#no thoughts just Kori picking Tim up like he’s nothing

[thelaughingmagician]

Teen Titans 2003 #11

[silverwhittlingknife]

How would you describe Tim's people skills? Especially when you compare them to Dick's?

Hi anon, this was a fun ask!! I picked out a few panels for each of them (comforting friends, a bit out of sync with friends, fighting with friends, and offering practical support to friends) just to get a quick look at their people skills in action, and then I rambled on about my thoughts on their strengths and their weaknesses.

(Caveat: I'm going to try to focus on my ideas about differences between the two of them, since we're comparing, but I do think they're socially more similar than not, so you might also want to check out @bitimdrake's post on Dick and Tim's similarities for the big picture!)

Short version: I think they've both got good people skills. Dick's are a bit better and more natural, whereas Tim's are more practiced and learned (in ways that sometimes show).

Let's start with Dick first, and then I'll get back to Tim.

Dick

Comforting friends in Titans Secret Files:

Dick: Will you go back in there and sit down? This is my house. You don't need to clean up after me! Donna: I know, I just... I just ... Dick: Hey, hey... what's the matter? Donna: Nothing. It's nothing. Dick (reaching out to supportively grip her shoulders): Donna, this is me here, remember?

A bit out of sync with friends (but still getting along well) in Titans 3:

Dick: The movie runs 98 minutes. So if we fast-forward past the coming attractions and watch only half the credits, I can still make it back to Blüdhaven in time to - Roy: Nightwing, chill. Team morale demands that you relax and enjoy yourself.

Fighting with friends in Titans 13:

Dick: We haven't used it much, Changeling. But that's gonna be different. Starting right now. Our performance against Tartarus and the HIVE was unacceptable. Each and every one of you should thank God you weren't killed. Kory: How dare you? How can you just stand there talking to us like we're a military detachment -

Giving support to relative strangers in Nightwing 87:

Neighbor 1: Oh, he - he's a true gentleman, you know? Always holds the door, or helps me up the stairs with my groceries if we both come in at the same time... Neighbor 2: ...used his motorcycle to jumpstart my car one morning and even got my brother-in-law a job with Wayne Enterprises when he got laid off... Neighbor 3: ...and he's very, very, very nice and doesn't talk down to me. Plus he lets me use his basketball.

Offering practical support (making dinner) in Prodigal:

Tim: I can't believe you can actually cook... Dick: I like to eat. Tim: So does Bruce - but he had to order Chinese last night. Dick: That's where I'm one up on him - I've lived on my own without an Alfred. Still miss him, though... He was good for a lot more than cooking and cleaning. Tim: Yeah. But at least we don't have to miss him on empty stomachs.

Strengths:

I think Dick's people skills are pretty simple: he has them! He's good at people! And I tend to think of Dick's people skills as so automatic they're mostly instinctive. It's not something he really has to think about because it's so ingrained in him. A combination of natural talent plus a childhood spent around sociable performers means Dick's just really highly attuned to the people around him.

And I don't think he's particularly obvious about it. So e.g. you could be having a conversation with Dick where he didn't seem like he was paying close attention, but if there was An Important Moment where you got anxious for a moment or let something important slip or let a bit of anger show through etc. - Dick will have picked up on it, even if it's unconsciously, and it'll stick with him and come back to him later.

And just generally - I think Dick has good instincts for who he can trust and who he shouldn't trust; when he's treading on conversational landmines he'll often pick up the unease even if he doesn't have the context to know why there's a problem; if he's trying to comfort and trusts his instincts he'll often do the right thing even if he can't justify in words why he felt like that was the right thing to do.

So I think for Dick, there's always the level of conscious awareness - the things he's aware he knows, if you will - and the level of unconscious awareness - things he senses, but maybe can't explain, or maybe doesn't want to know so he's suppressing the thoughts.

So he's good at leading, and he's good at comforting, and he's good at listening, and he's good at figuring out the right thing to say...

Like, he's good at all of it, so it's actually sort of difficult to elaborate because there's just not that much nuance? Given any particular interpersonal situation, Dick has an excellent chance of getting a quick read on some random guy he's just met and then getting the reaction he wants pretty fast, whether it's intimidating the guy or comforting him or getting him to cooperate or taunting him until he loses his temper, etc etc etc.

Obviously Dick's not a mind reader, and he can get things wrong, especially when he's in the throes of one of his own personal crises, but generally I think Dick's very very sure-footed with people, even with strangers.

Weaknesses:

This isn't a weakness precisely because Dick's usually doing it on purpose, but he'll sometimes have fights with his friends because they think he's acting overly professional/detached and he thinks they're not being professional enough. So e.g. in Titans 13, you can see Dick's set up the room almost like he's leading a business meeting, and he's the boss lecturing them, and they're reacting by getting mad at him. Part of this is basically a Traditional Bat Problem - Tim's friends also balk because they feel like Tim's keeping them at a distance - but Dick tends to lean especially hard on "I'm The Leader Here So Shut Up And Do What I Say" professionalism / distancing.

When things are going well, Dick's friends may grumble at his intense professionalism but basically appreciate it (this is basically how things go in their reunion in TT vol 2); when things are not going well, though, it becomes a point of tension. Generally, Dick gets extra-professional as a coping mechanism when under stress, as here in TT vol 2 12:

To the extent that Dick falters with social skills, it tends to be almost exclusively with people he knows well, not with strangers. Dick sometimes struggles with maintaining relationships, largely because he's often juggling multiple responsibilities; he'll sometimes get hyperfixated on something and deprioritize his more stable relationships (so e.g. when he gets fixated on trying to fix Blüdhaven and gets distracted from his relationship with Babs).

Somewhat relatedly, if things start going wrong in his own life, he tends to self-isolate out of shame and avoid everyone he thinks of as more put-together. So, for example, in the aftermath of Blockbuster, he's a self-destructive mess who's trying to dodge and/or drive away Clark and Roy and Tim (all people who care about him and would want to help), but Sophia Tevis and Rose are two messed-up young strangers in trouble and their obvious neediness trips his "urgency" meter, plus he may be a mess but they have no context to realize that so he doesn't feel so self-conscious, and he's able to be drive-by super-helpful to them and then dive right back into privately self-destructing.

Also not a weakness per se, but he tends to be a bit of an introvert in general - he and Wally are close, but they go long stretches of time without catching up; when he's spending time with friends, usually it's Donna / Wally / the Titans / Tim visiting Dick rather than the other way around; he's more likely to get cajoled into joining a team than the other way round - Wally talks him into rejoining the Titans and Roy talks him into joining the Outsiders. He likes people and likes spending time with friends, but he's usually not the one initiating a social gathering. He's self-aware about this; in Titans 9, he muses, "It's not the newness that's the problem. The problem is the old stuff. The ruts. You know someone long enough - well enough - and you fall into a rut with them... you completely take the relationship for granted..."

Relatedly, because Dick's pretty self-contained, he has a recurring problem where loved ones interpret him as distant or detached or indifferent even when he's still passionately attached - both Kory and Babs break up with Dick in part because they feel like he's not really that committed to them (also there are mmm Problematic Plotlines involved but I'm ignoring those for the purposes of this post), and in both cases IMO they're misreading him. He's deeply upset by both breakups and responds with big declarations of feeling and, uh, proposing marriage shortly afterward. (Okay, so he's not ALWAYS sure-footed sdfdsfs)

When Dick's getting something wrong, it's usually because he's upset and overcompensating - when things with Kory and Babs are tense, he tries to fix it with Big Gestures; when Vic's mad at him about spying, he missteps with an elaborate secret plan culminating in a big dramatic offering of a new body which Vic does want... but he's still understandably miffed at Dick for making a bunch of decisions behind his back instead of talking to him. Dick guesses right about something Vic will want, but because Dick when he's feeling guilty tends to slide into I-Am-The-Leader, I-Must-Fix-Everything-By-Myself, I-Am-Responsible-For-Everything mode, he forgets that the whole original problem is connected to not respecting Vic's autonomy / right to make decisions for himself, and that a better gesture would be asking Vic what he wants instead of once again making decisions on his behalf without consulting him. (I'm sympathetic to Dick's spying-on-Vic plan on account of how Vic did turn into an evil moon for a bit - comics are bonkers, you guys sdfdsfs - but I'm also very sympathetic to Vic feeling that he deserved fuller disclosure here.)

And you can see similar patterns in lower-key conflicts too: every time Dick gets accused of being just like Batman, it's usually because he's coming off as harsh or detached or uncaring (sometimes on purpose because he's pushing people away; sometimes just because Dick handles grief and fear by shutting down; sometimes because his the-buck-stops-here leadership style can come off as overly-detached), even though Dick actually cares SO SO MUCH, all the time, about everyone he knows.

But honestly... these weaknesses exist, but they're minor in comparison to his strengths?? Dick's a guy with a lot of very strong friendships for a reason. He's true as steel and once he cares about you, he cares about you forever. <3

OKAY! So that's Dick. Let's finally move on to...

Tim

Comforting friends in Joker's Last Laugh 3:

Tim: Babs? Is everything okay? (hugs her)

A bit out-of-sync with friends (but still getting along well) in Young Justice 7:

Cassie: A campout isn't a campout without a real fire. It's no fun at all. Tim: But the generator is far more efficient, Cassie. It's non-polluting, it poses no threat of forest fire, and it's... it's ... (taking in everybody else's expressions, sighing, reversing course) It's no fun at all. Impulse, can you...?

Fighting with friends in Adventure Comics 3 (stonewalling, avoidance, and lying!)

Conner: You weren't picking up. Tim: I didn't know it was you. Conner: I turned off my caller ID blocking. Tim: I was busy. I am busy. Conner: Too busy to talk to your best friend? Tim: Yes. No.

Giving emotional support to relative strangers in Robin 98 / 100 / 156:

Wesley: I just wanted to thank you. They tell us at the meetings that it's important to let people know how you feel. You did a lot for me - making me sober up. If you hadn't taken the time to notice - (Later) Tim: You're gonna stay strong, right? (Wesley: Right.) Tim: You're gonna stay sober, okay? (Wesley: Okay.) Tim: You're gonna do it 'cause - Wesley: 'Cause if I don't you'll come back and kick my butt all over campus. Tim: Uh huh.

(The redhaired guy was about to jump. Tim convinces him to sit down and talk first.) Tim: So, you're in college? Guy: Yeah, I'm a freshman. How'd you know? Tim: Just a hunch. I'm guessing you don't like it much. Guy: I always hated high school. Always felt like I was outside looking in, never part of any group or anything. I was on the diving team but even then I didn't feel like part of it. The only good thing was that was where I met Lori, my girlfriend.

Offering practical support (medical care and tea) in Batgirl 59:

Tim (treating her injury as she shares her traumatic past): Whoa. That's ... horrible. Cass: That's nothing. Stephanie and I used to laugh about - oh... uh... never mind. Wait, Tim. I... I'm so ... stupid, I don't - Tim: You're not stupid. Want some tea? Cass: I ... uh... yeah. Thank you.

Strengths:

Tim! I think Tim's also pretty decent at people - not as good as Dick, but hardly anyone is?

I tend to think of Dick as instinctively good at people, and Tim as more consciously good at people.

Tim spends a lot of time being intentionally watchful: observing, spying, psychoanalyzing people, paying careful attention to what they say, thinking about what makes them tick. (And Tim psychoanalyzes himself, too. Tim is studiously engaged in the study of Tim, and of Tim's friends, and of Tim's family. He's often playing a role, even when that role is "Tim Drake.")

So e.g. in Red Robin, at one point Tim has an elaborate domino-falling database where he's compiled a list of villains he wants to fight and how he wants to fight them, all leading up to a very careful takedown plan for Boomerang where he's thought through and anticipated Boomerang's every move ahead of time... and he's basically right! He gets it all right!

And this kind of intensely-studied logical chess-game of "he will do this for this reason, and then this for that reason, and the other people will respond in this way, like a series of dominos, and I've thought through all the possibilities" is Very Tim to me, and I feel like... this is just the sort of thing that Dick would never ever do?

And mostly Dick wouldn't do it because he wouldn't have to. When Dick's skeptical of James Gordon Jr., he goes to talk to the guy and feel him out, and he ethically feels obliged to give him the benefit of the doubt because there's no evidence against him, but he's got a bad feeling and doesn't trust him and secretly slaps a tracer on him because he's got an instinct he'll want it, and he's right: James Jr. is up to something, and that tracer is exactly the thing that Dick needs.

And similarly if Dick wanted to goad James Jr. into doing something, I think he'd go off and meet him and goad him into doing it, and he'd have an instinct for what to say to make that happen - I think the whole elaborate domino plan that Tim comes up with for Boomerang would feel unnecessarily complex to Dick. Not that Dick doesn't make complicated plans, because he absolutely does, but Dick doesn't usually overthink people.

Similarly, if Dick had been the little kid in Lonely Place of Dying, he'd have gotten worried and gone straight to Bruce and talked to him, not gotten worried and taken photos of Bruce from a distance and then come up with an elaborately overthought plan to go to New York and track down his estranged son and fix him that way. And, like. Kid!Tim's not entirely wrong! He's correctly picked up on a very real and very strong connection between Bruce and Dick even though he doesn't know either of them! And given how little actual information Tim has, this is actually an impressive plan (it's a bad plan, because Tim doesn't know about their fights, but it's an impressively solid plan given that his entire information basis is "watched them from a distance and collected news reports"). But this isn't how Dick thinks about people.

Backing up to a more general point: Tim values people skills really really really highly. I think "uses interpersonal skills to help and comfort other people" is one of Tim's highest values and arguably the highest value - he imprinted on Dick because he was kind, and then imprinted on Batman because he was comforting Dick. And he has six million After-School-Special-style plotlines where he tries to comfort / advise / rescue / etc. people in various stages of emotional distress and who are using bad coping mechanisms. His very first outing as Robin involves talking down a semi-suicidal shooter; the big finale of YJ has Tim talking Secret down from her rampage; he's very gentle when he's comforting his girlfriend after she confides in him about a maybe-attempted-rape; he talks down a suicidal college student in Robin; plus there's the entire concept of "Batman needs Robin" in the first place; not to mention his obsession with the importance of friends; and so forth.

So it's something that he's good at because it's something he values and works at. His people skills are conscious and learned. He does a fair bit of amateur psychoanalysis of other people's problems, and he's generally good at identifying the problems, even if he's not always great at fixing them. And he's often playing a role, or imitating other people, rather than being himself; he invests a lot of time constructing alternate identities; he's often more comfortable wearing a mask. (It is just so typical of Tim that his civilian friendship group is the DCU version of D&D players.)

So his practiced-people-skills work decently well, because he's diligent and he cares a lot, and he's better at people when he's older than when he's younger. And he's extremely good at things he's had a lot of practice with, like meeting new schoolmates, or making small talk, and he's friendly and he likes people, and he's good at learning scripts and following them, and he only tends to misstep when he's distracted or unusually anxious or when he's in a situation where normal social norms don't help. (Of course, since he's a vigilante and not an ordinary person, distracted / unusually anxious / weird situation are all things that happen more often than you might think!)

I also think Tim has a few caretaker instincts that have become automatic - generally he's hyperaware of when people are upset and usually tries to reach out or fix it, and even when he's trying to keep himself at a distance he'll slide into caretaking sometimes - so e.g. there's that moment in Batgirl with Cass when Tim's kinda upset with her for siding with Batman (and distancing himself from other people in general), so he's not intending to get close to her, but also what we see him doing is treating her wounds and then getting her tea. And meanwhile Cass actually wants to reach out, and she's intensely observing him and worrying and wanting to help, but what she actually does is... drink the tea. That Tim got her. While she stays firmly on her side of the couch.

(I tend to think of Cass as slightly similar to Tim but at the very very very beginning of her learn-to-people journey here? Like Tim, she cares!! A lot!! And she's successfully understood that Tim's upset, and she knows when she's put her foot in her mouth. But she's not sure what to do yet.)

Weaknesses:

Tactless! This is a tricky word because I think people sometimes hear 'tactless' and misunderstand it as 'generically rude,' but that's not quite the issue - Tim's quite polite most of the time; his problem is that his default mental monologue is very detached / psychoanalyzing / analytical, including about himself and things he's emotional about. He'll often be analyzing his own emotions even in the process of having them (I also talk about this a little here, though it's mostly a post about Dick and anger), and Tim's also constantly analyzing other people.

This means that if he doesn't edit his brain-to-mouth filter, he can come off as too detached or professional or calculating.

This is obviously similar to Dick's problem of coming off as too detached / professional - again, they're both Bats - but it's not quite the same thing, and I think this distinction is most obvious if you look at the places where they're doing it on purpose and picking fights:

Dick's most likely to pick fights by pulling rank: "I'm the boss, you all fucked up this mission and you better not do it again, shape up or shut up." This is a kind of distancing that's about Dick-the-impassive-boss and you-the-subordinate.

By contrast, Tim's more likely to pick fights via hostile psychoanalysis: "I notice you're being snide about Cass again, but we both know you're actually just mad that Bruce cares about her more than he cares about you." When he's miffed, both his inner monologue and the things he says tend toward 'uncharitable analysis of your emotional weaknesses,' and this is something he periodically directs at Bruce / Jason / Damian. This is a kind of distancing that's about Tim-the-hostile-analyst and you-the-unfortunate-target-of-analysis.

(Caveats: I don't think Tim's above trying to pull rank if he can, but he rarely has the opportunity; Dick's not above jabs at other people's weaknesses when he's very defensive and feeling attacked - junkie, elevator - but IMO he's more likely to pull rank, whereas Tim's jabs are more likely to be wrapped up in insulting psychoanalysis, so e.g. Jason's insecurity is his problem. The Jan Brady of the Batfamily.)

You can see related similar-sounding-but-different issues if you look at some of their respective breakups. So e.g. Dick has a breakup with Babs in which she thinks he doesn't care about her, and Tim has a breakup with Cassie in which she thinks he doesn't care about her. And these breakups are different for six million reasons (among other things, Dick and Babs have a pretty intense romance, whereas, uh, Tim and Cassie have had one date and IMO she's very right that they're better off as friends).

But you also get some useful character notes:

Babs is wrongly anxious that Dick's mostly in love with nostalgia for their past rather than the person she is now (he 100% does love the person she is now!) and she's being unfairly bitchy about Catalina, but she's also correctly noted that he's gotten into the habit of deprioritizing their relationship in favor of vigilante busywork & that he's been a bit pushy in swooping in protectively rather than letting her fight her own battles, so when she's accusing him of being a control freak it's not completely coming from thin air; Dick responds by getting hurt, upset, and direct (he gets furious and punches something, but then makes a big sweet sincere emotional speech to her about how much he cares and values her, albeit one that's so caught up in his own emotions like wanting to "protect" her that he's not slowing down enough to take in her insecurities).

Cassie has correctly realized that dating Tim is a bad coping mechanism and she really needs to just deal with her grief over Conner; when she starts crying, at first Tim moves to comfort her, but when she actually clarifies the breakup, an upset Tim responds by aggressively de-emotionalizing the conversation and pretending he's being totally logical and not emotional about it - he first wonders aloud if he's a bad detective for not seeing it coming and then attempts a bonkers guilt-trip suggestion that it's their duty to date in order to uhhh avoid turning evil in the bad future (sdfsfdsfdsfds sure tim nice try)

This isn't because Tim literally doesn't have feelings, because of course he does! But often, the more upset he is, the worse he gets at clearly expressing those feelings, and the more he intellectualizes them or avoids discussing them.

(Caveat: The trouble with any distinction is that it's easy to exaggerate it in ways that are oversimplified, and I want to emphasize that this doesn't reduce to "Dick always expresses emotions, Tim is never emotional," or anything like that. Dick has a bunch of complicated feelings about the intensity of his emotions because he values control and detachment and often is trying to be more detached (I talk more about this in the context of anger here and here); Tim often retreats to faux-analytical detachment when he's actually very emotional; and these are tendencies rather than one-note 24/7 truths - Dick is completely capable of intellectualizing away his emotions; Tim is completely capable of just getting straightforwardly and directly upset. But if you're looking for broad distinctions, I think it's fair to say that Dick's usually better at directly using his words and expressing his emotions, even if he sometimes feels self-conscious shame about it later, whereas Tim tends to self-sabotage and deflect and hide by producing intellectualized faux-logic instead of just being direct about what he wants or what he's feeling.)

An unrelated issue is that Tim also tends to get intrusive when he's anxious, and it gets worse the more he cares about you. Tim really really really wants to know what's going on and has an intense Need To Help, which generally works out for him - this is the entire reason he pushes his way into the Batfamily! - but it's easy to imagine Tim running into people who might not appreciate his busybody sneakiness; so e.g. secretly stalking your friend because he has a bruise, or running your friend's DNA, etc., is... stuff that all comes from how much Tim cares, but also it involves a very fuzzy relationship with other people's privacy, so Tim's friendships that stick around tend to be with people who find this kind of intense observation to be caring rather than pushy. Relatedly, Tim's version of "be protective" can overlap with "be condescending," which means he tends to get along best with confident people like Bruce, who could punt him into a wall and who thus finds Tim's 'disapproving medic' shtick endearing instead of insulting.

