#put some goddamn respect on Jason streets name!

[rigginsstreet]

Jason got so much shit after his accident from people thinking he wouldn’t be able to have a good life as he got older and Lyla went and fumbled the bag for TIM RIGGINS of all people and now look

Jason got himself a good job and a kid and Tim’s a college drop out living in a van down by the river y’all look like CLOWNS. Absolute FOOLS.

[bisexualsforprompto]

Of Roommates and Red Heroes Chapter 1

AO3

One (You are here)     Next

One- Of pilots and new beginnings

Jason Todd ran, ran away from the legacy he could never fill. The one he was still expected to fill. Didn’t they know? Didn’t they know he had changed?

God, was had he even changed? It’s not like he could ever make up for what he did. But he couldn’t wear the colors of the Robin ever again either. He crossed a line, he was past the point of no return.

And Bruce couldn’t let him forget it.

As far as Jason was concerned, he didn’t deserve a redemption.

He didn’t deserve a happily ever after.

Dick (in more ways than one): [is online]

Lil bro Jason: [is online]

Dick (in more ways than one): Come back.

Lil bro Jason: No.

Dick (in more ways than one): Please, Bruce didn’t mean it.

Lil bro Jason: Honestly I give zero f*cks if he meant it.

Dick (in more ways than one): So that's it. You’re just solo now and we’ll never see you again?

Lil bro Jason: You are welcome to visit when you’d like, along with Steph, Tim, Barbara, etc etc. I don’t want to see him again.

Dick (in more ways than one): He’s your dad!

Lil bro Jason: Godammit Dick! He’s not! Open your goddamn eyes! He’s not our dad, he’s a man who just uses us for his dirty work!

Dick (in more ways than one): I can’t stop you from doing this, but just talk to Bruce at least, if you don’t you’ll regret it, trust me I know.

Lil bro Jason: [is offline]

•~•Sunday Nov.17, 8am EST•~•

Knock, knock, knock.

“Mr. Todd.” 

Knock, knock, knock.

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Jason said as he peeled a case file off his face, he’d fallen asleep the night prior reading it. Jason walked over to the nook where he kept all his ‘borrowed’ GCPD case filed which just happened to go missing from their archives every so often. For some reason, Jason liked to review case files. A lot. Maybe it was living with a detective for so long, but he felt at home in his own little world of files.

Jason brought a hand to his head, trying to shield his pounding headache. He remembered going out to the bar, but not much else. He brushed his hand down his face to feel stubble, another thing he’d have to deal with later. He fixed his hair a little bit before getting off his brown leather couch. He checked out what he was wearing, only pants. He sighed and picked up a plain black t shirt off the ground. Sliding it on, Jason walked over to the door and opened it.

Of all the things he was expecting today, he wasn’t expecting his landlord in full suit and tie showing up at his door. Unfortunately, it was his reality. A tall slim and bony man in a tacky olive green suit and oversized brown plastic glasses was holding a clipboard and pen in his hands. 

“Mr. Jason Todd?”

Jason sighed, “That’s me.” The man looked him up and down. Jason was about to yell at him for judging but decided against it. 

“You’ve been behind on your last payment for this flat. You have one week or you will be evicted.” The man said properly, leaving directly after despite Jason’s protests. Sighing, Jason shut the door.

He hadn’t found work in a long time. He’d been fired from his last job for drinking, and he couldn’t change his ways after being Red Hood and working with Batman. He went by the same mantle but working with Bruce did a number on him as always, only this time it was a positive change. He couldn’t work and make dirty money off drug cartels anymore, Red Hood was a lone vigilante but Jason Todd could only find himself doing honest work. Honest work that was very difficult to find in this day and age.

The only thing Jason could think that would save him would be getting a roommate. Jason sighed once more, all Gothamites were bat-shit crazy (pun not intended) and there was no way in hell he was taking Bruce’s blood money. Jason started drafting an ad and put it on Craigslist. The best he’d be able to do, hopefully before the date he’d be able to meet all of the candidates to make sure they weren’t insane. 

‘Searching for a roommate in a flat in Gotham Sun Apartments. $500 per month expected. Contact xxx-xxx-xxx for more information. (Images attached below)’

Jason rubbed his pounding temple, all he could do was wait.

•~Friday Nov. 22, 10am EST~•~•

“Voyage.” Marinette called before stepping into a black portal. She whimpered as she landed in a dark alley. “Tikki, Kaaliki, divide.” She whispered. “Spots off.” She was released from her heroine persona. Marinette was bloody, bruised and confused. She didn’t know where Kaaliki had taken her but she hoped it was far away from Paris. Marinette walked warily out of the alley to see a beautiful city full of life around her. Many people walked past and she could hear snippets of conversation, only something was off about them…they were in English! Marinette realized, could Kaaliki’s Portal have taken her to America or England? Thank god for Madame Bustier’s lessons or Marinette wouldn’t be able to speak a lick of English, she was practically fluent after all of her lessons. Marinette took out her pigtails and slid the bands onto her arm, she checked her purse, Tikki and Kaaliki were in there as well as $2000. Master Fu had given it to her before her...departure. 

Marinette continued down the street hoping to find some sign of where she was. Pedestrians gave her strange looks, most likely because of all her evident injuries. Marinette passed by street signs, all to generic to tell her anything. She accidentally bumped into a small girl wearing a sweatshirt that read “Gotham University”. 

Marinette knew it was a stretch, it could just be a random sweatshirt but still she was determined to try. 

‘Gotham University’ she typed into Google. Bingo. ‘Gotham University is a college in Gotham, New Jersey, America.’ So could she be in America? Marinette surveyed her surroundings, the most prominent building read Wayne Enterprises. ‘Worth a shot’ she mused. ‘Wayne Enterprises, Gotham’. Millions of hits, now she knew she must be in Gotham. Marinette continued to walk the streets to solve her next problem, where could she stay the night? 

Marinette sighed turning corners, looking for any signs around. She felt a rumbling in her stomach, she couldn’t remember the last time she ate. Marinette couldn't see any food places around. She wandered around looking wildly for a café, bakery, restaurant, anything. She didn’t even realize she was on a collision course until she bumped into a muscular boy, about 4 years older than herself with black hair with a white streak in it and blue eyes.

•~Friday, 9:40am EST~•~•

Jason groaned as he got up. He wasn’t drunk like most nights before. He immediately went to check his computer, still no hits on Craigslist. Jason sighed, he didn’t know what he’d do if he couldn’t get anyone to rent with him by Sunday. He refused to move back into Bruce’s mansion again. Jason picked up his apartment keys and went to look for some food, he couldn’t find a solution to a problem without food or caffeine (Tim had rubbed off on him more than he wanted). 

