#so i wrote this instead

[anomalocariscanadensis]

thinking about I Sexually Identify As An Attack Helicopter recently and the role transmedicalism plays in it. the foundation of the story IMO is the question "what if someone really did identify as an attack helicopter?", which leads directly into asking "why?" which gets answered "for the military, obviously". but then the next question is "how does the military change the genders of its members?" if the story rejected transmedicalism entirely and conceived of gender as mental/social, the techniques for modifying gender would have to look essentially like conversion therapy. instead, Fall has "brain sex/gender" be real in the setting, so gender modification is done surgically in a way that's much farther from any real technology. between "transmedicalism is true" and "conversion therapy works" i think she picked the less unpleasant option.

beyond that premise, though, it's not really a transmedicalist text. the usual argument of "brain sex" as a pro-trans theory is, well, it's right there in the brain so it's real, and you can't change the brain so you have to accept trans people as they are! but if technology advances to the point where neural editing is feasible... Barb describes generations of queer activists making gender a self-determined choice, so it does sound like the setting is less transphobic than the present. but those activists are not the same as the medical-scientific research into gender, which does not contribute to trans liberation, rather making it possible to reassign people's gender identities instead of their bodies.

finally, there's Axis, who is transgender in a much more real sense than Barb. Barb's perfectly happy with their assigned gender, even if it was assigned after birth. Axis, on the other hand, is CAGAM (coercively assigned gunner at military) but defies their surgical programming to experience gender dysphoria, i.e. start questioning their role in the imperial war machine. this very much contradicts the transmedicalist narrative: even neural gender isn't absolute, and a transition motivated by one's thoughts and ideals is if anything better than just going along with brain circuits.

[abalidoth]

Shave (a sonnet)

i hold to girlbeard, knuckles white as foam

my lilith’s apple marks the bounds of steel

a tapestry to make this skin my home

the softness of this estrogenic feel.

i close my ears to insecurity

the voices tell me i can’t feel this joy

“just look at real trans femininity.

deluded girl? or valor-stealing boy?”

i grit my teeth and clean up jawline strays

and think of those few sisters that I’m like

of women holding culture’s poisoned gaze

anomalies – the femme but fuzzy dyke.

a war within me as I wash my face

and tidy up this sacred, lonely space.

[my-various-aus]

Mikey hesitated at the entrance to Raph’s room, an overwhelming feeling of sadness coming over him.

He wrapped his arms around himself, taking a couple slow steps back, before swiftly turning around and going to his own room, curling up in his hammock.

‘Hey, you alright?’

Mikey silently shook his head.

‘It’s okay, if you don’t want to, Mikey.’

“It’s stupid,” he muttered, grabbing one of the stuffed animals hanging over his bed “I should be over it, by now.”

‘That’s not how grief works, Angelo.’

‘Listen to Donnie, little bro,’ a wave of warmth swept over Mikey, feeling like a hug ‘grief has no hard start or stop date.’

“Should I even be grieving at all?” Mikey wondered aloud “It’s not like you guys are gone gone...you’re here, with me.”

‘Mm, true,’ Donnie mused ‘however, we’re only here in a metaphysical sense; we’re literal ghosts possessing you, as opposed to physical beings you can interact with.’

‘I don’t think that’s helping, Donnie.'

‘Then you explain how his mind and body seem to have a disconnect, when it comes to the whole grieving process, Nardo.’

‘Cut it out, you two; you’re gonna make Mikey more upset.’

Mikey felt two points of contriteness in his chest, which, honestly, made him laugh, imagining the guilty faces his brothers would be making.

‘Maybe we could get April to help with repurposing our old rooms?’ Leo suggested ‘That way, Mikey’s not doing it on his own.’

“That sounds like a good idea,” Mikey agreed, pulling his phone out to text April “maybe she’ll also have an idea of what to do with them.”

‘That’s the spirit, Mikey!’

‘No, that would be us.’

‘Donnie!’

[alvie2alive]

Unwritten - an original poem

All my life I've written. All my life I've bitten Off pieces of what I know To pull it from being hidden. But my mind has left me unbidden, As if writing is forbidden, As if my breath has been taken Out of the lungs I still sit in. I used to be emotion-ridden, Feelings overflowing that couldn't fit in. Now, my eyes are empty; They are frostbitten. I thought I would be sickened, Or grief-stricken, But I feel simply nothing And the walls thicken. All of my words are left unwritten.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[windfighter]

Why Windfighter

The wind was dancing and she was dancing with it. Leaves whirling around her as she moved. Yamato leaned against the wall, watched her. She looked carefree, relaxed. What music was playing in her head, he wondered. The trees moved in the wind as well. Background dancers in whatever fantasy she was living in at the moment. Yamato crossed his arms over his chest. How long until she noticed him?

It was relaxing. Listening to the wind and watching her. She seemed at home where she was. In the world of her own music, the wind carrying her as she danced. So often this side would be hidden, pushed away in favor of the ice-cold murderer she viewed herself as. Wind, she claimed, wasn’t her element. The scene Yamato was watching spoke differently. He had never seen her dance with snow and ice in this way.

”Windy”, he said.

She froze and the magic was broken. Leaves fell to the ground. She quickly pulled her fingers through her hair, tried to make it less wild again. It never worked. Her shoulders tensed up.

”Why did you give me wind as element?” Yamato continued.

A question he had wondered but never asked. Windy tilted her head, looked at him. Looked at her feet and walked over to where Yamato was, sat down in the grass. Frost covered the grass as she walked across it. Yamato sat down next to her and she looked at the sky.

”I think… it was because I was desperate to fly away”, she said.

She had been 14. Had escaped the hell of the Factory, of the Digital World, and ended up in another hell in the human world, haunted by her own thoughts and punished for them by the family she had moved in with. Had discovered the world of fanfiction, had found the movies with Yamato’s adventures through the digital world. And she invented Windfighter. An evolution for Yamato, who fought using the powers of the wind.

”Why didn’t you?” Yamato asked.

The air grew colder around them. Yamato shivered, but didn’t say anything. It was… he liked seeing her use her powers casually. Not keeping them locked up inside like she had when they met the first time in the human world.

”It was the capital”, Windy whispered. ”Someone would have seen me, and they’d have taken me to the factories, studied me. Turned me back into a weapon.”

She laughed. Desperation.

”I’m not sure I would have been able to even if I wanted to. The elements are… different here.”

She had explained it a couple years earlier. Said they were thicker, stronger, more resistant. Unused to being bent, being ordered, being moved. Yamato hadn’t even pretended to understand. He leaned against his knees, listened to the wind. It was calmer now, no longer dancing like it had.

