driplets of coffee splashed on his cheeks. 

“Hellfire and endless agony!” He yelled as he sat up and wiped at his wet skin. 

Natasha was sitting next to him, with a smirk on her face. Playfully she shook the cup in her hand around and leaned in as if to tell him a secret. “Just coffee actually.” 

Clint looked at her as if he had never seen her before and for a moment the Black Widow felt uneasy. What if the poison had deleted Clint’s memory? 

But then Clint cocked his head and asked “Gary?” with so much conviction that Natasha couldn’t decide which wish to give in to first: laughing or punching him. Which is why she did both. 

“Ooooww.” Clint chuckled and dramatically leaned to the side of his hurt arm. 

“That’s what you get for... for... “ Natasha was lost for words as she remembered the agony and hellfire she had spent the night with. Her face turned serious. 

Clint sat up straight again and looked at her with his tilted head. His eyes were so soft. They always had been. Every damn time they had met along the way. 

“What you did yesterday must have been incredible.” Hawkeye bent over and obviously wanted to grab something hidden inside his sweater. He was surprised not to find it.

Natasha watched him. “It probably was.” After a while, she added: “I had to use that necklace of yours.” 

Clint slumped down a little. “Oh.” He only took a second to recover from that loss, but the fact that he had needed it showed Natasha how meaningful the jewelry must have been to Clint. He was back to his grinning self in no time. “What, did you put it in somebody’s eye or...?” 

It was supposed to be a joke, but Natasha’s expression must have given the truth away. Clint’s eyebrows rose an inch. He saw the remaints of the piano and pieced the puzzle together. “You have been efficient.” 

“I tend to be.”

With a nonchalance Natasha immediately liked about him Clint looked at his watch. “Oh well. We gotta go. Let’s burn this place down.”

He was about to get up, but fell on his backside again rather elegantless. He furrowed his brows and looked at his slightly trembling hands. “Huh.”

“Take it slow maybe.” Natasha advised, her hand extended to him to offer help. 

“I’ve never been poisoned before. I can’t say it’s for me.” Clint took her hand with an adorably crooked smile and additionally grabbed for her shoulder when he was standing on his feet. Sweat broke out on his forehead, but he did his best to breathe it away. His stomach grumbled. “Oh, would you look at that. Being hungry is a good sign, right?”

Natasha patted his hand and blinked ironically. “I’m sure it is.”

The archer took another few breaths to steady himself, holding on to Natasha all throughout it. What a weird pair they were. Natasha watched him calm down his shivers, watched his knuckles grow less and less white on her shoulder and on her hand. He wasn’t acting tough - well, he definitely was to a certain degree, but not in that specific moment - and he allowed her to see that he was weak. She pushed the backside of her left hand to his nice and stubly cheek, the way she had done it the day before. The stuble had grown over night. 

Clint’s blue eyes focused on Natasha’s green ones. His breathing was getting more steady and his shivers disappeared. He smiled ever so lightly. 

“Please don’t hit me now. I don’t think I could ever get over that.” 

Natasha smiled back at him, the skin on her almost healed bottom lip breaking again and leaking some blood. She didn’t mind it. 

“Do you ever shut up?”

“Nope.” He grabbed her hand from his cheek, kissed her fingers too quickly for her to pull back and turned around to bend down and search through the jacket she had taken off of him.

Unimpressed Natasha raised her eyebrows and looked at her fingers. She couldn’t hold back the tiniest smile. She cleared her throat. “Bet you’re so nice to all your missions.” 

Clint made a noise that could have meant so much as “I beg to differ” or “God, I really need to pee”. Probably a bit of both. The archer slid inside his jacket and extracted a hand to her. “Not a mission anymore. Partners.” 

Natasha blinked at him. What did he mean by partners?

“Well, before you ask any rude questions. Let’s really burn this place down!” Clint concluded and pulled a lighter out of his jacket pocket. He grinned so dumbly, Natasha had to cross her arms to keep from mirroring him. 

“You don’t got any gasoline nearby, do you?”

------------------------------

They sat in the cafe again, when the firefighters rushed past them with sirens whailing.The coffee-stained tabelcloth had been badly washed. There was a big brown spot on it where Clint had been so graceful to cover it with the hot liquid a day before.Natasha poked her smashed potatoes around like someone had hidden a fly in them and she had yet to find it. She didn’t like flies. Clint’s stomach continued to rumble, but he didn’t touch his food. It was unusual for him to be this serious. But the situation called for it.

“Like I said I would protect you. At all costs. Nobody will be able to hurt you.”

“I don’t need your protection.” Natasha hissed reflexively and felt bad for it immediately. Felt.. bad for it? Seriously? Gosh, this man was annoying. Natasha dropped her spoon and rested her head in her palms.