Jason opened his door and walked down the hall, he opted for the stairs as he didn’t feel like interacting with anyone at the moment. Jason brushed past the Gothamites on the street feeling extremely aggravated. He got lost in his own world of annoyance and didn’t even realize when he ran into a small blue-haired girl.

“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!” Marinette said turning pink. She backed away feeling extremely embarrassed, “I just wasn’t looking where I was going and-“ Jason recognized that she wasn’t from Gotham. She just didn’t have that shrewd personality that came with the territory of being a Gothamite. For some reason it made him feel warmer, and his anger felt more soothed.

“It’s ok little lady, really. What brings you to Gotham?” Marinette stared up into the caring blue eyes of the boy she ran into. “I uh, well, um nothing in particular. But would you mind showing me somewhere to eat?” She asked, not wanting to revisit why she had to leave Paris. He seemed caring enough, hopefully he’d take her somewhere to eat. The man nodded, “Of course. I was headed to a café myself little lady. Hey, what’s your name?” Jason could respect that the girl didn’t want to talk about why she was here, after all, Jason didn’t like talking about his own past. 

“Marinette.” Marinette blushed. “Alrighty then Marinette, I’m Jason. I’ll take you somewhere.” Jason wanted to scold her for putting so much trust in a stranger blindly as she followed him, after all this was Gotham but he just silently thanked that it was him who got to her instead of some creep. Jason led her to the Garden Café right next to where his flat was.

It might’ve been one of the only places in Gotham that wasn’t completely littered with garbage. It had beautiful flowers and an outdoor patio where patrons could eat. Jason lead Marinette to an empty black table and pulled out a metal chair for her. “Merci!” Marinette smiled, “Thank you, I mean.” Jason made the connection, “So are you from France?” Marinette nodded, “Yes, Paris actually.” Jason nodded, “What's it like there?” Marinette sighed, “Well aside from the terrorist, it’s beautiful and a great place to live.” Jason didn’t even had a drink yet but if he did, he would’ve spit it out right on the spot. “Did you just say terrorist?”

“Um yes, I assumed it was common knowledge. I mean I know Ladybug reached out to the Justice League many times…” Jason gritted his teeth, the damn Justice League. His father’s call no doubt.

“So whos Ladybug?” Marinette pondered what to tell the man across from her, on the one hand, he was the only kind one to her, but she didn’t want to accidentally give away her identity. “She along with Chat Noir, are magical heroes who wield jewels that give them power. Hawkmoth, the terrorist, wants them, because with them he can make a wish and have absolute power.” Jason's eyes widened, sure her story seemed like a poorly written children’s TV show but from the little time he’d known Marinette he’d figured a lot out about her, and he trusted that she wasn’t a liar. And wasn’t a very good one at that. Living with the world’s greatest detective, as much as Jason hated to admit it, did have some perks, Jason could read people without knowing them for long. 

“I guess it’s not ideal to escape a terrorist and end up in the crime capital of the world though,” Jason said, he couldn’t imagine why anyone would rather be in Gotham than anywhere else. Marinette hadn’t known it was the crime capital of the world, she wondered why Kaaliki’s voyage sent her there. Maybe she was meant to resume being a hero in Gotham?

“Y-yeah.” Was all Marinette could stammer out. Talking to Jason made her realize so many things she had to do, she hadn’t had much time to think about what it could be like living in another country. She didn’t even have a place to stay yet!

“I know this might be a touchy subject, but...how’d you get those bruises Buttercup?” Marinette touched her hand to her face and ran her fingers down one of the scars. “H-Hawkmoth.” At least it wasn’t a complete lie. She saw Jason clench his fists. 

Jason was seething, he couldn’t believe the league would ignore this! One look at this girl would prove that they should’ve listened. If Jason was still aligned with Bruce he would’ve had some choice words with him, instead he decided that he’d notify Dick and possibly the Outlaws the next time he saw them. Jason couldn’t help but feel awful for the girl, he knew what it was like to feel like you couldn’t escape the clutches of a madman. He’d lost a bit of soul to Joker. He wanted to run his fingers down all of her scars and just make everything better, she didn’t deserve that kind of torment. If anything, he did.

“Say Buttercup, where are you staying?” Jason asked before the waiter came to take their orders. Marinette answered the waiter with a simple sandwich and Jason ordered the same. “Um well...I don’t really know yet,” she responded to his previous question. 

Unacceptable, she was staying with him now. “How about you come back with me Buttercup. I know we just met, but I don’t want you sleeping on the streets. Gotham is dangerous.” Marinette blushed, just now noticing the nickname he gave her. “I couldn’t do that to you!” She protested.

“It’s not a problem, Buttercup, really.” Marinette sighed, she felt grateful for Jason. Maybe she was being too trusting, but she had no other options. “As long as you let me pay you something.” Jason thought about it, he didn’t want to put this poor girl out but then he realized,

“I think there's a way we can help each other.”

[faveficarchive]

The Book of the Body

By Vivian Darkbloom

Pairing: Mel/Janice

Rating: Mature

Synopsis: A series of vignettes from the perspectives of Mel and Janice respectively. Non-linear time jumps in a retrospective series that provides the shading for the created universe we already have from Darkbloom’s previous stories. This is some peak Vivian Darkbloom, y’all; absolutely beautiful writing.

Note: If you haven’t read Coup de Grace and Venezia yet, go do that before you head down into this story because you will be so confused if you do not. 

“The transmission of knowledge is in itself an erotic art.”