Tim also struggles to connect to people for whom he doesn't have an obvious "script" or who don't respond to his usual scripts. So e.g. offering Gar a "you don't like me but let's be friends" handshake worked; offering Cass a "let's be friends" handshake worked; offering the same thing to Damian did not go over so well; and I think this kind of "it usually works so this is my habit now?" thing is very Tim, and I don't think it's the sort of mistake that Dick would make.

More broadly, because Tim's people skills are conscious and learned - the effort sometimes shows! He stares at people. He secretly spies on them. He pokes around in their secrets. Dick can be paying close attention to you and seem like he's not, so that his awareness seems effortless and less intrusive. I think Tim's awareness tends to be a bit more effortful.

That said, though, I don't think that Tim's intensely-observing-you shtick is necessarily obvious except to people who are fairly socially-skilled themselves. When I write fanfic, I generally write from Dick's POV, and I tend to write Dick being hyperaware of when, say, Tim's observing him, or trying to figure out what's going on with him. But I think of that as more "Dick's good at reading Tim and really aware of being watched, so every attempt at subtlety stands out in neon lighting," and I think to someone who's less good at reading people than Dick is, Tim is a lot subtler.

And I think for e.g. someone like Cass, who really struggles with people skills, Tim seems impossibly and naturally good at interactions in the same way that to Tim, Dick seems incredibly good at it.

[rapz-rites]

Demon Spawns Part 2

Damian x Alien!Reader (established relationship)

Part 2 of Demon Spawns

You can’t stop thinking about Mar’i calling you sis. You decide to do something about it

A/N: Sorry this took so long but I hope you enjoy this. Now I’m working on Version 2 and some other stuff. After having to write a part 2 V2 is only gonna be 1 part cuz I’m not doing this again

Word Count: 2.4k

Warnings:Making out, angst

-sis?

-Sis?

-SIS??

- That’s all that’s been on your mind since your future kids incident

-In the shower

-Grocery shopping

-Work

-School

-Did Mar’I know something about your biological family that you didn’t?

-Maybe she just saw you as a older sister figure

-It made you really think about your bio family

-You absolutely adored you adopted family but you had that unexplainable need to find out about your roots, where you came from

-What better way that with a 23andMe DNA kit

-You bought the family tree version

-You didn’t really care what ethnicities you were probably mixed with

-You waited about a month for the results

-Checking your email on the hour after the sent an email saying they received your saliva

-Now you were at the manor, chilling in the common living room (they have like 7)

-It was you, Damian, Tim, Steph, Duke, and Cass

-Damian laid his head on your lap, while you playing with his hair, staring at the flat screen TV that played some action movie Duke and Steph picked

-That's when your phone vibrated

-It was an email from 23andMe

-You couldn’t believe it

-0 familial matched

-Not even a 6th cousin twice removed

-Nothing

-“I need to go to the bathroom.”

-You walked out of the living room quickly, making your way to Damian’s Room, locking yourself in his bathroom

-You walking to the sink, hands on the edge, looking at yourself through the mirror

-How?

-Was it an error?

-Were YOU an error?

-OMG

-WHAT IF YOU’RE AN AI OR ROBOT?

-WHAT IF…

-Knock knock

-“Beloved, are you ok?”

-It was your boyfriend

-“You’ve been gone for a long time”

-No you haven’t

-Once you and Damian really got comfortable with each other, he started clinging to you

-You couldn’t complain though

-You loved the attention and affection

-It took longer for Damian to open up to you, than you with him

-“I'm fine Dami.”

-You went to unlock the door

-As your hand went towards the door knob, Damian whipped the door open

-Honestly, you weren’t be surprised

-What else would you expect from a clingy ex assassin

-He takes a step closer to you, engulfing you into a hug

-You hug him back, face flushed against his chest

-“What's wrong? Did something happen?”

-He says, stroking your back gently

-You look up at him with teary eyes

-“I might have no family. Like at all.”

-Damian looked slightly confused

-“I took the 23andMe DNA kit for the family tree and I have zero results”

-“Oh habibti. You could’ve just asked me to help you.”

-Face still flushed against his chest, you respond

-“I know… I just thought maybe it was something I had to do on my own, you know.”

-Damian doesn’t respond

-He just continues stroking your back and places a kiss on the top of your head

-“Do you want to try the DNA sequence on the ‘BatComputer’ as you like to call it”

-“Yes please” You mumble in his chest

-You both just stand there, Damian’s arms wrapped around you

-“Can we do it at night when no one’s around. I don’t want them to know”

-“Of course Beloved”

-That night Damian was off from patrol

-Damian was already in the BatCave training

-You descended the stairs, but stopped when you noticed someone

-“Oh. Hey Dick. I thought you all left for patrol”

-“Hey Y/N. No, I took tonight off. Mar’i is having a sleepover with Lian so Kori and I are having a night in.”

-“Oh ok. Good night”

-“Good night”

-With that he walks up the stairs and leaves

-Damian was now sitting in the BatChair waiting for you

-You quickly walked to him, standing close to the chai

-“I already started the sequence on the ‘BatTablet’. It won’t be too long until we get the results”

-“So it runs my DNA against…?”

-“Every DNA system in the world. Police, hospitals and online DNA testing databases. I even included the Leagues.”

-You go to hug him

-Placing yourself on his lap, his hand immediately goes to your waist securing you on him lap

-You reach for his face, placing a hand gently on each cheek

-“You’re amazing and I love you”

-Damian leans closer to you, nose brushing against yours

-“Show me how much”

-You grin, close the gap between the two of you

-Damian slides the chair back as you move to straddle him, your arms wrapping around his neck

-Damian’s hand goes to the small of your back and the other at the top of your neck, bringing you as close as possible

-You open your mouth to try and take a breath

-Damian takes this as an opportunity to deepen the kiss with his tongue

- You moaned into the kiss, feeling Damian underneath you

-You both continue making out until you hear a ding

-You immediately tried to hop off Damian

-Key word tried

-He groaned as you broke the kiss

-‘Damn I should’ve turned off the notification ringer’ he thought

-“Damian I need to see the results”

-You twisted your body, still straddling Damian, trying to reach the BatTablet next the the keyboard, but Damian hugged you tightly

-You turned to face him and places a hand on each of his cheeks

-“Dami, I really need to see those results. I promise we can continue this later”

-He looked at and raised his eyebrows, holding out his pinkie finger to you

-“Pinkie promise”

-You taught Damian the concept of pinkie promises just before you starting dating

-Naturally, he thought that they were silly and childish

-But now, to him, they’re blood oaths

-“Pinkie promise”

-As soon as he let go of you you rushed to the BatTablet

-When you opened the results your face contorted into one of confusion and shock

-Damian just watched you from the BatChair, eyebrows now furrowed

-You kept scrolling

-Then you stopped

-Your mouth fell into a frown and tears welled in your eyes

-Damian took this as his sign to come up to you

-You handed him the BatTablet and ascended the stairs to the manor

-Damian quickly scummed the results as he tried to follow you

-Once he reached the foyer he saw you putting of you jacket and grabbing your keys

-“Where are you going?”

-“To get answers”

-Damian didn’t hesitate as he put on his jacket and grabbed your keys from your hands

-“I’m driving”

-The car ride was quiet

-Once Damian parked the car you both just sat there in silence

-Damian really wished he could read your mind at that moment

-To know what you were thing, what you were feeling

-He hated see you like this

-“What are you go-”

-Before we could finish you get out the car, strutting into the apartment complex

-Damian rushed out of the car to follow you

-Damian finally caught up to you

-You were standing in front of the apartment door

-You didn’t know how to feel

-You started banging on door with both fists

-You wanted to make sure that they heard you

-Suddenly the door was whipped open

-“Oh my gosh! What are you do-”

-Ignoring him, you push past him to see her come into the living room

-Looking confused, he turns to Damian

-Damian hands him the BatTablet

-She walks in from one of the bed room

-“Hey? What’s going on?”

-She clutched her robe, attempting to cover herself up more

-“How long have you known?”

-“What? What are you talking about?”

-She knew exactly what you were talking about

-She didn’t want to admit it, she couldn’t

-You turned and grabber the BatTablet from him, and force her to look at it

-She slowly takes it from your hand looking down at it

-“I didn’t want you to find out this way. I swear”

-“Oh really? Or did you not want me to find out at all?”

-She stayed silent

-You turned to him

-“Did you know too Dick?”

-He was silent too, guilty look in his eyes

-That’s all you needed to know

-You finally started to let the tears fall

-“I trusted you. I opened up to you. I told you how I felt abandoned by my birth parents and how I thought I wasn’t good enough for them. How if I was better maybe they wouldn’t have given me away. But all this time, you were right here. In the same state.”

-“N/N it’s not like that.”

-You couldn’t take it anymore

-She kept this huge secret from me

-“Don’t call me that. You’re my mother Kori.”

-You weren’t even mad, just sad

-Sad that she’s known for 3 years and didn’t say anything

-Sad that she never told you

-Sad that even when she knew, she never wanted to be your mother

-You didn’t understand one thing though

-“Why didn’t you tell me”

-You said in a hushed tone

-“I was. When I was able to confirm that you were really my daughter I was going to tell you. But then I saw you with your adoptive parents, and you looked so happy. I didn’t want to ruin that”

-She wasn’t entirely wrong, but it wasn’t enough for you

-“What kind of excuse is that? You thought I would be better off not knowing who my biological mother is. I even told you that I wanted to know, that I’ve tried doing research to find her”

-She was still silent

-“You sent your daughter away just to have another one”

-That broken Kor’i’s heart even more

-At this point both you and Kor’i were in tears

-You wiped your eyes trying to pull yourself together

-“I can’t do this. Let’s go Damian”

-Damian follows you as you storm out, leaving Kor’i broken and Dick to try and pick up the pieces

-After that night, you a would avoid Dick and Kor’i as much as possible

-It got so bad that you didn’t go to the manor for 3 weeks

-Much to your dismay, you were forced to see her, be in the same room as her

-Everyone sensed the tension between the two of you

-Mostly… ALL coming from you

-You were so furious with her

-Everyone was silent, waiting for the meeting to start

-That silence lasted until not other than Wally West spoke up

-”So I did the math…”

-You already knew what was coming

-You did the math too

-”Star, you had a baby at 15?”

-Sigh

-Of course

-”Tamaranean customs and way of life are different on earth than there. And time is different in space, Wallace.”

-You tuned everyone out as you looked out the window of the WatchTower

-You were situated far enough to hear everything,but far enough to be alone with your thoughts

-You were thinking about everything and nothing

-After you found out about Kor’i you felt so numb

-Could you do the same thing she did?

-Even though you knew your future kids for less than 12 hours, part of you broke when you had to see them go

-Did she feel the same way when she has to let you go?

-It must’ve

-It had to

-She had to

-You were started by a hand on your shoulder

-“You should talk to her”

-You knew he knew what you were thinking about

-“You don't want to?”

-It’s not that you didn’t want to, you couldn’t

-“Exactly”

-He turned you to look at him

-He just looked at you

-Giving you the look you can so easily recognize

-‘You know what you have to do’

-Damn him

-You sighed, dropping your shoulders

-You dropped your head into his chest, wrapping your arms around his waist

-He just hugged you back

-After a few moments you released him

-“I have to talk to Kent about something”

-You nodded at he walked away, making his way towards Jon

-You turned your head to look out the WatchTower, crossing your arms

-You just had to ask her if it hurt and that’s it

-Right?

-Walked toward Kori, grabbing her wrist, pulling her into an empty room

-“Did it hurt?”

-“I’m sorry what?”

-“Did it hurt, when you have to send me away?”

-Kor’i sighed

-“Of course it did. It hurt more than being experimented on”

-You were satisfied with that answer, but it you didn’t let it show

-“Well then… ”

-You shifted your weight on your heels

-“I’m willing to possibly have a relationship with you”

-She smiled and hugged you tightly

-She released you after a few seconds hands on your arms

-“This makes me the most happy”

-You nod with a small smile

-“Let’s return to the others”

-Once to two of you joined the others, the meeting was just starting

-Bat man spoke first

-“We are about to face a possible new threat”

-A cryptic message appears on the board

-“We’ve ran it through every language on our database and zero result”

-Studying to message further you realized it’s not alien language

-“It’s code”

-Batman turned to you as you spoke

-“It’s a code I made when I was like 10. But I haven’t used it since I was like 15/16”

-Wally sped to you, wrapping his arms around your shoulder

-“You’re an alien princess with your own secret language”

-He chuckles

-“What else don’t we know about you, N/N. What-”

-Before he could finish Damian pulls him off you by his collar

-“Get your leprechaun in check Grayson before I do it myself”

-Oh when he threatens people for you 😍

-Wally releases himself from Damian’s hold

-“Who are you calling leprechaun, midget”

-“I’m taller than you West”

-You and Artemis shared of look

-If y’all didn’t stop this disagreement now, someone, Wally, would get hurt

-A bright orange light flashed in the center of the conference room

-Everyone immediately prepared to attack

-You didn’t

-The light felt warm, familiar

-“WAIT! Don’t do anything” you yelled

-Once the light disappeared, a guy was there

-He looked about 18 or 19

-His skin matched yours and his hair was like Damian’s

-He had the most beautiful shade of green eyes like Damian’s but the warmth of yours

-You go to hug him

-“Hi Sunny”

-He smiles as he hugs you back

-“Hi Mom. Did you get my message”

-OOOHHH

-Of course

-“Yes. You almost gave your grandfather a heart attack”

-Clark giggled

-Sunny turned to look at his father

-“Hi Dad”

-Damian just nodded, not knowing what to say

-Sunny smiled

-He knew his father might’ve acted like this

-Your son from the future just appeared

-How is Damian the one internally freaking out while you’re so calm?

-“What’s going on? Why are you here?”

-Sunny turned to look at you

-“We need your help mom”

-Sunny looked serious

-Oh no

OMG THIS TOOK FOREVER. But that's my fault hehe Plz let me know how you feel about this. I appreciate ANY type of criticism. I NEED IT TO GET BETTER.

I lowkey forgot about this lolz but I got it done

[ragingbookdragon]

I’m Only A Crack In This Castle Of Glass (Hardly Anything Else I Need To Be) PT. 7

Batfamily x Batsis Story

Word Count: 2.1K Warnings: Explicit Language, Angst

Author’s Note: Anyone order a part seven? Cause I got a part seven for y'all. Enjoy! -Thorne

**********************************************************************

Ever since the meeting that night, she’d gotten more letters from her family than she’d ever received in twenty-one years. Not that she decided to read them. The first line from Dick’s letter was, ”I never wanted you to leave because of me. If only I’d known…”. She couldn’t keep reading, and she wasn’t sure if it were from guilt, sadness, or anger, but there was something there that she didn’t want to face.

It didn’t stop there though. They kept coming even if she tacked a return to sender on it and sent it back. She’d even labeled one and written, ”Stop writing me.” but that didn’t stop them. Wally texted her every other night on top of the letters and she wanted to strangle him through the phone.

She knew though, that if she could keep holding out for three more months, she’d be home free. Wherever home was at this point. Every city she kept thinking about had some type of vigilante and there was nothing that didn’t; eventually she decided on Coast City. Somewhere warm and sunny, and as far from Gotham and Central as possible.

Of course that little voice in the back of her head just kept telling her to talk to them, but she was going to be as stubborn against it as possible—but time was dwindling, and so was her resolve.

***

“Ophelia, have you seen the extra bag of espresso beans? I can’t remember where you put them the other week.” She waited for a response. “Ophelia?” she turned and frowned. “Why did I accept the manager’s position when I can’t even round up my workers?”

She walked out of the storage and wiped her hands on the rag at her waist. “Ophelia?” A giggle sounded at the counter and when she walked out, her eyes went wide at the sight.

Jason was leaning against the counter with that smile he used to use on the models at the galas. He smiled at Ophelia. “Tell me, what do you make better, the cappuccinos or lattes?”

“Well, I make a —”

“She makes a mean ‘get in the back and find my espresso beans’,” she grunted and both of them jumped.

“Melisandre!” Ophelia stuttered, pale cheeks flushing pink. “I thought you were in the back.”

“I was. Think you can go find the coffee beans you put away?” She shot Ophelia a stare that screamed ‘scram’ and the girl nodded, hurrying to the storage room.

“Aww, why’d you run the cutie off, Melisandre?” Jason queried. “I was going to ask her out on—”

“Can I talk to you?” she interrupted, voice barely containing her seething rage. “Outside.”

Jason shrugged and shoved his hands in his jean pockets. “Sure, but be careful, people might get suspicious.”

She grunted and walked outside, listening to him follow and when the door shut, she turned around and hissed, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just getting coffee.”

“Oh, don’t play dumb with me, Jason. We both know that’s a load of bullshit.”

His eyes narrowed and he noted, “You’ve really gotten comfortable using foul language. You know that, (Y/N)?”

She glared at him. “What. Do. You. Want.”

“You won’t answer our letters,” he shrugged. “Didn’t have a lot of options to talk.”

“And showing up at my job is the better option?” she griped.

“It was that or your house, (Y/N). Take your pick but you can’t have both.”

“Well, maybe my silence is supposed to be the answer to those letters. Did you think about that?”

“I did,” he nodded. “But after the third letter being rejected, I decided to go big or go home.”

(Y/N) growled. “Go home.”

Jason smirked. “No.”

“I’m not fucking joking here, Jason. I don’t want you coming here. Ever.”

“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn,” he retorted then stepped forward and grabbed her wrist. “You don’t wanna talk willingly, fine. I’ll make you talk to me. And if I have to show up here every day, I will.”

“No, you won’t.”

Jason cocked a brow and tightened his grip. “You wanna bet? Because I’m not Dick and I’m sure as hell not Bruce. I don’t have a day job to get to.” He smirked. “I can do this all day.”

(Y/N) bit the inside of her cheek and thought for a moment then sighed and yanked her arm away. “Fine. Come to my apartment after five. We’ll talk there.”

“Thank—”

“Don’t thank me yet,” she interrupted coldly. “I’m agreeing for one meeting and then you fuck off back to Gotham City and leave me the hell alone for good.” She spun on her heel and started back for the door when his voice reached her, tired and pained.

“Do you really hate all of us? Do you really hate us like you make yourself think you do?”

(Y/N)’s feet felt like lead and she stopped, gazing at the glass door. “I don’t know, Jason.”

“Then let me help.”

“You can find the apartment on your own. I know you’re good at looking for homes.” She slipped in the café door, leaving him standing there shocked and hurt.

***

Sure enough, a minute after five o’clock, her doorbell rang and she called, “It’s open.” The door opened and shut, and she looked up from the little kitchenette, watching the way Jason walked into her apartment, gazing around the empty living room.

“Shit, do you live in a home or a prison cell?”

(Y/N) grunted. “Nice quip. Come up with that by yourself?”

He wandered into the kitchen, leaning back against the counter as she prepared dinner. “What’re you making?”

“Chicken marsala,” she replied. “You’re here to talk. Start talking.”

“Are you going to be a bitch like you were the other night or can I ask about life in Central the last three years?” she shot him a glare, warning him, but he paid it no mind. “You going to school?”

(Y/N) nodded. “I go to Central City Community College. Take classes all week at different times.”

“What are you studying?” he asked.

“For now, general studies, but I’m minoring in political science.”

“Planning on a four year after you graduate?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.” Her hands stalled for a moment. “I don’t have the money for a big school to get a bachelors.” Shaking her head, she chopped up the vegetables. “Figure if I can get a job in the area, I can scrounge up enough to start the process though.”

“Might take years,” Jason noted, and she nodded.

“Yeah, hard work usually does.” (Y/N) glanced at him. “What’s Cassandra like?”

He blinked, evidently not expecting that, though he recovered and smiled. “She’s great honestly. Kicks ass better than anyone I know.”

“Even Batman?”

Jason huffed a laugh. “I’m sure she could wipe the floor with each of us if she decided to not hold back. Her mom’s Lady Shiva and her dad’s David Cain.”

“I don’t know who they are but I’m assuming from the tone that they’re not exactly the best parents in the world.”

“No…they’re not.” He agreed. “David didn’t teach Cass how to speak so she’s been mute all her life.”

“I’ve heard the few interviews she’s given,” (Y/N) replied. “She’s very eloquent when she does.”

“Shakespeare’s influence. And probably Emily Dickinson.” He smiled. “I leave her a lot of books to read so I can be her favorite.”

She snorted. “Yeah, that sounds like you.” Sliding the cast iron skillet into the oven, she sat at the crappy metal dining table, Jason taking the seat on the other side. (Y/N) scratched at the table. “Does Bruce like her?” she questioned lowly, and he nodded.

“Loves her like she’s his own.” He her with cautious eyes. “Just like he loves you.” Jason watched the emotion flash across her face, quick as lighting, a deep sorrow, then she was humming.

“Well, that’s good then.” She cleared her throat and looked at the clock. “How’ve you been? I hear a lot about Outlaws.”

Jason chuckled. “Yeah, that’s my band of renegades. Me, Roy Harper, and Koriand’r.”

“Remind me, those were Speedy and Starfire, right?”

He snorted. “Arsenal and Starfire. But yeah, close enough.”

