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sparkypantaloons · 3 years ago

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A Storm

“I promise you.” Bruce had said. “If you come home, I will keep you safe. I will keep them safe. I will keep us whole. I promise.”

Tim is taken. Each of his family react differently.

There’s a rushing in Tim’s ears. Like a waterfall. It’s so loud he can’t see. Can that happen? Can noise affect sight? He doesn’t know.

There’s a hand on his back. Gentle, but firm. He thinks maybe someone is talking to him, but he can’t see. He can’t see anything over the rushing in his ears.

No, that’s not right. He needs to start again. Try again. He squeezes his eyes shut tight, covers his ears, takes a deep breath.

“Tim?” Is it Bruce? Someone’s hands are on Tim’s arms, pulling his hands from his head. The person in front of him is stooping slightly, so they can look him in the eye. “Can you hear me?”

“'m fine.” Tim says. But his eyes can’t focus, it’s too loud in here. “I just need, I… just need t’sleep.” He grimaces, the noise too bright for his eyes.

There’s more sound then. Voices he thinks, but he’s not sure. He can’t see who they belong to. Then there’s a hand around his ankle, gripping him roughly. He flinches in the hold, starts to struggle as his shoes are removed. Then his socks. What is going on?

His feet? What about his feet? He tries to speak, but it’s so loud in here, he can’t form the words. A forehead presses against his, green eyes bore into his own. Jason?

Hands hold his feet to the floor, press down. More talking. It could be shouting now.

The hands let go of his feet. Move to his face. “Your feet, Timmy. Concentrate on your feet.”

Tim opens his eyes. Jason is still there, his bright green eyes, searching and insistent. “'m home?” Tim mumbles.

“Concentrate on your feet, Timmy. What can you feel?”

Tim closes his eyes again. His feet. He can feel… wood. Wooden floor. Wooden floorboards and the thin gaps between them. The Manor floor. The Manor.

“Yeah, Timmy.” Jason says. His hands move from Tim’s face, pull the teenager into a bear hug. “You’re home. You’re home.”

Leslie pushes her glasses back up her nose. Lets out a sigh. “It’s just going to take time, Bruce.” She says. She’s firm, as always. But there’s a softness in her eyes. A sadness. “Like all things.”

Bruce doesn’t speak. Just rubs his face with his hands. Hangs his head.

“Why is he so disorientated?” Dick asks. His right hand is still bandaged up, swollen, but it’s no longer bleeding through.

Jason sucks his teeth from where he’s leaning against the wall, his arms crossed. Leslie and Dick both ignore him.

“Sensory deprivation, especially for so long-- it can take a little while to recover.” Leslie is matter of fact. There’s no point mincing her words. “You have to take it slow.”

“Touch is best to start with.” Jason says, pushing himself off the wall. “It’s grounding.”

Dick, Leslie and Bruce look over at him. He shrugs. “It worked for me.”

A pained look crosses Dick’s face. Leslie interrupts before he can speak. “Let Tim lead, let him set the pace.” Her words hang in the air. “It’ll take time. But he’s strong.” She says. “He’ll pull through.”

Dick wakes up in a sweat, breathless. His right hand is throbbing. He tries to flex his fingers, flinches as his broken knuckles protest. It’s not the worst injury he’s ever had. Not by far. But the way he got it…

He shakes his head, tries to dislodge the memory of a shattered eye-socket, a dislocated jaw, a cracked skull. Tries to shed the jarring realisation that he broke his hand on a man’s face. Tries to make himself at least feel a sense of responsibility for the damage done. He doesn’t.

He makes his way to the kitchen, pads barefoot through the Manor. He pulls an ice-pack out of the freezer, holds it on his aching fist. The cold seeps into his joints, consumes the burn of displaced bone and absent guilt. He feels calmer.

Touch is grounding, Jason had said. Dick doesn’t want to think about how the younger man, his younger brother, knew that. Doesn’t want to know which one of a lifetime of traumatic experiences had taught him that little gem. But he can’t dispute it. The touch of the cold helps.

He makes his way back upstairs. Turns left, instead of right. To Tim’s room.

The door is pulled to. The most Alfred would allow. Bruce had been adamant about staying by Tim’s side, so had Jason, so had Dick. Alfred had refused all of them.

“Wayne Manor is the safest, most secure building on the eastern seaboard, if not the entire continent. None of you will do Master Timothy any good if you don’t get some sleep. He will be safe, in the meantime.”

Bruce had tried to protest, Jason had made threats, all but hissed at Alfred’s suggestion. The older man hadn’t budged. “I will stay with Master Timothy. In case he wakes.”

He wasn’t wrong. They needed rest, all of them. The search had been… long. Too long. Desperate, and increasingly frantic with each passing hour. And there had been so many hours.

He swallows down a memory. Of the howl that felt like it had been ripped out of his soul when they found Tim. Dick hadn’t even realised the noise had come from his own mouth, didn’t notice the tears of rage on his own face, as he took his hands to the men holding Tim captive. Broke his hands on the men who had taken his brilliant, darling brother. Locked him in the dark, alone, for too, too long.

Dick hovers outside Tim’s door. Holds his ear to the wood. He can’t hear anything over his own breathing, his own heartbeat.

“Just open it, Dickhead.” It’s Jason. He's dressed in a spare pair of Bruce’s pyjamas. Despite his size they're somehow still too big for him. It makes him look young. Too young. Dick stares at him for a moment before doing as he says.

The pair of them fill the doorway. Wait as their eyes adjust to the light in the room. Gloomy shadows fall in through the window; the blinds have been left open. Dick’s eyes scan the bed but his ears hear Jason’s breathing hitch. He feels the younger man go rigid beside him, knows his own body has responded the same. Because Tim is gone. Again.

Panic forces itself into what little space is between them, and Dick is only vaguely aware that Jason is gripping his wrist. Holding him too tightly, clinging onto him as though he’s scared one of them will disappear too.

A small cough brings them back to their senses. Alfred. The older man is sat in the corner of the room, by the window. A patient vigil in the dark. He nods to the far side of the bed.

Jason all but drags Dick with him as he marches into the room. They stop just past the bed. Tim is asleep on the floor. He’s curled into a ball, a single sheet held tight over his head. Dick only knows it’s him from the tuft of hair that’s sticking out.

He feels Jason let go of his wrist. The younger man stumbles backwards. He nods to Alfred then leaves the room, gone as quick as he entered.

Dick watches him go, a new worry blooming in his chest. He looks at Alfred, and the older man shakes his head sadly.

Jason is in his old room. His old en-suite more accurately. His knees protest against the tile as he wretches into the toilet.

I am safe, I am warm, I am whole.

He repeats the words in his mind like a mantra. Tries to control his breathing. He fails. Another wave of nausea has him wretching again. Acid burning its way up his throat.

A hand presses to his back and he flinches. He hadn’t heard anyone come in. Bruce places a glass of water on the floor beside him, pushes his hair back from his face.

Jason wipes his mouth on his sleeve, takes a shaky sip of water. Bruce rubs circles on his back.“Don’t.” Jason croaks, and he hates himself when the warmth of the hand is removed. He looks up at Bruce. “You promised you’d keep them safe.” He says, and he can’t keep the hurt out of his voice. Can’t keep the tears from his eyes. “You promised.”

“I know.” Bruce says. He pulls the younger man into a hug, holds him tight against his chest. “I’m sorry.” His son’s tears soak through his shirt.

Jason doesn’t know how long they sit there. Tangled limbs on the cold, hard tiles of the bathroom floor. Only knows that he needs Bruce to let go. He pulls himself out of his father’s arms, pushes himself to his feet. He needs to brush his teeth.

Bruce sits on the floor behind him, as Jason scrubs the bile and acid from his mouth. He presses too hard with the toothbrush, can taste the copper of blood against mint. But the dig of the bristles in the soft flesh of his gums is grounding. Reminds him he’s still alive.

I am safe, I am warm, I am whole.

Jason can remember sleeping on the floor. He’s slept on so many of them. The dingy corner of their apartment growing up, when all they could afford was a single mattress and Willis refused to let him share. The cardboard box by one of the subway vents behind the old Monarch Theatre. The floor of this very bedroom, the bed too soft for him to sleep in, threatening to drown him as soon as he fell asleep. Then the streets again, when he had wandered aimlessly after his death.

He can remember the dark too. Of being locked in a closet and forgotten for days at a time, when his infant crying became too much for Willis. Of his eyes swollen shut as the Joker beat the life out of him. Of his coffin, as he lay there screaming for Bruce to save him.

Jason’s life was a short but terrible history of hard floors and dark rooms and Tim’s was never meant to be like that.

They’d found him in all but a box, eight feet by eight feet by eight feet. There were no windows, the door had been soldered shut. He was being fed once a day. Some bread and water slid through a hatch in the wall, and a bucket too. Swapped out every 24 hours. Nobody ever spoke to him, nobody ever asked anything of him. No-one ever demanded anything from them either, neither The Bats, nor The Waynes.

He spits into the sink. Toothpaste pink with blood. He rinses his mouth. Splashes his face. Takes a deep breath.

They just took him and kept him. Because they could.

Jason had known people like that too, once. If he clings to it, it’s the only thought that makes him grateful Tim has been left alone for so long. Even as it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

Coming home, coming back to his family had been as painful and awful as clawing himself out of his own grave. An endless fight against the pit and its madness, that drove him to hurt the people he loved. An ongoing battle against the deep, deep wound in his heart that The Joker still lived. And a terrifying, haunting fear that he would lose them again. That after all they had been through, after he finally got his family back, they would be taken from him and he would be alone once more.

“I promise you.” Bruce had said. “If you come home, I will keep you safe. I will keep them safe. I will keep us whole. I promise.”

Jason turns away from the sink. Walks back into his room. Leaves Bruce sat on the cold, tiled floor.

Eventually Bruce pulls himself to his feet. Jason’s room is empty when he passes through. He doesn’t allow himself to wonder where he might have gone. Of all the broken promises he has made to Jason, he knows this one has hurt his son the most. That Jason’s single biggest fear is losing the family he has so desperately longed for, both of his lives. That Jason would rather never love at all, than love and lose it all over again. This time had been too close. For Jason. For all of them.

It had taken them too long to get a lead on where Tim was being held. Far too long. And even then, they couldn’t confirm an exact location. They’d had no choice but to split up. Cass, and Damian had joined the Titans on the West Coast. Dick and Jason had come with him on the East.

He pulls out his phone, checks on the location of Cass and Damian for the nineteenth time that night. They’re making steady progress. Will be in Gotham before sunrise. His arms ache with a desperate need to hold them, know that they are safe. To have the physical proof, that all his children are alive and breathing, in his hands.

It had taken him a long time to let go of Tim once they found him. To pass his sweet, brilliant boy over to Leslie, so she could check him over. Confirm he was okay.

Tim was older now than Jason had been when he… Tim was older, but he had still felt just as small and young and broken, when Bruce had lifted him out of that box they’d kept him in. Out of the darkness. His body weak and trembling.

It had been Tim who had been taken, but Bruce had looked at the body in his arms and seen Robin, limbs twisted and broken. Seen Nightwing, lips blue and heart stopped by a hand held to his face. Seen another Robin, sword run through him, splitting his battered body almost in two. Seen Red Robin, riddled with bullet holes, blood running out of every one. He had held Tim and seen everyone of his children dead in his arms. An endless cacophony of death.

He reaches Tim’s room. Stands in the doorway and hopes that Alfred can’t see him in the darkness. He tries to remember back to when he took Dick in. Tries to recall what, in the name of all the Gods, had possessed him to allow his child, his children, out into the night with him. Tries to remember how he reached the conclusion that he could risk their single precious lives for his own crusade. How he could risk their safety for a single second.

He steps into the room. Hears Alfred sigh from his seat by the window.

“Don’t ask me to leave.” Bruce croaks out. His throat is tight, trying to hold a tidal wave of emotion at bay. “Don’t.”

Alfred stands. “Of course not.” He says softly, and he gestures to where Tim is sleeping on the floor. “Did you get any sleep?” He asks.

Bruce doesn’t respond. Just stares down at Tim, eighteen but looking for all the world like the ten year old who had shown up on Bruce’s doorstep all those years ago. The sheet is twisted round his limbs, his face screwed into a frown.

“Why is he on the floor?” Bruce asks. Though he has a good idea already.

Alfred takes a steadying breath. “He’s been…” He pauses. “He’s been sleeping on the floor so long, it’s what he’s used to n—“ He cuts himself off abruptly, turns to the window away from Bruce.

Bruce feels a burn in his throat. Knows that Alfred is fighting down the same tears that he is. He places a hand on Alfred’s shoulder. “I’ll stay with him now. Get some rest.”

Alfred nods. Places a hand over Bruce’s but doesn’t look at him. “And you, Bruce.” He says and he leaves. Pulls the door closed gently behind him.

Bruce turns back to Tim. His darling boy. He kneels down, gently detangles the sheets from his son’s legs. Tim doesn’t stir. Bruce lies down next to him, lays the sheet over them both.

Touch is grounding. Jason had said. And it’s all Bruce can do not to pull Tim into his arms and never let go. But Leslie had said baby steps. So instead he settles for running his fingers through Tim’s hair and holding his face in his hands. Moves his head closer so he can feel the soft rise and fall of Tim’s breath.

This would have to do, for now.

#batfic #batfamily fanfic #red hood #red robin #nightwing #tim drake #jason todd #alfred pennyworth #dick grayson #bruce wayne #batdad #spbfic

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pandoraimperatrix · 3 years ago

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Monomania

DickKory | 1,1k | Angst/Character study

Special thanks to @escapism-through-imagination <3

As Barbara slept beside him, his own eyes wouldn't shut, frustration and fear eating him inside like acid. His hand unconsciously returning to where she touched him. It was such a small touch. So fleeting.

God, he had promised to himself that he would not indulge those thoughts anymore. He had been trying so hard. And now, he had even dragged Babs into this. He eyed her sleeping form beside him, she had no idea, but she was not stupid, here was a reason why he haven’t invited her before, she’d see, she knew him well, Donna knew in no time. And when she did, and she realised…

He turned away from her, bitter disgust filling his mouth like bile, but he made himself swallow down. That was nothing compared to what he deserved. But he really thought, he truly believed that she, and the feelings they once shared, the powerful pull of the first love could steal his heart back and release him from the agony that was wanting a woman that could never be his.

Yet, even after having Babs hands all over him, the touch that still remained engraved to his skin was that of the points of her fingers. Kory made him a man he never believed he could be. A man that dared to rewrite Shakespeare. Her eyes were like the sun, and what chance had a summer's day in comparison to the warmth of her smile?

Such was his fixation, that one single moment became a whole movie inside his head. There was so much material in between, no possibility for skin to meet, his armour, her long gloves, cruel impervious barriers. Somehow, he still felt it, her. Engraving his skin. And he knew it had nothing to do with how just a few moments after that same touch would become lethal in a way that made literal sense, real fire, instead of silly poetic comparisons his yearning ridden brain sung about.

Or Read on AO3

Since then, the scene kept replaying under his eyelids, relentlessly. Bringing him back there, the memory gaining strength, morphing into an entirely new thing. Locking in him inside another of his vivid fantasies. His brain no more haunting him with accusations of past actions, now it taunted him with what ifs.

There is no Gotham there, no Jason, no Bruce, not witnesses when he pulls her gloves with his teeth, her eyes darkening with desire as he kisses her palm, her free hand grabbing his head by the roots of his hair in such a demanding way that that constriction of his tight armour hurts. She could kill him with her fire, yet the blows life through the seam of his lips.

And then he's back to his childhood bed, next to the wrong woman.

He was no stranger to insomnia and the night terrors were so common he mostly didn't mind them anymore. But that was so much worse, and no one teach you kills for dealing with good dreams. He tried to hard to avoid the truth, but even after being inside of a woman who deserved so much better than being used as a denial strategy, he was already betraying her, lying there by her side in flesh only, while his mind was trapped in a state of self-hatred and vivid dreams about a woman he couldn't have.

Kory would leave soon, he knew, she quite literally didn't belong to his world.

When she told him, three months ago, the only thing he was grateful for was that she, wise as always, chose to tell him in private, before sharing with the rest of the family.

It had in no way of form been easy to keep his cool in front of just Kory. It was very hard to keep his cool in front of her, even when she was not telling him she was Crown Princess of an entire planet elsewhere, but he was considering not having been surprised in front of his whole family a small mercy.

The most terrifying thing about Kory, far than her super strength or starfire, it was the way she could just read him, as if all his training was time wasted. Donna could do that too, but she had decades of experience with his bullshit. Kory knew him for what? A year? It felt like ages. Sometimes he even wondered if she was really psychic, but he had been too ashamed to ask.

She avoided his eyes that day, as if she was ashamed too. Of bringing another problem after the hell they had been gone through. He knew she had been struggling with shame concerning the mission that brought her to Earth. He wondered if that was what made her stay away. Kory was proud, but somehow it didn't look like a flaw in her, yet it made him cower, there was so much he wanted to ask, to know about her. But as she told him her story, hands nervously playing with her rings, plump shimmering lips moving with each word, his throat closed. The ability to talk a long lost dream.

When she ended her tale, he could see she was waiting for him to say something, anything. Sadness and disappointment clouding her eyes after he just stood there, frozen. She smiled softly, and touched his chest before leaving the room. He could remember following her movements with his eyes. He could see and feel with detail the alternative timeline in which he reached for her, pulled her to his arms and told her that it didn't matter who she was, where she was from, why she came to Earth. He was in love with her, like he never thought it was possible outside of epic writing, and there was no way he'd let anyone hurt her or take her away.

But he didn't.

And as he watched her walk away, swinging her hips in that way that made his thoughts slow to the cadence of her movements, he closed his eyes hard. Making his decision on spot. Of course, he couldn't tell her, pursue her, even dream... The time they shared was stolen, and not much of it remained. Of course, there was no way heaven would be missing it's special angel forever. Of course, there was no chance, and it had been arrogantly naive of him to even wish.

That night, she had done it again, grazed two fingers, across his heart. And although he was not stupid, and knew there was nothing more to it in her mind. It was as if she was mocking him. Going back to the scene of the crime, savouring the hallowing emptiness where his heart used to reside in, evidence of her victory. Emptiness that would only grow and swallow him whole when she'd return to where she belonged and he could not follow.

-----

My own super-power is making excuses for this asshole Dick Grayson.

#dickkory #dickkori #hbo titans #titans live action #starfire #nightwing #robstar #koriand'r #dick grayson #kory anders #kori anders #teen titans #titans #new teen titans #ntt #I'm still having trouble writing #so to everyone waiting for updates to my wips and answer to requests #please be patient with me #my fic

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consumeconstantly · 4 years ago

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Bring Me To The Precipice of Victory

1| 2 | 3(you are here) | 4 | next

Summary: When Batman departs— just for a short time, just to patch things up in Gotham— things go horribly, horribly wrong in Paris.

He doesn’t know if he can come back from realizing that Marinette and Ladybug are one and the same (and that his daughter has died more times than he can count.) (all biodad bruce are posted in chronological order but can be read as stand alones)

______________________________________________

The moment of peace, of solidarity, that Batman shares with Ladybug up on that rooftop at night means the world.

After a minute or two, Ladybug pulls back, tear tracks down the sides of her face, eye and nose red. She takes another minute of silence,hugging herself in the muggy Parisian air. When she next opens her eyes, Batman can almost imagine that Ladybug never cried at all.

But he knows that's not true. Ladybug seemed so fragile in his arms. He can imagine— he can imagine Dick in her place, broken over Jason’s death. Tim losing his parents. All of his children facing insurmountable odds with no team by their side. Alone.

Ladybug is not alone, but functionally, she may as well be. He’s watched the fights. He’s analyzed them. Ladybug is always, always the leader. She strategizes with Ryuko and Viperion, but Ladybug is who everybody looks to for an answer when things don’t work out the way they want them to. She’s the one with the plan, the backup plan, the out. She’s the one who swoops in to save the day.

She’s also the one who has racked up the most hours on the battlefield. Even Chat Noir, her partner, only has three quarters of the hours that she’s put in. For most of the other members of her team, she puts in double, sometimes even triple of what they do. Over the course of six years, there have been a little under two thousand battles, lasting from under an hour to over five hours. Ladybug has shown up for every single one, without fail. That’s not even counting the patrols that they do; although Ladybug is given a lot of flack for not patrolling as often as Chat Noir, there’s a fundamental difference in how they patrol. Ladybug is methodical, Chat Noir is volatile.

He’s not a bad superhero when it comes down to battle, but the two of them are fundamentally different. Ladybug sees her time as a superhero as a duty. Chat Noir seems to view it as a time to unwind— and while that’s worrying, considering the information he’s gathered on the Miraculous Team so far points to the majority of them beings teens or young adults— it’s not what is needed to deal with the Paris situation.

Perhaps one of the easiest ways to see these differences is during patrol. Chat Noir uses patrol time almost seems to be an outlet for stress. He entices whoever he’s on patrol with to race to random places in Paris with no rhyme or reason. Whenever he comes across crime, he stops it, but Ladybug— Ladybug searches for crime.

Ladybug has a team and she trusts them with her life, but she cannot trust them to be responsible. That is perhaps the worst possible thing that can happen. And through the videos that he’s watched, it’s clear that the hours she puts in do affect her, and fairly heavily.

Whoever she is, she’s young. Too young to be in battle untrained, because they are untrained— despite being in the field for years, all of their basic form lacks and tells anybody with an experienced eye that they’ve never had formal training in martial arts.

When Batman and Ladybug leave the roof, they leave on a better note than where they started. Batman is still upset that Tom and Sabine are dead, but he cannot attribute it solely to Ladybug’s negligence. He admires the young heroine for rising to the occasion when there was nobody else to help. He has no doubt that with the resources and training that he can provide him and his operatives already on the case, Hawkmoth will be revealed in no time at all.

He’s right, but in the worst possible way.