To her surprise Clint looked down quickly, badly hiding his sudden smirk.

She kicked him under the table. He hid his wince with a chuckle. “You are responsible for so many bruises on this shin, you got no idea.” Natasha ignored that. “What are you grinning about?”

Clint shook his head and smiled openly now. “You... you pout.”

The reaction from the Black Widow must have been an even more indignant pout, because Clint’s grin widened. She kicked him again, but this time he pushed his leg out of reach fast enough. His left eye-brow raised triumphantly. Natasha narrowed her eyes at him. So many thoughts and doubts and hopes were flaring through her slightly concussed head, she could barely focus on one at a time. Still. This smirk. This softness. This almost playful side of him - or well, definitely playful side - she was pulled in by it.

“I... “ She started, then looked away, bit her scabby lip and started again. “I don’t want to say yes because of you. But I would have to say yes because of you.”

Clint’s smirk vanished, making room for a very sympathetic expression. Worry. He was just as worried as she was. This is why he kept on promising her protection. To calm his own mind. 

“If it helps you,” Clint stated with a self-ironic chuckle, “I am offering it because of you. And you alone.”

Natasha tilted her head questioningly.

“Well,” Cint started to explain, “I have been working for SHIELD for six years now. They pay well. And I’m good at the whole bow and arrow thing-”

“The best, I heard.” Natasha interrupted, looking not the least impressed.

Clint grinned and pointed at her face teasingly. “Pouting again!” He sing-songed. She blushed - actually blushed for God’s sake - and slapped his hand away. He chuckled and continued his monologue. 

“It’s just... I don’t recruit people. Obviously. That’s Phil’s job and Nick Fury’s. I get my missions and I finish them. And now there’s you. Natasha, you are the first mission I didn’t finish. I won’t finish. Because you are impressive. And there’s good in you, intelligence, so much will. You saved me so many times. It’s kind of twisted, isn’t it? My mission was to kill you, so you would stop killing. Now we are here, you saved my life more times than I can count and I want you to-”

He looked at her almost desperately and Natasha felt that she was looking at him the same way. What he was proposing there was a future. It was a job, it was redemption, it was forgiveness, it was friendship and more than that. In front of all, it was a risk. He was taking a huge risk. For her.

Clint took a deep breath and closed his cold fingers around her hand on the table. “I want you to be my partner. I want you to work with me.”

You could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall above them. You could hear more sirens blaring outside, more firefighter, maybe the police. You could hear Clint holding his breath and Natasha’s voice stuck inside her throat.

Then Clint’s phone started to ring. He squeezed his eyes shut in discomfort and grabbed it out of his pocket, not letting go of Natasha’s hand on the table. She believed, it was an unconscious thing from him and it endeared her. With his eyes he conveyed her the message that he had to take this call. She nodded with a patient smile.

“Eyyyyyy Phillie, Phil’oh’boy, how’s it gooooing?... Yeah, I didn’t, that’s right. ... Oh why, you ask? Why I didn’t call? I was poisoned, almost dying. ... Busy night, yeah. ... I know. ... Yep, I know that’s what was our deal. ... Sure. ...”

Clint furrowed his brows when he saw Natasha taking out a pen and writing something on a napkin. He realized he was still holding her hand. A slight blush colored his cheeks. But he didn’t let go. Partly because he didn’t want to, partly because she was smiling while writing.

“The meetup is in an hour already? ... Huh. ... Yep, I think we can make it. ... Yes, we. ... Well, I’m a hopeful person. ... Love you too, Phillie. ... That’s just rude.” Clint ended the call and slid his phone back inside his pocket.

Natasha watched him with attentive eyes.

Clint smiled crookedly again and scratched the back of his head. “We uhm... we gotta be at the airport in an hour. If that’s where you want to be.” 

The Black Widow had banned all emotions from her face and merely looked at him. Then she raised the napkin from the table top and held it in front of her sweater. It said “Don’t buy 5$ sweaters at Primark.”  

Clint closed his eyes and hummed with a smile that was banning all worries and pains he had ever suffered from. When he looked at her again, his blue eyes were shimmering.

“Is that a yes?”

--------------------------

Phil stood in the opening of the helicopter, sunglasses on, in a suit as usual, and shook his head so obviously dismissive that Natasha’s stomach rebelled worriedly. 

Clint held her hand and he didn’t let go, even when she made an effort to slip out of his grip. 

“With all I have.” Hawkeye reminded her loud enough to hear over the noise of the helicopter and squeezed her hand reassuringly. She stared into his soft blue eyes and couldn’t help but smile.

Phil Coulson helped them into the helicopter, closed the door and gave the SHIELD pilot the sign to take off. He looked pissed. Even with his sunglasses on. Even with this face of a passionless fish. So the first thing that Natasha could think off was smile.