”I think…” he thought out loud.

Windy looked at him and the air got warmer again, the cold thawed by the heat of spring. After their latest adventure her powers were just… part of their lives. Normal. Yamato swallowed. He never believed in magic as a child and now this. Windy wouldn’t call it magic, but she didn’t have a better word for it either.

”I think”, he repeated, ”you should practice using your secondary element a bit more.”

For Iceangel, Windy’s evolution, air might be secondary, but for Windy, the person sitting next to him right now? He was pretty sure that if she could just think of herself as something other than Iceangel, the person she grew up as, then the air would listen to her every wish.

And let her finally fly away.

Windy laughed.

”I can’t”, she said. ”It knows what I am, and it won’t listen.”

But Yamato had seen them dancing, the air following her, carrying her, being carried by her. Each an extention of the other, part of them. He wished there was a way to make Windy see it as well.

”Yeah, maybe”, Yamato agreed.

Because it was better not to argue, even if they often did. Friendly banter, teasing. This wasn’t really the time for that.

”Did you know”, he said instead, ”that in some magic cultures ice is the combination of air and water?”

She shoved him to the ground, laughed. Yamato laughed as well.

”Are you saying I’m actually Waterangel?” Windy asked.

Smiling. Yamato sat up again. Shrugged and laughed.

”Maybe you could be. If you wanted to.”

”Hmm.”

Windy looked to the sky.

”Maybe”, she said.

The wind picked up again, whirled around them and continued towards the lake. Yamato wondered if she noticed.

”I haven’t even reached my champion-evolution yet”, Windy laughed. ”Who knows what happens when I go ultimate. Or mega.”

A shiver ran down Yamato’s spine. What would happen? He wasn’t sure they wanted to know. He stood up.

”Who knows”, he said. ”Better to practice your water-magic before that, so you’re prepared.”

Windy laughed again, looked towards the lake. Smiled, but it was a different smile. Haunted, in a way, but still genuine.

”Maybe I will”, she said.

Stood up and started walking to the lake. Yamato leaned against the wall again, watched her as she left. He hoped he hadn’t doomed them all.

[roryy-y]

Aziracrow fanfic.

Its set after Aziraphale went back to heaven. He comes back about a year later and meets Crowley in Give Me Coffee Or Give Me Death. I originally based this off prompt 10 for Whumptober but I scrapped that part as I didn't like it. Might try and rewrite it or something.

If you have any feedback/helpful criticisms please share!! If you think Henry VII (he's the original tu-tu-tudor) could write better than say so!!😁

(Didn't read over this so it might be a bit shitty)

"Forgive me Crowley." Abruptly and with no warning Aziraphale grabs them, pulling them in, kissing them like it's the end of the world- and against their better judgement Crowley's hands fist Aziraphale's jacket and they are kissing back. Hard. A kiss dreamt about for centuries.

All they ever needed.

It's all they ever wanted

Cheers and applause erupt from the customers of give me coffee or Give Me Death invested in the argument thinking that this was the couple's happy ending.

Maggie shakes her head and Nina sighs both knowing what's to come.

Sharp wolf whistling cuts through Crowley's mind and they snap back to their senses. Aziraphale stumbles into the wall behind them as Crowley pushes them off. The coffee shop is silent and everyone is aware of how audible their breathing is, chest rising up and heavily falling down.

I want to collapse, lie crumpled on the floor and never get up.

How dare they? A kiss?

He doesn't know what they did to me. They ruined my life. He was my life. The cafe is spinning and and Nina and Maggie's worried faces come into view. I push through them and stumble to the door, it rings as I pass through. A car swerves narrowly missing me as the owner honks and yells to get out of road. I get to my Bentley and lean heavily against trying to get air into my lungs.

"Crowley." It's Aziraphale.

"Get. Away. From. Me." Crowley spits.

Aziraphale walks over anyway.

"Yo-Your glasses." They pressing them into unwanting hands and takes a step back. "Can we talk- not argue- just actually talk?"

"Ok. This" - Aziraphale can hear that faint hiss that he loves- "This is me talking." 

"I love you. That is set in stone no matter what. I don't regret kissing you or maybe I do. I DONT KNOW." That last line came out louder than it was supposed, drawing the attention of many passersby but nevermind that.

"But there never will be an us- it's not something that can happen now. Our side is gone." Crowley raises the glasses to eye level.

"No, please don't say that, please." Aziraphale chokes out.

"This is what you did to me Angel" They say as the glasses in their hands snap in half and clatter to the floor.

"And I will never forgive you. And I will never forget it. Or You."

Aziraphale knows that they have to walk away and they do. Slamming the bookshop door to frighten the world away. The Bentley door slams shut in unison and only then do the the tears spill from those dandelion eyes. Tears that can't be wiped away. Painful tears that stain the cheeks and palms furiously trying wipe them away. Stains that will last forever.

Not even an angel could change that.

[gatoburr0]

The divine, one of a kind bride and the ugly ass groom.

[lazylittledragon]

'i'll just do a couple of doodles of mombin™/platonic stobin parents' nevermind, borderline graphic novel

[kmesons]

the tgwdlm soundtrack: a visual summary

[confessedlyfannish]

DP x DC Writing Prompt #5

Damian does not glance back at Bruce when he knocks on the door. Instead they both wait in silence.

After a moment, the door opens.

"Hello," Jasmine, Jazz, Fenton greets politely, unsurprised to find the Waynes on her doorstep. Damian's expression grows ever darker at this revelation.

"Hello Ms. Fenton, are your parents home?" Bruce asks, placing a firm hand on Damian's shoulder, to ground as much as to restrain. To his credit he does not shake it off.

"No, they're out of town for a conference," the eighteen year-old says, opening the door wider. "But I think you'd better come in."

Bruce would normally decline, but Ms. Fenton is a legal adult and he has already, even unknowingly, waited 16 years. Damian makes the choice for him, striding past the threshold.

"Please take a seat," Jazz says as she leads them to the living room. She ignores Damian's swinging head as he takes in the home. It is deceptively large, a 90s style house filled with modern furniture. The walls are bright, with purple and green accents that would normally feel garish but somehow work. The stairs leading to the second floor are lined with family photos that Bruce yearns to take a closer look at. "Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?"

"No, that's alright, thank you," Bruce says, taking a seat on the long plush couch. A men's windbreaker lies haphazardly thrown across one of the arms. A closed container of Oreo cookies sit on the coffee table next to a physics textbook open to chapter 16, half covered in highlighter and filled with sticky notes. There's a child's painting framed next to the tv, a handprint made to look like a thanksgiving turkey in bright blue.