It’s largely a mistake on hiss part-- he gets a notification that the Joker broke out of Arkham again, and Hawkmoth and Pavona are missing for the time being. Though Ladybug has made a mistake in not taking Pavona out immediately, she and her team have won every akuma and sentimonster battle. The logical course of action is to go where the most danger is.

Bruce does not have any predictive powers. There is no way for him to know what’s going to happen. But when he and his team finally catch the Joker and put him away again-- a feat that takes just a little under twenty four hours, extreme concentration, and a good number of injuries-- Batman finally gets a chance to breathe. The adrenaline from facing off against the Joker’s latest scheme fades. Batman reclines in a chair as Alfred binds his wounds and passes him pain relieving pills while he gets stitches in his abdomen.

He checks the news in Paris.

He almost drops the device that he’s using to view the news.

Marinette’s existence has been hidden from his family. With Dick, he was more concerned about his existence as Robin, rather than informing him that he had a sister. As soon as he started contemplating bringing up Marinette, Batman and Robin had a bad break. Then Jason came along, troubled and angry. Bruce didn’t want to introduce Marinette into the mix then because he was volatile.

Jason died due to Batman’s incompetence. Bruce grieved the loss of his ward; Batman was never allowed to mourn the loss of his second Robin.

Tim felt unworthy as the only child Bruce didn’t pick up off the streets, and Damian-- well, Damian was Damian. First he had a superiority complex the size of the Grand Canyon, and once he got accustomed to how they handled things in the Wayne Manor-- though Tim would argue that Damian is still not used to this kind of lifestyle-- he overcompensated every single mission and needed a remedial course on How to Interact With Other Humans 101. Add the overarching concern of Marinette being exposed to his vigilante life style and being unprepared for it, and he was never able to tell his children that he had another biological kid. A daughter.

When the news that Sabine and Tom died reached his ears, he told everybody he had business in Paris without elaborating what. With Wayne Enterprises opening a Paris branch of their R&D specialising in European artifacts, it was easy to draw connections that weren’t there.

“Bruce, you need to relax. Business in Paris can be dealt with later, you need to take the time to heal,” Tim says.

A clip in his shoulder from a bullet, knife wounds on his torso and legs, a sprained wrist. Whatever chemical experiment the Joker got his hands out still pumping through his veins. “I need to go-- it’s important--”

The pain relievers Alfred gave him earlier were also a sedative.

Tim catches him before he passes out.

He wakes up three hours late through sheer force of will.

“Paris!” Bruce jolts upright, still in costume, lying prone on a medical cot in the Batcave.

The first thing that catches his eyes is the red and black flying across the screens.

Ladybug.

His kids are all watching the screens with abject horror.

“Is this,” Tim wets his lips. “The business trip that you were on?”

Bruce drags himself out of bed, adrenaline washing out any residual pain. He doesn’t have the capacity to respond, he needs to get to the zeta tube, he needs to get to Paris, Ladybug is bleeding, the city is in shambles, and Marinette--

One of the news sites up on the screen declares the arrondissements that are obliterated. The one that houses Tom & Sabine’s Boulangerie is amongst their number. An approximate death toll fills the static.

-- Marinette is likely among those lost. He has lost another child due to his inaction. Due to his inability to push through, to look forwards and predict the future and the consequences of his actions. Marinette is another Jason, but if Ladybug doesn’t get it together, she’ll be gone permanently. And Ladybug is little more than a child. She can’t handle it, not by herself, not with her team. She needs an experienced hero, and Batman will be there for her, be the one leading the charge against Hawkmoth as the civilians hide in their homes and pray for her Miracle Cure to reverse the damage.

Dick places a hand on his shoulder. Bruce tries to shrug it off, but his fingers dig into the place where the bullet clipped his flesh. The pain is just a reminder that if he does not get to Paris now, there will be thousands-- no, millions-- more who feel this pain. How did Marinette die? Was it an akuma? Did the rubble of one of the destroyed buildings fall on her? Did Ladybug even try to protect her?

“I need to go,” Bruce growls.

“You can’t. While you were out, the majority of the Justice League prohibited all travel via zeta tubes. Nobody can get into Paris right now.”

Bruce knocks Dick’s hand off his shoulder and turns to his eldest. At the very least, Dick and the rest of his children look solemn. Damian’s gaze is fixed to one of the screens that shows Ladybug. “A city is in danger, millions of lives are at risk, Marinette--”

His daughter is dead. He can’t bring himself to say it out loud.

Standing by idly is the last thing he’ll let himself do.“Who put out the order? I’ll get them to reverse it.”

Dick moves so he’s between the zeta tube and Bruce. “B, you don’t understand. If you go to Paris right now, you’ll get akumatized.”

“I can handle my emotions.”

Jason points at the upper right section of screens that’s replaying past footage. “I wouldn’t bet Paris’ survival on it. Not when more level headed superheroes got on the scene first and failed. They really don’t need any heavy hitters getting akumatized. Not when Superman put three members of their team out of commission.”

Superman arrived on the scene first; it took a matter of seconds for him to get akumatized. He was responsible for razing down three arrondissements in no time flat. Ladybug had to call for a Lucky Charm in order to get her hands on some kryptonite, which forced her to recoup after her time ran out.

Black Canary arrived next. Then Red Tornado.

Both were akumatized in mere minutes.

“After Red Tornado got akumatized, Wonder Woman led the charge to put the rest of the zeta tubes on lockdown,” Duke says, grim. “All we can do now is hope that these Parisian superheroes can pull off a win.”

Bruce stumbles over to get a better view. He remembers Ladybug, small and slight in his arms. A child, crying over the loss of her pseudo parents.

A warrior, bloody and bruised and broken.

She is one of the last ones standing.

King Monkey and an ox themed hero both died at Superman’s hands. The former got in the way of his laser beams, the latter a victim of super strength and getting thrown through two buildings and having their necks snap at an unsightly angle. Chat Noir was also sent hurtling through the air, and the only reason he was still alive was because Ladybug alighted from the sky and grabbed him before he got sent through a building in his unconscious state. Black Canary came shortly after, apparently informed of the Superman situation and carrying kryptonite.

She didn’t last for long either. Almost immediately after helping Ladybug and Ryuko bind Superman in such a way that he couldn’t escape,

Pegasus got hit by Black Canary’s sound waves and Chat Noir’s residual injuries from his fight with Superman forced him into a state of unconsciousness. Queen Bee and Carapace were able to pull off a win against Black Canary, but not without serious injuries. Ryuko faced off against Red Tornado alone, which normally would have been a thing of awe, but in the grander scheme of things, was a huge issue, as without her, the Miraculous Team functionally lost all of their heavy hitters. Rena Rouge and several Miraculous users that clearly had never been in battle before were the ones left to hold their own against the scores of akumatized Parisians.

The only ones left to hunt down Hawkmoth and Pavona were Ladybug and Viperion, and the former was already on her third use of Lucky Charm.

Ladybug pulls out her communicator, dodging an attack.

“Can we get sound on this?” Jason grips the closest table.

Dick shakes his head. “Zatara says there’s already enough interference just trying to get these images. And for some reason, Dr. Fate refuses to get involved with any of this.”

Bruce’s phone rings. He doesn’t pick it up on the first ring, too focused on the ongoing battles. He does take his phone out of his pocket to silence it the next time, but when he presses the sound off, an image comes through.

“Bruce.” Ladybug’s image comes through crystal clear, and it doesn’t make him feel any better. Ladybug, blood dripping from her mouth, costume torn open, hair burnt, wild eyed.

He opens his mouth to speak, but the image goes blurry as she moves to avoid several attacks pointed towards her.

“Before I go, I--”

“Watch out, LB!” Bruce lifts his eyes to the screen that displays Ladybug and Viperion in battle. The spotted heroine gets pushed out of the way of a laser, but the snake themed hero takes the hit.

The ambient noise coming from his phone is strong; he can hear blades clashing in the background as Chat Noir, already on his last legs attempts to hold off Darkblade. Screaming from civilians, a strangled sob from Ladybug. “Viperion.”

Ladybug comes back into view. Blue eyes filled with rage.

“If this doesn’t end in our favor, you need to make sure that Hawkmoth and Pavona do not acquire both the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous. Do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening.” She blinks, retreats into herself, and Bruce wonders if he’s seeing the girl behind the mask.

“And If I don’t get to see you again--” If I’m dead, the words go unspoken, “I really did want the chance -- I-- you’re a good man. A good father. Your daughter-- she loves you. She really, really does. Stay safe.”

The transmission cuts off. On the screen in front of him, Ladybug closes her communicator, closes Viperion’s open eyes, and strides to the epicenter of the akumas. Blue fire flashes in her irises, and for a moment, she’s staring directly at the screen. And Bruce knows those eyes. He knows them.

The next second, all of the computers simultaneously die.

Bruce is numb. No-- no.

He is nothing.

All his children-- no, not all his children, Marinette is missing, Marinette is Ladybug, and she’s out on a field that he can’t see grappling with magic forces strong enough to incapacitate Justice League members like their powers and abilities are inconsequential-- stare at him.

“That was… Ladybug?” Tim’s brow furrows. It’s clear that he’s thinking up a hundred different reasons why Ladybug and Batman are connected, why he’s the last person she calls before going into a battle that could very well cost her her life.

“My daughter.” The words are ash on his lips. An existence he’s never acknowledged. Not out loud. Saying it brings a sense of finality to the room. An impending death. “My daughter.”

Nobody asks how long he’s known or when he met her or why he’s never brought it up before. Everything is fuzzy. Floating.

For a while, there’s silence.

“Zatara says there’s too much interference to get the picture back up,” Dick opens his messages, frowning.

Damian still stares at the screen Ladybug looked at directly, frozen.

Bruce picks himself up and moves. He may not be able to use the zeta tubes, but he has a private jet and a license, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t do something.

It takes two hours too long to get to Paris. He shaved five hours off the flight length due to superior technology, and another hour and a half off due to sheer force of will.

The landing is not a pretty thing, but Paris is already in shambles, and there’s no way that the ATC will approve his landing, so Bruce picks out the flattest looking spot of rubble before his jet meets the ground.

According to Tim and Duke, who stayed behind in case this turned out to be an attack spanning multiple cities, the battle ended mere minutes before they landed. Dick manages to get Zatara to broadcast the image in the cockpit of the jet, and on the screen lay three prone bodies. Gabriel Agreste, whose body type fits that of Hawkmoth, Lila, and a third that Bruce does not recognize.

A bone sticks out of Marinette’s arm, the connected hand crushed and hanging limp. The opposing ankle is twisted almost fully backwards. She is covered in blood and ash and filth. There is no victory in her eyes. Only weariness.

In her good hand, she holds her yoyo.

She raises her eyes skywards-- the roof of the Agreste mansion is blown clean off-- blinks slowly, and throws the yoyo into the air.

“Miraculous Cure,” her lips read.

The corpses in Paris rise from the dead. Rubble reforms into buildings. The ashy haze that covered the city disappears.

Ladybug looks like she wants to disappear, too.

She collapses, instead.

Nobody is there to catch her when she drops to the floor.

@biodad-bruce-month

Maribat tag list(to be added onto this pls send me an ask/dm): @our-precipreciousss @my-dear-friend-anxiety

Who Are You (and what will you become) tag list (to be added here just comment): @anjuschiffer @theunquiet-dead @certainmuffinbagelcalzone @cresentmo0n @allulily @myazael @zalladane @rebecarojas07 @keepingupwiththemalfoys @frieddonutsweets @all-mights-asscheeks @thornalchemist23 @trippingovermyfeet @jiso-lee @redscarlet95 @ira-sairain @screechingflapbiscuitpeach @ramos123 @cutechip @theunquiet-dead @sleep-deprived-aroace @enternalempires @lilkymilky @woe-is-me0 @officiallydarkgeek @miyla-lokidottir @queencommonsense @demonicbusiness

mb for not doing tag list right away i forgot i had these cued up already

#bio!dad bruce wayne month 2020 #maribat #what are dates #what's going in order #time? i don't know her #i'm always late #marinette dupain cheng #bruce wayne #bio!dad bruce #angst

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jostenneil · 3 years ago

Note

same question about friendship that anon asked earlier for jason or maybe jade?

i need to read more stuff for jade to generate more ideas but as for jason in what i imagine is a very unpopular opinion i legitimately think he wouldn’t be friends with supers bc he’s like, so disillusioned with the profession. and i get that that was kinda the point of rhato yknow that he was befriending these “outlaws” who didn’t fit in either but idk first they tried to give him dick’s besties due to flashpoint or whatever and then i am not as familiar with artemis and bizarro but idk i just don’t think it’s as interesting as allowing him to return to his roots after resurrection and identifying with normies bc i MEAN. his entire thing is about how disadvantaged people in society aren’t afforded justice the way privileged people are and would it not make sense for him to form his community around the everyday folk of his old neighborhood? i loved the last two issues of rhato that martinbrough did last year for that reason like the potential was so good and i love the idea of him potentially being this neighborhood protector who shows up for the little guys preyed upon by drug lords and rapists and the like that batman doesn’t have the time for anymore bc he’s dealing with gotham’s more extravagant big bads. but that aside obv i do think there would be a few exceptions to this non-supers interpretation, namely:

dick - BEFORE you drag me to filth i want to clarify i am not like those jason stans who want dick to be like uwu jason i love you you have never done anything wrong in your life ever. that’s boring. what i DO want to see is dick pushing back against bruce’s interpretation of the events of ditf and needing to see jason get better once he’s back bc he feels bad for not having been there much when jason was alive, bc he knows jason is better than the hysteria he’s trying to drive himself into, and bc he figures out a lot of jason’s baggage centers itself around people not having faith in him to be better. more about that here, here (the joker’s last laugh doesn’t exist to me sawry it makes things too easy imo), and here

talia - self-explanatory given i’m writing an entire rewrite fic of lost days / under the red hood to give talia better characterization than winick ever bothered to afford her despite my loving the initial premise he set up with her and jason, but to expand: i like that talia is a clean slate for jason. she’s never met him before, she doesn’t know about his childhood or about what tension existed between him and bruce. he’s a stranger to her and it puts her in this place to listen to and empathize with him rather than judge him, not to mention it’s interesting to explore the void he could fill for her while she's still mourning the loss of bruce and damian from son of the demon. also obv given jason’s mommy issues i think it would be nice to see him meet and develop a bond with someone like her bc she’s not going to die, she’s not going to use him, she genuinely cares about his well being (in the world where she wasn’t written by racist white men obv), etc. he’s traumatized in ways very different from her but in ways i think she’d still intimately understand bc she feels as alone and isolated as he is. i have too many posts about them tbh but here are some of my favorites

and then i don’t know that i would see him having deep, faithful friendships with selina or helena but i could see him working with them in the field bc i think some of their moral leanings and motivations align on occasion also like. the shared experience of being from a darker side of gotham yfeel

#jason todd #dick grayson #talia al ghul #dc #mine:meta #asks #the way this is just dick and some girls. damn #i know i KNOW jason has no qualms about killing based on gender but #given his love for his mom and his emotions around that woman who died bc of garzonas #i do think he would be more inclined to feel more protective of women. in a better world

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berjhawn · 4 years ago

Text

Day & Night ~ Ch. 3 ~ Blindside

Bruce Wayne/Batman X Reader (Lady Light) X DC

Warnings: Past trauma, loss of parents, break ups, genetic engineering, taking peoples DNA without permission, ETC

(A/N) as usual please tell me what you guys think we are almost to the middle of the story. i hope you guys are enjoying it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bruce sat at the League meeting table his mind focused on other things. This mission that Clark was talking about doing was an in and out type. He didn’t need to be here. Hell, tonight he didn’t want too to be here. He wanted to be home, with (Name), and the boys enjoying some down time.

Then he does something he hadn’t done in the middle of a meeting before. He pulls out his cell phone. He sends her a text asking what she was doing and smiles as she instantly replies. As he goes to send her another text Diana clears her throat. Bruce looks up to see them all looking at him.

“I didn’t know Batman could smile.” Barry announces confusion filling his words.

“He doesn’t.” Oliver adds mimicking Barry’s expression.

“I don’t.” Bruce adds making Diana smirk as she rolls her eyes. “You must be seeing things.”

“Walk with me Bruce.” Diana says as she stands up and moves toward the exit while Clark tries to reign in the rest of the league members.

“What is it?” Bruce asks as they walk down the hallway.

“This woman you are dating must be amazing to have you ignoring a meeting like that.” Diana inquires and Bruce knows where this is going.

“She is.” Bruce states honestly trying to drop the conversation.

“Is the reason you won’t show her face to the public, because it’s (Name)?” She asks and worry fills Bruce’s body. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell the big guy. I’m glad that she’s finally happy. She deserves that and so much more.”

“She doesn’t know it’s me.” Bruce says making Diana cock an eyebrow in surprise. “She doesn’t want anything to do with this life anymore. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her.”

“Keeping secrets from (name) will only cause her more pain.” Diana states her eyes filling with remorse. “Trust me, telling her the truth is better than her finding out from someone else.”

“Why did she leave?” Bruce asks curiosity filling his voice. “She wouldn’t tell me, or the Bat.”

“It’s not my place to say,” Diana starts moving to look out the window of the watchtower to Earth below. “But if you are serious about her, I will tell you what I can.”

“I love her.” Bruce states with absolutely no hint of a lie in his voice.

“(Name) wasn’t born on Themyscira, she washed up on our shores when she was a child after her mother drowned at sea. Her father used the last bit of his strength to save his only child. My mother found her on the beach on deaths door. Her father lay dead beside her.

“From the moment my mother met (Name) she knew she was special. She once said that it was like the gods had blessed her with the essence of the sun, and she was right. (Name) is basically the sun in human form. Her powers are limitless, and unpredictable. Especially when she is upset.

“Against my mother’s better judgement, she let (Name) leave Themyscira to learn about your world. With every new experience she had (Name) just became more certain that she didn’t wish to return to our home. Then one day she witnessed us save the earth and she wanted to help. So, I brought her here. Hoping this would give meaning to her life.

“At first everything was going well. She and Clark had bonded and for a while they were inseparable. But then,” She pauses for a moment before she continues, “Remember when Connor showed up and Clark ignored him?”

Bruce nods.

“At the time Connor only knew one thing. That he was the product of cloning and that Lex Luthor and Clark were his fathers, so he naturally sought Clark out.”

“But Clark rejected him. I remember I had to have a talk with him about it.”

“While Connor was going through all these emotions about being abandoned, He sought Luthor out. It was then he learned that there was another being that was used in his creation.”

Bruce furrowed his brow, not liking where this was going.

“Luthor told him that he tried to use (Name)’s DNA along with Clark’s and his to make the ultimate being. What Luthor didn’t account for was (Name)’s abilities, her powers, cannot be shared with another being. They belong to her and her alone. However, the genetic mutation that gave her her powers, that can be used to amplify the Kryptonian genes.

“So, having been ignored and abandoned by Clark, Connor sought out the next person in his creation. He sought out his mother.”

“(Name),” Bruce adds and Diana nods.

“When Connor told her what Luthor had said she had the opposite reaction Clark did. I remember her telling me she was shocked and confused as to how they were able to get her DNA, but she wasn’t about to abandon Connor. Whether she wanted it or not, she believed she was partially responsible for him. (Name) became Connor’s mother.”

“Why didn’t I know about this?” Bruce asks anger radiating from him.

“No one did.” Diana confirms folding her arms over her chest. “The only ones who knew were (Name), Luthor, Connor, Clark, and me. We decided it was best to keep it a secret from everyone.”

“If she took over as Connor’s mother, why did she decide to disappear?” Bruce asks.

“(Name) confronted Clark. She tried to get him to help Connor out. She wanted to be the bridge that helped the two of them bond.”

“But?”

“Clark wouldn’t have it. They argued constantly, and then one day (Name) was gone. Whatever happened, why she decided to leave, only her and Clark know the answer to that.” Diana concludes and Bruce has the sudden urge to see (Name).

“There is only one thing I’m not clear on.” Bruce says and Diana turns toward him a confused look on her face. “Who gave Luthor her DNA? We know he got Clark’s because he used Kryptonite to make him weak, but how did he get (Name)’s? last time I checked, she was invulnerable.”

“I have my suspicions, but nothing concrete.” Diana concludes.

Bruce senses someone coming and instantly ends the conversation.

“Thank you,” Bruce says, and she nods.

“You need to tell her, or you’ll lose her.” Diana says before she turns and walks away back toward mission control.

Bruce takes a deep breath and then pulling out his cell phone is about to send her a message when he gets one from her.