—from The History Boys, Alan Bennett

1. Mykonos, 1953

Another moment passes, slowly sculpted by her breath, each one a stepping stone toward awakening. The cobbled path snakes to the beach and beyond, to the coastline gently disrupted by villas and cottages burning white against pale sand and the translucent cool Aegean. Even now, on this overcast morning, the warmth of stone gently blazes under her feet. Going native, or her idea of such: Suntanned, loose hair, wrinkled clothes, barefoot. She had been surprisingly unsurprised by waking up alone. If not for the imprimatur of sex upon the bed, a scented still life of peaks and eddies of bunched-up sheets, pummeled pillows, and dips in the aging mattress, she might have thought it all a fantastic dream, courtesy of her inverted self. But this was what happened when you loved a wanderer: The morning after was usually a solo affair. Mouth scorched dry by the plentiful wine of the previous night, you quietly took account of every delicious ache and made plans to keep yourself occupied until she returned. What was for lunch? Dinner? Would the family from Heidelberg reappear on the beach armed with their gramophone, wooing the seagulls with Beethoven concertos? Where was she? No doubt scrambling over the ruins of a Byzantine church, the very one that made her eyes light up three days ago when they arrived on the island. Under normal circumstances, work would be a legitimate distraction. But this was a vacation: enforced frivolity. The rule had been no books, and none of their attendant paraphernalia either! No lumpy tomes on pre-Hellenistic culture, or pretentious modernist novels, or even racy paperbacks about naughty boarding school girls. No notebooks accompanied by ostentatious yet leaky fountain pens or humble pencil stubs. She felt grateful for the stingy allowance of one Greek newspaper. Was she more troubled by the absence of her lover or the absence of her languages? That morning she had dreamt she was a paragraph. Every motion typed a sentence. She would stretch and with breathless length—hands on the headboard, toes capturing the mattress edge—be a Virginia Woolf sentence, elegantly sprawling, perfectly composed. Or in sleep’s fetal contraction she would mimic Hemingway’s brevity. The absentminded curl of her fingers could be punctuation, perhaps a clutch of semi-colons, and a toss of her black hair an unrepentantly bleak little Brontë descriptor: Brooding on the beach. Too much wine last night. She had stared at the bed, at the meringue of sheets that remained defiantly unmade, reminding her of a thing that before last night she had never done before—well, more specifically, of a thing that she had only ever been on the receiving end of. Even within the prim corridors of her own mind she found it difficult to employ the proper terminology. It was truly unfair to blame the wine. Blame desire, blame love, blame the taste of that body, more an intoxicant than any liquor, blame those hands tangled in your hair and the tongue tracing the edge of your jaw, blame that blessedly husky voice: Do you want to? Blame curiosity. Blame that yearning to dominate, to hold onto what was easily given and somehow never quite yours—never quite yours, because she loved exploring as much as she loved you. I will do anything you want. She took to the role with confident ease. Her body knew what her mind did not, and if she wondered what it would really be like to be a man inside a woman, she did know what it was like to be a woman inside another woman. She always had. The language of her body was not one she had ever easily understood, and as a result screeds lay within her, waiting for discovery, waiting to be read. The sun pulses under thinning clouds, teasing at breakthrough. In the midst of spending alone a glorious day, her most beautiful pages grow distracted, and shiver.

2. Paris, 1944

“I will give anything for a goddamn book in English.”

The old man was the third merchant to whom Janice had made this melodramatic declaration—indeed, she thought of it as rather French-like, resplendent with a sweeping hand gesture. Whether or not he understood, she could not discern: He shrugged apologetically and she moved on to the next stall.

There she found a small volume of Robert Browning, beautifully bound in green cloth, letters stamped in enticing gilt. She hated Browning, but she was desperate. The ambulance unit was grounded for the day. Liberated Paris was cold, occasionally dangerous, and—not surprisingly, for someone who did not want to be there—boring.

Janice waved the book like a flag of surrender, a hopeless declaration of her monolingualism. “Eh—combien?”

The bookseller, finally taking note of her customer, looked up. “Whatever you can afford,”  she replied in the kind of rapid, accented English where the words seemed both slow and fast at once—spoken quickly, yet reaching the ear in their own sweet time, like the echo of a transatlantic call where the listener perfectly predicts every stress and syllable. She was small and slender, wrapped tightly in what once was a fashionable belted jacket that now possessed a threadbare glory, and with the type of ripe mouth that demanded lipstick. Her eyes were dark and no doubt held depths that Janice could not, would not imagine plumbing because there was too much pain, too much loss accumulated in four years alone. She was nothing like Mel and yet precisely for that reason, she could not help but remind Janice so powerfully and completely of Mel and of that connection between them, perhaps destroyed forever by arguments as fierce as their lovemaking had been.

Unexpectedly, the bookseller stiffened and Janice realized that she had stared too long. The idle sport of comparison had mercilessly returned her to square one of that inescapable intersection between the truth of her loneliness and her desire.

And, in the wrong place and time, it was the kind of look that could get one’s face slapped. Or worse. But not this time. The Frenchwoman nodded at the book. “I’d take food for it.” With unmistakable intent, both her head and her voice lowered. “Or whatever you’re willing to offer.”

Janice fumbled, caught between the boldness of acceptance and the urge to drop the book on the wooden cart and plunge through the narrow, book-lined street, which now taunted her as if it were an obstacle course. “I don’t have anything with me.”

The bookseller lunged across the carrel and for a moment Janice thought their hands would meet, but instead she tapped the cover of the Browning book, as if sending a seduction in Morse code. “Come back later.”

It was not the first time she had slept in sheets rough and musty, and with a woman whose name she did not know. Afterward, the food she brought—two tins of meat, a package of crumbling biscuits—sat forlorn upon a kitchen table and the twilight mounted within a window frame matched the toneless color of the walls. Perhaps unwilling to spoil things with conversation, or unsure of asking Janice to leave, the woman feigned sleep. Janice sat up in the bed, lit a Gauloise, and watched an elegant distortion of smoke scrolling up the darkening wall. She thought of Mel’s nearly indecipherable handwriting—a particularly angular loop of smoke looked almost precisely like her capital G. I’m in love with someone, she wanted to tell this woman. It seemed bad form, though, to say it aloud to someone you just fucked, particularly for the sole purpose of erecting a boundary between what she had just done and the confines of her heart. So she repeated it within the quiet of her mind, and wrote it, indelibly and invisibly, upon the walls.

3. Venice, 1973

“Don’t you have to go?”

Go? Francesca thought. And leave the sheets that gently lapped at her skin, the soft cradle of the pillow, the experienced hand gliding along her back? Abandon all this, for seeing Lo straniero senza nome—Clint Eastwood on screen, lasciviously serenaded by an audience of stoned, giddy whores?

So she does not move. “Do you want me to go?”

Mel does not answer. Rarely does she answer any direct question put to her, leaving Francesca to methods of interrogation both rigorous and rude, and steeped in dirty tricks: She demands answers while naked and seemingly immersed in the task at hand—while teasing a breast with her mouth, while pushing a hand between two willing thighs.  The coin of knowledge, she has discovered, can rival the lure of real money, at least under certain desperate circumstances.

Tell me where you grew up. Later, Francesca recalled the strange thrill she had in a bookstore, finding a map of the United States and seeing the jagged, prescription-pink state of South Carolina resting under her finger.

Tell me about your mother and father. “I don’t remember my mother very well—anymore. But I do remember she never liked to sit still, and she loved to sing along with the radio. My father was very tall and very charming and very smart. I inherited the tall part from him. I’ve never been quite convinced about the rest.”