For the home of experimental scientists, it is cozy and well lived-in.

Damian repeatedly glances at the stairs through the doorway.

Bruce clears his throat. "We were hoping to--"

"I've texted--oh, I'm sorry," Jazz says, having spoken at the same time. Bruce gestures for her to go on.

"I've contacted Danny, he should be here soon. He was out with some friends." Jazz explains. As she hadn't pulled out a phone in their presence, Bruce can only deduce they have some sort of camera at their front door. This also explains Ms. Fenton's complete lack of surprise at their appearance.

"So you know who we are." Damian says, the first words he's spoken since they arrived at the house and the longest sentence he's spoken since they arrived in Amity Park.

"I do," Jazz says, calm in the face of Damian's clearly simmering anger. Bruce trusts him not to attack Ms. Fenton, but he still watches him carefully.

"He told you about me," Damian says. It is the same question, but it is also not.

"He did," Jazz says.

Damian swallows. "I see," he grits out.

Jazz's neutrality slips and her face softens in sympathy. "Damian," she starts hesitantly, but before she can say anything else the front door opens.

A moment later Bruce's son walks through the doorway, and Damian is on him.

This is what Bruce hoped to prevent, but despite his numerous checks of Damian's luggage his son has still managed to smuggle a small dagger, which he now produces and swings in a calculated arc at Daniel Fenton's jugular.

Danny dodges cleanly, and dodges every swipe thereafter in a manner that speaks to continued practice long after his time at the League. Damian is a perfect product of his training, but it is up against Danny his flaws come to light. He is just as good as he always was, but Danny is better.

In a matter of seconds Damian grows frustrated and sloppy in his attacks, completely atypical for him. Danny takes Damian out at the knees and pins him down with one arm, pressing his face into the carpet.

"Calm down," he orders. His voice is deeper than Damian's at sixteen to his twelve, the accent that still traces Damian's words completely gone from his speech. Damian growls and thrusts his head back into Danny's face, meeting it with a sharp thunk. He rolls up as Danny recoils, putting distance between them. Danny glares at him from several steps away, hand to his forehead. Damian tosses the dagger into his other hand as he charges, and to Bruce's surprise Danny does nothing more than turn his face to the side, allowing Damian to draw a sharp line down his cheek.

Damian stops dead in his tracks.

"Are you done?" Danny asks, blood beginning to pool at the seam of the cut.

Damian's expression is stricken, eyes stuck on the blood starting to drip down his brother's face.

"I said, are you done, Damian?" Danny asks. His voice is cold.

Damian hears him this time, and he flushes red. "I--you--"

Danny sighs. He looks at Jazz, whose expression is back to carefully controlled.

"Are you alright?" he asks her. She nods.

"You left me," Damian accuses, standing there holding his bloody dagger limply.

Danny turns back to him, raising an eyebrow.

"You left me," Damian repeats louder, rapidly blinking.

"Yes. I did." Danny provides no excuse nor any explanation. His stance is unyielding.

Damian's eyes bounce wildly, shifting to Jazz and Danny slides smoothly in front of her, protectively. He looks at Damian warily, not as if he is his brother, but as if he is a danger. Damian flinches.

Hope is the last to die, Bruce thinks, watching as that last bit of hope Damian had is extinguished, the knowledge working its way through every inch of his body like ice in his veins. His eyes darken. He turns and runs from the room, the front door slamming shut not a moment later.

Jazz stands up, pulling a few tissues from the box on the coffee table. She presses them to Danny's face, cupping his cheek until he holds it himself. "I'm going to go get the first aid kit," she says gently. It is a thinly veiled excuse to leave them alone, and Bruce is grateful for it as she heads for the stairs.

They both wait until her footsteps have faded, taking each other in. Bruce looks at his mother's eyes and the sharp turn of Talia's nose. Damian's everything, four years older.

"You shouldn't have come here," Danny says, throwing himself on the armchair Jazz has just vacated.

"You know who I am," Bruce says carefully.

Danny glares. "I've kept your secret. She nor my parents know."

"I know," Bruce says. "That's not what I meant. You know who I am. And who I pretend to be. So you know I am familiar with masks."

"And?" Danny asks, looking vaguely bored.

"And so I can recognize when someone is wearing one. Damian will too, once he's calmed down."

Danny's expression sharpens. "No, he won't. Because you are going to go to back to whatever bed and breakfast you're staying in, pack up, hop in your private jet and fly him back to Gotham immediately before the League realizes you've gone. If they haven't already," he mutters.

"This is about the League then," Bruce says. "Do you not believe I can protect you?"

"I don't need your protection," Danny snaps, and watches Bruce actively extrapolate with a dawning resignation. "So this is the World's Greatest Detective at work," he says, slumping bonelessly into his chair, the first teenager-y thing he's done.

"Damian's in danger from the League," Bruce says. Danny glares from his slump. It's almost cute. "And as long as the League doesn't know about you, he's safe."

"Draw your own conclusions," Danny says, baring his teeth. Damian often makes the same face. "As long as you leave."

"I can protect him. I can protect you both," Bruce says. "Let me help you."

Danny closes his eyes. He centers his breathing in an exercise someone has clearly walked him through in the past. Bruce would bet money on the adoptive sister waiting patiently upstairs.

"Mr. Wayne. You are not my father," he says. "My trust in you extends to the point that I left Damian in your care, but that is where it ends. And that was when it was sanctioned by the League. By coming here you have endangered those sanctions."

Bruce disregards the sting, doubling down on his analysis. Talia had left Damian with Bruce well after Danny had left the League. But Danny speaks as if the decision had been his.

Or perhaps, Bruce realizes, it is not that Danny decided upon it, but that Danny allowed it to continue.

Bruce takes a second to review what Oracle had gone over with him before they left for Amity. Daniel Fenton had by all accounts, since leaving the League, lived a fairly normal life. His adoptive parents were eccentric scientists dabbling in the occult but their findings that bordered pseudoscience circulated a very niche community of like-minded eccentrics. The bulk of their income came from alternative energy, a more viable source of study that they'd veered harder into in the past year or so, a government contract with the EPA currently in the works. This had in part funded a vacation to an all-inclusive resort the family had taken that past summer.