‘We need to talk.’

~~~~~~

I stand there frozen in place as I stare motionless at my son’s bright blue eyes. How was he here? How did he know where I was? I wasn’t angry with him but because he looked so much like his father, I needed space away from him.

“Connor, what are you doing here?” I ask and his brow furrows.

“I wanted to see you.” He replies wanting to come in but afraid I would reject him.

I look back at the boys still sitting on the couch and I push my anger and hurt away and motion for him to come inside.

“Come in, please.” I say and he follows.

Once he is inside, I close the door behind him and as my emotions get the better of me, I reach out and pull him into my arms. I hold him as tight as I could as he grips tightly to me. Tears sting my eyes as I think about how much I had truly missed him. Even if I hadn’t given birth to him, Connor was my son. I would always be there for him.

“I’m sorry you had to leave.” Connor says into my shoulder and I shake my head.

“It’s not your fault.” I reply as I pull away from him to cup his cheeks. “You did nothing wrong. I just couldn’t stay there anymore.”

“(Name) you okay?” I hear Damian ask and Connor’s head shoots to look at the boy who was standing in the hallway next to Jason.

“Yeah I-”

“What are you two doing here?” Connor questions anger in his voice.

“What’s it look like super-boy?” Jason retorts and my eyes widen.

“Wait, you all know each other?” I ask glancing back and forth between them.

“They’re Batman’s sidekicks.” Connor announces and my heart drops.

“No, then that would mean that Bruce is…” I pause everything starting to make sense. “Oh, how did I never see it?”

“(Name)?” Damian questions and I turn to look at both him and Jason in a new light.

If they were Batman’s sons, then they knew who I was from the beginning. They all did. Is that why Bruce approached me? Was he just keeping tabs on an unstable superhero? Did he even truly care about me?

“Boys, I think it’s time you guys went home.” I say my heart tightening in my chest.

“Come on Damian,” Jason says to his little brother as he reaches for his jacket. “I think (Name) needs some time alone.”

“No, I don’t want to go. Everything was fine until he showed up. What is he doing here anyway?” Damian argues angrily.

“What am I doing here? I have a right to be here, why are you here?”

“Because we can be.” Jason adds narrowing his eyes at Connor. “What right do you have to be here?”

“She’s my mother!” Connor yells and I grab his arm stopping him.

“Connor, stop!” I yell making him close his mouth.

I glance back at Damian and Jason to see them staring at us in shock. My eyes find Damian’s and I don’t know why but I see disappointment and betrayal in them. My heart was screaming out for me to go to him and hold him, but I couldn’t.

“Please boys, please go home.” I plead with them and I watch as Damian’s eyes turn cold as he grabs his backpack and races past me out the front door.

“I got him.” Jason says as he quickly races off after him.

When they are gone, I close the door and walk past Connor to the couch. I collapse onto it as I feel my legs give out from under me.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Connor starts but I stop him with just a sad look.

“I know sweetie. You didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.” I reply as I reach out to grab my phone.

“Are you okay?” He asks and I shake my head. I couldn’t lie to him.

“No, not really.” I reply as I send a quick text to Bruce.

“I shouldn’t have come.” Connor says instantly moving toward the door to leave.

“Connor, wait.” I call making him stop in his steps. “Come here.”

He waits for a second before he turns and walks over to sit beside me on the couch. Reaching up, I gently brush his hair back as I take a deep breath.

“Connor, you are always welcome wherever I am. I will never tell you differently. I may not have had any say in how you were born, but I will take responsibility and be there for you when ever you need me. I am your mother; I will never turn my back on you.” I say making him nod slightly as his eyes start to water. “You are the best thing I never knew I needed. So never ever feel like you don’t belong here with me. Okay?”

“I understand.” He concludes and I gently lean up and kiss his forehead.

“Now, what happened?” I ask, knowing that there was another reason for him coming to see me.

“I found out who gave your DNA to Cadmus.”

Will Continue -

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anjuschiffer · 5 years ago

Text

Secret’s Out

Here I am with the next part! Enjoy! :D

By the way, I came up with a series name!

This is now called To [Not] Be A Bat series!

Will probably make a masterlist once it’s done :)

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FIRST | PREV

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P.Tag: @theatreandcomicfreak @damianette-is-life

Tag: @toodaloo-kangaroo @maribat-is-lifeblood @tis-i-beanbandit

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“Surprise it took you this long to realize she’s been sneaking out, nonetheless visiting Jason and myself.” Dick casually said, placing down some tea on the table, Bruce simply eyeing it. “You know, I had my fair shares of-“

“She’s not you Dick.” Bruce said, picking up the cup. Cinnamon wafted its way to Bruce’s senses.

“Of course she isn’t. She’s-“

“You grew up with a loving family-“

“So did she.” Dick defended, remembering the file he composed for Marinette. It’s also how he confirmed that Marinette was indeed Bruce’s biological daughter.

“You have a heart.”

“And she doesn’t?” Dick asked, Marinette’s accusations about Bruce being confirmed. He really wasn’t spending anytime with her. Not even as Batman, and that said a lot.

“You were obedient. Satisfied-“

“She’s trying to get close to you.” Dick finally said, trying his best to keep himself composed at the things Bruce finished labeling him as. “You haven’t been allowing her to get to know you.”

Bruce frowned at this, watching Dick drop some sugarcubes into his cup.

“I’m just trying to-“

“Protect her?” Dick scoffed, motioning at himself. “Look where your protection got us all.”

Bruce’s frown turned into a scowl.

“She isn’t ready to play Gotham’s game, Dick. It’s not Paris.” Bruce attempted to reason, but knew it wasn’t enough when he heard Dick sigh.

“Then show her. Let her join you-“

“No. Out of the question.” Bruce got up, pacing in the small space he had.

“And you wonder why she’s acting like this.” Dick said into his tea, missing how Bruce sharply turned to look at Dick.

“Excuse-“

“The more you keep pushing her away-“

“I’m not.” Bruce denied.

“-the more she’s going to be doing things behind your back.” Dick looked at Bruce, his cup making a noise as it was placed onto the coffee table. “Do you want that?”

“Of course not, I-“

“Then stop. Pushing. Her. Away.” Dick ran a hand through his hair. “I agree with you; she needs more experience fighting without magic, but her reflexes have been improving since I started training her.“

“You were training her?” Bruce said with narrowed eyes.

“Because you weren’t.” Dick growled. “If you ask me, she’s a better-“

“I expected more from you.” Dick let out a dry laugh.

“You always did. And I hated it.” Dick’s eyes turned dark, something Bruce rarely saw from his usually happy son. “You expected me to be you.”

“Of course I did. You are my son.” Bruce said, placing his hands on Dick’s shoulders.

“Sure didn’t feel that way.” Dick said, pushing Bruce away from him. “If anything, you saw me as a tool, as a replacement as your days started to trickle down.”

“Dick, you know that isn’t-”

“I should’ve known better than to expect you to understand any of this.” Dick muttered, turning to Bruce. “I have patrol in an hour and I want to check on my gear before I go. So please, leave.”

“I’m not leaving until I know where Marinette is. She wasn’t with Jason so-”

“She’s not here.” Dick cut off, walking over to press something under his dining table, a wall exposing a few weapons. “So look for her-”

“Jason said she was here.”

“And you believed him?” Dick asked, picking up his escrima sticks. “Even Tim knows better than to trust Jason wi-” Dick promptly shuts up when Bruce picks up Marinette’s sketchbook that was buried between the sofa cushions.

“She wasn’t here, was she?” Bruce said, still frowning as he ran his fingers over the worn out cover, noticing a ribbon sticking out. Quickly turning to it, his eyes widened. Dick slowly approaches the frozen Bruce, his own eyes filled with shock, Dick grabbing the book and holding it close to his chest. “H-How long was-”

“You forced her to-”

“But you approved of it Richard!” Bruce said, raising his voice into a growl. “She’s a child!” Bruce grabbed Richard by the collar.

“She’s old enough to decide what she wants to do Bruce! And she needed someone who believed in her decision!” Dick defended. “She needed someone to be there to have her back! Someone who gave her the support she needed, something you never gave me nor Jason since the day you met us!” With that, Richard pushed Bruce once again from him, walking out of his own apartment, a duffel bag at his side.

Bruce plopped onto the sofa, letting out a heavy sigh as he closed his eyes to recall the name on the sketchbook paper.

Ladybird.

Next to it, written in perfect french, a few lists of materials and routines. Routines had covered sparring sessions with Richard, weaponry with Jason and even archery with Roy. Bruce ran his hands through his hair as he saw the maroon and black design for Marinette’s costume, the domino mask haunting him.

But what haunted him the most was the intricate way Marinette had planned on debuting. By teaming up with Red Hood and Nightwing, Marinette was planning on taking down the very person Bruce wanted her far away from...

Joker.

Fearing the worst, Bruce dashed out of Richard’s apartment, hoping that history wouldn’t repeat itself.

As he got inside his car, Bruce prayed that he would make it in time to stop Marinette.

He couldn’t afford to lose his only daughter, one of his children.

He couldn’t afford to lose one… hell, he wouldn’t be able to bear to go through something like that ever again…

Never again…

Never…

#maribat #bio!dad bruce wayne #anju writes #maribat to not be a bat series

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americasmarauders · 5 years ago

Text

Stupid Fucking Galas--Jason Todd.

author’s note: it came a day late, but nonetheless it came. This is unedited so bare with me on the typos. I will re-read tomorrow to check on those.

masterlist

Stupid fucking galas.

Jason hated them. He had always hated them, but he found that the more that he grew, and the more that he disagreed with Bruce, the more he absolutely despised these stupid fucking galas. Kissing old white people’s asses so that Wayne Enterprises could have funding for something he hadn’t bothered to research about. So fucking stupid.

Stupid fucking Bruce for demanding Jason to come to this stupid fucking event full of stupid fucking people. He wasn’t supposed to be there, stuffed in rigid suit pretending that everything is okay when his relationship with Bruce is damaged. True, it had been worse, but why the fuck was he in this fucking stupid gala when Bruce couldn’t even accept the fact that Jason didn’t share the same M.O as dear old Dad.

“Jay, I know that look,” Tim started next to him. “Look at the bright side, at least Bruce invited you.”

Jason groaned as he angrily took a sip of his whiskey. “He didn’t invite me, he demanded I’d come,” he grunted.

“Still, you’re here, as family. It could be worse,” Tim argued.

“Bruce only wanted me here so we could look like the picture-perfect family that he thinks it’s great for his PR,” Jason argued back. “But he forgets: I’m not good for PR, Tim. I shouldn’t be here,” with that he downed the rest of his whiskey. “I’m going to get some more.”

Jason turned towards the bar. He sat on one of the stools, away from the view of Tim. He ran his fingers through his hair ruining all the styling he had done previously. It didn’t matter, he didn’t like it anyway. As he waited for the bartender to fill what would be his third glass of whiskey, he let his eyes wander through the room. All the people there were all the same as he remembered when he was a kid and Bruce hosted these things every month or so. Except one.

A quiet girl, standing awkwardly by a table, lonely, fidgeting with an empty glass. She was wearing a very pretty red dress, and if that wasn’t enough to catch Jason’s attention, she quickly looked at him, before adverting her gaze somewhere else, embarrassed at the quick eye contact she had made with a random stranger in a random party.

Jason grabbed his glass and hastily thanked the bartender. He debated on whether to approach the lonely lady for a mere second but couldn’t get over the fact that he had nothing to lose if she out right shut him out. She couldn’t magically make this stupid fucking gala any better.

He downed the glass in a split second, rested it on the bar and made his way to the pretty lady in a pretty red dress. He quietly approached her, leaning elegantly against the table she was standing next to. She fidgeted nervously at the presence next to her, and awkwardly looked up to him.

He was blown away. It took a second for him to pull himself together. This woman was beautiful, he thought to himself. And extremely awkward.

“I hate this stupid thing. Don’t you?” he said, as he smiled brightly at her, trying to pretend he wasn’t just shit-talking Bruce’s event.

“I can’t say I particularly enjoy, no,” she laughed softly. “It’s not really my scene.”

Jason noticed she hovered her hand slightly above the bridge of her nose, trying to pull glasses that were not there. A nervous tick. “Then what is your scene?”

“Labs,” she looked down at her hands, smiling. “I really like my lab.”

“So, you’re a scientist, then,” Jason concluded.

“Yes, a physicist,” she looked up at him smiling still. Jason fought hard not to have his breath knocked out of him. “I’m kind of the reason Mr. Wayne threw this party,” she said quietly.

“I hardly think so. In my experience Mr. Wayne,” he said sarcastically, “really likes the attention.”

“I’m serious, though,” she contested. “It may be a fund raiser for a charity, but I came here to convince the board members to approve of my project. Mr. Wayne said that I needed to do a little, uh, politics to make it work.”

“Then why aren’t you doing it?” Jason smirked.

“That’s the thing, I already did it,” she said smugly. “It was easy, actually.”

Jason hummed. This lady was really something else. “I’m impressed.”

She smiled. “Really?”

“It’s not easy to kiss old people’s ass, and you seem to have mastered that art,” he said, a smirk creeping its way on his face. His voice had a hint of sarcasm on it.

She flushed terribly. “Thank you…”

He extended his hand. “Jason,” he smiled.

She smiled back, shaking his hand, “Jason. I’m Y/N.”

The way his name left her lips made his heart beat erratically. Oh boy, he was in for a ride. “Y/N,” her name felt like the sweetest thing he had ever tasted on his lips, “would you like to dance?” he offered her his hand.

She looked at the dance floor and considered for a second. She took his hand and said: “Sure, why not.”

He took her to the dance floor, soaking in the slow and almost soothing music playing through the hidden speakers of the room. Her hands rested on his shoulders and his hands found their way to the middle of her back. They swayed calmly to the sound of the melody, a smile creeping its way onto Jason’s face.

“I don’t usually accept offers from strangers in parties, but I’m quite liking you Jason,” she said honestly.

“Well, I don’t usually talk to pretty strangers in parties, but I’m glad I talked to you,” Jason said to her with a smile on his face.

“Thank you,” she answered shyly. “So, Mr. Jason, what is it that you’re doing here?” she said calmly.

He sighed. “I’m here on,” how would he phrase that he came to this stupid gala because his adoptive father made him come? “family business.”

“Really?” she said, slightly impressed. “Who is your family? Maybe I’ve met them today.”

Unfortunately, for Jason because he was having such a great time dancing with a beautiful woman, they were interrupted. “Jason!” Tim said across the dance floor. He went towards their direction, Y/N looking confused between Tim and Jason, as he dropped his hands from her waist and subtly notified her that their dance was cut short.

“Bruce is looking for you, he wants to take some pictures now,” Tim said kind of out of breath. He glanced over Jason’s dance partner, before recognizing her. “Oh, hey, Y/N! I see you’ve met Jason,” he said, too enthusiastically in Jason’s opinion.

Jason rolled his eyes at Tim, and Y/N saw it, earning him a small yet charming smile. He smiled back. “Yes, we’ve just met,” she said quietly.

“Great! I’m sorry to interrupt, but my brother and I have some business to attend,” Tim said while dragging Jason towards an impatient Bruce Wayne.

“How do you know Y/N?” Jason inquired.

“I worked with her some time back. She is brilliant,” Tim answered. “She’s really shy, though, I’m surprised she was comfortable around you.”

Jason looked back at where he left her, in the middle of the dance floor, to see she was not there anymore. “Yeah,” he said under his breath.

Jason was relentless. He had felt something different with Y/N, and he was willing to risk it and find out what it was. Because he couldn’t get her out of his head. Well, not exactly. He could, she would just creep in back and would stay there, until he said enough.

He had to talk to her. Wash her off his system. He needed to see her again.

He got into the empty Wayne Industries elevator. He could count the number of times he had been there. Most of them just to pick up Tim for lunch. This was a whole new venture for him. He pressed the number for the floor of her lab.

He was sweating through his shirt. He shouldn’t have done this. He lost all his cool. He was supposed to be the cool and collected one, why was he so fucking nervous, it was just a girl. Maybe he should have left the house without his leather jacket. Maybe he shouldn’t have left his house at all.

But then again, he would have to listen to stupid fucking Tim pointing out the stupid smile Jason was suddenly sporting most of the times. And he would have to listen to stupid fucking Tim drop, not so subtly, Y/N’s break times, or her favorite foods, something Jason would rather have discovered by himself.

He had made the right call, coming here. Tim would get off his back, and Jason would finally get her off his mind.

The door opened with a sound of ding. Jason stared at the white wall with a huge sign. ‘Research Laboratory: Light and Energy’, it read, pointing Jason towards the right direction. It was definitely her lab. Her element. Why did he come again?

He gulped. He took of his jacket, leaving him only in his white t-shirt. He carried his jacket over his shoulder, shoved his other hand on his pants’ pocket and headed towards her lab. Jason hadn’t felt this nervous since he was a teenager, and even back then he wasn’t one to overly care about stupid dates and teenage romance. But, then again, he wasn’t a teenager anymore, and this wasn’t just asking someone to a dance. If he wanted to do this, he would be inviting her to his life, his fucked up and crazy life, and that could put a lot of things in jeopardy. So, yeah, he was nervous. But maybe it wasn’t exactly because of her.

He had reached her lab. Her element. The doors were made of glass, so he could see her perfectly from where he was. She was so carefree. Her hair in a messy bun, chewing on a pen, furrowing her eyebrows at what he assumed would be an incredibly difficult physics problem—at least to him it would be. He had always preferred the humanities.

He took a deep breath. His hand curled around the doorknob and pushed it open. He stood there, jacket in hand, leaning against the frame lazily. Jason waited for her to notice him, but she was so engrossed in her little world she didn’t even acknowledge him. Jason stood there admiring her from a distance. He stopped before it got creepy though. He pushed himself off the frame and smiled.

“So, this is where you feel most comfortable,” Jason commented, startling her.

Y/N pushed her glasses up to the top of her nose and smiled shyly. “Well, yeah, it is my lab,” she said quietly. “Not that I’m not, um, glad to see you, but I didn’t imagine that I would see you here of all places. Tim said that Wayne Enterprises is not your favorite place,” she explained herself.

“Well, I have made an exception today,” Jason smirked back at her. “I was hoping to take you out to lunch. That is, if you’re free, I mean.”

She shoved her hands on her lab coat’s pockets and smiled brightly at Jason. “Yeah, I’m free.”

Jason felt a smile creep on his face, and he didn’t stop it like he usually would. “Great, let’s go then. I bet you’re starving.”

Her eyes twinkled with something Jason couldn’t quite place, as she took off her lab coat and hanged on the hook next to the door. She continued to lightly chat with him—something Jason took as a sign of her being comfortable around him—as she took her things, turned the lights off and locked her lab door.

“So, Jason, how are things going with your girlfriend?” Damian said, taunting Jason.

Jason rolled his eyes, not bothering to lift them from his book as he answered Damian: “Fuck off, Demon Spawn. It’s none of your business.”

Damian scoffed, not interested anymore in getting a reaction from Jason. Tim looked up from his computer. He took a sip of his coffee and then asked: “But how are things, though? You’ve been spending an awful lot of time with her.”

Jason groaned. He plucked his finger in the middle of the book before shutting it and getting up to leave that dreaded place. “How I spend my time is none of your business, Tim. You fuckers should stop prying on my life and take care of yours,” then turned his back and left.

It wasn’t that things weren’t going well, they were. Actually, they couldn’t be better. Jason just wanted to keep those good times to him and Y/N. It felt as if he were to say something to anyone, he would jinx it, and his source of happiness (he wasn’t so pathetic as to have a relationship as his only will to live, but he couldn’t deny that she was his main source of happiness) would suddenly and tragically disappear in a wave of overly fussing relatives, or something worse, into his… night life.

Tim followed him, much to Jason’s doom. If he hadn’t sworn to Bruce he wouldn’t kill anymore, he would be this close to actually murdering one of his brothers. “Jason, please, we are just trying to, you know, take an interest in your life,” Tim reasoned.

Jason stopped and turned towards Tim, his eyes menacing in hopes to scare away his little brother. “You don’t have to ‘take an interest’,” he mocked, “in my life, Replacement.”

“Yes, I do, Jay. Because you’re my brother, and I—” he hesitated, “I care about you. I want to know if you like her.”

“You just want to gossip about it to Bruce,” Jason retorted. “I don’t want Bruce snooping around on my life. It’s enough I have you and the others wondering around.”

“That is not true at all,” he almost seemed like he took offense to it. Admittedly, he wouldn’t necessarily gossip to Bruce about Jason, but he would definitely gossip about him to someone. And so, Jason glared at him, surrendering Tim.

Tim sighed defeated. “Fine, you don’t want to tell me now, that’s fine. I don’t need details. I don’t want details. I want to know if you’re happy.”

If Jason was taken back about Tim’s defiance, he didn’t show it. Jason remained angry faced, his default mode, and narrowed his eyes at Tim before turning around to leave. He stopped for a millisecond, considering if he should answer Tim on that question. Well, if he dwelled on it too much, he wouldn’t do it, so Jason just muttered a small ‘Yes’ before bolting out of the entrance hall to hide away in his room.

Jason looked at Y/N with the softest eyes. The lighting was shit, they were sitting in the greasiest diner he had ever seen (and he had been to some really sketchy places) even if the food was really good. The setting had everything to make Y/N look unattractive, ugly even. She had just gotten out a long day of work—something about quarks and leptons that, to Jason, just sounded like she was talking gibberish. His days of physics were left behind in high school—her hair was greasy, he could see specks of dirt in her glasses, and the bags underneath her eyes were present and making an appearance. And yet, she was the only thing he saw. The most beautiful thing he saw.

She noticed him staring and stopped talking. Y/N smiled at him—she had the prettiest smile, he swore—and he smile back. A genuine smile. A rare one from Jason. He saved those for the deserving. And currently, Y/N was the only one deserving.

“You know, Tim stopped by my lab to chat the other day,” she said. Jason ran a hand through his hair and groaned. “He doesn’t usually do that.”

“What did that fucker want?” Jason growled.

“Oh, nothing specific. We chatted a lot, actually. He wanted to know how things were going between us.”

“And did you answer?” Jason asked, dreading the worse.

“Well, yeah. But I didn’t feel like you were comfortable enough sharing a lot of things, so I told him the bare minimum,” Jason fell in love with her right there. She knew him better than anyone of those motherfuckers could ever know. “Besides I don’t know what is our, um, relationship status, so I wasn’t comfortable sharing too much too. I’d rather keep things between us, for now.”

Jason let out a breathy laugh and once again ran his fingers through his hair. “I swear, those little shits are asking me to kill them with their prying.”

She smiled smally and stirred her drink with her straw. “I don’t know, Jay. He looked like he genuinely cared.”

“He doesn’t,” Jason closed his eyes as he said.

Y/N sighed and reached for his hand. Jason was startled at the sudden touch but didn’t flinch away. Instead, he turned his palm to face hers, and grabbed delicately. “He really does, Jay,” she looked deeply into his eyes. Jason swore he could see the whole universe within those. She was so full of life. “I know you guys have, um… history. But Tim is trying to move past that. Give him a chance,” Jason opened his mouth to argue against it, but she was faster. “And before you deny it, you don’t have to talk about us, or your inner demons. Just be a tinsy bit more open with them.”

