#she obviously removed all her trackers

[book-lover85]

I've had this concept spinning around in my head of Ro being captured by the Neverseen and that's why she hasn't come back from killing Cadfael

and King Dimitar personally asks Sophie to find her and get her out so Sophie has to hide it from Keefe, Fitz, and even Sandor that she's figuring out where Ro is hidden and then go there and bring her back single handedly

and Ro and her are just gossiping the entire time they're sneaking around the hideout

Ro: so... about what we talked about last time...?

Sophie: we are not talking about that in the middle of a Neverseen hideout

Ro: but-

Sophie: shut up I'm trying to pick this lock

Ro: you never let me have fun

[zylev-blog]

Jazz is Special Agent Fenton of the FBI. She doesn’t go by Fenton when she’s out on a case though; she uses Nightingale. She does this because it keeps her identity secret.

Jazz is investigating a series of crimes. One of the other agents goes undercover to try and set them up in a sting operation. Things go south and now Jazz is going to Gotham to view the murder scene.

When she gets there, GCPD try to stop her at the crime scene barrier. She flashes her FBI jacket and her badge and is given access. She walks over to the police commissioner, a man named Gordon. Gordon obviously doesn’t recognize her, and neither does the vigilante with him—Batman.

“This is a closed crime scene, Miss…?” Gordon asks.

“Nightingale. FBI.” She shows Gordon her badge. “You and your men can clear out. This is our jurisdiction now.”

“We haven’t gotten approval to—“ Gordon stops, but was interrupted by an officer walking over to Gordon and whispering something in his ear. “Fine.” Gordon grumbled, and started telling his men to leave.

“You too, Spooky. I don’t need a vigilante’s help.” She waves off the man without another thought, but Batman doesn’t move. Instead, he completely ignores her and starts walking towards the crime scene. “Obviously, you didn’t hear me.” Jazz scowled. “If you don’t leave, I will remove you with force, Batman.”

Batman turns to look at her. “That isn’t how things work here, Agent Nightingale.”

“It is now.” She kept her expression neutral. “Clear out, or be removed. Your choice.”

Batman tried to look intimidating. Jazz refused to bow. The two stared each other down before Batman took another step towards the crime scene. She reacted instantly. Pulling out a taser, she placed it on his back before he could even react.

He reacted quickly, and sent three batarangs at her in rapid succession. His movements were a bit slower than normal after getting tased. She dodged two of the batarangs, and opted to catch the third in her hand. She flicked it away lazily and cracked her knuckles with a small smile. “I love it when they choose force.”

Batman didn’t react to her comment. He seemed to understand he wasn’t going to be able to get around her without a major fight. He let out an annoyed grunt and grappled away.

Three days later, they meet on the roof of an abandoned building. It seems like Batman was still on the case after all. Jazz was not happy about it. She felt that he was going to ruin the entire operation. She couldn’t trust someone to have her back if they didn’t show their face. She doesn’t let the annoyance show on her face as Batman joins her at the edge of the rooftop.

“I thought I told you to stay off my case, Batman.” She said quietly.

Batman gave a quiet grunt. If she had to put it to words, it would translate to a ‘I do what I want.’

She didn’t speak to him again, but she didn’t kick him out, either. The two didn’t speak a word as they sat for two hours, inspecting the warehouse across the street. It was nearly morning by the time Batman left. She did make sure he left, too—she watched him grapple down the street and heard the roar of the Batmobile pulling away before she breathed out a sigh of relief.

Watching the building was doing nothing. She was going to have to get closer. She was going to have to go undercover herself. The thought didn’t make her any happier, even with knowing what happened to the last agent that went undercover for this operation. She also knew that to keep her tracker on her at all times, she would need to shove it inside a place that nobody would look for it. And boy was that uncomfortable.

Two days after she met Batman did she meet Brucie Wayne for the first time. By now she had been undercover with the modeling agency for a day, and it was going well so far. She was playing her part perfectly, but it could take weeks for them to trust her enough to give her information that she needed to know.

She had been hired to be arm candy for a wealthy man in Gotham. It wasn’t Brucie, though she knew he had a few models on his arms as well. She had gotten through most of the night without incident before she ran into Brucie. Quite literally. Brucie’s champagne spilled down her dress, and she gave a mock scream of outrage.

Brucie tried to clean up her dress, but she swatted his hands away and went to the bathroom to clean up. She never noticed the tracker that Bruce put on the nape of her neck. When she came back out, she noticed her date looking for her. She rejoined him and the rest of the night went smoothly.

A month into the operation and she finally was getting some results. She had been moved from building to building more than once, but she finally got breadcrumbs for what she needed to take them down. It took her another three weeks after that to gather all of the evidence she needed.

At the final takedown, she was joined by none other than Batman. She had half-expected him to show up after she noticed the tracker on her neck six hours after it was placed. She didn’t know when she had even run into the Batman at a stuffy charity gala. She had debated crushing it, but she didn’t have backup and she figured his help was better than nothing. She still didn’t trust him, though. She made sure he knew that, too.

Bringing the tracker up to her lips, she whispered, “Don’t you know it’s rude to listen in on a lady, Batman?”

Together, she and Batman took down the traffickers. They had been using models and trafficking them all over the world to be used as sex slaves. She feels a certain satisfaction while watching everyone be escorted out in cuffs.

“Nice work.” Batman says, figure tall and dark.

She hums. “Thanks.” The silence stretches on for a few minutes before she adds in, “Thanks for having my back.”

“I thought you didn’t need a vigilante’s help?” Batman teased.

She didn’t look at him, but she could hear the teasing on his voice. She smirks and crosses her arms. “I don’t. But you’re harder to get rid of than a ghost in a net.”

Batman didn’t respond back to her, and it takes her a few moments to realize what she had said. She was of course, referencing her parents ghosthunting activities. But he didn’t even know her real name, so how would he even know what he was talking about?

“When do you leave?” Batman asked.

“After everything’s wrapped up. Why, you going to miss me?” She finally turned to look at him. She wished she could run facial recognition and figure out who was under that mask. The psychologist in her wanted to know just why a man would put on a bat mask and fight crime.

“I have a case that could use your input.” Batman deflected her question.

Was that a compliment from the Batman? His way of telling her that he trusted her opinion? Or was it an olive branch?

“Mine or the FBI’s?” She already knew the answer to his question, but she wanted him to say it.

Instead, he just grunted in annoyance. She rolled her eyes and pulled a card out of the pouch that she kept her FBI id at and handed it to him. “That’s my office phone number.” She tapped the card with her finger as he held it. “If you want my personal cell, you’ve got to earn it.”

He nodded and tucked the card into his utility belt. She could see the beginnings of a smile from Batman as he disappeared into the shadows and grappled away.

Surprisingly, it only took Batman a week to call her. She had gotten settled back into her office in DC, and had mostly forgotten about the encounter. She had to report Batman’s appearance in her report, but beyond that, she didn’t have to explain that he helped her take down the ring.

She made a flight back to Gotham the next day. Batman brought her into the Batcave and told her everything she needed to know about the case. She didn’t know where the Batcave was, as Batman had blindfolded her, but she was impressed with his initiative.

“Im not wearing that.” She glared at him with all of the venom she had—which was quite a lot.

“You can’t go out in your FBI jacket.” Batman deadpanned.

“Wasn’t planning on it. Do you think I’m a rookie?” She shook her head and gestured at the costume that the vigilante had made for her. “That doesn’t give you the right to—to—ugh! Im not your Batgirl, or Batwoman, or whatever! I came out as a consult. I don’t dress up in latex, and I don’t wear costumes!”

The costume itself was gorgeous, not that she’d ever tell Batman that. It was solid black, had a red bat on the front of it, and was fully equipped with a utility belt, knife holsters, and a taser. It had a full cowl like Batmans, along with the pointy ears on top.

“I don’t see the problem.” Batman’s voice had undertones of offense in it.

“Look.” She gestured at the costume. “Im honored, truly, that you want me to watch your back. But I’m not a vigilante. Nor will I ever be!”

She had watched what vigilantism had done to Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Valerie over the years. Sure, she’d gone out with them more than once. Without a mask. But there was something more complex about the costume sitting on the table in front of her.

“You said you were going to help.” Batman’s gruff voice got closer as he took a few steps towards her.

“And I did.” She gestured to the Batcomputer. “I already gave you my opinions of the case. I dedicated a weekend of PTO time to be here. But this is as far as my help goes.”

“What about the last operation? You owe me.”

“Owe you?!” She exclaimed, thumping her finger against his chest. “I told you to get lost. You still stuck around. You could’ve cost me the operation!”

“It worked.”

She groaned in frustration. She was close enough to him now that she could smell the faint smell of Kevlar and aftershave from him. She rubbed a hand down her face as she thought over what had happened last time she was in Gotham.

“What about all your other winged vigilantes? You had uh.. Nightwing, and Robin, right?”

“It’s only Nightwing.” Batman responded. “He’s unavailable.”

“I could’ve sworn you had a Robin, too.” She looked up at him and noticed the stiffness of his body.

“Robin has moved on.” Batman replied.

Hmm. Touchy subject. She wasn’t going to push. It wasn’t any of her buisness.

“You must be really desperate if you’re trying this hard to get me to go out in that.” She smirked.

“Things could go wrong.” Batman said with a quiet sigh.

“Don’t they always?” She tilted her head.

“Not always.” Batman mimicked her actions, clearly studying her. “What will it take?”

“If I put that mask on,” She gestured to the table behind her, “You take yours off.”

“No.”

“Fine. Deals off, then.” She pulled her phone out and immediately started looking for flights back to DC.

“Why?” He questioned.

“I can’t trust someone who won’t tell me who they are.” She shrugged.

Batman let out a quiet growl. As he took his cowl off, he scowled. “You would know, wouldn’t you, Miss Fenton?”

“Holy shit.” Her eyes got wide.

Bruce Wayne was the Batman.

[thewitchblue]

Death was her curse and her gift.

"Tim and I couldn't find out all of her abilities, but she's deadly both from a distance and up close."

Bruce told his children sternly. The Wraith was the newest vigilante and metahuman in Gotham. Her black bodysuit held concealments for her dual blades that release without a sound. She was as silent as a cat and as deadly as a hurricane.

"Avoid her at all costs. Until we find out more about her, she is a threat. Do not engage in a fight."

Bruce's voice was stern and worried. He hated having another masked vigilante running around in Gotham. He can't tell yet if she's a criminal or fighting on the side of good. Sure, she's been on their side so far, but that can change very quickly and very easily.

Unfortunately, his hunt proved fruitless. Every time he got close, it was like she melted into the shadows. She was gone before he said a single word. She did, however, wink at him before she vanished into the night. It was like she knew he wanted to question her, but she had no interest in talking while on patrol.

Jason, of course, didn't listen. He went out looking for her. If he stumbled across a criminal while on the hunt, he obviously took care of them, but his main focus was finding the phantom and questioning her himself.

After a particularly fruitless encounter, he found himself on top of a rooftop, sat down with his legs dangling off the ledge. This was becoming infuriating.

"Fuck! Why is it so hard to find her."

He curses, a heavy sigh falling from his lips. He's normally so good at tracking people down, but she's, well, a phantom. He's halfway convinced she's actually a ghost. How does someone just vanish into thin air like that? Does she hide in the shadows and simply walk away? Does she teleport? He couldn't be sure. How was he supposed to find someone who's untrackable? She leaves without a trace. No footsteps in the grime filled streets, no scent he can smell with his slightly heightened senses (he's no bloodhound but surely he'd smell something), even his trackers were removed nearly the second they are placed or straight up avoided entirely. It's like the shadows smack it away for her.

By the end of patrol, he's not happy in the slightest. He's sat outside the Batcave, not wanting to go home yet but not wanting to hang out with his family. His entire night was fruitless.

His head snaps up once he feels a hand on his shoulder. Before he could complain about it, assuming the hand was one of his family members, he stops himself. He notes the hand is much smaller than any of his siblings and certainly smaller than Bruce's massive hands. Then he feels it. A strong tug, almost as if he's been pulled towards a destination. Before he could even struggle, he finds himself in his apartment with a certain ghost vigilante sitting lazily on his favourite chair.

"I believe you have some questions for me, Big Red?"

Her voice was smooth, with a casual tone despite the very horrifying experience unfolding in front of him. He watches almost in awe as twin blades release from her suit silently with a flick of her wrist. She makes no move to threaten him, however. She merely cleans them with a nearby towel. Her eyes watched him with a calculated look as two shadowy hands disarm him with ease.

His brain finally catches up to his situation. He's disarmed, the vigilante knows both where he lives and where the Batcave is, and he has said vigilante on his chair with blades casually being cleaned.

"What do you know?"

Was the only question his dumbfounded brain could think of. What does he do in this situation? If she's a villain, she could've killed him, but if she was good, she wouldn't run away and avoid him.

"Everything, Jason."

Those two words nearly sends him into a panic. What counts as everything?

"Everything about me?"

He was almost hopeful. He desperately hoped she didn't know anything about his family. She lazily hung her legs off the arm of the chair, leaning back while still facing him.

"I know everything about everyone in your vigilante family. You became part of the family after nearly stealing the Batmobile wheels and you died because of the Joker. You've been revived, and honestly you've been through the wringer. Disowned for a moment, with mommy and double daddy issues. Your best friend is named Roy and you are about to have a secret girlfriend."

She said everything with confidence. She really did know everything. Then his brows furrow in confusion,

"Did you just ask me out after telling me my entire life story?"

He was equal parts flabbergasted and flattered. She was bold, that much he can tell. She swings her legs back to the front of the chair to face him normally. Calmly, she replied,

"That depends on what your answer to the question is."

He doesn't even know her name. He said,

"I don't know anything about you."

As if she could tell what he was thinking, she said,

"I'm Y/N. If you kiss me, I might let you take off my mask."

As silent as a tiger, she stalked towards him with a grin, her blades returning to her suit as smoothly as they came out to lower her threat level in his mind. Shadows swirl around her, almost clinging to her like an overprotective best friend. She really isn't here to threaten him. He knows she could skewer him like a kebab or sap away his life force, but he coyly asked,

"How am I going to kiss you through my helmet, punk?"

She smirked, pulling off his helmet in a shockingly gentle manner. He wraps his hands easily around her waist and pulls her closer. She was so close that he could smell her perfume and feel her body heat.

"Well, I am good at keeping secrets."

He said with a sly grin before kissing her. To hell with whatever the others think about their relationship. Sometimes, it's a good thing to take risks.

[smolandweirdwriter]

oh let me tell u i am so normal about adaine so here have a collection of some of my headcanons (that i can remember)

adaine starts dressing more "punk" in a sense because she lives with fig (totally not cause shes trying to remove herself from her goody two shoes appearance that her parents knew)

I also think this comes out of necessity as she doesnt have the money to buy new clothes if they get damaged so ends up sowing patches onto her clothes.