Danny received average grades in school, above average in science and mathematics, declining sharply in his freshman year and sophomore year before evening out around the second semester. He had gotten into fights repeatedly with one student in particular, suspended for two weeks following an incident that resulted in a the student receiving a black eye. Teachers reported him to be highly intelligent but distracted and removed. They had recommended he be evaluated for an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. He had no social media. He had missed multiple picture days. The ones he had attended he was sneezing, or a blur of movement, even going so far as to fall off his stool, legs flailing. Bruce had drank up every last one as Barbara had waited patiently.

A normal life. A family vacation to Bermuda. Average grades.

His freshman year, distracted and removed. The same year Damian had arrived at Bruce's home. Masks upon masks.

"You have informants within the League," Bruce says. Danny, to his credit, has no discernible tell. But there is no other explanation. "What will you do, if they find out you are alive?"

"That is none of your concern," Danny says, but he might as well be saying whatever I have to.

He never stopped practicing, after all.

"If they go after Damian, it is my concern."

"And that is why you need to take Damian back to Gotham before they do." Danny says. "I will take care of it."

Damian had barely spoken since he had realized Danyal was alive. But Bruce had seen the reverence in his eyes as he looked at the file.

"الوريث الصحيح" he had murmured. The rightful heir.

"You are proposing going after the entirety of the League with no backup," Bruce says. "Even if you think they won't kill you, you won't win either."

"Maybe they will," Danny says lightly. "Kill me. That would also work."

Bruce inhales sharply. "Danny," he starts.

"Go home, Mr. Wayne," Danny says, pushing himself up with one hand. The other still clutches the wad of tissue to his cheek, partially soaked with blood. "Go take care of your son."

"I'll go," Bruce says, "I'll take him to the Watchtower. And then I'll come back."

"Mr. Wayne-"

"I should've come for you," Bruce interrupts. "Sixteen years ago. I should've come for you."

Danny's brow furrows. "You had no idea I existed."

"But if I had. I would've come. I never would've left you there. And now that I know, I am not leaving you now."

For the first time Bruce watches Danny be completely caught off guard. He openly gapes at Bruce.

"You would've died," Danny lands on, voice thin. "They would've killed you."

"Unlike you, I would've brought backup." Bruce says, mimicking Danny's lightness.

He's lying. Sixteen years ago he would've thrown himself at the League to save his newborn son without a plan, without a thought beyond rescuing his baby.

Danny barks out a laugh. "You would've laid siege to Nanda Parbat with The Big Blue Boy Scout?" he looks wistful. "That would've been rad."

Bruce sees his opening. "Danny," he stands, eye to eye with his son. "Let me help you."

Danny evaluates him. "The Batman," he says softly. "I didn't want you to come, then. I didn't need one more person I had to prove myself to. All I wanted was to live amongst the stars, in the quiet of the cosmos."

"You want to be an astronaut," Bruce says. At Danny's cocked head, he says without shame, "I read your essay on personal heroes. You wrote about Edward White. Ad Astra Per Aspera."

Danny smiles slightly, sadly. "It is a rough road."

"You can be whatever you want to be," Bruce says. "I won't stand in your way."

"Even if I want to be Danny Fenton?" he asks.

"Even then."

Danny sighs. "I don't need your help Bruce," he says. "No," he says as Bruce opens his mouth. He pulls the wad of tissues away from his cheek. Underneath the splotches of dried blood the gash in his face has cleanly knit itself together, a faint white line now all that remains.

"I don't need your help," he says clearly. He holds a palm forward, and a green fire grows from its center, until the flames are licking delicately up his fingers.

"I know The Batman does not kill. But I am not a Robin. I am something else entirely," Danny says, his eyes reflecting the green of the flames. Or not, as he looks up at Bruce, his eyes green all on their own. They are sad. This is why he stayed away, Bruce realizes. Not out of fear. Danny is not afraid. Danny is tired.

But for his brother, Danny will wake up.

"And If the League takes one step towards Damian, I will raze them to the ground."

[yeyinde]

Ghost has a thing for fucking you when you're asleep—

(—and maybe one day he'll get around to telling you about it, too.)

noncon/dubcon somnophilia. spit kink. brief anal.

He likes you like this. When you're soft, pliant. A malleable little doll under his hands that he can shape to his will. Bend.

You're so small compared to him. Tiny. The difference unmoors the chains keeping his vile, nasty urges at bay, until they spool—horrific and depraved—around him. Unleashes the need in the back of his head that screams, howls, and tells him to own, possess. Claim.

Ruin you—

And you belong to him. Everything. Every part of you is his, down to your goddamn marrow. Your bones are marked with his name, false starts carved into milky bones.

he doesn't really see the problem with taking what is his.

—and so, he does.

His sweet, sweet girl who can barely take his cock when you're awake—too much, too fat—and so he makes do with slaking his hideous, bestial need on your body when you're asleep. When he can fold your knees up to your ears, and fuck you as deep, as hard, as he wants without worrying about you seeing the want rotting in his eyes, and run—

The stretch, you whine. He's too much for you. The biggest you've ever had. It isn't meant to stroke his ego, he knows this, but still. He preens when you add, liquid and pained, by a considerable margin, Simon—

Like this, asleep, you're relaxed. Liquid. 

And with the sleeping pills crushed into your bedtime tea you always (always) take an hour before bed, he can do whatever he wants to do. However he wants. 

Splits you open with his tongue, fucking into you until you're sloppy and wet. Spitting on your cunt and pushing the foamy glob into your tight hole at his own leisure without having a rain of indignant fists come down across his shoulders, disgusted by the degrading action. Don't spit on me, Simon, that's gross—

(but you swallow it like a good girl when he grabs you by the neck, thumb digging into the dent of your larynx until you open nice and wide for him, tongue sliding out like you're begging for it—)

His little hellion awake. But asleep? 

He gets your pussy messy with his spit, fucking it into you with two fingers—another benefit to fucking you asleep is that he doesn't have to bother with building up, can stretch you out on two fingers without those breathy little mewls spilling out, telling him it's too much. Then three with his mouth glued to your clit, feeling your cunt clench down on him as he bullies it with his tongue. The pressure is too much, too intense. You'd be howling if you were awake, but—

You're not. 

The only sound is the lews squelch of him fucking you open with three fingers, sucking noisily at your pebbled clit. 

Music to his ears. 

And if he's in a hurry. Well. Skipping foreplay all together is fine. Just has to spit on his palm, coat it over his shaft, and make you open up for him. Splitting you open on just his cock. All tight—agonizingly so—around him. 

You can take it. 

