#but now that i actually got to it

[whumble-beeee]

Whumptember 2023, Day 8 

“Don’t come back”

Kicked out | Saying goodbye for the last time | Lashing out 

The Bee’s Whumptember Masterlist

~1030 words

CW: bad caretaker (pretty much a whumper tbh), killing mention, suffocation, shooting people with bows mention

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“Out,” Caretaker growled, eyes fiery, muscles tensed, arm pointed straight out toward the door. Vigilante stopped short and stared at Caretaker, suddenly not so concerned with screaming and pleading with them to fork over their compound bow.

“I–... What?”

“Out.” Caretaker elaborated. “Get out. Go away, hasta la vista, I’m pointing at the door, go to it and use it to go away and never come back.”

“There’s no need to be so… rude…” Vigilante trailed off, realizing this probably wasn't the best time to be snarky. Even though Caretaker didn’t really seem to get that memo. 

Caretaker couldn’t really be saying… could they? “Never come back?... Caretaker, you're overreacting, lets just–"

"NO, VIGIL!" Caretaker yelled, throwing their hands down and storming over to Vigilante, practically backing them up against the wall as they scrambled to get away from their enraged, superpowered friend. “You don’t tell me that I’m overreacting, you do NOT get to tell me that I’m overreacting!”

They whirled around suddenly, stumbling over their words as they tried to form a coherent sentence, before giving up and letting out a loud angry curse to the heavens. They stamped their foot on the ground like a toddler having a temper tantrum and left a cracking dent in the lacquered wood floor.

Vigilante felt the color drain from their face as they stared wide-eyed at the dent. Caretaker whirled around again with a new righteous fury and Vigilante stumbled back into the wall, breath hitching. They couldn’t take their eyes off Caretaker, but they so badly wanted to just look down in submission. To apologize for what they’d done.

“Vigil, we had a deal,” Caretaker growled. Their voice was dangerously calm as Vigilante shook and cowered against the wall. “You apologize to all the people you hurt, the families of the people you killed with that damn bow.” Caretaker took a step toward them with gritted teeth and thundery eyes. “And you’d never use that thing again. You promised me. You promised them.”

Vigilante let out a small squeak as their throat struggled to work up a response. “I-I-I didn’t me-ean to–”

“I let you stay here because you promised that. You promised me.” Caretaker's voice broke, tears sparkly faintly on the edges of their eyes. “I wanted to be the person I needed when I was at my lowest, for you, because I didn’t have anyone like that.”

Vigilante tensely held their hands in front of their chest, wet eyes wide and unblinking. “Ca-aretaker, I’m so-o-rry-y.”

Caretaker stared at them for a long time before their face slowly morphed back into the mask of unbridled fury. “No, you’re fucking not.” They whispered through gritted teeth. Their eyes narrowed, their muscles practically shaking. “You’re just scared of me.”

Caretaker surged forward, grabbing Vigilante’s lapels and shoving them upward into the wall. Vigilante gasped at the sudden pressure shoving painfully into their chest as they grasped at Caretaker's wrists, struggling for any way to get them off, shaking wildly from the pure voracity of it, deafening white noise filling their entire being as their feet searched desperately for the ground. Their head swam as their breathing stuttered against the crushing pin.

Caretaker pressed even further in response, tightening the collar of Vigilante's shirt suffocatingly around their neck. “If you were sorry, you wouldn’t do it again.” They could feel Caretaker’s hot breath misting uncomfortably onto their cheeks. “You wouldn’t sneak out over and over again, you wouldn’t break into the safe and steal the bow back, you wouldn’t go out and get someone killed again and again and again. Over and over and over!”

Caretaker jolted Vigilante and they saw stars. They blinked rapidly, desperately trying to fight off the black slowly consuming their vision. It didn’t work. Their head filled with cotton as it raced away from them at a thousand miles an hour. Was Caretaker actually going to kill them?

“Caretaker–” Vigilante wheezed pleadingly, head lolling backward as they weakly squeezed caretaker’s wrists. “Can’t– I– I ca-an’t–...”

Caretaker dropped Vigilante’s shirt and they collapsed to the floor at Caretaker’s feet, half unconscious and hacking violently into themself. Shivers wracked their body as one hand curled protectively around their throat. 

Caretaker just stared down at them with narrowed eyes. Finally, when Vigilante was just barely hyperventilating and sobbing into the floor, Caretaker spoke again. “You’re out of chances, Vigil. Get out. Don’t come back.”

Vigilante nodded meekly, watching tears slowly drip down and splash onto the hard dark surface they were curled up on. “I’l-l– I’ll le-e-eav-v-ve.”

Caretaker nudged Vigilante toward the door, not quite hard enough to be a kick. Vigilante tipped over onto their side with a small thump, and Caretaker rolled their eyes with a sigh, pinching at the bridge of their nose.

“If I ever see you again, Vigilante, I’ll kill you.” 