Adaine is the second tallest bad kid (after gorgug) at 5'11 simply because fabian is 5'10 and claims hes 6'0 (adaine is having none of it)

Adaine and tracker are still really close even after kristens breakup

She also has chronic fatigue which did not help her anxiety attacks. for most of her life she just believed she was lazy and not trying hard enough due to her parents thinking she was making excuses

Fig realizes at the beginning of Sophomore year that she really, really likes fun colors. She’s sick of all black. She wears bright red skirts and t-shirts of all colors and she smokes her cigarettes and dyes her hair and paints her nails pale pink and is uniquely, wildly, entirely herself. She doesn’t limit herself to a “rocker aesthetic”. Isn’t the whole point of rebellion to be you? 

Adaine’s style has changed so much. Partway through freshman year, she begins dressing as defiantly as possible. Whatever her parents would hate the most, Adaine wears. She borrows Fig’s clothes, which tend to be a bit too short and tight on her, but it’s all black with a leather skirt and ripped fishnets and her mother calls her a slut and her father forces her to go back to her room and change. Aelwyn mocks her for it over breakfast and Adaine stares at her food and doesn't wear fishnets or crop tops again.

(Aelwyn sneaks out that night wearing a similar outfit because she knows what her parents would say and the idea of the look on her mother's face being pointed at her is enough to terrify her to the point of nausea, and she drinks and drinks and drinks until she forgets to be afraid.)

Still, Adaine's style keeps changing. Sophomore Year it's mostly her Jacket of Useful things, t-shirts, and jeans. But as much as she hated being forced to wear the Hudol uniform, she really likes nice clothes. Junior Year she begins exploring more elven clothing: long skirts, vests with collared shirts, pleated blouses, breeches, tall boots, et cetera. She, Ayda, and Gorgug work together combining Wizardry and Artificing on her Jacket of Useful Things so that it can effectively transform into any coat/jacket/vest/etc to go with her outfit. It's perfect as her style is constantly shifting on a daily basis. 

This is just my thought on all of their heights, but here we go:

Riz is shortest, obviously. He’s actually average-height for a goblin, resting at about 3’6’’. 

Fig gives severe Tall Vibes, so much so that people forget she’s actually only 5’3’’. She wears boots that bring her up to about 5’5’’, but she’s still the second-shortest bad kid.

No one will let Fabian let down how short he is. He’s tried changing his diet, stretching, everything he can imagine—he’s still 5’4’’. It’s mortifying. Fig fits into his clothes perfectly.

Kristen has always felt somewhat ungainly, her limbs at different shapes and sizes, and she’d crash into things a lot. She’s always felt too much: too tall, too wide, too much, too much, too much. Junior Year she starts working out and begins getting comfortable with her body. Still, she’s tall, almost 5’10’’.

Adaine is quite tall, but her parents and sister are taller than her, and she’s spent her life feeling inescapably small. Her posture is good, but there’s something to the way she tilts her head, the general way she carries herself, hunching around a too-big orb and clutching books to her chest, that makes her look short and small. Sophomore Year, her confidence grows, she becomes more stable, and most importantly, she eats much more. She uncurls herself, and by the time she finds Aelwyn again, Aelwyn is horrified to see that her little sister looms over her. Adaine is 5’11.

Gorgug hunches over a lot, and it’s actually after becoming an Artificer that he gets better with his posture, because he’s sitting a lot more now and his back hurts if he hunches too much. His actual height is 6’5’’. He’s the tallest bad kid.

My personal headcanon is that Tracker also has anxiety and used to “wolf out” whenever she got overwhelmed. So she understands Adaine very well, perhaps better than anyone else. She understands the way Adaine’s anger stems from her fear, from her lack of control. Tracker helps her find the right anxiety meds and teaches her methods of working through and handling feeling overwhelmed.

When the bad kids see Nara and Tracker again in Fallinel, she introduces them all to Nara. “Ah,” Nara says as she and Adaine are introduced, and Adaine tenses for oracle, the daughter who killed Angwyn Abernant, the oracle who ran away, but what she’s met with was: “Tracker’s little sister.”

Adaine never tells Tracker how much it means. She loves Aelwyn, and Aelwyn loves her, but that love is something that has been asked for by both parties. Adaine never realized before that she shouldn't have to ask. 

[tu-ut]

not my usual themes, but: a star wars au where the whole "overthrow the galaxy in a sham war" plot gets so derailed it's basically thrown out the window

the Hutts go after the Jedi temple for breaking contract. what contract? slave breeding rights, of course!

so in the outer rim when you buy/otherwise obtain a slave from its former owner, you specify in the contract (oral or written) that the rights to any offspring are transferred to the new Master. (selling slaves is good money one-time, making new slaves is just a solid long-term business plan obviously). and because the jedi didn't remove Anakin's bomb/tracker chip thing iirc*, with Anakin becoming a very famous general across the galaxy, of course Watto has reactivated and is checking up on the chip, and who's to say with the crazy tech it can't track things like bodily functions/intercourse?

It's basic Slavery 101 to the Outer Rim, everyone knows this is just how it's done, so Anakin was under the impression that obviously his new masters knew this, only an idiot wouldn't, no one would be dumb enough to leave that part out of the barter.

He did not realize this was Not A Thing in the Core.

(and also no, he doesn't *really* understand the Jedi don't consider him their slave after taking him from Tatooine. his new Masters are multiple - though Obi Wan is his general overseer. they're more lenient and don't beat him, but they're still Masters he is subservient to who control what he does and where he goes. Hell, he still has his chip in!)

So now the Jedi Order is engaged in a legal battle over if Anakin can have sex or not with his wife (And an internal battle because WHEN THE FORCE DID THE CHOSEN ONE GET A WIFE???). Padme is decidedly Not Happy about this whatsoever. she's not mad at Anakin (who's just as surprised and probably even more baffled at the situation than her for the proceeding reasons), but infuriated at the slave chip still inside him that the Jedi, out of seeming negligence, haven't removed his detonator, and also just like. the whole slave & slave chip Thing™ in general.

*apparently in an EU novel it's specified that Qui Gon had Watto deactivate it but it wouldn't be surgically removed until "a later date". he was a busy guy and for all the rest of the Jedi knew, Anakin was just a random force-sensitive kid he picked up somewhere, he might not have relayed the message before he got offed. with the sith coming back and the chip disabled, I can see him putting it pretty low in his priorities at that time.

[helpinghanikan]

There for you

Boba-Fett x reader

Sum: Your time spent under the Daimyo’s protection had made you cocky. Most of the planet knew you were Boba-Fett’s, what they didn’t know was that it came with vows and a ring. It’s better to let the people assume you were just a plaything the Daimyo liked to keep around. Supposedly it made you safer, obviously that didn’t work as well as Boba thought.

Tatooine has a reputation for being unforgiving at night. Not just from the pirates, smugglers, and all other types of shady characters. The weather would also be hard on any unprepared traveler. Harsh winds and low temperatures can turn even the most seasoned tracker around.

Your journey wasn’t supposed to take that long. You knew that path to the closest village and had crossed it many times. That didn’t stop you from being a target. By the time you realized the speeders were trained straight for you, it was already too late.

“Is this the right one?” A voiced asked, your captor faceless with the bag over your head.

“She matches the picture. Easier to grab than the sniper, definitely.” Another voice replied. This one seemingly female in it’s pitch. There’s a foot placed on your shoulder, pushing you down until your laying on your side. “Fett only has two. Let’s hope we didn’t grab his favorite.”

Your time spent under the Daimyo’s protection had made you cocky. Most of the planet knew you were Boba-Fett’s, what they didn’t know was that it came with vows and a ring. It’s better to let the people assume you were just a plaything the Daimyo liked to keep around. Supposedly it made you safer, obviously that didn’t work as well as Boba thought.

The male captor starts speaking again: “Takes us over past the ridge. Hide the ship while we work.”

“It’s not gonna be hidden for long once her master starts searching the dessert.” Another male voice said from further away. He was likely the pilot.

“We don’t need long.” The first male voice said. “Take her out, take the pics, dump the body. Done and done.”

Now you started screaming.

Smaller gangs and groups are always scrambling for what little foothold could be found. One way to show you mean business is through the girls and guys that tend to be on the arms of these groups. Capturing them, killing them, and then sending the pictures to the rival gang.

Usually these are side pieces or mistresses that aren’t hard to replace. Never spouses or mates that could cause harsh retaliation. When Jabba was still in control a few gangs had tried this with one or two of his slaves. They were quickly removed due to their annoyance, not for the attack on those women.

The boot on your shoulder moves to your head. Pressing down hard until you could feel the cool of the ship floor through the bag.

“Stop. Screaming.” She says, turning her foot to emphasize her point.

Both Fennec and Boba had offered to either get someone to make the run for you. But this village still needed a personal touch to keep the relationship between them and Mos Espa strong. Seeing the arm candy to the Daimyo coming up with the promised credits was one way to do it.

It wouldn’t take long for this ship to make it past the ridge. Long enough for you to think about how Boba would react when he got those pictures. That had you screaming all over again.

“I. SAID. STOP!” The female voice said again, a kick to your stomach.

You’re still recovering from the impact when the entire ship shakes. Metal and machinery rattles your entire world. Sending your head into jelly from being so close to the ground as it happens.

“Are you serious?!” The first male voice yells.

“Who is it? What is it?” Asked the female.

“If I knew I’d be firing back at it!” Screams the pilot. The ship rattles once more. “Kriff! Somethings’ hit the roof. Somethings on the roof!”

It’s suddenly much hotter inside the bag than it was just a seconds ago. Although the world is dark you can see the bright orange dot penetrating the ceiling. It traces into a circle, leaving behind a trail that lands with an outrageous THUD!

Panic erupts throughout the ship. You are only involved when the hood is ripped from your head. Leaving you staring straight at Fennec’s helmet.

“Just run, okay?” She says, smacking the wall just behind you. “Run.”

You didn’t need to be told twice. Fennec cuts free your ankles and off you go. Sprinting into the endless sand and countless stars. Not having a direction in mind, only away.

Wind was kicking up sand, making you blind and keeping your path a mystery. You didn’t make it very far. Only about three hundred feet before running into someone solid as a tree and just as strong.

“Hold tight,” Boba says, leaning down just enough to grab the back of your thighs.

You don’t have time to thank you. As the ground is already disappearing from beneath your feet.

Boba Fett’s jetpack wasn’t made for someone without armor. Meant to be used while wearing full garb: without a helmet the already whipping sand was that much harsher. Digging into your skin and hurting your eyes. The pack was attached to Boba, making his arms and your grip the only thing keeping you from falling and, at best, breaking your legs.

You only fly for a few minutes before little lights dance at the corner of your eye. Down below the bright colors of Mod bikes were waiting down below.

“We’re landing, brace yourself.” Boba says in an attempt to give comfort.

Three of the Mods gang were waiting when you touch down. While they gave you a glance, one even allowing a smile, they were too focused on Boba to greet you properly. You should be used to this treatment by now, they really only cared about the big man with the gun. Not on his wife standing off to the side.

“Take her home,” Boba ordered, an arm still around you. “Do not leave her side until you reach the palace. Understood?”

“You got it; we’ll keep her safe.” One of the members said. The one who had actually acknowledged you.

Boba turned towards you. “This won’t take long. I promise.”

It’s hard to feel the warmth and affection when he’s all dolled up in green and Beskar. Inside the armor he’s the Mos Espa protector, former bounty hunter, and destroyer of enemies. Obvious this made him one of the hottest things walking, but not the kind you run to to feel better about your situation.

That is the only reason you could give for letting him go. His helmet pressing his forehead against yours for a second before letting you go. He’s gone from sight by the time you straddled one of the bikes.

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

Fett had liked having his elegance and space, it would seem. It took a few weeks before Boba was comfortable with bringing his guard down within the walls. It took some weeks to get that massive slug bed out and replace it with a proper mattress. Boba Had conceded on a large bed after his bacta tank was no longer needed.

The stone floor made it hard to near impossible to be sneaky. There would always be an echo from moving around. Whether wearing heels, boots, or in bare feet. This made it easy to hear Boba arrive from the balcony.

There’s no point in turning around to greet him. He would be able to see you through the arch way. He’d know you were waiting; he also knew you were wearing his robe.

Of course you had your own. But after everything it helped to have a little bit of him hanging off of your shoulders. It kept away the chill from your naked body underneath. Even dressing felt like too much after the quick shower.

It didn’t take long for Boba to remove his armor and weapons. Droids scurried around him to get everything off and put away correctly.

“Have you eaten?” Boba asks from the doorway.

You shook your head. “I honestly forgot. No point in waking up the kitchen because I was so late for dinner.”

“That’s what I’m paying them for.” Boba replies, disappearing for a second.

From the balcony you could see most of Mos Espa. At this time of night most of the lights were starting to turn off. Being replaced by the streetlights and headlights from bikes moving through the alleyways.

Past the city the desert stretched forever. Every now and then there was a little flicker from somewhere outside of the walls. Although they were mostly white, much like the stars, a few blinked red. Even from here you knew it was blaster fir. Watching them for too long almost had you hearing them being fired.

“I was feeling bantha tonight.” Boba says, stepping up to your side. “I made sure the steaks will be medium rare.”

“The only kind that’s allowed.” You replied, still staring out towards the blinking red.

Boba hesitates before placing a hand on your back. When he does you immediately lean against him. Giving the needed permission for Boba to pull you closer against his chest. Embracing on the balcony for anyone still awake to see and be jealous of.

After a moment Boba breaks the silence by asking; “Are you hurt?”

“Not enough to matter. Just a few bruises, especially on my ego.” You reply, turning your head up to look at him. “Are they dead?”

Boba has made a habit of always telling the truth. But only if you specifically asked. Had you just let the moment last, and never brought your captors up again, then he would have taken care of them without a moments hesitation.

“Not yet,” Boba said, turning his head to kiss your cheek. “I had Fennec keep the three alive. They hurt you, insulted my position, and embarrassed Fennec by taking you so brazenly. An example needs to be made, otherwise others may try this again.”

He speaks as if he were on his throne. Regarding a room full of citizens and opportunists alike. With a tone that kept everyone’s attention.

He had been sitting on that throne when you left. Stopping by to lean down and whisper that you were leaving. He had taken your hand and offered an escort, but his focus stayed on the farmer in near tears in front of him.

You can’t fault Boba for focusing on those in need over you. Because of this you didn’t insist on getting a kiss or feel the gentle touch of his helm against your forehead.

You remember this now. Smiling sweetly in a way you hadn’t done the entire night.