He knows you can. You take everything he throws at you—knees pushed to your ears, cock bulging out from your belly. Head buried in a pillow as he flattens his body over yours, and ruts into your cunt while he smothers you under his bulk. Indescribably tight like this with your thighs squeezed together between his own. On your side with your leg thrown over his hip, or held high in the air. 

He likes it best when you're on your back, though. Soft and sweet. Little hiccups leaving your slack lips as he forces you to take every inch he has to offer. Bullying his fat cock into your pussy. Over and over again—

Quenching his unbearable lust on you until it's slated on your flesh, cunt stuffed full of his cum.

Or your ass. 

You're wary about him burying his fat length into your ass. It'll hurt, is the biggest excuse you like to give, hands tucked against the swell of your bottom as if that would be enough to keep him away. You've never done that before and taking him in your pussy was already a lot, you couldn't imagine taking him there, too—

It's a problem. Too bad for you, he has always been task oriented. Someone who likes the squash issues under his thumb. 

And that's exactly what he does. 

Starts with his thumb shoved inside your hole when he's fucking your pussy. Then a finger. Two. Likes to lick at your cunt before shoving your knees to your chest, lifting your ass in the air, and devouring it with the same rapacious appetite. Tongue fucking into you, getting you all sloppy and wet, stretching you open so he can seat you down on his cock. All the way to the base. Stretching your rim wide around his girth. Pounding your tight little ass until he cums inside of you. Filling you over and over again until it leaks out, soaking into the sheets below. 

His pretty little doll. All fucked out and messy. 

With you asleep, Simon can take from you—as much as he needs to fill this greedy, gaping maw inside of himself—without burdening you. Scaring you away. 

And he'd rather not have to chase you down like a dog—

It's the perfect arrangement that lets him exorcise himself of the horrible, awful, things he wants to do to you. Quench the bloodlust, the violence, that drums up in the back of his head, ugly and noxious, that leaks poison into his blood. Makes him see you torn to pieces by his enemies, wrenched away by the people who think they know what's best for you. Taken. The urge to claim you is animalistic. Primal. 

This—

This is bloodletting. It's spilling the rot from inside himself so it doesn't fester. Turn septic. Gangrenous. Eating at his tissue until his hands no longer belong to himself, but to the mercy of his monstrous need. 

It lets him ruin you, tear into you like a beast, without worrying about you running from him. Fleeing from this rapacious green he holds deep in the fibrils of his chest. Hewed into his essence, subsumed into his marrow. 

Simply put: he needs this. Just like you need him. Simon. Need him like the air you breathe—

(And sometimes, sometimes, you get this peculiar look on your face before bed. A frisson. Unease, pensive. It splits over your brows, an evanescent tremor. He thinks you might be more aware than you let on. That you know about this hideousness inside him, this putrid greed that sloshes around the edges of his eyes sometimes, trying to bleed in, trickling down over his periphery before he can stop it. 

But it dissolves into complacency before he can chisel into it, leaving nothing behind but a faint stink of stale smoke. Acrid—like doused embers. Burning his nose, his lungs—)

And when he's had his fill—stuffed that chasm inside his belly with your flesh—he cleans you up, and pulls you tight to his chest. Satiated for the time being. Falling asleep with the taste of you on his tongue, locked tight in his embrace. Tenders to your aches the next morning, as soft and supple as he can ever allow himself to be. 

There’s a place for him, he’s sure, when he lies to you, and says that you must have slept the wrong way. That maybe he was a little too hard on you the night before. And maybe if he were a better person, a better man, he might have felt some sense of guilt for it. Shame.

But instead, he coos at you and says:

It’s his fault, pet, but don’t worry he’ll take such good care of you. Licking your sore cunt all day until you grab him by the scruff of his neck, and tell him no more, please, Simon, stop, stop—it doesn’t hurt anymore, please—

He relents an hour before bed and takes you to the kitchen where you sit and drink the tea he made without a word.

Like a good girl—

And then you slip into bed in nothing but his old shirt, curling up against his chest, and whispering—soft and sweet—into his ear, "good night, Simon."

(his sweet, sweet girl.

like you're fucking begging him for it—)

[rcmclachlan]

8x06 fix-it fic: Amnion

Buck doesn't bounce back from Tommy the way he did with all his other breakups for reasons he can't articulate or even look at. He thinks of how long it took him to recover from Abby, but even that felt different, because he'd had hope carrying him through most of it. He doesn't have that now.

The worst part is it's bringing everyone else down. It's starting to affect the job, and he can't take any more of Bobby's pity dinner invites or the kid gloves Eddie handles him with. Then one day, Chimney (in an attempt to lighten the mood) asks Buck if he's pregnant, and it awakens some primordial rage in Buck that he never knew he possessed and damn near rips off Chimney's head about it.

But once the blood levels in his adrenaline start rising and he calms down, he starts thinking about it. Before he knows it he's thinking about it day and night, and now that's starting to affect the job more than his heartbreak had been.

Then one night Maddie invites him over to watch trash TV and eat junk food until they can't feel feelings anymore, but instead of the patented Maddie Hug he's expecting, she hands him a First Response test stick the second he walks in the door.

Five minutes later, he comes out of the bathroom pale-faced and dripping tears because there are two lines in the test result window, and Maddie leads him over to the couch where they curl up and cry together. Just like the old days.

Maddie asks if he's going to tell Tommy, but there's no judgment in her voice, like she's behind him no matter what he decides, and Buck tries to make her laugh when he says, "How do you know it's his? I could've been living it up for the last month. New person almost every night. Exploring myself."

She just gives him a Look. Also patented.

Under the weight of her scrutiny, Buck thinks about Tommy's face before he left the loft that night and how ''Buck'' looked and sounded so wrong coming from him. Like the shape of it was so painful he could barely move his mouth around it.

Finally, he shakes his head. His eyes well up with more tears, which feels impossible, because the human body can't possibly produce this much liquid. He's going to drown them both. "I thought... I thought we had a future, Maddie. I really did. I guess I still get one... but only with part of him."

A couple of months pass and Buck's entire world shifts. The 118 have rallied around him in a way that almost feels like they're closing ranks to every other firehouse. Eddie becomes especially protective and devises a 5000-point care plan that makes him twitch if Buck so much as thinks about deviating from it, but he also keeps telling Buck that he needs to tell Tommy about the pregnancy.

"If only to get his family history," Eddie says reasonably, but there's something pleading in his voice every time, like there's so much more under the surface that he's trying to keep under wraps. Like there's more about this that he thinks Tommy should know.

Chimney's in the middle of explaining why he's stealing the cool uncle crown from Buck and sitting pretty on the throne when Buck asks him about it.