(Y/N) got up and pulled two glasses from the cabinet before going to the refrigerator and getting the lemonade. She poured them both glasses and sat back down. “How’d you manage to wrangle two of the Titans into your posse?”

“Kori willingly tagged along, and Roy won’t leave me alone,” he griped, sipping his lemonade.

“Mmm…and how does Dick feel about you stealing two of his exes?”

Jason choked on his drink, spilling it on the table and down his chin. “That’s not—” he coughed. “That’s not what that is.”

“Uh huh, sure it’s not.”

“It isn’t,” he glowered.

“Riiiiiiight,” she drawled out with a grin, then took a sip and set her glass back down. “Figured you’d get Cass along with you. she seems like she’d be fit for Outlaws.”

He shook his head. “Nah, she’d be better off with Tim and his Young Justice weirdos.”

“She non-lethal?”

“Mhm.”

They dwindled into silence until the timer went off on the oven and she pulled the skillet out and set two plates on the table. “You’re gonna feed me?” he asked as she handed him a fork.

(Y/N) scoffed. “Duh. I’m a bitch, but I’m a bitch with manners.” She smiled sweetly. “But you have to leave afterwards.”

“Mmm…can I crash on your couch?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

He shrugged. “Figured I’d try anyways.”

They ate in silence, occasionally speaking about their lives the last three years, and when the food was all gone and the lemonade drunk, he sighed and reclined in the chair.

“What?” (Y/N) questioned and he shrugged.

“Dunno…I’d like to do this again soon.” His teal eyes found hers. “It’s been too long since we were together.”

“Tread carefully,” she murmured, looking at the wall and he sighed.

“Sis, talk to me,” he begged. “Even if it’s just to tell me how much you hate me, just talk to me.” She didn’t respond and he sighed again, standing from the table. “Thanks for dinner.”

“…I hate that you all put Gotham and every civilian before our family.” Jason stopped dead in his tracks and turned, gazing at her, though she didn’t tear her eyes from the wall. “I hate that the only time I felt like anyone paid any attention to me was when we were at galas and even then, the attention was just for show. It didn’t matter because all anyone wanted to do was get the hell out of the manor and go on patrol. It didn’t matter because I wasn’t like any of you. I wasn’t a part of the real family.”

Tears gathered in her eyes. “I hate that I spent more nights sitting in a dark and silent manor than spending them with my family. I hate that I never had a normal family growing up where we’d go for ice-cream after school and attend school performances. I hate that I got stuck with a bunch of siblings hellbent on giving every piece of themselves to the world and they couldn’t take one night off to have a family night to save their lives. To at least pretend to be normal.”

(Y/N) finally took her eyes from the wall and he felt his heart tighten as the tears slipped down her cheeks and she breathed, “I hate that I was born Bruce Wayne’s biological daughter and I’d give anything and everything I have to be someone else’s daughter and sister.”

Jason’s mouth felt dry, and he didn’t have single thing to say to her and she whispered, “Is that what you wanted to hear, Jason?” she blinked. “Because that’s what I feel every morning I wake up.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, and she cleared her throat, wiping her cheeks.

“Yeah well, I’m three years passed sorry.” (Y/N) nodded to the front door. “You should leave now.”

Jason nodded but his feet didn’t move. For a moment, he couldn’t move them, then he sucked in a breath and started edging back to the door. When he neared the door, he pulled it open and paused, looking back at her. “(Y/N)?” she didn’t answer but he said it anyway. “I love you. More than you’ve ever known.” He sighed and stepped out, closing it behind him.

(Y/N) buried her face in her hands and sobbed alone at the dinner table.

********************************************************************************

Tags!: @itsnottilly @cloudyskylines @starflyer-104 @iwillstaywiththemforever @justine-en @weirdgirlfromtx @notsostraightweeb @candlestudy @willowoo @peterxwade24 @the-atlantic-french-fry @bad-bouquet-of-emotions @vvipgot7be @pure-princess-97 @atomicsoulhumanspy @foreverthefloor @natatawa-ako @impactshawol @bethabear12 @adazzlingsakura @kimhanbiin @thatanonymouschocolate @mischief-writter-24-7 @lostinwonderland314 @elz-zalarrr @lady-of-the-abyss @peqchynero @d3m0n8ch1ld @goldenguki @fallen-wolf22 @battlenix

[editorofeverything]

This scene is from a WIP that didn't fit the vibe I was going for and liked too much to just delete, so please enjoy

Dick was having a perfectly decent day. He had the day off. He slept in, he showered, he shaved. He bought flowers for Kori and delivered them to her before a surprise lunch date. Dick was the definition of a thriving adult hitting thirty.

Then, Bruce asked him to pick Damian up from school.

There was nothing wrong with picking Damian up from school. Dick liked Damian, and was convinced that, on a good day, Damian liked him too. The problem was that today was not a good day.

“I don’t need a babysitter to get home from school, Grayson, and the fact that Father and the rest of the family seem to think that I can’t handle myself when I am more than capable of walking home from this waste of time and space is the highest offense—”

Teenagers and their hormones making everything so dramatic—Dick wasn’t like this when he was fifteen... Was he?

“Look, Damian, it’s not about Bruce or Alfred or even me not trusting you, ok? We all know you’re capable of taking care of yourself. That’s not even in the question. It’s the fact that you’re still not legally allowed to drive—”

“I’m fifteen!”

“—and the streets have been too quiet recently. Bruce is paranoid—well, more paranoid—and we’re all trying to be extra careful for whatever’s coming.”

Damian huffed and stared out the window for a long while and Dick internally sighed. So much for brother-bonding time.

“Tim says there’s been an increase of odd kidnappings recently,” Damian finally broke the silence without moving from his sulking position.

Dick bit his cheek to stop from smiling. Damian would probably take offense to that, too. Instead, Dick took their exit and the offering for what it was.

“Odd is definitely one way to put it. Seems like these people just disappear into thin air. Have you seen the latest video footage?”

“The gas station? It was certainly… enlightening.” They both paused, thinking about the odd video footage Oracle managed to get a copy of. It was across the street of the gas station, just barely capturing the kid standing by a bus stop. Some traffic zoomed by—three cars and an ice cream truck—and when the street was clear, the kid was just gone. No other cameras in the area. No witnesses. No bus. No kid.

“Duke thinks it could be a metahuman altering the time and space in order to take them,” Dick shared, hoping to get them off the darker train of thought.

“We don’t have any powers like that registered though,” Damian pointed out, finally uncrossing his arms and turning towards Dick.

“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Or can’t be created.”

More silence as they digested the conversation.

“There was another disappearance last night,” Damian said, not looking Dick in the eye as he turned his attention away from the red light. “A kid from my school. It isn’t official, but with how quiet everything else has been, all anyone can think about is the kidnappings.”

“So everyone assumes this kid was taken too?”

Silence.

“Did you know them?”

“No. No, I didn’t. Jon did, though. They were partnered in a class together. He’s a freshman. Patrick. He likes comic books.”

“Well,” Dick said, changing lanes to head back towards the city, “maybe we can get him something for when he gets back?”

“…That would be nice.”

Dick headed for the nearest comic bookstore.

[elareine]

If you could, can you please write JayTim or RoyTim (whichever one you want) trying to be romantic and woo Tim (maybe with some puns, I love puns), but Tim is a bit oblivious towards it, because the other is so cool, therefore they must be trying to make friends and be nice with him and nothing more. So when he does finally realize its an italicized "Oh" moment.

Hi lovely!! Thank you for waiting so patiently for this fill. I... ended up making it JayRoyTim, I hope that's okay? It just fit so well, but I can totally write something else with JayTim or RoyTim for you if you want :)

Also, it turned out to be about pick-up lines more than wooing, sorry. I might’ve gone overboard with googling the puns. It's long enough that I put it on ao3, too. What's your username on there? Then I'll gift it to you.

if you were a transformer (you’d be optimus fine)

“Well, here I am.”

Tim looks up, utterly confused. “I didn’t call for you, but… that’s… great?”

Roy waggles his eyebrows. It looks faintly disturbing. Redheads should maybe not do that. Or, actually, Tim revises mentally, thinking of literally every other redhead Dick ever dated—that’s just Roy. “What are your other two wishes?”

“Coffee and some silence to finish working this case?”

Roy looks weirdly deflated at that, but he does get him some coffee. Tim soon forgets about it.

—

(“How’d it go?”

“Does obliviousness run in the family?”

“Yes. Yes it does. Have you met Bruce?”

“…okay, fair. Your turn next.”)

—

“Jason? What’re you doing here?”

Sure, Jason and Roy have been spending a lot more time in Gotham lately. Something to do with a case, Tim assumes. Maybe even with the one that they worked on together in Star City five months ago?

Anyway. They’ve been around, is what Tim is saying. Not at the manor, but at Tim’s apartment and his workspace, cause apparently it’s not worth rebuilding their safe house after it went up in flames, and Bruce and Damian are too often at Dick’s place. He’s not exactly surprised to see either of them anymore. (Pleased, yes. But not surprised.) However, Tim has no fucking clue why Jason is currently grinning at him from the other side of the library desk.

At least Tim has the good sense to check his name tag before he gasps: “Jason?”

“Oh, hey, Tim.” Jason’s grinning. “Guess you figured out my new job, huh?”

“Yeah.” Tim shakes his head. “Color me surprised.” So this is what Jason’s spending his days doing. He’s gotta be shadowing someone, right? Tim’ll ask him tonight.

“I’ve always liked this place.” Jason’s gaze is far away for a moment. Tim badly wants to know what he’s remembering. Then the older man seems to come back to himself and gives Tim a weird—maybe angry?—look. “It’s a good thing I’m a librarian, too, cause I’m totally checking you out.”

“Alright, I can take a hint.” Tim grabs his book and demonstratively walks over to the self-service scanners. Really. How rude.

—

(“Are you telling me he managed to resist you in your cardigan?”

“Apparently.”

“Aww. C’mere, babe.”)

—

So Roy blows things up all the time. No, really, Tim now totally understands why Dick was so happy when he heard the duo is camping out at Tim’s place for a change. His older brother even gave Tim a thumbs-up, for God’s sake. He must’ve known.

Cause yeah, there’s at least one explosion every two days. Or Roy dropping something cause he’s too focused on what he’s thinking to remember what his hands are doing. Or something dropping on him. Jason seems used to it; he just catches whatever it is or laughs at Roy. Tim… is starting to learn to do the same, actually. Whatever Roy comes up with at that moment is usually worth it, and besides, he’s kinda adorable.

Aaaaaaanyway. (He’s using that word a lot in his own thoughts right now. Almost as if he’s avoiding thinking about something. Hmm.) Tim’s not surprised when Roy walks into a room, stumbles, and slaps a hand over his eyes with a dramatic exclamation.

Tim, in shorts and not much else cause he got drenched in pollen earlier, just raises an eyebrow. “Alright, Roy?”

“Nope.” Roy’s hand is still covering his face, but Tim can still see his grin underneath. “I’m gonna need your name and phone number for insurance purposes.”

“Roy. You have both of these things,” Tim explains slowly, wondering if Roy sustained a brain injury or accidentally dosed himself on something. “And why insurance?”

“I was blinded by your beauty.”

God. Sometimes Tim wonders about the original Titans and their socialization for the two dudes if this is how they think making friends works. Then again, Kori, Donna, and Dick probably appreciated constant compliments about their beauty. It all makes sense. Roy must be so used to it that he even uses those same methods when someone unexceptional like Tim is around.

He smiles gamely. “I’m looking forward to hearing that phone call. Must be almost as great as the time Bruce tried to convince his insurance company that Clark dropping on his car wasn’t an act of God because God is demonstrably not a Kryptonian. Neither was the giant ape punching Clark out.”

Roy drops his hand at that. “…Batman did what?”

—

(“You were doing so well, too.”

“I knoooow. How much more obvious can we get?”

“I dunno, but I intend to try.”)

—

“Do you like Star Wars? Because Yoda only one for me!”

“Haha. No. Star Trek or die.” Tim’s answer is automatic. He’s had these discussions soooo many times with Kon before. Of course Jason also goes for the space cowboy soap opera.

Besides, Jason’s boyfriend is standing right next to him. He doesn’t mean to sound flirtatious with Tim. Or maybe he does, and it’s just good fun? Or maybe teasing him? Tim can’t figure it out, but he knows he doesn’t like the weird hollow feeling he gets in his stomach when he thinks about it, so he changes the topic.

And makes both of them sit down to watch some classic Captain Kirk, of course.

—

(“Should I be insulted by that pick up line?”

“Nah. There aren’t that many lines that imply a polycule, though.”

A kiss. “Alright.”)

—

One of the things Jason and Tim have in common is their predilection for motorbikes and fiddling around with them. Not that makes them unique in the batclan; Tim has never spent days quietly working side-by-side with Dick, though, the way he does with Jason. They started out with separate projects. Then Jason saw this vintage Ducati at an abandoned warehouse he was about to blow up and, well… Would be a shame, right? Tim just happens to have had one of these before—regrettably lost to one of Harley’s exploding baseball bats—so he offers his expertise.

It’s not because it means bending over the engine with Jason, closer than they ever are, their hands brushing when they hand each other instruments. It’s not.

Roy doesn’t join them. He’s too polite to say so, but he finds normal cars and bikes boring af. Doesn’t stop him from popping his head into the garage and whistling when he sees that they are shirtless and covered in grease. It’s a damn good look on Jason, so Tim can’t fault him for that.

Roy follows it up with a: “Are you a parking ticket? Cause you got fine written all over you.”

Tim can’t help it; he blushes at the suggestive tone. Those two never stop flirting with each other, do they? So far, he has managed to avoid stumbling over them while they’re making out (not that they’re making that easy—the kitchen? Really?), and he’d like to keep avoiding that, thank you very much. He’s already feeling guilty enough for his fantasies as it is.

“Uh. I should clean up,” he mumbles and flees.

—

(“Dammit.”

“…do you think that was a rejection?”

“Nah. He was definitely checking me out before you came and fucked it up.”

“That’s saying something if you noticed it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”)

—

So Tim has magically acquired cat ears and a very fluffy tail. Don’t ask. They’re gonna go away in eight hours, and until then, he’s gonna stay in the cave and work himself to distraction. Jason seems intent on keeping him company, though.

(It’s nice. Tim loves hanging out with Jason—that’s not the problem. The issue is that Tim is looking ridiculous, and Jason is being nice about it, and none of this is helping his stupid crush go away.)

They’re absently chatting about nothing until Jason says: “Kinda a pity you’re a cat, though.”

Tim looks up. Huh? Admittedly, he never pegged Jason as the type to go for catboys (though maybe… he did hang out with Kyle… perhaps it’s just that he definitely doesn’t go for Tims), but that’s still a weird pronouncement.

Jason is grinning. “If you were a chicken, you’d be impeccable.” He pauses. “Wait. Like even more than you already are. Uh.”

Tim sighs. Great. And now Jason is making fun of him again. “Whatever.”

—

(“A chicken?”

“Shut up. I panicked.” A sigh. “He was so cute with these ears.”

“…yeah, he was.”)

—

“You must be tired. You’ve been running through my mind all night.”

“I’m not tired,” Tim says automatically. Why does everyone keep asking him that tonight? Surely the shadows under his eyes can’t be that bad? He used concealer!

Something in Roy’s expression softens. “Aww. C’mere.” He pats the space on the couch next to him, and when Tim sits down, Roy pulls him half of on top of him and into a hug. “Relax for a bit, little bird.”

Tim sinks into the embrace, boneless all of a sudden. Roy just has that effect on him. Tim vaguely remembers thinking of him as his oldest brother’s cool friend and then Jason’s cool boyfriend, kind of a fuckboy but clearly good for Jay.

Now? Now, Roy just makes him feel safe.

—

(“So you spent the night on the couch just so he could sleep in your arms?”

“Yeah. Totally worth it.”

“Duh.”

“I just wish we could do that with him every night. Bet he fits perfectly between us.”

“Yeah.”

A pause.

“We might have to up the ante or switch tactics.”)

—

They’re talking about their favorite books—Tim doesn’t read as much as Jason does, but they discovered a shared love of sci-fi weeks ago—when Tim says: “Actually, that book kinda reminds me of you.”

“Oh?”

“Overly dramatic but good.”

Jason makes an offended noise, and Tim grins.

“I’m not sure which part I should argue about first.” Jason pretends to think.

Tim is always down to tell Jason that fuck his self-perception—Jason is a good man, one of the best Tim knows; that also feels too revealing right now. Instead, he gets up from their comfortable position on the couch and grabs the first stack on the table, carrying them over to the shelves to replace the gaps. “What kind of book would I be?”

“Babe, if you were words on a page, you’d be fine print.”

“Annoying and no one reads it?” Tim asks without turning around, trying to ignore the babe. That’s. That’s gotta be a slip of the tongue, right? Force of habit from spending so much time with Roy?

“No, fine,” and the emphasis is clear this time. Jason continues before Tim can reply: “Though if we’re talking books…”

Tim whirls around. “Save it. You don’t have to make fun of me just because I—“He swallows down the words.

Jason looks alarmed. “Tim��“

As if he can smell trouble, Roy chooses that moment to enter the room. Tim has barely heard him approach, Jesus. He doesn’t want to have this argument in front of Roy, though, so he just stands there in the middle of the room. Jason, too, has stopped speaking.

Roy, of course, takes one look at the awkwardness and decides to make it worse. Or more confusing.

“Did you just come out of the oven?” he asks.

“As this isn’t Hansel and Gretel, no, I didn’t.” Tim checks his shirt, just in case this is an actual conversation opener and not just a weird attempt at a distraction. “Do I have soot on me?”

“Nope.” Roy shakes his head, and he’s smiling that smile again, the one Tim is startled to recognize, the one he thought is reserved only for Jason— “Because you’re hot.”

And finally, Tim gets it. “Me?”

“Yes, Tim.” Roy’s moving in closer. “You.”

There’s a soft touch to Tim’s shoulder, and Tim whirls around, expecting Jason to be mad, cause his boyfriend is—is hitting on Tim, right, that’s what’s happening, Jason can’t be happy—

Jason is smiling down at him. His hand is still resting on Tim’s shoulder, but it slides down to his collar bone, a gentle presence as he murmurs: “You’re so beautiful that you made forget my pick up line.”

Oh. Oh.

Tim says the first thing he can think of: “Are you a raisin?”

Jason starts grinning. “I’m not even gonna qualify that with an answer.”

Tim smiles back. “Cause you’re raising my hopes for a kiss right about now.”

And he gets one. And then another, and then Roy joins in, kissing Tim’s neck and then his mouth and—Yeah.

They’re too busy for any more pick up lines right now.

[autisticcassandracain]

I have many thoughts on the weird phenomena in the DC fandom and the Batfam fandom specifically where probably the majority of people just straight up. haven’t interacted with the source material. and almost all of those thoughts can be summarized as ‘lmao that’s weird and mildly concerning’.

and because I’m annoying I will list them all here right now <3

1. To preface this post, I mean, obviously, comics are inaccessible as all hell, both in the disability kind of way and the ‘you need to understand the concept of hypertime to fully comprehend the DC timeline’ kind of way. Because of this, even if you don’t have a disability that prevents you from reading comics, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to look at the amount of comics you need to read to have even a base understanding of a character and go ‘no thanks <3′ and just enjoy fanart and fanfic in a vacuum. Ultimately, this is fandom, this is supposed to be fun, it doesn’t really matter.

2. That said, it’s VERY weird to me that the majority of this fandom just straight up hasn’t interacted with the source material, and moreover, that it’s considered rude to tell people that they should do so. It’s especially weird considering the amount of fanon-only fans I’ve seen who straight up have a superiority complex over canon. The idea that it’s gatekeeping to tell fans of something to actually interact with canon is just. so weird, and a fundamental misunderstanding of what ‘gatekeeping’ actually entails. 

3. But honestly I’m less interested in discussing the ways in which canon and fanon fans should interact with each other (personally, I think it would be helpful to create separate tags of some kind, but that’d require quite a big overhaul of the current fandom state) than in figuring out how this actually happened in the first place. On the one hand, it’s obvious; long-running superhero comics the way DC writes them have made themselves so thoroughly inaccessible that most people are simply too daunted to even try. Most media has a cohesive beginning and end (or at least, a planned end somewhere). Comics just... don’t.

But I do think it says something that, even among people who are clearly interested in the characters (since they have, you know, entire blogs about them), the effort to get into comics just seems to be too much to even bother. This really doesn’t bode well for the future of DC Comics. Obviously, I am no expert on anything at all ever, but I’d personally be surprised if DC survives beyond the few decades, at least in its current form/without a big overhaul.

4. But on the other hand, I don’t think the confusing state of DC Comics is the only thing to blame here. Fandom has a well-known problem with reducing any character down to archetypes to more easily ship and write fic/make content with. This problem is particularly prominent in fanfic, which, if you read enough of it, you’ll eventually start seeing not just the same tropes and trends, but essentially the same fics over and over again. And not just within the same fandom; everywhere, or every large fandom, at least. 