Jason shook his head and smiled. He didn’t want to argue with her. Or more like he couldn’t. It felt as though she had a grip so strong on his heart, that if he defied her, she would walk away and leave him empty. And he was so tired of feeling empty, of feeling lonely. Maybe he should talk to his brothers more. “Okay, fine. I’ll try and talk to them more.”

She tightened her grip and smiled brightly, reaching her eyes. “Great.”

They remained quiet for a bit, soaking in each other. Their hands intertwined, a light smile adorning Jason’s face. His mind wandered to something she had said moments ago.

“Do you wanna discuss it? Our relationship, I mean,” he said, a bit hesitant.

She looked at him. “We don’t have to, if you’re not ready. I know these things are difficult for you,” she said, and Jason’s mind flashbacked to the night he had told her just a snippet of his fucked-up past. She was so understanding, more than anyone in his life had ever been, and he was so grateful for that.

“I want to,” he reassured.

Her eyes twinkled. “Okay, then. What do you want to discuss?”

He gulped, and fought the butterflies rising in his stomach. “I want you to be my girlfriend, if that’s alright with you.”

She smiled, full of adoration. “Yeah, that’s alright with me.”

He leaned in closer, smiling. “Great,” he said. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

She smiled, coyly. “Okay.”

Stupid fucking galas.

Jason hated it. But his heart held a special kind of hatred for The Annual Wayne Christmas Party.

The stuffy suits, and the expensive drinks, the wrinkly old people pretending to know something about the current world, and the tacky decorations made Jason want to chuck all the stock they had of alcohol.

He held his glass of scotch—neat, no ice, like always—and he took a sip as he looked at his wrist watch. He took a deep breath and leaned on the bar. His eyes scanned the gigantic room, looking for her. She was late, and Jason couldn’t wait another minute until he saw her. He needed her.

“You really need to lay off the drinks, Jay,” Tim said, behind him. “You’ll get drunk before this party even starts.”

Jason rolled his eyes and took another sip. “You and I have very different definitions of what a party is, Tim.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Tim lightly shoved his brother, “lighten up a bit.”

“I’ll light—” he trailed off. Speechless, that was the word. He suddenly felt out of breath.

There she was, looking like an angel. Y/N. Her light silver gown trailed behind her, it made her even more beautiful than she already was. Her hair was in a pretty hairdo and maybe Jason really wanted to ruin that by running his hands on her soft hair. But it wasn’t only that. She was glowing inside out.

She was far away from him, so he could only watch her. She was truly the only person in the world that moment. Jason couldn’t hear or see anything, he only saw, heard, and though about her.

“Wow,” Tim lowly said. “Who knew?”

“I knew,” Jason replied, but not loud enough for Tim to hear. “I’ve always known.”

Tim narrowed his eyes at Jason, seeing the sight of his older brother—the toughest of them all—weak in the knees because of a girl. It was a sight to see. “Okay, lover boy, I’ll let you go see your girlfriend,” he said. As if rehearsed, Jason laid is half empty glass of whiskey and walked towards her, not even listening to Tim’s protests of a lack of word from him.

He reached her. She was facing back to him, talking to a group of old nerds—Jason knew they were nerds because he had seen them in so many of them on these fucking stupid fundraisers, all gathered up on the corner, fumbling over random notes made on paper napkins; he always assumed they were too busy comparing maths, or something. Her eyes twinkled with the kind of wonder only reserved to her. Jason laid his hand delicately on the small of her back, earning him a surprised squeak and a quick smile.

“Excuse me, gentlemen, Miss Y/N is needed elsewhere,” Jason came up, with this lame excuse. Y/N gave him a knowing look but didn’t complain. He guided her towards the other end of the ballroom, far away from the prying looks of the elderly gossips.

“Jay, you could’ve just said that—” he kissed her. She was taken back for a split second—maybe less—and soon crossed her arms behind Jason’s neck and melted into his touch.

If it depended only on Jason’s will, he would’ve stayed liked that—engulfed in her arms—for the rest of the night, hell, for the rest of his life. Alas, time couldn’t stop, and they weren’t alone in the world, so eventually they got interrupted.

Alfred cleared his throat behind the couple, Jason’s back facing him. Y/N interrupted the kiss, pushing Jason back, leaving him silently whining for more. “Master Jason, would you like to introduce me to your companion?” Alfred said, politely.

Jason was always very coy around Alfred, and even after his death he hadn’t really lost that. He scratched the back of his neck, awkwardly. “Right… Alfred, this is Y/N my, huh, girlfriend.”

Y/N opened her shy smile, her hand hovering for a second on the bridge of her nose. She extended her hand to Alfred. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Alfred. Jason has talked a lot about you.”

Alfred shook her hand. “Likewise, Miss Y/N.” He dropped her hand and turned to Jason. “Master Bruce is requesting you.”

Jason groaned in annoyance. “Can’t you just say I ran away? Left this stupid ass party for something less boring?”

Alfred gave him a stern look, and Y/N stifled a laugh. It was amusing Jason wilted at just a look. “It is for family pictures, and as far as I know, you are still family,” that left implied so many things and Jason hated it. Y/N cut her laugh short at the comment. She understood the undertones too.

He ran a hand through his hair, completely ruining the styling done. But, then again, he didn’t really care about those. He turned to Y/N. “Stupid fucking party,” he mumbled. “Is it okay if a leave for just a second?”

She smiled brightly. Her hands found his and she gave it a light squeeze. “Of course,” that twinkle again that made Jason crazy. It made leaving so fucking difficult. “I’ll be right here when you get back.”

He smiled, that true smile. Alfred pretend not look at the moment the couple shared, but he couldn’t help but notice Jason’s happiness just at a simple look he gave her.

Jason gave her forehead a kiss, a silent way of telling ‘I love you’ only the two of them shared. She squeezed his hands one more time. ‘And I love you’ it said.

final note: here is the link to my jason playlist

#Jason Todd #jason todd fanfiction #jason todd x reader #jason tood headcanon #jason todd x y/n #red hood #red hood x reader #red hood x y/n #my masterlist

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poepoe-thebunny · 4 years ago

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Damien The Littlest Brother

Or: Stuff Damian does with his siblings.

Dick

Dick in some ways was another form of idolization for Damian. Damian was so very young when they first met, younger still when Ra's and the league sunk their teeth into his heart and tried their best to tear it to shreds. Dick's role, part sibling part guardian, was the first major form of stability Damian had. Little Damian had been born with the mythos of The Bat hanging overhead, and the hope of measuring up to first his grandfather's and then his father's standards had nearly broken him.

Like a lot of children Damian didn't necessarily understand or appreciate what Dick was trying to do for him until he was older. But just like other children Damian clung to the emotional support and care Dick gave him, the care he had so often been deprived of.

Damian wasn't necessarily there for the events that shaped Dick and the rest of their family, but he is growing up in the aftereffects of it. Dick chose to give Damian the love he deserved, Dick chose not to punish a child for the situation he was born into. But Dick isn't perfect. He loses his temper, he gets frustrated, he gets things wrong, he makes mistakes, he bleeds. Dick, at least initially, was real and human in a way Bruce wasn't to a little boy who already had his future decided for him.

While he may not admit it, Damian looks up to Dick because in a lot of ways Dick is a better person than most. Dick is a good man, a better man than Bruce in some ways. He shows Damian what a hero actually is, and that the concept of being a hero isn't tied to the suit. Dick shows Damian that he can and is a good person, that he can make those decisions for himself and that his own emotional needs are not anything to be ashamed of. Damian is a boy first, not a weapon.

So Damian leans into his affection. There are shared naps after patrol, and days out getting ice cream or going to the zoo. Damian wakes a tired Dick up with a pillow to the face, and pillow fights and laughter ensues. Dick comes along to the school showcases, where an embarrassed Damian has pictures and paintings of their family up for all to see. He never once mocks Damian's desires, instead listening with seriousness to every moment of Damian's vulnerability.

That's what sticks with Damian the most. That Dick wholeheartedly believes Damian is a good person, that Damian can be good and kind and soft. He sees Damian fumble with his cool demeanor, growing shy and embarrassed when chatting with students his own age. Damian knows the names of most of his classmates, takes down random details that shouldn't be important to a stranger "We're NOT friends Grayson," but Damian talks to the youngest students about animals, and how to properly hold puppies. Damian has lists of underfunded animal shelters and regularly sends them to Bruce and Tim when preparations for the Wayne Foundation charity events come up. Damian knows most of the officers in Bludhaven since he occasionally stops by with something for Dick, a late lunch or hot drink or Dick's spare clothes in case he needs out of his police uniform. After many coos, head pats and cheek pinches, Damian is occasionally "babysat" by some of them while Dick is out on patrol of the police variety. He does not realize how much he has charmed Dick's co-workers, talking about his pets or his brothers.

Dick is the kind of hero, the kind of person, Damian was told wasn't real. That heroes were childish nonsense, that mercy and love were weak. The concept that someone could love him, that he was deserving of love instead of being forced to earn it, was foreign. But Dick Grayson was all of that. So Damian puts up less and less of a fight over the silly pictures they take together. Dick buys books about animals, and Damian grudgingly wears the cute stupid animal ear headbands Dick buys him. While part of Damian knows he won't be, the part that viciously beats "heroes" and "love" and "ice cream" back with a vengeance, another part of Damian, a very small fragile part, thinks that maybe if he grew up becoming like Dick Grayson the Person (TM) it wouldn't be so bad. "Awww thanks Dami!"

Jason:

Next to Tim, the Cain Instincts are strongest with Jason. Jason is constantly ruffling his hair, calling him names, and sitting on him. Jason does not give a single iota of a damn for any sort of authority except Alfred. Jason is not afraid of Damian.

So when Damian latches onto Jason's neck ready to strangle him, he laughs like it's the best thing he's ever seen, and a wrestling match ensues. They bond over it, over the goading and the competition.

They bond over books too, over stories and musicals and words Damian shouldn't care about but he does. Damian says he's too old for fairy tales even though he never had them to begin with, never had stories told when tucked into bed unless it was for a harsh life lesson. And yet Damian will find books as gifts for Jason, and Jason will read them aloud after Damian annoys him by pressing his feet into Jason's side. He swears up and down that the exaggerated voices and accented narration from Jason are done purely to annoy him. Damian constantly interrupts him, always asking questions and Jason tells him to shut up and be patient, "learn to listen demon brat."

They watch Disney and Ghibli, Laika and Illumination, and after a very enlightening conversation with one Tim Drake, Jason introduces Damian to theater. From Antigone to Romeo and Juliet, from West Side Story to Hadestown to Heathers the Musical. Bruce has walked in on them recreating various iconic sword fights too many times to count, quoting lines while dressed in blanket robes and crowns made of craft feathers and stick on jewels. Alfred thorough enjoys their riveting performances.

Like a lion teaching his cubs through play, Jason teaches him that he's never too mature for anything and screw anyone else who doesn't like it. Jason teaches him fun in a way Damian never allowed himself to have before, to look past his mission, and do things for enjoyment. He teaches Damian defiance and rebellion, two very important things for him to learn even if it's only interrupting rude rich people and disagreeing with his father over whether he needs to attend another gala.

Damian and Jason have a strange relationship, and initially aren't quite sure how to act around one another. Such large parts of their identity and experiences were formed by an indirect overlapping influence. Jason's death and the effect it had on the family and how they treat Damian, Jason's time with the league and the lazarus pit. But at the same time they understand each other in a way some of their other siblings don't. The strength and struggle in establishing their independence and identity means that their grudging respect turns into fondness with time.

Tim:

It appears that Cain Instincts don't particularly care if one is related or not, given the sheer amount of times Tim and Damian are at each other's throats initially. But with time they settle and grow more comfortable with each other, the words turn from anger to a grumbly sort of discontent, like irritated puppy's more than anything.

They bond over pride. They bond over failure. The two aren't that different really. They've seen each other at their worst. Missions with too many close calls, where the knife wounds cut too close and the bullets bit to deep, when the snap of Gotham's jaw came to close to closing over them and the only thing saving Gotham's Rogues from the collective wrath of two angry Robin's was the weight of their family's morals.

They had to learn to trust each other. But they do.

The insults are more to fill the silence, partially affection and partially with the need to annoy. They watch reruns of Star Trek and play Legend of Zelda in pajama pants (Tim) and hoody's (Damian), half draped over each other with his feet in Tim's lap. When Damian couldn't find one to his satisfaction, he gifted Tim a new skateboard with his own hand drawn and painted design. He sends a video to the family group chat of him laughing when Tim faceplants.

They are the DEFINITION of annoying to each other. Damian chucks clothes at Tim to make him shower, they get into slap fights over breakfast, they sneer at each other's drinks. "With all the coffee it's no wonder you don't grow Drake," While handing a sick Tim herbal tea for his throat.

It's an underlying trust that rarely needs to be affirmed. But when it does Damian won't hesitate to let his opinion be known. Whether it be high school bullies mocking his gangly brother, reporters trying to pit the "blood son" against the "Boy CEO", or shady members of the Gotham elite with too much interest in his family and his company, Damian's blunt attitude comes back with a vengeance. There will be no Wayne Charm, no shop talk, no backhanded compliments, when Damian Wayne gets between them and his brother. It's "I trust my brother," and "No business with the likes of you," or even "When I said you two weren't on the same level, I meant that you were the incompetent one."

Tim always tries to scold him, tells him he shouldn't be petty, I can protect myself demon, but he smiles while he says it.

Stephanie

She teases him mercilessly, will smile sweetly while "blackmailing" him and challenges him to do things he has never done before. Damian won't admit he enjoys any of it even upon threat of death. She's loud, annoying, and demanding and unapologetically so and Damian is convinced she was dropped on her head as a child. Stephanie is his sister and he loves her as a younger brother would, hurling insults at each other while fighting over french fries drinking smoothies in some fast food restaurant at 2 in the afternoon on a day out.

What strikes him about Stephanie is that she demands respect because she knows on a fundamental level that she deserves it, that all of her hard work was her own and she knew she could do it even when everyone else thought she didn't belong. As he grows Damian comes not only to admire her, but finds this a very important lesson to learn for himself.

Stephanie pushes him, she encourages him even if it's hidden under mutually shared insults. On days where she "babysits him" (she does not, Damian tells himself he doesn't need a babysitter he doesn't) she's perfectly happy to work on their motorcycles together, or have random picnics in the park with bags of fast food, or challenge him to rounds of ping pong. They learn eventually that they make a very good team together. Either destroying Tim and Jason in video games, the occasional local ping pong or DDR tournament when visiting Gotham U, or spur of the moment plans in a night time fight. Stephanie is crazy enough to believe it will work, and Damian is crazy enough to believe Stephanie will follow.

Stephanie understands what it feels like to constantly have to justify yourself, to be told you can't measure up and that you're place isn't here, even though you know it is. To have the weight of your family's decisions hanging overhead for the judgment of others.

So they learn to love each other through healthy competition and teasing remarks. Stephanie shoos him off to "talk to kids your own age, don't be so serious!". It's normal, in some ways the closest to normal Damian has had in a long time. And though they won't say it out loud, it's nice to know someone else agrees that they are entitled to these moments of happiness, these moments they were stripped of and denied for so long. They believe in each other and their right to happiness. Damian will never doubt Stephanie's strength, as spoiler or Batgirl or robin or Stephanie, and in return she will never doubt him or his place in their family.

...

Even if that means trying to escape when she wants to play dress up. "I am not your doll Brown," "Fine fine, whatever you say short stack."

Cass:

The moments between Damian and Cass are silent, but if you believe nothing is said then you are entirely wrong. They speak to each other quite often even if they don't use words.

He watches her dance, and thinks she is so strong. Damian swears she could have been a princess in another life, if life had not sunk its fangs in and poisoned her with pain instead. Just as he would have been a prince. While he initially tried to hide it, Cass always knew he was there. Damian watches her. Damian hears her words, her joy and her tears, and puts it down on to charcoal and paper. I hear you, and he shows them to her, how her form litters his pages as she pats his head. There is, Damian thinks, a poetic irony in seeing something so dangerous create something so beautiful. She is art and deserves to be heard, and Damian is grateful that she hears him too. He lets her look at pages of charcoal and ink, at canvases of paint full of everything Damian can't put into words quite yet, and finds understanding.

But while he is a Wayne, he was an Al Ghul at one point and his mother gave him the training every prince should have, skills beyond his sword. So one day, as she stretches, he brings in a case and sets it down with a clunk. He tunes the strings and plays Tomaso Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor, as she watches him with eyes that understand far too much, eyes that say I know, I hear you baby brother. Damian almost wishes she didn't, partially due to the struggle of his own pride, but also because no one should ever have to understand that kind of pain.

Moments with Cass are quiet, but they are never silent. Cass teaches him understanding, helps teach him empathy. And while Damian knows he can never dance the way she can, he can play and sketch and paint and between them their secrets can no longer be secrets. Cass doesn't teach him how to feel ,no, he's always been too good at that. Instead she teaches him ways to coax them out when the words won't come, to look around him with the wonder he wasn't allowed to have before, to let him be defined by a different set of skills that shows he can create something beautiful too.

Duke:

Damien thinks Duke is "cool", like the kind of cool you see in movies and TV shows, the average teenage boys in jeans and sneakers who fight for the underdog and stand up to bullies in a 3-on-1 fight even if they know they won't win. There is a conviction in Duke that rivals Damian's own, and Damian can't help but admire someone willing to strike out on their own and do something when they felt others were failing.

Duke is "Chill" as Jason likes to say, he's low pressure and not pushy in a way that Damian appreciates. He's calm, not in the stoic way of some of the others, but in a way that doesn't put Damian out of his comfort zone with expectations.

Time spent with Duke often consists of puzzles and card games, or movies. Duke is very good at using Damian's own pride against him to "trick" him into playing, but together they do everything from DnD to Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters. It's relaxing.

Duke tells him about school and if Damian is having trouble with the more normal things of being a tween, like worrying whether other kids like him, or wearing something embarrasing, Duke brings him out of his own head. Duke plays along with his competitive nature, challenging him to races the few times they patrol together. He finds Damian outside drawing, and teaches him soccer. Other times they sit there together, Duke writing whatever comes to mind while Damian sketches. Damian gifts Duke a detailed portrait of himself; standing in the center of the crowded streets, body spliced into neat clockwork-style segments with patches of his Signal uniform, the red jacket from his time in the "We R Robin" crew, his sports uniforms, and casual clothing, the bright light of his powers bursting from within in a halo under the Gotham smog. He is Gotham's daylight protector, unique and gifted, and Damian respects that.

It's not easy, Damian is still young and cocky, still isn't very good at saying what he feels. But Duke sees right through his attempts to play it off, and it's always met with head pats and a "Whatever you say lil' D." Damian won't say it out loud but he thinks that the sheer conviction Duke has for doing what's right bleeds into every aspect of him, and that maybe with time it will do the same for himself. Damian admires his strength of will and determination, and the work Duke is willing to put in to get what he wants.

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bigskydreaming · 4 years ago

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IGN’s recent Bat-focused article (Batman: What Does Red Hood Need to Do to Get A Good Story?) praises fanfic writers and also is an amazing critique of how stagnant Jason has become under recent DC management and I’m so surprised at how good it is and how well thought out the solutions were

Hmmm. I just looked it up and I mean, I’m not trying to start anything but I both agree and disagree? Like, it makes some points for sure, I mean, its not like its saying things that I haven’t said a thousand times about Dick, like.....these characters need to be allowed access to a full range of emotions, both good and bad, in order to be fully fleshed out, so I mean yes on that premise alone I absolutely agree this is as true for Jason as it is for Dick or anyone else.

Tbh my only real criticism of the piece is it thinks Jason exists in a particular predicament the other characters aren’t in as well. And that I just don’t agree with, like they kinda lost me a bit with their first paragraph:

His complexities and moral ambiguity make him a compelling and distinct character among his more strait-laced Robin-brothers. Sadly, the character has seen little growth since his rage-filled reintroduction into comics. The ‘former Robin becomes a villain’ idea was enough for DC to coast on for a while but since rejoining the heroes, Red Hood has done little else.

First off, this may just be me being pedantic but I’m ALWAYS going to go fetch a grain of salt before continuing reading anything that pits Jason against his brothers in a war of his moral ambiguity against their strait-lacedness. Because to me, that’s just a fundamentally shallow view of the Batfam that caters to the idea that they each must have their own distinct niche in order to be fully viable individual characters, when a) no, and b) they don’t fit neatly into the niches people keep trying to slot them into and it never ends well for anybody.

Like Jason is morally ambiguous in a lot of ways too, yes, but umm, even if we assume that the writer is only speaking of Dick, Tim and Damian, we’re talking a guy who beat the Joker to death with his bare hands and has ten assassins and mercenaries on his speed dial and who co-led the Outsiders, a guy who was deeply immersed in weighing the pros and cons of getting revenge for his father by getting Captain Boomerang killed and is forever being DMed by Ra’s because he’s convinced he can get Tim to say He Has Some Points Actually, and the kid who was an assassin with a body count by age ten and who has struggled constantly ever since his debut to define his OWN personal view of morality that is not wholly predicated on what he was taught by any single individual.

And this is a big part of where I part ways with the article, because I think it falls into the same trap that a lot of people do by believing fanfic is inherently better by doing the same thing from just a different angle. Fanfic CAN be better than the canon, I absolutely believe that, I believe it is at times, but to do so, it has to like, BE BETTER. It has to do things differently, and not just paint a slightly different veneer over the same things. Like, pedantic though it might be, I outlined the above issue because its a mode of thinking the canon absolutely falls into again and again, and just like the writer of that article themselves, like....I think fandom as a whole is no different?