The first person you kissed? “A boy named Jason. I was 17, he was 18. He had invited me to his grandmother’s house for dinner. Dessert was strawberry pie—fragole, cara. So when he kissed me later, it tasted like that. Like strawberries. It led me to believe all sorts of mistaken things about men.”

Tell me about the woman you won’t talk about. Melinda’s eyes had closed at that. “You know I can’t.”

Tell me why I feel deeply for you. This one she never asked. Feelings were an exaggeration, a fiction for those who had the luxury of reading, a dangerous imperative that would be the first line in a story of fantastic heartbreak.

The fingers stop their intricate gavotte upon her back. “I have something for you.”

Francesca rolls over and already Mel, dark robe silkily billowing with motion, is halfway across the room and retrieving something from the hazardous stacks of papers and books that threaten a literary landslide from the hotel desk.

It’s small, rectangular, flat, wrapped in brown paper. Definitely not a dildo. But a book? One of those fantastic old bound volumes carrying the heady scent of leather, the seductive undertow of dead languages? What in hell would she do with something like that? Even more importantly, Francesca wonders as she fondles the parcel, why does she want something like that? “Such exquisite wrapping!”

As only a retired professor can, Mel smiles indulgently. “Showing off your English again.”

“You do the same in Italian,” Francesca retorts and, for good measure, throws in a contraction, something which she usually avoids because she fears her tongue will not leap over that peculiar floating apostrophe: “Don’t you?”

“Touché.”

She peels away the brown paper. It is a simple blank cahier, with lined pages and a ribbed, elastic enclosure that promised to hold tightly whatever words that may be entrusted to it. It’s the kind of black notebook she sees in use among many skinny, bespectacled café habitués, the ones who drink and smoke and talk too much. The ones who could not afford a minute of her company. “An empty book.” To reflect my empty mind?

Mel seems amused at her visible and puzzled disappointment. “For you to write in.”

Her face tingles with the burn of self-consciousness. “And why would I want to do that?”

“You’re always scribbling away on those pieces of paper you keep in your pockets. So I thought you might benefit from a proper writing journal.”

“Oh.” You notice me. This prompts elated anguish.

“But—if you don’t like it, or if you have no real use for it—“ Mel makes a teasing reach for it.

“No.” She clutches the journal to her bare chest, as if it were really going to be taken away. “I want it.”

Mel permits a smile to cross her features. Twice in one day, Francesca thinks, even though this one is small, spectral—a ghost of a smile for a ghost of a woman. “Good.”

Imagining herself in a kind of freefall, Francesca keeps the black notebook against her as she tumbles back onto her stomach.  The slick cover warms against her skin as she presses her face deep into the pillow, smothering the dangerous feeling that tightens her throat. The inscription upon her body begins anew, and she submits to fingers upon flesh, bone against sinew, to a language that, in its state of partial comprehension and consummate allure, is maddening.

4. Cambridge, 1947

This room, this house, this Indian summer, this woman.  More specifically, this beautiful woman who had somehow alchemized the dreary task of organizing their combined libraries (including the sizable one she had inherited from her scholar father) into a kind of sacred erotic act. Whether human or book, spines fit sublimely snug into Mel’s palm—that very morning, the heel of her hand had pressed deep into Janice’s back, I can feel your bones, she had said in a voice that marveled and with a touch unraveling into reverence, and then Janice had realized that no one had ever touched her quite like this, as if wanting to get under her skin.

Now, in the study, Mel sifted through pages tissue-thin or frayed and stiff, and with every touch and caress she recalled the provenance attached to every book—Janice could read it plainly upon her relaxed face—the gifts, the impulsive purchases, the ones she loved when younger, the ones her father loved, the ones mocked and marked in the margins by the ruthless academic tag team of Pappas pere and fille.

“We don’t need three copies of Suetonius, do we?”

Acutely aware of her uselessness in this endeavor, Janice languished sweatily on the sofa. If her damp shirt were not marrying itself to the leather material, it was at the very least in the act of a fevered proposal.  “I’m not sure we even need one.”

“Indeed we do. A professor needs a proper library, Dr. Covington.”

“But I plan on being a very improper professor. Given what we did here last week—”

“We can’t ever do that again.”

Her forcefulness both surprised and disappointed Janice. “No?”

“Not on the desk, I mean,” Mel amended.

“Oh.” Relieved, Janice wondered how sturdy the dining room table was.

“Because the whole time I kept thinking my father would be spinning in his grave, knowing what I was doing on his desk.”

“I dunno. I think he’d be happy to see you get good use out of it.”

Mel laughed. “You’re terrible.” She knelt before the open foot locker where Janice’s books had been moldering for several years—and where Janice would have been quite content to keep them—and pulled out a particularly warped, water-damaged clothbound edition of Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo. Her mouth curdled. “Good thing you didn’t fall in love with a librarian. This would be grounds for separation.”

“Oh Christ, toss that,” Janice groaned. As it was placed in the disappointingly small “to go” pile, her eyelids fluttered shut.

“I didn’t know you liked Browning.”

“I don’t.” It slipped out before Janice realized it. She opened her eyes, sat up, and stared at the slender, green-gold book that Mel held.

Her mind had successfully buried the incident surrounding her acquisition of the book, and had even gone so far as to spin out several convincing, believable plot lines involving its perceived loss—left in a café or on a bench near the Tuileries, given it to one of the other drivers, tossed it into the Seine—but here it was again, in all its unforeseeable stupidity, glaringly out of place and time. At odd intervals over the years, she had wondered what happened to the woman, thought of her stiff, trembling body, her awkward caresses, her unconvincing compliments: You’re very handsome. Was she happy, and no longer lonely? Was she even alive?

Mel raised an eyebrow. “A gift?”

I thought I would never see you again. “You could—say that.” If only because it made me realize how much I really love you, and how no one could make me feel the way you do.

As excuses, they were worthless. The truth was usually like that.

“Well.” Mel touched the bridge of her glasses. “I like Browning.” She gave the book a thoughtful glance before consigning it to the poetry shelf. As if performing a magic trick, her hand passed elegantly across murky cloth spines as she aligned the Browning against the other books. And then she met Janice’s look with a smile simultaneously kind and serious, as befitting someone intent on acceptance no matter the act or the consequences, and generous in the difficult art of forgiveness.