Fanon Batfam is entirely built on a bunch of those tropes; insecure/depressed sadboy Tim, team mom with optional hidden trauma/emotional problems Dick, bad boy with a heart of gold + sadboy combo Jason, abused sadboy Damian/angry easily-villified-for-fic-reasons monster Damian, good dad Bruce for found family fic and bad dad Bruce for angst fic, etc. This all culminates in a found family dynamic that’s generic and malleable to whatever fic the writer wants to write.

(This isn’t getting into the ship fic, which I avoid like the plague because the vast majority of it is incest, but I’d bet real actual money that the tropes in those fics fall under what is often preferred by the Migratory Slash Fandom.)

By having a decent excuse not to get into canon (the inaccessibility of comics) and a, by now, well-established fanon fandom, many fans feel free to use the batfam fandom as essentially an excuse to write whatever fic with reduced archetypes and tropes they personally feel the itch to write, without having to bother with even consuming a canon. This is compounded by the fact that canon itself is often contradictory and frankly bad, meaning that whatever interpretation of a character you want/need to go for your fic is at least theoretically backed up by canon (for example, you can just as easily cast Bruce as an abusive shithole dad who his kids need to get away from as a loving father figure who cares deeply for his children), which you can always use as a defense if people question your characterization.

5. This focus on fandom trends and tropes over actual creativity or care for the characters is also visible in the way bigotry manifests in this fandom; namely, in literally the exact way you’d expect. The female characters and characters of colour are shuffled to the side, non-existent, vilified, and/or reduced to harmful stereotypes. 

Barbara is probably the one I saw the most often in fanfic, but usually just as ‘Dick’s girlfriend’, and even then, she was often vilified for Dick angst (especially in fics about examining Dick’s trauma from his canon sexual assault; Kori also often gets the short end of the stick in those). After that, probably Stephanie, who fanon fans don’t really seem to know what to do with, so she’s basically just there as comic relief waffle girl, most of the time, though sometimes she can be used to either further Tim angst or further vilify Tim, whatever the fic calls for. Cass has gotten included more in batfam fics as of late, likely in response to critiques of fandom racism for leaving her out, but again, it’s clear people don’t actually know what to do with her. She’s often reduced to a racist stereotype of a quite, stoic therapist for whatever guy du jour needs it. That, or she’s in Hong Kong and just not there. Duke especially gets left in the dust in fandom, usually just being non-existent, but when he’s there, he’s almost always nothing more than the straight man for the actual fun characters to play off of. Talia probably has it the worst, though, and almost universally gets vilified by fanon stans in order to write sadboy Damian.

All of this is extremely predictable behaviour and falls entirely in line with general fandom misogyny and racism; ignoring or vilifying women and characters of colour, or using them as very minor characters at best. The only two characters of colour who aren’t regularly left out of fic are Dick and Damian, who are both also conveniently the two characters most often drawn and written in a whitewashed manner. In addition, there’s a real trend of demonizing Damian in fanon fics where he isn’t written as an abused sadboy, which I’d argue is in no small part due to fandom racism, considering Damian’s behaviour is in no way as bad as Jason’s, who doesn’t get anywhere close to the same demonization and gets woobiefied instead. I also find it convenient that Damian is probably the batboy who receives the most vilification in fic, when he’s the most obviously non-white of the batboys they’re willing to acknowledge.

Fandom often cries for more diversity in canon, only to ignore the diversity already there and focus on the same generic white guys. The batfam fandom is a brilliant example of this.

Which is not to say that fandom racism and misogyny isn’t present in the canon parts of the fandom (and canon itself); it absolutely 100% is. But I’ve found that canon fans are also more likely to like and care about at least one of the characters I’ve listed as ignored/vilified, and are willing to create and consume content for them, whereas fanon fans... aren’t, really. I’ve never seen a fan of fanon Cass the way I’ve seen fans of fanon Dick, for example. Obviously, this could just be by coincidence, or I’ve just surrounded myself with people like that, but it’s been a trend I noticed. Racism and misogyny is present in every part of this fandom and should be addressed as such, but I feel like it manifests the most blatantly in the fanon parts of this fandom. 

(I’d also recommend the articles Migratory Slash Fandom’s Focus and Beige Blank Slates, which expand more on the type of fandom racism I think is especially prominent in the batfam fandom, as well as literally every article in the What Fandom Racism Looks Like series.)

6. All this leads me to conclude that the majority of fanon fans don’t actually like the characters all that much; they’re convenient excuses for them to participate in fandom. Which I also think is, in no small part, a reason why so many of them react so negatively to being told to pick up a comic; they came to this fandom specifically to consume it as a fandom, because they wanted the fandom experience without having to consume a canon. 

This is not a phenomena unique to the batfam fandom (again, see the Migratory Slash Fandom), but it does fascinate me. While fandom is often said to be an experience focusing on transformative art, I think it’s also safe to say that, especially as fandom has become more mainstream, an increasing amount of people are looking to it less as a way to engage with their favourite pieces of media, and more as a type of media in and of itself. I think the reasons for this are similar to the reasons mass media entertainment like the MCU are so popular; you gain a lot of enjoyment out of it with very little risk involved. 

By consuming the same fics of the same characters (or the same archetypes) over and over again, you are rarely at risk of being challenged or even disappointed. It’s often very clear right from the start whether or not a fic will appeal to you, and if it isn’t, it’s easy to just look for another one. It requires less emotional investment than most other types of media, even ‘popcorn media’ like the MCU - or, yes, DC Comics. It’s safe, it’s enjoyable, it’s comforting, like McDonalds, but just like McDonalds, it’s ultimately bland and unsubstantial. 

7, TL;DR. Ultimately, I don’t think it’s like, wrong to enjoy the fanon version of the batfam without wanting to engage with canon, and I certainly don’t think it’s okay to harrass people over it. But I do think it’s in large part based on a desire to interact with fandom rather than other pieces of media because people are scared of being let down by those pieces of media (or worse, just uninterested in actually thinking), which is mildly concerning. 

[dccomicsimagines]

What’s Lost is Found - Batfamily Imagine - Part Ten

Warning - Depressive Content, Some Drug Use, Approach with Caution

Part One  Part Two  Part Three   Part Four  Part Five  Part Six  Part Six.Five  Part Seven  Part Eight  Part Nine  Part Eleven

***

All you knew was darkness. Time had no meaning in the dark room where you woke up. At least you thought you woke up. It was hard to tell the difference anymore.

You weren’t sure how long you had been in here. However, you did know the room was five feet by six feet or one point five meters by one point six meters. The height of the ceiling was about seven feet or two point one meters. There was one lightbulb in the ceiling, but you couldn’t find a way to turn it on. A locked door was on your right, shut tightly enough for not even a little light to slip through.

You laid down on the cobblestone floor. Pain was your constant companion. Your arm was healing incorrectly, aching. The cast Alfred had put on was gone when you came to. Your ribs were still tender, but at least they weren’t on fire like your arm. 

Maybe this was hell? Nothing, but pain and darkness.

Thoughts floated to the surface of your mind. Your family must be relieved you were gone and Gotham was safe at last. A pang hit your heart when you thought about how worried Dick probably was. At least he had Kori. She would take care of him. They had a child on the way. No one needed you.

A lump formed in your throat. Jon must be pretty worried too. You swallowed hard, coughing at how dry your mouth was. He was better off without you anyway. 

You couldn’t remember the last time you ate or drank. Dehydration was already setting in. You could feel it. Part of you was happy, because if you were dehydrated that meant you weren’t trapped in some kind of limbo. 

Suddenly, the door flew open and bright light beamed into the room. You gasped, covering your eyes. 

“Rise and shine, brat.” A man stomped in. He grabbed your broken arm and pulled you to your feet. You bit the inside of your cheek to keep from screaming in pain. Blood in your mouth. Tears filled your eyes from the pain. He grabbed the back of your shirt and pulled you along after him. 

Your bare feet scraped against the rough cobblestone floor. Taking a deep breath, you caught the scent of salt water. You must be near the ocean. 

Suddenly, you were pushed into a chair. “Eat,” the Bane Lookalike said. You opened your eyes, squinting as your eyes finally adjusted. The room was a nicely decorated office. You were seated at a table with a bowl of oatmeal in front of you. Your stomach rumbled at the sight, mouth watering until you saw the glass of water next to it. 

Without any grace at all, you grabbed at the water and downed it quickly. However, once it hit your stomach, you felt sick. Someone stuck a bucket in front of you just in time for you to lose it. 

“Leave us,” the Bane Lookalike said. The man who dragged you in here left, slamming the door behind him. You wiped your mouth with your sleeve, wincing when you thought of the scolding you would have received if Alfred caught you doing that. Alfred was probably scared out of his mind for you. Guilt ate at you as you took a slower and smaller sip of water once the Bane Lookalike filled your cup. 

He stared at you intensely. You drank and ate carefully, doing your best to study him without being obvious about it. It took you a good twenty minutes to finish eating. You knew you had to keep it down, so slow it was. The Bane Lookalike waited until you were done before sitting down on the chair behind the desk.

“I was going to leave you in there, niño. Let you die of dehydration.” He crossed his arms. You frowned slightly, wondering who he was to Bane. “But that doesn’t matter now. I have debts to pay and we have people who would pay a lot of money for you.” 

You held back the shiver. “So that’s your plan? Make money off me?” Your voice hoarse. This was the first time you had spoken since you had been taken.

He slammed his fist on the desk. You jumped from the boom. “Yes!” He jumped to his feet. His eyes flashed as you looked into them. You tensed. Suddenly, you had a vision of Bane’s dying eyes. His death rattle echoed in your ears. 

However, you were brought back to the present in an instant. The Bane Lookalike grabbed the front of your shirt, lifting you up in the air to look you straight in the eye. “You ruined my life!” He screamed in your face. His breath surprising fresh and minty. You wrinkled your nose. Bane always had bad breath. It was in his files on the batcomputer. However, this new Bane brushed his teeth. 

He shook you violently, probably angered by the fact you weren’t listening to him. “I was never supposed to be here! Wearing this goddamn mask!” He used his free hand to rip off the Bane mask to reveal a young man around Damian’s age. He had Bane’s eyes, but the face was softer, his nose shorter, mouth smaller. “You shouldn’t have kill my father!” 

You tensed as he threw you across the room. Remembering your training, you went limp and twisted to avoid landing badly. Your back smashed against the wall before you collapsed to the floor. The ribs, still tender, lit up in pain. You moan, staying where you were. 

Why didn’t Tim just tell you the Bane Lookalike was Bane’s son? Anger flashed through you, but it was quickly replaced by fear. The Bane Lookalike’s boots appeared by your face when you opened your eyes. 

One boot raised to step on your head. “I’m sorry,” you choked, tears slipping down your cheeks from the pain and the horror. You caused this. You caused so much pain. Like a bomb, you hurt everything around you with one act. One act that sealed your fate.

The boot stopped. “What did you say?” he growled, kneeling down to pick you up by the back of your shirt. You went limp to avoid more pain. 

“I’m sorry.” You looked him in the eye, tears falling down your cheeks without warning. “I’m so sorry.” 

The Bane Lookalike dropped you. A groan slipped out of you as you smacked against the floor. One of your ribs cracked. You coughed, sharp pain ripping through your chest.

His feet pounded on the floor. The door to the room flew open. “Drug them and locked them back in their cell!” You tensed. Drug? Oh no.

More footsteps echoed into the room. Big rough hands dragged you to your feet and tossed you back into a chair. You didn’t fight. There was no point. You couldn’t take them all on. Sharp pain rocked through your body. Every breath was more pain.

A needle poked your arm. You closed your eyes, submitting to it. This was your punishment. Payment for the life you took. The drug made the room spin. You closed your eyes to make it stop. 

Reality seemed to fall away. The pain in your body faded. You felt like you were floating on air. It took a lot of effort to notice you were being carried back to your dark cell. Even when they tossed you inside, you didn’t feel the impact. The darkness surrounded you again, but this time you hardly noticed.

***

You stayed in a fog. Anytime you were close to clearing it, another needle would enter your arm and you got lost again. You found one bright spot in your drugged stupor. At least you weren’t feeling the pain anymore.

Finally, you felt yourself being carried over someone’s shoulder. The drug faded away enough for you to open your eyes. Your head hung limply, inches above the person’s backside. You turned to look around, frowning at the room. 

It was bare except for a chair with a video camera in front of it. You were flipped over the person’s shoulder and set in the chair. Chain restraints were placed around your wrists and ankles. You blinked, trying to catch up with the person’s movement. Your brain was operating in slow motion. 

“Be good.” The person patted your head before stepping away. You frowned. A red light appeared on the camera. You stared at it, shaking your head to try to focus. 

“Bidding starts at two million.” A voice echoed from the camera. Your eyes widened. A light turned on above you, illuminating you for the camera. 

Your stomach dropped to your feet. You wanted to scream, to fight, but the drug kept you still, complaisant. The chains rattled as you lifted your hand to your cheek to wipe away a single tear. 

The auctioneer kept naming prices, going up higher and higher. You only heard his voice. Closing your eyes, you knew it was just you and the person who brought you here in this room. They must be broadcasting the auctioneer’s voice in. The pain started to creep back into your body. 

“Sold for twenty five billion.” You flinched at the price. A cackle filled the room, tinny from the speaker it originated from. Your blood ran cold. 

“I want the kiddo sooner rather than later, boys,” The Joker’s voice said. “Baby Robin needs to come back home.”

“You may pick up Robin in two days. Thank you all for your time.” The auctioneer’s voice cut out. Red light from the camera turned off. The person came over. They grabbed your arm, sticking you with another needle. Your arm was covered in needle marks. How long had it been? How many times have they drugged you?

The drug kicked in almost instantly. Your eyes closed, falling back into the fog. Pain drained away like someone pulled the plug. The chains rattled again and suddenly you were up and over the person’s shoulder again. 

You couldn’t focus until you heard a voice you never thought you would hear again. “I’ll take Robin from here. The boss wants you to join him in the broadcast room.” 

The person stiffened. “Really? Why?”

“Didn’t ask why.” You were handed off like a sack of potatoes. Warmth like sunshine flooded your skin as you were placed over another shoulder. You moved your hand up to touch the familiar soft hair.

The other person walked off in a huff. “(Y/N), you’re okay. I’ll get you out of here,” Jon whispered, hurrying along down the corridor. He was careful not to bounce you. You kept your fingers in his hair, trying to stay awake. 

Jon shifted you to cradle you in his arms. You smiled tiredly at him, drinking in the sight of his face. Several times, you opened your mouth to speak, but no words came out. The drug kept pulling at you, but you fought to stay in the present. 

He brought you to another room. You couldn’t pick up what it was. He laid you down on the soft surface. “We got to wait for Damian, but we’ll get you out of here soon.” Jon smiled at you brightly. Worry flashed in his eyes. “I’m so...God, don’t scare me like that again.” 

You struggled to keep your eyes open. Jon frowned, cradling your cheek. You moved your arm. His eyes dropped to your arm. He gasped at the needle marks. “Oh no, (Y/N), what have they been doing to you?” You could feel his x-ray vision scanning your body. “Your arm.” 

“Sorry.” You mumbled, closing your eyes. The drug pulled you into a deep dark sleep.

***

“You imbecile, you ruined the plan completely.” Someone paced nearby. “They know we’re here now, and (Y/N) is in no condition to fight.” The drug was fading again. You shivered, cold.

“I couldn’t let them put them in that cell again. Damian, (Y/N) is burning up.” A warm hand laid on your forehead. You sighed. It was Jon’s. He was always so warm. 

“TT.” Jon’s hand pulled away to be replaced by Damian’s callused hand. “This is proves how stupid you are. I told you to let me do the talking, but no, you had to go out with your white, American accent. Now we’re stuck in here, and (Y/N) needs medical attention.” 

Jon growled. “Stop it.” Damian’s hand pulled away. The blanket covering you was tucked securely around you.

You slowly opened your eyes. Damian sighed in relief. “Here.” He helped you sit up and pressed a canteen to your lips. You drank slowly, some dripping down your chin. Jon grinned like a puppy, rubbing your knee. “TT.” Damian pulled the canteen away and wiped your chin with his sleeve. 

“How?” You coughed. Damian supported you, letting you lean back into him.

“You didn’t think we wouldn’t come after you, did you?” Jon took your hand, kissing the back of it. Damian huffed at the sight.

“But...you should be in Gotham.” You tried to look at Damian, but he pressed the canteen to your lips again. 

“Gotham is fine. You are not.” Damian gestured to Jon. Jon blinked, having to drag his eyes away from you to go get something from a bag in the corner. “TT, you honestly thought we’d leave you here? Everyone is losing their minds with worry about you. I’ve never seen Grayson so upset.” Your stomach dropped at the thought.

Jon came back to you, handing Damian a bottle of pills. He shook two out and pressed them into your mouth. You took them, taking a sip of water to wash it down. Jon took your hand again, smiling dopey. The relief in his eyes hurt more than everything else. 

You took in the room. It looked like an old storage closet. You were lying on a pile of blankets with Jon’s cape covering you. “Where are we?” Damian pulled away, laying you back down. 

“We’re in Peña Dura.” Jon scooted closer, sharing his warmth with you. He pronounced Peña Dura incorrectly. Damian rolled his eyes behind him, going back to pacing the room. “We found out through Damian’s contacts that they took you here.” He gestured to his clothes. You wrinkled your nose when you realized he was dressed like one of Bane’s goons. Damian was in similar attire. “We snuck in and disguised ourselves until we found you.” He kissed your cheek, laying down beside you. You shivered. He slipped under his cape, pressing close. His warmth soaked into you.

“Except someone was dumb enough to let our cover be blown. Now the entire place is on high alert.” Damian glared at Jon. “Kent, no funny business.”

“I’m not going to do anything. Just trying to keep (Y/N) warm.” Jon snapped. “Geez, like we’d do anything with you standing there anyway.” Damian snorted in disgust. 

You chuckled tiredly. Jon was so warm like he always was. You snuggled closer to him, colder than you ever been before. “Go back to sleep,” Jon whispered. He kissed the top of your head. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” You relaxed. Right before you passed out again, you noticed Damian studying you and Jon with a bewildered expression.

***

“We have to move now,” Damian snapped. He knelt down for you to climb onto his back.

“I can walk.” You pressed your hand against the wall to keep your balance. 

Damian turned to glare darkly at you. “Get on my back now.” You sighed, climbing onto his back and wrapping your arms around his neck. Damian stood up. Jon swung the bag over his shoulder. He studied you, adjusting one of the blankets to sit more securely on your shoulders.

“Are you sure you can handle it, Damian? I can carry (Y/N) easily.” Jon bit his lip. 

“I’m fine. Just move.” Damian snarled, holding your legs tightly. Jon slipped out of the storage closet first. You buried your face into the back of Damian’s neck. He grunted, probably feeling your fever through his skin. It had only dropped slightly, but there wasn’t time left. 

You shivered violently, wishing you could be strong. Your body ached for the drug. Despite that fact you wanted to stay awake, your body wanted the drug to push you into the stupor once again. Damian theorized your fever was partly infection and withdraw. You had to admit he was probably right. 

Damian and Jon made their way down the corridors. You kept your eyes closed, dozing. 

Damian suddenly stopped. You tensed, sensing what he did. Ironically, Jon didn’t notice until the first bullet was fired. Damian backed into a room with an open door. “Shit.” 

“Language,” you said humorlessly. Damian tightened his grip on your legs. 

“Quiet.” Damian glanced around the room. Jon fought out in the hallway. You heard the searing of his heat vision. 

Damian set you down, leaning you against the wall. “What now?” You rocked dangerously. Damian gripped your shoulder to keep you upright. 

“Let me think.” He glanced around the room. It looked like another cell with a bed in the corner and a sink on the other side. His eyes fell on the barred window. “We might have to climb.”

You frowned. “I don’t know if...” Your legs were already shaking, getting weak from standing just a few seconds. “Damian, leave me.” 

Damian flinched. He spun to you, grabbing your arm roughly. “Don’t you ever say that. I am never leaving you behind.” 

You stared into his eyes. There was the Damian you knew. You hadn’t ruined him after all. Suddenly, it occurred to you. “You two came on your own, didn’t you?” You sighed. “Damian, Dad always told you to think about how to get out of the situation before jumping in.” 

“TT, there was no time.” Damian left you. He took a laser tool out of his pocket, cutting through the bars on the window. You stumbled to the bed, sinking onto it weakly. Everything ached. You never imagined so much pain. 

Damian took off the bars and looked out the window. It was dark outside. The scent of the ocean in the air.  “This might work.” He looked at you, thinking. 

“What about Jon?” You jumped when a boom came from the hallway. 

“He’s fine. Man of steel or so he claims.” Damian pulled the blanket from your shoulders. “I’m going to tie you to my back. We’ll climb down.” 

“Are you sure you’ll be able to carry me?” You shivered, watching Damian tie secure the blanket around you. Leaning against his back, you wrapped your arms around his neck as he tied you to him. 

“TT, you always did doubt my abilities.” Damian snorted. He climbed out the window. You tightened your arms around his neck when you saw the ground far below. “Calm down.” 

“Right.” You buried your face into the back of his neck. Damian freeclimbed down, using the uneven bricks of the prison to work his way down. 

