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softomi · 4 years ago

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Catfish

prompt: mother says to be wary of people you meet on the internet, especially since you never know who’s on the other side of the screen.

pairing: atsumu x reader

the unpaid extras: osamu, suna

general taglist: @graykageyama

Osamu liked to mess with his brother and lately he’s been planning the largest prank. It originally wasn’t supposed become a huge thing, but then Suna just kept edging him on; adding more things one by one and it just spiraled. Osamu was catfishing Atsumu with your pictures.

Now, Osamu knows that it sounds bad but technically you were in on the prank. You had never met nor even knew Atsumu, heck, you didn’t even know who Osamu was. You had been part of the prank merely through text messages and the occasional meet up with Suna.

To put it simply, Suna met you through one of his teammates; coincidentally you ended up in one of his classes and the two of you built a tiny friendship. Which was why, when Suna was thinking of the perfect person to catfish Atsumu with; your face lit up in his head.

You were the perfect candidate, exactly Atsumu’s type literally to a tee. When Suna pulled up your contact, the first thing he did was offer to pay you. Every picture you sent used for the prank, he’ll send you cash through an app and as a broke college student who needed cash fast, you agreed as long as the photos weren’t used for anything weird or sexual. He made sure to send you proof of each photo in use.

This brings it all back to dear Osamu catfishing his brother. He had created an entirely new Instagram for you, complete using your name and a cute description that him and Suna had spent two hours thinking of. They decided to even spend a few days perfecting it, posting pictures a few days apart with captions, following random groups, liking posts, essentially creating a whole new personality using your photos. Osamu had even developed a fake occupation for you; a foodie blogger to which some posts were dedicated to food reviews for restaurants Osamu deemed worthy of a post.

And when Osamu says that the prank spiraled; it fucking spiraled. Originally it started with Suna and Osamu following the account, suddenly Suna’s teammates began following the account. Osamu made the mistake of tagging Onigirl Miya in one of your photos, ultimately adding a few random people to follow the account. Suddenly after two weeks of having the account, you gained over two thousand follows.

It was no worries though, because Osamu can quickly catfish Atsumu, take down the account, and call it all good.

Safe to say, Atsumu accepted the friend request rather quickly. Osamu and Suna snicker to themselves, it took Atsumu less than five minutes to accept and he was already liking all of your photos. Not even ten minutes pass and he’s sliding into the DM’s.

The two men looking at the phone and burst into laughter. They spend five minutes cackling at Atsumu’s random ‘hey’ message that followed with a smiling emoji.

Osamu was absolutely entertained, it was hilarious that his own brother had fallen for his catfish and honestly, Osamu was ready to give up the act after three days but then Atsumu said something that just really pissed him off. He doesn’t remember what it was, he just suddenly ended up two more weeks later still having the fake Instagram account and still having Atsumu believe that he was falling in love with some girl.

Somehow the account ended up with over five thousand followers, Atsumu messages the account religiously, and Osamu for some godly reason is still managing the account three months later. It’s spiraled.

“I have a girlfriend!” Atsumu doesn’t know why his friend and brother are laughing. He’s scrolling through your Instagram, the catfish Instagram.

Osamu almost chokes on his food, “So what, have you guys gone on a date? Have you even seen her in real life?” Suna snorts into his drink, he coughs when he accidentally inhales the water sharply.

Atsumu slumps in his seat, his voice small, “No, but we talk every day and she likes me!”

Suna is coughing even harder now, tears threatening to leave his eyes to the point that he excuses himself to the bathroom. Osamu has a shit eating grin on his face, “How do you know she’s actually not some old dude catfishing you?”

“She’s not!” Atsumu stutters, “She’s real!”

“Prove it.”

Osamu was about to learn a harsh lesson about the world; the world loves to bite you in the ass when you least expect it.

Atsumu leans forward, an eerie grin on his lips, “Happily.” Atsumu whips out his phone, quickly presses a number and holds the phone to his ear. He holds a finger up to his brother, even gesturing for the returning Suna to remain quiet. The phone picks up, “Hey babe, you wanna meet me here at Onigiri Miya?” Atsumu looks at the watch on his wrist, “Twenty minutes? Perfect.”

Osamu’s believing his brother is bluffing. There was no way in hell he’d be able to somehow magically bring the catfish to life, heck, Atsumu would be a god if suddenly he could. Thirty minutes pass, Osamu is exchanging looks with Suna. It’s absolutely silent between the three.

Osamu is suddenly feeling guilty, Suna is uncomfortable to the point that he’s even texting you to make sure you weren’t actually coming, and you confirmed with him that you weren’t.

“Should we tell him?” Osamu whispers when another five minutes pass.

Suna is deadpanned, “I don’t know, we’re kind of reaching a sad territory now. Let’s just break up with him and ghost him.”

Osamu groans, “But do we want to deal with a sad Atsumu, I’ll take getting my ass kicked over him crying in my apartment.”

The door chimes and their jaws smack the floor. You walked through the door, eyes roaming the place before landing on the three huddled into the corner. Is he a fucking god? Atsumu stands from his seat, he meets you halfway, pulling you into a heartfelt kiss that has you swooning.

The closer you approach with Atsumu’s arm around your shoulder, the more they truly begin to believe that Atsumu is a god.

“Guys, this is my girlfriend.” This time it’s Atsumu who has a shit-eating grin, “Ain’t she a beauty, the pictures don’t do her justice.”

It takes everything in Osamu to not scream, “But, you said you’d never even met her before.”

Atsumu gazes into your eyes, hearts practically floating above his head, “I mean I guess technically this is our first-time meeting, right?”

You nod, a puppy like expression on your face, “I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself yet. You must be Osamu.” You point to him then your fingers drag to the other male, “Suna.”

“Oh.” Suna sits straight up, “Oh!” He catches the glint in your eyes, the conniving little minx of a look. Suna was no longer calm, “We’ve been double crossed!”

There’s screaming, fingers are being pointed at each other, Atsumu is gripping Osamu by the neck of his shirt, Suna is literally calling your phone to make sure that it’s actually you, Osamu is pulling his brother’s hair. The customers of the restaurant stare with their jaws dropped at the scene.

Everyone is squished into Osamu’s small office. Suna is sitting on the desktop, Osamu in his chair, Atsumu in the spare seat, and you lean on the arm of Atsumu’s chair. His arm dangles around your waist, pulling you to lean on him with a cheery grin.

Atsumu leans forward, taking in the expressions of the two bewildered boys, “I guess let’s start at the beginning.”

While the story technically began three months ago with Suna asking for your cooperation, the story of you and Atsumu began two months ago.

The extra cash from all the pictures you sent Suna was giving you enough to be able to go out and live a little on the weekends. Originally the bar was dead, you and your friends were tucked into the corner in a booth when a rowdy bunch of men came in. Your friends gasped having recognize them as members of a sports team and with their excitement, they must have won a game.

It didn’t affect your group that much until it came to split ways; being in your last year of university, you excused yourself, insisting that you needed to go home to finish a project. As you stood at the register, card tapping against the counter, that was when he showed up.

At this point, Atsumu had spent the past hour believing the gods were on his side. He practically walked by your table ten times just to make sure the face matched the one in his instagram’s DM. After forty minutes of the constant back and forth, your quick gazes at him walking by the table seem to do nothing. Were you unable to recognize him?

He took his shot watching you stand alone at the counter. He finishes off his drink and smoothly strides to you.

“Hey!” Atsumu leans on the counter, flashing a smile despite alcohol dripping from the side of his mouth, “Wouldn’t you consider this fate?” He gestures between the both of you.

You’re confused, shooting him a puzzled gaze, “Sorry, you must have me mistaken for someone else.” You hand the card to the worker, anxiously eyeing the male who’s increasingly invading your space.

Atsumu places a hand on the small of your back, it was something Instagram you had mentioned you liked, instead it triggered a fight or flight. Your hand makes harsh contact with his cheek, he retracts his hand immediately.

“Don’t touch me!” You bark at him, “Perv.” You’re aggressively signing the receipt, storming out of the door while other men seem to ooh at Atsumu’s situation.

“Hey!” Atsumu catches your figure outside of the bar, you’re waving a hand to catch a cab, “I think we got off on the wrong foot there.”

You don’t give him a second glance, “Look, I don’t know who you think you are.”

“Atsumu.” He stands right in front of you, blocking your sights for a cab. He’s got the widest smile on his face as he holds out a hand, “Miya Atsumu. Volleyball player. Setter for the Black Jackals.”

“Okay.” You run a hand through your hair, oddly taking his hand into a shake while eyeing him, “Miya Atsumu, volleyball player, setter for the Black Jackals.”

You step to the side, arm out still trying to catch a taxi but he blocks your way once more and he looks at you with such wonder. His eyes practically having stars coming out and his smile warm and inviting. He was wondering if you were a twin, maybe he had actually gotten the wrong person.

“You are?”

The wind is causing your hair to blow in your face, he wants to so bad to brush the strands behind your ears but the way you gave him a slap earlier makes him think that’s a bad idea. Your fingers pull your hair back, “Y/n. I don’t have a fancy title like yours but, I guess I don’t know, senior to be graduating at the university.” You sidestep him once more, “I’m just trying to catch a cab home.”

Once more he blocks your way and you look at him with defeat. He was persistent. He laughs, “Sorry, last time, but do you not know me?”

You’re still as confused as ever, “Look if you’re going to pull some cheesy line about seeing me before, it’s not going to work.”

“Wait, just hold on a second.” Atsumu pulls out his phone, his fingers are shaking as he presses onto the app. He pulls up your profile, handing you his cell phone, “This is you isn’t it?!”

Your eyes scan the social media page, your mouth falling open, there’s a hidden laugh itching in your throat. These were all the picture you had taken for Suna and somehow, you’re being shown by a stranger your fake profile.

“We’ve been messaging for like a month, I can’t believe you don’t recognize me.”

I don’t recognize you because I’m not the one talking to you.

You’re perplexed, you weren’t sure what you were supposed to do, if you told him he’s being catfished you’d lose the flow of side cash you’ve developed but if you didn’t, isn’t that just wrong. And the more you look at him from under the stars, he’s rather cute; you suddenly feel bad for slapping his face earlier.

“Do you want to get some coffee?”

Your offer sends him over the moon, he’s walking alongside you to the nearest convenience; Atsumu is rather talkative, bringing up topics of everything and anything that comes to his mind. As the two of you look over drink options in the cooler, his hands pull two cans of black coffee.

“You’re favorite right?” He holds one out to you.

Your actively smiling, biting your lower lip and wondering if you needed to play along with the role but as he stares at you with such adoring eyes, it makes your heart skip a beat just taking in the fact that he would remember something trivial over text.

“Actually.” You place the drink back, opting for a sweeter caramel macchiato, “I would say that this is my favorite.”

Atsumu quirks a brow, “Are you saying you were lying to me?” He places a hand over his heart, “And here I thought we were soulmates.”

Your hand smacks against his arm, “Shut up.”

“So what are you studying for?” Atsumu sips his drink, the two of you leaning against the windows of the convenience store. There’s a slight sway in his body and you’ve unknowingly followed his movements.

“Literature. Once I graduate, an internship is probably where I’ll start but I’m hoping I can get hired into a publishing company.” He’s comfortable to be with and you aren’t sure if it’s because he thinks he knows you or because his presence is just like that; comfortable.

Atsumu finishes off his canned beverage, “And you do that, all on top of running a foodie Instagram.”

From what you gathered on a quick skim of the account; they have your occupation as a lower level food blog; it’s rather funny. You can only nod to him, “It’s just a side hobby really.”

“Well maybe I could join you on one of your little adventures.”

You try to suppress the immense grin that wants to grow on your lips, there’s an internal battle happening of whether you should tell him or not but once again, the way he looks at you, the cute doe eyed look; it puts butterflies in your stomach.

“How about tomorrow?” He lets out a small gasp, your hands pull out your cell phone and offer it to him, “Your number?”

“I’m free for lunch, just text me when and where.”

You press the number he’s inserted into his contact; in a second his cell rings and he’s showing off his screen, “Don’t message me on Instagram though, I’m detoxing from social media for a bit. Just, text my number.”

He walks you to the curb, helping you flag down a cab, and you give him one last gleeful glance before getting into the car. As you sit, you’re quick to dial Suna’s number. You know he’s probably sleeping but the light feeling in your heart overrides his sleep schedule.

“What?” He’s groaning.

“Suna listen to me carefully. The prank that you guys are doing.” You hear a small snore, “Suna!” He jolts awake and you groan, “You know what, go back to sleep.”

“Thanks.” He hangs up immediately.

Your phone dings, Atsumu’s name pops up. Can’t wait for our date. You bite on your thumb, a smile on you before you respond.

Although having just seen him forty minutes ago, you two text back and forth. First he wondered if you arrived home safe, next he sent pictures of himself insisting it’s for you to choose for his icon, then he proceeds to narrate his way home. You wonder if you’re responding like catfish you but the more he brings up random topics, the more you forget about that stupid prank.

Wait let me call you.

Your heart beats faster, your phone lighting up with his name. You press the answer button slowly, “Hello?” You giggle.

“You’re telling me that you like spikers more than setters.” His voice is nearly screaming and you lean back on your chair laughing into the phone.

The quick research you did on his team had you watching short videos, and while you had to admit it was amazing to watch, your eyes drifted more to one of his teammates than him, “What’s his name?” You lean to look at your computer screen, “Bokuto Koutarou?”

“No!” He’s whining out into the air, “If I had known you were a spiker girl I would have changed positions.”

Your eyes catch the time on your laptop, “Woah. It’s three in the morning.” That meant you had spent over four hours total texting him and now you were on the phone with him, “What are you doing awake?”

He blows out a breath of air, “I could ask you the same thing.”

“Well.” You draw out the word, dragging your self to your bed, “I’m going to go to sleep now.” There’s a pause on the line, “Atsumu?” He hums tiredly, “Good night.”

There’s a small snore from him before he shifts around, “Good night.”

The morning light urges you awake, for a second you peak at your phone’s time and it nears ten in the morning. You’re about to throw your phone back onto the bedside table until Atsumu’s name catches your eye. For having gone to bed at three a.m. he shot you a text at seven.

Morning beautiful.

It was sweet, simple, and it made you smile; giving you the extra push to get out of bed. You stalked your own catfish page, there hadn’t seemed to be any updates so there was still time. A quick search of the internet has you picking out a random restaurant nearby and you send off a text to Atsumu about a meeting time.

You were late, pushing through the doors of the restaurant, your eyes scan the place to see him raise a hand for you. He’s dashingly handsome despite being in casual wear, you wonder if he spent time like you did just trying to pick out an outfit or if he spent forever gelling his hair as long as you tried to get your strands into the perfect waves.

“Sorry, did you wait long?” You pull into the seat in front of him.

He’s smiling and you hope to god that when you break the news to him, he’ll still smile for you, “I just got here not too long ago too.” He looks over the menu quickly, “What do you think you’ll get?”

You inspect each dish, a light hum on you as you dance around the option, “The spaghetti sounds nice.”

Atsumu tilts his head, “It has red meat in it.” You stare blankly at him, “Aren’t you allergic to red meat?”

“Oh.” You set the menu down, “Actually.” He follows your actions, you’ve become nervous at what you’re suddenly about to do, “There’s something you should know.”

“Fuck this!” Atsumu throws the napkin on the table, you jump as he harshly stands, throwing the chair back.

“Atsumu.” You stand.

“No! Don’t. Were you just messing with me then? Did Osamu tell you I was going to be at the bar last night?” Atsumu’s fist ball, “You know what, whatever.”

“Wait.” You follow him behind, “Atsumu. I’m sorry.”

He harshly turns to you, god, even in sunlight you were beautiful to him. He wants to laugh, the month he spent talking to the fake you; yeah that was all bullshit to him but honestly when he saw you last night, when he spent over four hours actually talking to you; he actually felt that maybe this could be something deeper.

“I’m really sorry, I know I should have said something right away.” You have a soft pout on you and it makes him outwardly groan.

He runs a hand through his hair, “Okay, it’s fine. I probably deserved this prank too anyways; must have pissed him off somehow.” He waves a hand, “You can just go back to doing whatever.”

Your hand pulls on his wrist, “I owe you a meal.” You bat your eyes with a cheeky grin, “If you take pictures of me, we can send them to Suna and use the money for our food.”

“Oh.” He begins to smile, “I like that idea.”

Back into Osamu’s office, Atsumu has now pulled you onto his lap, your head resting on his shoulder with arms hanging around his shoulders. The two bachelors stare at the sickly loving sight.

A lightbulb goes off in Suna’s head, “Wait! My money!”

You snort a laugh into Atsumu’s shoulder, “Hey, I earned that fair and square. You paid for goods.”

Osamu is having a staring contest with his brother, “So you two have been actually dating for two months? Why would you still message the catfish account then, why not just kick my ass when you found out?”

Atsumu taps a finger on his chin, “Well, I was just originally going to ghost you guys but then babe here and I discovered that we could fund all of our dates with Suna’s money. We even started setting aside leftover cash from our dates to plan a trip.”

You giggle, “We’re going to Disney next weekend.”

“All the pictures.” Suna whispers.

There’s an amused hum in your throat, “Honestly I’m surprised you guys didn’t figure it out. We were dropping hints in the photos.”

Indeed, the two males looked at the pictures you sent them. If they backtracked to two months ago, there wouldn’t be any hints but the closer they get to the present; it was painfully obvious. They were just too caught up in their excitement to even notice. In one photo, part of Atsumu’s shoulder and hair was just barely in the picture; another had his reflection vividly displayed in the window of the restaurant, and somehow Osamu and Suna missed the obvious Black Jackals jacket sitting on the back of the chair next to you.

The two boys were having a mental breakdown.

You shifted on Atsumu’s lap, leaning forward to tap against the top of Osamu’s phone, “Now, if you’d please deactivate the account since this whole charade is over.”

Osamu ended up not deleting the account. He set the account to private because seeing how his brother was so deeply entranced by you, Osamu had a feeling this one was going to last and he was right; on Atsumu’s wedding day, his little best-man speech had him whipping out the catfish Instagram to display on the monitor for everyone to see.

#haikyuu #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu x reader #atsumu x reader #atsumu scenarios #osamu #suna #atsumu

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wordsnwhiskey · 4 years ago

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As It Should Be | Chapter 4: Company

Pairing: Agent Whiskey x F!Reader x Frankie Morales

Summary: Whiskey gets a surprised call and he and Frankie have a long talk.

Rating: M

Warnings: Talks of drug use, alcohol, mentions of character death, mentions of canon typical violence, PTSD, violent nightmare

A/N: I really wanted this conversation to happen between these two given their respective histories. We all know that Whiskey needed therapy and in this verse he gets it. It’s also my HC, from what I vaguely know (I’m not an expert and I could be very wrong), that Whiskey was an officer in the Air Force where he flew/placed in jets and that’s how he knows how to fly an F-22 (The Silver Pony).

We are getting some angst and some fluff this time folks!

Also, yes I do have a specific soap in mind for Whiskey, it's Old Glory by Duke Cannon

Huge special thanks to mi esposa @danniburgh and my friend Agent Capri Sun for the betas and encouragement!!

Masterlist | Series Masterlist | Chapter 3: Statesmen & Demons | AO3

He was drowning. He needed...something. He needed help.

Frankie pulled his phone out, went to the recent number that was, as of yet, unsaved, and pressed ‘call’. His shaky hand brought the phone up to his ear as the line rang.

Whiskey’s hair was still wet from his shower, and his white t-shirt clung to his damp skin. Eyeing the take out on his counter, he sank into his couch and smiled at your texts:

Whiskey: Thai sound good, sweetheart?

Bourbon: God yes Jack, I’m starving!

Whiskey: I’ll let you know when I get outta the shower, see you soon sweetheart

He was just about to send you a message to come on over when his phone rang. Glancing at the clock on his stove, then back to the unfamiliar Texas number on his caller ID, he frowned.

“Whiskey.”

His greeting was curt. Who the hell would be calling at 8:30 pm on a Wednesday?

“H-hey Whiskey, it’s me, Frankie. Is… uh, is she there?”

Whiskey’s frown deepened, not that he minded Frankie calling him, far from it, but his voice was cracking like he’d been... crying?

“Oh, hey there, Flyboy. No she isn’t, do you need me to get her?”

“N-no, no… I, uh, I don’t want her to see me right now. I’m, uh,” Whiskey could hear Frankie take a deep breath on the other side of the line. “I’m having a bad night, Jack. Could you come get me? I’m at the hotel.”

Jack shot straight up, practically leaping to his feet.

“Did you…?”

The question clung to the air like lead, crushing both of their chests in the silence.

“No, I haven’t… I just… fuck.”

Jack was moving, grabbing his leather jacket, keys, and Stetson, practically sprinting out the door.

“Don’t worry about it, Flyboy. I’m headed your way.”

He shifted his weight while he waited for the elevator to take him to the parking garage, shooting off a quick text to you in apology. Frankie’s words, “I don’t want her to see me,” rung in his ears and he decided to hold off on telling you what had come up, at least until he could see you at the office tomorrow.

Whiskey: Hey sweetheart, sorry something came up and I can’t do dinner tonight. Everything’s fine, see you at the office, sugar. X

Your phone went off and you quickly unlocked it, eager to hear back from Jack so you could head over. A frown pulled the corners of your lips down at his text, but you knew he wouldn’t cancel on you without good reason.

You: See you tomorrow, cowboy. Better make it up to me ;)

Frankie had left the door slightly ajar and was pacing around his room, arms crossed in front of him when he heard a quick knock, then the handle was turning and Whiskey crossed the threshold. He took a cursory glance around the room: nothing but minibar booze bottles, thankfully. Whiskey let out a sigh of relief that was short-lived when he took in Frankie’s demeanor. Frankie’s face was taut with shame, and his gaze refused to rise any higher than Whiskey’s boots.

“I didn’t know who else to call,” Frankie choked out, “ Pope, and Hawk… I can’t disappoint them again. I’ve been clean for three years, and I didn’t…”

Jack shook his head and beckoned Frankie over, wrapping his arm around the other man’s shoulders and pulling him in for a quick, tight hug.

“C’mon, Flyboy, this is not the time nor the place to talk about this. I’m taking you back to my place, and we’re gonna have some whiskey that’s much better than what you’ve had here, and then we can talk.”

