#tim says 'everyone always leaves so who really cares anymore'

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Bound, Part 9

Previous part

It’s funny, in a morbid sort of way, how fast life can go wrong.

A matter of minutes completely ruined him.

And he didn’t even have the warning he usually did. Sure, his phone had chimed about a half-hour prior to warn him that an akuma had been spotted. Bruce had given him that Look he always did when Tim ‘forgot’ to turn his ringer off of silent while they were on patrol, and he gave a falsely sheepish smile as he pulled his phone from a hidden pocket and quickly turned it off.

But he hadn’t known that Ladybug had found the akuma, much less that she had started fighting it.

Usually, there was a quiet buildup of anxiety and fear and tension that gave him a sort of warning. A passing blow that would tell him to brace himself.

But no. He was just lucky that he had been on a rooftop at the time, trailing just behind Bruce as the pair of them grappled from place to place in search of crime to stop, because if he hadn’t then he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from falling three stories.

Not that he would have realized that he had done so until long after the fact.

The pain was blinding. Thorough training kept him from crying out, but he still found himself on his hands and knees, tears pressing against the inside of his mask in a desperate attempt to escape. He could vaguely recognize a voice, someone he knew was trying to speak to him, but it was impossible to make anything out over the ringing in his ears. It was pain unlike anything he had ever felt before, even worse than that night at the dinner table where he had thought his veins had been filled with liquid magma, because now it was centralized. It had chosen a spot to eat away at, instead of evenly distributing it, and he was forced to deal with the fact that he felt as if someone had just stabbed him in the face with a hot knife and then started twisting. He curled his fingers into his skin, gloves scrabbling against his cheek as if he could physically drag the pain away from himself, trying to tear it out from the source.

And then it was over. He slumped against the concrete, scratching up his chin in the process but that was nothing compared to what he had just endured.

“Robin?” A gravelly voice started carefully.

He tried to blink the water from his eyes so he could see who was leaning over him – not that it mattered, friend or foe, it wasn’t like he would be able to do much to get himself out of the situation if someone wanted to fight him – but quickly gave up on that. He, instead, focused on who in his life might have sounded like that. He mulled over the tone a couple of times in his head.

“Robin,” the person said, more insistent this time.

His breath caught in his throat.

It was with mounting horror that he realized who was leaning over him. Because if Bruce saw him here, could see the remaining scars of whatever stupid magic thing had accosted his soulmate – because Tim, out of some twisted sense of nostalgia, hadn’t been able to convince himself to opt for something that wasn’t the classic domino mask to hide his identity – then that meant…

“Do you have something to tell me?”

Tim breathed a shaky sigh. “Can’t we do this when I feel better?” He tried, weakly. He still couldn’t bring himself to sit up, his body felt dead (maybe his soulmate had actually died again… with an injury like that he wouldn’t be surprised) and all of the anxious energy he had expected to have in this inevitable moment didn’t come to be. He wanted to go back to Wayne Manor and curl up by the fire and drink Alfred’s hot cocoa and listen to Dick’s stupid puns and tease Bruce for being socially awkward and…

He wanted to experience all that one last time.

He wanted to have a home, if only for just one more day.

A careful finger poked his cheek and Tim hissed, his hands curling against the concrete roof.

The finger dragged along his cheek before it was pulled back so Bruce could inspect it. His lips pressed into a thin line when he found nothing had rubbed off. The inky, crackling blackness that had opted to wind its way over the side of Tim’s face was underneath the skin.

“You have a soulmate,” Bruce said. It wasn’t a question.

It was quiet. Tim wondered if he could get away without ever having to confirm it. The silence was damning in itself, surely, so Bruce should have known. But the man had always been one to aim for straightforward answers and confessions whenever possible, and Bruce was patient in a way that Tim couldn’t bring himself to be after the ordeal that still sent aftershocks rippling under his skin.

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

Bruce was quiet again. Maybe he wanted an explanation. Maybe he was just gathering his thoughts.

Tim used the moment to force himself up into a slightly more dignified sitting position, even if he still opted to hunch in on himself with his cape pulled tight around him.

“You’re putting someone else in danger,” Bruce accused.

“She does it too,” he mumbled, but it wasn’t an argument that Bruce would listen to or care about. “Hence the…” He waved vaguely to whatever it was that had marred his face.

Bruce didn’t seem moved. “Did you ever get her verbal consent?”

Tim couldn’t say a word. He’d been given ‘Permission’ when Ladybug had gone out on the streets and started getting injured in ways that Tim couldn’t even dream of replicating, but that was after Tim had become Robin, so the argument wouldn’t hold up. Hell, Bruce would probably argue that she had become Ladybug as revenge, so she could even the playing field bond-wise, so that would be considered his fault too.

He gritted his teeth. “No. We’ve never talked.”