"Is there something about Tommy that no one's telling me?"

It trips Chimney up. Literally. He just barely catches himself from going headfirst into the kitchen counter.

Buck's heart starts pounding. "Chim, does he know?"

"No," Chimney says, firm and almost a little offended. "We promised you we wouldn't say anything. But Buck... you should tell him. You should talk to him."

Part of him wants to whip his phone out right then and there and dial Tommy's number. He could do what he did the first time: ask to meet somewhere and laugh about bad coffee and plead his case for a second chance. He could reach across the table for his hand, but this time, he'd stand up and walk over to Tommy and place it on his belly. "I don't care about firsts or lasts," he'd say. "I care about only's. And you're the only one I want."

But the other part of him, still licking its wounds, hormones in flux and forcing organs to shift and bend as it makes room for the thing he and Tommy made together, bares its teeth and snaps, "He made it very clear that he had no interest in hearing what I had to say."

Chimney never brings it up again.

Meanwhile, Hen goes a little overboard with forcing him to undergo random physicals—she pops out of the shadows twice a day to ambush him with the blood pressure machine, and he keeps threatening to avoid rooms that have doors—but he loves it. His body is a complete stranger to him for the first time in a long time, but the changes he's experiencing are interesting and he's having a blast cataloging every new one. He and Hen have a spreadsheet with like fifty tabs, and she helps him navigate every test his actual OBGYN sets him up for.

He's over her house at least once a week, although pregnancy talk at the dinner table is verboten.

"If one of you says the word 'amniocentesis' one more time, I will start a food fight," Karen had said, finally putting her foot down. Across the table, Denny perked up.

As much as he hesitates to even think the Q-word, it's a pretty quiet pregnancy. The cravings are kind of wild, though, and he goes most of his first trimester feeling like he's going to die if he can't eat rice krispie treats with cottage cheese. Every time Bobby sees him cracking open another container of Hood, it looks like he's seriously reconsidering sobriety.

But as incredible as they are about the pregnancy, they're all tiptoeing around the other elephant in the room: when Buck is going to stop working scenes. He and Bobby have a series of discussions that satisfies neither of them and resolves nothing, and it builds to a big blow-out that ends when Bobby tearfully begs Buck to stop risking his own life and the life of Bobby's grandkid.

After that, it's like some stone thing in him dissolves into sand and he finally eases back a bit in his fifth month. He doesn't put up a fight when Bobby orders him to only handle the winch or stick with hose duty, and if he stays a little closer to the engine because he gets winded so easily these days, no one comments on it.

In his sixth month, the inevitable happens: there's a call out at Palos Verdes and it's all hands on deck, which means the 217 is there too. At first he thinks he might make it through without running into Tommy at all, but he turns a corner and—there he is. Smudged with mud and looking like a drowned rat because of the downpours, but in his turnouts he's big and capable and, for a second, he's walking into First Presbyterian and apologizing for missing the ceremony.

But the memory is easily wrestled back into the past the second Tommy's gaze fixes on Buck's belly.

Buck wants to stage a retreat that would make the Allies at Dunkirk stand up and applaud. He wants to throw his arms open so Tommy can get a better look at it, say something cool and mean, like, "Did you know that INNOTEX makes turnouts for carriers these days? Pretty progressive of them, if you ask me."

He wants to be weak and ask if Tommy will spare him a hug. Just one. Nothing greedy. Just—a moment to soak in his warmth, to inhale the smell of his skin. Enough to carry him through the rest of it.

But he does none of that. He inhales through his nose, lifts his chin, and says, "Firefighter Kinard."

At that, Tommy smiles, and it's completely awful. There's no joy in it. Not even amusement. He looks like he wants to be sick, and Buck feels like a monster.

But Tommy swallows and says, earnest as anything, "Congratulations. I-I knew you'd find it. I never doubted for a second that you'd find the person who'd be your last."

Even as he says it, Tommy's face does something indescribable, but it rips through Buck's chest and shatters his ribs, tearing through pericardial layers until it scores the vulnerable muscle of his heart. It's so shocking that it almost knocks the truth right out of Buck's mouth.

Someone comes over the radio and requests all available first responders with flight experience to report to the B-zone, and Tommy straightens up and locks whatever it was away.

With an unsteady hand, he tips an invisible hat to Buck and says wryly, "Firefighter Buckley," before jogging away.

And Buck stands there like an idiot watching him go. It's that night all over again. It's Buck instead of Evan.

"See you around," he whispers, and then runs back to his post in the A-zone.

+

Tommy gets the call when he's halfway through a burrito foisted upon him by Dana, who had taken one look at him and said, "You look like a flood victim. Eat something before I get HR involved."

He'd taken a mutinous bite and couldn't argue with her. Months later and it still felt like he'd watched everything he loved wash away with a tide he couldn't fight. Except he'd sent the tide himself. He had no business feeling like this.

But they send him to the site of a car accident where a pregnant driver had been T-boned by some asshole who ran the red light, and the RA unit called to the scene didn't have the right equipment to assess the fetus. But the victim's belly was hard enough to warrant a med evac.

By the time Dana gets the victim loaded on the backboard and inside, Tommy's already on with both First Presbyterian and LA General to see whose neonatal surgery team is available.

The door on Tommy's side slides open and Tommy turns in his seat to ask what the hell Dana's doing over there, but it's Hen who's pulling herself inside.

His stomach clenches with dread. "Hen?"

"I'm riding with you," she shouts, taking the headset that Dana gives her.

He looks just beyond her and wishes he'd had the presence of mind to listen to the manifest when Dana had read it aloud to him, because Evan Buckley is strapped to the gurney and looks like he's on a completely different planet.

"Hen." Tommy can't hear him say her name, but he sees Evan's mouth shape the word. Evan reaches clumsily out for her with one hand while pressing the other to his belly.

Hen murmurs something to him that the comms can't pick up, and Tommy wonders if they've notified Maddie, if they've notified the father, whoever they are. If they're already at the hospital waiting for them. If Tommy will have to see them, talk to them face to face.

Tommy bites the inside of his cheek until he feels the hot wash of blood over his tongue, then forces everything down to join the burrito from earlier that really wants to make a reappearance. It isn't his right to know any of it. That went out with the tide, too.

He locks it down tight enough that he gets them into the air so easily they might be a feather on the wind, then he heads in the direction of First Presbyterian. The real start of it all.

They're maybe halfway across the city when Evan shouts, desperation and fear carrying his voice over the rotors, the words sliding together, "Hen, check Nora! Y-Y'need to ch—"

"Nora's fine, Buck," Hen says, her voice clear as a bell in Tommy's ear.