Frankie nodded and grabbed his hat, planting it on his head as Whiskey tugged him out of the hotel room. He was so deep in his thoughts and his guilt for having Whiskey come out that he didn’t realize where he was until the elevator dinged. Whiskey unlocked and opened the door to his condo, giving way to a view so incredible Frankie almost forgot to breathe. Across from the entryway, on the far side of the condo, the gorgeous New York night skyline twinkled back at them from beyond the wall of glass windows. Frankie marveled at the rustic elegance of Jack’s home. It had an entirely open floor plan, giving Frankie a view of the dark cherry butcher block island, the top-of-the-line range top, and other appliances, all immaculately clean. For a moment, he wondered if that was because Whiskey ordered out more than he cooked, but then he saw the bags of takeout on the counter and immediately felt guilty.

“I’m sorry, looks like I interrupted your dinner plans.”

Whiskey closed and locked the door behind him, hanging his jacket up on the nearby hook. He glanced over at the takeout, then put his hand on Frankie’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it, partner. I just told her something came up. You hungry? I ordered her Drunken Noodles, be a shame to put them to waste.”

Frankie was about to decline when his stomach rumbled, and Whiskey chuckled.

“C’mon, Flyboy, go sit down on the couch and I’ll bring the food and some whiskey round.”

With a nod, he toed his dress shoes off (they were all he had without his go bag) and made for the brown leather couch. He sat down a bit stiffly, feeling awkward given the circumstances. Whiskey brought over the containers of food, handing one to Frankie and resting his own on the coffee table before grabbing them the promised drinks. He sat down, and Frankie took his drink in one hand, relishing in the smooth burn as he took a sip, then set it down to dive into his food.

They ate in a relaxed and cozy silence. Frankie finished first, which wasn’t a surprise. When Whiskey finished, he took Frankie’s empty container with him to toss in the garbage before he made his way back. An awkward silence replaced the previous comfortable one, and Frankie found himself having a hard time pulling his gaze from the amber liquid in his glass. Whiskey took a deep breath, then turned on the couch to face Frankie.

“Santiago said you’ve been clean for three years? That’s quite the accomplishment.”

“Yeah, thanks. Doesn’t really feel like it right now. I feel like I failed. I’m worried I’ll slip up.”

“I don’t think you will, Frankie. Neither do Pope or Bourbon.”

Jack didn’t know why, but the words rang true in his mind, even though he hadn’t known Frankie for very long.

“You don’t seem like the kind of guy to throw three years of hard work away, Flyboy.”

A small smile tugged at Frankie’s lips and he took a sip from his glass.

“Must’ve been weird for Halcón. Last time she saw me, fuck, I was barely with it. The suspension hit me hard. I had been getting my shit together before Colombia and the funeral. I just wanted to be able to fly. I couldn’t and still can’t stand the idea of being grounded. That, and I knew my fianceé would leave me if I didn’t get it together. But then, well, we all went to Colombia.”

“I couldn’t imagine being grounded. I don’t fly often, but to not have the option? I dunno what I’d do.”

Whiskey shook his head and grimaced. Frankie perked up, head snapping to meet Whiskey’s gaze.

“You fly?”

“Mmmhmm, was in the Air Force for a bit, did jets. Statesmen has an F-22, the Silver Pony, that I fly.”

A small buzz of excitement was washing over Frankie, and he subconsciously scooted closer to Whiskey. He didn’t really have anyone to talk to about flying, even if helicopters and jets were two very different means of flying.

“What made you risk it, Flyboy? What happened in Colombia?”

Frankie frowned and let out a deep sigh.

“Pope had been down there for a few years, chasing a narco named Gabriel Martín Lorea. He finally got a break when his CI told him she knew where he was hiding out and where he was stashing his money. He showed up outta the blue asking us, our old team, to come down and do recon, $17k just for a week of recon. If we wanted to stay on after that, we’d be entitled to 25% of whatever we seized, and the rumour was that Lorea had $75M on him. I’m guessing Halcón was busy with a mission for you guys, and I’m glad she was. It ended up being a fucking shitshow.”

Whiskey noted the faraway look in Frankie’s eyes as he sighed and took another swig from his glass, shaking his head as Frankie recalled the events.

“After the recon, Pope said he thought we could do the job ourselves, take all the money and not tell the local governments. We found out that the local agency hadn’t been the ones to pay us the $17k. That had come out of Pope’s pocket. He was so sure that the locals were on Lorea’s payroll, and if he went to the local agency, Lorea would disappear with the money. At the end of the day, none of us could say no. Turned out the rumors of Lorea having $75M were wrong. The house was stuffed, literally, with cash. Tom, our captain, got greedy. He ignored our hard-out time and insisted we take more loads of cash. We ended up stealing close to $250M, then we burned the house down.”

Whiskey whistled. “$250M is a lot of money, partner…”

Frankie barked out a humorless laugh, his eyes rueful.

“Too much. Our helo couldn’t take it all and make it over the Andes. I knew it before take off, and I warned Tom and Pope, but all any of us could see was the money. Tom didn’t want to leave it on the runway. I almost had us over the Andes when a gearbox blew, and I had to get us back to flat. We had to cut the money net, and it was just our luck that it happened to be over a coke farm. It was a bad landing. I honestly don’t know how none of us were seriously injured, but Pope and Tom went to go and convince the farmers to get out of the money. Our comms were out, so we were going off of hand signals. Tom got too trigger happy, and he dropped a few of the villagers. I-I provided cover fire, too…”

Frankie hung his head, no matter how much Will, Benny, or Pope had tried to reassure him, he still held an enormous amount of guilt over what had happened. He felt Whiskey’s hand rest on his shoulder, and he leaned into the touch.

“That’s what you were trained to do, Flyboy. You couldn’t have known any different, especially without comms.”

Frankie nodded, taking a large gulp of his whiskey, then continued on.

“A couple days later, we took fire in the mountains, and they got Tom. It ended up being a kid and another guy from the coke farm. We killed them, but there was nothing we could do for Tom. Headshot, he died instantly. 10 years we all served together, and then he was gone, leaving behind an ex and two daughters. It could have been any one of us though, Jack… we all took lives during that mission. Tom just took the wrong ones. It… it could have been me even, I shot some of those villagers, too.”

Frankie felt Whiskey’s grip on his shoulder tighten and looked up to see the empathetic sadness of someone who truly understood how he felt reflected back in Whiskey’s eyes. Frankie cleared his throat.

“We ended up bailing on a lot of the cash, taking only what we could carry in our daypacks and tossing the rest in a ravine so we could haul Tom’s body out with us. At the end of it, we made out with around $5M, but we all agreed it should go to Tom’s family. I got back to find my fianceé had left. She couldn’t stand my leaving with Pope. Looking back, my addiction is probably what really did us in, but I was devastated to come home to an empty house after everything that had happened. Things got… dark after that. I fell back on old habits, fuck, I had barely been clean a few months when we went to Colombia. I didn’t want to think about what we’d done there, didn’t want to feel the emptiness, didn’t want to sleep and deal with the nightmares. I was a mess, and I… uh, I took too much one day. Pope found me unconscious, lying on the ground, and got me to the hospital. When I came to, I realized I didn’t want to end up dead in my shitty apartment, once they discharged me, I checked into rehab.”

Frankie took another drink. No one other than Pope knew that knocking on death’s door had been the turning point for him. Whiskey chewed on his lip, taking a drink and debating whether he should share his past as well.

“Drugs are… a terrible thing to get hooked on. My high school sweetheart, carrying my unborn son, was murdered by two meth head freaks robbing a fucking convenience store. I was on leave from the Air Force, waiting for them to come home when I got the call. I didn’t realize how much it festered in me until about a year back when we were taking down the Golden Circle.”

Frankie nodded. He remembered that he had been glad he was clean by then.

“I’m sorry, Whiskey… I didn’t know, I shouldn’t have-”

Jack’s hand moved from Frankie’s shoulder to rub his back reassuringly.

“Listen, the things you’ve done and seen for our country… and not, well, it’s a lot, and I know it’s not the same as the freaks who… it’s not the same. I almost sabotaged the mission. My hate-addled brain thought it would be justice… It was Bourbon who very literally knocked me on my ass and kept me from making a decision I’d regret. She encouraged me to see a Statesmen counselor, which has been a lot of work, but has been more helpful than I ever thought it would be. Have you thought about that?”

Frankie was distracted for a moment by Jack’s hand. It felt nice, reassuring, safe, things that had been sorely lacking for him today.

“I have and I did, well, I had to as part of the program, and I kept it up for a bit after. It helped, but… I couldn’t really talk about what happened with Tom. Sure there’s confidentiality and all that, but what we did is all kinds of illegal. I couldn’t exactly bring that to a session or group.”

Frankie snorted, a ghost of a smile tugged at a corner of his mouth.

“Really though, aside from the program I was in after rehab to get my license back, I’ve gotten some hobbies and some other out-outlets. This was just a lot. I needed to not be alone.”

Jack cocked his head at the way Frankie stuttered and subconsciously fidgeted with the bandage on his right wrist. He had picked up from the night prior that Frankie had a thing for pain, and Frankie’s reaction when he had bandaged him up was further proof of that. But using it as his sole outlet or method of working through his issues was something he wouldn’t enable. His eyes narrowed, and before Frankie could blink, Jack snatched his left hand, mindful of the tender marks as he held fast and fixed Frankie with a hard stare. Frankie flinched at the sudden movement then his eyes widened a little.

“You know this ain’t a solution, Flyboy.”

Jack’s voice had an edge to it bordering on a growl. Frankie shook his head quickly.

“Shit, no, Whiskey, the i-impact p-play stuff, i-it’s an outlet, and it’s not my only outlet. I met my old partners, Sam and then later on her husband, a year and a half or two years ago. I was a year clean before I even had my first session with either of them. I met Sam when she booked a flight tour, and one thing led to another… She’d come back into town and sometimes her husband would come with, but we all kept everything pretty quiet. They helped me relax, and they had their fun.”

Frankie was doing his best to be nonchalant, but he couldn’t help the slight bitterness creeping into his voice. Maybe it had to do with the fact that Jack’s tone had thrown him off guard, unexpectedly stirring something in him. Whiskey, of course noticed on both counts, having been trained to do so. He could see through Frankie a mile away. Frankie nervously took another sip from his glass, shuddering as Whiskey’s thumb gingerly rubbed circles over the marks, seemingly accepting his explanation.

“You know, had I known about your… interests, I would have done things a bit differently last night, Flyboy.” He winked at Frankie, then smirked as he examined Frankie’s wrist more thoughtfully. “How are they doing?”

“G-good, thanks. And uh, well, you’re one of 3 people who know.” Frankie murmured.

Whiskey’s eyebrows raised slightly in surprise as he nodded and released Frankie’s hand.

“Really? Not Pope or Bourbon?”

“Are you kidding me? Pope would never let me hear the end of it. There are some things he doesn’t need to know.” Frankie chuckled and shook his head. “And Halcón? Well, there was never any reason for her to know. We never did anything together before last night.”

“How long has it been since you last saw Sam or her husband?”

Frankie downed the rest of his whiskey, eyes far away for a moment, remembering their last session, the sharp pain followed by a rush of endorphins and the occasional soothing praise. He shook his head gently, blinking himself out of his memories at the feeling of Jack’s warm hand on his knee.

“It’s been a while, six months? They moved overseas.”

There was a beat of silence, Whiskey could sense there was something up, it was a subtle shadow flitting across Frankie’s face. He decided to push a little more.

“Did you have feelings for them?”

“It was complicated.”

The edge in Frankie’s voice was tinged with pain, and he tried to cover it up with a laugh that came out humorless.

“I guess it isn’t that complicated. After six months, things shifted, and they made it clear I wasn’t part of their long term plan. It became very transactional, which was fine, but there was less and less... care after.”

“Oh.”

The response slipped from Jack’s lips, and he was momentarily stunned quiet before his temper began to flare. His index finger and thumb gently gripped Frankie’s chin, forcing him to meet his gaze.

“Listen carefully, Flyboy. What I did last night was the bare minimum of what someone should do in that kind of situation. Anything less is negligent. Christ, how was this ever stress relief for you if you were left to free fall afterwards?”

Whiskey’s voice was calm and even, but Frankie could see the fury raging in his eyes. Sensing Whiskey’s desire for understanding, he nodded then shrugged.

“I guess I’d try to go on a hike with one of the guys or go train at the gym.”

Silence fell between them, a muscle in Whiskey’s jaw clenching before he glanced at the clock and let out a deep sigh, willing himself to calm down.

“It’s already just about midnight, Flyboy. Why don’t you go shower, and I’ll put on a clean bandage for you once you’re done. You can use my bathroom. There’s a clean towel hanging you can use. Don’t worry about clothes, I’ll leave something for you to sleep in on my bed so you can change while I set up the guest room for you.”

Frankie was about to protest, saying he could do his own bandages, but Whiskey fixed him with a stare and shook his head.

“Go on Flyboy, get yourself in the shower. Head down the hall, second door on the left. Your room is across the hall. I’ll be waiting there with the medkit when you’re done.”

Whiskey took Frankie’s empty glass and stood, taking their glasses to the sink while Frankie got up and made his way to the shower. A pensive frown tugged at Whiskey’s lips. Tonight certainly explained a lot of things. The sharp fury that permeated Whiskey’s chest when they were talking about Frankie’s previous partners returned. How could someone not be bothered with aftercare? It was also clear that Frankie felt abandoned by them. On some level, the poor man was probably terrified of that happening again, if he even entertained the thought of something between the three of you. Whiskey waited a few moments until he heard the water running before heading into his room. He let out a sigh as he grabbed a white t-shirt and a pair of linen shorts for Frankie to wear, leaving them on the bed before he left to make sure the guest room was all set.

Frankie undressed quickly, folding his clothes and setting them down on the vanity in a neat pile crowned with his hat. Next, he made quick work of unwrapping the bandage around his wrist and tossing the materials in the garbage. He let out a sigh of relief as he stepped into the shower and the hot water scoured the last two days from his skin. The relief was quickly replaced with a small whine of pain as the water hit his wrist. Closing his eyes and bracing himself against the wall with his forearm he breathed through the pain, acclimating to the sensation. Frankie took a minute to just exist, trying to enjoy the quiet that had slowly crept back into his mind. Taking a deep breath, he set to work getting himself clean. The steam made the air thick and heavy with the scent of Whiskey’s soap, something akin to leather and tobacco leaves. It clung to Frankie’s lungs, and he could have stayed there enjoying it for considerably longer. But, he didn’t want to keep Whiskey waiting, so he rinsed off and hopped out of the shower. He toweled off, smirking to himself when he saw it was monogrammed (because of course it was), then headed out and changed quickly into the shirt and shorts that had been left for him.

Whiskey looked up in time to see Frankie stride through the doorway wearing his shirt and shorts, smelling like him, his soap. He swallowed thickly and tried to recover with a smile.

“Feel better, Flyboy? C’mon, sit down. Let’s have a look.”

Frankie nodded, then took a seat next to Whiskey on the bed and gave him his right hand. Whiskey hummed his approval at the lack of resistance from Frankie, something the pilot felt tug at his chest.

“This is looking much better, Flyboy, should be completely healed in a few days.”

Whiskey smiled as he finished tending to and wrapping up Frankie’s wrist. Without prompting, Frankie offered his other wrist and Whiskey couldn’t bite back the smirk that followed. He was glad though, glad that Frankie was trusting him with this and was embracing these moments, even if it was for something small. Frankie’s left wrist was considerably better off, but even so, Whiskey was still gentle as he looked him over.

Frankie’s heart fluttered at the intimacy of what was happening. Here was Jack, a man he’d known for barely 48 hours, who was taking care of him, who had dropped everything to come get him, who had spent his evening letting Frankie talk. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had treated him this way.

There was an overwhelming urge building in his chest, and without thinking, he acted on it.

He gripped the collar of Whiskey’s t-shirt with one hand, tugging him closer as Frankie leaned in and kissed him. Whiskey was shocked for a moment, it had been the last thing he had been expecting, but he quickly recovered when he felt Frankie’s tongue swipe at his lip. His hand rested along the column of Frankie’s throat, thumb grazing over the scruff along his jaw as he deepened the kiss, leaning into Frankie and tasting him.

A small moan pulled Jack back to his senses, resting his forehead against Frankie’s and cupping his jaw with this other hand. They both panted, trying to catch their breath, and Whiskey smiled as he gave Frankie another quick kiss. For a moment, Frankie was worried he had overstepped when Whiskey cut off their kiss, but looking into the other man’s eyes, he knew that wasn’t the case.

“You’ve had a long day, Flyboy, we’re not gonna do anything tonight. Tomorrow though, if you want, I could help you get rid of some of that stress and help you come down the right way. No rush, no pressure, you can say no and nothing changes. I don’t want an answer right now either, sleep on it.”

Frankie’s breath quickened and his pupils dilated at the thought, but one thing nagged at him.

“What about Halcón?”

Whiskey chuckled and patted Frankie’s shoulder.

“Well it’s what we both want, in a manner of speaking. She’d be onboard, but she doesn’t have to know exactly what we do for now unless you’re comfortable with it. A lot of this is stuff I know she wants to go over on Friday, but for now, when it comes to me and Bourbon, keep an open mind and try not to overthink it, partner. If you want to do this tomorrow, then we can do it. If not, no harm, no foul, you’re still welcome to stay here and keep me company.”

Frankie nodded, still processing what Whiskey had said and more than a little surprised that Whiskey was inviting him back regardless of his decision. Whiskey stood up then, squeezing Frankie’s shoulder.

“G’night, Flyboy. Holler if you need anything.”

Frankie was back in Colombia. He felt sluggish, his feet refusing to respond the way he wanted them to. He saw the villager from the cocaine farm pop up from the rocky outcrop, but Frankie couldn’t move, couldn’t draw his gun to take him out. He cried out in anguish as the man fired.

“No! Tom!”

Then he was surrounded by Pope, Benny, Will, you, and Whiskey, statuesque as the man who killed Tom lined up and dropped Pope, moving his way down the line. Frankie was sobbing now, he was being swallowed up by the ground, sinking helplessly as the people he cared for were murdered.

Whiskey woke with a start to the sound of shouting.

Ripping the sheet and comforter off, Whiskey glanced at the clock. It read 01:30 and he sighed. Frankie just couldn’t catch a break.

“P-please, No! Po-Pope, God, n-no, Hal-Halcón! Whiskey!”

He really didn’t want to shake Frankie awake, worried as to how he might react waking up from that sort of dream, but Jack had to do something.

“Hey, Frankie, I’m right here, you gotta wake up. Wake up, Flyboy.”

Frankie shot up, feeling like ice water had been poured down his spine. He was wild-eyed and breathing heavily, but once again, Whiskey’s soothing words served to ground him, and he clung to them with all he had. He felt Whiskey pull him into a hug, and Frankie didn’t care about the awkward angle, he clung to the embrace as well.

Whiskey’s heart ached at the way Frankie clutched at him after hearing him call out Pope’s, his, and your names. He had a vague idea of what might have happened, he still had dreams where he couldn’t save his loved ones every now and then. Once Frankie’s breathing calmed a bit, Whiskey tugged him up out of bed.

“C’mon Flyboy, you’re coming with me.”

Frankie didn’t argue, he just followed, grateful that Whiskey was pulling him by his hand, needing that point of contact. Whiskey pulled back the covers on the side opposite of his and waited until Frankie crawled in before he pulled the covers over him, then slid in on his side of the bed. He scooted a bit closer, not wanting to crowd Frankie unless he wanted the contact, and was pleased when the other man scooted back until his back rested against Jack’s chest.

“Get some sleep, Flyboy. I’ve got you.”

Sooner than he expected, Whiskey heard soft snores coming from Frankie. He smiled then wrapped his arm around him and pulled him closer.

Thank you for reading! Reblogs & comments are much appreciated!

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supersizemeplz · 3 years ago

Text

We Meet Again

Incubus!Erik Stevens x Black PlusSized Female

Another #supersizedfic Halloween fic. I know, I know. It isn’t October yet but I wanted this to jumpstart my writings for it. I definitely want to push out more creepy/scary fics around that month. Let’s call this practice. Also, I’m calling him an incubus but I’m not sure if he fits that category fully in this. Idk. Enjoy!

Song suggestion: Algorhythm by Childish Gambino

"Come on down to Moreen's Super Savin-" The commercial was clipped short as the screen went black. It had to be the millionth time it'd came on in the past two weeks and it was becoming repetitive. The young woman sat the remote on the glass coffee table before she stood. Her adoring pet took that as her cue to hop down as well and follow her owner close.

"How about a snack, Mina? We deserve that right?" She spoke to the puppy as if she'd reply. Well she kind of did with a bark and shake of her tail. Sierra made her way to the fridge and pulled open the freezer. Only to be met with ice trays and frozen meats. Frowning a bit, she looked down to her animal companion.

"Looks like we're out, mamas." Closing the door, she made her way to the dining room table. Grabbing her keys from atop a local Moreen's Super Savings ad paper. She took a quick look in the hallway mirror and made a quick 180 to head up the stairs to her bedroom. "I guess I need something to cover up, huh."

Keys jingled in a hurried dance as she moved, sounding along with the calmed patter of the loyal four little paws. Out of the bedroom once she'd grabbed a hoodie, through the hallway, and down the stairs. Sierra slipped her braids into a bun atop her head, adjusting the silk headband that protected her edges.

Turning to the eager little bichon frise at her feet, she squatted to talk to the puppy. Mina. "Mommy will be back, ok? I'll get us some snacks from the store." She chuckled as Mina barked her reply. With a soft head rub, Mina turned away satisfied as she went back to play with her toys.

Locking the door behind her, Sierra made her way to her car. She was craving vanilla wafers and ice cream. The wind was a bit chilly as she got further from the house, picking up just a little. Fall was slowly making its way and she was amped for the holidays to start rolling in.

With a soft close of the car door, her right index finger pressed the start button to bring the car to life. The time on the radio read twenty minutes until ten o'clock which was just enough time for her to make it before the store's closing. Once she'd set the radio to a slow R&B jam, she was on her way.

A quick ten minute ride was all it took to reach the store since traffic was basically non-existent. Weird but not impossible. She pulled into the nearly empty parking lot without a second thought and turned off the car. "Out and in, two minutes." The words were a mumble as they left her lips, more so a reminder that the store would close soon and she needed not to slow poke.