Bruce gave a shaky exhale. “You lied to me for months. Endangered not only your own life, but someone else’s – someone who never even consented to it – and both of you are children.”

“You needed a Robin,” Tim said, glowering at him.

“No amount of me needing a Robin should have justified this in my mind, especially not for as long as it did,” sighed Bruce, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But I’ll make up for it now: Tim, go home.”

And Tim wanted to tell him that this was the closest he had ever gotten to a home.

But it wasn’t like Tim had ever really learned how to argue with those he loved. He was never listened to whenever he tried to defend himself. And he had been expecting something like this for years now, had always known that the family provided by the Bats was temporary, had always kept his soulmate quiet because he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to continue the moment he was found out.

So, really, it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone when he pressed his lips into a thin line and turned away, heading back towards the place he had grown up.

~

Marinette wasn’t quite sure while the pain had stopped, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She didn’t know when it would come back, being productive while she could was the key.

And, yes, she found herself suddenly unable to get out of bed in the morning for reasons that she was almost completely sure weren’t due to her, but she was a being of pure spite at this point, especially when her soulmate was involved, and she was going to finish this or so help her god she was going to march over to her soulmate and deck them.

Actually, she thought as she forced herself to roll onto the floor. It was always the hardest part, forcing herself to move that first bit and get out of the safety of her bed when all she wanted was to burrow and hide until she withered away into nothing. Maybe I should do that anyway. Not like it’ll be hard to find them with this stupid string following me around.

The thought pulled a wry smile to her lips, however shortly. Her facial muscles pulled strangely. When was the last time she smiled outside of when she talked to victims?

A minute chill ran through her at the thought. She quickly moved on, pushing herself up and towards the dresser.

And she went about her day. She had started helping Chat on patrols now that she was physically able to do so without (too much) worrying about whether her soulmate was going to suddenly get stabbed.

Now, patrols weren’t exactly necessary, not really. Their phones would notify them the moment an akuma appeared regardless of whether they stepped outside, but they weren’t actually looking for akumas. No, they were looking for the butterflies that came just before.

As they started to narrow in on a location, she noticed Chat getting antsier and antsier. If she was even marginally more paranoid, she might have thought he was a traitor, but the rational part of her brain still worked sometimes. She had died before, and if he really was a traitor she wouldn’t have been brought back, much less given her her miraculous back when he had.

That didn’t change the fact that she knew he was keeping something from her, and that it was putting her on edge. He had never bothered with secrets before, exempting their secret identities, so whatever it was was big. On par with the secret identity stuff, at least, and he had the same amount of skittishness when talking about it that he did when they talked about their personal lives.

Maybe that was it. Maybe he lived somewhere nearby and didn’t like the fact that Hawkmoth was so close.

She never got to find out, though.

Because they traced Hawkmoth to the Agreste household (she was pretty sure they were models or something, she had seen Adrien Agreste’s billboards all over town). Apparently, the place had a secret basement that Gabriel Agreste used to farm his butterflies and generally act evil in. It even had a coffin, complete with the man’s wife laying prone inside.

Marinette tried to make a joke about how the place was a stereotypical evil lair, but Chat had seemed… absent.

Not so absent that he couldn’t fight. Hawkmoth, for some dumb reason, clearly hadn’t expected them to find him, and he hadn’t been prepared. In the end, the fight only took about ten minutes. A large amount of the akumas were harder to fight, and she thought it felt strangely anticlimactic. Of course, it was better this way, but…

She sighed, leaning against a railing, twirling the brooch in her hands. It looked so simple, and yet it had caused more destruction than most of the supervillains she could name. It was relieving to find it in good hands – her hands – once and for all. When the kwamis were done getting their revenge, she would hand it off to them, and they would be officially free to do whatever they wanted.

She was exhausted, and the completeness of the situation had done nothing to help with that. She knew she should be happy, or, at the very least, relieved, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to even pretend to smile.

She cast her eyes over the edge of the railing, to the abyss below. She couldn’t see the bottom. She wondered, idly, how far down it went. And then how much it would hurt to hit the ground – or if it would even hurt at all.

Marinette straightened and forced herself to walk to the middle of the platform.

That… was just her soulmate’s newfound depression bleeding into her, right? Like, sure, she was losing what had pretty much been her sole purpose in life for the past few years, but she shouldn’t be so upset that she was wondering about that. She liked being alive. There was no other way to be.

At least there was plenty to distract her here.

The kwamis were… not pleased with Gabriel Agreste, not in the slightest, and she grimaced when a wet crunch met her ears.

Her gaze flicked away. Both her and Chat Noir were detransformed, but she couldn’t seem to look directly at his face. Every time she did, it was like her eyes slid right off. She took in aspects of his clothes, like the fact that his outfit was expensive or that she was pretty sure she had seen it somewhere before, but only briefly before those thoughts slipped away like water spilling between her fingers.