Like, yes there are great stories about Jason out there, some writers have done great and interesting things with him, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a huge trend in fandom of doing the exact same thing I see here.....which is honestly a huge part of the exact same problem the article is decrying canon for......LIMITING Jason (and all the Batfam) by reducing them and their stories to finite niches as a way of spotlighting them as different from their siblings.....except they’re not that different! And that’s okay! They don’t have to be! Families can have lots in common, families DO have lots in common due to like.....shared variables during their formative years.

I mean Jason was heavily influenced by environmental factors in how and where he grew up before he ever met Batman, but like the article goes into itself, he was no less influenced by Bruce himself as his father figure.....which is something he absolutely has in common with his siblings, thus its not hard at all to see how his siblings could have similar complexities and moral struggles that stem from trying to reconcile Bruce’s influence with the many other things and people that have influenced their childhoods.

And similarly, while the article is dead-on about Jason’s stagnancy....this is something that applies in equal measure to the rest of his family, because they’re all facing the same issues in terms of how DC views and utilizes them, and fandom as much as it likes to condemn DC for doing just that....frequently does the same thing. Like, Jason’s stuck in canon, absolutely......but Dick keeps being popped out into his own microcosm to experience a couple years of stories that essentially turn him into completely different characters isolated from every communal part of his character’s history, and then ERASE everything that’s happened at the end of each of these stories and reset him to square one.....and that’s just a different kind of stagnancy that again, still never allows for actual character progression or development. Tim has LITERALLY been regressed back to Robin, like a hard reset that’s its own kind of stagnancy and Damian has had years of character development upended just to kick him back to where he started, effectively strip away all the connections he’s developed at least in any meaningful way, etc.....and the same holds true for Babs and Cass and Steph and even Bruce himself IMO, in a lot of ways.

Its absolutely a problem, but its a problem that extends far beyond just Jason even if he is a great example of it. And its also a problem that extends into fic itself, and that’s why I don’t agree with a lot of the conclusions that article draws beyond just the fundamental “these characters need to be allowed access to a full range of emotions.”

Yes. That. That right there, THAT I think is crucial, but I think that writer needed to widen the scope a little to take in the full impact of what that actually MEANS for the characters....so as to not accidentally repeat the same problem they’re being critical of by essentially arguing for a full range of emotions for Jason....while still defining or viewing Jason through a finite lens of “the more morally ambiguous Bat character, at least as compared to his brothers.”

Because its that last part that’s so detrimental, because it seems like such a little thing at first, until you realize that essentially its just putting a ceiling, a cap on how far those full ranges of emotions can be expressed. Like the problem with Dick Grayson in canon and fanon is NOT that he can’t be written with a full range of emotions.....its that his character absolutely can encompass a wide range of opinions and viewpoints and emotional stances from “I don’t believe in killing as a first option” to “I absolutely can, will, and have beaten a damn clown to death for joking about murdering my brother”.....and he can still walk away as Dick Grayson after expressing both those things, because his character is big enough to include them both. HE’S not limited as a character, its canon writers and fandom writers that both heap artificial limitations of their OWN on him, say that his character is so defined in such a specific way that there’s no way for the latter expression of his character to actually be IN character.....and the fatal flaw here is fully fleshed out characters are never just one thing. They don’t fit in niches anymore than people do, and notice the problems we all run into when we try and pigeon hole people as being just one thing, like humans can’t be contradictory or act against their own self-interest or be hypocritical or evolve or even regress past prior viewpoints....basically, any time you try and sum up a human being in one line, no matter how accurate that description is, there’s still SOME things that are going to be left out of that picture.

Now, these things don’t always have to matter that much, like if I look at a serial killer and say that’s a serial killer, like, I might be leaving out of the picture that once he helped an old lady across the street and didn’t kill her and he doesn’t even know why, and I for one, simply do not care that I leave that out of the picture. Its irrelevant to the big picture for me. I can acknowledge that it adds a smidgen of nuance to that particular picture and then go yeah but also I don’t care, nuance denied.

But in terms of fictional characters, these things that get left in the discard pile when we try and sum up characters as just one thing, like, they can be hugely significant, because characters unlike real people, are simply WHAT WE MAKE OF THEM. That stuff that’s been left out of the big picture look at that character because its stuff most people to DEFINE what that character looks like have deemed irrelevant....its still there, and still perfectly relevant for anyone who wants to pick that stuff up and make something of it, use it to change the overall picture or even just point to ways and places that picture can absolutely encompass and include these other elements and STILL fundamentally be that same picture, that same character.

And this isn’t to say that characters can never be written out of character, its to say that usually IMO what ACTUALLY makes the difference between something being out of character and something just being an unexpected but still valid character choice is just.....how these things are executed. The latter is when writers make the effort to JUSTIFY their character choice, to sell audiences on why and how this is absolutely something this character would do, to take them on a journey of what led the character to making this choice and let them see how those steps actually line up, that’s an actual journey that character might take. The former is when writers just don’t bother and are just like, well here’s a thing that character did, and you know it was in character because well that’s the character and that’s what I wrote them doing lol, what more do you want. No. Yawn. Next.

But the trick is if you’re going to try and make a character a SPECTRUM of emotions and choices rather than just a same datapoint recurring over and over again endlessly, a literal sticking point that never advances, never progresses, never changes......you have to actually give that character free range to utilize that spectrum of emotions and choices.....not just confine them to accessing all those possibilities but ONLY within a narrowly defined niche that is its own kind of limitation.

A character can START from a logline, absolutely. Can BEGIN in a narrative niche as a way to INTRODUCE them as seemingly different from their surroundings or their peers when they do not yet have the backstory, the evidence of past stories and character choices readers can use to interpret their actions or guess their choices.....but narrative niches, IMO, are meant to have a shelf life, an expiration date. They’re a seed for characters to grow FROM, to grow PAST, not return to over and over again.....because that’s when a niche just becomes another house that stagnancy built.

Anyway, thanks for the thoughts and the article mention.....it was an interesting exploration of thoughts for me even if I didn’t ultimately agree with a lot of what was already said....still a worthwhile read though I think and I mean hey, its cool if you still agree with it more even if I don’t, lol. This is just my take.

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watchtower-feed · 5 years ago

Text

All in Your Head (Part 3)

SSA Main ✧ Batman ✧ 1 ✧ 2 ✧ 3 ✧ 4 ✧ 5

No one knows about your link with Bruce. Neither of you even knew you had it until a few months ago. The subconscious link is one of the, if not the most, private links there is. Only the two of you know you have it.

You reach out and hold Bruce’s face in your hands. He holds onto them and looks back at you. He looks so tired and you wish he didn’t have to go. “I’m not going anywhere so you go and save her.”

Just like you promised, you stayed asleep. He left you in that space of darkness and you stood in it for another minute before shifting the space into the Wayne Manor. You always walked in through the front door because the Manor always felt like such a sacred space for Bruce.

When you were with him, you would often see his family, the boys running around through the corridors and hallways, sometimes in their suits or in civilian clothing. Bruce would replay the moments he spent with them, watching TV, eating dinner, training, or even just sitting around and telling each other about their days.

Those were the best moments. They deserve more of those, not what Bruce mostly shows you, which are the fights, the yelling, the arguments, and the silent crying. He relives these moments with you instantly because he almost can’t do them by himself anymore.

“Sometimes when I’m standing in front of them and it gets too much, I forget myself and I just grab at your hand like you’re there beside me,” he said.

You stare at your hand and wish Bruce was there holding it tightly like he always does. On some occasions, Bruce thinks of someone he hasn’t seen for days and desperately misses. You’ve only seen him do it twice. Once with Jason and the other with Damian when they fought and he stayed with his mother for months.

You want to think about Bruce, standing here with you but you don’t. Neither of you does that because it feels like cheating. Your imagination could never live up to the real.

You walk along the hall and lean against the doorframe that leads into the study. There was one moment when Bruce missed his parents so badly that he relived the memory of when he annoyed his father until he would throw a ball with him in the garden. You watched, amused, as Bruce shifted himself into his younger self. A child with bright blue eyes and always smiling from ear to ear, so full of mirth.

But now the manor is completely empty.

You walk beside its walls like a ghost that can’t touch anything.

You walk up the stairs and down the long corridors until you reach Bruce’s room. You find it the same way the two of you left it from the other night, with pillows on the floor, sheets disheveled, and a broken lamp tucked away in the corner.

You smile as you walk forward and fall face down onto Bruce’s bed. The sheets don’t smell like anything and it’s exactly how Bruce smells. After honing his sense of smell beyond human ability, he’s become sensitive to everything. When he’s dreaming he shuts off all of his senses and relaxes.

You lie there for an hour, maybe less or more, you don’t know. Time is the most unstable factor in the dreamscape. You and Bruce have had to set up the most aggressive alarms just so the two of you won’t sleep away a whole day together. Again.

You bring your knees closer to your chest, emulating the sudden constricting hold wrapping around your torso. You grip the sheets in your hands until your knuckles are white and you let horrific sobs wrack through your body. You cry loudly inside the empty bedroom.

You cry until your subconscious couldn’t produce any more tears and it feels like your throat has closed up.

Finally, you get up and go down to the cave, walking in through the old grandfather in the study. You climb down the stairs as slow as you can and focus so that the dream won’t add more steps. You count the number Bruce has given you. When you reach the landing, you stare out at the illuminated cave and the parts that are still shrouded in darkness.

You walk past the glass displays that store their old costumes, Dick’s, Jason’s, Tim’s, Cass’, and Damian’s, until you reach the computer. You place yourself in front of the monitors, tucking your legs underneath you as you sit in a chair almost twice your size, and wrap yourself in a blanket you and Bruce shared on other nights when you would just sit and talk. You turn on the computer and let it boot up as if you’re actually there and not sleeping in your bedroom.

But you don’t touch the mouse or the keyboard. Instead, your mind forces the monitor to show you videos and clips of what Bruce could be doing right now. He might be infiltrating a prison cell hidden in the subbasement of a secret government building, a hidden island in the Pacific Ocean, or an illegal lab that experiments on soulmates and metas.

You watch one of the screens that’s showing Batman crawling inside a long air vent. He stops in front of a set of grills and looks in. You can see beds with two that are occupied, some desks and cabinets, a tall man in the middle of the room, and the biggest figure in the room stands between him and the door.

You lean in close to the monitor as you watch Bruce unscrew the grills. You watch as golden smoke rises up to the ceiling, making Bruce pause for a brief second. You still have the image of it in your head when suddenly the woman on one of the beds leaps at the tall figure.

Bruce is already through the vent and scaling along the walls when you realize that was Wonder Woman. She’s shaking, one hand clinging onto the table to stand upright. You gasp when the huge figure smashes her into the ground.

You watch the rest of the scene play out, inching closer and closer. You shout out Bruce’s name when you see Scarecrow come up behind him and injects him. You finally breathe better when nothing happens and you relax more as you watch them escape.

Suddenly, the monitors shut down and the lights around the outer walls of the cave turn off one by one, and then the whole cave is drowned in darkness. It takes a long second before the soft glow of the emergency lights light up the platform.

You definitely didn’t do that.

You hear groaning behind you and jump off the chair as you turn around. There on the medical table, Bruce is sitting up and looking around the cave frantically, as if he doesn’t recognize the place. He looks frightened and weak, standing up too quickly and staggering toward you. “Where’s Alfred?”

You quickly go to his aid. He wraps an arm around your shoulder as you help him stand. “He was just here,” he mumbles, turning his head to look around the platform. “He was just… testing me for poisons.”

“Poisons?” you gasp. Scarecrow’s mask immediately springs back into your mind. “I thought that was nothing. I thought you were fine. You were…” you suddenly realize that what you saw on the monitor wasn’t just your imagination. It was Bruce’s memories.

“Bruce, you’re asleep now.”

“I’m not,” he protests. “I’m in the Batcave. I was with Alfred but you were…”

“No, Bruce,” you whisper, almost pleading. “You’re asleep.” Something’s definitely wrong. Bruce has always had the better handle on your link, always better at controlling the dreamscape and filtering his subconscious. Lucid dreaming is still a skill you have a hard time nurturing but Bruce handles it with talent.

“B-Bruce…” you both turn at the sound of somebody else’s voice softly echoing in the cave. He sounds out of breath and gurgling. It’s Robin. Jason. He’s holding his side with both of his hands while blood is seeping between his fingers.

“Oh my god,” you whisper.

His face is badly bruised. His mask is torn in half and his eye is swollen. He coughs out blood and you feel Bruce’s fingers digging into your shoulder. “H-help…”

As Jason falls, Bruce drags himself away from you and kneels right beside Jason. His hands are badly shaking over Jason’s still body, so afraid to touch him. “No. Not again. Late again,” you hear him say. His thoughts are starting to filter out of his own head and into both of yours.

You can hear the chaos as different voices fill the dream. Bruce is devastated by the death of Jason but Batman is telling him it’s not real. You can hear an eerie whispering sound coming from him as he rocks his body in shock over Jason’s body.

“It’s the toxin. It’s the toxin. It’s the toxin.”

You muster the courage to take the steps toward Bruce and Jason. You flinch at the pale boy’s face and then pry your eyes away. You kneel down beside Bruce and touch his shoulder. You wait until he turns to you, “Bruce, please.” You hold his face in your hands, forcing him to look into your eyes. “That’s not Jason.”

Bruce whimpers and closes his eyes. He holds your hands and presses them harder against his cheeks as the tears start to come. “Not real,” he whispers like a mantra.

Metal skidding on the platform breaks both of your concentration. Barbara is rushing onto the platform, frantically turning the wheels of her wheelchair until she skids to a stop in front of you.

“Bruce!” she yells out and then there’s the sound of a door slamming and Barbara turns around in fear.

You follow her gaze that’s directed somewhere off the platform. It’s all black. Then there’s a gunshot and Barbara goes limp in her wheelchair, her head hanging on one side with a bullet hole in her forehead.

You’re screaming. Barbara’s eyes are wide open. You know this scene. You’ve seen it. You know who’s in the darkness. “Bruce, you need to calm down,” you whimper desperately. “You’re going to--”

Maniacal laughter fills every crevice and every crack of the cave. You look around the ceiling, desperately clinging onto Bruce’s cape. A voice boom out from the darkness, “Ello Batsy!”

Your whole body goes rigid as he steps out from the shadows, one leg first like an entertainer coming through the curtain. His pale white face stands out against the darkness. He’s grinning wildly. “Been a while.”

You choke down a whimper and his face quickly turns to you. “Oooooh. What do we have here?” He steps closer to the two of you. “Looks like you got yourself a soulmate, Batsy. And here I was thinking I’m the one.” Joker leans close to your face and glares at you with his eyebrows touching.

You prepare yourself to start inching back but then he grabs you by the throat and lifts you off the floor. The force is so strong that Bruce falls on his back with his hands bracing him. Scarecrow’s fear toxin has been completely absorbed by his system and he’s run out of control in the dreamscape. For the first time that you’ve been with him, Bruce is completely incapacitated with fear.

You choke as the bony fingers of the madman dig into your skin. It hurts and you can’t breathe. Everything suddenly feels so real.

The Joker laughs as you choke.

“No…” Bruce whispers, finally finding some semblance of his own voice. But it’s so low and broken. He sounds like a boy. “No. Please.”

You want this dream to be over. You try to claw at the Joker’s hands. He laughs in your face and the next thing you hear is a bone crack.

The Joker lets you go and you lie there unable to move. This is wrong. You’re supposed to wake up. You’re supposed to leave.

You’re on the floor with your bent neck and your head lying on the side, facing Bruce. He’s staring at you with wide eyes and his mouth is open. He drags his knees close to you and you can see his whole body shaking as he leans down. “No… no…”

Gently he picks you up to hold you in his arms. He’s staring down at your face, watching the stillness and pale skin. His subconscious is too strong and you feel like you’re dead because he truly believes it.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

You can feel it too. You can actually feel the rigor mortis kicking in and it’s scaring you. Is this how it feels to die?

Bruce’s head hangs low and you see the tears fall before feeling their warmth on your skin.

“Not you too… Please, not you...”

You want to whimper. You want to cry. You just want this to be over. You have got to be stronger than Bruce. You have to block out his thoughts and overpower him.

You will yourself to concentrate until you can move a single finger. Then another. Until you can move one hand. That’s all you need. Slowly, you lift it to touch his face and his eyes widen. He grabs your hand and clasps it while he stares at you with furrowed brows.

“Y-you’re right, Bruce,” you struggle to say, slowly feeling his hold on the dreamscape crumble. “I’m not real. None of this is.” Bruce shakes his head. “Please… just wake up.”

You shut your eyes and force the dreamscape to completely obliterate.

Bruce is sweating and raking in large breaths at a time when he wakes up on the medical table. Only some time has passed. Alfred is there with a sad expression on his face as the monitor’s angry blue lights frame his silhouette.

Bruce focuses his eyes on the monitor and finds a graph with greatly varying spikes connected to different types of chemicals. “W-what just…” he breathes out.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred says gently, “It appears to be an alteration of Scarecrow’s fear toxin.”

Bruce groans as he drops down from the table, “What kind of alteration?”

Alfred doesn’t answer him right away. Instead, he stares at Bruce and from the way he looks, he might already know, “It’s a lot milder. Mild enough to not affect your consciousness…” he let his words hang as he watches the slow recognition dawn on Bruce’s face. “And only affect you while you’re unconscious.”

Bruce clenches his fists and suddenly finds it hard to swallow.

“They know.”

✧ 1 ✧ 2 ✧ 3 ✧ 4 ✧ 5

✧ Watchtower Masterlist ✧

#ssa #superhero soulmate au #DC fanfiction #DC imagines #DC reader insert #batman fanfiction #batman imagine #batman x reader #bruce wayne imagine #bruce wayne fanfiction #bruce wayne x reader #watchtower-feed #acropen #lexyartem

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chaoticoconut · 5 years ago

Text

BARBARA GORDON HEADCANONS THAT MAKE ME SWOON!!

(and so can you!! alfkvoekfndnej does anyone get that reference anyhoo)

I couldn't NOT post these idk I was showering and then I was hit with a mf tornado of hcs about my favorite gal and I figured I'd share :))))

Barbara and Tim are actually the most potty mouthed members of the batfam, excluding Kate. Jason is close, but only when he's upset (which probably seems trivial bc he's yk always upset but I hc him a pretty chill if not bitter and snarky guy). Tim cusses more when he's tired, but he consciously tries to bite his tongue. Barbara has no remorse and cusses very casually and openly, because she sees no point in abstaining. It releases endorphins guys. Duh. She uses those ridiculous "holy heck Batman!" lines as Batgirl unless she's genuinely thrown off her game. She limits her cussing a lot as Oracle bc she's not one to offend people, and you never know. It's most definitely a civilian thing for her, and anyone who knows Babs knows she's a fucking sailor.

Her favorite food of all time is pizza. Her dream house has a brick pizza oven. She has a food blog with every pizzeria in the greater Gotham area ranked from best to worst. Her favorite of all time is the Gotham Pizza Garden, which is located in Old Gotham near the police station. Technically it's the second best pizza in Gotham, second to Gargoyle Pie Company, which is renowned for being the epitome of Gotham-style pizza and is always busy. She has a lot of memories of GPG though, and loves both pies. GPG also has an incredible Chicago style pizza, which is her second favorite type of pizza. She does however believe Gotham style is superior and thinks less of Dick for disagreeing (@blanddcheadcanons tie-in heyo!!) Very few things make Babs as happy as gourmet pizza.

She grew up watching Teenage Mutant Turtles, Powerpuff Girls, and Star Trek. They all hold a very special place in her heart. There is totally a connection between her love of pizza and TMNT and turtles and mixed martial arts. She once got the boys to go as the turtles for Halloween, with her crushing it as April.

Speaking of turtles, she's had a pet turtle named after icon Nichelle Nichols since high school. Yes, she does call her Shelly. Yes it's cliche. No she does not care. She also has a calico cat named Cornflake that Dick gave her as a birthday present. She doesn't have pet dogs until she and Dick finally settle down. She never had them growing up because her father is allergic and her mother was a devout cat lady. She's not really sure why she never got any on her own, she's just more familiar with cats. After her mom passed away, she did get a bunch of bunnies whom she and JJ named after their favorite horror movie monsters and serial killers.

She loves slasher flicks. It's a family thing. JJ was creepy about it, Jim loves the thrill, Babs loves the mythos, and her mom was never really afraid of anything and found them funny.

She inherited her mother's love for baking. She left her her cookbook, which contains an amazing mixed berry pie recipe. Her pie baking abilities rival Alfred's. She even begins to branch out with her recipes and experiment with all sorts of fillings and even cake-pies (fanfic au tie-in heyo). Everybody loves a Barbara baked good. She knows everyone's faves and literally crushes holiday season. Dick is all about the og mixed berry pie, whereas Jay, who loves lemon everything (hc I saw awhile ago that I just love) prefers either a lemon meringue or a raspberry lemon. Tim is all about strawberry open face while Steph prefers cherry cheesecake or pecan pie. Cass and Bruce both love her cinnamon apple pie. Duke loves just about anything she bakes, but especially her more adventurous, contest winning pies like kiwi-blueberry-black cherry and other originals. Kate will die for Babs' cherry pie. Damian prefers blackberry or mixed like Dick. Alfred is a sweet potato pie kind of guy himself. There's a farmer's market in Blüdhaven her mother went with her to when she was a kid that Barbara still goes to get get all the fresh fruit.

Even better than Barbara or Alfred baking alone is them baking together. Roy Harper is also a pretty good baker. They all trade recipes with Martha Kent. M'gann brings wine to the manor and assembles them all for fun days of baking.