"Welcome to Moreen's Super Savings." A lone cashier spoke to her as soon as she entered. She smiled with a polite greeting in reply before heading off to the frozen section. Her house shoes made little noise as she found the ice cream selection with ease. A glance to her watch showed she had eight minutes until closing. She had to hurry.

"Hi, how are you?" Her southern hospitality showed as she passed a man that occupied the aisle as well. Not really paying attention to any of his details. Her mission was ice cream, not a man. He gave a polite smile and simple reply, looking over to her once he heard her voice. From her quick glance, she could see his hands were empty though he seemed to be looking for a frozen dessert as well.

The moment between them came and went as she began her quick search once again. "Ah-ha." She spoke the small victory, grabbing the last personal sized vanilla blue bell pint. "Now to the cookies and then something for Mina." With a quick stride she went over two aisles to find the large variety of cookies.

Squatting down to look at the vanilla wafers on the bottom shelf, she saw someone standing at the end of the aisle out of her peripheral. She thought nothing of that as well until a weird feeling fell over her. And the figure was still there. Raising a brow, she looked over to where the figured stood. Or where it should've been. No one was there.

"Hmm." She gave a quick hum of confusion as she stood from her current position. With her choice of cookies in hand. Her head turned both ways to see if she was just imagining things and after seeing that no one was really there, she decided she was. A quick shoulder shrug ended the paranoid thought and she went on her way to get her last items. Coming to the end of the aisle, she stopped to look for the overhead sign to direct her to the pet aisle. Moreen's was kind of new to the town and she had only been here a total of three times, including now.

"Household, paper products, pets." She began her lengthy walk across the store, passing three aisles before she noticed that someone was mirroring her from the other end of the aisles. It could be ignored and pushed aside as a coincidence until she stopped to pretend that her sock needed adjusting. Only for the figure at the other end to stop as well. "What the hell?" She stood quickly to see who was the asshole sending her paranoia through the roof. She knew this store gave off weird vibes. Just as she looked up to see his face, the store went dark and its usual cheery pop songs went silent.

Her gasp was caught in her throat as her grip tightened on the old container of ice cream. She didn't even register the thought of it slowly attempting to escape its containment. Those big brown eyes of hers kept looking to the spot where the man had stood before the power cut.

"Shit." A short curse left her lips as the once frozen dessert made a mess of her hand. Giving one last glance to the spot, she slowly stepped backwards towards the registers before hurrying to it. Her eyes darted around the area to make sure she was still alone as she attempted to rid her hands of the sticky sweet. "There is no way they closed this damn store with me still inside. The cashier literally spoke to me when I walked in the door."

The door.

Sierra discarded the paper towel that was little help as she looked to the large glass double doors. Her exit. She almost scolded herself for getting so worked up, letting her fear of being in the dark affect her sense. Putting pep in her step, she made her way to the door with a quickness. A quick tug to the handle was supposed to ease her heart rate but it sent it soaring. Locked? Why in the hell is it locked? Oh no. She was trapped here, in the dark with her paranoia. Her back turned to press against the doors. "I just had to watch those damn scary movies today."

The dark aisles seemed to mock her as she scanned across them as quick as she could from where she stood. The light that came in from the windows of the store front could only reach so far. With a shivering hand, she fumbled to pull her phone from her pockets. "No, no, no!" She whisper yelled, holding the side buttons to try and make the screen come to life. Only to be met with the screen that told her that her phone was dead. "You were just on fifty percent. How the fuck could you be dead?"

A loud thud from her left caught her off guard, causing her to tense up and her phone to fall to the ground with a soft clap. She looked frantically to the direction of the noise as it's echo sent chills over her. "H-Hello?" Her words stuttered out as she slowly bent to pick up your phone. Maybe it's an employee? "I think you guys locked me in by accident.."

Still like a tree planted by the water, she didn't move. No one answered her call but she had an eerie feeling that she wasn't alone. "Come on, girl. You're stronger than this, remember what Dr. Hamina said.. Fears are nothing more than a state of mind. You're ok." Finally pulling her feet from the invisible glue that held them, she took a slow step forward. "There has to be an emergency door around here somewhere."

In the distance, just barely behind a faraway aisle, those four familiar red letters caught her eyes. "Exit." Hope sparked in her mind and she was happy to know there was another way out. The trick now was getting to the other side without being caught by the man that lurked in the shadows.

As if he'd known she'd thought of him, his voice surrounded her like a cloud. "Sierraaa. Don't be afraid of me, beautiful.." A sudden, single light cut on in the center of the aisles. Close enough to the back that she was directly across the supermarket from him. The soft buzz of the light could faintly be heard from where she stood. She squeezed her phone this time to cope with the fear piercing her as she took another step backwards towards the door.

"How do you know my name? W-Who are you?" She couldn't hide her fear if she wanted to. The waver of her voice gave it away and she hated that it. Because he chuckled at her. His back was to her and she could just make out him looking over his shoulder back at her. In an instant, the light cut out and it was darkness again before a different light popped on. This one was closer than the last but she still couldn't make him out fully. It was only his clothes that gave away his identity as the man that she'd spoken to on the ice cream aisle when she'd came in earlier.

"You don't remember me, sweetness?" He pretended to be offended, finally turning to reveal his face before the lights turned off. It popping back on with him closer. "All the nights we spent together during your college years, just as you were finding yourself. The nights we spent together.. in your dreams, sweetness." That name, that voice. That face.

"E-Erik?" His voice suddenly found its place in her mind. In those memories she'd locked away. "You're not real? H-How are you-? How did you-?"

She'd went through a weird patch in her early stages of youth and adulthood. Her grandmother had called it 'spirit soaring'. The gift ran through the women in her family, but she seemed to be the only one who couldn't keep her control of it. The first few times were innocent during her teen years with short trips around the home for just a minute. That soon crept up to her soul venturing around her neighborhood to see what night could bring. Snowballing into a faint obsession.

Her grandmother had warned her plenty times before of the addictions of her lucid dreaming. But she'd assured herself she could control it. Then she'd met Erik, the man of her dreams, literally. He'd resembled an actor she'd adored and that was his bait. Everything was perfect between the two until it would inch closer to her having to leave him. And he didn't like that, he wanted her company full time. He'd began to find ways to prolong her visits with him.

She began to notice that he wasn't under her control like everything else in her dreams. It honestly scared her. His demeanor changed and he became obsessed with her, finding ways to pull her under when she'd fall asleep. Passive aggressive and manipulating were his sudden traits. The last time she'd seen him ended with a scuffle. Scarring his left eye and her getting away by a hair.

"How I found you?" He spoke her thoughts, finally allowing her to see his face. That familiar scar was healed now. Making him look like a monster from some horror film. "I never lost you, sweetness. I've just waited patiently.. watching you from the shadows..." He took a step towards her, taking in the sweet scent of her fear. "Never..out of..reach."

The lights began to flicker and her adrenaline started pumping. Sierra began to rack her mind for an escape. The exit sign. It was the same escape route she'd use in her dreams long ago. Her feet started their movement before it fully registered in her mind. "Just make it to the door."

Erik's laughter filled the air around her, loud and mocking as she kept her quick pace. "You can run, but you can't hide. Escape is inevitable.." His words were chilling to hear. He really wanted her for himself.

The door seemed to be getting further away. Like she was running backwards. Tears began to gloss her eyes as she became weaker. Her legs were getting tired, but she pressed on. Just make it to the door. Still the door grew smaller with every attempt to reach it.

"Nooo!" Her knees hit the ground below her, meeting the cold tile floor. "It can't end like this.. Leave me ALONE!!" She screamed into the darkness. A last effort to fight her attacker.

The air was still once her echos silenced. Her eyes moved around as best they could in the darkness. The light above her popped on and the slow echo of footsteps in the darkness came towards her. She trembled where she sat, trying to crawl to the door as best she could.

Erik emerged from the darkness like a villain and stopped just before her. "When will you learn sweetness? Running will only tire you out.." He squatted before her, bringing a hand to her cheek to rid it of a stray tear. "Stay with me and we can spend this life together. Happily. Forever."

"This moment.." He spoke lowly, eyes glazed with lust. "I have been waiting for this moment for so long, my sweetness, to have you all to myself.." He rolled his shoulders as he hummed. "..And here we are. Alone, at last. Destined to be brought together as one."

Licking his lips, he held a smirk at the corner of his lips. "Isn't this what we once dreamed for? To be together forever?" His smile widened at her drooping eyes as they fought to stay open. "Well, I did. At least."

Her lips tried to speaks but all her energy was being drained. His voice began to sound distorted to her. She didn't want him to win this time. Have to..stay..awake. Darkness.

"Ma'am? Ma'am? Can you hear me?" The voice was far off in the darkness, barely audible. Sierra fought to make out the words on her mind. Please don't let him win. Her body wouldn't listen to her in her struggle. She screamed internally at herself to wake up, wanting whoever was trying to talk to her know that she could hear them. It seemed to take forever. "There you go. Breathe."

She had shot up to a seated position, breathing heavily and looking around to see if he was still there. Her eyes held worry as she was only met with two E.M.T. and a small group of employees in the distance. The female E.M.T gave an assuring smile to ease her nerves, though it didn't help much. Though it did calm her a little to see a friendly face. "An employee found you laying in the aisle, nearly unresponsive. So we're gonna take you to the hospital and make sure everything is okay. Are you alright with that, hunny?"

All Sierra could do was nod, needing to get out of this damned store. She'd never come back here, that was for damned sure. The medical duo eased her onto a stretcher and gave her a water for her throat. Since she hadn't uttered a word since she came to. "We'll do a few check ups in the truck on the way there. You just let me know if anything feels weird suddenly or hurts. Ok..."

Tears blurred Sierra's vision as she was lifted into the ambulance, listening to the distant sounds of the medical personnel that assured that she would be just fine. Her mouth didn't open and their words didn't register as she looked forward. Not directly looking to the group of employees that watched her being taken away, but more so to what was behind them where he stood. He was relaxed as he watched her with a smirk. His words rung off in her head as she noticed him vanish behind the passing of employees heading back inside. "Alone, at last. Destined to brought together as one.." She was stuck with him forever.

#black reader #erik stevens #erik x reader #oneshot #halloween fic #supersize the spooky

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lokilickedme · 3 years ago

Text

Somebody help me chill, this is insane.

(under the cut because long and also pretty traumatic, for me at least)

Crazy neighbor, remember her? Her son destroyed a piece of equipment we had attached to one of our trees at the fenceline last week, she denied it and called us insane liars - that’s the most recent craziness in the ongoing saga of the neighbor from hell. I was sitting here reading my dash tonight and happened to glance over at the monitor for the surveillance camera husband got me the other day to watch that exact spot (where the equipment was smashed) and guess who I see bent over looking through the fence peering very closely at that exact spot? Neighbor’s equally insane son, who we know did the actual dirty work. And I, stupid like I am, took a screenshot of him and then immediately jumped up and ran outside in the dark in my pajamas (nearly 9pm, pitch black, their porch light is off because obviously they’re doing something they don’t want to be seen doing) and I ask “Excuse me, what are you doing?”

This lunatic immediately starts SCREAMING at me - I mean top of his lungs SCREAMING abusive threats, calling me a stupid psycho whore bitch, yelling at me to get my ass back in my house and generally just acting completely off his rocker unhinged nuts - and then his mother comes out and comes over to the fence and gets in my face while I’m just standing there and tells me to mind my own business. I say I am minding my business, I saw him looking through the fence at my property right where we had vandalism happen last week so I came out to find out why he’s interested in my property. She laughed in my face and said “No he wasn’t, he was standing right here looking at his phone like this” and she does this little pantomine of someone looking at their phone, which is funny because she wasn’t out there when he was doing it and there are no windows on that side of her house at all. I ignored her and asked “What are you looking for?” He kept screaming incoherent animal noises and insults from behind her so I asked again, “What are you looking for?” And that crazy woman grinned at me and said “We’re just looking to see what kind of new devices you’ve installed!”

OMG. She didn’t even take a breath in between lying and then contradicting her own lie. And she’s grinning smugly at me the entire time, gesturing around pointing at our property cams and mosquito light (it flashes and apparently she thinks it’s watching her) and my bedroom window - which means she’s been snooping. There is a cam sitting in my windowsill, aimed at the spot where the device was smashed. Every bit of this equipment is on our property, some of it behind a privacy fence. I tell her it’s none of her business what kind of devices we’ve got on our property, but she just yammers over me, and of course numbskull is still ranting like a psycho behind her, screaming at me to mind my own business and get back in my house and leave them alone. At this point he’s pulled out his phone and shoved it over her shoulder toward my face and is recording me, which is just...fucking hilarious...because I’m literally doing nothing but standing there in shock and awe at how nuts these people are, and he’s still screaming abusive curses and names at me while he’s recording.

Anyway, for about 4.5 minutes we stood there with them shouting over me (I know the exact time because it was later discovered that our doorbell cam recorded audio of the entire event) and a little ways into it he screams “I WILL TEAR YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF!!”

At this point psycho woman finally turns around and says “Addison Case!” and pushes him back. He lunges at me and she tells him to go call the police (??what?? I mean...I wish he had...my phone was in my hand frozen solid, locked up because of the glitchy surveillance app I had to install to see the camera, or else I would have called them myself - but my god they really thought I was the one the cops needed to come for??). Meanwhile I’m just standing there on my own property in the dark in my pajamas, all 5 feet and 120 lbs of me, while this rabid animal - he’s a 21 year old college boy - is lunging at me and screaming nonstop, calling me a fucking whore bitch loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear it while his phone’s camera light is in my face blinding me. Crazy lady smiles that smug shit eating grin of hers and tells me to get back in my house, leave her alone, and move the hell away so she can live in peace.

Wow. Just...holy shit.

This is the person who has allowed her dog to attack my very small 8 year old son on our property and send him to the hospital with injuries last year, then attempt to attack him again 2 weeks ago (he is now 9 at the time of the second attack) - again on our own property (in our back yard this time, in our front yard the first time), has allowed her dogs (multiple) to bark all night long and keep us awake (she leaves them outside and then goes away for the weekend and they bark the entire time she’s gone), then she had her crazy violent son destroy the BarkBox we put in our tree on our side of the fence last week (we put it up as a humane way to get the barking to stop without having to listen to her call us insane liars every time we complain about it). Yet...she kept repeating over and over and over for us to leave her alone and stop harassing her.

All I could even do was stand there shaking my head. It was surreal. And frustrating, because they wouldn’t even let me get a word out without screaming over me, and she was doing that infuriating Karen thing where they shove their hand at your face and grin smugly while they’re telling you what you better do or they’ll call someone to make you.

I actually started laughing, it was so ludicrous. She’s committed all those vile offenses against us and we’re the ones that need to leave her alone. We’ve had to file four police reports against her and we’re the ones that are making her life miserable. I just can’t stop thinking about that Liar Liar movie where the repeat offender keeps calling his lawyer to complain that the cops won’t stop arresting him and the lawyer finally yells THEN STOP BREAKING THE LAW ASSHOLE!!

It’s just like that. My god.

SO -

She tells him to call the police again, and this limp dick shoves that phone light right up to my face and says “You think she’s worth calling the cops over? Look at her, she don’t look worth it to me.” And bitch starts laughing. My god, these people are subhuman, I swear. I’ve never seen anyone act like this in my life, over a person doing literally nothing to them.

So she finally orders her rabid son (who is just about foaming at the mouth, I swear he’s making these barking animal noises at me, it’s weird as hell) into the house and they walk away, with him still ranting like a madman until the door closes behind them. I immediately go inside my own house and call my husband, who was way out at the back of our property in our camper (he self quarantines each day after work out there to protect us because there have been a lot of covid cases at his workplace) and he didn’t know anything was happening. He immediately runs up to the house and I tell him I caught neighbor’s thug son messing around at our fence and that when I went out he threatened to kill me.

Tom grabs something - I don’t even know what it was, I think it was this piece of board that was sitting by the door, we’ve done a shelving project recently and a couple of leftover pieces have been there for a few days - and he stalks outside toward neighbor’s house. I hear him yell COME OUT HERE BOY!!! and I stg you guys, if I wasn’t on the phone calling 911 I might have thought about getting naked right there and then because damn.

So anyway, let’s not go there. This is serious by god lol (look for this to show up in a fic soon though because material like this doesn’t get handed to you for free every day).

I call 911 and say the neighbor’s son just threatened my life and for them to come quick because he’s still over there but I know he’s going to leave any second (this is his mom’s M.O, the two times the police have tried to go talk to her she gets in her car and leaves before they can get from my house to hers, and I know he’ll do the same because COWARDS). Tom comes back and says the little pussywillow wouldn’t come out of the house. He’s breathing fire, you guys. Pure fucking fire. I tell 911 to get somebody out quick before the kid leaves, and just about 2 minutes after I hang up he does just that - we see him blast past our house in his truck and he’s gone, and then the police arrive about 3 minutes after. I’m so mad I can’t see straight. If they’d been able to see him in the state he was in, they’d have arrested him on sight.

Two squad cars (big SUV’s) pull up and block her driveway with full lights flashing, which makes me laugh because suddenly we’ve got neighbors coming outside to see what’s going on. I meet the officers outside, and the crazy bitch next door does the same, yelling “Hello Officer!” and waving to them as they’re coming up to my porch.

They talk to me and Tom for a long time, I tell them everything that happened, they interview Big (he and Little were inside the open door and heard it all), we fill out our statements and talk with them more until one officer goes next door to talk to neighbor. We can hear her dripping her fake sugar and spice while they’re talking on her porch and my husband loses his shit - he heads toward her house and yells “We got the entire thing on recording, don’t even try to lie! Your kid, threatening to kill my wife?!?” (he’s referring to the camera in my bedroom window, which actually only recorded about 2 minutes because I don’t have it set up correctly yet, but they don’t know that). The officer yells at him to get back, which, yeah - he shouldn’t have done that, but for god’s sake the woman’s peckerhead son just literally threatened murder on a member of his family, this is the final fucking straw and he’s mad. And as he’s coming back across the yard the officer that stayed with me points at our new doorbell camera, just freshly installed as of about two weeks ago, and asks if it’s on. We haven’t even really figured out how to use it yet, but yes, as far as we know it’s on. The incident happened around the side of the house, but the doorbell records audio.

God bless technology.

I invite the officer inside the house and Tom gets his phone, pulls up the app for the doorbell, and starts skipping through the recording looking for the right timestamp. Up till this point all they have is me saying the guy screamed a lot of abusive profanities at me and threatened to tear my head off, and they’re taking me serious but probably not that serious, you know? Neighbors fight all the time, wars start over barking dogs, things get exaggerated, we’ve all seen the TV dramas.

Until Tom finds the segment on the footage and starts playing it to them on his phone. It’s kind of quiet because we were a good distance away, but you can hear the guy screaming just like I said he was. The officer asks if we have a speaker we can play it through so he can hear the words more clearly, because he needs proof of threat and that’s entirely in the words.

You guys, I’m tellin’ ya, sometimes you get a chance to fucking SHINE. My husband is a musician and this cop is asking him if he’s got a good speaker. So within minutes Tom’s got this huge venue-style amplifier designed for broadcasting music to the back wall of a freaking stadium pulled out into the livingroom and he’s hooking his phone up to it, and then he hits play and the other officer comes back from next door to join us and I can tell by the annoyed look on his face that neighbor bitch has likely charmed him and shed a plethora of persecuted tears and spewed her lies about how we’ve been harassing her forEVER and I think for a second that it’s a total loss now, he’s made his mind up in her favor.

And then...away we go. Tom cranks the volume on the speaker and they both lean in to listen closely.

Just about a minute into the recording they have their proof - thugnuts screaming I WILL TEAR YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF!!!

Both officers nod, close their notebooks, and the second officer makes a phonecall while the first one turns to me and says “That’s terroristic threatening and it’s a class C felony. You’re going to need to go to the PA’s office with all the reports you’ve filed against them so far and all your evidence from tonight including that recording and hand it all to them. They’re likely going to issue a no-contact so that he can’t interact with you ever again.”

This is a victory, but it’s just the first step, and I feel sickeningly disheartened that it’s all in my lap to do everything. I want them to go demand his whereabouts from his mother and just go get his ass and haul him in. But no, I have a ton of legwork to do now because these horrible people won’t fucking stop.

After several more minutes of me asking questions about what exactly we need to do and where we need to go, etc etc (I’m competent but I’m also fucking rattled, someone threatened to kill me tonight and I’m blanking hard on the instructions he’s giving me) they finally wrap it up and leave. They’ve been in my house for a half hour waiting for me to finish filling out the report (I had to ask for more paper because honey I’m getting ALL the details in there) and I can just imagine how freaked out neighbor is when she sees what time they finally move their cars from in front of her driveway.

And now I’m coming down from the weird calm that I had through the entire event, and my heart feels like it’s going to EXPLODE. I had heart surgery two months ago, do I need this?? The pathetic part is that I know now just how stupid those people are, and I know this won’t be the end from their side by any means. We’ll start finding more stuff broken, or he’ll start climbing over the fence back at the back of the property to steal stuff from husband’s tool shed, or my tires will get slashed. These people are that dumb and hateful, they proved it tonight. He said if we had animals he would kill them, and then he made the same threat against me. How stupid does a person have to be to stand there with his phone out recording himself ranting and making threats against a woman standing in her own yard in her pajamas? Big tough man there. And his mama grinning at me the whole time, telling me I’m crazy and she’s concerned for her own safety because of me, while her son is standing right behind her threatening my life.

I’m just...my god, I don’t even know what to think. I thought people only acted like this in TV dramas, seriously. I’ve seen some shit in my life but this particular brand of stupid has up till now evaded me, but now it’s been in my face and I’m sort of in shock.

I don’t like guns. At ALL. Tom has always had at least one hidden carefully away, safely locked up away from the house, but now there are two inside my house in immediate grabbing range. He insisted that I let him show me how to use them. Rules were laid down for the boys - never touch, never, don’t even get close to them - and now there is a box of shotgun shells on my fireplace mantel and a singleshot rifle by the door. I hate this so damn much.

Don’t pick it up unless you’re ready to use it, he told me. Without even thinking, I said back, “If I touch it it’s getting used.”

I HATE THIS SO FUCKING MUCH

My god. I told the cops that the drug lord that lived over there four years ago was a better neighbor than this woman. They didn’t even laugh.