“You must be Bill.”

The poor archer next to her had to turn around and act like he was searching for something to cover up his shaking shoulders. She grinned. Making Hawkeye laugh would be one of her favorite new hobbies.

“Natalia Alianovna Romanova.” Phil Coulson answered coldly, hitting a sore spot, just as he had probably wanted to.

Natasha bit on the inside of her cheek and gave a quick response. “Or just Tasha... though I haven’t yet decided who is allowed to call me that.” Her newly gained partner settled in more comfortably and pushed her thigh with his knuckles to remind her of putting on her seatbelt. She nodded and did so.

“This is adorable.” Phil said, looking not at all charmed by their silent conversation. “Hawkeye brings in a new recruit. A deadly new recruit who has been filed as one of the Top 20 most wanted assassins by SHIELD. The organization you work for, Clint.”

“Top 20?” Natasha asked, a little disappointed. “That could mean anything. It could mean that I am the eleventh most wanted or the nineteenth. That’s a huge difference. Could you be a little more precise?”

Clint had to bite his quivering lip and stepped on her foot gently but firmly.

“Ahh.” Coulson made. “I see. She amuses you. Wonderful. Just perfect. Can’t wait to see what Fury has to say to this.”

That was all Phil Coulson said for the remaining long journey back to America. It didn’t matter much. Natasha got used to him staring at her rather quickly and managed to ignore it.

Why? Because Clint was shielding her. Not with his body. But with his presence. Sure, she didn’t need his protection. She had had her own for years, Ever since she could remember actually. Yet, it was the nicest, most comfortable feeling Natasha had ever experienced. Sitting here, in a helicopter of an organization that had her on a list of most wanted assassins, next to a mercenary who had spent months hunting her down, opposite a man whose hidden stare alone made her see his wish she’d drop down dead immediately.

It was in the touch of his elbow against her arm, in his foot stepping on hers repeatedly to annoy her, in his head leaning in close to hers to whisper mean things about Coulson in her ear. It was in his soft blue eyes and in his little smiles. It was in the echo in her head, the echo of his words. 

With all I have.

That is where her hope sat. Her safety. Her trust and ... affection.

Because, and she had thought it before and she would think it again, with every touch he gave so freely to her, with every laugh he spilled due to her, with every word he directed at her and every hug he embraced her in, it seemed so easy for him to love her.

[heartless-error]

Broken, not perfect, but together. - Chapter 9

Fandom: DC comics, Batman

Pairings: Jonathan Kent x Damian Wayne (JonDami) & Jason Todd x Timothy Drake (JayTim)

Rating: Family feels, hurt/comfort, mental health issues, running away

Other(s) links: AO3

Broken.

The Batfamily was broken.

It was six years ago, and they had barely stood together since then, trying to stand up despite guilt and regret.

Damian  was sure there was nothing to save, not after losing something that he  didn’t know he cared about. But when a new opportunity to get back what  they had lost appeared, he cannot help to doubt as his past decisions  haunt him again.

If you love somebody, set them free. But you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.

Chapter Summary: Cass knew a lot of things, always did. But she's human after all, she can fail, feel and miss her family. Sometimes she wishes she had been there, but now the only thing she had is the knolwedge of whatever they planned to do, it will be harsh.

Chapter 9

 Now

 Cass knew a lot of things.

 She always did, it wasn’t new to anyone. His father, David Cain, had deprived her and taken away many things throughout her life, like her childhood, stability, a normal home, innocence, or her voice along the ability to use it. In return, he had turned her into what he longer desired, in a warrior, the perfect, deadly, silent killing machine, capable of reading the enemy and their movements in one way that very few could.

He took away her voice but allowed her to read and understand people far beyond. Many would consider it a blessing, others a curse, to her it was nothing more than her small but familiar and comfy personal hell.

 Despite this, she was also aware that knowing something didn’t give her the full right to reveal it, she knew the limits, after all she also had secrets, everyone did. So, she could tell when someone was hiding something, but she also couldn’t guess or reveal it. She could also tell when someone was sad or stressed but knowing why it was beyond her abilities and intervening depended not only on her but on the other person’s will. From what Barbara Gordon taught her, it was best to act when she considered necessary, and if she had permission or words to do so.

 From the beginning, Cassandra knew Red Hood and Red Robin were in love, maybe even before they did. It was neither unexpected nor surprising, they complemented the other well enough. In addition, both were very easy to read, since Jason was passionate, effusive and motivated by his emotions, expressive even in the way he breathed; and Tim, despite appearing the opposite, his eyes always said too much, and was very close to her, he couldn’t escape her scrutiny.