She's also totally the type of gal who made a shit ton of cupcakes when she ran for class prez and stayed I from Batgirl duties to finish them. Just saying.

She picks baking back up as Oracle but several hero emergencies lead her to burn perfectly good desserts.

She and Roy will always have puppy-love crushes on one another and be totally oblivious. They both did ballet as kids, love baking, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, shameless empty flirting, and tech. They're completely platonic and really great lifelong friends. They met at a Wayne gala as kids.

As if she wasn't already talented enough, she's completely ambidextrous. I'm jealous. Dick and Wally are left handed. Bruce is similarly ambi. Selina's a leftie. Maybe Alfred too.

She likes to enter contests and win for fun. She's a monster. Everything from baking to video games to weight lifting, she loves showing people up.

Dick, Babs, and Tim all snore atrociously loud. The batfam hates it. She's the quietest out of them all, but she's also a blanket hog. And a major cuddler.

Her favorite colors are grey and green. Purple does deserve an honorable mention however. Her apartment is a fair mix of green and grey decor and covered in books.

She was a total ballerina growing up, just like her mom wanted. That was until she discovered how kick ass martial arts were, and she got a little too jacked to continue with ballet as a formidable career option. Her next best option is becoming a cop at this point, but her father believes that not only would it be far too dangerous but a waste of her skills (like ballet cough cough). This upsets her so much she goes off and invents Batgirl, complete with a stole grappling gun from evidence.

In college she works as a barista and excels at it. Her dream is to open up a cafe/bakery/flower shop with Dinah some day. She wants to call her half Bean Me Up Scotty! (another hc I saw and fell in love with)

Babs is also a pretty good cook being that she became the family chef at a young age (Jim can barbeque and make spaghetti. That's literally it. Maybe some breakfast). Cooking lessons from Alfred certainly helped.

Her personality is so versatile. She can get along with pretty much anyone due to her wide range of interests and skills which is what makes Oracle so bad ass. She's also a Libra so she adapts fairly easily to any group without seeming fake.

She has a podcast where she rants about tech and feminism and politics and plays video games

She SO took Latin in high school and dominated competitions. She loves classical studies and is a dork for Greek and Roman mythology as well as linguistics. She has a pretty good grasp on all of the romance languages, and learns languages fairly quickly.

She always smells like mint and books. She has killer mint shampoo and conditioner, which is a Kean family thing (they just love the scent). She always smells refreshing.

She likes coffee but prefers tea always. She's like Ramona Flowers with tea

Her music taste is total 90s nostalgia (grunge, boybands, air pop, ska, hip hop) meets far too indie 4 u. Yes she's pretentious. Yes she loves chick rock and *NSYNC and Britney and Kurt Cobain and Biggie and deal with it. She also loves shit you've never even heard of. Was totally into the Gotham punk scene as a teen.

She collects vinyl and books and horror flicks ugh hipster queen

She loves spicy food and Dick cannot stand it. They both like sour candy though

If your Barbara Gordon didn't graduate high school at 16 she doesn't have rights

She was all of the Robin's first crush. Duh. Tim will always think she's the gold standard of women. He likes that she usually sticks up for him. He doesn't mind being seen as her male equivalent lmao

At some point Jay and Babs are roommates and it's literally the best I'll talk abt that later

Her type is guys with dark hair or blonde gals.

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violetsmoak · 5 years ago

Text

Tabula Rasa [1/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20183281/chapters/47822500

Blanket Disclaimer

Summary: Tim and Jason have known they are soulmates for years, though neither has said anything about it. Tim thinks Jason doesn't know, and is just trying to live with it. Jason thinks Tim knows but doesn't care, which is fine with him, he thinks the soulmate thing is a crock anyway. But one night, a minor mishap forces them to confront the issue head-on, leading to a series of events no one could have predicted.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: #a lie #bright vivid colours #danger #enemies to lovers #soulmate aversion #soulmark tattoo

Canon-Compliance: Follows the New Earth continuity, with elements of New 52 (ie the ones that don’t completely contradict everything that happened pre-Flashpoint). Ignores Rebirth completely. So, up to about 2016 in terms of publication dates? Robins War happened, but Red Hood hasn’t met Artemis or Bizarro, and nothing bad has happened to Roy ffs!

Beta Reader: I'll get back to you on that.

________________________________________________________________

“Three cheers for the happy couple!”

The south wing ballroom of Wayne Manor erupts with the raucous shouts and applause of a hundred and twenty reception attendees. Tim’s congratulations get lost in the din, but he does catch Dick’s eye and flash him a thumbs up.

Seated at the high table, his older brother leans in and kisses his bride, which causes more cheering and catcalls from the guests, and makes the normally unflappable and newly named Barbara Gordon-Grayson blush.

Tim turns away and pastes a smile on his face as the Davenports, a senior couple and two of Wayne Enterprises' most influential shareholders, approach him.

Time to be ‘on’ again…

A generous mix of family friends (most of whom are vigilantes or heroes), and GCPD officers, fill the ballroom. These are interspersed with a few Haly’s Circus performers, and the requisite number of elite guests required by the Society pages of the Gotham Gazette.

Bride and bridegroom sit at the head table with their respective entourages, engaged in animated chatter. Babs and her maid of honor Alysia dissolve into laughter as Dick says something to Damian, who scowls and turns redder by the minute. The Gordon family is there, the Commissioner conversing in stiff politeness with his ex-wife Barbara, and Bruce is in full “Brucie” mode. In the background, Alfred directs the hired staff with his usual decorum and efficiency.

Across the room, Cassandra drags Stephanie over to the dance floor. At a smaller round table near the bride and groom, Duke just misses being speared with a fork by his girlfriend when he tries to sneak a piece of Izzy’s cake. Helena flirts with both Luke and Kate and Tim’s sure Selina is somewhere in the house stealing something to lure Bruce over to her place later.

It’s rare to have so many members of the family together in one room, and so Tim does his best to ignore the lingering dismay at the glaring absence in their numbers.

Dick and Babs look at each other now and again, like they’re the only ones in the world, and he makes an effort to find it adorable. He bolsters the jovial front he’s been wearing all night, reminding himself that his happiness for his brother and new sister-in-law isn’t something that needs faking. It took so long for them to sort everything out between them; it goes to show that being soulmates doesn’t equal an automatic perfect relationship.

I know that better than anyone.

It’s just getting more difficult with every passing hour to maintain the graceful Timothy Drake-Wayne façade.

“It will be your turn next,” Mrs. Davenport informs him, while her husband nods along. “Since Richard and dear Cassandra have found their matches, you’re the only one left.”

Tim’s smile becomes a little more forced. “Well, there is Damian.”

The demon brat looks as if he swallowed a mouthful of peppercorns as Brucie leans over and ruffles his hair, laughing his raucous fake laugh.

Now I’m glad Dick didn’t ask me to be his best man, or I’d be the chump stuck up there.

Not that he was that upset when he heard the news.

Tim’s distanced himself enough from the loss of Robin to accept Damian needs as much help as they can offer if he is ever to be a ‘real boy’. Little gestures like this from Dick are part of a larger plan. And it was endearing, in a way, to see the kid stomping around in the weeks leading up to the wedding, trying to check off a list of best man duties he’d printed off the internet.

And dissolving into teenaged fury when innocent things went wrong or when the groom teased him by flouting what Damian considered ‘according to convention’.

And then there was that bachelor party he organized…

It would seem extreme trampoline parks were a thing; also, getting banned from said parks within an hour for trampolining while drunk was a thing.

“Yes, but he’s still so…young,” Mrs. Davenport says, bringing him back to the present. Tim perceives how she hesitates on the best word to describe the youngest member of the Wayne family.

“It’s fine, you can call him a prepubescent terror. I always do.”

“Oh, Timothy!” Garish laughter as if he told the most hilarious joke of the season. “You are such a character. Why haven’t you found your someone yet?”

Tim catches sight of Steph once again, dancing with Cass and looking carefree and blissful and in love. And this time it’s a bit harder to experience only joy for his siblings, more of a struggle to fight the pang of hurt and jealousy that rears its head.

“You’re almost eighteen,” her husband remarks, interrupting his thoughts. “Most people find their matches much younger. Eleanor and I met when we were fourteen.”

“Oh, it was a beautiful summer in the Hamptons.”

“And it seems like youth today are finding each other earlier every year.”

“My sister and Stephanie didn’t,” Tim points out, only somewhat strained because that one still stings.

He and Steph had been together for most of their teenage years. She hadn’t possessed a soulmark, and Tim’s…would lead nowhere. He truly loved her, and if things were different, he knows they would have had a happy future. Lots of people whose marks don’t match are.

But then the day Spoiler and Black Bat met, they’d shaken hands, and everything fell into place. He’ll never forget either of their eyes—Steph bemused as her mark appeared for the first time and then exploded into color across her forearms; Cass puzzled until she realized what was happening. Then her face became an open book of joy rivaled only by how she looked when Bruce told her he intended to adopt her.

Faced with their happiness, it was only natural that Tim took a step back, much as it hurt to do.

“Perhaps your soulmate lives in another country,” Mr. Davenport suggests; it is clear he is not picking up on Tim’s reluctance.

“Oh!” his wife cries. “You should go on that television show they have now! You know, the one where they try to help you track down your match? I can’t remember the name, but it’s something like The Amazing Race or the Bachelorette.”

“Perhaps yours is younger than you. That happens sometimes.”

“Yes! May-December relationships aren’t that uncommon with your generation, I hear.”

“Or maybe they’re dead,” Tim suggests, and though his tone is light and friendly, his words shut them up in an instant.

Because if very well could be true.

Tim’s never shown off his mark in public, and he told Steph that exact story when she asked all those years ago. At the time, he wasn’t even lying.

Soulmarks develop around puberty and last the duration of the lifespan of the shorter-lived partner. Some people are born with several, the way Dick was, and some only share platonic or familial bonds, like Alfred and Bruce. Others have none at all. When a soulmate dies, the mark associated with them vanishes.

That’s because most don’t come back from the dead.

Still smiling at the now cringing couple, Tim takes his leave, letting them stew in their faux pas as he wanders toward the bride and groom’s table. He’s reached his limit.

Not wanting to crouch down in the middle of their group, he gestures until his brother sees him and makes an excuse to Babs. She’s following his gaze, offering Tim a worried look, but he smiles and shakes his head, trying to telegraph ‘It’s nothing. Go back to your celebration.’

Dick is red-faced and his eyes brighter than usual when he gets to Tim; people been plying him with generous amounts of alcohol all day. “Hey, Timmy, what’s up?”

“I think I‘ll make my way out,” he replies. “Do a bit of patrolling and then turn in.”

“Tim…”

Dick’s expression becomes concerned, and Tim shifts in discomfort.

“Someone has to be on the streets while you guys are slacking,” he jokes. “You know it took an Act of Alfred to get Bruce to take the night off, right?”

(It was also pointed out that if any of big players had planned anything tonight, probability and precedent suggested they would try it at the Gordon-Grayson reception.)

“You don’t have to do that! I’ve already got one brother missing.”

“Consider this my wedding present. You get to stay and enjoy your party with the rest of the family.”

“You’re just trying to worm your way of giving us a real gift,” Dick accuses, but the words lack malice. With a surreptitious glance around to ensure they aren’t being overheard, he lowers his voice and asks, “Are things getting bad again? Do you need to talk? Because Babs won’t mind if I duck out for a bit.”

And he’s always doing this, checking in with Tim, even years after it’s been an issue.

There’s a distinct possibility Dick has noticed how uncomfortable the atmosphere is making him, despite him doing his utmost to hide it, to keep from casting a dark cloud over the festivities.

And Tim should be okay.

Bruce is back from having lost his memories, Damian’s stopped his determined attempts to sabotage or kill him, his relationship with Dick is almost normal again, he has his team and place with the Titans, and there hasn’t been a major crisis in Gotham for about a month which is a record.

Yet he still feels raw and exposed, ill at ease in his skin.

Bruce has been questioning him a lot more, criticizing the way he handles not only cases but projects at WE. Tim worries there’s less time for him to recover between being Tim Wayne, CEO, and Red Robin. And the Titans are getting to the age where many of them want to strike out on their own or pursue more civilian interests—jobs and schools and a normal life. He respects that, even if he doesn’t understand it.

He has never had a normal life, and never will.

But he does have more and more days now where he looks at himself in the mirror and wonders how he’s supposed to keep doing this forever. Can’t figure out how Bruce has managed it for so long. Tim suspects he’s becoming little more than his daytime public persona and his nighttime alter ego.

Who exactly is Tim Drake?

Instead of voicing any of this, though, he musters up a comforting smile for his brother and assures him, “There’s nothing to talk about. It’s like every day. Just one step at a time, right?”

Dick’s expression clears then, and he nods, relieved. “Okay. If you’re sure.”

“And Dick?”

“Yeah?”

“Congrats.”

“Aw, thanks, Timmy.”

A bone-crushing hug later, and Tim’s car peels out of the estate parking garage, still ignoring the growing pit in his stomach.

He returns to his apartment in the Theater District, shedding his suit and tie in a pile that Alfred would have a coronary over if he were there to see it. Jumping in the shower, he scrubs himself of any traces of his cologne or other identifying scents he might have picked up at the reception and tries to get himself back into a clearer headspace.

He pauses for a moment at the sink, trying to shake off the lingering, bone-deep exhaustion. Several prescription bottles line the mirror—various sleeping aids, most of which don’t help anymore (but the rebound insomnia of stopping them isn’t worth the trouble). These days it’s only the heavy-duty sleep narcotics that work when he needs to turn his brain off for a few hours.

Among the personal pharmacy are several combinations of anti-depressants he tried in the past few months. Most of the time he powers through it, the way he’s done his whole life, but in recent weeks Tim’s noticed things getting hard again. The helpful alerts he sets on his phone don’t always convince him to leave his bed and even video games lack the usual draw. He sometimes gets lost in his head for hours; on bad nights, he hesitates a second longer before shooting a grapple line or dodging a knife. In rare moments, he considers his sleeping pills a little too much consideration, at which point he calls Dick or Connor. Talks to someone so he isn’t so alone.

As he dries off, Tim stares down at his right wrist, examining the complicated knotwork design emblazoned there. Swirls of crimson and gold loop in and out of each other, before cutting off along his forearm.

Everyone has a soulmark, an arrangement of swirling shapes across their skin; each is distinctive to the individuals bonded by them. They first appear when a person is in the general vicinity of their soulmate, manifesting as a colorless pattern of darker and lighter shades of melanin. Those patterns fill with bright, rich colors upon physical touching one’s mate. When pressed together, they interlock in only one way and retreat when contact stops.

Soulmates who have reciprocated bonds sport their marks in full and everlasting display. The sight is both beautiful and frustrating to see, even on his family, as he’ll never experience that himself.

His mark might be a stunning amalgamation of scarlet and gold, twisted into a mandala upon his wrist, but it will never be permanent. While it’s been a while since Jason’s made any energetic attempts to kill him, Tim’s resigned himself to living without a completed bond; tolerance is about the only thing he can hope for from his predecessor.

Finding Steph when they were younger had been a joy and a relief. Her not having a mark meant they both had a chance for a fulfilling connection. Until Cass.

Tim forces himself to stop dwelling on it and shoves the bleak thoughts down behind the wall he puts everything uncomfortable and not cohesive to whatever task he’s given himself. Instead, he busies himself with covering up his mark using the spray-on cover that doesn’t fade with water or perspiration, only coming off when scrubbed with a special soap. One of Bruce’s earliest and more practical inventions, since Brucie Wayne and Batman couldn’t have a soulmark in common.

Bruce covers his pretty much all the time, but Tim’s only been covering his when he suits up. He lives his life in disguise, he doesn’t want to hide such an important part of himself when he’s off the clock.

He heads down to the lower levels of his Nest, gets dressed while having the computer scan for trouble. The program calculates probabilities for where violence will crop up, where he should begin his patrol. He hopes for a busy night, something to distract him from his convoluted thoughts.

As usual, he intends to start his rounds off in Tricorner, and then go through Chinatown—which is when he notices movement on a camera that concerns him.

A familiar gleaming scarlet helmet.

Red Hood.

He debates with himself for several minutes.

On the one hand, it’s his regular patrol territory; on the other, seeing the other vigilante tonight, while his mood is already so low, isn’t something he wishes to contend with.

He clenches his fist.

He knew of Jason Todd for a year before discovering the second Robin was his soulmate. By the time he wanted to do anything about it, the older boy was dead, and Tim consigned to grieving in secret.

Then Jason came back, but it was almost worse than him being gone because he hated him. Without having ever met him.

Even now that he’s mellowed out (sort of), Jason appears to reserve more dislike for his successor than anyone else in the family, not counting Bruce and Dick for obvious reasons. Red Hood and Red Robin have run into each other enough in and out of costume that there have been ample opportunities for Jason’s soulmark to make itself known. That Tim has seen nothing close to resembling it means one of two things: either the other man hasn’t developed his mark yet, which is possible albeit rare, or he has, and like Batman, always keeps it covered.

Which says more than enough about his sentiments on the matter.

Between Jason refusing to acknowledge their connection, or just not being aware of it, Tim prefers to believe the latter, if only to make himself feel better. There’s no point in bringing up the soulmate thing at this juncture. He decided years ago to respect the status quo, for the simple reason it’s less painful than the alternative.

All that being said, he doesn’t enjoy watching Jason get in trouble, even more so when the situation is avoidable and he’s near enough to help. At the moment the big idiot is courting a potential gang war.

Sometimes protecting someone means protecting them from themselves and their bad choices, I guess.

Static crackles through the comm in his ear, and then he hears Batman’s low growl. “What’s going on in Chinatown?”

“Why am I not surprised you’re still listening to the comms at your son’s wedding,” Tim sighs. “Nothing. I’m handling it.”

“Are you sure?”

“B, I’ll help A drug you every day for a week,” he threatens. “And you know we both can and will find new and interesting ways of doing it.”

There’s a huff on the other side of the line. “…Noted. Reach out if you need backup.”

“You’ll be the first.”

“You’re lying.”

“Wow, you must be a detective or something,” he deadpans. “Red Robin out.”

Jason is the last person he wants to run into right now, but Tim’s also been cultivating a few informants there and he can’t have that jeopardized.

Looks like I’m going to Chinatown. Hope Lynx is in a good mood…

He wonders if tonight he’ll end up getting beaten up, or just insulted. He’s not even sure which would hurt more.

⁂

Jason goes flying out of the upper story of the restaurant, followed closely by a very tiny woman wielding a very big sword. She reminds him of Cheshire, with a shade less lethality.

Actually, if it were Jade, he would end up critically injured when she lands on him, using him as a cushion against the pavement. He manages to turn his body to land in a way that won’t break his back—though his right side will be a giant bruise tomorrow—and scrambles to his feet.

This is one of the reasons I avoid Chinatown.

Things never go well for him here, especially not since that thing with the Su family. It’s just better to avoid the place. But before that, he and the Ghost Dragons at least used to get along—professional courtesy and all that, along with an unspoken agreement not to step on each other’s toes.

That’s over, apparently.

All he’d wanted to do was ask some questions. One of his stool pigeons passed him some information on a human trafficking ring; according to him, it was based on Chinatown. It would seem sex slavers were luring young women over to the United States with the premise of work and accommodations. Then, upon arrival, the girls were hauled into a life of sexual servitude.

Jason didn’t even go in guns blazing this time or wearing the helmet. Just a domino and a hankering for some barbecue pork bun.

So, either someone tipped them off what I was coming around for, or this kid in the mask has something to prove.

There’s a slow curl of heat moving up the back of his left wrist and up his arm, and his first thought is he’s been cut. Except while the sensation is familiar, it isn’t the liquid warmth of blood.

The woman moves fast, and a beat later her sword is swinging downward. Jason’s hands fly to his holsters, thinking he’s going to have to break out the guns after all when there’s a clang.

Suddenly there’s a bō staff in front of his face, catching the sword inches before it slams into Jason’s nose.

Ah. And there’s the other reason I avoid Chinatown.

Because in the past year or so, it’s been part of the patrol route for a certain Timothy Drake.

A.k.a. his replacement.

A.k.a. Red Robin.

A.k.a. his soulmate.

No wonder that warmth in his hand was familiar; the soulmark must have reacted to the younger man’s approach.

After a brief tussle, there’s the sound of a grapple line firing, and then Tim flies upward, ridiculous cape fluttering, still holding the struggling woman.

Her sword stays on the ground.

“Oh, hell no,” Jason growls, because this is his business, damn it!

When he reaches the roof where Tim’s carried off Jason’s would-be-murderer, he notes they are standing close together, conversing in rapid Cantonese. Jason’s rustier at that than he’d like, but he gets the gist when the woman stalks right up to him and begins yelling and gesturing.

Then she shoves him and pushes away; a smoke bomb goes off, and then she’s gone.

Tim makes no move to go after her.

Which, seriously?

Jason stalks over, looming over the shorter man and touching his hand to the still holstered gun in his belt in an implicit (and mostly baseless) threat. He’s always amused at just how much of a height difference there is between him and his replacement, and tonight he makes a point of lording it over him.

“You guys looked awfully cozy there, Timbers.” Which shouldn’t bother him, but he can’t fight a twinge of irritation. “Care to share with the class what your little tête-à-tête was about?”

The cowl covers Tim’s face, but Jason can imagine the judgemental stare.

“She said your poking around her territory will jeopardize her investigation into the sex traffickers.”

“Her investigation? She’s the damn head of the Ghost Dragons!”

“Yeah, and she’s also an undercover operative sent by Hong Kong PD, which I’m only telling you, so you don’t decide to go and kill her for apparent crimes.”

And that was not what he was expecting.

“How do you know this?”

“She told me. She’s one of my CIs.”

“And you believed her?”

“Cass looked into her for me. She’s legit, even if she’s a little…unorthodox.” Tim’s head tilts to one side, considering; with the cowl it makes him look like his avian namesake. “You’d think you’d appreciate that.”

“On the list of things I don’t appreciate, you showin’ up while I’m chasin’ a lead is one of them,” Jason growls. “Don’t you have a party to be at?”

“I ducked out early.”

“Well, that’s lame.”

“Not as lame as someone who ignores the fifteen invitations he was sent.”

Ah, and now they’re back on familiar ground.

“Pfft, I’ve seen enough Brucie to last me several lifetimes.”

“Yeah, but it was for Dick. All you had to do was show up—” his mouth twitches here; Jason can’t tell if it’s amusement or irritation, “—in jeans, even.”