I guess they’re right, now that I think about it...it isn’t funny.

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imonthinice · 4 years ago

Text

The Criminal Psychology Majors, Jason Todd x Fem!Reader Part 8/?

Word Count: 1.6k

Author’s Note: Y/N - Your Name, A/N - Any Name (Your Best Friend’s Name)

This one is shorter because of the last one’s length.

Hi everyone! By the time you see this, I will probably be out and therefore cannot update the other parts with this one’s link, so don’t worry about that if you notice it.

Warnings: Swearing, Mentions of Jason’s Trauma and his Death, Lightning, no beta bitch we die like Jason Todd

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7) (Part 8) (Part 9) (Part 10) (Part 11) (Part 12) (Part 13) (Part 14) (Part 15) (Part 16) (Part 17) (Part 18) (Part 19) (Part 20)

Going on day 5 of knowing each other, Jason and Y/N would spend the day apart. Why? Because they gave each other the chance to have family time, Jason got it by playing around with his baby siblings, playing Assassin.

Fluff Head canon came from frownyalfred on Tumblr, who wrote about Jason playing Assassin with his brothers

He would go running through the halls playing the game that he and Dick knew all too well, it had been the only ‘no contact’ game they were allowed to play at a summer camp Bruce had sent them to all those years ago when they weren’t adults with a bunch of other siblings, and girlfriends. But here they were, explaining the game to their younger siblings while Alfred and Bruce hung out with Barbara, who wished she could play, but was paralyzed.

Everyone missed playing games with her like they used to, but with the video game consoles in the house they did transfer a lot of their gaming to online so they could relive memories with Barbs. It was bittersweet, and everyone remembered when she became paralyzed like it was yesterday, but she always wanted them to play games like they used to, with or without her.

Jason admired his, hopefully, one day older sister for how she treated her disability, like it was a gift, not something that impacted her everyday life and made her have to hang up the cloak of Batgirl.

But running around chasing after Dick, because of course, he got Dick, the universe wanted them to play again, was something he missed so much. They hadn’t had so much of this time, family time, ever since they all became vigilantes, and they never realized how much they missed the thrill of running around with each other.

Jason ended up getting Dick and throwing him out of the game, calling it a ‘selfless act of brotherhood so you can hang out with your girl’ and they both laughed at it. Titus, Damien’s dog, ended up barking up a storm at Jason when he killed Dick, like the big dog was rooting for Dick to win the tournament.

“Down boy! It’s a game!” Jason would whisper-yell at his dog.

“Yeah! Good boy, Titus! Get him!”

“No!” Jason would yell while running throughout the house, Titus on his heels. Passing by Alfred, Bruce and Barbara, where Titus would stop and go lay at Bruce’s feet, but Jason didn’t know that.

Jason would end up coming in just 10 minutes later, with a green slash on his neck. Tim, who had pulled Cass but killed her, Cass, who had pulled Jason. Tim now had two kills in the game and both were to people who could have easily overpowered him.

“Jase! Welcome to the land of the dead,” Dick greeted him.

“God dammnit I’ve already been here,” Jason whined in a joke.

“You and your ‘I died pity me’ jokes,” Barbara said.

“It’s called a coping mechanism, Barbs. And hi dad, Alfred,” Jason said as he waved slightly at both of them, Alfred waved back and Bruce nodded at him.

“You could just to go therapy, Jase,” Barbara said, seeming concerned for someone who she considered her baby brother. She remember when he came into the Manor, she was older than him, sure . But he had nightmares and she and Dick would switch between who would sleep at his door at night, they both had terrible backs until the nightmares calmed down. Jason never knew they did this.

It also happened when he was resurrected, but the nightmares were worse and he’d wake all sweaty and upset. There were too many nights where batkids would be in Jason’s bed with him from 12am to when Alfred would greet them in the morning. The nightmares had slowed down a lot in the past few years with the introduction of his Goddaughter into his life, but they still came by to remind him of what happened.

He didn’t talk about it much. They would always try to edge him on about about really happened, but he was stubborn. It made sense, sure, trauma is trauma. But they all wanted to help him get better. It hurt them all that he was hurting and they didn’t know how to help him get through it.

--------------------------------------------------

Y/N would sit on her bed that morning and finally finished organizing her criminal psychology and regular psychology notes when she came across her printed copy of Dr. Barry Allen’s dissertation she had studied so hard. She found it so weird that she was so close to someone who she looked up to in the field while also being so far in the same breath.

She didn't dote on it for long, she stocked it away with her forensics notes in their place. This, the relationship she had with Jason that intertwined her with so many people, was something she was getting used to by the minute, but it was never something she’d get fully used to as time goes on.

She would put on a JCS - Criminal Psychology video in the background as she worked and tried to make her journal look nicer when Jason texted her,

Good morning. He said.

Good morning :) She said back.

I just lost a game against a 16 year old.

Huh?

My brothers and 2 of my sisters were playing Assassins with me right? Well my 16 year old brother, Tim, he ended up getting the better of me and beat me.

Oh! So you suck!

What!? No, I’m literally so cool what do you mean? He said, it clearly had sarcasm undertones to it, so Y/N wasn’t worried if she offended him with saying he sucked.

Oh yeah? Then why’d you lose?

Well, I killed Dick.

Okay so you didn’t lose, Dick lost.

It started raining a little bit, the sounds of it hitting lightly against her window, and she felt at peace. It was never hard for her to feel peace when she was by herself. She only had one roommate because she liked the silence, to be alone to collect her own thoughts in her head.

Her parents said it was because she probably had underlying mental illness that they never had the money to diagnose. She agreed. But she still didn’t have the chance to do it.

Jason and her deserved so much more than what the world have given them up to this point, so when they found each other it was, in a way, the universe saying ‘I’m sorry, you deserve this’ and with each passing day it made the pain they had both felt in their lives just a little bit more tolerable.

No, I guess Dick sucks at the game more than me.

Where’d you even get the concept for that game?

Dick and I used to play it at a Summer Camp before we got kicked out.

For playing the game?

No, for being unruly children.

You seem like you were a handful back in the day.

I was, I was the worst kid to raise, my dad has a shirt that says ‘Proud parent of a kid who is sometimes an asshole but that’s OK’ and he wears it all the time.

What a dad moment. Don’t tell my father that shirt exists, he’ll get one for my mum and himself to represent my sister and I.

Were you an unruly child as well?

I was a troublemaker. Getting into arguments with my authoritative figures about dress codes, rules, why girls couldn’t carry chairs, literally anything that was unequal, I was at their throats about it.

I mean, as you should. My older sister, Barbara, and my younger sisters, Stephanie and Cassie, they would like that about you.

I feel like in someway I’ve won over every part of your family.

The rain would get more violent as time went on. Strikes and hits of lightning would strike all around the city, hitting those gargoyles on every building, she always figured they were decorative, but A/N explained that their horns were made out of copper so people wouldn’t get struck by lightning. Bruce Wayne actually made that a thing, A/N said.

Y/N got a message from the dance competition that she signed up to, turns out, California was hit with a hurricane and most people evacuated. No one was allowed in or out. She guessed weather was being funky everywhere. It sucked, but she already was wishing she could spend time at home instead of out in the world.

A feeling she hated.

She would spend the rest of the day on and off the phone with Jason while it stormed. She would go to bed early that night.

-------------------------------------------------

Jason slipped on his vigilante uniform, the Red Hood was going to be on patrol over this night, stormy or not, it was his duty and he knew that. Did he want to go? Yes. He was killing for some action and he was going with Dick. They would probably have some ‘Bro Time’ which Jason wanted.

Even if it was silence, having Dick nearby him meant enough and gave him peace of mind.

He grabbed his guns and loaded them while packing a few extra magazines in his belt, when Dick placed a hand on his shoulder, “You have to be careful tonight, Jase,” Dick said as he gulped down tears, “Just come back to me alive if you break off from me, okay?”

“Alive but bruised,” Jason joked.

“I’m serious. I can’t lose you again and tonight is going to be massively dangerous.”

“You won’t.”

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pedropascallovebot · 4 years ago

Text

Let's Kill Tonight

summary: You're a bit out of practice, but being entrusted with the retrieval and return of Helmut Zemo shouldn't be too hard, right? Even if he is your old sorta-boss and you still are nursing unfortunate loyalty towards the team. You can manage. And him being... slightly more attractive than how you last left him won't be a problem.

Right?

warnings and a/n: i have.... no clue what this is if not a complete rewrite of mcu canon purely for self-indulgence. reader has a kinda shady past and in result will talk graphically about violence in later chapters and there's lots of gun action in this one. very fun, very cool! alright. i hope y'all enjoy teehee

—

The weather where you're at doesn’t usually vary much from a sunny sky, but alas, you’re absolutely drenched by the time you step inside the diner. You hadn’t expected the rain. Your usual five minute walk to work turned into a hike through muddy sidewalks and water droplets that kept hitting your eyes, and by the time you tied your apron around your waist the day felt over before it even started. Your boss gives you a closed-lip smile and glances at your empty section of tables, and you just know you’re going to be late on rent again.

For what it’s worth, Lüleburgaz isn’t the worst place to slip under the radar. It’s not underpopulated by any means, but it makes it perfect to blend in with the crowd as best you can. Honestly, you're just trying to make it a day without a proper therapist. Your roommates are great listeners, don't get it twisted- but all they really know about you is you're Sokovian and they don't really need to hear about the stuff that happened before your country was crushed by some guys in tights and iron suits. They don't ask you much, and you're grateful. After an unfortunate five-year gap in employment (which isn’t your fault- it’s kinda hard to find jobs when you’re reduced to dust unexpectedly) you were lucky to find somewhere that was willing to hire you without a legally issued identification card and that was also willing to pay in cash under the table. You broke out the books and attempted to learn the language as best as you can, and while you're struggling a bit, you can at least understand the menu and what a customer is ordering. It was far from ideal- ideal would be completely erasing any trace of memory regarding you and your… history, so to speak, from anybody who has the potential to be a threat to you. Ideal could also be an island somewhere, maybe Praslin or Nassau, where you could swim in clear waters and drink copious amounts of fancy fruity drinks instead of whatever liquor your roomies had hiding under the counter. But until that happens, being on the sorta-run for some questionable past career choices seems to stick.

Said questionable career choices led you to be introduced to a network of interesting people, some less horrible than others, but all of them carried the same unmistakable signal of danger displayed in flashing lights above their heads. When you hear the bell to the restaurant door jingle, signaling the arrival of someone new, that weird gut feeling activates and your eyes flicker up to see a pair of high heels and sunglasses, even though the sun hasn’t been out all day. Everyone else eating their food don’t even spare a glance to the door. This should comfort you, it should tell you that you're fine and that there's nothing to worry about, but it absolutely doesn’t and suddenly you’re inconspicuously making your way to the back, muttering something to your boss about taking your break early. Ripping off your apron, you throw it to the side and let it land on the ground next to you, and you lean your head against the brick wall behind you. Your fingers are twitching as the pressing issue of impending doom continues to rise in your gut. You barely register the creaking sound of the back gate opening.

“Do you want a cigarette?” Suddenly, you’re in fighting stance as an unfamiliar voice speaks less than a foot away from your ear. You don’t recognize this new face, but she looks expensive and entirely too out of place for a diner that receives in its eggs already prepared and frozen.

“I’ll take that as a no, then,” she continues, and fishes a lighter and pack out of her coat pocket. “Good choice. These things will kill you- and so will this godawful food you serve here. What a relief that after today you won’t step foot in this place ever again, huh?”

Your mouth opens to say something, but you decide against it. Instead, you slightly lower your fists, keeping your eyes trained on her seemingly unbothered expression. She takes a long drag of her cigarette before giving you any more information. The silence is deafening, and you mentally take note of the clear path you have through the open fence and towards the street if you chose to run. Something tells you this lady didn’t arrive here on foot though, and she probably had an expensive vehicle waiting out front waiting to catch up to you if you chose to make a break for it.

“You’re jumpy- probably a little bit out of practice from the whole ex-assassin thing, right? I can work with that. I have to applaud you: as far as hide and seek spots go, this wasn’t horrible. We’ll have to improve your people skills, but-“

“Who are you?”

You grow increasingly frustrated as it starts to sprinkle again, leaving you cold and wet as your company opens an umbrella she had previously stored away in her coat.

“I don’t like being interrupted, so let’s not make it a habit, hm? My name is Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, and you’ve become annoyingly important to my cause. Come on, we’re leaving.”

She begins to walk towards the gate, but you stay put, beginning to toy with the idea of unsheathing the knife stored in your boot.

“I’m not going anywhere with you, lady.”

This makes her turn around and sigh in frustration.

“The way I see it, you have two choices. Go back and finish bussing tables so you can make an extra couple dollars, or come with me so we can talk real business. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the only one between the two of us that poses a threat. I’m not the one with weapons hidden in my clothes, am I?”

Your eyes narrow, but you don’t argue. Instead, you hesitantly join her in her path towards a gaudy car (you knew it) that looks way too out of place to be in this parking lot. For a split second you consider going back and giving your manager somewhat of a notice of your absence, but Valentina’s walking so fast that you don’t really have time to continue considering.

“By the way, I distinctively said my name is Valentina Allegra de Fontaine- I don’t like to repeat myself, don’t make me do it again.”

You barely have time to sit down before Valentina is barking directions at her driver and scolding you for getting rain water in her backseat. You remain silent, and a little bit uncomfortable as Val finishes her cigarette completely before bothering to inform you of whatever the hell she’s got going on.

“Tell me what you know about super soldiers,” she finally gives, crossing her legs and glances at you expectantly.

You search her face for any kind of indication that she’s kidding, but she seems serious. It kinda feels like your soul is being stared into and you want to look away but you can’t. What does she not know about super soldiers that she can learn from you and not from literally anywhere else? Admittedly, all you know is what clips of newspapers would give you. Something about rogue experimentation, something-something Winter Soldier, and then, most recently, the Flag-Smashers and the rumors flying around that they've got some serum floating around. All of this seemed to be public knowledge though. Nothing a woman who’s willing to corner people in the backlots of their jobs couldn’t find out from a simple Google search.

“I asked you a question, didn’t I?”

“I can’t say I know much.”

For what feels like the millionth time in the span of twenty minutes, she sighs, bringing out her cell phone and starts punching some buttons.

“And what about this man? Does he ring a bell?”

You do your absolute best to not look as tense as you feel when out of the corner of your eye you see a familiar face in a tiny, grainy picture. She shoves the device in your hands, and right there center of the screen is-

“Zemo, right? That was a trick question. Hard to forget the face of your old boss, I’d assume.”

Suddenly, you’re upright in your seat, the earlier feeling of danger settling right back into place. Valentina, of course, just lets out a laugh, while you’re planning on swan-diving out the damn window.

“The Colonel isn’t my boss,” you protest, and a burning sensation makes its way to your throat.

“Isn’t he though?” Valentina is now fully turned towards you, her hand reaching to grab the phone back. More buttons are pressed, and she’s reading your name from an official looking online database. “It says here you’re wanted in a lot of countries, huh? I wonder why that is- oh, look at this, would you? Seems like your name and EKO Scorpion are mentioned in the same sentence at least three times just on this page.”

Your eyes narrow, and you waste no more time in grabbing your gun from your coat pocket, and Valentina seems to have the same idea, the phone in her hands is now replaced with a much newer and nicer pistol than you’re carrying. It’s silent in the car for a few seconds, and the driver in the front dares not move a muscle. Val is the first to break, and she lowers her weapon with a shit-eating grin you’re growing tired of seeing.

“Let’s start over. You’re associated with an elite death squad assigned to defend the interests of a country that’s no more than a pile of rubble and dead memorial flowers on the ground. You never had an official invitation, but they paid you good enough money for you to get your hands dirty for them. Too bad that without a leader, your little syndicate fell apart, didn’t it? Unfortunate, what happened to him really. And how inconvenient it must have been for you- I’m sure the law doesn’t usually side with individuals associated with terrorists. Luckily for you, you had a five-year break from being on the run.”

The urge to fall back into old form and pull the trigger at the slightest sign of trouble starts to rear its ugly head, but you take a deep breath and try to align your focus to your current situation. This doesn’t have to be deadly. She knows your history, she knows your name. She could just be blackmailing you. Easy fix, offer her better information on individuals that are far, far away from you. You’re sure you can think of something juicy enough to entertain her and fray her interest in you. This doesn’t have to end in a gunshot. She has access to all of the shit you’ve done. You don’t know what she knows. She could be from the American government. Kill her, and lessen the risk of being thrown in a prison cell to rot.You’re desperate, and you’re scared, and it’s making you vulnerable. You take another deep breath in, and lower your gun.

“What do you want?” Valentina falls back into her seat, clearly very amused by the entire situation now that guns weren’t drawn.

“The Flag-Smashers are becoming increasingly difficult as they’re forming alliances with seemingly every gang of mercenaries for hire. The serum belongs in the hands of someone who knows what to do with it, don’t you think?”

This lady is clearly out of her mind, but you’re too far in now and you don’t feel like questioning her on her morals or the ethics of this situation.

“I don’t want any business with Morganthau, and I don’t care about super soldiers. If that’s all you need me for, you might as well find someone else.”

“Who said anything about you dealing with Flag-Smashers? No, for you,” she starts, grabbing the phone once more and resuming that annoying clicking as she searches through various links, “I have a slightly less… hazardous task. No killing involved, sadly. I’m sure your lovely skillset will keep until it’s needed, but you will be finding Zemo for me, where I can pay him far too much money so he’ll kill the Flag-Smashers for me.”

It’s your turn to laugh, now. “In case you haven’t heard, Helmut Zemo is rotting away in prison for the rest of his life. How is he going to be of any help to you?”

Valentina doesn’t bother giving you a verbal response, just shoves that damn phone in your face again. You glare at her before your eyes skim over the article. Breakout. Zemo. The Falcon. Prison. You curse internally, and she lets her arm fall back to her side. You realize you haven’t been paying too much attention to where the driver was taking you both until you feel the vehicle holt to a stop, and you look up to realize you’re in a parking garage, and the faint sounds of airplanes fly overhead.

“As of now, you and I are a two-man team, but this won’t be the case for long. Zemo is with Sam Wilson and James Barnes in a safehouse in Riga. You and I aren’t the only ones looking for him, however, which makes your job a little tricky, but I don’t have much faith in the guy assigned in returning him to Berlin.”

“Who is he?”

“I assume the name John Walker doesn’t need an explanation?”

You shake your head.

“Walker can be of use to us, and we’re gonna need him- just not yet. What I need from you at the current moment is to make sure you get to these coordinates,” the driver is suddenly handing you a slip of paper with numbers scribbled on it, and you take it, “before Walker gets Zemo.”

You inhale, and Valentina gives you a look.

“I assume you have a question?”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to get Walker on your side sooner? Maybe if you could say the right thing, persuade him to bring Zemo to us-"

Valentina cuts you off with a scoff. “What? That if we tell Captain America to hand over an international prisoner so we can extract information and hire him to kill for us he’ll do it? Walker wants one thing right now: he wants that serum. Coincidentally, your friend Zemo wants that serum gone. IF we get to him first, which you will, he’ll be more than happy to oblige. Walker is at a tipping point, but he’s not useful to us. Yet. We just have to wait until he's vulnerable.”

She takes your silence as an okay to continue. “Get to Latvia, find Zemo. Use that pretty face of yours to charm him into coming with you, maybe share some war stories around the campfire. I don’t give a damn how you get it done. Walker’s already halfway there by now.”

You are really starting to question how Valentina is getting her information, but before you can say anything else, she’s motioning for her driver to slide another piece of paper in your hand. Your eyes go wide at the numbers listed after a dollar sign.

“I assume this would be enough to cover your services?”

You look up at her, nodding your head slightly.

“Half now, half when you bring him to me,” she finishes, and the driver is unlocking your side of the car. “It looks like we’re in business then.”

#helmut zemo #helmut zemo x reader #baron zemo x reader #helmut zemo x you #fanfiction #complete disregard for canon #marvel #mcu #i wrote this when i should of been sleeping

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Goof Week: Sports Goofy in SoccerMania: GoofTales Woo-oo! (Paid For for WeirdKev27)

Gorsh all you happy people and welcome back to Goof Week, my Weeklong Celebration of everyone’s favorite goofus.

And today we have a special treat, something nice and obscure but something that still has a vital place in Disney History. Welcome folks to Sports Goof in Soccermania!

So yesterday in my Goof Troop review I wished there had been another DuckTales episode with Goofy, you know maybe find out what happened to Peg, see Max and Roxanne again that sort of thing. Whelp SOMEONE must’ve hid a Monkey’s Paw around here somewhere because I got this special instead on comision. This is a VERY intresting little artifact as it came out only 4 months before DuckTales, was produced around the same time, and was written by Tad Stones, who would both go on to work on DuckTales and even more importantly create Darkwing Duck.

Not only that but it has some odd things attached to it: it’s the first major production starting Scrooge, as he had an educational short about him, the first animated appearance of the Beagle Boys and most important the FIRST time Russi Taylor would voice Huey, Dewey and Louie, something she’d do till her passing a few years ago. At the time of this article she has not been recast, though I personally vote for Cristina Valenzuela, who took over the role of Young Donald and frankly does such a good job with that voice I didn’t know if Russi had already recorded lines for Season 3 before her passing.

So what IS Sports Goofy in Soccermania you ask? It was a TV Special from 1987, again four months before DuckTales, that was later sold on VHS. My guess is Disney intended for this to become a regular thing like the Charlie Brown or Garfield specials, but my honest guess is with DuckTales MASSIVE success they wanted to put all the TV Animation resources into making more shows to go with it. The fact the special is essentailly a Scrooge story with Goofy in it and Scrooge and the Boys were now tied up in DuckTales probably helped the decision. So we only got one of these and i’m proud to share it for Goof Week. So join me under the cut to see what a Sports Goof is, what Scrooge sounds like without Alan Young or David Tennant andto see me refrence the film UHF because I likes it.

So we open with the titles which are neat and then open at the Money bin, we even get a great sign gag that looks like something Carl Barks would write.

So Scrooge greets his nephews the way he greets everybody.. with a canon to the face... though he backs of firing once he realizes it’s them. The boys ALL wear red this special so .. I guess Huey won and now rules all three bodies with an iron fist? So the Huey Hive Mind asks Scrooge for a donation, a standard Scrooge setup, ask the rich asshole for money, as their trying to help the local soccer program and they need a buck fiddy for a trophy.