It took no more than two bold, long steps for Janice to reject the sofa, cross the room, and surrender to an embrace. The v-neck of Mel’s blouse formed a luscious snare hinting at the mysterious intoxicant of her scent, her skin. From this source Janice indulged in a deep draft and instantly felt as if she’d downed a dozen blazing shots of bourbon—and while her legs wavered, it was only because they were tangled with a pair much longer than her own. Mel’s mouth, hot and insistent, found hers and with a delighted shiver she opened her mouth wider, welcoming the sweet exploration that followed. Frenzy subverted intention by creating a panicked taskmaster—Mel was attempting to unbutton her shirt while unbuckling her belt—while they staggered away from the desk and toward the desk’s companion, an broad old leather chair which, Janice hoped, did not share the desk’s verboten status. Regardless, they tumbled into it and she found herself neatly straddling Mel’s lap and anticipating the hand that successfully breached both belt and trouser buttons.

The important things would come later. Only under the complete cover of night did she feel safe enough to say things like I love you, to savor the words in her mouth, to taste their reverberation as they unfurled into darkness—to see and feel nothing beyond that, and to give nothing but the purity of words and their intent to a woman who loved language.

5. South Carolina, 1933

The backyard spilled down the incline at such a precipitous angle that it appeared the land was running away from the civilization implicit in the large, domineering house— until it was finally truncated by a dirt road that had seen a history of horses, carriages, wagons. Runaway slaves had also traveled this same road, limned in moonlight and heading north—or so she had been solemnly told by the family maids, cooks, grooms, and stablemen. Now it served largely as a shortcut to and from the high school.

From the vantage point of the back porch she watched the occasional straggler from the school walking home, and she felt an absurd sense of superiority: for she was already at home, had drunk an entire glass of sweet iced tea, and was studying even though she was officially a week ahead of everyone in history and geometry and math and everything else and light years ahead of them all in Latin. Mel looked up from The Elements of Structural Botany. No one was on the road now, except for one girl.

She had never paid much attention to the girl before. Her name was Carol Ann and she was relatively new in town—her family was from Beaufort. Practically an entire year had passed without them saying much to one another beyond cordial hellos and drawling how-are-yous. And now it was late spring, blossoms bedded on the ground, and that girl Mel had barely spoken to all year long was now loping down the path from the school, alone, with the sun etching gold into every darkened shade of her dirty blonde hair and her bare arms swinging with a loose-limbed grace and slowing, for a barely imperceptible moment, as she turned toward Mel and waved with neighborly vigor.

For whenever I look at you even briefly

I can no longer say a single thing

In her father’s library, there were secret compartments of books discerned to be too dangerous and too adult, still, for her youthful tastes. She found them months ago, including the Loeb Lyra Graeca and, contained between its green cover, the slender treasure of Sappho’s verses.

In the turmoil of reading them, she was not exclusively undone by the poet’s objects of affection, but by the rule of passion that governed every word. She waited for passion. Every day, when she would witness Ruthlee desperately seize the arm of her boyfriend, or the fiery, slavish intensity of girls gathered around Mr. Maines, the English teacher, or Jason’s bright, adoring gaze aimed squarely at her, she waited.

But within the sharpened shadows of a late spring afternoon, on a dirt road where a beautiful girl walked alone, she waited no longer; the knowledge she craved was finally hers. A delicate flame runs beneath my skin, the ancient poet had written, and now she knew exactly how that felt. And yet she could find no other words to describe the feeling, or to say, even to herself, what it made her. It would take years to build the vocabulary of love and desire and to discard much of the shame she would feel as a result, but now, for the first moment in her life, she burned.

[seashellrosekitty]

First Love (Part Two) | Isaac Lahey

Requested by: @chiamilia and @tammygooogle (I couldn’t tag your name, love!)

Part One

Wordcount: 3,124

Warning: Cussing. That’s all I wanna warn ya! Okay, maybe some fluff and angst, too. You asked for it. ;)

POV: Isaac Lahey

Author’s Note: I never intended on writing a Part Two, but since two beautiful people requested, here you are. I went through rollercoasters writing this! Please tell me what you think! Enjoy reading. :)

If there’s anything I’d always kept in mind, it was that life beats you up like a bitch to teach you and make you tougher for what’s next to come. I grew up being compared to my brother Camden. He was a war hero. My dad always liked him better than me. He always said he was a better son than me. Camden was the golden boy. Smart, athletic, good-natured...Who wouldn’t love a son like that? While I stood here, clumsy, afraid, and helpless against my dad. He always hated me for not being like my brother. And blamed me for the death of my mom.

Sometimes I’d think it was just better to not exist. I found my escape in music. I loved working late at the cemetery because I was always alone. No one was there to yell at me, making me feel like I didn’t matter. One particular night, something hit the backhoe, overturning it, causing me to fall inside the grave. But somebody put it back upright and helped me come out of the hole. His name was Derek Hale. He was a werewolf and he gave me the bite, but my life didn’t change after that. I was healing from wounds and had werewolf senses, but I was still afraid of my dad. He’d still hurt me. He’s the reason I became claustrophobic, but he’s never hurt me the way he did the night he died.

He threw dishes at me for not having good grades. He’s never done that to me before. I can’t even tell the difference between being hurt from being beaten up and being thrown dishes at. Perhaps it didn’t matter. He was my father and I loved him. But I got up in an impulse and rode my bike to seek Derek before my dad could put me inside the freezer again. Derek saved my life before he met me. I just thought I could hide in his place. Then things just kept getting worse. The next day during lacrosse practice, the police took me for questioning because they found out my dad got killed the night before.

Since then, we’ve had different adversaries causing death here and there. Against the Onis and the Nogitsune that possessed Stiles, we had lost two friends during the fight - Aiden, and my girlfriend, Allison. I started losing hope for life being involved in this supernatural world. I’ve lost everyone. In the normal world, and in the supernatural world. First was Camden. Then my mother. Then my father because of Jackson as the Kanima. I never even talked to him about it. But there was always Y/N. She was the single constant thing in my life that never left me and never forgot about me.

What she didn’t know was that when she first got out of that car the day she and her parents moved in, I thought I had never seen anyone so beautiful as she was. She didn’t smile a lot and had piercing eyes that could melt anything, but she was so goddamn beautiful. My days were usually dark, dominated by the fear of making a mistake and having to answer to my father. But Y/N changed that perception I had. I know I was judging by the way she looked, but what succeeded that first impression proved to be the reason why I had the biggest crush on her in 9th grade all the way until junior year. 

She was instinctive. During our first time to meet and have dinner with her family that day they moved in on our street, she saved me from further embarrassment. I was practically a stranger to her, but she didn’t mind it. She probably had read how terrified I was when I broke a glass of water. She led me outside so I could relax. That was the first time she called “Lahey,” and that stuck with her forever. A lot of people call me by my last name, but I always loved the sound of my name rolling on her tongue.