Bullets rang out from the window. You looked up to see men firing down at you and Damian. Damian pressed against the wall. He swore under his breath. You glanced down. The cobblestone courtyard was far below. “Damian, drop.” 

Damian gasped. A bullet hit his shoulder. His blood splatted your face. He lost his grip, dropping one arm. “We’re not in any condition to survive a fall.” He groaned, trying to hold on with one hand. 

“Jon will catch us. Drop now.” The blood poured down his shoulder, soaking into you. You reached for his hand with your bad arm. “Let go.”

Damian grunted. He let go. The two of you dropped fast. You wrapped your legs and arms around Damian. Taking a deep breath, you screamed.

Suddenly, the wall above you and Damian burst. Jon rocketed toward you and Damian, catching you and Damian with the blanket tying the two of you together. The blanket jerked into your ribs. You squeaked, feeling your ribs snap again. Damian just grunted. Jon set you and Damian down in the courtyard. Damian crumbled. You landed on top of him, causing him to moan.

“Sorry.” You tried to untie the blanket, but your fingers wouldn’t work right. Jon reached down to help. 

“He’s losing a lot of blood.” Jon took the blanket and pressed it to Damian’s shoulder. You rolled off him. Energy drained out of you every second you tried to sit up. 

“Jon, we’re going to have to surrender.” You swallowed hard at the shocked look on Jon’s face. “Come on, I can’t walk. Damian’s losing too much blood.” 

“I’m fine.”  Damian sat up. His face paled and he instantly passed out. 

“Oh crap.” Jon patted Damian’s cheeks. “Wake up. Come on.” You tried to keep pressure on Damian’s shoulder. Black swarmed your vision. You felt the blood draining out of your face. Jon glanced over at you. “Oh no, not you too.” 

You kept your eyes on Damian. “We’ll be fine. Go. Get out of here.” You waved him off. Jon froze, jaw dropped. “Go get help. Let everyone know what happened. You can come back for us.” 

“No!” Jon jumped to his feet. “I can’t leave you two.” Armed guards swarmed the courtyard. Bullets fired around you. Jon stepped in front of you and Damian. Bullets bounced off him. He put up his hands. “We’re all going down together.” 

You shook your head at him, too weak to argue. “Stubborn.” Guards surrounded the three of you. The Bane Lookalike appeared in front of you. You blinked at him before you felt your body give out.

***

“Remember, one wrong move and we’ll blow them up.” The Bane Lookalike warned, poking Jon’s chest. Jon growled, but stayed where he was. You watched dully, running your fingers through Damian’s hair as his head rested in your lap. The explosive collar was heavy around your neck. 

The Bane Lookalike glared over at you. “I can’t wait until I’m rid of you.” He slammed the cell door on his way out. 

“Are you okay?” Jon asked, hurrying to your side. 

You shrugged. “His pulse is weak, but he seems to be resting easy.” You kept running your fingers through Damian’s hair. Ever since you woke, you crawled to Damian’s side and stayed there. 

Jon pressed his hand to your forehead. “You’re still burning up.” He grabbed a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around your shoulders. “Damian will be fine. He’s strong.” 

“And I’m not?” You shook your head weakly. A lump grew in your throat. “Why couldn’t they just kill me? Let this all be over with.” 

“Don’t you ever say something like that!” Jon wrapped his arm around your shoulders, sharing his heat like the radiator he always was. He kissed your cheek. “Why do you keep scaring me like this?” 

You rested your cheek on his shoulder, closing your eyes. “I was trying to do what was right. Trying to fix my mistake.” Jon rubbed your back. “I ruined everything by killing Bane. Everything.” 

“You didn’t ruin anything.” Jon tensed slightly. “This is just a mess anyway.”

Damian moaned in his sleep. You checked his shoulder. The bandage was still holding. The bleeding finally stopped. “You know that man is Bane’s son? He hates me for killing his father and forcing him to take over. It’s the same reason Damian hates me.” 

Jon’s jaw dropped. “Damian doesn’t hate you. (Y/N), he lost it when you handed yourself over. I mean everyone was shocked, upset, but Damian had to be held down by Jason and Dick to stop him from barreling right after you.” Jon swallowed hard. “Even then, he didn’t want to wait for the others to figure out a plan. He came up with this, and told me to come with him.” He glanced down at Damian. “He loves you. He just doesn’t watch his mouth and let’s his anger speak for him.” 

You snorted. “It’s a good thing he can’t hear you.” You winced when you moved too sharply. “How long has it been?” 

“When? Since we surrendered?” Jon eyed the collar around your neck. “A couple of hours.” 

“Since I gave myself up?” You opened your eyes to look at him. “I was locked in that dark cell for a long time and I don’t know how much time passed while they drugged me.” 

Jon bit his lip. “Three weeks.” He pressed a gentle kiss to your lips. “Worst three weeks of my life to be sure.” 

You smiled into the kiss. “I thought I wouldn’t see you again. It hurt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest.” 

“I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t sleep, all I kept thinking was how I might never see you again.” Jon nuzzled your cheek. “I love you.” 

“I love you too.” Your heart skipped a beat.

“TT, stop it.” Damian grunted. He opened his eyes, glaring up at you and Jon. “It’s bad enough that my best friend and sibling are dating, but I don’t need it rubbed in my face.” He tried to sit up, but gasped in pain. You pushed him back down. 

“You need to rest. Not much we can do right now anyway. I have a bomb around my neck.” You traced your fingers over his forehead. 

Damian’s eyes widened, staring at the collar around your neck. “Shit.” 

“Did Dad know how much you started swearing?” You teased halfheartedly. Damian huffed. “I missed you, Damian.” 

He blinked. “I missed you too.” He closed his eyes at your touch. “I am sorry for what I said. You are not responsible for our father’s death. You didn’t ruin everything.” 

Your stomach dropped. Was Damian awake earlier, listening to you and Jon? Jon tightened his arm around you. “That means a lot coming from you.” You leaned down to kiss Damian’s forehead. He grunted, blushing.

“Aww.” Jon laughed. 

“Shut up, Kent.” Damian snarled weakly. “We need to come up with a plan.” 

“They are going to hand (Y/N) over to the Joker. He bought them at the auction they held.” Jon whispered, tensing when they heard a bang from outside the cell. 

“Joker?” Damian frowned. “But he’s dead.” 

Your blood ran cold. “What?” 

Damian blinked. “He committed suicide.”

“But that goes against everything he is.” You couldn’t believe your ears. Jon looked shocked too. “Are you sure it was him?” 

“Yes.” Damian closed his eyes, shivering. “We found his body on patrol one night. It was a few week after Father...there were clues, Drake came with me and we found him hanging from the ceiling beam in the warehouse that created him.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me? Does everyone else know?” You stroked his hair again, hand shaking. 

Damian huffed. “You were in no condition. When it happened, you were still having your...episodes and fighting with Grayson.” 

You bit your lip. Suddenly, you remembered the day that it must have happened. Damian came from patrol when you were all still at the manor. Dick and you were fighting as he wanted you to talk to him about your nightmares. Damian walked by. You tried to get his help, but he just brushed you off. The traumatized look on his face burned into your memory.

“The Joker was always obsessed with Father. It makes sense that he wouldn’t handle it when Father...” Damian trailed off, studying you. “Don’t do that.” 

“What?” Blood rushed to your cheeks as you focused back on Damian.

“Don’t feel guilty about him. He did it himself.” Damian rolled his eyes. “Madman.” 

“So then who’s the one who bought (Y/N)?” Jon whispered, silently listening the whole time. His thumb rubbed circles into your shoulder. 

Damian hummed. “I don’t know.” 

“We’ll just have to wait and see.” You sighed, closing your eyes again and resting on Jon’s shoulder. 

“No, we won’t. As far as I’m concerned, you’re not going anywhere,” Jon said firmly. 

“TT, we might not have a choice.” Damian’s voice dropped to a whisper. 

“I’ll stay awake to keep watch. Rest now,” Jon whispered, kissing your temple. You smiled, drifting into the blissfulness of sleep. 

***

The Bane Lookalike clutched at the back of your shirt, dragging you out into the courtyard. A helicopter sat on the helipad. Wind tore at your clothes as the rotors slowed to a stop. Chilling cold sank into your bones. You glanced back to find Damian behind you, being held up by Jon. Guards surrounded them. A gun was pressed against Damian’s head when one of the guards caught you looking. You swallowed hard, feeling the weight of the bomb around your neck. They didn’t take it off yet. You weren’t sure why.

“You want him to live. You go quietly.” The Bane Lookalike jerked you. You bit your lip, looking back at the helicopter. The door opened. Your stomach dropped when you saw a flash of a purple suit.

“Well, well, well, look at this welcome.” The Joker stepped out of the helicopter, waving his arms around. A few armed men in clown masks got out behind him. “Oh, Robby. Look at you.” He walked to you, almost dancing. 

Something felt familiar about him and not in the way you expected. You frowned, tensing. “You have the money?” The Bane Lookalike tightened his grip on you. 

The Joker laughed before he noticed the bomb collar around your neck. “Take that off.” He instantly lost his humor. “No one blows up Robin except me.” 

“No, we have to control Superboy.” The Bane Lookalike nodded back to Jon and Damian. 

“Can we work out a deal for those two?” The Joker clapped his hands. “I would like to have the full set.” The Joker met your eye. It was like someone punched you in the stomach. You knew those eyes. Those were Dick’s eyes.

“Depends, how much are you willing to pay?” The Bane Lookalike jerked you again. You stumbled, falling against him. The Joker/Dick’s eyes flashed before he went back into character.

A cackle escaped from The Joker/Dick. “You stupid kid. I won’t have to pay you anything.” 

Suddenly, flashbangs went off all over the place. You were knocked down by the Bane Lookalike when he was attack by The Joker/Dick. The bomb around your neck started to beep. Your breath caught in your throat. You touched it, trying to find a way to get it off.

A joker goon knelt down beside you. “Stay calm.” He took off the clown mask to reveal Tim’s face. “We’re here. It’s okay,” Tim soothed, taking out tools to try to remove the collar. 

“You don’t hate me?” Tears filled your eyes. You didn’t want to die like this. Not in front of your family.

Tim flinched. “Hush, no.” He picked at the collar as it’s beeps increased. “Stay still. I almost have it.” 

You closed your eyes. A whimper slipped out of your mouth as guns fired nearby. The collar clicked and Tim pulled it away from you. “Superman!” You opened your eyes to see Tim throwing the collar to Superman who was blocking you and Tim from a hail of bullets. Superman held it tightly in his hands. It boomed seconds later. 

Tim scooped you up into his arms and moved you behind some crates near the helipad. “Are you okay?” He quickly checked you over.

“I think so.” You shivered. Tim pressed his gloved hand against your forehead.

“You’re burning up.” Tim bit his lip.

“You have to help Damian. He got shot in the shoulder, lost a lot of blood.” You shook your head. 

Tim glanced around the crates. “We’ll get him. Superboy is protecting him.” He glanced back at you. “I swear if you do something so foolhardy like this again, I...I’ll do something.” 

You laughed despite the battle happening around you. “Sure.” Tim peeked around the crates again. “Go. Help them. I’ll be okay here.” 

“Are you sure?” Tim eyed you worriedly. 

“Go.” You closed your eyes as Tim leaned you back against the crate. “I’ll stay here, I promise.” 

Tim nodded. He pressed a taser in your hand. “Just in case.” You smiled weakly as he jumped over the crates and ran into the action. 

You wanted to get up to help, but your body refused. Closing your eyes, you tried to not think about who could be getting hurt or dying because of you. 

“Niño. You ruined everything.” Your eyes shot open to find the Bane Lookalike standing in front of you. Turning on the taser, you held it up to warn him away. He glared, kicking your hand and sending the taser flying away from you. 

“I’m sorry.” You coughed, scooting as far away from him as you could. “But you don’t have to do this. This all can stop now. We don’t have to be defined by tragedy.” It surprised you that this came to you now. You remembered Dick telling you that during the first month after your father’s death. Ironic this piece of wisdom would spill out of your mouth now. 

The Bane Lookalike shook his head. “No.” In one shift move, he jabbed a needle into your arm. You watched in horror as he injected a large dose of the drug into you. “Suffer and die, you piece of human filth.” 

It hit you instantly. Your heart stopped. Breath couldn’t enter your lungs. Black swarmed your vision. The last thing you heard was the Bane Lookalike’s laughter.

***

You jerked awake. A frown pulled at your lips when you were met with the high, elaborately decorated ceiling of Wayne Manor. You sat up, stunned to find yourself lying on a leather couch in your father’s study. 

The chair behind the desk was turned away from you, but you could see someone was in it. “What?” You got to your feet, surprised to find you were in your old Robin suit. Odd. Especially since it didn’t fit you anymore. “How did I get here?” 

The chair behind the desk spun around. Your blood ran cold while your heart skipped a beat. “(Y/N),” Bruce Wayne said, smiling sadly at you. 

“Daddy.” You ran to him, jumping over the desk and straight into his arms. He laughed. His arms strong and protective around you. You never thought you would feel this safe again. Sobs racked your body. “I missed you so much.” 

“I know, sweetheart.” He rocked you. Part of you realized you were a tad too old to be doing this, but you didn’t care. “I missed you too.”

A long time passed before you pulled back to look at him. “Was it all a dream? You never died, right?” 

Bruce rubbed your back. His face fell. “I did die, (Y/N). None of it was a dream.” 

You froze, confused. “Wait, but how am I here? How are you here? What’s happening?” You panted, panic setting in. “Did I die too? Oh no, I died in front of the others. Did they have to find my body?” 

“Hush.” Bruce caught your chin. “Breathe.” He took a deep breath. You copied him, tears still running down your cheeks. “Calm down. You are not dead. At least not yet.” 

“What does that mean?” You glanced around. Everything was a little fuzzy, unfocused. 

“You are in a coma.” Bruce wiped your tears ffrom your cheeks. “Bane’s son caused you to overdose.” He held you close. “You are currently fighting for your life.” 

Your lips trembled. “I’m sorry. I just cause pain and stress for everyone.” You buried your face into his shoulder. 

“I am proud of you, (Y/N).” Bruce rubbed your back. “You been so strong, grew so much.” He kissed the top of your head. “Don’t get me wrong. I am upset you would do something so risky as to hand yourself over.” 

You sniffled. “I’m sorry, Daddy.” You looked up at him. “I just wanted to fix my mistakes. I shouldn’t have killed Bane. It ruined things for everyone.” 

“Yes, but you have done your best to repair the damage and I’m proud of you for it.” Bruce looked you in the eye. “I know you think you should suffer for what you did, but you have and now it’s time for you to live. You deserve to live, sweetheart.”

You blinked, surprised he knew what you had been thinking. He knew you felt like you couldn’t be happy, that you couldn’t have a life. “I love you.” You hugged him tightly. 

“I love you too.” He stood up from his chair with you in his arms. “But it’s time for you to go.” 

“What?” You whimpered, not wanting this to end. Tears filled your eyes again. “But I don’t want to leave you.”

Bruce smiled, setting you down on your feet. “I know, but you have to wake up. Take care of your brothers, Alfred, and the girls. They need you and you need them.” 

“Will I see you again?” A wave of chilliness washed over you. You shivered. A beeping like a heart monitor sounded in the distance. 

“You will someday. Remember you are not alone. I’m here for you every step of the way.” He leaned forward to kiss your forehead. You closed your eyes, feeling his touch before everything drifted away. 

The beeping in the distance got louder and closer. You felt like you were floating. Your eyes couldn’t open. Your body couldn’t move. Something weighed you down. A soft surface was beneath you. Something was in your arm.

Someone cleared their throat somewhere nearby. You fought to open your eyes, hoping that it was your father. Maybe he wasn’t dead? Maybe everything else had been a dream? You knew you were wrong, but you couldn’t help it.

A warm, large hand grabbed your hand. “(Y/N), kiddo, you awake?” Jason asked. The surprise from Jason’s voice finally gave you the strength to open your eyes. You saw white first, blinking until you could focus on Jason’s smiling face. “Hey, kiddo.” He sighed in relief. 

You blinked at him slowly. Energy drained out of you simply from opening your eyes. The beeping increased. “Woah, don’t panic. You’re fine. Everything is fine,” Jason soothed, glancing up at the heart monitor. You tried to look at it too, but you could barely keep your eyes open. Your eyelids weighed heavily enough to force you to close your eyes again. “Go back to sleep, kiddo.” A kiss was pressed to your forehead in the same place your father had kissed you. Maybe you imagined the whole encounter? You wondered about it before you slipped back into nothingness again.

[ecmlol]

Dick on daddy mode 10

Back on earth

Everyone is worried about dick. He has stopped looking out for the team and Bruce has picked up where he left off. Dick always mumbles that he has to be mom and dad and he doesn't have time for anything else.

It been exactly a month and today everything changed. Mari has been crying for 3 minutes straight.In this house hold that is not normal. Rachel finds her in her crib in tears she picks her up and tries to quite her.

It's ok your big sister has you. Let's go find daddy.

She knocks on dick and kory's door and nothing. She walks all over the house and nothing . She looks around the kitchen for a note. Nothing she asked the boys if they have seen dick but of course not they where still in bed and Bruce is out of town because he had a business trip that lasted for 2 days and then he promised to be back.

She goes back to dick and kory's room. She knocks again. Still nothing. She opens the door and sees dick is on the floor. She rushes into check to see if he's alive.

Dick dick?? She checks his pulse and breathing. Everything seems normal.

Tim gar I need you Rachel yells out.

Mari starts to cry again and then she goes silent in Rachel's arms like she had a on and off switch.

A few minutes late gar and Tim run into the room

What happened? Gar ask

Are they dead tim ask

No I don't think so.

Off world

Kory is has been missing everyone on earth so bad she wanted to contact dick and mari. Kom can reached her because they are blood. So she figured if she could concentrate hard enough maybe she could reach mar . And if she can contact her maybe she can reach dick if she was pregnant. If her connection to dick could reach him she would know for sure she's pregnant .

Kory is mediating on her old bed her hand on her stomach and her mind focus on dick and mari. Her mind keeps focusing on dick .

Dick doesn't know where he is. The room is dark and spacious.and then he hears her.Kory

Come on dick feel hear me my loves.

Kory dick shouts

Kory hears mari crying and dick calling out to her .

Kory eye fly open and she thought she saw a dark figure in the middle of her room before it disappear and the voices dies in her head.

Back on earth

Rachel was able to break dick and mari back from where ever they where.

What did you do? Dick say as he opens his eyes and see Rachel staring down at him he notices mari is crying next to him.

I brought you back from were ever you where.

I know you think your helping but please next just leave me alone.

Dick why I found you on the floor completely out of it.

I think I was with Kory I heard her and then I woke up.

Wait your having visions like kory gar said

I don't know if it was a vision but I swear I wasnt here I was someplace else.

Off world

There is a knock

Kory gets up and turns the light on

Who is it

I'm the healer

Come In come in.

Kory lays down

How may i help

I need to see if you can sense if I'm pregnant.

Ah I see

The healer who kory barely remember walking over and holds there hands over her.

Hum interesting

I see a past pregnancy very recent

And?

Yes but I sense something different about this one but it is too new to tell.

I knew it. Wait you said different? How

To soon to tell but do not worry . Give it time to settle in my queen

Please don't call me that

As you wish

The healer leaves .

I'm pregnant we did it . Kory says with delight. Kory is now sure she really did contact dick.

Back on earth dick has come out of the fog just a little . He is making dinner for everyone.

Everyone thinks it's a good start. Rachel has contacted bruce to let him know what's going on.

Off world

Connor is in heaven he is loving life on tameran he doesn't mind being tied up and walked around like a slave by Kom.

Connor is playing with Kon by the bathing pool. While Kory and Kom talk.

Sister you are absolutely glooming Kom say

Thank you. Connor was right I am pregnant and I swear I had a vision of dick and my little girl.

Connor did you hear that you're right about koriander being pregnant

Awesome all that trying didn't go to waste. Connor say.

They both laugh

Ah I see I hope they are well

I couldn't tell. Speaking about my family when do you think we can go home.

Sister you just arrived. I need to make sure kon will be strong enough to survive the trip . I want him to be atleast 5 lb heavier.

That reasonable plus you want a heir .

Of course I need one to take place of my current one.

If kon isn't able to live here why do you think a nother baby by the same male would be about to?

You do crazy things for love my sister .

Connor get up with Kon in his arms. He is holding him like a teddy bear.kom finds it endearing and Kory agree

How are you two getting along? Kory ask

Great I think he's starting to like me. Connor says.

Oh course he likes you . You are his father he just has to get use to having you around.He has never seen anyone that looks like himself before.

Yeah I do stick out here.

So does he. Kom say.

Connor smiles

I have never seen our little one so happy and actives before. Kom says

Kon is smiling and kicking his legs. Like he's dancing.

He's getting stronger I can't wait to see if a yellow sun makes him even more like me. Connor say.

Yes he is .I wish I could see that. Kom say

Me too. Connor say with a frown.

Dont be sad you'll have our son to keep you busy and your other family the Titans.

But I want to stay with you Conner say

Kom stands up and cups his face.

We have discussed this I will be with you in spirit and if I could have more time with you I would.i am a queen of a planet I have responsible here.