“I feel like tonight was a good reminder that I need a kiss goodbye, my dear.” You say, looking at his lips.

“My mistake.” Boba replies, going in for a kiss to make up for the one he had failed to give earlier.

The kiss starting off chaste and sweet. Boba waiting a second to ensure you were alright before going further. His hands sliding up your back, splaying his fingers over as much space as possible.

He moans when you step to closer. As if he were pleasantly surprised that you had chosen to only wear his robe this night. Not that he could say much else. Only wearing his short after having his armor and weapons removed. He was too focused on getting to you than whether or not he should put on some new clothes.

“Will you have me?” He asks between kisses.

“Yes, Boba, Yes.” You reassure. Biting at his lip to get his attention entirely. “Next time I get tied up; I want it to be by you. Only you.”

That did it. Just like before Boba lifted the back of your thighs. Setting you on the balcony’s edge, holding your hips hard to ensure that you felt as safe as possible. Or to distract you while he opens up the robe, bracing your chest against his to ensure that your mouths left for the least amount of time as possible.

“I won’t let you be hurt; I swear on my life, on my armor, on everything. I’m going to kill them.” Boba says, more for himself than you.

“Still alive, are they? I assumed they’re in the dungeons then?” You say, moving your arms for the robe to fall further open. Nothing was hidden now. And it was evident on Boba’s face as he stared at the body he’s seen a hundred times.

Boba nods when he realizes that you had asked a question.

“Then I want them to hear us.” You challenge. “Make them know that they failed. That I’m alive and that my screams don’t just come from fear.”

Boba doesn’t say anything, but you can see the change happen. His eyes focusing on yours for the briefest of seconds. Not that it mattered whether you knew his next actions or not, you were already being pulled forward, until your butt say on the ledges very edge. And Boba went to his knees before you.

Few in the galaxy had the privilege of experiencing both sides of Boba Fett. To know the difference between being fucked by Boba and making love with him.

He usually fucks when the day is long and there is nothing to say. The silence will be painful before he reaches your shared chambers. When you’re following right behind he’ll quickly take hold of your wrist, pulling you into the room as if you may escape if he’s not careful. If you’re already in the room he’ll be against your back without bothering to say hello.

His kisses are biting, and hands are rough on your skin. There won’t be enough time to get him armor off. Barely enough time to remove his gloves before he’s finding the opening in your clothes. Say nothing and every bit of his armor and weapons will be left on. The harsh material of his gloves pressing against your neck to keep you in place.

Making love is much more common. He’ll look at you with a slight tilt to his head. As if he couldn’t believe that this beautiful woman was his to have and to hold. He’ll verbally say this too, but only when he knows no one else can hear.

Everything will already be off when he comes to you. His hands are softer, they travel further, and take their time in mapping out the body he already knows.

Right here and now it’s somewhere in between. He bites the inside of your thighs but is gentle in guiding your leg. Resting it over his shoulder to stay out of the way as he travels forward. Nipping and biting while you grabbed onto the balcony for dear life.

“Oh, please.” You gasped out when his lips met your lower ones.

Starting off with soft, wet, bites between your lips. His mouth is so hot it boils your bloods. His hands squeezing the inside of your thighs send the entire world into overdrive. Your system working to make sure your body doesn’t shut down from all the licks, kisses, and touches that Boba wrecked through your body.

His tongue finally joins in and the teasing is over. He pushes up until you’re flat onto your back. The thick balcony edge able to cover your entire back. Making the only thing hanging off the edge.

He rumbles into your skin. Tip of his tongue exploring your entrance as if he were nervous to plunge in completely.

When he finally penetrates your sounds come out sharp. Gasping out into the open air, not caring if anyone down below stopped to hear. Boba moaning at the sounds you made. Sliding his hands up slowly in appreciation.

He builds your orgasm slowly. Wanting more so to taste, to feel, and to know this woman he was worshiping. In doing that he worry about going faster to reach the end. He didn’t want to.

Thick electricity and warmth travels through your body. Growing from your pelvis to your legs and chest. Pressing against your breasts, making your nipples sensitive to the light touch of the soft robe.

You don’t realize the orgasm has reached it peak until your eyes aren’t able to focus. Your thighs closing around Boba’s head without your permission. He grunts at the squeeze but doesn’t stop. If anything he starts to go faster, lick deeper, and downright bite softly at your lips until he gets his goal of your voice.

And voice you did. Head thrown back, crying out to Mas Espa. What you were saying didn’t make much sense. You were calling out Boba’s name, thanking him, begging for more, and pleading with him not to stop.

You wouldn’t have known it at the time, but three passersby had stopped just below your balcony. Young people heading home after a late-night shift. Stopping when hearing the sounds of a loud woman. Taking a moment or two to realize they were shouts of pleasure rather than distress.

“Good for her,” One of the passersby had said. Continuing on her way, now more excited than ever to make it back to her own husband.

Boba stays close as your orgasm finally dies down. Slotting firmly between your thighs, gently stroking the outside of your thighs. Only reaching further up when you finally found the strength to bring your head up.

“Do you feel any better?” Boba asks, reaching out to help pull you up into a sitting position.

He’s so sweet when he allows the concern to reach his face. It reminds you of why you took the risk of becoming more than just a lover to Boba Fett. He had looked at you with such genuine emotions that it was intoxicating. And you were drunk on him.

“Yes, my love, so much better.” You sigh, reaching out for his head. Pulling him in to press your foreheads together. “Now let me do the same for you.”

He doesn’t take advantage of your want to please like he usually would. In the large bed he lays you down gently. Finally taking away the robe and dragging his lips and his hands over every piece of you that he was allowed.

Although it was only the other that you were taken by him, it felt like an eternity. His cock slid through your folds once, twice, before finding your entrance. Pressing in with gentle pressure that through your head back and opens your legs for whatever Boba could dream of doing.

“Love you, love you so much.” Boba whispers in your ear.

You don’t need to reply, he already knows. Instead you place an arm around his neck. Keeping him close as his thick cock splits you open. He rubs your insides raw with powerful thrusts that jiggles your entire body. Keeping a tempo that reaches the deepest part of your body.

Sex with Boba wasn’t always this good. Your first time was fast, clumsy, and ended with dissatisfaction on your end. Something that Boba rectified when he realized, but it felt more like a responsibility rather than part of the fun.

It took time to figure eachother out this well. Your wedding night Boba had asked you to explain what you liked, what you wanted, and what he could do. The first hour coming off like a business meeting you had to attend before being allowed to leave for the weekend.

“Ready?” Boba asks with a husky voice.

“Yes, please.” You reply, body already singing with want for another orgasm.

He leans back from you. The room now freezing without his body to lay against. Still you kept your hands on his wrists, keeping contact as he takes hold of your hips. Pushing you up and down the bed to slam into his hips with a vigor that couldn’t be made from the previous position.

You made a move to massage your own clit, but Boba practically growled. Using his own hand to do the job for you. Although he moved sloppily, with barely a sense of rhythm. But that almost made it better.

Boba has a powerful body. And he uses it to destroy you in a way that can’t be replicated anytime soon. Mixture of the rapid penetration and the massaging of your clit brought that electric warmth traveling through your body once more.

This time you were fully aware of it. Arching your back as if this would make it travel faster, reach your goal at the same time that Boba found his.

Although this didn’t happen it was close enough. Your clenching pussy from another orgasm was just enough for Boba to reach his own edge. Sending him hunching over your body as he orgasmed. Slowly pumping into you as his orgasm rolls through him.

He speaks so softly, so deeply, that you didn’t understand all that he was saying. Although you caught the tail end of terms of endearment and your own name. That was really all you needed to know.

“Come here,” You demand of him when he rolls off.

He does as you ask. Rolling over to make room for you to slide into his arms. Your head tucked under his chin. Sweat and cum staining the sheets that would need to be cleaned later. In a few hours the feeling of it between your thighs would become annoying, but that was for later.

In only a few moments Boba kisses your hairline and says; “I want you in armor.”

“What?” You ask, lifting your head to look at him properly.

He’s looking over you the same way he does when planning. “You need better protection than I can provide. You need armor.”

It’s almost a show how he throws the blanket off of himself. Getting out of the bed and taking his robe with him. Leaving you naked in the bed, a little confused but also excited.

-----

It took a week for your armor to be ordered and finished. Boba spared no expense on materials and design. Getting his new buddy Din Djarin involved when Din started asking questions about your husband’s sudden need of beskar.

Your former captors were kept alive during that week. Fennec made it a point to personally stop by everyday to deliver their food and water. She never said anything, just made sure they knew their deaths would come eventually.

That day came in the late hours of the day. Your captors dragged from their cell by Fennec and marched into the throne room. Standing side by side in chains before the Daimyo.

With Fennec taking her place on Boba’s right, you stood on his left. Staying quiet behind your new helmet of refined beskar. The breast plate, shoulder pads, and leg protection hid your identity pretty well. Especially since you hadn’t gotten the chance to paint and personalize it in your own style yet.

“My lord, we didn’t mean-.” One of your captors started but was quickly silenced by Boba’s raised hand.

“Don’t insult me further by lying.” He said. “You three have already done that enough. Not just to me, but to my right hand, and to my wife.”

This was the moment you chose to remove your helmet. It was a dramatic moment to see your captors become the ones with fear in their eyes. When they came in they just assumed you were some random mercenary, not their victim.

“They made me!” The female captor shouted. “Please, I didn’t want to do it!”

“Oh, shut up. It was her Kriffing plan!” Shouted the captor in the middle. He had been the pilot.

The two started to argue with raised voices and begging pleas. Only one of the captors stayed quiet. His eyes downcast and body lax. A man who had accepted his fate.

Fennec stops the argument with a single shot at their feet.

“Watch the fire to the ground,” Boba told Fennec. “I don’t want you hitting him by mistake.”

“My apologize,” Fennec says, smiling at her prey.

Down, below the captors feet, Boba rancor waited. He didn’t get his breakfast this morning, and it was only now that he decided to whine about it.

“Please,” The captor, the pilot, whispered towards you. “I’m sorry.”

“Three insults, three prisoners, three punishments.” Boba says, calling their attention to him although he was talking to you and Fennec. “Only fair that we each get to pick a fate.”

You nodded in agreement, but it was still hard to find your voice in this moment.

Boba turns to Fennec first: “What would you-.”

He doesn’t get to finish. Fennec leaning forward and pressing down the throne’s switch. Instantly the middle captive, the pilot, dropped from this world. His screams echoed through the halls in a way that hadn’t happened since the age of Jabba the Hutt.

You don’t have to look over to know that Boba’s pet finally got his breakfast. A loud crunch and the silencing of screams confirmed that.

“You didn’t let me finish.” Boba told Fennec.

“I’m sorry, I got excited.” Fennec explained.

At this point the female captor was sobbing. Begging for her life and screaming at her co-conspirator for getting them into this mess.

 She only stops when a blast fire from Boba’s hand. A single shot between her eyes that threw her body backwards. Slamming onto the floor in a head the shape of a corpse. Her tears were still wet when she died.

You couldn’t look away from her body. Staring at was once the greatest threat to your life, now gone from this world thanks to your husband. The name that now reached out for your hand and took it so gently you were surprised.

“You don’t have choose,” He says, pulling you closer to whisper properly. “You don’t have to do anything. Ever.”

The last captor still stands without looking at anything. He moves slowly to stand over the trap door. Although his slow movements don’t keep Fennec from drawing her weapon.

He now looks up at you. Knowing what you wanted to do, and practically begging you to do it.

It’s quiet in the throne room. Boba not wanting to push you, Fennec too curious to say anything, and the guests far too scared to make a single noise. Only the moving of the rancor down below kept the world moving.

Without thinking, or even trully deciding, you pressed down on the trap door. Leaning across Boba’s lap to do so. Looking away as your last captor drops through the door and into the hands of a beloved pet.

It was only then did the throne room make noise. Someone cheering and another joining in started the party that you weren’t expecting to happen. Fennec looked over to Boba, waiting to be told to shut it down.

“Let them enjoy,” Boba says, “Join them if you’d like.”

Fennec does just that. Stepping down where one of the twi’lek beauties were waiting for her.

You stay close to Boba, maneuvering to sit on his lap. Your helmet being placed back on to rest against his shoulder. His arms pulling you close with a hand on your shoulder and another on your knees.

“I’m sorry,” He whispers. Although it wasn’t his fault it’s nice that he still wanted to make it better. In everyway he can.

[fallencrowns]

@legends-and-savages | sc. from the interest tracker

Shit, shit, shit. This was not good. The warehouse where she and the others of her group often met had been raided and they had had to flee. Keeping her hood up, with no time to prepare other means to hide herself, Ava had taken off as soon as everyone else had SCATTERED. Go separate directions, they couldn't all be tracked at once. Her feet pounded against the pavement, glancing over her shoulder and ducking into any alleyway she could in order to HIDE herself further. All she could hope for the others was that they weren't shooting to KILL and just capture. At least then there would be just a chance of breaking them out.

It had only been a matter of time being their hideout was tracked down with their supposed TERRORIST activities or so the government and the media would like to call it. Obviously, Ava had different feelings about the whole matter. They had their reasons for their actions, fighting back against a government that would want them to register their powers or, even worse, REMOVE them entirely. It all depended on which member of government was asked on what should be done with those with abilities.

With mutants and the like. The ones that weren't NORMAL.

Just as she exited another alleyway, her feet skidded to a stop as she found someone else just on the other end. Her chest heaved with deep pants, trying to catch her breath. Silver hair, where had he even come from? Not one of her crew, that much was for sure but a stranger smack dab in the middle of a raid? Ava didn't trust it for one second.

But her alias, Wildfire, didn't have a known face. Maybe she could get away with lies. Slowly, she raised her hands, trying to appear harmless and doing her best to show PANIC on her face. ❝ I was just...just walking and then there was—— there was police and- and, I don't know. And mutants running all over. I just had to get out of there. ❞ Do her best to appear just like a startled civilian, someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was intentionally stumbling over her worse, trying her best though manipulation had never been a great skill of hers.

[crazylilad]

Red- Chapter 17

AN: Just an Fyi, this is a TWD fanfiction, meaning there are a lot of TWs, including loads of violence (of all kinds)

No smut!

Please make sure to reblog, like, or whatever you wanna do! That helps me want to continue writing these kinds of stories and to figure out what people want

SUMMARY

I ran through the woods, Matthew right behind me. 

My breaths came in harsh and my legs were screaming in protest. Just a bit farther. I promised myself. 

Matthew stumbled out of the underbrush and doubled over, his cheeks red and mouth open as he huffed for a breath. I moved his arm around my shoulder and kept going. 