Timothy was also the first person she called “brother”, who taught her what was like to be a family, loving and being loved despite the pain, the trauma. That’s why, when he began to love someone else in a different way, she soon realized it as well as the fact that he was strongly requited.

 Of course, she realized later that they did everything to hide it, both their feelings for each other when they began to emerge, and their relationship when it was consolidated. She understood, it shouldn’t have been easy. It was obvious why they did; it was nobody else’s business. And seeing the reaction when the whole thing was finally revealed, they did well.

 If someone had asked Cass, she would have been sincere (within all she could express, of course). She would have tried to explain how happy she was for them and how she considered it good news. She would have said how Tim’s constant weariness and sadness has dissipated a bit after being with Jason, as well as the other’s blind anger and constant tension; How nice it was to see that uncertainty and uneasiness about whether those feelings were right or reciprocated, being replaced by tender smiles and sneaky soft touches. Cass would have said to leave them alone, because they were happy and safe, and that made her happy too because that kind of happiness was something they had to grab and not let go off considering how their lives were.

 But nobody asked her. She couldn’t say anything. She also couldn’t have found the words to do it correctly, but at least she would have tried if given the chance. Which they didn’t do.

 Black Bat was involved in a case which lead her from Hong Kong to the edge of the Xinjiang desert itself, where coverage was a bit bad and her infiltration mission could be compromised. As much as she reported her location and plans, getting an answer and being in touch to know what was happening in Gotham was a bit difficult. So, find out after that her brothers had deserted and disappeared during those weeks in which she had been uncommunicated wasn’t funny.

 Now, years after receiving that news while hiding from the cold in a cabin in Tibet, she was going down the stairs towards to the cave with the text Dick had sent repeating in her head, the one that said they had found the missing Robins and she had to go to the manor quickly.

 Sometimes, she wishes she had been there. In the moment they found out the Red’s relationship, in the discussion afterwards, in the other fights that followed. Because she could have said so much, she could have changed so much. But she wasn’t, she couldn’t. And now they have to deal with the consequences.

 Stephanie, with whom now she lived, had sat in the driver’s seat after parked the car at the manor’s entrance, in silence and begging for a moment to be alone, to prepare herself mentally. Then, Alfred had allowed her to hug him tightly, even if that distracted him from his chores in the kitchen. She hadn’t seen the others yet, but she was sure they were in the cave. Even so, she knew that what was coming wasn’t going to be great, whatever they decided to do were going to be difficult to face or assimilated and that, surely, would led them to relive fights and discussions that they had for years. The difference this time is that she planned to intervene.

 Indeed, when she arrived the cave, she witnessed the fragility in which the dynamics of the bats were currently, seeing how Dick and Damian -those who least should be fighting- argued strongly in front of the batcomputer.

Blending into the shadows, she approached them, stealthy and watchful, carefully with her surroundings and listening the discussion going on. Dick wanted to go after his brothers, Damian refused to do it.

 The photos of the missing Robins on the screen shook her heart, making her smile. They seemed happy, satisfied, more than when they had to hide, and that made her so happy. She wouldn’t lie and say things like she never thought they wouldn’t be able to run away, indeed, she knew if the smallest but adequate circumstances were given at the right time, they would. And it happened, to the chagrin of some and the relief of others they clung to that happiness that Cass knew they had and didn’t let it escape, even having to leave them (her) behind.

 However, looking at Dick, his older brother, she could say he thought otherwise. He denied it fiercely, he didn’t want to give in. He never thought they would leave everything, leave him behind, whatever the reason was. He wanted to believe they would figure things out before they had to run away, and now, that hasn’t been the case, he was just sad and desperate. Every word that came from his lips, every gesture his body made showed how helpless he felt, how much he needed to do what he was begging to Damian, to fly to Florida just to see the other two. He would do anything, he would fight with whoever, he had no limits, he seemed so defeated and angry at the same time.

When he turned his head, so he didn’t have to look at Damian after his harsh words, he was aware of her presence. His indigo eyes fixed on her for those brief seconds of silence to then turn around again and continue the fight. It was long enough for Cass to be aware of how the weight of guilt was sinking her brother down, making him obsessed with finding the others and going back to be the “family” they were before.

 That wasn’t possible, not matter how hard he tried. It couldn’t happen. She knew it and so did Bruce, who without being seen also watched the development of the discussion from the other part of the cave, surely collecting information from it to confirm certain suspicions.

 Suspicions that focused on Damian.

 Her little brother was suspect since the start. At least for her, since she didn’t need to look at him twice when she returned to Gotham to realize there was something weird with him. It was evident in his posture, his attitude, in his way of avoiding everyone, in his resentful gaze and constant tension around them. He knew more than he was saying, and had done something, she didn’t know what, but somehow, he had a key role in the whole thing which didn’t exempt him of guilt. Didn’t matter how much the others wanted to believe that guilt was due to Damian’s past with his now disappeared brothers, with the murder attempts and constant disputes, no. It was recent, it had to do with this, because his rejection towards the others was genuine, and how she explains Jonathan then?