I was 15 when I met her, she was 14 that time, but she carried herself quite maturely, always knowing things more than I did. I loved that about her. She geeked out on spy novels and movies and she got me interested in those things too. She loved the way mystery envelops things, and I think that’s why I had no problems telling her that I became a werewolf. My feelings and attraction towards her grew when I became a werewolf.

My inhibitions surfaced lots of times after I was given the bite. I spent one evening with her when she was tasked to housesit while her parents were away for a whole weekend. The full moon was two weeks away but knowing that we were alone in her house made me feel nervous around her…and wanting her.  

“Know what, Lahey, I know that James Bond is like, the most popular spy out there, but I still think he’s not the best one. I mean like, what kind of a spy are you if your enemies know your fucking name?” She spat. I love it when she geeked out like this. She’s always so passionately expressing her opinions, not caring who heard it. But mostly it was just me. I’d just let her go on and listened to her. “A REAL spy knows how to disguise himself, always changing aliases, profiles, and the only thing a spy could probably fail to do when he disguises is masking his smallest mannerisms. I’m just saying,” She declared with her brows raised. I simply smiled at her and said, “You do know you’ve told me that like a hundred times already, right?”

She gushed at my question and looked at me with those twinkling eyes that I love. That night, we rewatched The Bourne Identity. And every time we watched it, she still hooked her attention so much as if she didn’t memorize the whole film. I watched her profile being dimly light by the TV screen, the way her eyes sparkled when she refused to blink during intense scenes. And I loved it when she’d throw her fists in the air during fight scenes, always rooting for Jason Bourne.

My heart raced every time she pressed her thumbnail between her teeth, and when she removed her hand, her thumb would bring her lower lip down and ricochet back. Oh, god, I almost had a boner seeing that. I had to pay attention to the movie again just to keep myself and my other brain calm. But her lips were already imprinted on my mind.

I wanted to tell her how I felt about her. But I was afraid that she didn’t feel the same way and that’d ruin our friendship. Believe me, I had plenty of chances to tell her. We were usually alone when we hung out. But I guess a million chances doesn’t matter when you are reticent like me. Someone who has confidence doesn’t need anything except one fleck of a moment with the person they have feelings for. That night I told her I was a werewolf was the only time I thought I should tell her. I didn’t plan about when I’d tell her, but I sat in my balcony to think about it. I pictured her in front of me, I imagined the very words I wanted to say. Was it gonna be “I’m in love with you?” “I like you?” “I’ve always liked you?” “I’ve always liked you since I met you?” “I really wanna kiss you right now?”

God, I wanted to tell her all of those things. Instead, I told her I was a werewolf.

I jumped over to her balcony to sit beside her. I had to be close to her if I wanted to tell her that I was in love with her. That I wanted to kiss her so badly. It was the first time I jumped liked that in front of her, and across our balconies, and that led her asking how I was able to do that. I answered her question and it led us farther from what I really wanted to tell her. She was so interested and so amazed when she saw my glowing amber eyes. Then she held me closely when I turned myself into my werewolf form.

The look in her eyes was mesmerizing. She was probably observing the changes in my features. My fangs, and even the way my hairline changed when I turned. And all I wanted to do was fucking kiss her when I slowly turned back to my human form. We stared at each other for a while like that, and I swear, I almost told her that I love her.

“I’m so glad you’re here with me.” OK, it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but my mouth betrayed me and continued betraying me for the rest of the night. “It feels good to finally tell you this. I don’t know how long I could keep hiding this from you.” I meant it the other way too, except I didn’t tell her the other thing yet because I was such a coward. Yes, I admit it. “You’re great, Y/N. I’m so lucky to have you as my friend.” I was going to add the very words that I felt about her but she cut me.

“Best friend,” she vowed with a smile. I took it from there and decided I won’t ever cross the line. I always respected her. I never wanted her harmed, and in the supernatural world that I was now a part of, the life of a loved one was always at risk. So, I privately vowed to never put her in that position. I kept my emotional distance as well. None of it was easy. Life continued to beat me up like a bitch.

My growing attraction to Allison after she and Scott broke up happened quite naturally, and maybe even too fast. Fighting alongside each other and figuring things out together brought us closer than we expected. My werewolf couldn’t handle it. For as long as I was in a relationship with her, I thought I had forgotten about my kept feelings for Y/N. It was always easier to run away from things I had no idea of overcoming.

My world spun the night she told me how she really felt about me. I was already dating Allison then, and I hadn’t even told her because of all the other things happening simultaneously. I planned on telling her about me and Allison some other time, a better day, not when the evenings were a dangerous time. She caught me by surprise when she spoke those words in her breath.

“I’m in love with you, Isaac.” She never calls me by my name. And that whisper of a confession sent my chest pounding. Why did she tell me only now? Why didn’t I tell her before I met Allison? Why is this happening now? Why now??? Those thoughts clouded my mind as I tried finding the words to respond with. I held her face gently and just memorized all the corners of her face. So, this is how she looks like when she tells me that she loves me, I thought. She held my hands and I felt it, smelt it in her. She loved me so deeply, she couldn’t bear it in her heart anymore. I hated myself for never telling her how I felt when I had all the chances. And I knew I was gonna regret the next thing I was about to say.

“I’m sorry…” I had to do it. I had to say it. It hurt me to say that to her, and I smelt how broken she felt when I said that. Tears started forming in her eyes upon hearing my dumb apology. And the ass in me continued. “I’m in love with Allison.” I knew that broke her the second time in less than a minute. I knew from that point on, nothing I do would make her happy.  I thought I’d completely lost her. I always thought that I was one of those who would never hurt her. But I was dead wrong. The look on her face was something that stayed with me for a long while.

“That’s enough, Lahey. Stop being nice to me. You’ve brought me home. Now, go home. I’ll be fine.” Those last three words echoed in my head on my way home. Sadness and frustration were plastered on her face. It broke my heart seeing her so hurt by me. I had no idea it was possible. Her heartbeat sounded differently for the first time. I’m so stupid, I never noticed her chemosignals. I never smelled her feelings or anything like that. She was always calm around me. Her heartbeat was always steady the way I remember it. Maybe I should’ve read it well whenever she worried about me. I should’ve noticed it but I was too caught up with my feelings for Allison.

When Allison died at the hands of the Oni, my world came crashing down. It was too soon. She was too young. And I’d loved her. She died saving me. When she fell into Scott’s arms, my heart broke again, but then I felt like I wouldn’t even have her death any other way.