I flinched as a bullet ricocheted off a tree to my left. It was too close. They were too close. 

But this was only the start 

Taglist

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Chapter 17

Rossary

I was always careful when walking down the dark stairs of the guard towers, not wanting to trip and fall because I wasn’t able to see well. Now, I flew down them, tripping over my own feet so I could get outside to Matthew. 

I didn’t even have to look to know that when Rick let out a laugh it was because Michonne, Matthew, and the Dixon brothers were back. Even though they were all back, I couldn’t think about anyone other than Matthew. I still didn’t know why he was gone, my thoughts too jumbled for me to come to a conclusion on my own. 

“Ross!” Rick’s voice echoed in the guard tower, his boots clacking on the cement stairs. He sounded like a weight was just lifted off his shoulders and I couldn’t blame him. 

I opened the door and sprinted down the gravel in the field. 

Matthew smiled when he saw me. I jumped on him, pulling him in a tight hug. He groaned but hugged me back. I didn’t realize how badly I was shaking until now.

“I’m okay,” he whispered in a tight voice. “I’m okay.” I didn’t believe him.

After a minute I pulled back and gave his forehead a kiss. Matthew laughed, his eyes rolling. 

“Okay mom.” he grumbled. 

I pulled back.

My eyes widened when I saw he had a black eye. 

“What the hell did you do this time!” I yelled at him. 

He laughed and shook his head. His tone grew bitter. “Courtesy of Merle. I was following them after seeing he had Michonne and he knocked me out.” he puffed up his chest, a cheesy smile on his face. “I fought back, obviously, and now I had a damn headache and a black eye to tell the tale.”

Michonne chuckled. “I’m sure everyone will know how much of a hero you are.” 

Matthew grinned over to the swordswoman, eyes shining bright. “They already know don’t worry.”

My mouth was open like a fish for water. I searched for words to say, wondering how my best friend could be so carefree. I shook my head and looked around to see only Michonne standing next to us.

I let go of my tight grip on Matthew’s forearms and pulled her in a hug. She didn’t hesitate to hug me back. 

“Are you good?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m good.” she said. Her shoulders sagged a bit. It seemed she needed a hug just as much as I did. “Daryl is still out there looking for Merle.” she informed me.

I nodded my head. “I’ll go help him.” 

I touched my weapons and gave Matthew another hug. With the Governor as big of a threat and Merle being gone, I didn’t want to leave Daryl out there alone.

Michonne shook her head. “He said not to.” 

I paused. It was only midday and Daryl was a tracker. It wouldn’t be gone until he was back. Besides, if he was saying not to go help him, then I would give him a couple hours at the most before I went looking for him. 

I nodded. “Okay, then let's get Hershel to check you out, Matty.” I said.

Michonne and I walked on separate sides of Matthew. We were both ready to catch him considering there was a big chance he had a concussion. He was walking oddly and occasionally stopped to regain his balance. I gritted my teeth. When I saw Merle I was going to give him a piece of his own damn medicine.

When we entered the courtyard the prison door opened. Carl ran out, a relieved smile on his face as he hugged Matthew the same way I did. I smiled softly. Matthew and Carl were self proclaimed brothers and the complete relief on Carl’s face only proved that.

“Hey buddy!” Matthew said. I watched as he hid his grimace away from the kid. Michonne stepped toward me, a smile on her face. 

My eyes traveled to the prison gate. I was hoping Daryl would show up at any minute but he didn’t. I shook the thought off. Just a few more hours then I could go find him.

“What happened to your eye?” Carl asked in a shocked voice. “Hershel needs to check you out.” Before anyone could say anything, Carl was pushing Matthew into the prison and out of sight.

I sighed. I wanted to go in and be with Matthew, but I also knew that the worry Carl would keep him hovering Matthew for a while. I smiled softly. I would check on Matthew tonight if he wasn’t sleeping.

Michonne cleared her throat. “You know Merle let me go.”

I raised a brow. “Voluntarily?” 

She nodded. “Let me go and even gave me my sword. I didn’t do anything.” 

My eyebrows furrowed. I hadn’t spoken to Merle hardly at all since this group but I did know how much everyone disliked him. I had nothing against the male aside from how harsh of a man he could be. I honestly didn’t know what to think of the older Dixon. Daryl loved him though so I could only assume there was some hope of Merle not being as ‘rough and tumble’ as he put himself out to be.

Michonne continued. “It wasn’t just him who wanted to give me up, you know.” My eyes found hers. There was an underlying question in them.

I shook my head. “You should talk to Rick about that. He can tell you why-”

“Oh I know why, and I don’t blame him. I am glad it didn’t happen though.” she said.

I smiled softly. “Me too.”

It wasn’t long until Michonne decided to go inside and see everyone else. I stayed out though. I wanted the hours to go by like minutes so I could go out and get Daryl. 

It was odd being out in the evening without him around. Usually we took watch together or came outside to eat when it felt nice. Now, there wasn’t the presence of the redneck next to me. Now, instead of the comfortable silence that would engulf us, I was left in the harsh peacefulness I had grown a hatred for.

Hours felt like centuries before finally a long enough time frame had passed that I was able to go out and look for Daryl. It was dark now, the sun hiding behind the tree line just barely giving light.

I hadn’t made it out the courtyard gate before I saw the familiar figure make his way through the field toward me. My steps quickened.

I frowned as I got closer to Daryl. He looked like he had been crying.

He stopped in front of me but didn’t look up. His hair shielded his face from me. I stood still for a while, not sure what to say or do. Neither of us liked to touch a lot and the tension rolling off him told me things didn’t go well at all.

It was such a contrast to the tough persona I was used to seeing Daryl put on. 

I chewed on my lip. It was dark now, late enough that everyone was getting ready for bed.

An odd noise left Daryl’s lips. I froze. 

Daryl’s shoulders shook and he sniffed, trying to gain control of himself. He took a step to get around me, to hide away. I had never heard him cry before and the sound made me think of a distressed animal who was caught in a trap.

Before I could think I pulled Daryl into a hug. 

He didn’t stop it, didn’t freeze or say anything. He didn’t hesitate and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. His head buried itself in the crook of my neck. I tightened my grip on him.

Merle was dead. There was no other reason Daryl would have this sort of reaction and no denying the older Dixon being gone.

There was nothing I could say that would help soothe Daryl. When you lost a sibling, no matter how much they could piss you off, it hurt more than anything else. I closed my eyes and remembered the death of my older brother, how I hardly could stand being around him and yet the call that was made to tell me he was gone was the worst thing I had gone through.

I didn’t let go of Daryl even when his crying had stopped nor did he let go of me. It was dangerous out here at night without any defenses up, but neither of us cared. 

This was the hug I had been wanting. This was the hug that made me feel like I wasn’t alone, like I was worth being loved.

When Daryl and I finally let go, I noticed how tired he looked. He was looking down at his hands, shaking. I looked down, my face falling. There was blood on his hands.

I touched his hands gently. I led him into the prison, grateful everyone had gone to sleep. 

We walked into the cafeteria and, against my wants, I let go of Daryl and walked toward our makeshift sink. My hand picked up a clean rag and I dumped it in the bucket of water we used for dishes. Daryl was sitting at one of the tables when I turned around. 

I walked to him slowly and got on my knees in front of me. He didn’t say anything and I took it as consent to clean his hands.

“I killed ‘im,” Daryl muttered. I paused for a slight second before continuing. “He was-” Daryl paused and didn’t continue. I put it together though and knew Merle was a walker when Daryl had found him.

I clamped my teeth together. I felt angry and guilty that I hadn’t gone to find him sooner. It was hell putting down someone you loved.

When Daryl’s hands were clean I stood back up and rinsed the rag out.

It was for selfish reasons, but I wanted to hug him again. 

I shook the feeling off and turned back to him. “What do you want to do Daryl?” I asked softly. I would do anything he wanted to do even if it was late at night. 

He stayed quiet, still looking at the ground. I waited, looking at him in the dark cafeteria. “It don’t matter. Ya can go if you want.” he finally whispered. 

I didn’t move. He needed someone to be with him who had no hatred toward Merle. And, even though he had hurt Matthew, that someone was me. 

I chewed on my lip before deciding to move around the kitchen. It had been hours since either of us ate and knowing Daryl he wouldn’t feed himself until the next morning, maybe even later the next night. I found some silverware and grabbed the two bowls of whatever food that was made and set out for us. I gave one to Daryl and sat down next to him.

Neither of us said a word as we relished in the silence, both thinking about completely separate topics. Daryl finished his food before me but sat quietly -waiting- his hands on the table as he picked at his thumbnail. 

At some point we ended up outside in the courtyard. We sat up against a wall, out of sight from anyone who could be looking for us. 

Daryl sat down first, his legs spread out in front of him. I shifted on my feet not entirely sure on what to do. I didn’t want to sit too close in case he didn’t want to be touched. Deciding on what to do, I sat down next to him, the tip of our shoes just barely touching.

Before I could get comfortable, Daryl wrapped his arm around my form and pulled me closer to him. His grip was tight and engulfed me into his side. I rested my head on his shoulder, my hand holding his as we looked out into the dark sky.

…

Daryl

Her hug. Her damn hug. 

Rossary had stayed out all night with me while I tried to process Merle being gone. She never once pushed about what happened or tried to get me to understand how big of an ass he was. 

She hugged me. There was no hesitation to her holding me, no alternative motive, she just held me until I was ready to let go. But I didn’t want to let go. Still, when the hug had gone on for far longer than I thought Rossary would let it, I let go. 

I don’t know what I expected, but Rossary stayed with me, fed me, and comforted me when everyone else would’ve not known what to say. Merle was the biggest asshole I knew, but Rossary never once said anything bad about him.

It was only when we went back out to the courtyard did I notice Rossary’s indecision on what she should do. My ears grew hot. Finally, after a few more moments of thinking on what she should do, Rossary sat next to me, only allowing the tips of our boots to touch. It wasn’t until I made the decision to pull her closer to me that she seemed to relax. 

It was now early morning and in a few hours everyone would be getting up for the day. I didn’t sleep at all though. I couldn’t get Rossary’s touch out of my head.

I was hung up on Merle but her damn touch kept me distracted. I blushed. I wanted to hold her everyday. 

I shook it off. This was a one time opportunity. Rossary rarely hugged anyone, and when she did it was a quick hug.

I just needed to stop thinking about it.

[wolfeyedwitch]

So what’s the story with Weapon’s antenna and earpiece?

Weapons Don't Weep, Part 8

*grins at you like the Cheshire cat* Ask and ye shall receive! Eventually.

CW for implied non-con body modification.

Masterlist

---

“Please tell me that’s not what it looks like,” Chloe said, looking at the x-rays they’d just taken of Weapon. 

The images were some of the most disturbing that Chloe had ever seen. It wasn’t the content itself that was chilling; no, it was what the images implied that had the three rebels concerned. 

One image was a chest x-ray. It showed the expected bright spot of wrongness under the ribs, just where Weapon had said their tracker was located. That was bad enough, equipping a person with a tracker like they’re nothing more than a piece of equipment. But that wasn’t the end of it. There was another anomaly, bright white and unmistakable, along the line of their spine.

The other image was an x-ray of their head and neck. It too showed something that didn’t belong. One of Weapon’s teeth was the wrong color on the x-ray, too uniformly white to be enamel and dentin. There were thin bright lines trailing from it to the Weapon’s throat, ending in small circles. 

“Well,” Nigel said, drawing the word out as he stared at the x-rays. “That depends. Does it look like a gross human rights violation to you?”

Chloe swore, quiet and emphatic. 

“So these are, what, some kind of implants?” Zeke asked. 

Nigel nodded. “We’ve got the tracker, obviously. The one in their mandible might be some kind of communication device, given that these—” he pointed to the lines emanating from the not-tooth— “extend to their larynx. I’m not sure about the one by their spine, though.”

Chloe thought back to her engineering courses, about all she’d learned of signals and how they traveled. “What if…” she started.

Nigel and Zeke both looked at her. She worried at her lip as she thought of the words she needed. 

“So that’s a tracker,” she said, pointing to it. “And it would send out a signal. But if a signal is going to get anywhere, it needs an antenna. Maybe…” She trailed off, hating the thought of a living, breathing, feeling person being treated anything like her engineering projects. 

Both men understood what she was implying, looking grim. 

“So we got the images,” Zeke said. “Now what? Can you take the tracker out?”

Nigel shook his head. “Not without better scans. These images don’t have nearly enough detail to plan a surgery.”

“What about the other ones?” Chloe asked. “Do they need to be taken out, too? Can they be taken out?”

“The Weapon won’t consent to that,” Zeke said. 

Chloe nodded, embarrassed. She’d been so caught up in the idea of getting the horrible things out that she’d forgotten about Weapon, and how terrifying this must be to them. She looked through the window to the exam room where they sat. They stared at the floor, back ramrod-straight and body statue-still. Only the slight movement of their breathing let her know they were still alive.

“The tooth would be easy enough to remove, but I don’t think it’s necessary,” Nigel said. “They’d have to be in range of Government’s communications for it to even work. And the antenna… I honestly don’t think I could remove it. It’s too close to their spinal cord, and it looks like parts of it have osseo-integrated. Fused to the bone,” he explained at the blank looks his medical jargon got. 

“Okay,” Chloe said. “And if it’s just the antenna, it shouldn’t be an issue to leave it in place.”

Zeke nodded thoughtfully. “So really it’s just the tracker we have to focus on. Doc, you said you need more imaging?”

“Ideally I’d get at least a CT scan,” Nigel agreed. “Can the generator take the load of that?”

“What kind of load are we talking?” Chloe asked. 

Nigel gave her the numbers.

“Oh yeah, Gennie can handle that no problem,” Chloe said. 

Zeke gave her a smile and nod at that, and she stood a little straighter at his approval. While some members brought their military experience as an asset to the team, Chloe brought something else: engineering expertise. Not many mechanical engineers only a few years out of college could say that their generator designs were powering an entire rebel base. 

They got the CT scan. Weapon was still as unnervingly polite and compliant as ever as Nigel directed them to lie down and remain still. Afterwards, Chloe sat with them as the images loaded.

An hour or so of uncomfortable silence later, Zeke came to the door. “Chloe, with me.”

“Sure thing, Boss,” she said. If his tone hadn’t already let her know the seriousness of the situation, his lack of response to her nickname would have.

Nigel was staring at the computer screen, brows furrowed. Behind him, Tyler sat eating an apple as noisily as possible. Riley leaned against the wall, gaze trained on Weapon through the window.

Aren’t I Miss Tardy-to-the-Party, Chloe thought. If the whole team was here, this had to be serious. 