Staring at a skyline he can't see, Tommy says, "'Nora'? Was someone else in the car with him?"

When Hen comes over the comm, her voice is as inescapable as a flood. "Nora's what he decided on for the baby. It's her name."

Tommy's hand tightens on the cyclic so the way it starts shaking won't be so obvious. "Nora was my grandmother's name."

He'd told Buck about the woman who was basically the only family he could stand, who was responsible for not letting him become his piece of shit father, who accepted him when no one else would. She'd meant the world to him. She'd been the world to him. And for Evan to give his kid her name—

Realization hits like a levy breaking, and he turns to look wide-eyed over his shoulder at Hen, because it can't—he couldn't be—

"Patient, male, 33, prenatal course complicated at 8 months gestation," Dispatch had said.

The timeline is right.

Hen stares right back, as good of a confirmation that he could get outside of a DNA test.

Without breaking her gaze, Tommy tells Dana to take over. She gives him an unreadable look but says nothing except, "Copy that," and smoothly resumes their journey while he squeezes into the back. There's hardly any room next to the gurney and his knees are compressing his lungs, but he takes Evan's' hand and stares blankly at the shiner forming around his right eye until Hen breaks the silence.

Why didn't you tell me, he wants to demand, but he knows that if he so much as opens his mouth, he's going to start screaming until someone sedates him.

"For the record," she says, "I hate what you did. I hate what you took from him. But I understand why you did it."

Tommy rolls his lips inward and wants to suffocate himself to death. She understands? Does she? Does she know a life can be obliterated in the span of a minute? Does she know what it is to live a half life, to walk through the world like a five-year old drew a scribble on a blank sheet of paper that was supposed to be a person?

Does she know what Evan looks like when his joy is sucked away? Because Tommy does. She hates what he did? No one hates what he did more than him. No one hates him more than him.

Shakily, he lifts his other hand and touches the tips of his fingers to Evan's birthmark, which used to know the touch of his lips so well that Evan would joke that it was actually in the shape of Tommy's mouth print. Like a brand.

He forces himself to inhale. It seems impossible that Evan's here, carrying their child, their Nora. Evan used to say the lightning strike gave him super powers, made him invincible, and Tommy's ashamed to admit that he almost believed him. It seemed like nothing could ever bring Evan Buckley down, but here he is in Tommy's sky, halfway to Heaven already.

He glances at the LifePAK—where Evan's life has been concentrated into a series of lines and numbers, the reading strong despite everything—and then looks back at Evan, who is still the most beautiful man Tommy has ever seen even now.

"Evan," he chokes out.

There's no answer. At least not from Evan.

Across from him, Hen breathes through her nose and then quietly says, "I'm only going to say this once, Tommy, so I hope you're listening. If you can't trust him to know what his own heart wants, then this flight will never have happened. When he wakes up, you will not have been here. I'll change the manifest myself."

Tommy closes his eyes. Something hot spills down his cheeks.

"I know things haven't been all sunshine and roses for you. Lucy's said you've basically shut down since it ended. I know you're hurting just as much as Buck is... which is why I'm telling you: be sure. He's going to have enough on his plate without worrying about whether or not you're going to swan out of his life again. You need to be sure, Tommy."

Tommy doesn't say anything, but he opens his eyes and holds her gaze without flinching, and he tightens his hold on Evan's hand.

The rest of the flight passes in the kind of silence that feels like a cyst was lanced. Or maybe a boil, as it were.

+

Buck wakes up in stages to find he's in a hospital bed, and when he puts a hand on his belly it's smaller and almost deflated beneath his palm. He is just starting to hyperventilate when suddenly Tommy's there, murmuring to him, "You're okay. Everything's okay, I promise, she's fine. She's fine. Look."

And Buck, heart racing, forces himself to breathe slowly while he follows Tommy's gaze down to the bundle in Tommy's arms. Then he stops breathing altogether.

"She's fine," Tommy says. "A little early, according to the doctor, but absolutely fine."

Buck collapses back to the bed and weeps in relief, because she's fine. She's here and she's fine and she's perfect. Tommy gently places her in Buck's arms before retreating to the chair next to the bed which has a dent in the vinyl in the shape of his ass.

But Buck is enraptured with Nora, who smacks her lips in her sleep, and he marvels aloud, "She has my mouth."

"Thank God for that," Tommy says with a laugh. "It'll help take the focus off my nose. Poor kid."

It hits Buck like lightning that Tommy is here. He's in this room and talking about Nora like—like he knows. And there are things Buck should probably be saying, like apologizing for not telling Tommy about her as soon as he found out, or asking why he's there at all, but the words are crowding in his mouth and he can't figure out which ones should go first.

Tommy's lips twitch in a smile that is awful to look at, like he completely understand Buck's struggle, but his voice is soft and even when he says, "I need you to know that it wasn't about you. Not you personally. It never was."

Buck stops trying to speak and just stares at him, because that is bullshit, and oh, he knows which words should come first, and he opens his mouth to release them into the wild but Tommy holds up a hand.

"I know," he says. "I was a coward and an asshole, and I'm more sorry than I can possibly say. I won't ever be able to make up for what I did. But I need you to know why I did it."

And, in fits and starts before he finally finds the thread, Tommy tells him about Jeremy.

After Tommy ended things with Abby and then finally came out, he dated around for a long time before he met Jeremy, who was brilliant and fun and new. Tommy was the first man Jeremy had ever been with, and Jeremy was the first person Tommy saw a future with. He'd been so sure about Jeremy. He'd believed that Jeremy was it.

Until, almost two years in, Jeremy ended it. He'd sat Tommy down and said kindly, cruelly, "You're amazing, Tom, but you're just the first. You can't be my last." And then he'd left Tommy completely shattered in the rearview.

"That night, when you asked me to move in... it was like I was watching him put on his coat all over again," Tommy says shakily. "But what I felt for you was lightyears beyond anything I felt for him. I'd fallen so hard for you that I knew if I had to watch you walk away I'd never get up again."

Buck stares at Tommy, eyes rimmed red, and says, "So instead you made me watch you walk away."

It must land like a fist because Tommy exhales sharply and hangs his head, bowing around the pain. He sits like that for a moment, absorbing it, before he lifts his head and nods. "Yeah. That's exactly what I did."

There are deep, dark circles under Tommy's eyes that speak of a hundred sleepless nights, and his body is sharper, leaner, trimmed entirely of anything soft. He's made entirely of angles. He's so unfairly hot. He's miserable to look at.