Not to interrupt this moment but Why don't you let me take kon and head back to earth and when it's time for Connor to come back he can take another ship.

Yeah let me stay and make sure your pregnancy goes well. Kory tell her I was very helpful to you wasnt i? Connor is almost in tears.

You where wonderful connor and I was very grateful for you. I'm going to need you again in 6 month connor .

Sounds like you might need to stay also sister.

Kory sigh.

I can't I need to go home. I'm giving you two two weeks after that I'm taking kon and leaving.

Kory takes a smiling kon and his bubble.

Help me with this so I can leave so you two so you can fuck your brains out.

Ok connor says and helps kory with the bubble.

See you in a few hour and I mean it get to work. Connor I'm counting on you mari and dick are counting on you

That's a lot of pressure. Connor say

Sooner you knock her up the sooner your son can live outside of a bubble don't you want that ?

Yes

Good then get going connor

On it

Sister I am the only one that demands things from him kom say

Kory rolls her eyes and leaves.

Conner stares after her and then frowns

What is the matter connor.

I'm scared I will disappoint her and you. Connor say

Never you always find a way to please me.

I do?

Yes do not worry my sister she can not leave until I say so .

On earth dick is doing the dish when he just blacks out .he wakes up in a lighted room unsure where he is. Then he heard crying. Mari he looks down and mari is in tears

Hey daddy here baby girl.

Dick? Mari

Kory?

Yeah it's me

How am I here?

A flash of connor head buried in between kom breast flashed between dick and kory sight

Sister?

Sorry

What was that? Dick asked

My sister and connor trying to make a nother baby . I think because my nephew is attached me me via my left breast I'm even more connected to My sister.

Why can I hear you but I cant see you .

What do you see

Gold ever where.

Kory opens her eyes and sits up

Dick turn around .

Dick is standing in the far corners of the room.

your here

I'm here? Dick tries touching something. He can't feel anything. He notices he's wearing different clothes.

Dick? This time it Rachel .

Are you ok?

Yes I'm with kory .

Dick?

Yes kory I'm here but Rachel is too

But I only see you and mari

Tell kory hi and I miss her.

Will do

Rachel disappear

Dick dick? Kory say

I'm ok I'm here we are here

Is it really you ? Or am I just dreaming. Kory ask.

I'm a vision maybe I see these things so differently now because of mari

How is she

She's gaining weight.

That's good . Can you see me?

I can now

This is konrad or just Kon

Wow he is real

Yeah and he was starving when I got here my sister doesn't produce milk like I do . It's was awful he was so thin when I first saw phim. Kory tells him. Kory say It's only been a day but you can already see a difference in him . His coloring is better he doesn't look so pasty to her anymore.

We just ran out of the freezer full this morning she eating so much now.

What about the freezer in the training room?

I forgot about that dick says

There is a banging on the door.

Dick and mari disappears

Koryandr open up kom say

Damn it what!

Kory opens the door and kom is in a robe

What ??

I can't finish I keep hearing you somehow talking to dick . How are you even accomplishing that any way?

Well I think I'm only doing it because I'm pregnant to be honest. Me and you are sisters so that how I see what you can see but it seems like if i have the powers it always different then yours.

Ah. Well what ever your doing please stop it's very distracting when I'm trying to fulfill my duty's as queen .

Here take your baby I think he's done any way . I think that's why we were so connected in the first place.

Kory pops the bubble and quickly hands him off to his mother. She s secures him to her flat stomach and covers up.

Now you can finish getting laid without me in your head.

And how am I supposed to do that with him in the room.

He's milk drunk you have maybe a hour or two where he will be knocked out don't waste it talking to me. Kory say as she closes the door.

Dick is laying on the floor in the kitchen.

Welcome back rachel say

I really need to schedule this so I don't hurt myself

No more driving and using a knife for you until Kory comes back.

I totally agree

Dick is back in the golden room

Kory?

Dick! Hi I'm so glad I can get you back.

Me too but I have so many questions

Ok shoot

How are we doing this?

I m pregnant we did .

You are we are ?! That awesome

I think that's how I'm doing this.

Dick is fading in and out.

Not to complain but is there some how we can give me a heads up . You sort take over my hold body.

I do ?

Yeah

Ok I'll have to maybe just bring out here then send you back so you can just sit some place ?

That works give me 2 minutes to get to the living room

Ok

Kory breaks her concentration on dick and then she waits.

Back on earth

Kory is pregnant dick shout to the whole house before running into the other room with mari.

Pregnant awesome rachel says

Dick get comfortable and then he's back in the gold room with kory sitting in a chair infront of him

[redhoodieone]

My Best Friend’s Wedding

A/N: A new one.

Plot: AU. Jason Todd and Y/N Y/LN have been best friends since they were kids. They’ve dated once, but their relationship ended in heartbreak for her when he realized he wasn’t in love. Five years later, Jason’s best friend Y/N calls out of the blue with big news: she’s getting married…in 5 days. Jason’s world suddenly turns into a million fucking problems when he realizes he’s in love with Y/N and he’ll do whatever it takes to stop the wedding. But will he succeed…or fail?    

Warnings: Language and sexual content…so far.

 It seemed like every Friday night that Jason Todd would get very drunk just to forget about the busy-ass week he’s endured. At just twenty-five years old, his life revolved around being a young, attractive playboy bachelor in Gotham’s eyes and for working with his father Bruce Wayne at Wayne Enterprises with his brothers Dick Grayson and Tim Drake, and good friend Roy Harper.

It was like every day their faces were in tabloids and on TV. Bruce had always been a womanizer and the same reputation had been passed down to the four of them. Jason knew his life was nothing but a party; a big-ass huge party with several sexy women who were never more than one-night stands.

Add billions of dollars and booze to that and Jason’s life would be set.

But this week had been nothing but a shit show for him, and it wasn’t even Friday yet. It was just a Tuesday night. After work, Roy had insisted the boys drop by Rocky’s and get shit faced before calling it a night. Rocky’s was the closest bar near Wayne Enterprises; owned by Hal Jordan, a friend of Bruce’s from college.

Zatanna, a beautiful and kind bartender, set down four shot glasses of Tequila with salt and slices of lime.

“Is there anything else I can get you boys?” Zatanna asks, leaning over the counter with her breasts aching to pop out from her white corset top.

Jason wasn’t an idiot. As buzzed as he was feeling, he knew Zatanna was just trying to hook up with him again. The last time they fucked was probably a few months ago when he needed a date for a gala Bruce was hosting.

Sure, Zatanna was a good fuck. She was definitely a screamer, clawed Jason’s back rather good to where he needed a couple of stitches, and she was willing to try anything he suggested. But she wasn’t a “constant fuck” that he wanted. A “constant fuck” was someone you wanted in your bed all the time; never caring about one being a blanket hog, kiss despite the morning breath, and always looking forward to cooking and sharing breakfast in bed.

No. No, Zatanna wasn’t a “constant fuck” at all.

There was only one girl who had earned that title and so much more.

The one important girl Jason hadn’t seen in a few years since she left him for Smallville.

“I’m good, thanks,” Jason mumbles under his breath. He downs his shot and winces at the burn before he pulls out his cell phone from his back pocket to check it.

Roy smirks and winks at her. “Oh, kitten…keep showing us those ladies and you can get us whatever you want.”

“Roy, you’re drunk,” Tim snickers.

“I’m…I’m not drunk. I’m just…friendly is all,” Roy slurs. “Now, how about I show you what I can do with my mouth? I can use my mouth all over you, gorgeous.”

Tim gasps and slaps Roy’s arm. “Roy!”

“Look, don’t take Jason’s rejection and Roy’s sexual harassment seriously, okay? They’re not bad guys,” Dick smiles and tries to do damage control.

“Whatever. The fact that you have to defend them is pathetic,” Zatanna snaps, before she rolls her eyes and moves down to check on the other regulars.

Dick, Tim, and Roy glance over at Jason with wide eyes. Jason looks up and finally notices.

“What?” Jason asks.

“Dude, you really fucked up Zatanna, didn’t you?” Dick muses.

“What the hell are you even talking about?”

“Dick is trying to say you must have really broke Zatanna’s heart for her to act so cold to us,” Tim says.

“We haven’t fucked each other since a few months ago,” Jason says defensively.

“Well, has she tried to call or text you since?” Roy asks.

Jason pouts his lips and appears to be thinking about it. “Maybe…I don’t fucking know. I blocked her number the day after we fucked.”

“Jesus Jason…” Dick sighs and shakes his head.

“What? Why are you getting on my ass for the stupidest shit, Dick?”

“Maybe because you’ve been doing nothing but screwing and upsetting chicks left and right like it’s second nature for you!”

Jason scoffs and reaches for his beer.

“Don’t fucking lecture me, dicky boy! You do the exact same shit, too!” Jason snaps.

“At least I don’t piss off and upset my chicks. God! At least have the decency to have respect or something,” Dick says.

Tim points at Jason and chuckles. “Maybe we should make a list of all the hearts Jason’s broke in all of Gotham!”

“That’s easy! Okay, there’s Isabel, Donna, Kori, and Y/N…” Roy trails off in his loud drunken voice.

Jason glares at them before looking down at his cell phone. Someone left him a voicemail. He checks his voicemail and his chest suddenly aches in familiar pain when he hears her voice.

Y/N.

“Hey guys, I’m gonna head on home. I feel like fucking shit,” Jason says, already standing up, dropping down a fifty-dollar bill, and leaving without hearing what the guys had to say.

He didn’t hear the whole message, but he knew he couldn’t listen to it there.

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

The moment Jason entered his penthouse, he didn’t waste anytime getting comfortable. He kicked off his shoes, slipping out of his expensive black pants and dress shirt, and getting a glass of water to soothe his burning throat from the alcohol from earlier.

In just his black boxers, Jason grabs his cell phone and enters his master bedroom to call Y/N. He clears his voice as soon as she picks up.

“Hello?”

“Y/N, hey sweetheart. I’m sorry I missed your phone call. I was at Rocky’s with the guys.”

“On a Tuesday night?” She actually fucking giggles at him. He loves hearing her giggle.

Jason smirks. “Yeah, work’s been hell, you know. Bruce and Lucius are thinking of expanding the new technology program that Tim built. They’re already thinking of sending us out to Japan, Switzerland, and wherever else they think we should go.”

“That is so cool! I wish Tim told me about his new program. Whenever he calls me, he never tells me anything. It’s always about me.”

“Well, you’re really fucking interesting, sweetheart. Now that you’re in Smallville, you must be bored out of your damn mind and you gotta have stories.”

A pause.

“Sweetheart? You still there?” Jason asks nervously. He’s immediately worried about the sudden silence.

“I’m still here. Sorry…” Y/N’s voice is soft and uneasy.

“Are you okay? Did something happen over there? Does Clark Kent need to get his ass kicked? Because I’ll tell Bruce, and he fucking would beat his ass for you, Y/N.”

“No! No, Clark has been great. He’s been very wonderful to me. He’s helped me out a lot here since starting out at the Daily Planet and everything. Everything is amazing…so amazing.” Her voice is lovely and sounds as if she’s…in love.

“Sounds to me as if you already met a guy, Y/N. I thought you were there to work; not date,” Jason jokes. He’s suddenly uncomfortable now.

“Well, that’s actually why I called you, Jason. I met someone.”

Jason pauses now. His eyes widen and his chest instantly hurts again.

“You…you did?” he chokes.

“Yeah, and oh my God, Jay…he is sooo amazing. He’s a really great guy, and you’re going to love him like I do. He’s not a bad guy. He’s loving, he’s kind, he’s funny, and he is so unbelievably sexy that I sometimes wonder why he’s even with me. But he is honesty the super guy in my life.” Y/N confesses breathlessly.

Jason exhales hard. “Really?”

“And…we’re getting married…in five days…and I want you there for me…for us.”

And just like that, Jason trips over his own feet when he tries to get to his bed to sit down.

[batfoonery]

BatPets Headcanons

In honor of the Most Glorious and Beloved Bitewing (and Ace and Titus and Alfred the Cat and Goliath and Batcow.....) I wanted to share my thoughts on what pets the batfam has and should have.

Dick

Ahhhhhhh Bitewing! Our new beloved! We've only just gotten you but if you get whooshed away by bad writers I already know I will RIOT.

It actually makes perfect sense for Dick to take in a stray pup. His bro-son has the attitude and personality of a cat, so he already had that covered. And I can't see him paying high prices for a designer breed (bless him) so it's stray/shelter or nothing.

That being said, he also needs a young dog. Some people are made with the disposition to take in the older dogs with older dog needs, but Dick loves deeply and I can't see that he'd deal well with the shorter timeframe of taking in older dogs. So. Younger dogs, that he can go running with in the morning and play with in the park and nap with on the couch.

Jason

My man has taste, and also had a doggo as a kid. He's got a soft spot for all of Gotham's forgotten strays. I see him as being a pitbull kind of guy, but like. Also mastiffs. Anything big and menacing looking, but they always turn out to be utter marshmallows.

Totally the type to name his big scary dog Tinkerbell or Baby or something mushy like that. Likewise, Kori and Artemis (and probably Roy) all collect cutesy costumes and collars and leashes. Has the most cutsey giant dog.

The kind of dog that he can trust to take care of kids. If he's particularly concerned about a kid out on the street he can drop the dog off to stand guard until the kid's parent shows up. The dog is real gentle with the lil human, but scares off potential kidnappers.

Cass

The first of our exotics keepers! I feel like Cass would really appreciate betta fish. The way the swim and flit through the water, fins seeming to dance as they moved.... like tulle, like dancing.

She probably has several tanks. The first one she got was from Petsmart or PetCo or whatever. It irked her because she knows they don't tend to treat the fish well, but the local petshop's fish were all extremely sickly looking. After that she's hooked, for lack of a better word, and Bruce ends up learning way more than he ever needed to learn about importing fish (and paying for imported fish).

She's meticulous about their care. They've all got nice big clean tanks, and a companion to help keep them clean (different ones according to temperaments, snails for the easier going ones and shrimp for the more aggressive boys). They've got live plants and decorations to hide under, each tank a different theme to show off the fish. Has lowkey been considering getting a female for one of her favorite easy going boys (the first one, who has become a very soothing companion) because he's getting older and she'd like to be able to carry a part of him on.

Tim

His companion is an emotional support animal, with papers from his doctor and everything. Seems like he should be a dog person, but instead has a very big Turkish Angora. Her name is Mrs. Tuffles and he got her from a breed-specific rescue.

She's good for him because she disrupts his work and also helps provide a soothing presence when he has a panic attack. At night if he isn't in bed at a certain time she lays on top of whatever he's working on. If he's panicking she lays on his lap or chest and purrs (the added weight, the feeling and sounds of the purrs, held disrupt tension). She's a cuddly cat, and it tricks him into sleeping in in the mornings.

When he finds out that cats purr on a wavelength that encourages healing, and that there's evidence that they sit on humans and purr in attempts to heal/help them, he bursts into tears and startles the cat, who had been draped over his shoulders.

Steph

Got a bunny because she thought it would be an easy pet. She was very very wrong. It was from one of the neighbors in her building, because the mom of the kid who brought it home didn't want it anymore. It's a cute little lop, grey and brown.

She quickly discovers that bunnies are super dirty, and they absolutely stink. It bites her for the first week (and Tim and Jason and everyone else that isn't Damian, who somehow tricks it into loving him) and she seriously considers taking it to the shelter. But she doesn't. By week three, he's snuggling up on her feet and in her lap, and she decides that maybe he isn't so bad after all.

He didn't have a name when she got him, so she call him Mi-Mi. She doesn't tell Damian, but it's totally named after him because he reminds her of the way Damian had been when she'd first met him and the progression of their friendship over time.

Duke

Seems like a bird type of dude. Probably has a Cockatiel or two. They're very sassy birbs, and there's no way he doesn't enjoy that. One of them repeats words, and has picked up swears from Jason. It swears at Bruce every time he comes in Duke's room. Everyone except Bruce finds it funny.

The other one "dances" whenever it hears music coming from Cass's room. They're both very active and curious, he's contantly having to buy toys for them to rip apart. One of them nipped Damian's ear once, and Duke has never seen Damian look more offended in his life. It was probably the first pet that Damian hadn't been able to Disney-Princess.

They've probably got a dumb name pair. Tom and Jerry, Chip and Dale, etc. Personally I think he'd get a kick out of naming them Batman and Robin, just to fuck with Bruce. He probably then teaches the one who talks (Batman) to say dumb things like "I am the night! I work alone!" etc etc.

Damian

Has all the animal companions. Not pets. That makes them beneath him, which probably opposes his fundamental beliefs. This is my reminder to yall that Ra's started out as an eco-terrorist. Putting aside what he is or is not now, I like to believe that Damian was raised with a deep respect for nature and animals, he probably sees humans as just one particularly terrible animal species.

He has a wide array of companions as is. I'm good with them all, although I wish they'd bring back his dragon friend. :( I love the dragon friend.

I think he'd be the type to have axolotls too. They've got an interesting mythological basis and fit into the dragon theme. Plus the short story "The Axolotl" by Cortazar is a fascinating piece of mystical realism and I could see that he'd be intrigued by the species. They're endangered in the wild because of habitat destruction and invasion of foreign species that prey on them, but are easily bred in captivity. So I could see he'd keep at least one breeding pair, with the intent to someday bully Bruce into funding a project to save their natural habitat.

Barbara

Doesn't have her own pets, because she doesn't want the responsibility on top of everything else she does.

But her apartment always has furry/feathered friends in it because she's constantly petsitting for the others when they have to go do hero stuff. She's basically like a step-mom for everyone else's pets. She's learned how to take care of tanks and whatnot as well, mostly for Cass. The axolotls are gross and she refuses to touch those tanks, but the bettas are kinda like cute grumpy old men. She likes to tease Bruce by telling him his grand-fish take after him.

Always has a variety of pet snacks with her. She is determined to be the overall favorite human to all the bat-pets. Competition is fierce between her and Dami, but she has an edge because Robin the Cockatiel seems to prefer her.

[peppersonironi]

Duke Thomas/The Signal Fic Recs

This is for @capttain-emo who saw me reblog this wonderful rec list by @stories-from-the-batcave , and asked if I knew any more. (I highly recommend those, btw, I love all the fics on that list! Yes, that includes the one I wrote in there) Duke Thomas is my favorite Batfam member, so I have a bunch! Unfortunately, there isn’t as much Duke content out there as I’d hope - people just don’t seem to like him as much for some reason? It’s sad. So, there are gonna be a couple here written by me. Rest assured, I have way more Duke content on the way - including a WIP coming out this week! (Ao3 linked out at the top of my blog)

I love recommending Fics, so hit me up in my inbox if there’s a trope or character or relationship (platonic or not) that you’d really love to read! I also write fan fiction, and my requests are always open!

1. Siblings: The Truth of the Matter by Me!

Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & his siblings

Duke had a strange family. Two of his siblings had been raised from birth to be assassins. One was born in a circus. One had been a crime lord for a time. Yet another was the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company by the age of seventeen. All of them dressed up in spandex every night to punch bad guys.

So when he was woken up by icy water being splashed in his face, tied to a chair in nothing but his boxers, he wasn't surprised. Now, that's not to say he wasn't worried. Duke was definitely worried. Especially since it was these two.

AKA Duke gets tied up and questioned by his siblings, all while drugged with Truth Serum!

2. Bliss by Me!

Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Damian

Duke walks in on a sleeping assassin child in need of comfort, and takes a chance. Brotherly bonding ensues!

3. An ever growing family of birds and bats by alicecrow6

Rating: General Audiences/Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Damian

a series of Batkids Age Reversal fics where Damian comes first, then Harper, then Duke and so on.

4. look at me, all the things I can do by Aelig  

Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Cass, Duke & Bruce

"Duke took a bite of his toast, gaze still on Bruce. His foster father was sipping at his coffee, eyebrows frowning. To an outsider, you would think he was reading the morning news on his tablet, like always; Duke knew better. Bruce's look was a little away from the screen, his lips downward.

It was almost funny, to watch Bruce internally panic."

OR: It's the morning, and Duke is going back to school for the first time since his injury.

5. The Batchair(s) Issue by NightFlier

Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen w/ background ships Relationships: Duke & Cass, Duke & Steph, Steph/Cass Trio & Batfam

Duke Thomas feels like an outsider, and not just because he's part of the new Outsiders team roster. He's the newest member of the legendary Batclan and hasn't yet formed the close bonds that the others share. Not to mention, he's the only active Meta on the team. As if it wasn't hard enough to relate with people with such colorful, unique backgrounds.

But it's okay! Duke has a plan and it'll probably work for a while before crashing & burning. BatShenanigans ahead.

6. All That Glitters is Gold (Unfortunately) by IndefiniteIceCube

Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Tim, Duke & Steph

The world is gold and Duke can't breathe.

He can't breathe.

He was sitting in AP World History just a minute ago.

Was it a minute ago? It seemed like a minute ago but it could have been hours because all he can focus on is that he can’t breathe. His lungs won’t fill and- and he’s trying he swears but he just. can’t. breathe.

And the gold—

-----

Duke's powers emerge.

It doesn't go well.