Scrooge’s voice here.. is terrible. I do not like to bash voice actors, they are hard working talented people who do a lot of great stuff, often for less pay than they deserve, and this blog ALWAYS makes that painfully clear. And Will Ryan is not without talent: While he hasn’t done much i’m familiar with he did play Petrie in Land Before Time and was great in it. So while I don’t dislike him as a person.. he did an utterly DREADFUL Scrooge. He dosen’t really attempt to do a scottish accent despite the character still saying cannae at one point, and as for what accent he is going for...

His Scrooge just sounds like someone trying to do a “foreign” accent and failing. It just sounds weird and makes every bit of his dialouge aside from one a chore to sit through. And the dialouge isn’t bad dialouge, it’s a well written and animated Scrooge even with the lower budget than Ducktales, but the voice just ruins it for me. Even without Young and Tennant to compare it to this just blows and the fact it’s paired up with the iconic Russi Taylor voice for the triplets.

This being Scrooge he instead fishes a Trophy out of the bin that’s all banged up and dinky and shoos them out. So in natural Barksian fashion the trophy turns out to be worth a million dollars. So we get some reaction shots.. INCLUDING GRANDMA DUCK!

For DuckTales fans joining us who have ZERO idea who that is, since she sadly did not make it into the reboot and Frank did have ideas, Grandma Duck is Donald, Della and Gladstone’s grandma. She’s a sweet old country woman who lives on a farm and is in fact the one who sold him Kilmotor HIll, with her husband renaming it from Killmule hill. I like her a lot since she reminds me of my own grandma and like her she still works when she can. Donald’s cousin Gus loafs around and eats as her farmhand. As you can tell I like her a lot, agani because she reminds me of one of my grandmas so this was nice even if she was only around for 20 seconds of screentime.

This ends up in the paper and sends Scrooge through the roof, literally when he finds out.

Two notes before we move on: The bin has a unique really cool design , though I get why other productions haven’t used it: besides this one’s obscurity while cool it just looks a bit TOO nice for Scrooge. Even in 2017 while still damn cool looking it still looks practicle. This .. is not that.

This looks like MC Hammer built this. It still looks awesome bu tit’s just not Scrooge sadly.

The other is that his Butler is named Jeeves here, but looks almost exactly like Duckworth. Just feels weird is all.

Naturally the Beagle Boys happen upon the paper too and their leader, no name given has a plan: Enter legitmately and win the cup all legal like, which dosen’t sound like it lives up to the beagle code of no hones twork.... until he brings up theri going ot cheat their asses off.

Meanwhile Scrooge tries bribing the boys with a giant trophy at their house... with Donald oddly absent despite Anselmo having taken over for Nash by this point. I know he was still a bit rough at the roll, but come on. It’s just.. weird especailly for reasons i’ll get into soon.

So Scrooge agrees to sponsor the boys teams so he can get the trophy back square, and is forced to buy a knew ball and here we FINALLY get Goofy. I say finally because this special is 20 mintues long and it takes almost a fourth of it for him to arrive. It’s just weird for him to not be in it for so long. I mean I don’t want THIS

Flashbeagle didn’t take a fourth of the special to get to Flashbeagle. It did take longer than that to get to the title track but when your sitting on THIS

youtube

You gotta use it JUST right. Goofy here is not played by Bill Farmer, which IS odd as he did start playing him that year, but my guess is they weren’t sure if they were going with Farmer or the actor who played him in this special, Tony Pope, so they were trying out both as whoever DID get the role would have it for life. Disney takes the casting of the sensational 7 VERY seriously, as evidenced by the fact most cast changes are caused by death and unlike with Tony and Donald it’s clear Colvig hadn’t picked a succesor. I can also see why it’s a hard choice: while farmer IS excellent and was the right man for the job, Pope is still excellent in the role, bringing the warmth and energy you’d expect from Goofy and having excellent comedic timing that’s vital to getting the dog man right. I can see why this was such a hard choice, even if I also see they went with Farmer: Farmer just has slightly more energy to the roll. It’s a small diffrence and something that dosen’t effect the special, but it is a KEY diffrence and the reason Bill’s THE goofy to me even over his original voice actor Pinto Colvig.

Also I may of mispoke there... see it’s not Goofy in this special it’s SPORTS Goofy. No really every bit of dialogue refers to him as Sports Goofy. It’d be like if they refered to then CEO Micheal Eisner as Won’t Think Through Eurodisneyland Micheal Eisner.

So Sports Goofy helps them get a ball in an honestly awesome way and shows despite his clumsy manner, he’s damn cordinated, easily putting everything up and showing some real skill with the ball. So Moneygrubbing Scrooge decides Sports Goofy is his ticket to get the trophy back and recuits goofy as coach and star player for the boys team.

So Asshole Scrooge meets his team the Greenbacks.. which are a bunch of random animal characters with no real personality. They are a hippo, a goat, expresso the ostrich, a navy (blue) seal, an elephant in a beanie, a killaroo and a cheetah or leopard. But I have one question, really simple really easy one...

You need 11 players for a soccer team, thank you google. So they DID get that accurate. With Goofy and the Triplets you only need 7 more. THIS is why Donald’s absence is glaring: he’s just oddly not there when they needed 7 other characters but Elephant in a Beanie gets in there. And it’s not hard ot fill either: Donald , Daisy (Because duh), Gyro and Grandma Duck (Because both cameoed but I only mentioned Grandma Duck, though this is ALSO Gyro’s first apperance), Gladstone (who as it turns out had a cameo storyboarded that didn’t make it into the final product), Gus (Since grandma duck) and Scrooge’s butler since he was in an earlier scene anyway so why waste the character model. They could still play the same roll as easily steamrolled underdogs and it’d make more sense. It just baffles me that with such a deep bench to play from, they don’t use ANY OF IT in favor of the cast of Animal Soccer World.

The Greenbacks can’t play for greenjack, which worries Scrooge.. but Goofy is able to carry them to the finals, while the Beagle Boys make their way there too. We find this out.. via newspaper transition. We get a bunch of headlines telling us what happened instead of you know a montage because that costs money and they already spent 1.50 making this special.. they only have 50 cents left.

So the Beagles recognizing Sport Goofy is the only thing in their way plots a kidnappin. We get a gut busting scene of the beagles all hiding in Sports Goofy’s house with him being oblvious only to spring on him.

The next day with Sports Goofy a no show the team is bummed, even mor ewhen they find a kidnapping note from Don’tGetNotToLeaveEvidence Beagle Boys. Seriously give that to the officals.

So Asshole Scrooge tries to give a rousing speech... and it is a sight to behold and the one highlight of pope as scrooge... it’s why I picked it as the article image. That glitching isn’t me by the way: it REALLY does that. Coupled with the yellow eyes i’ts just fantastic. So the team decides to morosely play the game and Hivemind Huey boos scrooge for not having faith in him. Instead of again you know telling the officials. Maybe assimilating the other made Huey dumber. I

So the game begins and the Cheating Beagles cream the Give Up To Easily Green Backs, while Sports Goofy watches from the other Crime Beagles hideout. It honestly reminds me of UHF: a dumb well meaning guy whose vital to something succeding is kidnapped.. it dosen’t involve Weird Al dressing up as rambo but still. It also makes me want UHF but with the disney cast. Fethry as weird al, Donald as his best friend, Fethry’s girlfriend for the comcis as weird al’s girlfriend, Gyro as philo, Goofy as Stanley, and Pete of course is Stacey Keach. I could go on but you get the point. Someone draw this. Sport Goofy is a clever bastard and escapes by working one of his shoes off, taking a nearbye knife and cutting himself free.. and almost stabbing a beagle boy in the face but that would just make two. Sport Goofy escapes and the lunkheaded beagle boys chase after him IN THEIR CAR WHILE GOOFY RUNS AHEAD OF IT. Goofy, he can really move! Goofy, he’s got attitude! Goofy HE’S THE FASTEST THING ALLIIIIVEEEEEE. Sport Goofy makes it in time fo rhalf time, rallies the troops and it goes how you’d expect: They overcome the beagles blatant cheating, win the cup, the beagles attempt to cheat with a rigged ball backfires and they all get arrested. It’s by the numbers stuff. We end with Scrooge deciding to dontate the trophy instead (though in a great bit asking if it was tax deductible), and posing for a team shot> We get some awesome credits music and we’re out

Final Thoughts:

This special is mediocre: There are only a handful of great jokes, it’s your standard “teamwork makes the dreamwork plot” that dosen’t work because our underdogs really CAN’T play without their star, and Scrooge’s voice hurts to listen to. Pope and Taylor are great and while Will Ryan is an awful Scrooge, he is a good Beagle Boy or five.

It IS worth a watch though. It’s riffable enough with the sometimes sloppy unfinished animatoin in the last part and Scrooge’s terrible voice, and it is still is a neat oddity for 90′s kids like myself to not only see Russi’s first thing as Huey Dewey and Louie, but to also see Scrooge and Goofy with vastly diffrent voice actors, as well as Gyro and the Beagle Boys first animated apperances. The fact this came just months before Ducktales makes it all the more intresting. So if your looking for a legit good Disney product.. this is shoddy at best if well meaning. But as a bit of disney history, especially only clocking in at 20 minutes so it’ sa brisk watch, it’s worth a look if your into that.

Next On Goof Week: We come on in To The House of Mouse where goofy becomes faster than a speeding punchline, more powerful than pete when his family has to wrestle him to the ground to take him to the doctor and able to make tall leaps of logic in a single bound. it’s SUPER GOOF!

So thank you for reading and if you liked this review give it a like and consider joining my patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet. As a patron you’d get access to exclusive reviews, the patreon’s discord and to pick a short each time I do one of these shortstaculars. Donald’s comnig next month and the deadline is in only a few days to join up for said month so the clock is ticking. Even a dollar a month helps me reach my stretch goals so please i fyou can sign up today and if not, I understand and i’ll see you at the next rainbow

#sports goof #soccermania #goofy goof #goof #scrooge mcduck #ducktales #huey duck #the beagle boys #gyro gearloose #grandma duck #animation #disney #soccer #football

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misskatebishop · 4 years ago

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Make my messes matter

Word count: 2090

Pairing: Steve x Tony

Warning: Hurt/Comfort.

Summary: Tony has a bad day at home and Steve comforts him.

Tony rests his head against the cold metal, holding tightly his bag against his chest. He closes his eyes while the music fills his surroundings. It’s almost midnight and he has nowhere to go. Nowhere to sleep. Tony feels the tears prick his eyes, biting his lower lip to not allow a sob to come out. He’ll not cry. Not anymore.

He didn’t do anything wrong, but Howard never believes him. Not surprising, though. Yet, being kicked out of the house wasn’t something he was expecting. Of course, he had plans to move out from his parents long ago, but he’d never put them in order. He hoped that he would have more time. More time to build and secure life for himself. A life where he wouldn’t need Howard’s money to survive. But at 18, life isn’t what anyone expects it to be.

It’s a funny and ironic story that he wanted to grow up when he was a kid, and now he wishes he was a kid again. He wishes he didn’t have to worry so much or feel so overwhelmed at such a young age. But he’s Tony Stark and people expect better of him. They expect too much when all Tony wants is to work on his own projects. He wasn’t ready to assume a high post in his father’s company. Not yet. There was so much he wanted to do.

So many places to go. So many things to see, to listen to, to touch, to know. He didn’t want to spend his life in an office, barking orders around, filing paperwork. He wanted so much more to himself. Of course, Howard couldn’t see it that way. He said he was tired of Tony’s excuses to assume his place in the world, he was tired of having supported him his entire life, just for Tony to refuse when he’s offered the post of director in the R&D department. In fact, he’s tired of Tony. He’s been tired of his son long ago. And Tony was tired of living from crumbs. Crumbs of love. That’s not what life is supposed to be.

After Maria’s death, things just got worse. Howard became a constant burden on his shoulders, always asking and demanding more of him. As if he could never be enough. As if Howard had fed him his entire life just to reap the fruits of his work now. As if Tony owes him an entire life and that he should be paying back now. Tony couldn’t see an exit to himself. He couldn’t see a light out of that. He felt like a bird constantly locked in a cage. Unable to sing his beauty. To become what he was born to: fly freely. Spreading beauty in the world.

But Howard could never understand the meaning of such simple words as no, or I’m not ready or give me more time. He crushed Tony into expectations that he may never be capable of achieving. It hurts. So after being hit, insulted, mocked, he was done, then Howard screamed for him to get the hell out of his house. His house, he emphasized. After all, Tony couldn’t be more than a mere tenant living under his father’s roof while he worked out his life.

Fuck.

He’s so fucked up.

The automatic voice sounds inside the train, letting him know that he will descend in the next station. Tony sighs, looking at the empty wagon. There is some freedom in it, to be able to walk away and don’t look back. To be able to follow his own path. But for an eighteen-year-old, unemployed, and who just had graduated, freedom is always frightening. There isn’t any expectation of life. What could he do? He’d had to work his way out of this. To start job-hunting, and conciliate it with his master’s degree, which he just had been admitted to. Scary. Terrifying. So lost.

No prospect of life. No home. Just a few banknotes and his credit cards in his wallet. A couple of clothes in his bag. Nothing to offer. Why would someone take pity on him? Why would someone take him in?

Tony tucks his headphones inside his bag, holding on a post as the rails brakes, the sound is almost comforting for the fact that tonight he has a destination in mind. Tomorrow, he will think about somewhere else. But for tonight, he prays that he can count on Steve.

For his misfortune, Howard chose to kick him out at the moment that his closest friends were far away. He didn’t know Rhodey’s location since he was on a mission for the Air Force, and Pepper was in Vancouver for the next three months. He had nowhere to go, but Steve’s.

Tony was afraid of how Steve would react when he knocked on his door at… Tony glances down at his phone, 12:41 a.m. He had hung out with Steve before, he could say that they were friends. Steve is a good friend, actually, but Tony feels more for him than he’s able to voice and since he had embarrassed Steve at a party weeks ago, when he vomited on his shoes after drinking too much, then told him he loved him in front of everyone since then Tony hasn’t answered his calls or texts until he finally stopped receiving them.

Fate is a bitch, though, and here he is asking for shelter for the very same man.

Tony strides through the streets of Brooklyn, he doesn’t know the neighborhood very well, but he knows where Steve’s building is. Tony gasps, rubbing his hands together to warm them up a little bit. It’s November, but the weather gets especially cold at night. He can see his breath whenever he exhales. Tony hurries up the stairs, getting breathless easily due to his heart condition. At least, he’d remembered to pack his medication, only enough for the next two months, though.

Because being homeless and unemployed is not enough in his list of failures, he also had to have a chronic illness.

Tony stops before the door with the number 13. He raises a fist, taking a deep breath. Steve must be sleeping, and he hates the fact that he is about to disturb him. Tony looks at the stairs again, thinking that he could wait there until morning, but Steve would be mad if he knew that Tony didn’t call him. Tony knocks hard. Harder than he should. Maybe, he should call Steve’s phone, although, after weeks without any news from him, it would look weird. It was already weird standing here in the middle of the night after confessing. Tony raises a fist again, wondering if Steve would really get up and check the door but before he could knock again, the door opens.

“Tony?” Steve frowns, staring at him. He rubs his beautiful eyes. Tony feels helpless, unable to acknowledge the emotions in his features, he can’t tell what Steve might be thinking just looking at his face.

“Steve, I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up, I-” Tony starts to say.

“You didn’t. I was watching a movie,” Steve says, looking at both sides of the corridor before stepping aside. “Come in.”

Tony does. Steve locks the door behind him, throwing the keys on the kitchen counter. His apartment is small, but it’s cozy and it serves Steve well. It feels warm inside here.

“What happened? Are you okay?” Steve takes Tony's bag from his shoulder, putting it on the couch. Tony sees a movie he doesn’t know playing on the TV and a blanket and cushions on the couch. “Are you hurt?” Steve’s blue eyes scan him from top to bottom.

“No. I-I am fine,” Tony assures him.

“C’mon here. You must be cold,” Steve goes to the kitchen, and Tony follows him timidly. “It’s still hot, I made it minutes ago.” Steve hands him a mug filled with hot chocolate. It smells so good and tastes incredible when Tony takes a sip. “Nothing better than hot chocolate to warm you up,” Steve smiles.

Tony agrees, adding in his mind that there’s nothing better than hot chocolate to push away the distress in his chest. Tony rubs his eyes, feeling them dry for the fact that he had cried earlier, and Steve must’ve noticed how red and swollen they are because he asks again:

“What happened, Tony?”

Tony ponders if he should tell the truth or just invent an excuse. He ends up with the truth because it’s Steve, and he hates lying to Steve.

“My father kicked me out. I have nowhere to go.”

Steve looks… He doesn’t know how Steve looks. Pitiful? Sad? Relieved? It’s hard to know. Steve is only three years older than him; they met in an art exposition months ago in the National Academy School of Fine Arts. Pepper is passionate about Arts, and she dragged Tony along that day. It was his lucky day that Steve was exposing his work there, they ended up talking and exchanging phone numbers. After that, Tony asked him out to a few parties, one of which embarrassed Steve in front of everyone. He couldn't forget about that. But nothing really happened between the two of them, except for some stares and slight brushing of hands.

“I’m sorry, Tony.”

“I don’t wanna bother you, but--”

“Of course you can stay, Tony,” Steve cuts him off, walking in his direction.

“Oh,” Tony lets out when Steve's big arms wrap around him, pulling him into a hug. “It feels nice.” Well, Tony didn’t have the intention to say it out loud. He steps back, breaking the hug. “I-I-” what?

“Yes, it felt nice, too,” Steve looks almost fond of him, but… Tony didn’t want to get attached. He couldn’t, what if Steve didn’t love him? Tony feels already loveless. He couldn’t bear the thought of being fed with crumbs again.

“Thanks,” Tony says, he passes through Steve to wash his now empty mug. “I really appreciate it. I didn’t think you would take me in after that party.”

Steve comes to his side, a frown on his face.

“What? Why?”

“I-I embarrassed you in front of everyone. I literally threw up on your shoes, then I--” Tony stutters nervously because he always feels nervous next to Steve. The blond always gives him butterflies in the stomach, he just can’t help it.

“Oh, no. Why,” Steve shakes his head, looking confused. “Why would you think that, Tony? You almost passed out. You leaned on me all the way back. Why would you think I was mad at you?”

“Why would you not?” Tony blurted out. “You took me to my house, and I--” Tony breathes deeply. “I thought I had embarrassed you in front of your friends, I made a scene, and I told you--” he stutters. “I-I didn’t want to make it weird to you. I understand if you--” Tony shakes his head, gulping. He couldn't help but frown when Steve laughed.

“I was more worried about you than embarrassed. Trust me, Tony. You didn’t call me to tell me you were okay the next morning. I was worried. You didn’t answer my calls either. I thought you had changed your mind about what you said,” Steve sounds… sorrowful.

Tony blinks. He really thought Steve was mad at him, he really thought… Did he really misunderstand it all? It wasn’t possible, right? Steve was just being his usual self, kind and nice. He couldn’t really...

“Wait, you…” Tony points to Steve.

“You didn’t embarrass me,” Steve shrugs. “I love you, too. I called to tell you that but you didn’t answer me.”

“I--”

Tony wraps his arms around Steve’s neck, tiptoeing to reach his lips, aware of Steve’s hands sliding to his waist to support him. Tony tastes the hot chocolate in Steve’s mouth, and it somehow suits him because Steve smells like home. Everything about Steve is cozy, lovely, and adorable. Tony feels a warmth flowing through his body, the feeling of safety invades him. He knows he can trust Steve, somehow, he knows, he wants to believe that Steve will not abandon him. Perhaps, that’s a love that he can let himself get attached to.

Steve breaks the kiss, still keeping Tony in his tight embrace.

Tony rests his head against Steve’s chest. “You can stay for as long as you need, Tony,” Steve kisses the top of his head. “It’ll be okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

#steve rogers #tony stark #stony #stony fic #stevetony #steve x tony #steve rogers x tony stark #marvel #marvel fic #mcu fanfiction #hurt/comfort

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vikingpoteto · 4 years ago

Text

middle children must unionize

read on ao3 ______________________

my contributior for @batfam-big-bang

Summary: Jason realizes no one is taking care of Tim - not even Tim himself. He decides to do something about it.

Notes: I can't stress enough how grateful I am for joining this event. First of all, stan the mods. Stan my beta reader team, @timmydrakewings, @stormleviosa and @sun-lit-roses. Stan my artist team @houser-of-stories, @reese-haleth and @anicomicqueen To all of these amazing talented people that, for whatever reason chose to help me with this story, I can't stress enough how grateful I am. ________________________

Jason doesn’t keep in touch with the Bats after Bruce’s gone.

Batwoman only trusts him as far as she can throw him. Dick is not easy to avoid, but Jason keeps their contact to a minimum nonetheless. Ninja girl doesn’t speak with him. Replacement… Well. Jason does have a weird professional relationship with the kid. As professional as you can get with someone you tried to kill. Barbara will probably never forgive him for making Dick cry so many times. Brat girl will probably never forgive him for trying to kill Replacement. The other one, whatever his name is, is low-key/high-key terrified of Jason. As for the gremlin... Well, he’s like 10? 11? Jason doesn’t hang out with children, not even assassin ones.

So yeah. Not on friendly terms with anyone in the Wayne family.

However he is an instigator at heart and, while whatever they’re doing in the Batcave is none of his business, he’ll be damned if he doesn’t finish one of his rare visits by stirring things up a bit.

Dick usually makes sure he doesn’t do anything too outrageous, but a distraction comes in the form of Gremlin, who shows up demanding to know why Dick is late for their training session or whatever. The brat sends Jason a scathing look but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge him. Dick only smiles patiently and waves Jason goodbye, leaving Replacement unsupervised. Before heading out, Jason approaches Replacement, who’s sitting by the batcomputer.

“So,” he starts. Jason notices when the kid flinches a little. Your regular guy wouldn’t, but Jason was once a bat too. “How does it feel to be replaced, Replacement?”

Replacement’s shoulders go stiff for half a second.

When he turns to face Jason, however, his expression is empty.

“Predictable,” he says.