Superboy could barely look any of them in the eye without falling apart, his relationship with his father was battered and if Damian’s attitude were suspicious, his had neon signs placed around him.

 Now, with his whole body screaming contradictions and anger, leaving slips behind him, Damian strongly refused at the decision to see the other two, stating specific reasons, but at the same time suspicious. That angered and intrigued Dick, who in the end had decided to get the truth out of him by breaking his temper, making Cass prepare to intervene.

 When Conner Kent approached her one year ago, asking her if she knew what their little brothers were hiding, her answer was simple and concise: No.

She didn’t know, she couldn’t. She can read bodies and gestures, not minds. She’s not a meta, she has no powers. She’s human and also fails, also feels, also want to see his brothers because misses them, also want to know what Jon and Damian hide, because knows it’s consuming them more and more.

 But she had never been in a position to ask, to know (does she wants to know?) Except today because things have changed. So, she slipped her foot to warn Dick he was missing something, he had to keep pushing. She didn’t move when Damian’s patience ended when his emotions took over. She held her breath when she knew he was going to say something he was going to regret.

 “Because who do you think helped them to escape?!” Damian shouted. “It was me! Idiot! Open your fucking eyes! It was me! Me!”

 Oh.

 She knew it.

 There was silence, Dick and Bruce stood completely still, assimilating that, and understanding everything as quickly as possible. She knew everything fell into place for them when realization mixed with anger flooded their bodies, and by the time Dick throw the first punch she was already running towards them.

 She let Damian strike back and punch Dick only because she knew he had been holding back for a long time, but she didn’t allow anything more. In a blink of an eye, before everything could escalate, she grabbed Dick by the back, kicked Damian off, and knocked them to the ground as she stood between them, ending the fight instantly.

 “No.” She sentenced seriously and glaring at them, challenging them to dare to contradict her.

 They wouldn’t, because even outraged they were smarter than that. Furthermore, Bruce was also approaching them and starting a fist fight now was not the best idea, neither was going to allow them to go that far and it wasn’t the moment.

 They stood up, wounded, furious, on guard and looking at each other with rancor.

 “You knew!” Dick reproached, angrier than before. “You’ve always knew where they were!”

 Damian jerked at that accusation, clenching his teeth tightly, as if he were holding himself back from punching him again. Everything said he really wanted to do it if were not for her presence and his father, now in front of them, watching the scene quiet like a heavy and judicious shadow that made them nervous.

 “I haven’t said that!” The last Robin denied quickly.

 “How could you?! How could you do this to us?!”

 “Learn to fucking listen, asshole!” He yelled back. “I’ve never knew where they were!”

 “Why would I believe you?! You’ve been lying us for years!” Dick accused him again.

 Damian was ready to fight back before Bruce’s firm, analytical voice cut him off.

 “He didn’t know it.” Bruce said firmly. “He’s saying the truth.”

 He was right in that statement, he wasn’t. If Damian had known where Tim and Jason were all this time it would have been very different. Even in his confession, in his reactions, you could tell it was information he didn’t have before.

His father saying this as if he were psychoanalyzing him like any villain made Damian give him the most hatred, offensive and reproachful look he had seen him make over the years.

 “Speak.” Bruce asked the younger, in that tone he use during interrogations, as if something like that was going to work and Damian would magically confess.

 “Fuck you.” He insulted his father quickly without vacillation.

 If Alfred were here, he would have scold him, might even have put in the order she couldn’t quite establish. But her grandfather was upstairs, cooking compulsively and sad, so sad.

 “Damian, if you don’t speak, I swear to god-”

 Dick started to say that taking a few steps closer, his anger dominating him again before she gave him a warning look to step back. The she looked at Damian, hoping to make him nervous with her stare. She also wants answers.

 “What do you want for me?!” He asked, looking surrounded. “I helped them to leave, not hide!”

 It made sense. Not knowing their location once they were out of sight was easier and safer after all, once they were gone, he couldn’t track them down anymore and it didn’t matter how much they’d regret it, it was too late. The best way to avoid betray them was not knowing where they were going, it was the smartest decision.

 “But why? Why did you do something like that?!” Dick asked, seemed to feel betrayed.

 Damian chuckled, sarcastic, looking at Grayson and then at his father, as if he found funny that they were wondering something like that when the answer was pretty obvious.

 “Look at you. Look around.” He pointed at them, with anger and aversion. “It was killing them; you were killing them! This life, everyone! They couldn’t take it anymore!”