7. Be the Light that Helps Others See by Ace_Corvid @ace-corvid

Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Batfam

Duke didn't really know what to expect from movie nights with the Bats.

He could only assume they approached this with the same determined intensity as they approached everything else. They were all so extra it was like their gauge for normal was completely broke. He wasn't really prepared for this.

And yet here he was. Surrounded.

(Alternatively; Batkid's have a movie night.)

8. I've Made a Million Mistakes by Sohotthateveryonedied

“Y’all need Jethuth.”

Rating: Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Batfam

“Don’t worry,” Dick says, throwing his arm around Duke’s shoulders. “Everyone in this room has had their teeth knocked out at one point or another. It’s a rite of passage around here.”

“I don’t know how to tell you thith, but that doethn’t happen to normal people. We acthually prefer to keep our teeth, believe it or not.”

“Wait until you get your first major battle scar. Trust me, they’re cool.”

“Y’all need Jethuth.”

9. Children (All of Them) by TheFalconWarrior

Rating: Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Batfam

In which Tim is not stupid but Jason might just be, Damian is furious, Dick kind of feels like he should be doing…something, Steph is ecstatic, and Duke wonders how long he can survive.

10. In the Dark of the Night by Aelig

Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Jason, Batfam

"Duke was woken up by someone sliding into his bed. Someone big judging by how the mattress shifted.

Because Duke was a well-trained vigilante, his first reflex was obviously to kick whoever was being creepy right now and push them out of his bed.

It was only when the someone landed on the floor with a yelp that Duke realized that he was at Wayne Manor, which was incredibly secure – normally. He could recognize the voice, too."

Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: none

OR: The Batfam and their way to deal with nightmares.

11. Welcome to the Family by angstyelephant

In which Duke Thomas goes back to the beginning.

12. Family-- by incorrectbatfam

Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & batfam

“Your assignment over the weekend is to write a poem about your family.”

13. I'm Still Climbing(Even When the Rest Have Fallen) by anidear

Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Dick, Duke & Damian

After his first exposure to the Fear Toxin, Dick checks in on Duke.

14. The cat and the newcomer by Fleur_de_Violette

Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Alfred the Cat

Duke always found people talking to their pets about their problems silly. And yet here he was.

15. Duke-napped by NightOwl1600

Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Bruce, Duke & batfam

The others don’t really bother Duke with his business. They all care about him, he knows, but outside of the vigilante business, they don’t really care to ask aside from the typical “How was school?” or “Can you buy me some chilidogs after you’re done with whatever you’re doing?” So he’s a bit concerned if they’ll even notice when he’s been kidnapped as Duke Thomas, Bruce Wayne’s newest ward. But he’s not about to panic; as the others seem to be so determined that traumatizing new experiences are part of Bat-initiation.

Meanwhile, the rest of the family freaks out because “Did anyone go over the do’s and don’ts of getting kidnapped with Duke?!”

16. Nightmare/Hallucination by FearfulKitten @fearfulkittenwrites

Rating: Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Jason

Duke found himself staring at the ceiling again. His heart was no longer racing, but he wouldn’t exactly say that he was calm either. This is the moment after the end of a race you lost, when all of the adrenaline is starting to wear off and the hopelessness sets in. That’s it. You’re out of the competition, buddy.

Except that this isn’t a race, and Duke hasn’t just lost his spot for the finals. He had simply lost sleep.

17. Jason Todd, Big Brother Part 8792 by Gemini_00

Rating: General Audiences Category: Other Relationships: Duke & Jason, Duke & Damian

Robin and the Signal sneak along the Outlaws mission in order to steal a bazooka and hang out with Kori. Jason has to deal with two little brothers and feeding a team of outlaws. He's putting this on Bruce's credit

18. "What's wrong? What's happening?" By FearfulKitten @fearfulkittenwrites

Rating: General Audiences Category: Other Relationships: Duke & Tim

Duke runs into trouble during his daytime patrol, and ends up needing some back up. The resident over-productive insomniac bat picks up the call.

(A little bit of and Duke interaction for a nice tumblr Anon :) I hope you like it!)

19. Nightmares by FearfulKitten @fearfulkittenwrites

Rating: Teen Category: Other Relationships: Duke & Dick

Filling the nightmare square on my bingo card with the help of an anon on tumblr who asked for a fic where Duke has a nightmare and asks for the help of one of the older batboys!

"Duke checked the time again. Two minutes had passed.

Time was ticking too slowly. He was tired, but sitting alone in the dark was definitely not a good idea right now.

He’d have to ask for help."

20. Brothers in Arms by TheFalconWarrior

Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Batfam

...possibly against each other. Batkid prank wars are the worst.

Duke is learning. Tim is evil. So is Damian. Dick is embarrassing. Jason is dramatic. Steph is brave. Babs is all-knowing. Cass wants in. Alfred is a little amused, and Bruce is so. Tired.

21. First rule of Robin, right? By ALzzza

Rating: Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Damian,Duke & Dick

"Nothing’s going to hurt you—you got that, nothing.”

Duke doesn’t have anything better to do but it’s not like that matters. Hell, he’d drop everything and run—always in time to catch this little bird.

Or, Damian’s Been Having Nightmares, Duke To The Rescue—Dick Always With The Reassurance

22. Duke's Diary by fiery_day

 Rating: Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Batfam,Duke & Dick

This is a couple of journal entries by Duke as he learns to become Signal. He relates his thoughts on the batfamily and aspects of the vigilante life he now leads.

23. Significance of a Gala by nxttime

Rating: Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Batfam,Duke & Jason, Duke & Tim

This year’s Wayne Gala would be Duke’s first, and he had no clue how to feel about it.

 25. The cloud that looks after each other by Batmango

Rating: Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Bruce, Duke & Goliath

Duke wakes up the Bat cave after a fight with the Joker.

For MashpotatoeQueen5 as a thanks for using so many of my prompt in the excellent January Jot-Downs.

Prompt: a hurt comfort after an injury/illness? Or just cuddles. I love me some cuddles.

26. The One You’ll Know By by Redrikki

Rating: Teen Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Bruce, Bruce & Alfred

After losing his memory, Bruce asked Alfred not to tell him about his vigilante life, but he's beginning to think his butler left a few other things out. Like, say, his kids.

27. Duke Thomas Hates Bullies by Gemini_00

Rating: Unrated Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Steph, Duke & Tim, Duke & Bruce, Duke & Damian

Everyone loves that Duke Thomas isn't like all those other crazy Waynes. Everyone loves that the Signal isn't trying to get himself killed. Duke may not see Bruce as his dad, but he is definitely part of the bat family. and nobody is going to bully his family. Or, Duke Thomas Kicks Ass.

28. batman is dancing to fortnight and this might as well happen because vigilante life is already so *Goddamn* weird (Duke Thomas: A Memoir) by MashpotatoeQueen5

Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Bruce, Duke & Batfam

You may not have time to unpack all that, but Duke Thomas does.

(He doesn't get it either.)

(He loves his new crazy family nonetheless.)

29. In a World Where You Can Be Anything, Be Kind by RedHoodie1723

Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Bruce, Duke & Batfam

Day Six of Batfam Week 2020: Take Your Child To Work Day

It was Duke's first time visiting Wayne Enterprises, and he couldn't help but be intrigued by the Martha Wayne Foundation.

30. You’re My Brother by blackpercy

Rating: General Audiences Category: Gen Relationships: Duke & Dick

Duke's missing his parents a lot and Dick comes in to help his little brother.

And that’s it for the list! I hope you enjoy these thirty works! Once again, send me an ask if you have requests for fics, recs, or if you have general questions!

[catxsnow]

OLD WOUNDS PT. TWO

Summary: Dick’s words broke you more than a bullet ever could, it was time to fix that once and for all. No matter the outcome. 

Warning: angst, some swears

A/N: Part two babyyyyy. Wasn’t planning on this but I’m glad that I did! 

Word count: 3.5k

GIF not mine

Part one

It took weeks for your bullet wound to heal. Weeks of not being able to go out on the streets, weeks of being stuck at home, and weeks with nothing to do except for think about the words that Dick Grayson lashed out to you.

You knew that he was being honest about what he was thinking. Dick never yelled at you unless there was a reason and this one was loud and clear. Dick hated you. He hated you for leaving everyone behind without a second thought. He hated you for abandoning the people that you once called family.

And he was right to do so. You left for your own benefit and didn't think about anyone else while doing so. It was selfish of you, and you regretted it. Of course you did, leaving them left you with no one. You had been alone for years. You didn't want the pain of Jason and Wally's deaths leaning on you, or anyone else that you couldn't save.

Those weeks had left you in a mess. Sleepless nights of wondering how different things would be if you hadn't left. Stressing over whether or not you should ever show your face outside of your apartment again. Most of all, you felt the kind of sadness in your chest that never truly went away.

Dick's words hurt more than the bullet he took out of you.

It was what you needed to hear. You needed to know that you hurt so many people because of your actions. The pain that he cracked against you like a whip stung deep, but the true pain came from knowing that everything was your fault. You took his happiness, and you ruined him for years.

Babs, Kori, they were better than you, they always had been. Morally, skillfully, they always won against you and yet Dick wasn't happy with either of them. He was happy with you and you broke him in return.

By the time that your wound had healed, you needed to get out of your home. You needed the fresh air, the harsh punches against criminals. That was the night that you wouldn't mind if a thug got the upper hand on you.

You had left Gotham the moment you left the Wayne Manor. It wasn't fair of you to stick around after already causing so much pain. Home was only a few cities over, you could never bring yourself to veer too far off.

It felt refreshing to leap from roof top to roof top. The crisp cold air woke you up out of the sluggish state you had been in. This was what you lived for, fighting crime and bringing peace to the people. It was too bad that you could never bring peace with your friends, if they dared to call you that anymore.

That night, you had taken down a few people. An idiotic thief, a pickpocketer, a group of men who were getting a too handsy with an innocent woman. The moment you jumped from the roof you knew that you were way outnumbered. There were too many men at once and you were stuck right in the middle of it all.

It was what you felt like you deserved. More punches than you normally would receive, but not enough that you couldn't take these bastards down. By the time the last one fell to the ground, blood dripped down your cheek and your lips. You spit out a mix of saliva and blood and stormed away from the scene.

The rest of the night was quiet, and quiet was what you were trying to avoid. It wasn't until you passed by your old hideout did you finally stop. It was well abandoned now, you hadn't been there since leaving the team. With a sigh, you headed over to the building. The access code was still the same - Dick's birthday.

Dust covered all the computers but nothing had been changed. You spent a lot of hours in that room. Between you and Dick, it was easy to clock in over thirty hours a week there. You spent a lot of time with him there and being inside only brought back memories that you were trying to diminish, not resurface.

However, you pushed on. You flipped the lights on in the room, looking around at everything that you once had. Dick was right, this was your fault. Everything that happened was because you weren't strong enough to be there.

You fingers trailed over the desks and you walked towards the Zeta Tube Bruce allowed you to have. It made it a hell of a lot easier to get to the mountain or the watchtower rather than going all the way over to Gotham. The machine whirred to life, and with a moments of hesitance, you typed in where you wanted to go.

The likeliness that they kept your name in the roster was slim, and you were sure that it wasn't even going to work. However, when you were beamed out of the room and to the Watchtower, you were more surprised than anything. The robotic voice spent chills down your spine as you arrived.

The Watchtower looked the same as it always had. Cold, empty, never home. Mount Justice had been your home for many years when you finally settled from going from mentor to mentor. The team was the first time that you ever felt like you had a stable life. Leaving it and having to come all the way up there? It never felt right.

You didn't realize you were walking towards the large window that overlooked Earth. A smile made its way to your face as you thought about the amount of times that you and Dick would watch from above. You spent hours with him up there, watching, talking, simply loving him and everything there was to him.

Fuck, did you miss him.

The loss of him hadn't hurt you this badly in so long. Seeing him again destroyed you just as much as him. You hadn't realized how much you missed having him by your side, whether it was fighting crime or in bed. You needed him in your life and it had been years since you had him.

"It's been a long time."

"Bruce," you acknowledged. You hadn't heard him come up behind you but you knew the sound of his voice. "I'm surprised you didn't cut off my access. Not very Batman of you."

"It was Tim that insisted," Bruce finally stood by your side. You could hear the underline in his voice though: Tim, not Dick. Tim always looked up to you when he had the mantle of Robin. He copied your fighting style in many ways and had a similar thought process to yours. You didn't know how he felt after you left.

Tim and Dick were as close as any non-blood related brother could be. During missions, Dick relied on Tim to be the leader of the group, he knew that he could handle things when things got tough. You both did. Tim was just another poor soul that you crushed upon your leaving.

"I take it you healed just fine?" Bruce continued upon your silence. You managed to avoid him, and anyone else in the Manor as you left that night. You weren't surprised that he had still managed to find out about your brief visit.

"Physically, you bet," you nodded. This time, Bruce picked up on your tone - Dick had laid a new one on you. He didn't know what conversation went on between the two of you but Dick had been on edge and snappy ever since you left. "Thank you, for saving me. I owe you one - I owe you lots."

"You could come back," Bruce looked over at you. His lips were in a tight line and his eyes couldn't be seen beneath his cowl. The long black cape draped his shoulders and you couldn't help but wish that you too had a cape to hide within. "We could use you on the team, either team."

"It's been years, Bruce," you sighed. I'm not welcome back, was more like it. You felt traitorous to even show up there, you couldn't consider rejoining the team. When the pain of your friends deaths started to dim, you dared showed your face there again? No, that wouldn't fly with half the members of the team. Dick wouldn't allow it.

You couldn't put him through that. He could barely meet your eyes, how did you ever expect that he would trust you again on a mission? Or trust you to have his or anyone else's back? No, your spot on the team was long gone, you didn't deserve it anymore.

"I'm not the same person that I used to be," you continued. Bruce looked at your bloody, bruised face. Beneath your mask, he could see the outline of fresh purple bruises. A small cut dragged across your cheek and although you tried to wipe the blood from your busted lip, some of it was still smeared around your mouth. In all the years that he knew you, you would never allow someone to get that many face hits - this was on purpose.

It wasn't just the beaten face you referred to. It was the aggression. Your tactics became more violent, less with the law. It was hard to maintain a sense of justice when justice killed your friends. Doing the right thing didn't always get your somewhere in life, it got you killed.

Even your suit had changed. Oliver had designed your original one. It was form fitting, covered any exposed skin and protected your from the harms of your world. Now, you showed off a dangerous amount of skin, not caring what could happen to you.

"Dick has gone through too much in his life, I can't put him through this," you pulled your mask off with a sigh. You eyes that once shone bright at the sight below you were now cold and sharp. Bruce could see the exhaustion on your face and how much being back here was tearing you apart.

"I did a lot of bad things in my life but leaving him was the worst thing I could have done. Doing things right by him isn't me joining the team again, it's me leaving, for good. I'm not coming back Bruce, ever," You fished out the device that he had given you and handed it over to him. He never made a move to grab it. "I can't keep causing pain in other peoples lives just to try and lessen my own pain. Leaving for good might just solve that."

Bruce reached into his belt to pull out a small velvet box. He handed it over to you and with confusion in your eyes, you grabbed it. Inside was a ring, an engagement ring.

"Weeks before Jason died, Dick was going to give this to you," Bruce told you. Tears stung your eyes and your throat tightened up. It had been just over three years that the two of you were dating before Jason died. "He wanted Jason to be one of his groomsmen., Wally to be his best man."

"Why are you telling me this?" You didn't want to hear about how you ruined his plans for his future. You didn't want to know that Dick loved you enough that he wanted to marry you. The reality of how much you hurt him amplified.

"Running from your problems was what caused this in the first place," Bruce didn't accept the ring or the beacon as you tried to hand both back to him. "Dick and I don't always see eye to eye on things, but we both knew that you were good for him."

Bruce said nothing else to you. He glanced down at the items in your hand once more before leaving. The velvet box in your hand seemed to be burning a hole into it. The idea of marrying Dick would once excite you, bring you joy about your future with him because at one point he was your future. Now? Now all you could feeling was the unwelcoming pain of shame.

"Fuck," you muttered. You crouched down, the ring box pressed to your forehead as you tried to decipher your thoughts. Dick was the love of your life all those years ago and you truly fucked that up. No greater mistake could have been made on your behalf. "Fuck."

Why hadn't you just stayed? Why did you have to make the unwise choice of leaving for your own benefit? To pull yourself away from the people that you cared about so that if they ever got hurt you wouldn't have to feel heartbreak? Where did that get you? At home, miserable because you had no one. Miserable because you knew that just as much as you missed your friends, they missed you more.

All this time you thought that you left to avoid the pain, but being back here? That hurt you more than all those years away. The reminder that you once had people that would trust you with their life, that wanted to spent their life with you. Now, you had no one. No one would be willing to take a misfit like you back into their life, not after they had just gotten back to where they were before you left.

Maybe it would have been easier to not have pressed that beacon. Maybe it would have been easier to let those men take you. Whatever pain that they would have inflicted upon you had to have hurt less than what you were feeling now. Emotional pain never went away, physical wounds healed.

You wanted to apologize to Dick. You wanted to tell him how you really felt about these past years but you knew he wouldn't stay long enough to hear you out. Hell, you didn't even have a way of contacting him. The device in your hand suddenly felt heavy. You had one way of getting him to come to you.

"Fuck," you repeated one last time. With the ring weighing you down in the other hand, you pressed the button. Who knows if he would even come but you needed to see him once more. If he truly wanted you out of his life, you would heed to his words - trying to force your way back in wasn't going to be fair to him.

You stood there and waited. The Earth below you was cascaded with darkness as the sun had been on the other side. Darkness of the world seemed to be no less dark than you.

Your heart raced as you heard the animated voice - someone was arriving in the zeta tube. You stood there, still facing the large window that cast into space. Being all the way up here made everything down there feel impossible irrelevant. All the problems that you had within the planet seemed to disappear.

"Why are you here?"

Dick. You turned to face him, unsure of what you wanted to say. There were so many things racing through your head and none of them seemed good enough to even sightly make up for what you did. Nothing you could say would ever make up for it, but you hoped that maybe Bruce was right, maybe there was hope for redemption.

The anger that was on his face fell to one of worry as he saw the state of your face. The bruises that covered your jaw, cheeks, and the blood that had dried up on your skin. No matter how angry he ever was at you, even when you were still here, he was always concerned with your safety first.

"What happened?" He changed his statement. Dick stood at your side, his hand reaching up to look over what was wrong. No matter how tender his touch was, you couldn't help but flinch away. You didn't deserve his comfort. Dick's hand dropped back down to his side.

"Nothing I didn't deserve," you assured. He was in his civilian clothes, but he looked tired. Bags were under his eyes, his shoulders drooped while his hands were in his pockets. "I know you don't want to see me, but I wanted to talk with you."

"I'm here," Dick surmised. That was enough to tell you that though he didn't want to be there, he would listen to what you had to say. However, his gaze went from your face down to your hands, he recognized the small box in your hand. "Where did you get that?"

His voice became harsh. So harsh that you winced and cowered back. Wish shaky hands, you handed him the ring. "Bruce," you answered. "Dick I could apologize to you a thousand times and it would never be enough to make up for what I did, I know that. I could announce to the whole world that I'm a fuck up and that I deserve to be frowned upon and that wouldn't come close to enough.

"Fuck, I know that there is nothing in this world that can make up for my mistakes. What I did, to you, the rest of the team, it was awful of me. I know that. I shouldn't have left but you were right: I am weak. I was too weak to face my fears so I ran. If I would have known better, I should have ran to you instead of away, but I didn't.

"It's too late to change things, to change what I did. I just hope that one day that you won't have to look at me with that same anger in your eyes that you have right now." You played with the small velvet box between your fingers. With a sigh, you handed it back over to him. "You deserve a happy life Dick, and after all of this, the life shouldn't have to include me."

Dick grabbed the ring from you. "I bought this less than a year after we started dating," Dick finally spoke after a long moment of silence. You couldn't tell what he was thinking. "I knew I wanted to marry you. After being friends for so long, I couldn't picture myself with anyone else. You were always the one."

"I'm sorry I ruined that," you sighed. You looked down at the mask that you held in your hands. It was the one that Dick got you when you first joined the team. Even if your costume changed, you couldn't bare to part with it. Reluctantly, you handed that over to him as well. He smiled a little as he held it.

"I came to say goodbye, Dick," his gaze abruptly shifted from the mask, to your bruised eyes. "I put you through too much in this lifetime, I can't keep doing this to you. I figured after all this time, a proper goodbye would do us good. I understand that you don't want me here anymore, I understand no one does."

"I never said that," Dick cut you off. "I never said I didn't want you here. It wasn't fair of me to blow up at you the other night, I'm sorry for being so reactive but I'm not sorry for what I said. You left us, you ran away, but if you truly want to make things right, then you need to stop running.

"You want to make up for everything that you've done? You work your ass off here, on this team. You lead the kids to make the right choices and not to make the same mistakes that you did. That's how you earn my forgiveness, that's how you make things right with the team, with your friends."

Your head hung low. "If you want me to stay, I'll stay. If you want me to leave, I'll leave. Whatever choice you make, I promise you with my life that I will stick with it."