“So we have a minor problem,” Nigel said. He adjusted the image on screen to show the tracker: a small disc of metal tucked underneath Weapon’s ribcage. The 3D rendering didn’t look any less disturbing than the x-ray had. 

“I can’t take that out without killing them,” he went on.

“Okay,” Riley said. “So we do what we originally planned: destroy Government’s biggest threat.”

Chloe turned to stare at them, mouth agape in dismay. “What? No! They’re not a machine to be destroyed; they’re a goddamn human being who needs our help!”

Riley just shrugged. “We can’t have them here with the tracker; we can’t take the tracker out without killing them. Do you have a better solution?” 

Chloe turned back to Nigel. “Why can’t you take it out?” she asked.

He gestured to the screen with a pen, sketching out reasons in such dense medical jargon that Chloe got lost about three words in. 

“For those of us who flunked high school anatomy, Doc?” Tyler drawled. 

Nigel sighed and started over. “The device is nestled in the pleural— it’s between their lung and the inside of their ribcage,” he said. “And it’s underneath their diaphragm. Getting it out would be delicate work, and run a high risk of causing respiratory distress. And that’s even before you factor in the fact that they’d need to be under general anesthesia for this, which I can’t do.”

“But- but Government got it in there just fine!” Chloe protested. 

Nigel fixed her with a flat stare. “Government has the resources to have a team of specialists on hand for procedures like that. They’d have cardiologists, pulmonologists, and anesthesiologists on top of general surgeons and a trained staff of nurses. We, on the other hand, have me: a single doctor trained as a generalist, not a specialist.” 

Chloe shrunk under his gaze. “Okay, I’m sorry,” she said. “But we can’t have gotten this far just to quit!”

Tyler took a loud bite of his apple and spoke with his mouth full. “If you can’t take it out, why not just leave it in?”

That comment made the other four stare at him incredulously. 

“Because we don’t want even the possibility of Government finding this base,” Zeke said slowly.

Tyler shook his head. “Not what I meant. I meant, why don’t we just disable the thing instead of taking it out?”

“Can you do that?” Chloe asked eagerly.

He nodded. “Sure; I’ve got an EMP around here somewhere. If you grab a couple of your scanners, we can make sure the thing is nothing more than useless scraps.”

“Would that be safe for the Weapon?” Zeke asked. 

Nigel nodded slowly. “It’s encapsulated; as long as the EMP wouldn’t damage the hardware…”

“Nope, just fry the electronics,” Tyler said.

“Then it would be fine,” Nigel said. 

“And if we’re going to be scanning anyway, I can see about any signals coming off the other implants,” Chloe said, already warming to the idea.

Zeke nodded his approval. “Then do it.”

---

Taglist:

@appleejuice, @kim-poce, @badluck990, @cupcakes-and-pain, @lonesome--hunter, @wits-and-wrongs, @neuro-whump, @winedark-whump @aswallowimprisoned, @rose-pinkie, @whumpy-writings, @whump-cravings, @secretwhumplair. @hobiisthesunfiteme, @whumpcreations, @myhusbandsasemni, @heart4brains @kixngiggles @neverthelass

[sometipsygnostalgic]

Gotta love how Bow and Entrapta's relationship started with Bow idolizing her as an engineer, then started to emulate her skills, and ended up saving all the chipped Etherians with their combined skills.

This dynamic actually runs across the entire show. It's downplayed, because Bow's tech skills... are thoroughly overshadowed by hers. I thought he'd get that "underdog" moment where he beats her, but it doesn't happen, LOL. I'm glad because I hate the "underdog boy overtakes masterclass girl" trope.

Bow wants to recruit Entrapta because he idolises her tech skills. Entrapta likes him, and looks for him during Princess Prom to show off her new recorder. When he thinks she's dead, he makes a voice recording while taking apart her horde bots, saying that "the best scientist I ever knew" did this. (I don't think he does this again but it would be funny if he has a collection of awkward recordings)

Bow is devastated by her betrayal and sees her as a tech rival when she joins the Horde. He pleas for her to leave them when they bump into each other. He makes good progress on developing tracker pads and arrows. Unfortunately, Bow lags behind so massively with his tech that while he's able to protect the Rebellion from her robots, she's already creating a portal to the next universe over.

Bow in season 4 is getting much better at technologically countering the Horde, and engages in an Arms Race against Hordak. They both, comically, think they're racing against Entrapta, who is again 10 steps ahead and busy discovering the Heart of Etheria on Beast Island.

In season 5, Bow and Entrapta work together as tech partners for the entire season. They are the Space Ship Team that prepare Darla for takeoff over a period of about 3 months. Bow tries to stop her from modding the ship, allows it when it becomes a necessity for their escape, and ends up piloting Darla into an Asteroid Field himself at Entrapta's suggestion and Adora's instruction. They also work together on cracking Prime's signals. When Entrapta's having a hard time removing Spinerella's chip, she grabs Bow and explains they need to break the signal at the source.

Bow in the series finale proves his worth as a Techmaster by completing the hacking process into Prime's insanely complex neural network 1000 years ahead of where even the First Ones were, and freeing all the Etherians.

Both of them in the final episode also have moments where they represent the Heart, not just the Smart Guy. Entrapta's biggest strength is her ability to find friends in unlikely places, which she demonstrates when Hordak turns against Prime. Bow is obviously the heart of the Best Friend Squad, and he's able to appeal to Scorpia, someone who he doesn't even know very well, to break her mind control! They both also piss off Prime with their speeches about the power of friendship. Which is very sweet for Bow, finally showing off his leadership, and compelling for Entrapta, who is not the best speaker and has had to work hard to be part of the “us” in her speech. Anyway they're fun.

[thelostsisters]

As someone who is Starting to watch stranger things and doesn’t mind spoliers I would like to hear the similarities between Mono and Henry creel, it sounds interesting

omg sorry for taking FOREVER to respond to this but i wanted to make sure i had all my thoughts together perfectly idk

but anyways yeah here’s my mono/henry comparison:

first is something more superficial but still interesting is that mono means “one” and obviously henry = 001

both betray their friend (who are both ironically young girls whose names are a number), however neither of them really view what they’ve done as bad/betrayal (obviously with mono still being the protagonist at this point in the game we know he’s doing the right thing, whereas henry is very obviously in the wrong)

this interaction between henry and el perfectly describes mono and six’s ending: “you tricked me!” “tricked you? no i saved you.” so in st4 henry manipulates el into helping him removing the tracker that suppressed his powers so he can kill everyone at the lab and escape. he doesn’t view his actions as wrong bc he was still planning to help el get out of the lab, and he doesn’t think killing the kids is wrong bc, in his words, he “freed them” from the grasps of dr. brenner. in ln2, you have to use six’s trust in mono to trick monster!six into going after you, to which you run through the portals and smash her music box behind her back. mono knows that six is bound to the signal tower through the music box (or at least that how i interpret it; basically mono is willing to do whatever he can to get his friend back) but six doesn’t see this. i’ve written about it before but i think she was in a trance similar to that of the viewers, and mono breaking her music box not only physically hurt her but broke her out of the safety of that trance and into their dangerous world. mono wants to get his friend back, but six only sees that he’s betrayed her trust

after the betrayal, both mono and henry are then turned on by their young friend, who “kills” them by sending them to an alternate realm of some sort (and in the most dramatic of ways possible lol; six could have just walked off instead of catching mono and dropping him, and el could have just snapped henry’s neck and been done with it, but they live for the drama of it all and honestly? good for them) (also ik the upside down is much more of an alternate reality than the signal tower but it’s still very much a supernatural entity that can alter reality in a way so i say it counts) neither of them knew that they would survive this, but of course we know that isn’t the case… which leads to the next big point:

both become monsters after being imprisoned and isolated from the world; mono becomes the thin man after being trapped in the signal tower for decades, henry becomes 001 and is trapped in the lab for 2 decades, then is sent to the upside down where he’s imprisoned again and becomes vecna

with both of these transformations we see the characters letting their anger and loneliness consume them, as well as them being overtaken by a desire for revenge

now some sightly less major similarities that i still thought i’d point out bc it’s kinda neat:

thin man kidnaps children through the tvs according to the LN comics (i imagine he kills them too but don’t quote me on that), 001 killed the kids in the lab who had been kidnapped by brenner

the unsettling twinkling music that plays when we first meet henry in 4x05 reminds me a lot of the beginning of The Man in the Hat and End of the Hall

[iphoenixrising]

DickTim Week 2021: Day 5 Winged!Talon Tim au

So. another dual prompt and I really regret nothing about this one tbh. I took tomorrow’s Talon and today’s Wings and made a Winged!Talon!Tim fic. Of course, I talked to the wonderful babes on Capes & Coffee about a what if combination and this just, whew. Careful, it might break your heart a little, but damn if it isn’t an interesting idea.

Not beta read, so don't be a hater :D

Previous Talon!Tim universe posts: The initial idea, Babe and I talking it out, Talon Training Ask, Ra’s vs the Court, Talon and Ra’s, Talon and Ra’s take 2, Talon and Shiva short.

**

Watching B take on the new and improved Talon is really the entertainment of the year.

Once upon a time it had taken all of them plus more to take down as much of the Court of Owls as humanly possible. Of course, like rats, the Bats knew there would be no way to get the entire Court or all the Talons, not when the upper echelons of Gotham had spent the better part of 200 years creating, storing, training, and obtaining more.

Politicians were investigated, corrupt cops removed, and criminals burrowed underground once word of what the capes did to save the day got passed around.

For the first time in years, crime in Gotham was at an all time low.

But, as the coin flip dictates, nothing good lasts forever. Trouble is always brewing below the surface to eventually rise to the top and try to take over.

Case in point:

The Bats of Gotham have come up against a new threat wearing the signature Talon armor, and the call goes out to all available capes for help taking on the undead mercenary before another crime family ends up in the Obituaries rather than Blackgate.

The fact the Court is still up and running after the Batfamily took them down in a fiery blaze that ended with all their Talons gone, Sensei exposed, and most the ruling families imprisoned or poisoned by Lincoln March, is like a kick to the abdomen after they closed that particular book. Worse, with a new Talon soldier is sighted running around Gotham, another circus kid has been kidnapped and turned into the right hand of the Court of Owls. Dick, with his absolute survivors guilt, is the one to make going after the Talon and whoever is still behind the scenes a top priority.

Which is how they find themselves in the middle of Knight’s Stadium facing down a Talon that is too short to be March. Red Hood, Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl, and Black Bat pretty much got their asses handed to them in the first twelve minutes. Pretty hard to understand until you take into account the new and improved Talon facing them now is terrifying in a completely different way than most undead assassins are.

He knows them.

He knows them in ways that lets him fight fast and furious with vicious accuracy, striking at weaknesses few of the vigilantes of Gotham realized they even had.

He isn't as big as Lincoln or even Cobb, not nearly as old. He hasn't been kept in cryostasis waiting for the next generation to need his skills. He doesn't have creaks in his joints from being put on deep freeze too many times.

This one is silent and efficient, obviously trained in multiple types of martial arts, is highly proficient with or without the standard Talon knives, is a master tactician, counters the majority of their moves with alarming consistency–

and the fucking Talon has wings.

Honest-to-God wings.

Everyone had assumed the metal monstrosities on his back were weapons of some kind, but the glint of steel in the streetlight flash a warning before the lumps moved in an arch, extending far out past his shoulder blades, slicing into Red Hood’s body suit with a razor-sharp edge, shredding the armor like paper.

It’s not enough he’s got weapons obviously made specifically for his skill set, it’s not enough he’s an assassin and doesn’t hold to the same standards of non-lethal combat, it’s not enough that he can use his wings to fly or to fight like he’s using another limb to kick the shit out of them, and it’s not enough that he effortlessly counters so many of their attacks that he has to have some kind of inside information on all of them and their fighting styles.

The knives are definitely a thing when the Talon can throw them hard enough to penetrate parts of their suits in between armored plating, which further drives the theory that this is a person they’ve dealt with before. Intimately. Few people in the world know how their suits are made. Even more, few people know particulars enough when their suits are constantly reconstructed.

The only thing on their side that tipped the scales in their favor–

–the Batman.

The wings threw him off his game, obviously, but not enough to stop B from holding his own with swift and merciless force.

It's like watching a dance of fast and furious fists, blades in Talon's hands glinting deadly in the night, finding B's suit over and over and over until he's made it to blood and bone. He takes every hit the Batman can dish out, head snapping back, left, and right with the volley of jaw-breaking blows and bone-shattering kicks.

None of it gives the Talon pause. When a move makes him drop a blade, another is already in hand, cutting into their body suits, wings flipping out to defend or distract, sweeping moves and well coordinated attacks.

The unnatural appendages are like another arm, another leg, an extension working on the same central nervous system, regardless as to how the Court managed to make it happen.

A jump kick off a trash can is a lucky shot as a wing catches B in the ribs hard enough to knock him into the wall of Mike's Famous Hotdogs. The only thing saving the Dark Knight from a concussion or permanent brain damage is the plating in his cowl.

It gives the Talon enough time to make a final bid for a battered Nightwing, Red Hood, and Robin struggling to their feet again, eyes for their fallen mentor.

Before he can lunge forward to start the attack yet again, the Talon just stops, pauses like he’s stuck or something, and in the span of a breath, both wings extend fully, flap powerfully once to propel him up into the Gotham night.

O tries her best to track his flight through the city, but no one’s arms are working well enough to toss a tracker on him.

She loses him over Cape Carmine, slams her palms against her system in frustration, makes sure she gets as much footage from the confrontation as possible.

After some sleep and a whole lot of bandages and ice packs, the Bat family meets in the Cave to watch the footage, breakdown the Talon’s fighting style, his weaponry, and make theories on his identity.

O helps out with readings she has of electronic pulses she managed to capture coming from the armor over his wings. She thinks she might be able to use it to track him if they can get close enough for her equipment to ping the signal again.

B makes a trip to Arkham since Freeze apparently hasn’t stopped producing the formula used to put Talons in cryostasis.

It’s not until Gotham’s power grid has a massive surge that O and the Bats can pinpoint a possible location, all of them invested in one hell of a fight to get the last rats still scurrying in the underground.

The plan of attack comes together smoothly once they’ve scoped out the location, seen the shady activity, and together, they make one hell of a plan.

**

And because, you know, Gotham, it is completely normal for the Court of Owl's headquarters to have a skylight.

Natch.

For this one, they've got Batgirl and Black Bat, Red Hood and Robin, Nightwing and B, a real family affair.

O's quiet voice over comms leading them through the maze of traps and empty rooms, abandoned libraries and spooky ball rooms. The laboratory isn't the most horrific they've all ever seen (because the Joker's summer place is literally the stuff of nightmares), but a few of them do gag on the smell alone.