Jason quirks an eyebrow up. “Meaning?”

“I was only a Robin because I was, how can I put this, a coworker?” Replacement turns his eyes back to the computer and starts typing. “It was a no-strings-attached sort of deal. Bound to end at some point.”

That’s… new.

“You’re legally adopted into the Wayne family,” Jason hears himself reminding him.

“Yeah, ain’t that a pickle,” Replacement laughs. “Can you guess who forced Bruce to do that? My money was on Dick, but now I think it was probably Babs or Alfred.”

Jason stares, unsure what to make of that. Before he decides, the kid stands up.

"I have always been a patch job, so being dismissed is to be expected. I'm just overstaying my welcome at this point."

“You can get dismissed? I thought this was an until-your-untimely-death sort of gig.”

That was not how Jason expected this conversation to go, like, at all. He had never seen Replacement looking so… worn out? Lifeless?

“I don’t know, man,” Tim frowns as though he made himself confused. “God, I’m sleepy. See you around, I guess.”

And Jason watches him leave the cave with his shoulders hunched and an empty stare. Dick and Gremlin are so preoccupied with their sparring session that they don’t seem to notice. Jason sticks around for a few more seconds, stunned, before he realizes what he’s doing. He goes home.

Jason can’t stop thinking about what the kid said.

It’s not that he didn’t think something of the sorts, especially when he was angriest at Bruce. He had thought about how Batman trained his children to be soldiers and, like soldiers, they could be easily replaced. After all, what was one more problem child joining their broken family? What’s another deadly brat being thrown at some creeps wearing literal clown costumes?

He did think of them as Bruce’s kids though.

Not that Batman had any expertise in healthy parenting techniques, but Jason didn’t have any healthy son experiences to compare so it didn’t matter much. They were Batkids for the better and mostly for the worse, and if something happened to them, well, the crusade must go on.

He never thought of Robin as someone that could be sent home out of the blue, like your average GC Pig. A disgrace to the family? Sure. See, kids, we don’t talk about cousin Jason. He got himself killed and came back all crooked. That’s what happens if you kill murderers or forget to brush your teeth. Still, the idea of being dismissed for no reason never occurred to Jason. It was absurd, because, as far as Jason knew, his replacement was the perfect little soldier. Why would he walk away?

Dick fought with Bruce. Jason… well. You know. Brat girl had to move cities or whatever? Or she died, but got better? Jason doesn’t really know anything about the chick. Either way, he knows she became Batgirl soon after. Tim, however, had nothing stopping him from staying masked. Why would Replacement talk about being Robin as if it was a summer job?

Does that mean that the wimpy kid Jason has been bullying was really that cold and detached?

He thinks about it until his head hurts and he starts remembering times with Bruce and Dick and Alfred and suddenly he doesn’t want to think about it anymore.

It’s a good thing Jason is good at compartmentalizing, because that’s what he does. He pushes thoughts of Batman and Robin to the depths of his mind and forgets about it.

He doesn’t find out until weeks later.

He’s not visiting the manor because he wants to. It’s just that there is this stupid encrypted information he needs for a case and he isn’t exactly tech savvy. He doesn’t think Barbara would do him a solid - she’s still ignoring him for… whatever. He doesn’t even know. Probably something about hurting Dick’s pwecious feewings or eating the last cookie Alfred made. Either way, Jason first tries contacting Replacement directly. Only when the kid doesn’t pick up he forces himself to go to the cult headquarters.

He needs that data, dammit, and whoever called programming logic, was out of their damn mind. If true, execute commands 1, 2 and IV, it said. If what was true? Jason read and read and still didn’t get what it was referring to. And why would someone name the commands regular numbers then just… throw a fucking roman number? Just to spice things up? Whoever wrote that damn code should get a bullet in the foot.

“Jay!” Dick grins at him, although he looks unamused by the fact that Jason is coming in through a window on the second floor. “You do remember that we have a door, don’t you?”

“I like to keep ‘em guessing,” Jason says. “Which room is the kid’s? I have a job for him.”

Dick tilts his head to the side, confused. “Damian is at school?”

And then there’s that. A lot to unpack. First, Jason is deeply offended that Dick thinks he would ever go there after Gremlin, the child that likes to criticize Jason's skills despite the fact that a) Jason was trained by Damian's father and then b)Jason was trained by Damian's mother. Second, Damian Wayne. Going to Gotham Academy. Does he wear the uniform? Does he have homework or does he threaten the teachers with a sword until they quit? Did anyone explain to him the concept of playing tag before he murders a bunch of 9 year olds? Jason has so many questions. If only he had time.

“I said the kid . The human one, not the imp.”

“Oh.” Dick seems taken aback. “Oh, he... Jason, Tim isn’t in Gotham. You didn’t know?”

Jason groans. “Are you kidding me? You annoyed him into leaving the planet with his alien friends again, didn’t you?”

“No, he… I actually don’t know where he is now.”

Jason blinks in surprise. So Dick didn’t pick Bruce’s habit of microchipping his kids?

“What do you mean you don’t know? How do you lose a whole Robin? The uniform is basically a traffic cone.”

Dick sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. Jason had seen Bruce do just that so many times he forgets for a moment whatever stupid joke he was about to make. When did his older brother become the dad?

“He left a while ago. He barely spent any time here at the manor after I gave Robin to Damian, so…”

Jason freezes. After I gave Robin to Damian, he says. Being dismissed is to be expected, the kid said weeks ago.

“Dick. What the fuck did you do?”

Dick looks surprised at the raw anger in Jason’s voice, even though he shouldn’t fucking be. Jason remembers the distant voice on that day. He did think that was oddly cold for Replacement, even if he was a calculating nerd. Except that wasn’t him being cold. That was him lying to himself.

Jason would know. He spent most of his childhood telling himself he didn’t need a loving father. A good part of his teenage years telling everyone that would hear that he didn’t care at all that Bruce kept holding him to the standards of the perfect son that went away. It’s a lot easier to pretend you didn’t care because it makes it hurt less when things are taken away. Jason was a fucking pro at that technique, so much he wonders how the hell he didn’t notice earlier.

“I did what I had to do,” Dick says, defensively. The way he does when he’s second guessing himself, but still in denial about it. “Tim’s a hero of his own right and he’s capable enough that…”

“That you fucking fired him?” Jason barks.

“Damian needs Robin, Jason! He’s just so lost and being Robin gave him a sense of purpose, allowed him to actually be a child.”

“No shit Gremlin is a child! What about Replacement? He’s, what, 15?”

“He’s 17, how do you not know your own brother’s age?”

“Whatever! He’s just a teen and you basically just told him to fuck off.”

Dick sighs. “Look, I tried to help Tim. Tim’s friends tried to help Tim. But he’s a mature person and he wanted some time for himself.”

Ain’t that a familiar song. A good dose of leave me the fuck alone while still wearing a goddamn bat on his chest and making sure to make enough noise to draw attention. He doesn’t like how close it hits to home, how Dick, who’s supposed to be the best of them, ends up being just as shit as recognizing emotions as any other Bat. Jason laughs without any humor.

Incensed, Dick’s jaw sets in challenge as he adds: “I trust Tim and I respected his choice to leave on his own mission, because he knows what’s right for him.”

“Keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night,” Jason says. “You’re right. Give the demon what he needs. Replacement is a grown ass adult because you respect him so much .”

“Jason, I didn’t say that…��

“He was never a kid here, Dick, even I know that. You all keep throwing shit at him, messes for him to fix ‘cause it’s fine, it’s little Timmy, he’s so fucking capable, he can take it. Have you ever considered that he was always an adult because you all are the fucking children?”

I have always been a patch job sounds awfully similar to I’m here because he got lonely after you left.

But apparently Dick is done exercising his brotherly patience and Jason hit a nerve.

“What do you know about him? You never bothered to talk to him, to spend time with him. You don’t know shit about Tim.”

Jason scoffs. Dick’s face grows unevenly red.

“You don’t, Jason! You were busy trying to kill him. Remember that bonding experience? Must have been fun for him. Having the hero he grew up admiring trying to murder him?”

Jason throws the first punch. Dick easily dodges, the motherfucker, the damn superior Robin.

Screw it, Jason thinks as they start yet another classic Robin Brawl that would only end when Ninja Girl mysteriously dropped from the ceiling and kicked both of their asses.

Jason doesn’t hear from the cave for a while. His phone gets a weird virus, so he guesses Oracle heard he pushed Dick down the stairs. He just tosses the whole thing away and decides that screw his stupid case with the weird code, screw detective work. The biggest detectives aren’t around anymore. He'll just call Kory and convince her to help torch the place up and hopefully the new Batman and Robin will have to deal with the aftermath.

The next time Jason hears from his brothers, it’s a frantic call from Dick that makes Jason’s blood turn into ice: freaking Ra’s Al Ghul is in Gotham doing his whole Head of the Demon thing. He grabs his bike and he’s still on the comms with Dick as he heads to the manor because Alfred is in there.

“What did Gremlin do?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Dick answers and Jason can barely hear him over the wind. He’s probably swinging around Gotham as he speaks. “It was Tim. Tim’s back and Ra’s is after him and everyone he cares about.”

Fuck. This is the kid Dick trusted to go out alone on a self-discovery journey or whatever. Jason wonders what the hell he had been up to get that much unwanted attention.

In the end, everything works out, kind of. No one on their side dies, but Tim does get thrown out of a window. Of a very, very, veeery tall building. Jason still thinks he got off too easy. As smart as he is, Tim shouldn’t have survived a run in with Ra’s.

Jason is curious enough about it to stay in the cave after the fact. He and Dick sit near Tim’s bed while Leslie works her magic. Dick doesn’t take his eyes from his little brother’s pale face for even a second.

“We almost lost him,” he whispers at some point. “Again, we… I almost lost him.”

“But you didn’t,” Jason says, voice flat. “You saved him.”

Dick bites his lower lip hard enough to break the skin. Jason punches his shoulder to snap him out of it.

“Jay, about last time…”

“Ugh, don’t apologize, you freak. Why can’t you just bottle up your emotions and pretend nothing happened like the rest of this stupid family?”

That makes Dick give him a weak smile. If not for the bottling up part, for the part in which Jason admits they’re a family.

“You were… well, not right. I still think Tim shouldn’t be treated like a sidekick anymore,” Dick continues, despite Jason’s disgusted noises. “But he shouldn’t be left alone either. No one in this family should.”

Jason pretends to be gagging long enough that Dick gives up on trying to be a sensible adult and returns to silently watching over his brother.

After that, it’s a matter of stalling and by stalling he ends up watching the other Bats. He finds from Alfred that Ninja Girl isn’t looming over Tim’s bed because she’s in Hong Kong. Brat girl comes and goes the whole night and Jason doesn’t understand why she can’t simply sit down and wait as a pile of nerves like Dick is doing. At some point, she reads the morning newspaper and starts making so much fuss the one Jason doesn’t know the name - Dave? Dylan? - takes her upstairs to calm her down. Damian is nowhere to be found

In the end, Jason manages to be there when Replacement wakes up. Everyone is busy celebrating, too elated that Replacement is fine, so much they forget Jason is still lurking around. No one sees when his face goes pale and he feels like he’s going to puke.

“How did you know I was going to catch you?” Dick asks.

Tim gives him a tired smile. “You’re my brother, Dick. I knew you’d save me.”

Fuck.

Fuck. It’s like looking into a goddamn mirror, except Tim is so much better at this than Jason ever was. So much that he might even be fooling himself.

But he can’t fool Jason. Dick wants to believe in the best of them, he wants them all to be sane and safe and happy - as much as a Bat can be, at least - but Jason is more of a realist. He knows no one can plan that far ahead. He knows Tim went to a meeting with the Head of the Demon fully aware that he would most likely be carried out in a coffin. Considering Dick’s misstep from a couple months earlier and the fact that Tim had already assigned him and Damian a task, Batman was the last person Tim was expecting to show up.

Of course Dick would save him, any of them. Despite his issues with Bruce, Jason had his hero worship towards his brother restored pretty fast. Dick, the golden boy, the perfect son, loved him no matter what and Jason loved him back. Knew now that Dick had love enough to go around for all of them - all of them. But did Tim know that?

Tim finished his little mission, wrapped it all pretty with a bow, making sure no one kicked the bucket. Except for himself. Timothy Drake-Wayne was the contingency plan for Batman’s contingency plan, but he didn’t care enough to make a plan for himself.

Bruce is gone. Dick is painfully blind. The Drakes are dead. Alfred has his hands full. The Behemoths or the Little League, or whatever the hell the super kids call themselves now, were just that. Kids. Jason curses to himself, because, if no one else will watch out for Replacement, it’s none of his fucking business.

It’s not.

However…

Jason doesn’t know how to put his not-plan in action. He can’t exactly walk up to Tim and say hey, I think we’re not so different, you and I, so I’m worried for your safety. I know I tried to kill you, but that like... two years ago, get over it. Let’s be friends.

Before he figures it out, he hears that Bruce is back. The real Bruce.

He doesn’t know how to feel about it, so he decides to put some distance between him and the family one more time as he takes some weeks to process. He goes out of town to hang out with his friends. He is done with Gotham bullshit for a while.

Unfortunately, Jason finds himself facing his worst enemy: the damn encrypted data.

He hates that dealers now do their thing through the internet. Who the fuck buys marijuana online? Where is the poetry in that? The class of being friends with the sketchy guy that lives around the corner and hangs out with you while you smoke? If they’re gonna sell oregano online to rich white kids, fine, but they’re selling heavy stuff to people that live in his territory and there is a thing bigger than just drugs, if Jason’s hunch is right. He could confirm it by cracking the numbers he stole from their stupidly unguarded computers.

Except the encryption is too complicated for him to access the files.

Well, isn’t that the perfect excuse to take a visit to the kid’s apartment.

Because that is the situation right now. The kid is emancipated, controlling Wayne Enterprises and living by his damn self. There is so much to unpack that Jason wants to throw away the whole suitcase.

He should probably do just that, or at least that’s what he thinks when he climbs to Tim’s balcony (in his head, he hears Dick’s voice going what do you hate about front doors, man?) and he is immediately pushed to the ground.

He is wearing his helmet, sure, but it doesn’t make it less painful when someone fucking stomps on his head, forcing his face against the floor.

“Fuck,” is all Jason thinks of saying.

He then kicks his assailant in the shin and is satisfied when they tumble backwards. Unfortunately for him, they - she - doesn’t fall over the railing, she just stays away long enough to give him time to stand.

A bald girl wearing a distasteful crop top glares daggers at him. She is already back on her fighting stance - one that looks way too familiar for Jason’s taste - ready to strike. And strike she does.

Her movements are similar to Jason’s - fast, strong, unpredictable, unfair - but she has the advantage of being more slender and having more freedom of movement in the small space. All Jason can do is defend himself and not get tossed over the edge. Who the fuck is this girl? Why is she attacking him? Doesn’t she know he is the freaking Red Hood? He just wanted the damn-

“What on Earth are you guys doing on my balcony?”

The girl freezes. Jason does not. He lands a punch straight on her nose and she falls backwards, her mouth opening in pain even if no sound comes out.

“What the hell, Hood!”

Tim rushes to the girl’s side.

“What the hell Hood?” Jason parrots, indignant. “I just got here and she attacked me!”

Tim frowns and turns to the girl. “Is that true?”

Instead of answering, the girl holds her bloody nose and glares at him. She uses her free hand to show Tim four fingers. Tim sighs.

“I know it’s the fourth time you’ve had your nose broken,” Tim gives her a wry smile. “But the three other times you had it coming. And maybe even this time. Why did you attack Red Hood?”

She makes the gesture of someone walking with two fingers then points at Tim’s balcony door. Jason doesn’t know a lot of ASL, but those don’t seem to be the same signs Cassandra uses.

“She attacked me because she thought I was trying to break in?” He asks. “You have a bodyguard now?”

Tim stands and holds out his hand to the girl. She begrudgingly takes it and lets him pull her to her feet. “Why don’t we all go inside before someone notices the Red Hood on my balcony?”

Jason grumbles in annoyance but does make his way in. Tim is right behind him and Jason can’t help but think he’s acting as a shield in case the girl wants revenge for her nose.

“Come here, Pru, I’ll get something cold for your nose.”

Jason takes a look around. As they cross the living room, he notices it looks like a shiny rich person apartment you’d see in a magazine. Jason wasn’t sure what he expected of Tim’s new crib, and he knows the kid just moved in, but the fact that the place looks like a hospital’s reception makes him feel some sort of way.

Fortunately, the kitchen is a bit better. Not much, but it’s something. There are papers spread across the table, dirty glasses in the sink, a mug full of black steaming tea, Tim’s laptop open on top of a pile of books, and there are pictures on the fridge. Jason remembers vaguely Dick mentioning that one of the kids had a thing for photography and another liked drawing. He has to assume Tim is the photographer as he takes a good look at them: one of Brat girl’s grinning face with a big heart magnet, one of Tim and Cassandra sharing the same reading chair, one of Bruce in one of those fancy sweaters he used to wear at home, one of Dick and Cassandra doing handstands, one of a red head kid, behind him Tim, a muscular girl and an even more muscular guy. Jason doesn’t need to be a detective to figure those, even without the uniforms, are Impulse, Wonder Girl and Superboy.

“So,” Tim starts. He hands the girl a pack of frozen peas and shrugs at her dirty look. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Without ceremony, the girl takes a seat by the table and tries to steal a glance at Tim’s laptop. He casually closes it and smiles at her. She scoffs.

“First, you explain the bodyguard,” Jason says, gesturing to the girl.

“Right. Where are my manners? Pru, this is Red Hood. Hood, this is Prudence.”

He doesn’t turn to her so she can read his lips or use gestures to speak, so Jason figures she isn’t deaf, only mute. Maybe it’s something like Cassandra?

“Really? Prudence? That’s ironic. ”

She shows Jason her middle finger. Definitely not deaf then.

Unlike Prudence, Jason doesn’t make himself at home. When he crosses his arms and doesn’t say anything for a minute more, Tim reads his silence correctly and adds, “We’re working together for a while and there are a lot of people that want us dead, so you’ll have to forgive her. She saw a suspicious guy trying to get into my place and she assumed the worst.”

Jason quirks an eyebrow. Tim can’t see his expression behind the helmet, but he sighs nonetheless.

“Come on. She couldn’t know I sometimes work with the Red Hood too.”

I sometimes work with. Ouch. Jason supposes that’s fair, though. Tim hasn’t exactly been informed of Jason’s newfound empathy or his protective streak.

“How did you know where I live, by the way?” Tim asks.

“Alfred told me you moved,” Jason says. “I got your address from Cassandra.”

Tim’s brows disappear under his messy fringe. “Really?”

Jason nods. “Took a lot of convincing before she believed I didn’t want to kill you in your sleep.”

At that, Tim snorts. He’s still grinning when he asks, “What did you want it for then?”

“Tech support,” he says as he fishes a small flash drive from his pocket. “I was hoping you could crack some files for me.”

Tim takes it and nods. “I’ll check it out. I’ll send the results to you as soon as I have them. Anything else?”

Again… ouch. Apparently imprudent girl is welcome to kick back and hang out, but Jason is just a fellow associate that came to hand in an assignment and promptly piss off.

Then Jason realizes that that was exactly what their relationship was like before Tim went around the world to fight Ra’s al Ghul. Damn.

Well. It’s not like he can take off his helmet and stick around when there is a stranger in there, especially when Tim carefully introduced him as the Red Hood instead of good ol’ Jason Todd. He just wanted to check on the kid and he did. No need to get all clingy. That’s Dick’s thing, not his.

It isn’t until much later that Jason realizes how pointless the visit was. He wanted to see if the kid was okay. He suspected he wasn’t, but it wasn’t like he had any idea of what to do about it.

Lucky for him, Tim looked a lot better than last time. Less dead eyed, more like he has some sort of purpose. The fact that Dick is included in his little photo collection must mean they made amends. Whether it was because Jason’s whooping Dick’s ass or in spite of it he’ll never know. Based on what he knows about Tim, the kid might have just worked everything out by himself and forgiven Dick on his own terms.

Despite his decision to take care of Tim from then on, Jason is definitely not great at it. He doesn't think he lost the rights to admonish Dick for not talking to his brother. The fact is Jason isn't great with words. He wants to help Tim through actions.

Still the question remains: how?

(And Tim emails him the files he needed 8 hours later and Jason worries that the kid didn’t sleep, which… great. This is just great.)

Less than two nights later, someone gets into Jason's frequency. He's about to head out for patrol when a creaking sound inside his helmet precedes a familiar voice slightly twisted by static.

"Red Hood, this is Red Robin. Do you copy?"

Right. He goes by Red Robin now.

"What you want, rep… kid?" Jason inwardly winces at his misstep.

There is a moment of confused silence before Tim mercifully decides not to ask what that was. "I'm pursuing a lead in your territory."

Jason hums. "What's it? I'll handle it."

"No!" Tim says too fast. "I mean… it's my case. I just thought you could take the night off? Please?"

This is supposed to be the smart Robin, right? He does know that Jason isn’t a complete moron, right?

“What’s in it for me?” Jason asks.

If this was Damian, he’d get a colorful death threat. If this was Dick, a winded speech on how brothers are supposed to have each other’s backs and he's just asking for a tiny favor, Jason, don’t make me make my ex-girlfriend hack into your phone and block Netflix again. Tim, however, knows that everything has a price and has an answer ready.

“You owe me for those files I decoded for you.”

Straight to the point. No bullshit. Jason is starting to really like this kid.

“Fair enough. You go follow your lead and I won’t murder you for being in my territory.”

“Always a pleasure doing business with you, Hood.”

Jason didn’t say anything about taking the night off, though.

Jason knows that, if he was working alone, Tim wouldn’t ask for permission. He would let himself in and out of Jason's territory assuming Jason wouldn’t even notice - he’d done it before as Robin, and Jason did notice but pretended not to. He can’t track Red Robin as easily, but the fact that he doesn’t want Red Hood around means there is something or someone he can’t control tagging along… and who’s the one person even Tim Drake can never control?

“Brat girl,” Jason mutters to himself, a cocky grin spreading on his face. One of his informants just confirmed he saw Batgirl driving whatever the fuck that is that capsule vehicle into an empty building just south of Jason’s place.