There was another silence between you. Dick's gaze turned away from you and towards the window. "We spent a lot of hours here, looking down at the world that we give our lives to protect. Couldn't bring myself to spend a lot of time here after you left," He honestly told you. Dick handed your mask back to you. "I'm tired of seeing you walk away."

"Then I won't. Ever again," You grabbed your mask from his hand. The same calloused hands that would cup your face when you were feeling scared, the ones that would grab your own hands when you needed comfort, the ones that fought against so many people to protect you.

"Dick, I-" you cut yourself off with a staggered breath. You wanted to tell him so many things: I love you, I never stopped missing you, I want to be yours again. You couldn't. If Dick ever wanted you back again, it would have to be on his terms, not your own. You didn't even know if he ever wanted that.

It didn't matter though. You would live a lifetime in pain just to make him happy for even a second.

"I'm glad to be back."

tagged: @gotta-get-back-to-johnlock​ thanks for getting me to do a part 2!

[bisexualoftheblade-old]

how many wips do you have? like what are they all, and not the number of wips in a fandom? what are all the names?

okay. fuck you. fuck you so much. fuck you.

i’m putting this under a read more cut no one else deserves to see this shit. a lot of these are requests, and for those i will just write out the request itself

Shadowhunters:

domestic polycule fluff with tem, jessa, and will because im not a coward

Supernatural

- hehe hoho i request destiel hehehe

- request 61/? cai cai cai cai i need you to rewrite the destiel scene but yk. GOOD. not like i'm in the know about the spn fandom or anything, it's been years for me. but DO IT

Bright Sessions

- caleb/adam grisha AU

- mark bryant vs. united states aka sue the AM

- caleb/adam college fluff

Umbrella Acaademy

- request 31/? i want a ben and klaus drabble please spare me some brotherly bickering

- AND SO BEGINS NIGHT 4 with request 13/? oooh oooh can i get a raymond and allison playlist??? i think their vibes together would SLAP

- hi there night 2 is technically morning 3 but who's counting not me anyway request 5/? can i get a ben moodboard? gotta rep my tua bb

Percy Jackson

- request 9/? can i get a percabeth moodboard or quote edit?? like god they're the og couple goals take me back to high school cai

- For the 100 follower things :D Jercy getting caught in the rain

- request 29/? a drabble about literally anything to do with pjo. i’ll be happy with anyone and anything i’m love these children

- *somersaults in like I’m a real fancy acrobat* hello ello ello may I request some camp half blood chaos possible involving *does a flip* ✨side characters✨ <3

Penumbra Podcast 

- request 52/? drabble about the penumbra podcast. this is for ren bc ren likes it and i don't actually know anything about it. juno? i think? that's the one ren likes. write it for ren

- Tpp ghost hunting / buzzfeed unsolved au

- sad juno smut

- final resting place fic go brrrr

Marvel

- request 6/? i'm going to my roots y'all can i get a spider-man playlist? if not a playlist then i'd honestly be happy with literally anything involving spider-man

- request 15/? i'm going crazy this is recorded evidence of me actually losing it ANYWAY can i get a quote edit for something from iron man? literally anything that man says is gold so cai's choice :D he deserved better in endgame i'm still bitter

- request 42/? do another spidey thing that differs from the other spidey thing

- request 73/? you have Opinions. rant about infinity way and/or endgame. go.

- request 74/? quote edit for deadpool!!

- spideytorch relationship character study

- peter parker as a tired grad student monitoring the young avengers (send help)

Six of Crows

- okay listen i wasn't going to request anything bc i worry about you but also? if you want to/have the time hit me with a playlist for our girl nina zenik

- request 43/? fuckin give me the ending anya should have had. she is alive and with her new son and having a great time

- request 45/? inej moodboard?

- request 47/? will you make literally any meme of your choosing for six of crows?

- request 48/? write a drabble for kaz, my favorite bastard

- okay so i don't actually like nina or mattias that much but i still wanna hear about your thoughts (and also see if you'll change my mind)

- kaz brekker turning 18 fic. birthday party, everyone singing, whole shebang. i need it stat

- religious trauma fic aka i started shipping kaz/alina/inej and i can’t stop

- kaz trauma soup (he has D.I.D. and you can’t prove me wrong)

- my two redacted fics for @grishaversebigbang​

- wesper fake dating

- six of crows bright sessions crossover: everyone gets therapy

TMA

- uhh... s1 gang having a nice time? melanie getting to have some Pride™️? some "fun" horror thing?

- request 7/? spare steph and jason bonding? please sir? spare some for a humble child such as myself?

- okay so this was meant for night 3 but i had midterm shit SO this is honorary night 3 let's DO THIS request 8/? i want a moodboard of extremely out of context magnus archives shit like i mean confuse the FUCK out of me i don't go here i know Nothing about it

- request 11/? OKAY so i need tim stoker meeting tim drake now i need my timmy to meet your tim plus i want to see character differences no i'm not trying to create a tim stoker in my head so i can read a's fic while NOT thinking of tim drake whaaaaaat you're crazy

- request 18(i think)/? i need a quote edit of every time within the first like. 15 eps of tam where jon is like “sounds fake but go off” thank u bb

- request 40/? i challenge you to write a tma drabble based only on the episodes i've heard. i'm currently halfway through episode 23

- Jon being lovingly bullied into taking a break. I'm aware this has been written a million times but it is one of my favorite things.

- spiral!sasha AU

- extinction martin go brrrrr

- high school era timsasha. they've both been friends for years, and everyone always asks when they will be a couple. they decide to fake date, to prove everyone wrong and show what a bad couple they would be. turns out that's a bit trickier than they thought

- after sasha comes back, tim is broken. he can't let go, scared that if he looks away for even a minute he'll lose her again. sasha suggests shibari as a way for him to give up control

- sasha pov mag 19 au, sacrificing herself to save the others, knows that if she gives herself up to the not!them it will let the others live

- this is the "tim finds a polaroid of sasha" trope

- early archives days,, long nights in research,,, clothes sharing,, somft. late nights and falling asleep at their desks warm and safe in the other's presence

- two parts: timsasha as kids, each picking a constellation that is "theirs". just soft kid antics. tim at sasha's grave glancing up to see their constellations

- continuing your job’s a joke (you’re broke)

DC Comics

- TIMSTEPH HADESTOWN AU,,,

- my redacted fic for @batfam-big-bang​

- request for you to get a decent amount of sleep? serious answer, dickkori, SAL's Venus

- request 4/? timsteph morning after 👀 mayhaps?

- a concept: nonbinary stephanie brown

- teehee hi mom, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, but can i request damian angst for your accomplishments 100 followers?

- hi you can ignore my first request if you want, or you can ignore this one. but bls possibly write some bikini ra’s? -the bikini bitch

- request 27/? jay is asking through me for a jondami playlist but tbh i also want it so win win yk?

- "I don't know how to help you but I can help you find someone who does" with bruce and jason? im just craving bruce being a good day to jason for once

- “I am putting you in time out because you need to understand the consequences of your actions.” with steph and jason as dumbass disaster bi best friends pretty please?

- request 32/? timsteph patrol date!!!

- request 33/? timsteph *gala* date? mayhaps??

- request 37/? tim drake drabble but make it Edgy cai

- request 39/? drabble of a prank war between tim and damian

- joyfire cuddly fluff please? or like just any outlaw fluff if joyfire isnt your thing (feel free to add every member of the outlaws, dont feel like u gotta stick with jason, kori, roy i love them all)

- barbara and robin! jason fluff? bonding over books or something?

- request 62/? i need a drabble about the chaotic trio jason, tim, and steph i'm love them ty

- request 63/? batfam x mcu crossover. batfam meets ironfam. give me ALL the cliches. ALL OF THEM

- request 64/? young justice x young avengers - jay cuz idk SHIT about the young avengers

- request 66/? jondami moodboard pls and ty

- request 67/? timsteph moodboard!!!!!!

- request 69/? HEHEHE kinky 😏 i would v much like a timsteph drabble of the almost first time. does that make sense? like i don't want you to go all the way NSFW cuz i know that's against the rules and i'm a rule follower. but like they *almost* go all the way. this could be fade to black or some shit i don't care just make it a lil steamy and have Fun

- i request damian angst! all of it

- hmm... maybe i request? jondami?

- mayhaps,,,,some batfam,,,,,committing crimes? ily be gay do crime <3 - lu

- How about a ficlet with Steph and Cass?

Found Family Bingo Prompts

- no powers au

- tunnel

- first day

- join the club

- hurt/comfort

- experiment

- playing favorites

- hold on

- possession

- 10 o’clock

- singing

- road

- snitch

- curfew

- timer

- fantasy au

- zombie au

- dreams

- campfire

- are you okay

- movie night

- games

- scared

Miscellaneous

- a request: Write A Drabble, Coward

- is it too late to request a moodboard for me?

- request 20/? i’m going off book because i’m in a Chaotic Mood™️ can you just absolutely vibe check me like go off cai demolish me

- request 21/? i formally request that you pick a favorite cai. i don’t care what that favorite pertains to, just pick a favorite something

- request 23/? roast me

- request 24/? can i have a buzzfeed unsolved spoopy playlist but spoiler alert it’s not spoopy bc shane doesn’t believe does this make sense it has been a Day™️

- request 25/50 i want a jake and amy fic make it Soft cai i’m love them b99 is so good

- request 28/? i know nothing about the lord of the rings so make something that will confuse the shit out of me

- request 34/? malvie and jaylos moodboards 😈

- request 35/? a moodboard for the bbb mods!! perceive all of us!!!

- request 36/? moodboard for the tua mods too???? mayhaps??

- request 41/? doctor WHO? idk but i want a drabble of him and the one character i know from doctor who which is rose

- request 46/? make an alignment meme with our group, have fun!!!

- request 49/? i want you to kin assign me a character from every fandom you can/want to. go feral

- request 50!!!!/? this is a special request. the most special request. can you make a bastards tbh playlist? i want our vibes encapsulated. i want us in music form. i want to hear those songs and be like "that's me and cai" and smile.

- requests 51/? i know jack shit about good omens. explain it to me in the most confusing way possible. make me know less by the end than i know now

- request 53/? can you write a mel aesthetic? i'm Curious

- request 54/? give me a list of book recs cai i want some good book recs pls

- request 56/? edit a picture of US together too

- request 58/? oooh can i have a disney edit? like. hm. i just really love disney and i want anything to do with disney. like a quote or an aesthetic or an aesthetic edit i just want disney.

- request 59/? i would v much like a recipe for carbonara. i've never had it but it sounds fucking delicious

- request 60/? ooh hey can i get a makeup tutorial? i know you like makeup, i'm shit at doing makeup. teach me

- request 65/? i need the most emo playlist you can make that vibes with dear evan hansen thank you

- request 68/? i want a superwholock moodboard. this can be serious, with the actual fandoms in mind, or literally what the era felt like. the insanity. the horror.

- request 70/? ooh ooh ooh do you have a good bread recipe?? i wanna get that bread

- request 71/? i want a playlist with the vibes of summoning a demon. please don't ask questions. i don't have answers. and if i do, no i don't.

- For the requests, how about writing something based on a friend?

- request 75/? MMMM i want literally anything to do with natasha, pierre, and the great comet of 1812

- request 76/? i want some healthy recipes. help a girl out

- a feral bbb quote or two?

- you perceive my plant but now I dare thee to perceive mine own visage

- okay this is a two for one request. 1. you did the bee movie script so now we need a shrek two script edit 2. sleep please

- Pansexual mb for my lil queer soul?

- my (probably) final request is just for you to ramble about something, i don't really care what

- HI ILY CONGRATS AS WELL CAUSE IM LATE BUT CONGRATS. could i request a pirates of the caribbean (or just pirates) or whatever you what to do, free range.

- mood board for the beluga whales who got brought to the animal sanctuary in Iceland please?

- 100 follower request: Moodboard for my stuffed cow Oaky?

[river-bottom-nightmare]

Gravity

He’s 6 years old and Dat is pushing him off the ledge, laughing in his ear as he swings over to Dya, and when he reaches the other edge, she picks him up and hugs him and says not even gravity can hold you down, my little robin.

He’s 8 years old and about to perform for the first time, the excitement and nervousness threading together in his blood, and Pop Haly pats him on the shoulder and gives him a smile, not the fake one he used for the crowd but the real one that he tries so hard to copy because it makes him feel warm and happy, and he says, you’ve got this kiddo, gravity’s got nothing on a Grayson.

He’s 9 years old and trying to brighten up the stifling silence of the Manor the only way he knows how, by swinging and jumping and being as lively as he can to make up for the deadness of the walls, and he’s hanging from the chandelier because who knew they could support so much weight?, and from underneath Alfred calls up I do wish you would pretend the laws of gravity existed, Master Richard.

He’s 10 years old and fighting crime, a proud ray of sunlight flitting around the darkness of the bat, and a thug’s got a gun pointed at Bruce’s head, not the flashy kind in the movies but the real kind from the military, so before Bruce can react, he flips up onto the man’s shoulders and swings around his arms, forcing the gun to the ground, before jumping back up on a fire escape so Batman can take him down, and Bruce looks up at him with a softened grimace that he knows is secretly a smile and says I guess ignoring gravity works in our favor, right Robin?

He’s 11 years old and in the Watchtower meeting the Justice League for the first time, perched on Bruce’s shoulders, and when Hal Jordan asks whether or not a kid can even survive as a vigilante, let alone win fights, he twirls up into the air, back-flipping off a wall before spring-boarding into Hal’s chest, then swiping his legs out from underneath him before Hal can even blink, and when he returns to Bruce’s shoulders, he beams with pride when he hears Barry ask, does gravity not affect the kid at all?

He’s 13 years old and laughing harder than he has in ages, showing off his skills on the silk for an awestruck Wally, because there’s a new kid superhero and he’s already decided he wants to be Wally’s best friend and he wants to impress him, so he makes his drops as dramatic as he can and he makes his knee holds look effortless and tries to be as graceful as Dya was on the silk, and he knows it’s worth it when Wally lets out a breathless Dude, it’s like you’re ignoring gravity on purpose that is SO COOL!!

He’s 17 years old and perched on a ledge up in Titans tower, thinking of last night when Kori had pressed him into the bed and wondering why a small part in the back of his mind wished he was watching movies and eating pizza with Wally instead, but he dismisses those thoughts and puts on a smile when Kori floats up to him and says it seems we both cannot be held back by gravity.

He’s 18 years old and on the mat, training with Jason, because yes he was beyond angry at Bruce and yes, he was bitter there was a new kid taking his name, but damn if that didn’t stop him from trying to teach the kid how to stay alive because he knows firsthand what this life does to people and what living with Bruce does to people, so he shows Jason how to kick someone while coming out of a backflip purely out of obligation and ignores the little twinge of fondness in his heart whenever Jason says you’re fuckin’ forgetting about gravity, dude.

He’s 20 years old and trying to look at Tim without seeing Jason and it’s hard, it’s so hard, but bit by bit, the kid worms his way into Dick’s heart, (and him saving Bruce from himself doesn’t hurt), until they’re at the point where they’re hanging out and Dick only feels vaguely guilty for enjoying his company, so he busts out some old tricks that he used to do with the Titans, and gives Tim a sun-lit smile when he says okay, technically I know how you did that but also it looks like gravity just doesn’t affect you how the in the world did you do that-

He’s 22 years old and quietly trying to coax Cass from her room, because she hasn’t left it in a week and a half and he doesn’t know how else to connect to her, how else to get her to open up, when he remembers the light in the audience’s eyes when he used to perform, mirrored in Wally’s eyes when he did a routine just for him, so he goes into the dimly lit bedroom and asks Cass if she wants to see a trick, and when she hesitantly nods, he does a triple backflip and laughs when her eyes widen and she signs I did not know you could defy gravity.

He’s 23 years old and crushed by the weight on his shoulders, constantly two seconds away from breaking down completely because Bruce is dead and Tim’s off on a wild goose chase that will get him killed and Jason’s back but he’s different, angrier than he ever was and on a murdering rampage and refusing to speak to anyone, and Cass is in Tokyo trying to venture out on her own, so he’s shouldering all of Bruce’s responsibilities to the city and to the Justice League and to the world and on top of all that, Bruce has a son, a rude, lonely, touch-starved assassin of a son that he can’t think of anything to do with but make him Robin, except Damian is rejecting his advances of kinship, too stubborn to learn anything he tries to teach him, so he stays on that brink of exhaustion about to fall over the cliff, but every time he flies and flips through the air, weightless, if only for a moment, Damain draws him back from the edge with a glimpse of wonder concealed behind his eyes and a somewhat envious not all of us flaunt the rules of physics in gravity’s face every other day, Grayson.

He’s 25 years old and happy, truly happy for the first time in a long while because Bruce is back and Jason’s formed a sort of tentative peace with the family and is living with Roy and Kori and he trusts them to look after him, and Tim’s back as Red Robin, the bags under his eyes and the slump of his shoulders getting a little lighter every week he spends with Kon, Bart, and Cassie, and Cass has befriended Steph, and Damian’s given up the League of Assassins for his family, and he’s becoming kinder and opening up more every day, and his family is all here together, so in the Batcave, he goes to the lyra and silk set Bruce had installed when he was a kid, and he just plays for a long time, the feeling of flying through the air a blessing again rather than a curse, and from his wineglass hang on the lyra he can see Tim at the computer with Bruce and Damian and Cass sparring, and he knows Jason dropped by for tea with Alfred yesterday, so when Bruce looks up at him and says gravity never did affect you all that much, did it, Dick? he lets loose the most warm, golden, sun-filled laugh that he can.

[sellyoursoulforagoodfic]

42/50 Kisses: Out of Pride

Jason Todd x reader

Word Count: 835

“I don’t think you’re fully realizing how much of a commitment this is, Jason,” Bruce was arguing for at least the third time since Alfred served dinner.

It was supposed to be a happy occasion. For once, the family proper hadn’t been fighting with Jason. Dick and Jason had successfully closed a case together. Tim and Jason had been bonding throughout the process of upping his safehouses’ security systems to keep even Batman out. Damian and Jason had gotten close again once the younger realized that Jason was the same man he’d been so attached to back with the League. Even Bruce hadn’t been picking needless arguments with his second oldest for the past few weeks.

So when Alfred called a family dinner for all his boys and their significant others, no one batted an eye about coming. It should have been friendly.

Keyword: ‘should.’

It was nice, complete with plenty of teasing about how Dick and Kori were adorable now that they weren’t dancing around each other anymore, right up until the part where Jason announced his engagement to you. With the light atmosphere, you’d agreed that it was the perfect time to come clean about the secret you had been keeping for the last six months. (Secret except for Alfred and Damian, of course.) Then, the air immediately became tense with Bruce being the main source of doubt while the others were just uncomfortable being in the middle.

And you tried to keep quiet while Bruce carelessly dragged Jason’s every insecurity into the open in an effort to dissuade him from marrying you. You really did. But for the last few years you’d been trying desperately to get your fiance’s self-esteem up, and this was doing nothing but sending him into a downward spiral. You could even see the tell-tale glowing green start to burn in his eyes behind the tears that were steadily welling up no matter how much he tried to blink them back.

“You haven’t even--”

“Enough, Bruce.” Though your voice was quiet, it was harsh enough that it stunned the billionaire into obeying. Your hand tightened where it was resting on Jason’s thigh under the table as you tried to convey that you were by his side no matter what anyone said. Just like always. “This isn’t him asking your permission to marry me; he asked me months ago and I said yes. We just thought the lot of you would like to know and maybe attend since you’ve all been getting along so well lately, but I can see that was a mistake.”

You glanced around at the other people at the table. Kon looked like he was about half a second away from strangling the head of the Wayne family on Jason’s behalf, but Tim was holding him back metaphorically by clenching his hand. Damian was red in the face from being so angry. Dick was just frowning, so you couldn’t be sure what was going on in his head. Kori, though . . . her brilliant red hair was whipping around in an imaginary breeze as she tried not to lash out in rage on behalf of one of her best friends. Alfred off to the side just looked disappointed.

“If you decide to try and reconnect and apologize to Jason, we might be convinced to reconsider, but I will not sit here and allow you to belittle the man I love for the exact thing you were proud of your favorite son for earlier tonight.”

Jason’s hauntingly green eyes looked up at you in awe as you stood. He didn’t say anything, but you could see how grateful Jason was for you speaking up etched into his features.

“I think I speak for both Jason and myself when I say that you are not invited to the wedding, Bruce,” you announced finally. “The rest of you, we would be more than happy to have.” You took a deep breath to calm yourself. You didn’t want to start screaming at the man like your anger wanted since that would only further his argument. “Now, I think it’s time we head home for the evening.”

Of all the things you expected to happen next, Jason standing and pressing a hard kiss to your lips was not one of them. “Thank you,” he murmured against your lips. You could easily read the subtext he was conveying with those two simple words. Thank you for standing up to him since I can’t. Thank you for defending me when no one else ever has. Thank you for being by my side even though I’m an asshole sometimes. I’m so proud of you for being so calm even though I know you well enough to see that you want nothing more than for Starfire to rip his face off.

“Of course. I love you, Jason Todd.”

A lone tear slipped down his cheek at that, one that he roughly wiped away with the back of his hand. “I love you, too. Let’s go home.”