The plan, however, goes horribly awry when the clear sounds of tormented screaming echoes from right under their reinforced bootheels.

Black Bat's fists clench hard, her breathing wheezes out when the tone, the utter agony goes right through her.

A shudder slides up Robin's spine as all of them turn toward the noise.

Without a flicker or a word, the Batman moves, strafing in the shadows toward the sound. He can't assume it's an innocent civilian with something the Court wants, but he's betting on the fact that scream will lead them to whoever is running the show.

The medieval room has bars and reinforced locks, implements hanging on the wall. The cement brick is stained rust colored with old blood, the vestiges of training, and the awful realization they've found another hidden niche in the city that always existed right under their noses is punctuated with the abrupt drop in temperature, with the sudden charge in the air, with the zzzzcrack snapping beyond the door, replaced with a muted buzzing Robin can feel in his back teeth.

B is already on his way to the roof, Batgirl down through the floor vent while Nightwing picks the locks with fast precision, knocking the tumblers around.

Robin and Red Hood stay close to the reinforced door, balancing on the balls of their feet, katana and .45s at the ready.

Black Bat takes the high road, ceiling tiles giving way under her Bat-a-rang. She gives a sharp nod before she's up and gone.

"All right. Ready?" Nightwing stands, cracks his neck, flips his escrimas in both hands, works his shoulders to prepare for the strain of each blow he plans to give.

"Ya betcha ass," Hood murmurs low, a cut figure with both guns at his sides, gloved fingers on the trigger guard.

"Don't disappoint," Robin snarls, "either of you."

"Nice pep talk, squirt," Nightwing snickers.

"Tt, back up your mouth with action."

"Better shuddap, Demon. Golden Boy ain't fuckin' 'round. Neither is the Bat. We get one more chance a' this asshole. We ain't gonna blow it again, ya feel me?"

"Finally, something we agree on, Hood."

"Other than N's shitty mullet?"

Nightwing swiftly glares at them both over his shoulder, unconsciously putting himself front and center of the trio, ready to be the first in once they get the signal.

– which is the sound of the glass raining down from the heavens.

Three booted feet kick the door hard enough to take it off the hinges, lying against the faded stains like a fallen body.

First step in the room is the complete opposite to what they'd all been expecting.

The two Owl masks aren't the usual, but a perversion of the originals, crudely drawn yawning mouths complete with fangs dripping blood.

But.

The boy on his knees, arms in a binder holding the appendages hostage at a painful angle, is dripping the real thing. Rivulets down his chest and where his back is partially visible. Some from the base of the wings going into the back of his shoulder blades where the skin is torn and raw.

The bar gag shoved in his mouth doesn't take away from the splatters on his chin, the bruising on his face, the swollen eye. But it's his wings that makes the Bats falter from the initial rushing attack.

His wings are without the armor, are bound straight up above his restrained body with hooks grotesquely puncturing through the downy softness, desecrating the beauty with blood and gore. The angle makes the pull to his back where the wings are part of him just another agony on top of atrocity.

"Fuck," from the first Owl mask, and a swift move frees the Talon's bound arms, the appendages flopping uselessly to the floor, only his trapped, tortured wings keeping him up on his knees.

The second Owl shoves the first back, "let him take care of them. Let's get out of here!"

The first Owl snarls out something low and foreign, the phrases rolling off his tongue.

The words lock into place, and the Talon's head snaps up, snarling around the gag in his mouth.

When his face is finally, finally visible, the protectors of Gotham are frozen in their tracks.

Familiar violet-blue eyes, too-long blue-black hair, cut jawline and pointed nose. Tiny scar on his right cheek from the time he caught Ra's al Ghul's ring across the face.

"Jesus Fucking Christ," is barely heard through the Red Hood's synths and in no way fully expresses his utter horror at what these dirty motherfuckers have done.

Robin wretches, bile burning the back of his throat once those eyes swing up to the masked parody of the Owls and his bare upper body is visible through the blood and sweat on his chest, when the scars peeking through on his collar bones form a half-visible Y-incision, when the coloring of the bared wings now makes sense (robin's wings, Damian Wayne thinks with his heart beating pitter patter fast, and his stomach in knots, they put robin's wings on him...).

And the hurt, agonized noise coming out of Nightwing's chest is the only noise he can make when those dimmed, dazed eyes swing from the Owls back to the vigilantes frozen in their spots, when there's no spark of joy or fondness or stubbornness he's so used to seeing staring him down.

The errant thought, the first instinct, is the only humane way to deal with this new Talon is to put him down for good wars with the man behind the mask that only wants to reach out, wants to pull the Talon into his body and curve over, to scream at the injustice of it all, to rail at himself for not even suspecting.

Another switch flipped and the hooks release his wings, blood splattering on top the old stains.

"Get them! Don't fuck it up this time or you won't get another chance," the second Owl shoves the Talon's injured shoulder in the direction of the horrified vigilantes.

They don't even bother to take the gag out of his mouth before setting him on his target.

A flap of wings, and the Talon is on his feet again, swaying only slightly. He's in the boots and pants from earlier, the rest of his uniform tossed carelessly behind him by his tormentors. A sweep of his feet and the knives glint in bare palms, a whisper of a sound.

The curved, clawed blade glints in the overhead light when the Talon raises it and cuts the strap of the bar gag in his bloody mouth, turns his head to spit it out without looking away from the vigilantes.

The Batman, grim and stoic in the face of this surprising turn of events, gives the barest nod. From her hiding spot behind the complex machinery, Black Bat takes off after the running Owl members, leaving the rest of the family to deal with their former third Robin.

The wings flinchingly flare out and their former bird hunches over, ready for the attack.

“Wait! Wait, wait, wait,” the Red Hood removes the helmet, leaves the domino underneath. He keeps one hand out in peace, slowly dipping down to put his helmet on the ground. “Is us, Tim. Timmy. Baby Bird. Is us. Yer family. Gotta lookit us, yeah?”

For the first time, the Talon speaks, “who’s Tim?”

And then he lunges.

**

The fight happens very differently this time.

The former power behind the punches is obviously dulled with the Talon’s identity reveal. He doesn’t hold back, is utterly ruthless with his attacks. He takes out B’s right knee, puts Hood down on the stained floor, knocks Robin into the wall with crushing force, and slams Batgirl’s head off the operating table.

He stands over Nightwing, wicked blade in hand and robin’s wings spread wide. He takes a knee, the sharp edge right above N’s adam’s apple, staring down impassively into the whiteouts.

“Timmy,” N spits blood, grunting when one knee pins his arm down. “Timmy, please. I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. I love you and I’m sorry they did this to you.”

Those eyes don’t change in the slightest. “You should not have tried to oppose the Owls.”

“We beat them once,” Nightwing gasps, “and you helped us, Baby Bird. You were with us then, don’t you remember.”

“I was nothing before the Court perfected me,” the Talon replies emotionlessly.

“You were perfect before they ever touched you.”

“No,” and the Talon leans down, puts them a breath away. “The only thing you and those others do is put the criminals back in prison, back in Arkham for them to escape again, for them to kill and destroy over and over again. Like this, I can stop them permanently.”

“Oh Timmy,” and behind the whiteouts, Nightwing’s eyes spill over, his vision wavery. “Timmy–”

“Don’t call me that. Stop calling me that.”

“You know me, you know us. You have to remember–”

“Lies. All of it lies!”

Nightwing’s chest stutters, his fist clenching, “it’s not. None of it is. Not even this–”

And he’s fast enough to grab the back of the Talon’s neck, to lean up enough against the blade pressed against his throat, can bring their mouths together, can kiss him like he’s dying and the Talon is the only thing that can save him.

It’s sloppy and awkward because the Talon doesn’t know what’s happening, gasps against the vigilante’s mouth. The tongue sliding over his, the muffled moan in his mouth sparks something in the back of his brain where the Court of Owls could never touch.

When Nightwing pulls back, stares up at wide violet-blue eyes, when the blade falls away to clatter against the block, when the Talon’s mouth trembles and tears fill his eyes, when his wings flutter and falter, fold in on them both, when his voice goes hoarse with, “D-Dick?” Nightwing throws both arms around his waist and holds on.

[farfromharry]

The one with Washington | Peter’s girl

Summary: You head to Washington with your team for the academic decathlon, however it takes a turn at the Washington monument

Word Count - 3246

Warnings - language probably, i can’t remember anything else

━━━━━━━━━♡♥♡━━━━━━━━━

You were looking forward to the trip with your peers to Washington. Granted it was for academics but you’d never been to Washington and you were excited to share that experience with your friends.

“Do you really have to go on a mission right now Pete?”

His eyes widened, the male shushing you urgently, turning more heads towards you than your actual comment. He looked around the bus nervously, hoping no one had managed to hear what you said.

“Keep it down.”

You were slightly regretting letting Peter sit with you for the bus ride. You were originally going to sit on your own to do some last minute practice by yourself, but having sat close to the back of the bus where no one else was you managed to attract Peter, who needed to answer a call from Happy, and now here you were.

“I have to catch these guys Y/N, they’re dangerous,” he explained. You sighed, growing concerned again for Peter’s safety, something you felt like you were having to do far too often nowadays.

“That’s the point Pete, what if-“ He cut you off before you could say the words he’d heard you say too many times by this point.

“I have super healing Y/N, it doesn’t matter.” He had to cover your mouth with his hand when he saw you go to speak up, sending you a stern glare. “Really, I’ll be fine.”

You rolled your eyes, slouching against your seat as you gave up trying to convince him otherwise, he was surprisingly stubborn for a boy that got nervous at everything.

Once he knew you weren’t going to jump in again, he removed his hand from your mouth, setting it back down in his lap.

“You’re going to make it to the competition though, right?” you asked. Peter expected you to have at least a little more faith in him.

He nodded. “Yeah, yeah of course, stop worrying so much.” You flashed him a forced smile, asking him to go over some practice questions with you for the rest of the ride.

Upon arriving at the hotel you obviously chose to share a room with Mj, getting the go from your teacher to head up there to put your stuff away.

“I think I’m gonna take a nap,” she said, already climbing under the covers of one of the twin beds. You nodded your head, wishing her a goodnight. In order to not disturb her you decided to head out to Ned and Peter’s room which was just down the hall and say goodbye to Peter before he left for his solo mission.

You knocked on the door, a nervous looking Peter pulling it ajar to see who was there. As soon as he saw it was you he let out a sigh, telling Ned he could bring his computer back out.

“What are you doing?” you asked, taking a seat on the opposite bed where there wasn’t some kind of weird, glowy rock.

“Mr Stark put-“ Peter shot his best friend a glare, telling him to stop talking. You eyed the two curiously, tilting your head.

“Mr Stark what?”

“Nothing,” Peter said quickly, brushing it off nervously.

You raised your eyebrows at Ned, knowing he was most likely to crack first out of the two boys.

“Mr Stark put a training wheels protocol on Peter’s suit,” he blurted out. Peter went wide eyed, slapping his friend’s arm while you started to laugh. You didn’t even acknowledge the glare he was sending your way.

“Awe Peter, he thinks you’re a baby.”

He ignored both of you as you made comments making fun of him, focusing on taking the tracker out of his suit. Your laughter eventually died down and you laid back on the bed to get more comfortable. You asked a few questions here and there about what they were doing, about the scary rock that you learned was something to do with aliens, not that that information made it any less scary, and eventually you ran out of stuff to ask them.

You glanced at the clock on the wall, noting that you’d been there a few hours already, and Mj should probably be awake from her nap by now.

“Well,” you announced, standing up from where you’d been laying down. “I’m gonna go see what Mjs doing,” you said.

You wrapped your arms around Peter’s shoulder from behind and squeezed him tightly, the position slightly awkward seeing as he was still laying down. “I know I’ve said it a hundred times but-“

He grinned, cutting you off. “Be careful, I know.”

You flicked your index finger against the back of his head, scolding him for finding your concern for his safety funny.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, be back in time Parker.” He fake saluted you, making you giggle as you left the room. “Yes ma’am.”

“Bye Ned.”

You headed back to your own room where you suspected Mj was probably reading her book in bed, if she was awake. You entered the room with a small smile, noticing she was up and rummaging through her bag for something.

“Are you okay?” you asked. She startled, pressing her hand to her chest. She glared at you while you giggled at how easy she was to scare.

“Liz came and asked if we wanted to go swimming,” she explained. You nodded your head happily, moving over to your own bag to find the one-piece you’d packed for this occasion.

When you and Mj ran into Peter in the hall, in nothing but swimming costumes, you grew slightly nervous. Heck you were pretty much half naked in front of a boy, and that scared you to death, even if it was just Peter.

“Where are you guys going?”

“We’re going swimming, do you want to come?” You asked, trying to stop Mj tugging you to the pool for a second. You’d forgotten about the mission in complete honesty, you were just trying to be nice by inviting him. Peter gave you a look, silently reminding you that he was meant to be going on the mission now.

“I was just gonna go study a little, but thanks for the offer guys.” You nodded, turning back to Mj with a giggle as the two of you followed after your classmates. He watched you both go, a small smile gracing his lips seeing you both so happy.

When you got down to the pool you felt like a little girl heading to the beach, barely able to wait to get in. Mj however decided she was going to sit on the side, something that made you pout.

You swam to the edge of the pool she was at, resting your arms on the side to keep yourself afloat.

“Aren’t you coming in?”

“Is Peter really going to study?” she asked. You hid your nerves with a small laugh, shrugging your shoulders at the curly haired girl.

“How would I know?”

“I saw the look he gave you,” she said, softly. To Mj it looked like you and Peter were hiding something. She noticed you’d gotten a lot closer these past few weeks and she was scared you were either secretly dating, or had developed feelings for eachother.

And if she thought Peter and Liz would hurt, you and Peter would be a whole nother level of heartbreak for her.

You sighed, splashing some of the pool water on her. “I don’t know where he’s going.” Lie. “But he’s not here, so let’s just enjoy ourselves.”

She seemed hesitant, but you were still her best friend and for all she knew she was just being dramatic.

“Yeah, okay.” She got up from the chair she was on, placing her folded towel down in her spot. You whistled at her as your eyes raked over her frame, throwing compliments her way that made her all flustered.

“We’re playing chicken, d’you wanna join?” Flash asked. Normally when Flash asked you to do anything you’d say no in a heartbeat, but right now it didn’t seem like the worst idea. You looked at Mj with a shrug, muttering a ‘why not’.

“Teammates?” you asked, holding your fist in place for a fistbump.

She grinned, hitting your knuckles together. “Teammates.”

»»——⍟——««

Everyone was more or less annoyed with Peter for missing the competition, especially with no reason or even text from him to tell you so, but you weren’t going to let that put a damper on your fun, nor was anyone else.