 “It’s not- ”

 “Drake was on the verge of suicide!” He exclaimed, now frantic. “And you couldn’t even look at Todd! The only good thing they had was the other and you wanted to destroy that!”

 The burning shine in his eyes had returned, Damian seemed to have so many things to say, so much kept within himself. Looking at him now was similar to seeing a balloon deflate, expelling everything inside him after so long, without barriers, without caring about the consequences at last.

 “It was dangerous.” Bruce justified.

 “That’s bullshit and you know it!” He growled at his father again. “You have the proof on the fucking screen!”

 “That’s-”

 “The truth! It’s the truth!” He yelled furiously, without hesitation. “You wanted to shatter them further, I couldn’t allow it! I owed that to them.”

 “We only wanted to protect them…” Dick muttered, stunned.

 “From what?” Asked the younger. “The only danger was you; you still are.”

 A brief silence followed that statement, in which Dick shrugged himself and Bruce tried his best to hide a shake, which was useless to her.

 “Not an hour has passed since you found out where they are, and you already want to drag them back.” He kept scolding them. “For what? To use them as before?”

 “That was not what was happening.” Bruce denied this time.

 “Oh, no? I wonder why they ran away then.” The other answered sarcastically. “I’m sure it wasn’t because of the kindness and acceptance you get around here.”

 “I can’t believe you really helped them…” Dick muttered, he still seemed to have trouble assimilating it. “You’ve hidden it, all this time.”

 “I would do it again.”

 Dick shook his head, almost at the edge of tears. The fact that two of his brothers abandoned him and the rest hated him was one thing, but it turned out that Damian himself was the one who helped them to run away from him, and that made things a thousand times worse. Cass wanted to hug him, tell him it was okay to feel that way, but he didn’t avoid the fact that she also knew they were hiding something and shut it up, she didn’t know if Dick would see this as another betrayal or not, she didn’t know if anything she had to say would fix something now.

 “How?” Bruce ended up asking, wanting to continue the interrogation.

 That was something Cass also wanted to know, since she didn’t even know yet how they had found them after years of absolute silence. But whatever Damian did to hide them in such a way had to be great.

 “I have contacts.” The brunette replied stiffly, after a brief hesitation.

 Bruce stared at him thoughtfully, then frowned in disgust.

 “Talia.” He said coldly.

 The League of Assassins, or at least the faction that was faithful to Damian’s mother. It wasn’t unknown the woman was trying to get out of the yoke of demon’s head, trying to gain the throne’s power, even if it meant killing her own son on the way. She and her group had been trying to gain ground within the criminal world for a long time, creating their own dark web and using resources Ra was still trying to familiarize himself with. They had enough material and personal to hide someone from the bats if they wanted to. And Damian, being of her blood, it wouldn’t have cost him to get a favor from her, anything, if they put aside the great disappointment that had been for her over the years.

 “Damian, what have you done?”

 Dick asked that as if the younger had made a deal with the devil itself, which was true. Now, if he had obtained this from Talia as a mere mother-son favor or by giving something in return, it was something they couldn’t know. They wouldn’t, judging by how the boy didn’t even move a muscle at the accusations and seemed to answer Dick’s question with a gaze that seemed to say, “Nothing you can prove.”

 “It doesn’t make sense…” Dick thought aloud, still devastated but trying to find logic in everything. “Even if it was the league, why also metas couldn’t…”

 That question asked out loud made Damian’s breath catch for a second, his muscles ready to fight imperceptibly. Cass was sure she was the only one to notice it, but it didn’t say anything good. It was a good question after all, since that had been another of the unknowns and problems that had arisen as a result of the disappearance, because not a single meta could locate Tim and Jason, not even the kryptonians. Whatever method or power they used was useless, it was as if something or someone would have been blocked them.

Cass didn’t have to think long to know who it was, but Dick’s eyes widened with surprise halfway through the question, realizing.

 “Jon…” He whispered stunned.

 Damian went from being slightly tense to being defensive and aggressive in less than a second. Just one more provocation and she’d have to grab him directly so he wouldn’t kill someone.

 “Don’t drag him into this!” He ordered, which was already useless.

 “He’s already in.” The other replied, stunned, almost trembling, suffering another betrayal. “It was because of him, right?”

 “Leave him alone!”

 “H-He did something to block metas, lied to us too…”

 “Leave. Him!”

 “I can’t!” Dick exclaimed, shaking his head. “Do you realize the reason we couldn’t find them is because of him?! It his fault!”

 That statement, cruel as it sounded, was true. Technology could fail, couldn’t not doing well the job, but metas were certain and they had the best at their disposal, they could have found them in seconds. Having the kryptonians on their side was in their favor too, but if one of them was against them and had decided to annul the others, the result was years of searching without result.