Oracle is probably out of town again, otherwise she wouldn’t allow her precious not-daughter to be messing around with Tim in Jason’s territory. But then, if most of the rumors are correct, even Barbara can’t quite control the new Batgirl.

He wonders what the duo are up to as he lets himself into the abandoned place through a hole in the ceiling. Red Hood walks on the rafters in the dark until he can hear familiar voices. He stops on his tracks when he notices that Red Robin and Batgirl aren’t alone. Wonder Girl and Impulse stick out like bright red sore thumbs against Gotham’s darkness.

Red Hood hears enough to know they’re planning on saving someone - one of Impulse’s friends? - from a local group connected to Black Mask. Their plan is solid, but it’s hardly a task herculean enough to warrant the presence of a speedster and an amazon. Red Robin makes it sound like it’s absolutely necessary nonetheless, assigning each of them a role that fits their powers and going over every little detail. It’s the first time Hood sees the kid in a position of leadership and he thinks it suits him. He seems extremely at ease.

Actually… that’s not quite it. He’s not as wary of the world as he is when he’s with the Batfamily. Not Batman’s perfect mini-detective, not Nightwing’s model little brother, not WE CEO. He’s still very much a hero, a Robin, but it’s possible to see he’s seventeen under the cowl. Even his posture changes, his shoulders relax and he allows himself to be… God, himself. That must be the first time Jason sees Tim completely in his element, no tension, no (metaphorical) masks.

Real Red Robin stays close to his friends. Very close. Hell, Impulse is almost sitting on his lap, his arm firmly wrapped around Red Robin’s waist as he points at some sort of map his wrist pad is showing. Batgirl is clinging to his other side, her chin resting on his shoulder using the excuse to see better what he’s showing. Hadn’t those two broken up?

Then Red Robin says something so softly not even Hood picks up. The other three teens get tense. Impulse nods and disappears in a gust of wind as his friends wait in silence.

Half a second later, something hits Hood’s back at a very alarming speed because of course Red Robin noticed someone listening and sent his speedster friend to get him. He curses while he falls, barely managing to roll fast enough to avoid serious knee damage when he lands.

“Jason!” Red Robin whines not unlike an embarrassed child crying out mom, not in front of my friends!

“Maybe check who’s spying on you before sending a child bullet careening into their back, will ya?” Jason complains.

Wonder Girl frowns. “Is that…”

“The Red Hood,” Batgirl confirms in a flat voice. “Yup.”

“Isn’t he a criminal?” Impulse asks, genuine curiosity in his voice.

A facepalming Red Robin groans. “He doesn’t do crime anymore.” Under Batgirl’s skeptical glare, he corrects, “He doesn’t do bad crimes anymore. What are you doing here, Hood? You said you were taking the night off!”

“I said I wouldn’t shoot you for being in my territory,” Hood corrects. “But I didn’t say anything about your super friends, because I didn’t think you’d be breaking so many rules in so little time. Really? Bringing metas to Gotham?”

Red Robin simply shrugs. “What Batman can’t see doesn’t hurt him.”

Batgirl snickers and Hood grins a little under his helmet.

“Little Timmy,” he gasps, resting his hand on his chest in mock shock.

“Shut up, why are you here?”

“What, you can’t tell me there is a case and expect me not to follow up.”

The other three kids look from Red Hood to Red Robin. It’s obvious that whatever Tim’s verdict is, they’re going to accept it. Even Stephanie. And she knows Jason (sort of).

“Fine,” Red Robin groans. “But no shooting anyone.”

“No promises.”

Wonder Girl and Impulse are obviously wondering whether they’re joking or not. Knowing they’re completely serious, Batgirl makes a face and pokes Red Robin’s cheek. He frowns at her and the two of them seem to have a conversation consisting of weird mouths and head shakes for a moment. Jason would know. He and Dick used to do that all the time. Finally, whatever face Red Robin is making convinces her and she lets out a defeated sigh.

“Well then, ladies,” Batgirl deadpans, “let’s get this bread.”

Despite Dick’s best efforts, Jason never quite fit in with the Titans. With Tim and Stephanie, however, he can work.

Breaking into one of Black Mask’s hideouts is a piece of cake, if not outright fun. He has to hand it to Stephanie. She is not as cunning as Barbara or as deadly as Cassandra, but the girl can blow up a marijuana deposit like no one else.

Sure, the smoke makes them at least 30% high—all of them except Impulse, whose metabolism won’t let him get intoxicated, to which… Just R.I.P. you funky little man, Jason really feels for him.

Even with the little diversion, there were still plenty of crooks to fight. Wonder Girl takes care of most of them on her own— amazons, man —and soon enough Impulse comes running, carrying a dark-skinned boy wearing power-dampening cuffs who keeps yelling at them in Spanish. At that, Red Robin announces they’re retreating.

Tim looks a lot more comfortable with his peers than he is with the Bats. Part of Jason wonders if he could’ve been like that. If he would have ended up differently if he had actually stayed with the Titans and made friends like Tim had. He tells himself not to go down that path, because he is who he is, he certainly doesn’t make friends in that teen sitcom way and you can’t change the past.

He is genuinely glad that Tim has those friends, though. He’s glad that he can feel that way despite the hint of jealousy.

As they leave a ruined hideout behind, Wonder Girl and Impulse are drowning Red Robin in hugs and cheering so loud one would forget they’re still in Gotham. Their friend laughs with them even with the stress of being so rambunctiously rescued. Batgirl slaps her arm around Hood’s shoulder and admires the Titans being loud as if congratulating themselves on the job done.

If all of them— all of them—are still smiling themselves silly as they leave, it’s only 50% because of the marijuana.

Jason quickly learns that Tim doesn’t like owing people. When Jason asked Tim to crack some encrypted documents, he just needed the damn files. He didn’t expect the kid to show up to tear down the place when Jason decided he had enough reason to dismantle the operation.

“What, you can’t tell me there is a case and expect me not to follow up,” Red Robin quips as he nudges a goon with his foot. The man groans, but doesn’t get up. Seemingly satisfied, Red Robin crouches down and starts cuffing the man to another by his side.

“Remind me to never ask for your help again,” Red Hood says.

Red Robin glowers. “I saved your ass from getting stabbed about three times.”

“I shot the kneecaps of four guys trying to murder you, so don’t expect me to thank you.”

They hear sirens. Red Robin stands. “Well, guess our job here is done.”

Hood nods. It’s been a while since he fought side by side with a fellow Bat, just him and another Robin and... it was nice. Roy and Kori are great partners and all, but they don’t have the same training a Robin does. They don’t get the specific maneuvers and the subtle secret signs. The fact that it had been so fun fighting side by side with Red Robin makes Jason feel like his not-plan of taking care of the kid was finally going somewhere.

Then Red Robin stretches his arm to grapple his way out of there and gasps.

“Red?”

“Uh…” He is now pressing his hand to his side.

“Is… is that blood?”

“Uhhhh…”

“Did you get stabbed and didn’t notice, you freaking idiot?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he groans, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes over the cowl. “Why me?”

Red Hood sighs. “Relax, kid, it doesn’t look that deep.”

“I’m gonna have to call Batman,” Red Robin whines. “A’s gonna kill me.”

“Over a tiny stab wound? Don’t be a pussy, I’m sure you can stitch that yourself.”

“The stitches aren’t the problem, it’s just the medicine…” Red Robin says, making vague hand gestures. “I have no spleen.”

And then there’s that.

“I’m sorry. You what?”

Red Robin pulls a guilty face visible even under the cowl. Jason wouldn’t blame Alfred for killing him. He has no spleen and he just… decided it was a good idea to bring a staff to a gunfight at one of the grimiest places of Gotham.

Tim Drake-Wayne, everyone, smartest Robin to date.

Jason, however, decides not to kill Tim for his stupidity. He recognizes that particular frown. It’s the I-messed-up-and-I-don’t-want-dad-to-find-out face.

The GCPD sirens are getting closer.

“I’ve got a big collection of antibiotics back at one of my safehouses,” he mentions casually. “I could patch you up so A doesn’t have to.”

Tim’s wide eyes are evident. Jason wonders if this is him being able to read the kid too well or if Tim straight up sucks at hiding his emotions. It’s probably a bit of both.

“You know. As thanks for helping me.”

“I thought you wouldn’t thank me.”

“Don’t push it, kid.”

By now, they can see the red and blue police lights.

“Lead the way.”

He rolls his eyes and drags the kid to his bike. He really hopes the pigs didn’t see them, because it’s bad enough that a hero showed up to Red Hood’s bust, he doesn’t need any cops thinking that he kidnapped Red Robin or any shit like that.

“Are we going to the one behind the new theater or the one around crime alley?” Tim casually asks.

Jason freezes halfway through mounting his bike. “How the fuck do you know about those?”

“I know the location of all of your safehouses,” Tim admits.

“Batman knows about my safehouses?”

Tim quirks an eyebrow. “Last time I checked, I’m not Batman.”

...oh.

That’s… nice. Kind of. A confirmation that he can trust the kid to have his back.

“Smug nerd,” Jason mumbles.

Tim only chuckles in response. They set off to Jason’s place.

The rest of the night is peaceful. At least for a Bat’s standards. Jason helps Tim disinfect his wound and stitch it closed while Tim raids Jason’s medicine stash until he finds the ones he needs. Jason promises to hook him up with his supplier so he doesn’t have to rely so much on the cave. By the time they’re done, Tim’s lips are permanently curled upwards.

When he starts shuffling awkwardly as if looking for a way to say goodbye, Jason nonchalantly announces where he can find clean towels and clothes, as if this is a thing they do everyday. Tim seems baffled, but thankfully he doesn’t call Jason’s bullshit and obediently heads to the bathroom. By the time he’s done, Jason is fixing a meal for the two of them and some stupid movie is on TV—never the news, god, Jason hates watching the news.

Like a skittish stray, Tim is unsure of what to do with himself at first, but he catches the cue fast enough. He sits on the couch all stiff and restless until something on the screen grabs his attention.

“You like Wendy the Werewolf Stalker?” Tim asks, eyes wide.

“Do I like fucking what?”

Jason just needed the background noise to avoid freaking out about how weird he’s being right now. Apparently, that was the wrong answer. Tim launches a rant on how amazing Wendy is and half of it goes over Jason’s head. He just gets that apparently Tim and Superboy both have a crush on this werewolf hunting chick and they used to spend hours watching her instead of doing actual work at Titans Tower.

He also manages to actually eat the food Jason made, which is a win in Jason’s book.

It’s a nice night, overall.

It becomes, not a habit, but a thing. Tim sometimes shows up to one of Jason’s safehouses needing a stitch job or medicine. Jason doesn’t know how he nails which one Jason is at currently or if he just goes to every single one still bleeding until he finds Jason. Or even if he just lets himself in and takes care of his wounds without any help. If so, Jason wouldn’t blame him. He’d choose his crappy hideouts over Tim’s soulless apartment any day.

On the third time it happens, Tim isn’t hurt at all. He just wants to bitch about Vicki Vale stalking him and his supposed ex-fiancée that he's actually trying to date. Jason feeds him real food, as usual, and listens to what he has to say, as unusual. They end up on the couch watching A Nightmare on Elm Street, which, oddly enough, has Tim getting overly enthusiastic about going to bed because he’s curious about the magic behind Freddy Krueger. Jason tells him to let him know if any dream demons show up when he leaves Tim dozing off on the couch.

Tim starts texting Jason. At first, it’s all very professional. Messages like 1 of the stupid crooks in your territory almost killed robin yesterday do smth abt it followed by I don’t care that he’s a demon in a kevlar vest Hood you didn’t have to deal with nightwing crying afterwards!!! Then they slowly shift into something more casual on the lines of is dis u? An d attached a picture of Elizabeth Bennet wearing the red Power Ranger helmet which… What sort of context led to that meme being created?

Jason pretends not to care, but he preens with pride when Tim laughs at his dark jokes. Stupid gallows humor that would have made Bruce call an expensive therapist and Dick squirm in discomfort have the kid snorting coffee out of his nose.

It’s like they’re friends.

Part of him sometimes toys with the idea of them being normal kids —or as normal as you can be in Gotham—and he realizes that he would’ve made friends with Tim so fucking fast. Dick is the golden child and all of them would end up worshiping him and respecting him as their older brother, of course. Tim would be added to their family and Jason, not-murdered, regular problem-child Jason, would resist him at first, but he would soon see that he wasn't just an annoying nerd. He was a fun, annoying nerd. They would gang up on Dick, as younger brothers ought to do, and Jason would protect Tim from bullies and Tim would use his good son credit to get Jason out of trouble with Bruce.

This, however, may be as good as it gets for people with their fucked up upbringing. Jason already knew Tim wasn’t your regular spoiled rich boy and they bond over having shit childhoods even if they don’t talk about it.

All in all it feels nice to be looked up to. To have the kid come to him when he’s in trouble. To have someone looking at him with a shine in his eyes like the one Jason has when he looks at Dick. It makes Jason feel like he’s worth something. He sees Tim get comfortable with him after weeks of acting like a stray cat and he knows the kid feels the same. It’s a new feeling for both of them.

It’s like they’re really brothers.

Being part of the Red Robin fan club, Jason finds out, gives him good credit with the Bats.

Bruce and Dick are always going to be concerned about Jason’s slightly loose moral compass. Gremlin is always going to hate him because he’s a Gremlin. Barbara tolerates him at best.

Stephanie, however, shows up unannounced to one of Red Hood’s busts and laughs it off when he complains about Batgirl ruining his rep. She then invites Jason to watch a movie with her since they finished early. He thinks that’d be very weird, so he refuses. Unbothered, she says an airy “Maybe next time” before leaving.

He thinks a shadow once told him to come by the manor more often, almost giving him a heart attack. He thought Cassandra was in Hong Kong, for fuck’s sake; when did she come back?

One time he texts Tim for tech support and no one but the Signal shows up at Jason’s doorstep with a codebreaker and a list of instructions from Red Robin. Duke doesn’t look as wary of Jason as he once was and the two quickly fall into friendly banter, complaining about Tim’s nerdiness.

Jason knows if he asked Steph about it, he would never hear the end of it. Cass isn’t the easiest person to hold a conversation with. He guesses Duke is decent enough not to dwell on it, so he asks,

“Why are y’all suddenly okay with me?”

Duke quirks an eyebrow at him. Fortunately, he’s smart enough that Jason doesn’t need to explain further. “Tim trusts you,” he says simply. “Tim is the holder of the one brain cell of this family, so long we follow his cues, we’re golden.”

Jason doesn’t know what to say to that.

“Why, you don’t want us around?”

He mumbles something about it not being a big deal. Duke shrugs it off and changes the subject. Jason knows he’s doing it for his sake, because Duke might be the kindest person in their whole messed up family. Jason feels bad for refusing to learn his name for so long.

So it seems like two-thirds of the Batgirls and Signal were always less worried about Jason’s past than they were about his rivalry with Robin III.

And, fine, Jason does get a little jealous of that but he’s mature-ish enough to take what he can get. Plus Stephanie is funny as shit and it’s always fun to annoy Barbara by getting Batgirl involved in his fights, especially when Red Robin is around to back him up.

Everything is sort of nice now.

Sometimes, however, Jason wakes up in a cold sweat with the taste of copper in his mouth and a nightmare gunshot still ringing in his ears. He tried to kill Tim. He could’ve killed his little brother. He’s thankful for the times the nightmares come when Tim is sleeping over, because he can walk to the living room and check on the kid. Remind himself that Tim is alive and breathing under the old blankets and that he’s forgiven Jason. When he isn’t around, Jason is absolutely not above calling him in the middle of the night, making up a stupid case he needs Tim’s help with. For all his smarts, Tim never seems to realize Jason’s true motives.

Now that he thinks about it, he notices that Tim is on good terms with a lot of people that tried to kill him. Jason. Damian. That Prudence girl. He doesn’t find out the details, but he does hear something about Stephanie fucking him up and she’s now his best friend. Jason is more than a little concerned about that forgiving side of his.

Red Hood hates a lot of things. If he were to make a list, it’d take days to write it all down. He knows for sure that on the top of that list would be clowns. There is nothing he hates more than clowns.

Scarecrows are a close second, though.

Definitely close to a tie as he watches Red Robin stumble. “I think…” he mutters. “I think my rebreather is broken.”

“ Shit.”

Red Hood has to think fast. Fear gas is every-fucking-where and he lost sight of Scarecrow three canon-fodder crooks ago. He doesn’t have an extra rebreather, because he’s wearing his helmet and that does the job. He’s used to fighting alone. Not that having another rebreather would do them any good now that Red Robin has already breathed the nasty toxins.

In the end, Hood decides to take the defeat for what it is: a defeat. He throws a smoke bomb on the ground and grabs Red Robin by the waist, ignoring the startled squeak the boy lets out. They need to get out before Scarecrow’s goons realize what they’re doing.

“Stay with me,” Red Hood hisses. “Whatever you’re hearing or seeing, it’s not real.”

They’re five minutes away from his nearest safehouse. It’d be faster to take one of their bikes, but he can’t risk it in case Tim starts hallucinating halfway there. They can make it there swinging, he can keep his brother out of danger.

“I’m fine,” Red Robin says. The way he’s limp in Hood’s hold, says otherwise. “We’re going home. We’re safe.”

“We’re going home. Close your eyes. Focus on my voice.”

He does it.

“It’s just us now,” Hood reassures him. “We’re on the way to a safehouse where no one can find us and you can rest until the toxin is out of your system. Safe, easy.”

“Steph is fine, Bart is fine, Cassie is fine,” he chants, “Cass is fine, Alfred is fine, Dick is fine, Tam is fine, Pru is fine.”

He keeps listing people that are fine, because of course his fears are all about his friends being hurt. Surprisingly, Hood recognizes all of them. He’s heard Tim talking about all of them repeatedly and he knows their names and personalities, even if he doesn’t have all the faces to match. He isn’t surprised that his friends come first then their family.

“That’s right, kiddo,” Jason encourages. “Who else?”

“Dad..” Tim’s eyes shoot open. “Dad’s gonna kill me. Dad, Dad will know I’m Robin, he’s- He’s gonna take Robin away from me, I can’t- This is the first time I’m being useful.”

Fuck.

“Your dad isn’t here. And you’re not Robin, kid, you’re Red Robin,” Jason reminds him.

“That’s… that’s right. I failed him. I failed Dick, so…”

Double fuck.

“That’s bullshit,” Jason says, but it’s hard to keep the conversation going while he’s carrying Tim’s weight.

They’re two minutes away from safety before Tim starts struggling to get away from Jason. He doesn’t say anything else, which may be more concerning, he just grunts with the effort and squirms. Jason really hopes no one was paying attention enough to notice what looks like Red Hood kidnapping a terrified Red Robin.

“Shit- Stay put, Red, we’re almost home,” Jason says.

Tim’s breath catches and returns, erratic, and Jason can’t bear to look at his horrified face, he hates to see the utter fear that has his brother’s already pale complexion turn ashen, his lips pressed into a line so tight it has got to hurt. Jason starts listing the names of the people that are supposedly fine and that catches Tim’s attention long enough that Jason can swing straight to the fire escape of the abandoned building where he set his hideout.

He sets Tim on the dusty mattress on the corner in a hurry and tosses his helmet aside. He starts undoing Tim’s safety measures so he can remove his cowl. Unlike Jason, he doesn’t wear a domino mask beneath it and Jason makes a mental note of talking to Tim about that later.

“Almost there, Timbers,” Jason says. He rips off his own domino without caring about the sting, hoping a familiar face will help. “I’m here. Now, where do you keep your fear gas antidote? I know you carry some around.”

Tim unconsciously reaches for a particular capsule on his bandolier. That’s enough of an answer for Jason, who pushes his hand away not as gently as he should and reaches for the small vial inside.

“Jay,” Tim whines. “Jay, you’re okay, right?”

Jason blinks, confused. “Of course I’m okay, Timbers. I’m right here.”

And as he rushes to grab the first aid kit under the sink, Jason starts to freak out. This gas isn’t causing hallucinations as much as it’s making Tim feel paranoid, it seems. What if it’s a new formula? What if the antidote doesn’t work? What if Tim keeps having anxious thought after anxious thought, until his heart gives in and-

“Jay!” Tim calls, desperate. “Jay, we have to get Kon! He’s- He’s in danger.” He starts getting up.

“Nope!” Jason pushes him right back into the mattress. “Kon is fine, he’s invulnerable, remember? He’s probably doing superdouche stuff in Metropolis.”

“He’s not, he’s- He’s gonna kill himself, Jay!” There are tears welling up in his eyes and Jason feels like someone just punched him in the gut. After all the shit they went through, he had never seen Tim cry. “He’s gonna sacrifice himself to save everyone, I can’t lose him, please, I’ll do it instead. He’s- No! Please, don’t do it!”

There we go. There are the hallucinations they all know and hate. Tim stretches out his hand as if he’s reaching for an invisible Superboy, so Jason takes the opportunity to start rolling up his sleeve and cleaning the inside of his elbow. Lucky for him, he always has a sanitized syringe. Now he just needs Tim to stay still.

What if it doesn’t work? What if I make it worse?

“Kon El, no,” Tim gasps. “KON EL! CONNER!”

Jason had never seen Impulse going full speed. But he did meet Barry Allen back when he was Robin and he never forgot the deafening noise of someone breaking the barrier of sound. More familiar is the noise of his freaking wall exploding. Before Jason realizes, he’s being ripped away from his screaming brother. He hacks and struggles, but there isn’t a lot he can do when a kryptonian steel arm presses against his throat, effectively pinning him to the wall.

“Give me one reason not to kill you,” Superboy growls, his eyes already glowing red.

Jason would be impressed with the boy’s ability to look murderous if he wasn’t about to have his head melted. He struggles a little more. Superboy doesn’t even seem to notice. Jason then pathetically raises the syringe in his hand and manages to choke out:

“A-antidote.”

Superboy blinks once. His eyes return to the regular shade of blue. He blinks twice. His expression shows only confusion when he releases Jason, that promptly falls on his knees. Jason coughs, touching his throat as if to make sure it’s still intact. Damn clone.

“What happened to him?” Superboy demands.

Tim isn’t trying to get up anymore, but rather convulsing on the same spot, screaming wordlessly in horror, tears streaming freely down his pale cheeks.

Jason coughs some more before he’s able to say something. “A-ask that first next time, will you? It’s… it’s fear gas.”