The group of you had planned to celebrate by taking a tour of the Washington monument.

You were currently trying to convince Mj to come up with you, but the girl was insisting that she was happy to read her book by herself down on the ground.

You just rolled your eyes, feeling bad for abandoning her and leaving her all on her own.

“Do you want me to stay?” you asked, shielding your eyes from the scolding sun bearing down on you. She shook her head, telling you to go have fun. You left her there on the bench with her book and went and joined the rest of your team who were already heading inside the monument.

On the way up in the elevator you weren’t really listening to the woman, she didn’t sound too pleased or excited to be doing her job and it was rather hard to listen to, so you tuned her out and instead just looked around.

The last thing you expected was for the alien thingy in Ned’s pocket to spontaneously explode, a chorus of gasps filling the small space of the elevator.

“Ned, what’s happening?” you whisper-yelled, looking up at what looked like laser marks in the ceiling of the elevator.

“I-I don’t know.”

You wished you had stayed with Mj now, and she was on the ground thinking the exact same thing as she saw the explosion. When Spiderman ran past her she gasped, hearing his reassurances that he was going to save you all.

Your hand clinged to Ned’s jacket out of pure fear, a quiet squeal slipping past your lips when the elevator dropped again.

None of you knew how you were going to get out of this situation, despite what the woman had said, that elevator was most definitely not going to hold you all for long, so it was either find a way out or drop to the bottom of the monument, and it was a long way down.

Your heart stopped every time there was a slight movement in the metal cage, thinking that this was it, no way out but down. You were mentally scolding Peter for not being here, knowing if he was he might have been able to prevent this.

You watched as one by one people were hoisted out and put back onto the safe ground, and you could only wish that was currently you.

You and Ned both almost scoffed when Flash pushed his way to his turn, nudging Liz out of the way in the process, taking the now useless trophy with him. That was apparently the final straw for the elevator, the strings snapping like twigs as it began to plummet to the one place you didn’t want to be. You couldn’t hold Ned’s hand any tighter.

It eventually stopped with a rather harsh jolt, the four of you looking up and around in pure confusion.

“Are we dead?” Ned asked. You slapped his arm, shooting a scowl his way for the unnecessary comment.

“Don’t say that.”

You had never been so grateful to see the red and blue figure landing somewhere, even if it wasn’t the most graceful of landings, his back colliding with the solid floor. But nonetheless your heart started to beat again when you accepted the fact that Peter was here, and he was going to save you all.

“Okay, come on,” he instructed, using the fake accent so your teacher and Liz didn’t figure him out. In any other situation you might have found it amusing, but you were too on edge to even muster up a giggle.

Peter helped Ned out first, seeing as he was closest to the doors, with the help of the security guards that were working in the top of the monument.

You let Mr Harrington go next, because truthfully, just like Liz you were currently too scared to actually move. You were terrified that the floor beneath you was going to collapse any second, and you were thinking that Peter was too.

The male knew he wouldn’t be able to hold this for much longer. He could see the way his fabric covered feet were denting the metal and he was growing more and more panicked by the second.

When it was your turn to get out all you needed was a reassuring look from Peter. Just one that told you he wouldn’t let you fall.

He nervously shouted for you to hurry up, seeing that both you and Liz were still there all while he was losing his grip.

He reached out a gloved hand to help you get up the small gap to where Ned and one of the security guards were waiting for you, considering there wasn’t really anyone there inside the elevator who could give you a boost because the girl in there was basically frozen.

“Thank you,” you whispered, seeing Peter nod his head. The only person left in the elevator now was Liz, and you and Ned could both pretty much feel how nervous Peter was right now.

Not only was he saving her, but one wrong move could mean that was it, and he would never not blame himself if something happened to her.

Ned’s hand had found its way into yours for comfort, the two of you coaxing Liz to come forward and grab onto you both.

“Just a few more steps, you’re okay,” you muttered, stretching as much as you could.

You thought he’d done it, you thought he’d saved everyone. She stepped forward and reached for you but never seemed to make it to your hand properly. You felt her fingertips brush with yours for only a second before they were gone again.

Your eyes widened when the elevator dropped, Liz dropping with it. It was a tense few moments as she screamed, you and your other classmates watching in horror as she fell.

You all felt guilty, even though right now there was nothing you could do. Peter barely managed to catch her with one of his webs, and you could feel the relief radiating off of him even from where you were standing, knowing he had her and she was safe, and you knew that definitely calmed at least some part of him.

He tugged on the web until he was firmly holding her hand, guiding her to the ledge just past the elevator shaft.

You helped her back onto the ground, letting her wrap her arms around you out of fear. He looked in your direction, you and Ned flashing him a grateful smile.

Peter obviously had to get going if he was going to make it back to the hotel in time to not be suspected by anyone. So with a little nod that told him you would look after Liz, he was waving a goodbye and swinging his way out of there.

You rubbed the shaking girl’s back, whispering calming words to her to reassure her that she was okay now, all of you were okay thanks to Peter.

»»——⍟——««

Even on the bus home, hours later, Mj could tell you were still shaken up. Basically every one was. You insisted she sit with you this time, so she was now shuffling closer to you on your shared seat to wrap her arms around you tightly. You leaned your head on her shoulder, clinging to her arm with both of yours, sniffling quietly when she began to run her hand over your hair.

“Are you okay?” she whispered. You nodded your head, flickering your eyes up to hers with a soft smile. She saw right through that happy façade you put up, knowing that you were frightened.

She could tell you were running through all the different possibilities that would’ve happened if Spiderman hadn’t shown up, and all of them pretty much ended with you being dropped to the bottom of the high structure.

“Thank you.” She placed a friendly kiss on your forehead, letting you hold onto her as tightly as you needed to. She started a conversation with you to take your mind off it all, and as you laughed at her corny jokes you decided you truly were grateful that she was trying to help.

“Do you want to listen to some music?” she asked. You lifted your head up and nodded, taking the earbud she was holding out to you with a thank you.

You rested your head back on her shoulder as she picked a calming, but happy song to play on her playlist, the same playlist that you’d heard her use countless times when you were together.

Arriving back at Midtown was an amazing feeling for once in your life. You were off the bus almost faster than anyone, running to your mother’s arms where she cradled you against her.

She wasn’t sure if she’d ever been so relieved to be holding her baby in her arms, safely. Your mother knew you better than anyone and she could feel the way your body shook as you clinged to her helplessly.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she whispered, pressing multiple kisses to your temple.

“Me too.”

Your mother spent a few minutes talking to Mr Harrington about what happened on the trip, listening to his countless apologies about putting you in accidental danger.

You spotted Peter with his Aunt, a few metres away, preparing to leave, and you knew you couldn’t let him go without properly thanking him.

You quickly excused yourself and explained to your mother that you were just going to talk to the boy, before you had to weave your way through other parents and students to get to him.

He didn’t notice you at first, not until May nudged him and whispered his name.

He looked up in confusion, his features softening when he saw you standing there with tears brimming your eyes. He opened his arms for you, letting you initiate the hug.

“Thank you,” you cried, practically tackling Peter in a hug. His hand rubbed up and down your back, his other hand holding the back of your head as it tucked into his neck.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” he cooed.

May smiled at the two of you, thinking the hug was just some kind of ‘thank god we’re alive’ sort of moment, not a ‘you’re the reason i’m alive’ situation.

“Mj sweetheart, are you ready to go?” She gave one last look to the way you were clinging to Peter, the way he held you and whispered in your ear.

“Yeah, we can go.”

You let go of Peter once your tears had come to a slow stop, wiping your eyes with the sleeves of your hoodie. He shot you a comforting smile, squeezing your arm.

“Thank you again,” You took a leap of faith and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek as a thank you, noticing the way he flushed red. “Spiderman.”

━━━━━━━━━♡♥♡━━━━━━━━━

peter’s girl taglist → @sunsetholland @captainamirica @tomsirishgirlx @givebuckyhisplumsnow @lou-la-lou @slutforsr @tayyx @gog0juice @minejungwoo @creatorofthegalaxy @annathesillyfriend @paninipress @bvttercupbby @peterswebshooters @whoeveniskendall @itsallyscorner @hoodpankow @sunwardsss

[soulmate-game]

Bio Dad Bruce Wayne Month 2020

Day 2: Father Daughter Bonding

Marinette had known her father was Bruce Wayne since she was thirteen, and the man showed up on her balcony one day in full bat-attire exactly one month after Hawkmoth appeared. He had apparently spent the whole month sorting through all of his magical contacts and trying to figure out who the heroes were so he could offer help—only to realize that the apparent leader of the duo of heroes was his biological daughter that he never met or told about his existence.

Okay, so the majority of the month was actually spent on him trying to figure out how to deal with the daughter he had never met becoming a superhero, even a leader of a team, without his assistance or influence whatsoever. But. Regardless. It ended up with him taking a Zeta tube at midnight in Gotham, and ending up on Marinette’s balcony as she got ready for school.

That was when Marinette learned about Bruce Wayne being both Batman and her biological father. After, of course, a brief heart attack at seeing a stranger outside her trap door.

But besides that short visit, Bruce had largely respected Marinette’s order request to stay out of Paris. He understood, after all he held a similar policy for metas in Gotham. Didn’t mean he was happy about leaving Marinette to deal with her supervillain without any reliable backup, but he stayed out of the city nonetheless.

But, there was Marinette’s lack of training to see to. She was not completely untrained, she knew at least two types of martial arts pretty well and her gymnastics ability was second only to Dick himself. But for a superhero? No, she needed a lot of teaching still. So Bruce had arranged for her to spend some holidays and a weekend or two that she could get away with over at Gotham (via Zeta tubes or other portal of course) for him and the other Bats to personally instruct her. Now, three annoying years later without any solid evidence to land Gabriel in the brig (though they all knew by then that he was definitely Hawkmoth), Marinette decided to switch things up.

She landed on a gargoyle’s head, on one of her rare patrols with Batman. She wasn’t Ladybug there, instead deciding to go by the simple name Rouge Wing, as both a play on her native language and the fact that red bats are considered lucky in China. She didn’t wear her Miraculous on these patrols, instead using the rare opportunity to develop her natural skills. And prove once and for all to her stupid brother that, yes, she could keep up with him. And, no, it didn’t matter if she didn’t grow up in a temple learning how to kill, she can still hang him upside down by his ankles if he upsets her one more time—.

Right. The gargoyle.

Batman landed on the rooftop behind her, raising an eyebrow under his cowl. “Don’t you usually make fun of me for perching like that?” He asked, crossing his arms. Robin landed on that same rooftop a moment later, choosing just to sit on the lip of the building and swing one leg lazily over the edge. He and Marinette tended to get along at least half the time nowadays, which Bruce considered An Accomplishment. Marinette only hummed, blue eyes hidden behind her red domino mask as she gazed over the dark city.

“I’ve just been thinking—“

“Nothing new there,” Robin interrupted. “Should I be on the lookout before you run into a wall again?”

Marinette tossed one of her batarangs at him, which he only had to duck to dodge. Sticking her tongue out like a Mature Teenager, she continued. “You guys do things really differently here in Gotham. Which makes sense, of course, because Gotham is a lot different than Paris. But…”

“But?” Batman prodded, deciding to sit on the rooftop and lean one arm on the lip of it so he could lean towards his blood children.

“But it’s been three years. You hardly ever get out of Gotham besides JL meetings or missions, Dad. And, well, if you promise to keep a handle on your emotions—“

Robin snorted, before realizing where this discussion was going. His eyes widened behind his mask in disbelief. “No way.”

Marinette glared at him half heartedly for a moment before completely turning around on her gargoyle and facing Batman. “We don’t see each other enough. And it’s not easy for me to come to Gotham all the time. So maybe, just this once, you can come to Paris and patrol with me? Next week, maybe?”

Bruce couldn’t talk for a moment, just staring at his daughter with his mouth slightly agape. Marinette had been very specific: no non-miraculous heroes in Paris. Period. Not him, not Robin, nobody, because she wasn’t sure she and her partner would be able to win against an Akumatized hero with years of experience.

Robin tossed a birdarang at Batman, which he dodged on instinct. “Well, he’s still alive,” he remarked to his sister. Rouge Wing had scooted closer somewhere during Batman’s shock, looking minorly concerned.

“What brought this on?” Bruce finally asked, making his daughter sigh in relief at the proof of his consciousness.

“Well, multiple reasons. For one, I know now that I am capable of at least restraining you until I have the chance to break an akumatized item, so there aren’t too many worries there anymore. And I only see you once every month if I’m lucky—“

“And her birthday is next week,” Robin supplied easily, smirking at the glare his sister sent him at that.

“Traitor,” Marinette grumbled, puffing out her cheeks a little. Considering the two of them were only a month apart in age, with Damian being the older of the two, it wasn’t unusual for Bruce to forget about one or the other. Summer birthdays in general were hard for him to remember, what with all the spring birthdays that he strained to keep up with.

“Oh, oh,” Bruce sighed, rubbing a hand over his cowl-covered forehead. “That’s right. I’m sorry, of course I’m more than happy to visit Paris next week. Maybe we can even do more than one day?”

Marinette relaxed, nodding. “That would be nice. Just, not in your civilian persona. Bruce Wayne is too recognizable, even in Paris, but a visit from Batman would be shrugged off as just us getting help. But, in order for everything to work, it would probably have to be a day patrol.”

Batman flinched a bit. That’s right— his daughter was a day hero. He wasn’t looking forward to patrolling in full daylight, but he owed her this at least.

“I’ll be there.”

—*—*—*—*—*

When Batman arrived on Marinette’s balcony (actually expected, this time), it was to see the poor girl covered head to toe in ribbons and balloons that all had some variation of “sweet sixteen,” “happy birthday,” and “16!” On them. She hadn’t even been able to transform yet, her Kwami just munching on a cupcake and giggling at her expense. She even had a party hat on her head, but judging by the way she was trying to wrestle it off it hadn’t been put on her head willingly.

“Need help?” Bruce asked when he entered her room, peeling his cowl back and grinning a little at the awkward sight she made. Marinette groaned, looking at him with the most pitiful expression ever.

“Please! Maman and Papan always like celebrating my birthday, and they’ve gone over the top a few times, but I think they went a bit…” she pulled at one of her pigtails, releasing a waterfall of glitter. “Crazy this year.”

Bruce chuckled, walking over and helping to untangle the various ribbons, streamers, and other celebratory restraints that had trapped the petite Parisian. Then, once she was completely untangled and only stubborn confetti and glitter remained, Bruce hung a small box to one of her pigtails by one of it’s bow-loops. She let out a surprised laugh, rolling her eyes at him before pulling it off and looking at it properly.