“It's OK. It's OK, it's OK. It's OK, it's perfect. I'm in the arms of my first love. The first person I ever loved. The person I'll always love. I love you, Scott. Scott McCall.” Those were Allison’s last words when she died in the arms of her first love. I knew she deserved to have Scott with her in her last moment alive. It hurt me but...I wouldn’t dare take that away from her. Scott was her first love. Nothing would ever change that.

I spent that night in Argent’s apartment, but I sneaked out to see my best friend. At this rate, I just wanted to be with her. She was always my anchor when I grieved. I didn’t know what I did to have her, because she never closed her door from me even when I broke her heart. I sneaked up her balcony and knocked. I didn’t notice the time anymore. That night felt too long.

She turned on her light and I whispered outside her door that it was me. I heard her footsteps inside as she rustled out of bed and headed to open the door.

“Lahey? It’s 3 AM.” When she appeared from inside her room, with a bed hair and squinting eyes, everything flowed out of me.

“Allison got killed saving me,” I said, my voice breaking, still fighting my tears. I didn’t know what to expect of her. I just needed her. She didn’t say anything but she spread her arms and grabbed me and let me hug her. I think I never hugged her tightly as I did that night. She just let me cry. She never left my side. And she never let me feel like I owed her anything. She even went to Allison’s funeral with me. She didn’t stop being my best friend. I don’t know how she ever did it. How she put up with me when she knew I didn’t feel the same way. She was strong like that. And I wasn’t. That’s when I decided I went away with Argent to go on a Sabbatical in France. I told her I didn’t know when I would be back. But I definitely needed to be away for a while.

“I don’t know why you need to leave. I’m here for you. You know that, Lahey. You know that.”

“I know, but I can’t keep doing this to you. I can’t keep feeling guilty around you. I don’t know - I’m just...” I trailed off. I didn’t know what to say. I haven’t thought about it yet. I haven’t thought about a lot of things.

“You’re just hurting me again right now. I hope you know that.” Her eyes showed it. Her chemosignals didn’t lie. Damn it, I didn’t know how to do this without hurting her. I couldn’t even say anything back. “I can’t believe you.” She shook her head, resigning to the fact that I was a worthless friend. A terrible person. Sadness draped over in her eyes, preparing for all the times I’ll be gone.

“Look, I’m sorry...”

“You’re always sorry!” She shoved me in the chest. “Always fucking sorry...” she covered her face and started crying. Damn it. I made her cry again. Why am I always the one making her cry?

“I just don’t know how to deal with this.” She suddenly put her puzzled face up to look at me.

“But that’s why I’m here!” Tears continued welling up her eyes. Her jaws quivered, trying to fight those tears. “That’s what I’m here for, Lahey. Why do you keep pushing me away?” I held her face and wiped her tears, never leaving her gaze.

“I’m not pushing you away...” I mumbled as gently as I could and she waited for me to finish. “But I can’t keep losing everyone I love. You’re the only one I have left, Y/N,” I stated as I memorized the shape and color of her eyes and the way they looked at me.

“You’re so stupid!” She exclaimed. She looked down. I knew she couldn’t look at me with disgust. But that’s how her eyes looked even when they didn’t look directly at me.

“I know...but I’m doing this to protect you.” I did it because I was stupid. But I didn’t know it yet. My mind was in clusters of thoughts I didn’t know how to put together. She looked down and drew a sharp breath. She knew there was nothing she could do to convince me to stay.

Life continued beating me up, and I didn’t know how I could rise from that point. Losing Allison to the Oni, watching her die saving my life took me to a different place in the world. Maybe this was something Derek had always told me when keeping people in my life. Being the one left alive at the expense of someone you love was the price nobody could ever pay back.

That moment I said goodbye to Y/N, I felt I was too far from myself. Too far from her, too…but if it kept her safe, I was willing to take that risk. As long as it meant she’d stay to live her life.

Part Three

@spxderbarnes @bojabee @jurrasicpork @thejourneyofabrokenheart @sav625

[chronicbatfictioner]

Fast Car - Chapter 16

Damian Wayne, Bruce's son, was a... well, as far as Jason was concerned, Damian was the kind of kid Jason's grandpa would wash his mouth with soap with. Only Damian did not know cusswords so much. Apparently, he was raised until he was 10 by his mother in the Middle East in a royalty-like environment, in which he was taught that he was a royal. Like Bruce, he was bestowed with intelligence and quick wit. Unlike Bruce, who was raised in the US, he has no notion of congeniality and could come across as a bully.

Jason understood how he and Tim would clash spectacularly. Tim has no patience for those who has no empathy.

"Todd," Damian greeted him as he walked in to the garage. "why are you bringing Drake into this? He is of no use for anybody." he added.

"Because, Damian," Jason started, ushering Tim into Dick's hand as the latter started to open the boxes of Chinese food they'd ordered, before Tim could snap back at Damian. "I loved having him around, even if he doesn't like to get his hands dirty. I loved having him around to remind me of things I might overlook, even if he doesn't know a thing about cars." he said, spreading his tools around the car. "Now, Tim and I, we go way back. Right now, he's here to feed me spring rolls and dumplings." Jason glared at Damian, partly challenging the boy to argue, partly closing the argument.

Damian's scowling face morphed to that of slight confusion, then to a more confusion, then - apparently - he had an epiphany. "You're lovers." he stated.

"Yes. Problem?" Tim retorted.

"None with Todd, just with you." Damian shot back.

"Oh nooo, no, no, no. It's lunch time, and I don't want problems until-- oooo... next century. Preferably after I'm dead or apocalypse happened or something." Dick interjected, walking between the two warring factions blithely. "If you two won't get along - or at least be civil - I'm sending you both to the corners. Separate corners!"

"That's one in Manhattan, one in French Quarter - corners. And I'mma be helping him impose order." Jason quipped. "Now come on over here and give me my dumpling, Timbo," he added as he removed the car's AC compressor. Tim scowled at Damian. Hard. Damian responded with a spectacular scowl that would've sent lesser man running the other way. But Tim just sat on the car's roof, which put him roughly at Jason's head's height, and started feeding the dumplings to Jason. Both Jason and Dick warily eyed Damian, who crouched on the toolbox that Jason was using; and neither would admit they'd respectively released sighs of relief when no further battle cries uttered and/or acts of sabotage insinuated.

Within an hour, the service work was done. Damian questioned a lot, and actually didn't protest when Tim answered some of the questions instead of Jason. Food was had, and somehow, Damian and Tim ended up bickering quietly - with no signs of actual battles - over a tablet, researching for components of air conditioners for the car.