Jon’s influence had been vital but being pointed out by Dick caused Damian to lose patience again, trying to attack Grayson in blind anger ready to beat him up. Hopefully for Nightwing, she was there to stand in his way, grab his shoulders tightly, and push him away. For this time, she wanted to avoid the physical fight, but with everything she was witnessing, she didn’t know if she would do it again.

 “Fuck off! The only ones guilty of all this are you!”

 She had to push Damian again and keep Dick under surveillance, because they were getting pissed off and provoking each other again, they didn’t seem to want to give in until they were punching each other. She was considering the option of knocking them out to calm down when Bruce raised his voice authoritatively.

 “Damian, give me your phone.” He ordered approaching them and extending his hand. “Your comms too.”

 The younger remained tense under her touch, clenching his jaw and now looking at his father with anger. It was clear why he was doing this, now that Jonathan had been confirmed as an accomplice and they both were firmly against their trip to Florida, he was cutting all forms of communication between them to prevent them from doing anything about it. Jon or any contact who Damian could use against them, like the league, for example.

 “Do you think that shit is going to work?” Damian asked resentfully. “Jonathan can hear me anyway.”

 “Do you think you’re the only one with a Super on his side?” Bruce answered. “Phone. Comms. Now.”

 Damian growled loudly again, shoving her away as he took out his things. Bruce’s statement had been clear and concise, as much as his son dated a Kent, he hadn’t been the first one to be friendly with one. It seems that Bruce had personally commissioned himself, maybe with a simple whisper that Clark would have been waiting, that Jonathan wouldn’t interfere with them and their plans. So, it was going to happen anyway, they planned to go for Tim and Jason whatever the price.

 “You are making a big mistake.” Damian said to his father as he tossed his comms to him angrily.

 “Your opinion is no longer valid.” He replied, grasping the objects with precision. “You are clearly not objective.”

 “As if you were.”

 Bruce didn’t answer, or at least didn’t want to. Cass could tell he had something else to say, right on the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t dare to do it. Dick did it instead.

 “You lied to us…” He said. “We can’t trust you.”

 Damian looked at Dick thoughtful, then his father. He shrugged.

 “You never did.”

 Richard lowered his head; Bruce remained silent. Cass remember the words from the security camera video of that night, that one Bruce tried so hard to delete but Barbara rescued and let her watch, the one where they tell Jason they couldn’t trust him, because he was a murderer after all.

Like her, like Damian.

 Bruce turned around and started walking away from them, ready to do whatever would distract him after all the revelations, like secure the comms he had took away from his son as if he was 14 years old again to prevent him from ruining his plans . Dick, still looking at the ground, was about to do the same, until Damian caught his attention again ready to throw the last punch.

 “When you see them, what are you going to do? Shoot them?”

 Dick said nothing and left, surely to burst into tears where they couldn’t see him. Cassandra, if she could, would have too.

[the-nonbinary-artsonist]

Here comes a thought

Summary: Draven thinks on a bridge and meets a new friend

Warnings: Suicide, referenced abuse, death, referenced pan-phobia and ace-phobia, cutting mention (Please tell me if i have to add anything!)

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Draven shuddered as he breathed slowly through his mouth, looking longingly out and off the bridge. He frowned and closed his eyes, his grip on the railing tightening just a slight bit.

‘I should just get it over with, shouldn’t I?’ Draven thought grimly, leaning ever so slightly forward. 

“Hey bud, whatcha doing here?” Draven flinched, gripping the railing like his only lifeline (because it was).

“ Ha-have you been there this whole t-time?” He stuttered, looking at the figure sitting a few inches away.

The person chuckled softly, voice raspy. “I’ve been here for a while buddy.” They said, tone devoid of cheeriness. They slouched a little farther into their red hoodie, watching silently as the water below rippled past. Draven took a closer look at the person beside him noticing the enormous bags under his acquaintance's eyes. The figure was also almost deathly pale, veins blue and popping.

Dravens face made a grimace, putting on his usual mask. “What do you want?” he asked, tone demanding and harsh.

The person only smiled softly, then saying in a voice that seemed like it hasn’t been used in weeks “Same thing as you my friend.” then the hoodie clad figure chuckled.

“Unless you’re here to go fishing, then we are definitely not here for the same reason.”

“My bad luck continues, the bridge I wanted to jump off is occupied. Great.” Draven replies sarcastically.

“Sorry to ruin it for you.”

“I should have seen it coming though.”

“Meh.”

It was silent for a little while, sitting in the uncomfortable silence. Draven felt the temperature drop, he silently looked over to the other on the bridge while pulling the sweater he was wearing closer to himself.

“So, who are you?” He asked somewhat hesitantly. “Moana Fear, they/them.” the newly dubbed Moana replied, rolling their neck. “How’s it hanging? Pun totally intended.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, we are here for the same reason aren’t we?” Draven said, bitterly.