“I’ve been dead once; I don’t need Alfie murderin’ me for that big a faux pas. And somehow I doubt Barbie would appreciate if her wedding photos included Dickiebird sporting a swollen eye.”

Tim sighs. “What are you fighting about this time?”

“Other than the usual stuff? We’re not. But I’m sure he’d put his foot in it at some point and need a nice bit of cognitive recalibration.”

“And you, the perfectly innocent party in all this, would happily provide that?”

“Call it a civic duty.”

Tim shakes his head, but Jason thinks it’s done in amusement this time, instead of exasperation.

“I don’t know how she can settle for that birdbrain,” he continues. “How does she stand bein’ around him so often without wantin’ to punch him in the face every time he opens his mouth?”

“Maybe not every time.”

“Point still stands.”

“Well, they’re soulmates,” Tim says vaguely, distant like he’s not paying attention to what he’s saying. He fiddles with his wrist computer, giving no indication that he is aware of anything else.

Jason’s pretty sure that’s not the case.

After all, he’s practiced in the art of pretending not to feel how his soulmark warms the closer he stands to Tim. There’s no question Tim’s learned to do the same.

It might be hypocritical of him, but that makes him angry somehow.

“As if that explains it all,” Jason sneers. “Come on, Replacement, I thought out of all of them, your whole logical-scientific-question-everything-Klingon-mind wouldn’t go for that hokey soulmate crap.”

“Vulcan.”

That brings him up short. “What?”

“It’s Vulcan culture that’s more focussed on logicality and empirical data-gathering. Klingons are more combat-oriented and tend toward more aggressive means of…” He trails off when he realizes Jason staring at him. “What?”

“You complete nerd,” Jason tells him. “No wonder you left the wedding early. I bet socializin’ with normal people probably stressed you right the fuck out, didn’t it?”

Tim gives a noncommittal shrug.

“Havin’ a soulmate doesn’t mean people should be together,” Jason goes on, filled with the sudden need to hammer home this point. “Look at all the examples from history—Cleopatra and Antony, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Bonnie and Clyde—” He ticks the couples off his finger. “They were all soulmates and they all either made each other miserable or got each other killed.”

“You can’t apply a few historical anomalies to every soulmate pair,” Tim counters. “Life circumstances skew the data.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that fate shouldn’t decide if people will magically work out!”

“That’s not…” Tim appears frustrated, at last, putting down his wrist computer and clenching his jaw. “It’s not supposed to work out magically. It’s about finding the person who completes you. You still need to work at it. It’s not all magically going to fall in place, and you’ll be happy forever right away. Even soulmates don’t get to live perfect lives.”

Ain’t that the truth, Jason muses, considering Tim.

“Sounds like you want a soulmate,” he points out, a little stiffly, and what the hell possessed him to say that?

He wonders what the kid is going to say now, or if this is the day their careful pretense, the lie of not knowing gets shattered.

Luckily, though, Tim avoids opening that can of worms.

He takes a step back from Jason, looks away and mutters, “It’s not relevant to the Mission.” Which is a total cop-out, but Jason will take it. “Anyway, if you’re done causing trouble here and riling up the gangs, I’ll take my leave.”

“Wish you would.”

Tim shoots him an unimpressed glare—or at least, that’s what it seems like to Jason. “Don’t make me come back here. And for god’s sake, at least call and congratulate the happy couple.”

He grapples away rather than allow a witty retort; Jason watches him go with a scowl. Once he’s sure the other vigilante is gone, he tugs the glove off his left hand, frowning at the whorls of crimson and yellow retreating down his forearm and back to his wrist.

His soulmark appeared one night a few evenings before the Garzonas incident. Jason vaguely remembers swinging through an alley to escape yet another argument with Bruce and knocking out a bunch of thugs threatening a kid. He’d been so buzzed on adrenaline and fury he hadn’t noticed the warmth in his wrist. He only caught sight of the mark itself when he returned to the Cave.

And then he spent the night wondering if one of the assholes he knocked around was his soulmate. It wasn’t a comforting idea, and he’d decided then and there to cover up the mark and forget about it. The disappointment about his potential soulmate had been a contributing factor in a long line of shit the universe decided to dump on him that sent him to Ethiopia. If he was linked to scum like that, he wanted to be as far as possible from Gotham.

It never even occurred to him to imagine the kid in the alley was his match. Hell, it didn’t even register when he discovered that Tim Drake had been following Batman and Robin around for years.

Only that day at the Tower, when Jason made his first move against Batman and attacked his replacement, did he finally make the connection.

His mark reacted the minute they were in the same room, spreading across his skin and swirling about seeking its partner. Jason had been so far gone with rage that the sight of it had made him angrier, made him hit harder—because if he didn’t meet Tim before, it meant their bond hadn’t been strong enough to keep him from making the biggest mistake of his life.

It meant he was supposed to meet him after being ripped apart and rebuilt as a weapon.

Luckily, or not, Tim was unconscious before the manifested completed, sneaking out from beneath the long green gauntlets of Jason’s fake Robin suit.

And if he did happen to notice before passing out, the kid hasn’t said anything about it.

Probably hates me and doesn’t want to acknowledge the universe’s idea of a shit joke.

Jason doesn’t blame him. Soulmates are a crock of shit anyway, and Tim’s better off without being tethered to him, and vice versa. They should keep pretending.

Because Jason doesn’t get to be happy.

And Tim deserves better than him because Tim—as much as he’s a pain in the ass—is good.

“And on that note,” Jason murmurs to himself, putting his gauntlet back on, “time to play the villain.”

The tip he received put him in the Ghost Dragons’ crosshairs—which means someone on his payroll is making a move, either against him or against someone else.

Time to find out for sure.

And no more moping over this soulmate crap.

Johnny Lino is the head of an investment company that’s just a front for his money laundering. He’s been passing the Red Hood information about his clients for the better part of a year now, ever since Jason put the fear of Hood in him. Quite a feat, considering the man’s a few inches taller and broader.

Jason finds him in a condo off the Diamond District, watching the Knights game and stuffing his face with pretzels.

Ponzi schemes don’t buy manners, I guess.

“Johnny,” he greets in a clear, would-be friendly manner that has the older man choking up his most recent handful. “Long time no see. Got a bone to pick with you.”

He expects there to be some mumbling and groveling, a few bald-faced lies that require the generous application of foot to face and the reassurance that everything in Jason’s sandbox is back to the way it should be.

So, it surprises him when Johnny scrambles for something that Jason notes too late is a panic button. All of a sudden, half a dozen masked men in combat gear and carrying assault rifles are busting through the door.

“That’s a bit of an overreaction to some conversation, don’t ya think?” Jason asks, throwing himself into action to deal with the interlopers. Bullets fly and knives slice toward him, but in five minutes he’s standing in the ruins of the room with six unconscious men.

And one dead one.

Johnny’s got a neat hole in the side of his head, from one of his hired muscle’s guns, Jason presumes.

“And doesn’t that say a lot about the quality of hired muscle in Gotham these days?” he grumbles, kicking at the body. “Can’t even trust your own people not to shoot you by accident.”

He can hear sirens, knows a neighbor or someone has called in the noise and heads for the fire exit before anyone can link him to the scene. That’s all he needs is the big Bat thinking he pulled the trigger in there.

And damn it, the giant bastard was one of my best sources. Now I’ve got to find someone else.

The encounter bothers him.

He’s had people on his payroll get shifty before, but it’s been his experience that there’s more of a prelude before the attempt to stab him in the back. They try to run or talk their way out of it; it seems Johnny went all out, trying to take out the Red Hood, all because of a bit of questionable information.

If he was so desperate to hire a kill squad rather than answer some well-deserved questions…

Maybe it’s not me that spooked him.

He thinks back to the shot that killed Johnny, remembers the angle it hit the head, and where the exit wound was. The opposite direction from where the thugs entered—from the window.

“There was another shooter,” he realizes.

A quick visit to the building opposite confirms his suspicion: the scrape where someone set up a tripod, bullet casing rolled to one side.

It wasn’t Johnny afraid to talk to the Red Hood—someone else feared he would.

Question is, were they worried he’d talk or worried he’d talk to me?

⁂⁂⁂

Next Chapter

This blog isn’t my primary, so my reblogs don’t show up very well. As such, please reblog the fic, otherwise not a lot of people are going to see it :)

<3 Violet

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oikawas · 6 years ago

Note

Number 6 Bruce and Jason PEAS

“No one’s going to hurt you.”

Getting dosed with Fear Toxin is something that is commonplace among the Bats, especially afters all their years of defending Gotham in the dead of night. It’s the reason why the Medbay cots have restraints attached to them, and indirect cause of so many scratches and indentations in the Cave. It’s the only thing other than sleep that can make them relive all their past traumas so viciously and wholly, be it falls, gunshots, deaths.

But for all its commonality, none of them have ever seen Jason Todd high on the toxin. And when they finally do, it’s not something they ever wish to experience again, for secrets have a funny way of bleeding out when there are tears in your eyes and your throat has gone raw.

It begins as a normal Friday night: an Arkham breakout.

Such a mess warrants an ‘all hands on deck’ response, which is how Jason finds himself hopping rooftops with Robin nipping at his heels. Batman and Nightwing are already on the scene, putting out proverbial fires as they come, and the rest of them have been tasked with rounding up all the missing convicts.

“I have three here,” Spoiler chirps, oddly cheerful for someone dealing with escaped prisoners. Jason momentarily wonders how she does it, so consistently and with so much...emphasis. “All subdued, and waiting on cops.”

“I have six by Gina’s Pizzeria on Fifth Avenue, waiting on cops,” Red Robin reports, sounding sluggish. “They just had to pick an off day to break out of Arkham, huh?”

“Everyday is an off day for you, RR,” Nightwing supplies helpfully, coupled with the background noises of a body hitting the ground. There is a shout somewhere. “At least today wasn’t an especially off day.”

“Oh, you say that now, but you should’ve seen him this morning,” Signal mutters, and Jason’s lips quirk up at the disgruntled tone. He loves team-ups on Tim. “He put salt in my tea. What kind of heathen does that to a man’s tea?”

“Blasphemy,” Steph fake-gasps. In her distance, they can all hear sirens approaching.

“Electric chair for the not-so-baby bat,” Jason chimes in. “Salt infractions are punishable by death in good ol’ Gotham.”

“Got any pointers?” Tim asks, none too gently. They’re still working past their bloodied memories, and Jason can accept it for what it is. While he spent time with Damian and Duke, sometimes Steph and Cass, Tim isn’t in Gotham enough for them to try and mend bridges.

And Jason, truth be told, isn’t sure if he’d want to. Dick and Tim are different from the others, a reminder of the dark stain in their family’s history that they all created together, willingly or not. And while some things can be put behind them, Jason is a sore reminder of everything they all so desperately tried to ignore in favour of the good.

“Yeah. Cremation,” he veers to the left, finally spotting the man he and Damian had been chasing down for a solid seven blocks. “Very helpful in preventing zombies.”

“Hood,” Batman admonishes, but its softened around the edges in a way that indicates the old man is amused. Jason pretends to doesn’t warm him inside-out, to hear that soft adoration even now after years of fighting. To know he can still do that, pull that affection from the Dark Knight himself.

“Eyes on Scarecrow,” Damian interrupts. “And if you intend on dying, Red Robin, do hurry. And make sure to make a spectacle of it.”

Jason lets loose a short laugh and cuts his comm before Tim can cuss them off, reaching over to ruffle Damian’s hair in appreciation. The two of them, surprisingly, have gotten closer since Damian’s unscheduled visit with his mother. After Damian had trailed Selina and Bruce, and Talia’s ‘duel’ with the Cat, the heiress had called Jason and pulled a promise to take care of Damian from him.

And he intends to keep it.

Jason gets a half-smile as a reward for the ribbing of their mutually ‘disliked’ brother, and there is a few heartbeats of peace before all goes wrong.

In hindsight, they probably shouldn’t have let their guards down so close to a recurring villain. And as the older brother in the equation, he definitely should’ve been on top of everything as soon as they touched down on the ground, but as it stands, Damian is in the direct path of a suddenly thrown canister and there’s no time to pull him out of the way. The motion itself would prove futile if and when the gas releases, which left only one option in Jason’s mind.

Unthinkingly, he throws himself between the canister of Fear Toxin and Damian with his back to Scarecrow, shoving the boy backwards only a few seconds before he hears the telltale hiss of the gas infiltrating the air and, subsequently, his mask.

To his credit, Damian doesn’t even hesitate before shielding his face, eyes wide behind the white-out lenses of the mask with what he thinks to be realization. Jason grits his teeth against the shivers already beginning to make their way up and down his spine, and is barely able to catch Damian calling for aid.

“…ood? Hood!”

Somewhere behind them there is motion as Cassandra lands and sends Scarecrow flying into a pile of crates. How she got there so fast, Jason isn’t sure, but the world is beginning to spin and there are embers in the corners of his eyes and fuck. Everything begins to smell like ashes and blood, and he can somehow taste betrayal on his tongue.

“Hood!” Damian shouts again, and when this is all over Jason will resent the clear fear in his voice. It’s so, so easy to forget how young the boy is, but in times like this…times like this, Jason wishes he could forget. Wishes Damian didn’t have to be out here with the rest of them.

His knees hit the ground the same moment he feels his fingers begin to bleed, callused skin splitting open in the face of persistent abuse. He thought he was sure that his hands were fine, but the panic inlaid in his mind overrides any sense of logic as he curls in on himself, deadly intent focused on not alarming Damian any further.

“…Father! Father, he was hit with Fear T–”

Father?

And just like that, Jason is fifteen all over again and screaming and locked in a coffin with nothing but the blood on his skin and the belt around his hips. He doesn’t register anything other than a concerned murmur before his mind breaks from the intense pressure of fragmented memories; already a fragile thing, the imposed trauma rips through him with the subtlety of a bomb going off.

Shoulders bent, his fingers scrape against what he thinks to be the coffin’s lid in a desperate attempt to find purchase, instead only managing to amplify the pain in his fingers. The wet touch of fresh blood does nothing to deter him, and it’s with near inhuman strength that he pushes off whoever is trying to hold him down.

It was Cass, he’ll later find out, as Bruce looks through his pockets, desperately, for their latest strain of the antidote. Tim, Steph, Duke, and Dick had stayed behind to deal with the Arkham mess, and the comms were off for a thin veneer of privacy.

(Nobody wants to know his demons, because his demons were so staunch with blood and sacrifice that it would horrify even the most seasoned of heroes.)

Someone manages to take off his leather jacket, he thinks, because he can feel the cool touch of a cape against the nape of his neck but all he can think is he’s trapped, he’s dead, he’s lost, he needs–

“Dad!” Jason sobs, voice cracking in panic. He’s trapped in a coffin. He’s stuck with the Joker and a traitor and in a foreign country. “Dad, Dad I’m here! I’m in here! Please, I’m scared, I’m scared…”

Damian freezes in both shock and what he perceives to be dismay, and next to him Cass frowns in worry. But both of them have nothing on Bruce, who sucks in a breath so sharp it could slice his throat open, lips parting around a single utterance of ‘son’.

Jason hasn’t called Bruce ‘dad’ since coming back from the grave. But this, right now…he’d somehow forgotten how many times he’d screamed ‘Dad’ between climbing out of that damned coffin and the fatal car crash that would steal his memories from him.

“Please please please please,” Jason chants, and the syllables crash into each other like waves against an outcrop of rocks, so similar to the man himself. “B-Bruce where are you? I don’t wanna be stuck in here I don’t!”

They jerk with the effort it takes to keep the second Robin stationary; Jason is nearly Bruce’s size, and it’s no easy feat, keeping him down. Not with the shock flowing through them over seeing their most steadfast so thoroughly dismantled.

“I’m sorry about Shelia!” Jason yells, a vain effort to get someone, anyone, to listen. “I...I don’t...all I’ve ever needed was you, Dad, please, I’m sorry...”

“Jason,” Bruce whispers, so soft, so scared. This is a display of all the trauma that stood between them, an open sea of all the times Bruce has failed his second-born. A sea so violent that it drowns both of them whenever they brave it, takes them into its darkness before spitting out even hollower versions of the men who went down under.

But not this time.

Bruce takes off his belt determinedly and hands it to Cass, a pointed look instructing her to keep searching for the antidote. Jason continues to thrash and cry so openly, carving whole pieces of Bruce out and setting them aflame right there at their feet. This is the closest he’s gotten to the truth about Jason’s rebirth in all their years, and so desperately he wishes it could be different. Wishes it was Jason sharing this willingly, in an effort to mend, an effort to move forward.

But wishes are for men who have time and right now, Bruce has none.

Ignoring the flailing limbs as best he could, Bruce gathers Jason in his arms, softly shushing the boy and beginning to rock him the same way he had done years ago, after every nightmare filled with memories of a broken home. Jason shudders against him, still sobbing brokenly about how badly he hurt, and Bruce…

Bruce feels a bloodlust so vicious he can feel it pushes against the seams of his skin, his soul, and if the Joker had been anywhere near him, Bruce would rip the flesh off his bones with nothing but his teeth and anger. Not even the Gods themselves could’ve stopped the man from tearing apart the Clown Prince limb from limb, from a death so brutal there would be nothing left for the Underworld to punish.

“Bruce,” Jason whimpers, and somewhere in his toxin-addled brain, there is a pause in the onslaught. He recognizes the arms holding him close, recognizes the tenor of the voice humming to him, recognizes the lips that press a gentle kiss to his hairline. “B, you came. Papá...”

And through his own budding tears at the call in Jason’s mother-tongue, Bruce says, “always. I’ll always come. No one’s going to hurt you. Not anymore, chum.”

“I was so scared,” Jason blubbers, but through the tears staining his cheeks, there is an attempt at a smile; it takes Bruce’s heart in its grasp and squeezes and squeezes and squeezes until he’s sure there’s nothing left in its hold. How dearly he loves this boy. “But I…I knew you’d come. I always knew.”

And there’s the flash of the Robin who thought Bruce held the world in his hands, is a God, is a good man. There is the Robin--the Jason--who believed in Bruce. In his father.

Bruce aches with a fierce love, and a longing for a bridge that’s barely there.

Suddenly, Jason goes slack, his eyes rolling back in his head as the boy is finally given the sweetness of unconsciousness. Bruce startles badly, and glances to the side to find Cassandra holding an empty syringe with a sympathetic smile on her face.

“Can we…take him home now?” She asks, and he knows the two siblings have their differences but they are bonded by family and she loves him, in a way, and it shows by how softly she strokes his matted hair now.

Bruce gives her a tired smile, arms full of his lost son.

“Yes…yes, let’s get him home.”

#dc comics #bruce wayne #jason todd #damian wayne #mywriting #assume rhato 25 didnt happen btw #also assume ric grayson didnt happen #bartons #bc ric grayson is dumb #this.......got away from me #asks

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onlyinmyimagination · 6 years ago

Text

Interest and Infatuation | pt. 2

Red Hood X (Female) Reader

Summary: You’re a housekeeper working for the Wayne Family. A chance encounter with Red Hood leads to an unconventional romance neither of you expected.

Chapter Summary: A visitor and a party

Warnings: mentions of violence

Pt. 1 // Pt. 3

The next few days continued to rain which left lingering memories of that fateful night. Sometimes you caught yourself recalling your encounter with the vigilante in the middle of your work. You thought it may have all been a dream, perhaps even a bizarre side effect from adjusting to life in Gotham, but when you shared the story of how you were almost mugged to the other Wayne Manor housekeepers, they assured you they had all felt the same way after their own encounters. It was surprising to hear that they’ve all had similar experiences of having been almost mugged, almost killed, almost many things, but before anything ever happened they’ve always been saved by one of Gotham’s famed vigilantes or anti-heroes. It was sad to hear them share their stories as if it were a normal part of life for a Gotham citizen, but it made you realize that your circumstance was not special nor did it hold any significance including, most likely, to your savior. And so, you often flitted between a pleasant dream-like state and utter dejection of your hero’s supposed apathy.

Luckily however, your job held many distractions for you and kept you busy. Alfred Pennyworth announced that a fundraiser for Gotham’s homeless shelters would be held at the Manor at the end of the week. This main event would include an art exhibition followed by an auction of those very pieces.

The art exhibition consisted of a collection of pieces donated by various modern artists, with its proceeds going directly to fund the homeless shelters. Apparently all of it would be an outdoor event, taking place within the expansive back garden, since the Waynes continued to minimize entry into their home.

It was a wonder how high the risk would be to have so much valuable art gathered in one place; after all, the Wayne Manor in all its castle-like extravagance was much like a museum itself. The Gothic architecture of the Manor was stunning to look at but also daunting in appearance with gargoyles perched atop in all directions of the stone walls. Walking through the Manor was like walking through exhibition after exhibition, with each room containing its own lavish decor of age-old elegance. There were rooms with its ceilings and walls artfully decorated with murals and paintings of angels and demons, gods and goddesses, and mythical characters. More of these fantastical images were on display in the high ceiling gallery hall as intricately carved marble statues. A number of these marble figures lined the gallery room as part of the Wayne family’s prized art collection. Most pieces were priceless originals, but quite a few were near exact replicas of world renown art pieces that were housed in the most secure museums and vaults.

Even the grand library abundant in its collection seemed untouchable as if meant only to be viewed from afar. You didn’t dare pluck a book from its shelf whenever you tidied the room, merely only dusting the tops of the books and spines with the lightest of touches. With almost everything in the Manor being an antique or worth a king’s ransom, it was obvious why most of the rooms would be off-limits to outsiders.

Even with the sudden announcement of the upcoming party, you continued to be distracted by short recollections and small details of a certain rainy night. The chill in the air, the dampness of your skin, the calloused hand in yours. Lena, one of the older maids, had lightly scolded you for standing and daydreaming instead of unpacking the linen tablecloths from the boxes. The only piece of information that piqued your interest enough to deter you from your daydreams left you distracted in a different way. The Wayne family would be in attendance at the fundraiser, and you would finally get to meet them. With the help of the other housekeepers you were now able to place a name to a face.

Having to meet your employer at the upcoming fundraiser weeks after you started your employment at the Manor made you believe they were snobbish and pompous elitists who didn’t bother meeting their employees. You had wanted to meet them before, but now you were simply curious. Apparently they often went away on trips that lasted weeks to months, whether together or by themselves. You understood if Bruce Wayne, head of a multi-million dollar company did so, but the youngest children were still in school so the idea baffled you. Rumor had it however that the children were apparent geniuses that didn’t even need to go to school but would attend whimsically and at their leisure. To travel the world so extensively, to come home only at night long after the housekeeping had left, then to keep out of sight for most of the day; what kind of people were they? To be rich, intelligent, and have the looks to top it all off, it was difficult to accept they were real at all.