Buck swallows and murmurs, "You look like there's no love in your life, Tommy."

Sucking in a trembling breath, Tommy smiles weakly and sketches a shrug. It looks like the fatigued steel of his edges are starting to crack.

"I left all my love with you that night." His gaze darts down. "Among other things."

Buck looks down at Nora, who's sleeping the sleep of someone already exhausted by existence, or maybe just by her fathers' drama, and thinks that maybe he really has been carrying all his love plus Tommy's around. Because otherwise he has no idea how he's so full of it.

"She's absolutely perfect," Buck says, smiling dopily.

"She's... more than anything I could've ever dreamed of."

He looks up in time to see Tommy drop his gaze to the floor at the same time his shoulders lift and lock like they're bracing for a blow. And in a voice so thin it's barely a sound, Tommy says, "I know I don't have... any right to ask, but is there any... any chance I could be part of her life?"

The tears that have been languishing at the edges of Buck's eyes finally see an opportunity. He doesn't think he could've held them back any longer if he tried.

Mouth trembling, he whispers, "Just hers?"

At that, Tommy looks up, eyes wide, disbelief and hope chasing each other across his face like dogs. He jerks a little in his chair but he doesn't move. He doesn't move.

Buck stares at him, a tsunami pulling everything back from his shoreline, and bites out, "Thomas James Kinard, if you don't get over here and kiss me, I swear to Christ—"

But Tommy's out of the chair and at his bedside, cupping Buck's face and tenderly smearing a kiss over his open mouth, licking the relieved gasp right off Buck's tongue.

Between them, Nora makes a tiny noise, and Tommy startles away just enough that he can press the side of his head to Buck's and gaze down at her with a tremulous smile.

"She really is something, huh? Sorry about the nose, kiddo," he says softly.

Buck knocks their heads together and says, "I happen to love that nose, thanks. And like you said, my lips will help balance it out."

Huffing a laugh, Tommy kisses Buck's lips. And the side of his nose and the bolt of his jaw. Then he leans down and presses a kiss to Nora's little pink and blue hat.

"I'm sure if you are," Tommy murmurs, tilting his chin up so he can flash a brave smile up at Buck, who smiles back.

"I was always sure."

[cowardlykrow]

Don't even look at each other before marriage

[opheliaweeps]

there’s something about being awake at two in the morning that makes you think about the origami possibilities of your life, paths that could have unfolded for you but never did. instead, you took a match to those delicate mountains & valleys and let those dreams & chances turn to ash, ash that now sits in a small urn in a corner of your heart.

sometimes, under the stars and silence of night I’ll open a locked chamber in my heart that houses childish fantasies, destinations I’ve yearned for, and a small child in the corner, and I’ll rummage through that rubbish and pull out that urn. the child will not speak, as I stand in that little room holding that urn, pressing my forehead to the vessel that I’ve chosen to carry my grief and mourning the person I could have been, if life and roadblocks and my own self hadn’t gotten in the way.

and when I’m done with my lament, I will toss that urn back into the chamber of my heart, next to the young child who finds beauty in the blooming flowers during frost, and I’ll lock the door behind me as I leave the memories and child behind. I’ll swallow the key and walk away, head held high because nothing can hurt the person leaving that room, not the world or life or my own self-sabotaging tendencies. I walk away by suffocating the part of me that craves the vitality of life with a silk pillow, cruel and kind like a lover.

I never notice that the tears falling from my eyes are bright red, and that every step I take leaves bloody footprints behind, a tragic path back to a better version of myself (perhaps, the version that was meant to face the world instead of me).

[flwrkid14]

Tim Drake Accidentally Takes Over the World (and Didn’t Think to Mention It)

So, Janet somehow spent decades climbing her way into every government worth a damn, ruling the entire world from behind the scenes. And then, because the universe is apparently wild, she left it all to Tim.

Cut to Tim Drake, the brand-new, completely reluctant secret ruler of the entire planet. And he just… never really thought it was worth mentioning?

The Batfam finds out when Bruce stumbles across an encrypted memo traced to a mysterious Gotham office with Tim’s name on it.

Bruce, holding up the memo: “Tim. Want to explain why this document about, oh, international finance reforms is signed with your encryption key?”

Tim, not even looking up from his laptop: “Oh, yeah. That. Janet left me her ‘global influence portfolio’ or whatever. Mostly paperwork.”

The Batfam stares in total shock.

Dick sputters nearly dropping his coffee: "Wait—you’ve been managing world policies?!”

Tim, shrugging, barely paying attention as he emails the president of Germany: “Well, yeah. I figured someone had to keep things running. It's not that big a deal. I mostly just redirect some policies. You know, keep things running smoothly.”

Jason, absolutely cackling: “Are you telling me that little Replacement here is the reason for half the ‘global cooperation’ headlines?”

Tim, scrolling through emails: “They send me reports; I send suggestions. And honestly, they make it way more dramatic than it is. It's not that hard."

Barbara stares at him, half horrified, half impressed. “How did we not notice this?”

Tim blinks. “I mean, it’s not like I was actively hiding it. I assumed you guys knew I was… kind of managing these things?”

Cue utter disbelief.

Stephanie, laughing too hard to breathe: “Tim, do you have world leaders on speed dial?”

Tim, completely unfazed: “Only the important ones. They text, mostly. Oh—by the way, I might’ve influenced a minor arms control thing last week. Don’t worry; it’s all sorted.”

Bruce, looking like he’s two seconds from fainting: “Sorted? Tim, we're talking about you having global authority here. People notice these things."

Tim shrugs again as his phone buzzes with notifications. “Sure, but it’s not like they’re going to do anything too crazy. I just suggest stuff, and they listen. Honestly, it’s like herding really powerful, really overdramatic cats.”

Damian, scandalized: “You mean to tell me, Drake, that you’re manipulating world politics like it’s a game of checkers?”

Tim, still casual: “Manipulating’s a strong word. Like I said, it’s more just nudging things along.” His phone buzzes again. “Oh, hang on. France is panicking about their energy policy again.”

The Batfam tries to process the fact that Tim—Tim, who routinely forgets what day it is—is now, somehow, running the world.

And then his phone buzzes with a message from the UN Security Council.

Tim sighs, glancing down. “Oh, great. Looks like they’re debating nuclear arms again. Be right back.”

Meanwhile, the Batfam is left absolutely speechless, processing the fact that their Tim—scrawny, coffee-fueled Tim—is apparently one of the most powerful people on the planet. And to him its just another tuesday.