“We came for the same result, not necessarily the same reason. Right?” Moana replied while stretching.

“Very poetic of you.”

“I try.”

Draven looked down, mouth twisted into a frown, his mask dropping. “I’m probably just being dramatic.”

“Everyone is dramatic at some point or another.” Moana replied, voice dry. “Doesn’t really matter to the situation now does it?”

“My reasons are stupid small things though.” Draven said, picking at the cuffs of his sleeves. “It was just getting to be too much.”

“Enough little things can and will do that my birth marked friend.” Moana replied with another chuckle.

Draven smiled sadly, sitting down next to his new companion. He looked over to them, smiling a little.

“So,” He mumbled. “What about you?”

Moana straightened a little, a smirk playing on their lips. “Oh well, global warming, society is breaking apart, no-one and nothing matters, life doesn’t have purpose, people are dicks, anxiety, depression and homophobia, you know, the usual.”

“You’re gay?” Draven asked, curious. 

“Pan, but people were too busy yelling demon at me to notice.” Moana replied tiredly. “Then i actually met a pan person, but they didn’t respect me being asexual so…”

Draven laughed a little and Moana limply smiled in return.

“Do you work anywhere?” Draven asked, facing the enby.

“Technically I go to North Valley College, but I haven't gone in a while. Probably not counted as part of the student body anymore.” Moana shrugged.

“Why don’t you go?” Draven questioned.

Moana grimaced. “Nobody liked me there,and i had just almost failed all my classes, I was just too chicken to properly drop out.”

“Can’t judge you on that.” Moana suddenly leaned in, cold seeping off them while seductively arching an eyebrow. “You like coming here a lot?”

“And we are back to suicide jokes.”

“What can i say? I can’t cut them out of my life! ”

Draven let out a snort. 

Moana leaned back on the railing, closing their eyes. “So what are those ‘little things’ you mentioned?” They asked, eyes staying closed.

Draven sighed dejectedly. “I’m just so tired.” He murmured. “People only judge me on appearance, and because of my stupid birthmark,eyes and piercings. People see me as something not good, something to get rid of. So why shouldn’t I leave on my own terms?” 

He looked over to his hoodie clad friend, expecting to see pity like always. But no, it wasn’t pity, but understanding.  

“Well… those are hardly little things in my eyes but, I know that feeling. Wearing a lot of red and an ominous hood doesn’t help me appear to others.” Moana turned and stared at Draven, eyes determined. “But I have to ask before you partake in what you set out to do. Do you want to die or stop living?”

Draven looked down at the river below, eyes dull. “I don’t know.” 

“Well what day is it?” Moana asked, a smile dancing on their face.

“Saturday.”

“Perfect, why don’t you go sleep in? Maybe talk to someone, and don’t think i didn’t see that ring. Go talk to them. If they cared enough to buy you something as beautiful as that, they'd help with this.” Moana said, smiling and determined yet still tired.

Draven smiled, the image of his fiance giving him the ring pictured in his mind. He loved her so dearly, he couldn’t leave that amazing smile behind. “Thank you.” He said standing and going to the safe side of the railing.

Draven unlocked the door to his and Mals apartment, breathing in the familiar smell of home. He could barely take in a breath before he was tackled to the ground by a familiar bawling woman.

“DRAVEN MASON PINES, DON’T YOU EVER SCARE ME LIKE THAT AGAIN!” She yells, hugging him so tightly he can barely breath.

“I won’t, I won’t.” He promises comforting her the best he can. She eventually sits up still rubbing at her eyes.

“You, me, couch, NOW.” Mal demands, pushing her partner towards the living room. Once they are settled she asks one question, with the most serious yet pleading voice Draven has ever heard her speak with.

“What made you rethink your decision?”

Draven sighs and explains what had occurred. How this kind young enby with the same plan as him convinced him to go back home. When he was done Mal was looking at him like he had grown a third eye. “What is it?”

“What did you say their name was?” She asked, tone somewhat fearful.

“Moana Fear, why do you ask?” He replied, now also a little scared.

Mal quickly pulled up her phone and typed in the name, and the way her face contorted with fear, fascination and sadness told Draven the results weren’t good. “What is it now?!”

“Draven, Moana Fear committed suicide on Train bridge in 2005.”

Draven walked across the small field of gravestones, finding the one he was looking for and placing the peach bouquet of roses down in front of it. Before he turned to walk away, he whispered an almost silent “Thank you.”

Moana Jane Fear

Beloved child, student and friend

1982-2005

“Help us in death as you have in life”

THE END

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i wrote this like a year ago but i’m still proud, and i’m working on a prequel! i hope you enjoyed this mess of a story.