Still, she registered that his shoulders were shaking just fine.

Maybe the kwamis’ brutality was throwing him off?

She shoved her hands in her pockets. “Uh, guys, I think he’s dead,” she piped up.

There was one more sound that reminded her a bit of tearing wet paper, and a minute shiver ran through her, but then it was over.

“He will not harm us anymore,” Tikki said, their voice strangely low in comparison to the almost ear-splitting high tones they usually spoke in.

Marinette flashed an awkward thumbs up, nodding. “So… are we done here?”

“Nope,” the new kwami (Nooroo, she was pretty sure they were called) piped up.

Her shoulders went tense. “Sorry?”

The kwami chuckled. “It’s nothing bad. I’d just like to reward you before you go. Give me a wish, and I will do my best to grant it.”

Marinette stared, blankly. A wish? How could he ask someone like her for a wish? Could she get her soulmate severed from her? But then what would that leave her with? She had never particularly been able to care for much else. Terrible as it was, the anger she felt over her soulmate and the injustices surrounding that was the only emotion she could really feel nowadays.

Chat Noir pushed himself to his feet, and even if she couldn’t really see him, she recognized the determined set of his shoulders as he closed the distance between himself and the kwamis.

“I want the entire world to forget everything about Hawkmoth and us. Including me.”

Marinette went very still. She looked at Chat Noir with wide eyes, but he didn’t look back at her. There was a set to his jaw.

The kwami pursed their lips thoughtfully. “I can’t completely make them forget, but I can remove the emotions from the equation, which should make everyone struggle to recognize it as real. Like a dream, or the mandela effect.”

“I don’t care how you do it,” Chat said, his voice shockingly cold as he shoved his ring at Plagg. “I just need it done.”

“Then it will be done,” the kwami said. It turned to Marinette, now. “And you? Would you like to forget, too?”

She slowly reached up and pulled the earrings from her ears. “No,” she said. Because, as much as it pained her to know that her friend was leaving her, and no matter how much she wanted to avoid that pain like the plague… she also recognized that it was better. For her. She had no clue why Chat felt the need to do this, but it served as a great reminder. Getting attached to people never ended well for her. They would always leave her, so why bother with the heartache? Why not just leave first?

Unless…

She eyed the earrings in her palm. She had control over Tikki, sort of, and if she wanted to she could make it so the kwami would never leave her.

And then her eyes found the lump that had once been a person.

Not worth it, she decided.

She steeled herself and looked at the kwami. “I want to continue being able to see and interact with magic.”

The kwami gave her a mildly confused look, but she pointed to the string spooled at her feet and it seemed to understand as much as an immortal, invincible being could.

“It will be done,” it said again.

She nodded and handed the earrings and brooch over.

The kwamis disappeared in a flash of light.

The pair of ex-heroes watched where they had gone for a moment, silent.

Marinette was the first to break out of the quiet stupor that they had been put into. She headed towards the elevator that would bring her back to the surface. Soon, it would be nothing but a bad dream for Chat, and a bitter memory for her. Chat didn’t snap out of it in time to get in the elevator with her, and thanks to the magic cloaking their identities she couldn’t make out the devastation on her face.

She stalked the halls of the Agreste mansion. If she couldn’t find a door then she was going out the window, just to spite a dead man.

But, disappointingly, she found her way to the door. She hated intuitive layouts. She forced her way through it, but a hand managed to catch the door before she could slam it shut behind herself.

Chat was in the door, panting slightly, looking like he had run from the elevator.

“Coccinelle, I –,” he tried.

She dodged the hand that reached for her, but threw up a lazy hand to wave behind herself as she continued back towards home.

“See you never, Chat Noir.”

~

Tim turned over in bed when his phone got a notification, squinting at the light permeating the relative darkness of the room.

He considered, for a moment, whether he should just let it be.

And then he sighed to himself and picked it up. Wondering if it was his parents. Or the bats. Bad habits die hard, he supposed.

… why did he have duolingo?

He opened the app and found that he had an over hundred day streak. His eyebrows furrowed. Why had he done that? And why was he continuing it after Batman had stopped making him learn other languages?

(Had stopped making him do anything at all, really.)

He shook his head to himself. He knew he had to have had a reason, there was no way he had just suddenly gotten a passing interest in learning French, especially since he could no longer really remember doing it… but whatever.