It was noon when you were lost in thought, head filled with distractions once again and mindlessly polishing silverware in the kitchen. A couple of the other maids were helping with the task and were just as silent in their work. It was then that the chatter of unfamiliar voices traveled through the halls. The other maids didn’t dare speak so loudly so you were certain it wasn’t them.

“It seems the children are back,” Lena said, pausing in her work.

“Let’s go see!” Nour suggested, knowing you had yet to see a single member of the Wayne family. She ushered you out of the kitchens and led you down a long corridor decorated with carved wood furnishings and antiquated tapestries. You soon found the source of the voices and moved to hide behind a wall that opened to the side of the grand foyer. A group of girls and boys crossed the marble floor to ascend the winding double staircase.

“Cass and I are wearing matching Louboutin shoes,” a blond girl said, her voice echoing slightly in the vast room.

“You girls and your shoes,” one of the boys said.

“You don’t get to say anything, and don’t you dare wear your sneakers again. We bought you new shoes for a reason.”

“I can’t wear the Balenciaga shoes?”

“Wear the Valentino dress shoes.”

“You’d think the Gucci suit would be enough.”

Nour whispered to you as you watched the beautiful family, “The blond is Miss Stephanie. She’s not a Wayne but she’s here so often she might as well be. The girl next to her is Miss Cassandra. The taller guy is Master Dick, and the shorter one beside him is Master Timothy.”

You nodded as you watched them walk through the open corridor on the second floor. Then you asked, “That’s not all of them, though, right?”

“Hm, Master Damian and Master Jason are missing. They’re not here.” She then moved to one of the windows, pushing the drapes aside to peek out at the courtyard. “Oh, here they come now!” She beckoned you to join her at the window and you complied with her silent request.

“Master Damian is the youngest and Master Jason is following behind him.” The two boys were making their way to the front door without speaking a word to each other. Then the youngest suddenly flicked his eyes up at the window you stood at and you jerked back in surprise. Nour quickly closed the drapes and laughed sheepishly. “The youngest one is very sharp, they all are, but I assure you they are all very nice, too.”

“But why are they here all of a sudden?” you asked, confused at their coincidental appearance.

“They’re getting ready for the fundraiser in their own way,” Citlali answered from behind you. “It’s not common for them to be all together if it’s not for some big event.”

“Oh, I wonder what they’ll wear!” Nour said excitedly, seizing Citlali’s hands and ready to gush over clothing brands.

“I can’t wait to see,” Citlali said with equal enthusiasm. “They always dress like models, though I’m sure they have to with all the press and cameras constantly following them.”

“Are you girls finished gossiping? We need to unpack the chafing dishes and platters next,” Lena said as she emerged from the kitchen. “I know they’re all very pretty, but we will have time to gawk at them at the party. There’s still a lot of work to be done.”

You and the girls apologized and scurried back into the kitchen to continue the work. Your mind lingered on one of the sons, bothered by the fact you didn’t quite get a good look at him through the window, but you pushed the distraction out of your head. You didn’t need another one.

Oddly enough, that same night held another surprise for you: an unexpected visitor. You were in your bedroom, looking over your bills when you heard a soft rapping at your window. You were hesitant to investigate, now more wary of potential threats ever since that rainy night. You went to your bedroom window and pushed back the curtains, and though you were unsure what to expect, you almost screamed at the masked vigilante waiting patiently at the fire escape. He held his hand up in a short wave and you quickly returned to your senses to open the window for him.

He spoke first and in a very casual manner asked, “How have you been? Thought I’d check up on you.” He was crouched just outside your window and looking at you with a tilt of his head. It was almost off-putting how the kind words didn’t match the distorted voice that said them.

“Me? You’re the one who got hurt!” you said with concern, though you were careful to keep your voice down in fear of your neighbors hearing you. “How’s your hand? Is it alright?”

“It’s fine. Calm down.” Somehow his voice held an amused tone to it.

“Can I see?” you asked.

“Sure,” he said, slipping off his right glove. He raised it toward you and you took his hand in yours to examine the raised skin cutting across his palm. “See, it’s healing nicely, right?”

“Looks like it’ll scar,” you said and looked at him apologetically.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I’ve got a lot of scars.”

“I wish it hadn’t happened at all,” you muttered with a furrow of your brow.

“Well,” he said, taking back his hand, “I’d rather it happen to me than you any day. So let’s end it with that.”

You deflated with a sigh though the guilt stayed. Then you wondered if your hero went around visiting all the people he’s saved, but you were much too shy to ask.

“Anyway did you just move in? What’s with all the boxes?” He nodded his head toward the inside of your bedroom where piles of moving boxes could be seen past your shoulder.

“Oh,” you glanced behind you at the obvious mess. “Yeah, I started working the same day I moved in so I haven’t really had the time to organize things. There’s always so much work to do, I practically collapse when I get home. But these days haven’t been so bad since I’ve gotten used to the work now.”

“Well that explains why I’ve never seen you before,” he said, though it was more to himself than to you.

You paused and asked, “What do you mean? Why would you see me?”

“I, uh, patrol this area often so I know almost everyone’s faces. This area should be safer than most, especially with all the buildings owned by Wayne Enterprises here. It needs to be guarded more carefully.” You considered his words thoughtfully. He then asked, “Are the Waynes working you too hard?”

“Oh no, it’s not that. The work is fair, it just needs some getting used to that’s all. And recently I haven’t had much time to myself since it’s been getting busy…” you trailed off and wondered why you were sharing so much with someone you’ve only met twice.

“Busy how?” he questioned. He noticed your hesitation as you contemplated your next words. “Is it about the upcoming fundraiser?”

You looked at him with surprise. “How’d you know about that?”

“Bruce Wayne is the most famous person in the city, it’s impossible to escape him,” he explained. “The fundraiser is no secret. Most everyone knows about it.”

You nodded at the logic. “The fundraiser is my first big event since I started working at the Manor. It’s nerve-wracking.” Among other things, you thought to yourself, with one of the sources of your anxiety right in front of you.

“I’ll be there, you know,” he said. “At the fundraiser.”

“What? Like, in disguise? As a guest?” you asked curiously.

“Maybe,” he said vaguely. “You’ll just have to see. Anyway I’ve got work to do. I’ll visit again,” then he paused before continuing politely, “unless you don’t want me to. Can I come by again?”

Heat crept across your face. “Yes. I’d like that very much.” Then a thought crossed your mind and you called out to him as he took a step back, “Wait, will I really get to see you?” If he really was going to attend as a guest, it meant he was possibly some big shot name in Gotham. You were suddenly nervous to be working in front of him.

“That’ll just ruin the surprise. Call me Red Hood, by the way.” You already knew his vigilante name; you didn’t have to search long for it after meeting him. But you hoped he would introduce himself with a different name. “And you? Tell me yours.” He leaned in closer and you backed up slightly as your face grew warmer.

“I…” you began but changed your mind quickly, “I’ll tell you next time.”

There was a short pause but then the grating sound of his laugh emitted from his helmet. “Fair enough. I’ll hold you to that, princess.” Then he stood and jumped off the fire escape landing. When you could no longer follow his figure in the darkness you shut the window and pulled the curtains closed. Once again you were back in a dream-like state, feeling both elated and hopeful after meeting him again.

The next days continued to be more hectic than you could’ve possibly imagined. Once the skies cleared large tents and canopies were set up in the back garden, lights were hung, and flower arrangements were laid out all under Alfred’s instructions. Alfred performed most of the work, making calls and ordering from businesses in which he was a regular customer. Food, table rentals, and valet services were ordered yet somehow Alfred found time to assist with the daily mundane chores.

The day of the event arrived quickly and you didn’t know what you were more nervous about, finally seeing the famous Wayne family up close or seeing the Red Hood again. However you found you didn’t have time to be anxious with both your mind and body busy preparing for the day. Your day started at two in the afternoon instead of seven in the morning, since you were needed after the event to help with cleanup. You had laid out the drinks and hors d'oeuvres for the staff of the charity foundation who arrived early then assisted them as they set up their own equipment and set up the easels for the art pieces. You were already tired by the time the actual event started and you began directing the attendees through the Manor. The guests steadily filtered into the grand foyer and made their way down the long hallway and out again to the back garden.

The Waynes decided to show their faces after the first few guests arrived. The men donned clothing that was a mixture of business and formal wear while the daughter wore a modest dress of no lesser quality. As they walked through the long corridor to the back garden you couldn’t help but stare while your heart pounded in your chest. You easily recognized Bruce Wayne as he walked at the front, leading his family as they trailed behind him. Your eyes then found the second eldest son who was muttering something to the eldest, a frown marring his face. This one was Jason. Your eyes lingered on him but when you thought he might look your way you averted your eyes downward as heat spread to your cheeks. You were standing at the end of the corridor to assist the guests as they maneuvered their way through the Manor and now that this beautiful family was walking towards you, the need to run away kicked in, but instead you kept your gaze low as they approached. You didn’t dare look up as they strode past you and you could only breathe easily once they were out of sight, lost amidst the gardens.

Once most of the guests arrived, you set champagne glasses on a serving tray and made your way through the masses to offer guests refreshments while also taking their empty glasses. You continued like this until most of the guests finished their evening meals, which was rather quickly. They ate small portions and consumed their food in a swift manner so as to not ruin their fancy clothes. You couldn’t blame them; you would be careful too if you were eating in such expensive attire.

It was easy to feel out of place amongst the glitz and glam of the event. The Lamborghinis, Jaguars, Rolls Royce, and other luxury cars were parked just outside the rotunda in the vast courtyard. Models and business tycoons alike were all sporting brand name designer clothes: Chanel, Gucci, Saint Laurent, Versace. Nour had pointed out a fanny pack worth a thousand dollars that made you almost gag on the spot upon hearing it. It was an amount that could cover months of groceries, or even a considerable portion of the loans you needed to pay off.

You continued to think about the expenses even as you took a break to rest and retreated back into the Manor. You made your way to one of the balconies on the second floor where you could admire the party from above. You leaned against the railing, the stone balustrade cool to the touch, and stayed there for several minutes. The party seemed far away now, the music and chatter only distant noises as you closed your tired eyes for a moment.

“It’s boring, right?”

The familiar discordant voice made you flinch and your eyes snapped open to try to find its owner. You didn’t expect to hear it in the silence. You didn’t know how you forgot Red Hood would be attending when you had been so anxious about it all week long.

tagged:

@chims-kookies

#red hood x reader #redhoodxreader #jason todd x reader #jasontoddxreader #maid au #housekeeper au #interest and infatuation

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awfully-sadistic · 5 years ago

Text

Spooktober Quickie #4

“A six-person rig?” Dot Dreadful asked, peering around at her partners for this round of cleanup duty. She was currently surrounded by a team of six people, paired up in twos. Eager young faces mingled with apprehension because it was a thing they had all wanted yet it wasn’t a fun activity to do. “Wouldn’t that be a little dangerous?” she asked into her comm, linked back to Homebase. On the other end sat Bruce Wayne filling in as a sorts while the Fury’s attended to matters on the other side of the world with superheroes to fill in the ranks.

“Normally, yes, but I didn’t trust just four of you to go out on your own.” Bruce commented back, sounding static-y and distant on the other end. He had an almost detached way of speaking but by now, Dot knew he meant well. He might have been emotionally stunted, but he managed to show he cared in other ways. Such as sending his little horde of Robins to protect her while they did a last-minute sweep for an Ultron-infected zone somewhere in an urban neighborhood.

“Why do we hunt in fours anyway?” Timothy “Tim” Drake asked, the only other person aside from Dot that had experience in the rig. Beside him stood his elder (adopted brothers) Richard “Dick” Grayson and Jason Todd and his younger (adopted) brother, Damian Wayne. Duke Thomas might have been a Robin once, but he usually went by as The Signal and would not be excluded in a line-up of Robins, past and present. The girls, on the other hand, made up of Batgirls and affiliated members of the Bat Family stood by with Bruce Wayne, prepared to hop in at a moment’s notice.

At the moment, despite the many people surrounding Dot, no one had an answer for Tim’s question. It had always just been a thing, to hunt in fours, and there hadn’t been an confirmation about whether it was a rule or not and nobody wanted to ask the Fury’s anything unless they had wanted to be ridiculed like Clint Barton.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jason interrupted, an attempt at keeping the conversation flowing. “because all that matters is that I’m finally going to be paired up with Dot—”

“Actually,” Dot gently cut in, giving Jason a sheepish smile. “Damian and I are already paired up.”

“WHAT?!” Jason’s voice carried over the fences, causing heads to turn. Not all the heads belonged to the group.

Dick hissed, “Keep your voice down! You’re going to give up our hiding spot!” he warned because as everyone knew, the starting zone wasn’t exactly the safest spot for any of them. There was and will be much discussion about the order of how everyone teamed up but for Dot’s sake, it was passed on when Bruce agreed with Dick.

“The teams are already made up,” he clarified. “Dick and Jason. Tim and Duke. Dot and Damian.”

“That’s a load of bull—” Jason was starting to say, not one to immediately give up his grievances if he thought it could give him his way.

Damian was holding Dot’s hand, giving Jason a smug expression. Jason was inches away from knocking it off but he didn’t want to look bad in front of Dot—whom everyone had been desperately trying to impress. “Mother said she would feel comfortable with me,” he gloated and he was half-right. Damian was a child by regular standards and Dot just naturally sided with them. It was something that dawned on Jason right away. It showed on his face, looking just as smug as Damian.

“Because you’re a fucking child. No wonder.”

Damian jutted his lower lip out, kicking Jason in the shin. There would have been a brawl in the middle of the starting zone if Bruce hadn’t interrupted.

“There’s a strange anomaly that’s showing on the map ahead of you guys, is everything alright?”

“Aside from Jason and Damian?” Dick chuckled, raising two fingers towards his ear to secure his earpiece, “we’re fine. We’re about to move on.”

“Be careful,” Bruce was warning, “Take another look around. Something seems off.”

No one could understand what Bruce was saying or worse yet, what he might have been seeing. Eyes scanned the area in front of them; they were in the backyard of some old abandoned suburban house. Ultron’s clones had long ago ran off any human who might have lived in the neighborhood and it looked as deserted as—

“Mmm, I appreciated that little murmuring you did in my ear.” Jason all but purred, turning his red helmet to look over at Dot. She looked as bewildered as any one else in the party.

“…That wasn’t me, love.” Dot admitted, a little worried about what Jason had heard and where he had heard it from. Jason’s head jerked back, looking between the group to see if this had been a weird joke.

“You just didn’t whisper into my comm right now?”

“No, dude. If she did, we would have ALL heard it…” Duke said. This much was true; all of their commlinks were connected so even if Dot had whispered something in Jason’s ear (like he had wanted), everyone would have been privy to it.

“What did this voice say?” Tim asked, looking towards Jason with concern.

“Did it say you’re a dumb ass?” Damian asked.

“That’s not fucking funny—”

“What the hell is that?” It had been Dick that had pointed towards a figure across the yard, standing absolutely still and just watching the group interact. Everyone’s heads turned, eyes drawn towards the mysterious figure that dwelled at the beginning of the yard, almost on the other side of the neighbor’s fence. There had been a break in the wooden pillars, and despite the area being deserted, there had been that lone person just watching them.

“Have they been there all this time?” Dot whispered, tucking Damian closer. But Damian was the one who pushed Dot behind his smaller body, preparing to take care of her just like his older brothers were planning on doing. “It doesn’t look like a clone.”

“…No, not at all. It’s kind of creepy,” Tim agreed in a hushed whisper. All of them had the sudden understanding or perhaps a warning built in them that told them not to speak too loudly. Not to draw attention to themselves. Not even Jason wanted to raise his voice to a yelling pitch he’d usually use on people who unnerved him.

But this was just too much.

“This had to be the weird thing Bruce saw on the scanner,” Dick murmured, still perplexed about this figure and the disembodied voice Jason had heard in his ear. “Let’s go…”

It was a strange sensation, pulling away from the yard to cut through the abandoned house and to end up on the other side where the figure had been waiting on the opposite end of the street. It caused everyone to stop in their steps.

“What… the fuck…” Jason so eloquently put.

“I think we better get out of this neighborhood fast.” Duke agreed in a more articulate sense. “I hate to sound like those old guys, uh, Steve and Chris, but i’m not getting any good vibes about this.”

Dot nodded in agreement, her own Mama Bear protective urges surging forward to turn the boys around and perhaps go down an alleyway. It sounded bad but it was in the opposite direction of where this mysterious figure had been standing.

The many bootsteps of Robins and Dot’s little feet pattered against the concrete as they took off in a brisk stride. There was no walking this day. Down the alleyway they went, past many houses they couldn’t recognize, many landmarks they couldn’t distinguish. The whole neighborhood seemed to pass by a blur which was okay with all of them; the more distance they put between themselves and that weird… thing, the better.

“Where did you guys go?” Bruce asked suddenly.

It caused a few of the Robins to jump though Tim was the one who answered, “We’ve been here all this time. Were our comms not picking up?”

“Negative.” Bruce clarified, “It was static. Did you see anything about that anomaly—”

Bruce went to static again and by this time, it had dawned on Dot why—for a person who played a little too many horror games, it could only mean one thing. As Dot swept her gaze around, lo and behold, that… thing was standing right across from them. It was always at a distance where it looked like a mere humanoid shape, unable to tell any features, all in black and seemingly very tall if it looked tall from a distance. It was unnerving. Unnatural.

“We got to get out of here,” Dot said, causing the boys to draw their gaze to where she had hers.

“Oh, what the fuck?” Jason cursed again, not short on sharing the enthusiasm of bewilderment between all of them. For some reason, it had never occurred to the group to use the weapons they had with them but perhaps that was why they hadn’t. There might have been something interfering just like with the commlink to Bruce.

The group spun on their heel, anxious to give themselves as much room away from that thing as possible. Everywhere they went, it seemed to follow. Always at a distance away. An air of anxiousness seemed to drift along with it but perhaps that was the group, tense about such a strange occurrence and unable to escape its clutches. The city soon turned into a maze with Bruce coming in and out of communication intermittently. Alleys and shops became obstacles, they soon got turned around and Dot felt like it was a horrible cheapened version of Silent Hill. She panted at the side of a building, holding onto it as she tried to catch her breath.

“I fucking hate this,” she gasped. “Why is it following us? This has never happened in the rigs before.”

“It’s just our luck we’ve be the first ones to experience it,” Dick tried to joke, giving Dot a comforting rub on the back to help her catch her breath and perhaps soothe her. She straightened and gave him a thankful smile. He returned it and also added, “Don’t worry. I’m sure Bruce has something in mind. He has to have some kind of idea what we’re dealing with.”

“Yeah, like if we’re in any trouble at all,” Duke said.

Dot wanted to believe in their words and because they had sounded so sure, so confident, and believed in Bruce so much, she could believe it. But as she drifted her gaze towards the shadowy figure that had been trailing them from a distance, it just seemed hopeless.

After she had caught her breath, they ran off again. Twisting and turning, until they ended up in someone’s backyard once more.

“AW MAN, IS THIS WHERE WE STARTED?!” Jason asked throwing his arms up in frustration. By now, he didn’t care if he shouted to the heavens and that thing ate his face. He was tired of being terrorized by it. Tim and Duke were leaning on each other, breathing heavily, deeply. Robin had been leaning his forehead against the wall, also trying to catch his breath. Damian and Dot were huddled close, Damian being the little protector he was had been insistent that Dot stay behind him—she humored him but the first sign something was going down, Damian better believe she’d throw herself in danger before he had the chance to.

“It looks like it,” Dick sighed, patting his chest as a slight cough came from his throat. “If this is someone’s idea of a joke, I’m going to batarang them in the legs and hopefully off a roof.”

Jason pointed, “That’s my idea of fun.”

Dick gave Jason a rueful smile through his mask before looking around. As expected, that figure was on the opposite end of their position. Standing just inside the neighbor’s yard, on the otherside of the broken fence.

Jason grimaced, mad. Angry. Upset. He’s an angry boy and he didn’t like to be pushed around. The family was honestly surprised he lasted so long but that might have been the influence of this thing, swaying their emotions, steering or clouding their judgement. But Jason, his judgement hadn’t always been the best. He decided to use the weapons they had on them as if realizing they had been there for the first time.

“Jason, don’t…” Tim warned, pushing off Duke. “you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“If it can bleed, I know what WILL happen.” Jason threatened, both pistols raising up like the crazed pitched tone in his voice.

Before the first bullet had the chance to exit its chamber, there had been another explosion; a dark armored SUV came barreling out of the side of the yard, completely running over the black figure as it stood in its spot.

Katherine Kane, also known as Batwoman, kicked her driver’s door open and stepped out, looking as heated as Jason. She looked around before spotting her family on the otherside of the fence.

“Where is it?” she demanded, “I’m going to kick its ass.”

The group of Robins gaped and Dot was more inclined to admire the kickass entrance. Kate spent no time marching right up to the boys and pushing past them to personally rescue Dot herself. She knelt down, making sure the most coveted woman in the Haushold had been unharmed. Hands on her face and all over her body, she made a thorough job of searching.

“What is it?” she asked, still having no answer for the strange happenings that surrounded the party. “What caused you guys to go dark? Is it another stupid ass clone? I’ll beat it up if the boys can’t handle it.”

Jason just about bristled, “I WOULD HAVE HANDLED IT IF YOU DIDN’T JUST RUN IT OVER WITH THE BATMOBILE!”

Kate turned towards the SUV version of a Batmobile. Then she looked back at Jason, then the boys down the line. There was something disappointing in her face but she didn’t remark on it. She’d probably wait to tease the boys about it later but at the moment, she knew that they were overdue to be home. She jerked her head, sending the boys on their way, “Come on, we’re going home.”

And Kate had the pleasure of being Dot’s knight in shining armor, carrying her to the SUV like a knight carrying the princess to her steed.

#{{ original drabbles: spooktober 2019

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