Not a threat, just a promise. Vigilante nodded quickly, not meeting Caretaker’s eyes, and Caretaker curtly turned around and walked away deeper into the home. Probably to Vigilante’s room to throw all their stuff out. Or destroy it.

Vigilante laid on the floor, taking deep breaths and willing with all their might for their heart to stop racing, taking in deep gulps of air and rubbing the wet tear tracks from their face. They knew they deserved this. They knew it every time they stole their bow back, every time they saw the arrow buried into the chest of an unsuspecting target, every time they hit the wrong person, every time Caretaker found out and lectured them, saying they knew Vigilante could be better if they just tried, how they would never stop helping until Vigilante could actually, truly help people. And Vigilante would smile up at them with sad tears in their eyes, thankful they had a person who would believe in them when even they couldn't believe in themself.

They would smile because they knew Caretaker would never give up on them.

Now, they just sobbed.

Slowly, Vigilante built up the strength to finally stand up and stumble toward the door. They wrenched it open with a cry, and walked away without looking back

@whumptember

[wishfulsketching]

Girl dad Silco is a source of endless entertainment for me

Extra doodles:

Someone save Sevika, she is in hell

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

[kendyroy]

Seeing Logan in the TVA makes me laugh so hard for some reason? Like I know he’s lived to see technology evolve and stuff, but there’s something so funny about a guy from the 1800s standing in some kind of retro-futuristic timey wimey agency to me. Man is confused as hell.

like what da hell is a polar bear doin in arlington texas

[gongyussy]

"we know how to move our bodies, but i didn't know how to manage my heart, so you need help for this"

hi we need to talk more about judo gold medallist christa deguchi.

[windwenn]

UHURA!!!

[nicecrumbart]

Keep thinking about that one scene in secret life

[eydilily]

would you bite the hand that feeds you?

[cozylittleartblog]

not that we didn't already Know belos was full of shit, but it's even funnier knowing the titan was still alive the whole time and probably judging him

[chloesimaginationthings]

Scott Cawthon’s version of FNAF Burntrap..

[s-ccaam-era-crepe]

i think everyone who's ever had migraines should be financially compensated forever btw

[ewwww-what]

Ugh. Literally just let her go home???

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

We all know the semi-canonical ‘all the Robins know to hide/duck inside of Batman’s cape, even as adults’ thing.

We also know that Danny ‘is LITERALLY a ghost’ Fenton sucks at remembering his own intangibility while ALSO forgetting to look ahead of him.

All I’m saying is, Danny Fenton (or Phantom, if you’d really like) would absolutely SLAM into Batman on accident while running on roof tops and Bruce ‘Brooding Instinct’ Wayne doesn’t even think twice about letting the kid hide and scanning around for danger before there’s a record scratch of ‘wait who tf is this?’ kicks in.

[hinamie]

quick itfs sketch page

[bunnieswithknives]

As much as I love angst I think it would be funny if he just didnt give af

[anxi04]

tim and bruce have an odd relationship to the rest of the family. they don’t act like father and son but it seems like they have a “deeper” bond than the others

bruce seems to take tim’s advice more seriously, bruce actually takes a break if tim tells him, tim still gets benched but not nearly as much as he should, and most confusingly, tim benched bruce once. not alfred benching bruce, TIM.

normally bruce has to be forced to take a break, and normally by alfred, but if tim says “you’re benched for a week” bruce? listens?

they have no idea why. some of them ask dick if he knows since he was there but he’s just as confused

and then despite all that there’s also such a strain between them? it’s really on the line of a professional relationship and almost a care taker. it’s very confusing. and then the times bruce gives tim a present or anything like that and tim stops and stares at him for a second, like he’s dissecting bruce. no one is able to fully figure it. until bruce is de-aged to tim’s robin era.

tim is very adamant about most of them, but especially jason and damian, do not reveal their names to him. for the time being they have a strictly professional relationship with their father who doesn’t know them.

they finally get some of the picture when they see tim start acting as bruce’s caretaker. tim switches between being gentle “hey, you need to sleep” to screaming at bruce. it always works. tim knows exactly which version bruce needs and it scares the team cause that has to require some practice

they’re then also thrown for a loop when they hear bruce call out jason’s name in a shocked voice, which makes sense cause he doesn’t know jason is alive but jason still has his helmet on so what? and then they hear a voice none of them have heard. except dick goes pale and jason’s breath hitches. and suddenly tim is responding to jason’s name and acting weird, almost like what some of dicks stories described jason as. and it’s so fucked up when they’re watching time act like someone else and bruce going along with it

the dynamic they’re getting is also fucked up once again when, during one of bruce’s really bad days, tim straight up acts like bruce’s parent. and bruce reacts well.

they’re all horrified by this. the realization that tim and bruce’s relationship has so many layers and that they do act like father and son sometimes. except bruce isn’t the father and tim isn’t the son