On a little white card it said: “Happy 16th, Marinette!” In Bruce’s handwriting. It was a small, black box with silver ribbon tied around it in a bow. Marinette couldn’t help but snort at the color choice, sending her dad a knowing look that he dutifully ignored. Carefully removing the bow and unwrapping it, she opened the box to see two little silver, bat-shaped hair pins. Carefully taking them out, she could feel that they were real metal, and surprisingly sharp.

“You can wear them however you want in your hair, to hold your bangs back or in your pigtails,” Brice decided to explain. “They have trackers in them—no, don’t give me that look. They only activate if you tap SOS on one of them. If you hold down the back of the clip, you can extend small blades if you ever need to cut yourself out of a trap or defend yourself.”

“You gave me mini batarangs for my hair,” Marinette teased, but immediately clipped them to her pigtails. “I love them. Ready for patrol?”

“Whenever you are,” he agreed before pulling his cowl back down.

One transformation and some travel later, and they were at the Eiffel Tower to plan their route.

“Obviously, Paris is too big for me to patrol the whole place on my own alongside school and Akumas,” Ladybug explained. “Even with Chat Noir’s help, it’s too big. So, just like you guys back in Gotham, we have routes that we rotate out. But the police here actually do their job and can handle most criminals, so our patrols follow a different logic than in Gotham.”

Batman nodded, holding his chin as he considered that. “That makes sense. Instead of focusing so much on the more crime-heavy parts of the city, especially since Hawkmoth hasn’t akumatized any criminals yet, it makes more sense to focus on areas around schools, tourist sites and other hotspots for recreation, and the general residential area.”

Marinette nodded. After talking a bit more about how she and Chat normally patrolled, and why, they actually hit the rooftops. It only took thirty minutes before Marinette had to intervene, grabbing Batman’s shoulder before he could punch a purse snatcher. The criminal in question, clutching a sparkly holographic purse in utter terror, couldn’t even muster the courage to run in the face of the famous Dark Knight. Ladybug glared at the older hero for a second before turning to the thief and shrugging with a lopsided smile.

“Sorry, he’s still not used to Parisian crime stopping. I’m reigning him in though, no worries,” she assured him. Just as the thief began to back away though, her yo-yo sprung out and wrapped him up head to toe, allowing Ladybug to grab the purse with a smile. “Thank you, I’ll take that. Remember Batman, minimal force. This isn’t Crime Alley.”

Batman grumbled. “It was just gonna be one punch,” as he zip tied the guy and dragged him to the corner for the police to pick up. Ladybug returned the purse.

“See? A daytime patrol isn’t that bad,” Ladybug remarked as she ran over the rooftops with Batman, deciding that sticking closer to her dad was more important than going as fast as possible. Batman grunted, but Ladybug saw his minuscule grin.

“I still prefer the night.”

“Only because you don’t stick out like a sore thumb at night,” she teased. And then the Akuma Alarm went off.

—*—*—*—*—*

Marinette panted as she lay sprawled over her bed, catching her breath. Bruce was slumped in her computer chair, cowl off and head curving over the top of the headrest. After a moment, Marinette spoke up;

“You look peaceful.”

“When I’m winded?” He cracked an eye open to shoot her a tired but still deadpan look. She snorted.

“No. With your eyes closed. And cheer up, it was only Gigantitan. Not anywhere near the worst we could have gotten.”

“I think you’re forgetting that I don’t have magic helping me out. Fighting giant children is not something I do often.”

“Oh please, you’ve fought way worse.”

“... that is true.”

“Dad?”

“Mmhmm?”

“Thanks.”

“Of course. Want to go back to Gotham with me and get ice cream before you have to be back for dinner?”

“Read my mind.”

—*—*—*—*—*

hi! Let me clarify something real quick guys. These one shots are for Bio Dad Bruce Wayne Month. Meaning, there are 30 prompts, one for each day of september. These one shots will NOT be connected unless previously stated! This one, as you could probably tell, has NOTHING to do with the story for Day 1. I’m just exploring a bunch of possibilities and letting my imagination run wild for these. Nonetheless, I will definitely tag you if you want. Thanks!

@momothefemur @ladybug-182 @starlightshield @trippingovermyfeet @greatcatblaze

[trauma-express]

  TL:DR I only care about Hazel being happy and healing and I don’t know if there is a realistic and satisfying way for her and Amelia’s relationship to proceed for that goal. Also I don’t take criticism here so please don’t try to debate.

I just really don’t understand where the fanon cool action grandma Amelia came from, except that she is buff and so people want to like her, I mean aside from explicitly saying she will not be a caretaker for Hazel, she certainly does not seem to take to much account of the poor girl’s emotional state, responding to her saying she’s Hazel with “debatable”.

 And she says Hazel’s worth studying, which is kind of yikes. And I think we are supposed to take that line negatively, given how Grace and Simon’s respective reactions are framed.

Simon, who has been unsympathetic to Hazel and refuses to examine his worldview finds it funny. Grace meanwhile, who has been growing more genuinely caring towards Hazel looks greatly upset at this line. 

So why am I supposed to like this relationship and hope for more of it? I mean, even if it does go badly, that just does the same to Hazel that Book 3 did, and I want Hazel to be happy.

But if they do make it all nice and Amelia grows!! And she and Hazel are all cute!! That would be kind of hypocritical considering their portrayal of Hazel and Grace.

Anyone following this blog knows I am a huge Grace stan, but I am not going to disagree with Hazel leaving. Obviously, I don’t think Hazel, at six and a half, should stay around Simon, nor should she be obligated to be understanding and patient with older characters who make her deal with their dysfunction and issues. But that also goes for her and Amelia!

It annoys me when I see cute Hazel and Amelia stuff because it is pretty out of character with what we have for their dynamic so far, and because it seems to disregard that Hazel is no longer the cute and adorable girl we met, but a child with trauma. She is not a walking therapy tool for the mean old British woman.  And again, if canon does it it would seem a bit hypocritical, unless we get a Grace reconciliation.

Grace was a teen who tried to tend to Hazel’s needs even if she did push her own problems on her accidentally. Plus she was in a bad situation with Simon! Obviously she cared for him, but also with the scene where she is rude to Hazel was preceded with a scene of Grace trying to prevent Simon from physically attacking Amelia.

She’s clearly worried about his violent tendencies by this point. And leaving is even harder than it might normally be in those situations, if she were to try that, because she only has two directions she could go, and he has the number tracker. Plus Grace would not abandon the Apex kids. So it seems like a confrontation would be hard to avoid in that case.

So I find her more sympathetic than Amelia, who can barely be bothered to be polite, removing Hazel off her when she tries to give her a comforting hug after mentioning Alrick, and brushing off Grace’s comment about her number going down when she says thank you.

[shimmershae]

The more I think about it, the more “Find Me” feels like an echo of “Ghosts.”

Allow me to explain.  In probably the most rambling and incoherent way possible, lol.  My earlier post on Twitter about Season 10 being an exercise in grief and longing really got me to thinking.  Not just thinking.  Ruminating.  

Anywho.  

Posting the rest of this beneath a cut because nobody asked for this (I swear I haven’t imbibed or ingested any illegal substances).  

It doesn’t take long for Carol to be established as an unreliable narrator in “Ghosts.”  At first it isn’t completely obvious because there’s just enough fact in the fiction that Carol’s triggered brain stirs up.  Daryl’s there and he’s concerned about her.  He’s supportive.  Both things he’d been before, especially since Henry’s death, but there are just enough elements in those chemically and grief induced hallucinations of hers that make you go--oh wait a minute.  Like she’s having a break from reality but she’s desperately grasping for that which grounds her and that’s Daryl.  

Am I making any sense here?  I feel like I’m not.  

Let me approach this from another angle.  

Following the airing of “Find Me” various people mentioned that Daryl, similarly to Carol in “Ghosts” wasn’t exactly the most reliable narrator.  That things weren’t necessarily as they seemed.  The word toxic was bandied about but other than Leah giving Daryl an ultimatum to choose her over his family and Daryl dwelling in deep, longstanding depression?  There wasn’t much else overtly deserving of that moniker. 

Argh.  I’m still not explaining myself well.  Let me just jump right in the deep end of probable delusion here.  Sometimes it’s fun to splash around, lol.   

Wouldn’t it be wild—sad AF but still wild—if Leah was already dead when Daryl met her?  

Bear with me here.   

Like Carol in “Ghosts” Daryl is obviously struggling.  He’s grief-stricken.  His brother is lost to him and after he betrayed him no less.  His close friend is mired in her own grief--she’s just lost her mate, probably recently discovered she was carrying RJ, and it wasn’t too long before that they had all lost Carl.  And that’s not even considering Carol, who’s allowed herself to be pulled away, lured by the tantalizing chance of doing things right this time.  Of rearing a child capable of surviving in the harsh world they live in.  Another thing to remember is Daryl is not that far removed from his torture at Negan’s hands.  So he’s more fragile than he’d willingly admit to anyone.  

He’s searching the woods for a man that isn’t there.  Now he’s no more aware that Rick was taken than the rest of Team Family, but he’s unwilling to give up hope and so he searches and because Rick’s not there and hasn’t been since shortly after that bridge blew up, Daryl’s doomed to always come up empty.  To always feel disappointment.  To never have his grief assuaged because as long as there’s no body in the form of a Walker, there’s still hope.  Or plausible denial.  Take your pick.  

He’s tireless in his search.  He’s methodical.  He plots out the places he’s already scoured on a hand-drawn map.  A map that just so happens to get ruined by an awful storm and Daryl seems to reach his breaking point, screaming out into the roar of that storm.  Walking through the barrage, the harsh rain and the violent lightning, unconcerned for his safety.  

Dude has a bit of a mental break.  He’s undeniably emotional.  

It’s not long after that he stumbles upon Dog.  Or, more aptly, Dog stumbles upon him.  

That puppy immediately lightens Daryl’s heavy heart and helping it find its way home gives him purpose.  He’s a tracker after all.  He could have easily traced Dog’s steps back to that cabin.  

Funny that Dog was always coming to him.  That he was roaming free in woods that were full of hidden dangers.  

I don’t know about the rest of ya’ll but that cabin looked abandoned when Daryl first discovered it.  Maybe not long abandoned, but it didn’t look inhabited by the living. And that’s the weird thing.  How did that Walker get into the cabin?  Did Leah just leave the door wide open for it?  Did she also leave the door wide open for Dog to escape?  Why was he always such an unaccompanied furry minor? 

The thoughts swirling around in my brain, lovelies.  They’re going to force me to go back and watch that fucking episode again aren’t they?

My point is that Dog essentially leads Daryl to the cabin. The Walker’s inside and then he stumbles upon Leah, who bursts onto the scene like she wants to be Sarah Connor or something. Daryl ends up in restraints and Leah questions him and ultimately lets him go and WTF, lovelies.  Who does that in the ZA?  As a woman all alone in a cabin miles from anybody else, in the company of a man she doesn’t know from Adam?  If ever there’s a time to have stranger danger...

Right from the start, this chick doesn’t really add up.

So Daryl leaves the cabin.  He resumes his search for Rick and he seems to give very little thought to this Leah or the cabin.  Until Dog finds him again.  

Strange isn’t it that he keeps stumbling back in her path around the times that Carol visits, when she draws further and further from his reach and closer to the fairytale he thinks she’s living at the Kingdom?  

Did Daryl ever go to that cabin without following Dog? I can’t remember.  The episode was beautifully shot but ultimately too painful to rewatch for my Caryl loving heart.  

Anywho.  

When Daryl and Carol come upon that cabin in the woods, Daryl’s flashbacks begin.  They’re hazy around the edges and not as clearly defined as the moments he spends with Carol.  Speaking of the moments he spends with Carol, how coincidinky that so many of them echo his moments with Leah?  Or do we have it all backwards?  Hmm?  

Things are so convoluted sometimes on this fucking show it leads one to question their sanity.  

Let me ramble out a few wild thoughts for you lovelies again and you tell me if I’ve completely lost it, lol.  

What if Dog was simply an orphaned, abandoned Dog that found Daryl in the woods?

What if Daryl followed the trail Dog had traveled in reverse and stumbled upon the cabin?  

What if the cabin was abandoned because Leah was already dead?  What if she’d taken her own life?  What if Daryl saw the cross/grave outside and the picture inside and his grief-stricken brain conjured up a whole tragic story for this woman, this Walker roaming around inside this house, and she became his coping mechanism?  You know.  Kind of like Rick did Lori when he had his own break with reality.  They’ve all suffered so much, lovelies.  They’ve all got PTSD.  It’s just manifesting in different ways.  

I mean, all of this would fit the label of sad that NR and others have given this little tale.  It would even fit toxic because Daryl let grief and loneliness swallow him for a while.  

As Carol pulls farther away from him, Leah just keeps popping up more and more.  

Daryl essentially loses himself in his own fairy tale only it’s a nightmare painted in soft colors and Leah asking him to choose is basically his own psyche saying to him “do you wanna live here in this fantasy land and numb your pain or do you want to relive the awful reality of Rick being lost and Carol slowly fading from your life day by day?”  And at first he’s like, you can’t make me make that choice because Daryl doesn’t want to give up hope, no matter how futile it seems.  But then Carol makes what she tells him might be her final visit for a while and anger leads Daryl right back to that fucking cabin and oblivion.  Back to the solitude of his tortured thoughts.  

That note, lovelies.  It felt like by choosing Leah he was choosing a lifetime of being alone more than it did him choosing the hope of a new love.  That “find me” for all the world felt like he was willing hope to find him again.  Hope in the form of love in the form of Carol.  

Listen.  I never said this would make sense, lol.  

When Daryl gets back to that cabin, Leah is gone.  Her picture is gone. 

Truly it felt like she’d never been there.  

Even more so when you consider how run down the cabin looks in present day when Daryl and Carol seek shelter in it.  

I can’t help it.  Some small part of me?  Well, it thinks that Daryl told Carol about Leah (whether she existed or not) as a way to both make her feel better than he wasn’t out there in those woods completely alone and to maybe move the needle a little bit on the nature of their own relationship.  Both in the past and present day.  

And while he and Carol are struggling through the ever-shifting nature of their feelings for each other, Daryl has climbed out of his own darkness and found hope again in Judith and RJ.  In the family he’s embraced again. In the communities.  And he’s angry and unsettled because he wants the same for Carol but she doesn’t seem to want that for herself.  

He still wants her to find hope.  

He still wants her to find him.  

He still wants her to find love and peace.  

Help me, lovelies.  These two have broken me, lol.  I promise.  I’m stone cold sober.  A little, okay a lot, tired.  

Wouldn’t it be wild, though?  If Leah really wasn’t what she seemed?  If she were a figment of a broken, lonely man’s tortured imagination?  

Undeniably sad AF but wild all the same.