“And, what, am I supposed to believe you were helping him?” Superboy snarls.

Jason groans. He doesn’t have time for this. Tim has his eyes firmly shut and every scream, every time his voice breaks, it feels like someone is slashing at Jason’s chest, robbing him of air almost as effectively as Superboy did.

“I was about to do that before you interrupted,” Jason shows him the syringe again. “What do you think?”

Superboy squints at him, unhappy with his response.

“We don’t have time for that,” Jason snarls. “At this point, he’s gonna have a heart attack. I need you to hold him still.”

Superboy bites his lip in hesitation but Tim screams his name again and he winces as if the sound is kryptonite for his ears. Finally, he nods and crouches down by the mattress.

“It’s okay, Rob,” he says. “I’m here now. I’ve got you.”

At that, Tim miraculously relaxes for a second. Jason kneels by his side again and holds the outstretched arm Superboy is keeping still.

“Don’t hurt him,” Jason warns. Judging by the look Superboy gives him, the only reason he’s not getting the laser eye treatment is because he’s the only one around capable of helping Tim.

“No,” Tim whines. “Not Jason…”

Jason freezes. Superboy’s eyes start to glow again.

“Not Jason, not again,” Tim continues, delirious, his expression twisting in pain. “Please, please, don’t, help him, HELP HIM!”

Jason stabs the needle into his pale skin and it’s a miracle that he does it right, because he is shaking. Fuck this. Fuck Scarecrow. It’s wrong, it’s horrible to hear Red Robin begging like that. He hates the way the kid startles with the needle. He’s thankful that Superboy makes sure Tim stays put, because he doesn’t think his trembling hands could do that now.

“It’s okay, Timbers,” Jason hears himself saying, “it’s over now.”

“Please,” Tim sobs again, “I- I’m gonna solve this.”

God. Jason grabs his hand. “You did enough, baby bird. You solved enough already.”

Tim whimpers, but finally starts relaxing. It seems like the antidote is working its magic and the boy falls right asleep.

Superboy refuses to leave, much to Jason’s chagrin. It doesn’t surprise him, though. Conner is Tim’s favorite conversation subject when he’s in a good mood and apparently the clone is ready to just fly to Gotham if he hears Tim’s voice.

“You know, metas aren’t allowed here,” Jason reminds him.

Superboy has been stomping back and forth around Tim’s mattress. He's so angry that Jason is worried he’ll break the floor any minute now, but he stops to give Jason the biggest, meanest glower of the night. He doesn’t look anything like the mental picture Tim painted of him. Even with his ripped skinny jeans and 90’s leather jacket and dumb earrings, Superboy looks absolutely murderous.

“I’m not going anywhere until I see that Tim’s fine,” he says.

Jason sighs.

“Why are we here?” Superboy snaps. “Why didn’t you call Alfred or… or Batman or…”

“Because we don’t do that,” Jason cuts him. “Red Robin is not Batman's sidekick. If we can solve shit without involving Batman, we don’t involve Batman.”

It’s their unspoken rule, Jason knows that since the first time they fought side by side - the first time they had a sleepover - and he brought Tim home to patch him up. They don’t call dad or their older bro if they’re in trouble, because that’ll lead to them being in more trouble. They simply watch out for each other as much as they can.

Superboy isn’t happy with that explanation, but, before he can murder Jason for real, Tim stirs.

Jason and Superboy are kneeling by his side at the same time, which says something, since Jason doesn't have superspeed.

“Timbers?” Jason calls.

“Jay…?” Tim mumbles and his voice is still a little raw from all the screaming. He blinks and his eyes set on his best friend. “Conner? What are you doing here?”

“You called,” Superboy says simply. “I told you all you had to do was call my name.”

“How’s the head?” Jason asks. “You're still smart, right? You can’t afford to lose your brain cells, Timbers, with your ugly face they’re all you have.”

Tim snorts. Then groans. “Fuck off, Jason, don’t make me laugh.”

Jason smiles at him and he doesn’t notice the weird look Superboy is giving them.

“Rob? Do you remember what happened?”

Tim starts to sit up and Superboy is faster than Jason in wrapping an arm around his shoulders to steady him. He helps Tim rest his back against the wall and the grateful look Tim gives him makes Jason frown a bit because he feels there is something there he’s missing.

“Hmmm… We were fighting Scarecrow,” Tim says. “Fear gas, broken rebreather...” He looks at Jason as if seeking for confirmation. When Jason nods, he continues, “Jay got me out of there and the rest is… Wait. Where is Scarecrow? Did he escape?”

“That should be the last of your worries, Timothy, you almost died of fear,” Superboy scolds.

Tim sighs. “Oh, to be a young vigilante in the XXI century… passing away of fright.”

Superboy doesn’t get it, judging by his expression, but Jason does and he laughs out loud. He doesn’t miss the way Tim’s lip quirk up.

“See, baby bird, this is why I wear a helmet and so should you,” Jason says.

“Okay, but have you considered that we’d look stupid if we were all the man in the iron mask?”

Jason raises an eyebrow. “God forbid a whole family fighting criminals in leather fursuits look stupid. We wouldn’t fucking want that.”

Tim laughs, even if his voice is still a little hoarse, and Jason is relieved.

He is so relieved to see his brother fine that he doesn’t pay attention to the fact that Superboy still has his arm around Tim’s shoulders. That Superboy’s eyes get all soft when Tim laughs. That Superboy looks a little hurt when he offers to fly Tim home, but Tim refuses, saying that he’d rather spend the rest of the night here.

“I mean, if that’s fine…?” He glances at Jason, reminding him of those first sleepovers, when he was still unsure whether he’d be welcome or not.

Jason is so done feeling or letting his brother feel like an outsider. “The mattress is big enough for both of us, I don’t see why you’d go back to your own apartment when you can just sleep on a perfectly good mattress on the floor.”

“Hm. Cool then,” Superboy says, but instead of flying out through the giant hole he made on the wall, he shifts his weight from one foot to another awkwardly, clearly stalling.

Both brothers notice it. Neither has a problem interpreting Superboy’s fidgeting. Jason finds it annoying, but Tim gives him a pleading look. Jason sighs.

“You can stay too, big guy, but you gonna have to sleep on the floor.”

Superboy’s face lights up and he definitely doesn’t look like he wanted to melt Jason’s head just a couple of minutes ago. He rambles that it’s all good, he just needs to text Ma Kent to let her know where he is and he’s used to sleeping on the floor of the barn with Krypto and the cows (Jason would find that more upsetting if he didn’t know there is a cow somewhere in the Wayne manor too and Damian sleeps in the cave with it all the time).

In the end, Tim bullies Jason into giving Superboy the thickest blanket he has around. He tries suggesting he should sleep in the blanket and let Jason and Superboy share the mattress, but shuts up mid sentence under their glares.

It’s probably the most awkward sleepover so far, but Tim grins at Jason, grateful, and turns his back to him to be able to talk to Superboy in hushed whispers.

Jason tunes out their conversation and focuses on the fact that he did it. He saved Tim. It doesn’t make up for the times he fucked up in the past, but it sure makes him feel better about the present. He’s also thankful that Tim stayed instead of going to his own place. Hearing your little brother scream in fear for your life isn’t something enjoyable and Jason is sure he would have nightmares about if it wasn’t for the fact that Tim was laying right there in front of him. It’s the sound of his brother’s muffled laughter, mixed with Superboy’s, that lulls him to sleep.

Jason should have noticed then. But he didn’t.

For an intelligent guy, Jason can be really stupid sometimes.

The thing is… Jason is smart. He’s not Tim Drake smart, but he’s still a good detective. He’s also fairly sociable. Or at least he used to be, before he, you know, died and went through all the trauma, etc. He is no Dick Grayson, but he can hold a good conversation, pick up the right social cues, all that crap.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t mess up sometimes.

You see, months go by. Red Hood and Red Robin don’t often go on the field together, after all it’d do a number to both of their reputations, but, when they do, one of them always ends up injured and the other carries him home. It’s like a curse, the universe telling them to stick to their off-patrol partnership. Then a couple of weeks go by and they miss the feeling of fighting side-by-side and there they go again.

Tim keeps showing up at Jason’s place whenever he feels like it and he even hangs around Jason’s visiting friends sometimes. Kori adores Tim from the first time she puts her eyes on him. Roy takes a little longer to warm up, but even he can’t resist the kid. Jason likes it. He likes having his brother around. He likes that they get on like a house on fire.

So much he forgets Tim is a master of hiding shit.

On the week nearing Tim’s 19th birthday, Jason goes to his apartment. He doesn’t realize until he’s halfway there that he hadn’t been to Tim’s place since the night he met Prudence, which is odd, because it’d been basically a year and a half. Still, Tim goes over to Jason’s place all the time. The fact that Jason doesn’t repay the favor has everything to do with the fact that Jason hates Tim’s magazine apartment and nothing else.

Right?

Instead of going for the door, Jason uses his signature move and just swings to the balcony. The door is unlocked - Jason really has to have a talk with Tim about security, they’re in Gotham, for fuck’s sake - and he lets himself in.

To Tim’s credit, the place looks more well lived in now. There are mismatched pillows on the couch, a forgotten mug and a couple of books on the coffee table. Jason recognizes his copy of The Count of Monte Cristo and makes an annoyed sound noticing Tim’s bookmarker is still somewhere in the middle of the book even if it’s been weeks since Jason let him borrow it.

“Tim?” Jason calls. It’s half past nine, a little early for vigilante standards, but…

He hears the sound of someone sputtering and coughing from the kitchen. There he is.

Jason heads there and finds Tim desperately grabbing paper towels to clean coffee he apparently just spilled on his bare chest.

“J-Jason!”

“Jumpy aren’t we?” Jason comments. “What’s up, baby bird?”

It’s clear that Tim had just woken up, judging by his messy hair and the fact that he’s wearing nothing but red sweatpants with Superman’s symbol all over. His mildly terrified expression is weird, though. Tim is usually slow in the morning, but not that easy to startle.

“What are you doing here?” Tim whispers, clearly panicking.

The fact that Jason never visits Tim’s place suddenly comes to his mind. The possibility of him not being welcome hits him and it’s surprisingly painful. He thought they were doing well, that the kid liked him. All this time, was he being arrogant?

As his brain scrambles for something to say, something to think, he notices a sound that he hadn’t registered before: the shower.

Suddenly Tim’s rapidly reddening cheeks and doe wide eyes gain a new meaning. Jason forgets the hurt and a sly smile stretches on his face.

“Oh my god. Oh god, this is priceless. Baby bird, do you have a lady guest from last night?”

Tim makes a weird choking sound and this is too good, Jason is too delighted, look at little Timmy go, already getting it. (Jason would’ve chosen different pants for the morning after, but alas.)

Then a voice calls out: “Sweetheart, are you okay?”

A male voice.

Tim’s face becomes three shades darker, now perfectly matching his pants. Jason’s grin is now frozen on his face, his eyes wide with the realization.

The shower stops.

“Tim?” The voice calls again.

“I’m fine, Kon!” Tim responds and his voice is surprisingly even, considering he looks like he’s having an aneurysm.

That’s a bat for you. Master of hiding their emotions.

Sort of.

Kon, Tim said. Jason realizes that Tim isn’t wearing Superman merch. The sweatpants are Superboy themed.

Jason still remembers Superboy’s protective streak all those months ago and the fact that he woke up to the two of them holding hands - at the time, he thought nothing of it, because it had been a stressful night and he didn’t blame either boy for wanting to make sure the other was okay - and he thinks of all the subsequent times Tim went on and on about Conner and how a couple of weeks ago Tim just stopped mentioning Conner altogether.

God, Jason is the worst detective ever.

Tim pushes Jason out of the kitchen and towards the living room, presumably farther from the bathroom where his boyfriend with super hearing was showering.

“Fuck,” Tim mutters, “ fuckfuckfuck… ”

And he looks and sounds so distraught that Jason loses all the eagerness to tease him, concern quickly replacing any initial surprise he might have been feeling.

“Look,” Tim murmurs, looking anywhere but at Jason’s eyes, “it’s not… we’re just…”

Tim scrambles for words and this is so unlike him - Tim always has a plan, always knows what to say - it takes a moment for Jason to catch up on why he’s a stuttering mess. Jason had been so excited to find out his little brother had a boyfriend he forgot he lived in a world where homophobia was a thing.

“Timbers, chill out.” Jason grabs Tim’s hands from where they’re still resting on his shoulders. “It’s just me.”

Tim dares raise his gaze to meet Jason’s and it hurts a bit to see still a little fear in his blue eyes. Jason gives him an encouraging grin.

“I can’t believe you officially bagged a kryptonian. Way to go, kid.”

His shoulders slouch in utter relief right before he starts blushing again. What a cute kid.

“You keep calling me kid. You’re not that older. And don’t say it like that,” Tim mumbles.

“Like what? Like you’re snogging Superboy?” Tim punches him on the shoulder and Jason laughs. “Now I know why you were in such a hurry to leave the manor, you wanted your own place to bring your boyfriend over…”

“That’s not why I left and who said anything about a boyfriend? Maybe this was just a one night stand.”

Jason gives him a condescending look. “Timbers, I might have not realized you’re gay, but I do know you. You’re a boyfriend kinda guy.”

Tim rolls his eyes and mumbles something about assuming shit. “I’m bi,” he says.

“Cool,” Jason says, a shit-eating grin never leaving his face.

“Fuck,” Tim groans and lets himself fall on the couch. “How do you de-escalate an emotional situation so fast?”

“It’s a Bat thing, and you know how to do it too. All of us are trained to avoid emotions like the plague.”

“I was not prepared to come out when I got up this morning,” Tim admits.

Humming, Jason finally realizes that Tim doesn’t want to skip the emotions for this one. He sighs. The things he does for his brothers.

“It’s not a big deal, though,” he says. “I mean, you’re happy right?”

“I’m never happy.”

“Don’t quote Zuko. You started the real talk. You don’t get to bat your way out of it now.”

A sigh. “I’m happy. Conner is… the best.”

Jason nods. “Then it’s all good. I’m sure all the others would say the same.”

“You can't tell them!” Tim snaps, his eyes suddenly wide with panic again. “Seriously, Jay, you can’t-”

“Calm down, kid,” Jason cuts him off. “When did I make a habit of spilling your secrets to the B-man? It's none of their business.” Tim visibly relaxes and Jason adds: “Actually… Want me to make your house Dick-proof?”

“...what?”

“I mean, not kryptonian dick, you’re clearly into that,” and he ignores it when Tim pops him on the back of the head. “I mean Dick Dick, our brother. I could set up a better security system so you don’t have to worry about one of your siblings walking into something scarring, especially the clingy one.”

“No security system can stop Dick’s clinginess.”

“How do you think I keep him off my place?”

That’s when their little pow wow gets interrupted by more kryptonian skin than Jason ever wanted to see as Conner walks in with nothing but the smallest of the towels wrapped around his waist.

“Babe, what is--” He notices Jason and slips on literally nothing, barely catching himself before falling on his ass. “ Shit- I mean, nothing, I mean, we were just binging Wendy!”

Jason doesn’t say anything, but he does give Tim a look that says it all. He wasn't judging earlier, but he is now. Tim gives him a look that definitely means shut up.

In the end, Jason stays for breakfast.

It’s only mildly awkward, because he and Tim fill the silence talking about the latest case Jason’s working on while Conner makes them pancakes. Judging by the fact that he’s getting the ingredients from a bunch of plastic bags, he must have brought all the food with him. If anything, Jason is grateful that he and Alfred are no longer the only people trying to get Tim to eat actual food.

When Tim turns to Conner for his opinion, leaving Jason to enjoy his coffee, Jason looks around and notices that there are new pictures on the fridge. There are some of those disgustingly cute pictures of Tim and Conner, their cheeks pressed together as they make weird faces for the camera. There is a picture of Conner by himself and, again disgustingly, he is smiling at the camera as though the most precious person in the world is behind it. Both pictures are held by a sun magnet. There is a new candid shot of Cassandra, one of Alfred-Alfred holding cat Alfred, a new one of Dick and even Damian is in there.

And, his heart stops for a second, because now there are pictures of Jason as well.

They’re carefully placed far from each other, but there are three different pictures. There is one of Jason wearing his Lord of the Rings shirt, eating cereal on the couch, a confused expression on his face. He remembers when Tim took that picture, because Tim waited until Jason had his mouth full before calling hey Jay? and snapping the picture right as Jason looked at him, his cheeks like a chipmunk's. The second picture is a candid of him smiling, leaning against the rail of some safehouse balcony. The shot was carefully framed to not show anything distinct of the surroundings, just Jason and Gotham’s sky.

The third one is a selfie. In it, Jason is asleep, his lips parted and face relaxed, his head resting on Tim’s shoulder. Tim has a shit eating grin on his lips as if there is nothing funnier to him than his giant older brother falling asleep on him in the middle of movie night. Tim had the decency of drawing a mustache on Jason’s face to decrease sappiness, but that effect is ruined by the fact that the picture is held by a magnet that was clearly Iron Man but Tim had painted it red to look like Jason’s hood.

Jason had sworn off killing, at least for a little while.

But he would gladly kill again for his little brother.

As he gets ready to leave, he turns to Conner and deadpans, “I don’t have to tell you that I can and I will make kryptonite bullets, do I?”

“Jason!” Tim scolds.

“What? I’m the first of the family to find out. Least I can do is taje care of the shovel talk.”

“Stop threatening my boyfriend.”

Conner blushes profusely and mouths the word boyfriend with marvel and ugh. Just… ugh . Jason is happy that Tim is happy, but he and Conner are apparently that kind of couple and Jason wants to have none of it.

“So, first we kill Damian,” Jason starts.

“No,” Tim says.

“Aw, come on, you didn’t even consider it!”

Cassandra waits until they decide their plan of action (it’s probably going to be Tim’s) and keeps her expression carefully neutral as not to show which one of them she agrees with (Tim).

The thing, Jason realized, is that all of them have favorites in their family and knowing that makes it easier to tear them down. Dick can fuck off with his I love you all equally bullshit, because he clearly always favors Damian. Damian swings between Batdad’s little boy and Nightwing’s murder baby. Tim will easily lose focus whenever Steph is involved. Steph is oddly protective of Duke, for some reason. Cassandra is mostly neutral. She’s everyone’s favorite, including Bruce’s, but she’s also the deadliest of them all so she is no one’s weakness. She does, however, have a soft spot for Tim over any of her brothers. Since Jason became close friends with Tim, he entered Cassandra’s selective protection bubble and he’s now, by all definitions, untouchable.

Or at least that’s how he felt when she chose him for her team right after Tim.

“We kill Dick first,” Tim knocks down the little Nightwing action figure on the carpet. “Cass, you’re the only one who can take him down. Jay and I distract the others while you do the job. Damian will get personally offended by that and will grow reckless.” He knocks down the little imp figurine. “I can take care of him then. Steph will be hiding somewhere ready to strike. She is best in close range combat. Jay, I need you to take her down before she gets too close.” He pushes down the Barbie doll someone dressed as Batgirl, because apparently they couldn’t find blonde Batgirl merch and they were very offended. “Then we win.”

He may sound impressive, but the whole time he’s speaking he has his head resting on Cass’ lap and she is carding her fingers through his hair as a villain would do to their evil pet cat.

“Can’t I murder the demon brat?” Jason complains.

Tim glares at him - again, not very intimidating while he’s basically lying on his sister’s lap.

“You know Steph would wipe the floor with me. You’re the only one I can trust to get her.”

“Unless…” Jason turns around. “Du-”

“No.”

“Come on, I’ll give you ten bucks.”

“Jason, we’re all rich, you can’t buy me.” Duke doesn’t even raise his eyes from his book. “Plus last time I let y’all drag me into this shit, Steph knocked off one of my teeth with Tim’s staff.”

“If you hadn’t killed me, then she wouldn’t have taken revenge,” Tim argues.

“And yet you’re planning to kill Dick counting on the fact that Damian will try to avenge him.”

“Wet blanket,” Cassandra says.

Tim and Jason go into a giggling fit as Duke sputters, too indignant to put his thoughts into words.

In the end, Duke still doesn’t join them.

As they expected, the enemy was listening to their plan - Jason is sure Dick was against it, but Stephanie and Damian are definitely not above spying - nonetheless they still played their parts as expected: Steph and Damian tried protecting Dick first and foremost, but not even the two of them combined could take Cassandra. Not with Jason and Tim backing her up.

Cassandra knocks Dick down and sits on his back. The large yellow paint splash on his chest proves that he’s dead. Rather than being upset, Dick starts doing push ups with his sister there as the rest of his siblings and Steph fight to death.

Unfortunately, Damian wasn’t as angered by Dick’s demise as they expected and is still a good match for Tim. Until Tim gasps and goes Titus, don’t eat that! It was an obvious ploy, but still got Damian to let down his guard and whip his head around looking for his precious dog. Tim shoots him without hesitation and Damian goes on a rage soliloquy.

Jason would appreciate it if he wasn’t having such a hard time with Stephanie. Apparently Barbara has been feeding her steroids, because the girl is now as quick as a ninja. She hits Jason in the kneecaps with Tim’s staff - they’re not even in the same team this time, how the fuck did she get Tim’s staff??? - and shoots him point blank in the chest. And damn, that shit hurts. He bets it’s purple under his shirt too.

Steph is mid celebration when her victory whoop turns into a pained groan. Twin splotches of red and yellow bloom on her back as Cassandra and Tim lower their guns.

“Fuck,” Jason complains. “Couldn’t’ve done that before she killed me?”

“We win,” Cassandra says.

“Shouldn’t you be fighting to the death now?” Dick asks. Now that Cass is off his back, he’s lying on the side like one of your French girls. Jason wishes Cass would shoot him again.

“I would never betray Cass,” Tim says.

“We rule together.” She walks to him and stands on her tiptoes to kiss his forehead.

Tim grins a wicked grin because he knows he is Cassandra’s favorite and everyone can die mad about it.

Steph and Damian start shouting their complaints at the same time while Dick laughs his ass off. From his lawn chair, Duke is glaring at them as if he can’t believe he’s legally related to any of these weirdos.

His gaze meets Dick’s and his older brother looks absolutely elated with pride even though all of their siblings are yelling about paintball.

Jason simply smiles back.

#jason todd #tim drake #red hood #red robin #batfam #batfam big bang 2020 #poteto writing #red bros #collab

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