"That--" Dick thumbed them. "--should we get ahead of ourselves and call 911? You know, they could still end up killing each other..."

Jason chuckled. "Naaah, they'll be good. Neither would have the last say on the component, no? I would." he pointed out.

"Yeah, I hope so." Dick smiled ruefully. "They're actually pretty similar."

"Actually, yeah." Jason agreed. "Just... less drama and tragedy for Damian, I think - knock on wood. But they are. I'm quaking at the thought of them getting along and plotting to conquer the world."

"Dude, you and me both. I think Bruce would, too." Dick chuckled. "Anyway, fun day, on Bruce's credit card. You think you have it in you to bring those two to the skating rink?"

Jason looked at Dick contemplatively. "I'd first asked him out at a skating rink." he confessed quietly. "I was working there. It was closed about a few months later. Haven't been in one since then."

"Welp, I don't see what would go wrong with reliving the memories, no? He's okay, you're okay."

"Yeah, okay. Let's." Jason decided, couldn't find the argument to that logic.

It took forty minutes in the rink to make Jason remember why he wasn't at all sad that the ice skating rink he'd worked at was closed.

He was on the ice, sliding easily while most people who'd seen him coming would give a wide berth. Tim hung on to him, laughing merrily as they made their way toward Damian. Dick was at the concession stand, ordering them hot chocolate. Damian was mostly sliding alone, a little carefully as he got used to the rented shoes.

"Watch it, kiddo!" Jason shouted instinctively as Damian veered into his way. He barely managed to swerve to avoid crashing into Damian and/or make Tim crash, too.

"Eyes on the road, man!" Tim scowled as he passed Damian, too.

Somebody else commented something that made Tim skidded to a halt and released Jason's belt, nearly catapulting Jason to a faceplant for the sudden lack of weight next to him. As he turned around in confusion, Tim was already face-to-face - almost literally - with a rotund man with shaved head. "Take that back!" Tim snarled. "You goddamn take that back and apologize or I'll send you home cryin' to your momma!"

"What." Jason breathed as he approached Damian.

"He wished me and 'my people' to go home," Damian huffed, his face stern, but there was an air of resigned dejection in his pose.

"He said all immigrants should go home." Tim elaborated, snarling. "I think he's right, all of you immigrants should go home. We Miagani people would really like to see a loser 'immigrant' like you white boy to go back to your caves, stop soiling our lands."

"You're not.. you're not..." the man spluttered, uncertainty creeping up to his expression.

"Oh yes I am, boy. My father's name is Drake. But my mother's maiden name is Galavan. Remember? If you're a true Gothamite you'll know that name well. The last Shaman of the Miagani tribe who was never sent to a reservation. Oh, and this boy. His great grandma happened to be one Catherine Van Derm. Know who she was? No? Well, she was the granddaughter of the last Chief of the Miagani tribe. That makes this boy the actual true native of Gotham. For your info, Miagani people, like most native tribes, are matrilineal. 

"You, buddy? You're just a sore loser who can't see those with different colors than you thrive and be happy. We don't need people like you here. So why don't you go home, from where your ancestors came? Oh what's that? You don't know because your ancestors were outcasts? Yeah, I figured as much. Those whose ancestors came here to look for a better life usually aren't as petty and repugnant as you are - picking on a child..."

The other man's face was, in Jason's opinion, showing some very interesting shades of red. Tim's mouth was merciless, Jason knew that from a good long while ago. But the other man definitely didn't look like someone who'd give up without physical violence. So Jason started to shift - he could step in, if needed.

Dick approached from behind the man, and waved a badge right over the man's face. "No property damage is done here, yet, buddy. So I suggest you leave." he said, almost sweetly. "Unless, of course, young Mr Wayne wishes to file charges of hate speech?"

Damian glared at the man, then at Tim, and drew himself up. "No need, Officer Grayson. I reckon this man has experienced enough enlightenment via Mister Drake's history lesson to repeat his behavior; or to experience further enlightenment through my lawyers."

Jason almost smirked when the rink owner, previously hovering around, pretending to be invisible in the face of imminent ruckus, promptly made his way toward Damian, cooing, "Oh, Mister Wayne! That is so generous of you! I'd say it's time for you to leave, sir," he glared at Tim's opponent. "If you do not leave on your own, I might have to ask Officer - what was your name again...? --Grayson here to escort you out, and I will file a complaint against you."

Jason watched as Tim sidled toward him, half dragging Damian along with a tug on his sleeves. Damian followed, haughtily thanking the rink owner. Dick approached them about five minutes later with glasses of hot chocolates. "Courtesy of the rink owner, Mr Wellesley, for 'that lovely young Mr Wayne. My! He looked like his father!'- quote-unquote." Dick said, grinning.

Damian looked a little subdued, still. But after a gulp of hot chocolate, he turned to face Tim. "Thank you, Drake."

Tim blinked at him. "No need," he shrugged. "I hate bullies."

"I concur." Jason said. "The first time I met him, he chewed the asses of the teachers who were bullying me."

"Really?" Damian asked, looking interested.

"Oh yeah, they were calling me learning disabled because I'd been living on the street for a few years and didn't catch up on schoolwork, see. And Tim just like, 'no he's not and you teachers were stupid wrong' - only with longer words. Needless to say, I didn't end up in the Special Needs classrooms, and eventually graduated with 3.70 GPA."

"I don't believe people are stupid. Just either disinformed or misinformed." Tim scoffed.

"That's the same thing." Damian said.

"--or uninformed. I'm not done." Tim scowled at him.

"Regardless, I'm just amazed you'd stand up for Damian." Dick interjected.

Tim glared at him as if he was the stupid one. "I stand up for injustice. I may and will forever fight Damian over intellectual matters, but not because his skin is darker than mine. Besides, my skin is like, twenty shades lighter than even Jason's." he pointed out.

"...and that you were both Miagani descendants." Dick chuckled. "You're like, tribe-brothers, then."

"Oooh... might want to stop right there, Grayson..." Jason warned, suddenly having an epiphany on how the war between Tim and Damian would continue.

"Technically, I would be a closer descendant because it is from my father's side." Damian intoned.

"Ooooh, no, no, no... you're wrong!" Tim scoffed. "You see..." he started, and glared as Jason groaned out loud, and Dick face-planted onto the table. "what??"

"Stop." Dick groaned. "Just. Stop."

"I agree. Joy and goodwill to mankind, boys." Jason agreed, lifting his cocoa mug. "If either of you continue this argument, I'll pour this cocoa to your head."