The streak was over a hundred days long at this point, he might as well continue, if only for the sake of having something to do. At least he didn’t have to get out of bed to do it.

~~~

Next part

@laurcad123

[intimidating-fettuccine]

Silly creep things to try and cheer you up a little bit

LJ will juggle various items at random times, and he often does so quietly, waiting until people notice. They'll be eating breakfast and Jack is just at the end of the table juggling various fruits quietly and intensely, waiting for everyone to notice. It's become such a regular activity that they don't even question it anymore, but those who notice first often have a hard time controlling their laughter. Slender has put limitations on his juggling after he caught Jack juggling several of his very expensive vases one day, although none of the vases were damaged.

Toby is committed to trying to lick the tip of his nose and his elbow with his tongue, but he has so far been unsuccessful. That is also a common thing to see in the mansion, Toby sitting by himself, eyes in full concentration, working overtime to try and succeed in either licking the tip of his nose or his elbow. Tim always ends up having to tell him to stop because he's worried Toby's gonna somehow strain himself, especially when he starts trying to contort his arm to get his elbow closer.

BEN has started being an absolute nuisance to Jeff whenever Jeff is annoying him or picking on him, and Jeff is finally starting to learn his lesson. Jeff with say something to pick on BEN, and BEN will retort back with something worse and then take off running. Jeff, of course, will chase after him, but what BEN has started doing is last minute shifting into his ghost form and slamming a door through his body so Jeff runs face first into the door. BEN has pulled this off a whopping 10 times, and Jeff is now finally realizing that maybe he should not chase after BEN like that. There are various recordings of this happening floating amongst the residents, much to Jeff's chagrin.

Slender is in full baking mode, as he is every fall, and this year he has kicked it up a notch to a point where everyone is getting a little concerned. He uses baking as stress relief, and as he's been particularly stressed lately, he has made, in the last couple of weeks, seven pies, five cakes, and four trays of cupcakes. Despite how many people are in the mansion, Slender makes quite large desserts to combat that so normally everyone can have some, but he's made such a ridiculous amount that they're having a hard time eating through it. They can't get him to stop. He's trying new holiday recipes. He's in the kitchen right now. He's whisking away. He's going to fill the house with desserts and nothing can stop him.

Liu has very recently gotten very into board games, all thanks to BEN for showing him a couple he thought Liu would like. This is good because it's a nice group hobby, and he can teach everyone all of the games and it's a good way to spend time together. The problem is that he's so into them that he wants to play board games all the time. He keeps buying new ones and upon getting home will immediately follow people around politely asking (begging) them to play with him. He will leave the board games out and set them up as a silent sign of trying to get people to ask him if they can play. He can't stop pouting at everyone when nobody wants to play. Jeff is forced into playing the board games the most because he's his brother, and so now Jeff is trying to constantly drag people into it. They enjoy playing the games with Liu, they really do. They just also like being able to sleep and do other things. Liu can't relate. Everyone silently blames BEN for creating this monster but BEN doesn't care and is happy to have someone else around interested in board games.

[occasionalsnippets]

I’m curious about Tim and MC’s relationship.

Like, is Tim grateful for the fact that MC took care of him?

Does he know that MC took his shifts as Robin so he wouldn’t deal with B’s bad days/nights?

Does he know that Jack and Janet didn’t really like MC?

How much does he resent Jack and Janet?

How does he bond/show his love for his sibling?

Also, how would the members of the Batfam bond with MC? (Before and After Damian snitched)

And what do the Batfam think of MC?

- Storm.Anon

Focusing on just Tim for this! Send another ask for other Batfam members owo because I do want to individually dig into each relationship.

Taglist: @dragondevinity, @lonely-star2044, @sheep-from-rad, @ilxandra, @thethingwiththefeathers, @star-wars-lycanwing-bat, @sackofsadstuff, @zonked-times, @paastaboi, @venfia, @fantasy-angelo, @linaisadream, @shirp-collector-of-fixations

Their relationship is both less complicated and more complicated than it should be. On one hand, you’re Tim's older sister-caretaker-parental figure-best friend- who can’t be categorized neatly into any singular category. On the other hand, none of those categories matter when you are the person he trusts more than anyone else in the world. More than he trusts himself.

Your parents do not hate you. You were an accident (huge, immensely big, giant accident) but they do care for you in some nebulous, difficult to discern, rich-people kind of way. They give you all the money you could want. They teach you the rules of high society and how to deal with the company. They try. Sometimes.

In many ways, you are their protege and student before a lot of things but you are still your mother’s child. A reflection of Janet Drake in every way that matters with a mind like a steel trap and a mouth that murmurs sweet poison. It is one of the main things Tim notes as a child when he thinks of you and mother.

The biggest mark against your parents, really, is the neglect. Their children weren’t their number one priority and both you and Tim knew. They could be worse. They could be better. C+ parenting all around.

Tim’s view on Jack and Janet are a bit fickle? Inconsistent? Complicated? He had wished for a very long time when he was younger for them to come home more often but he never really processed the whole situation until you forced everyone to get therapy. There’s quiet sadness in his feelings about his parents but not really resentment, not like you.

Not that those feelings have anywhere to go anymore. Both of you still grieved during their funerals.

Tim gives you gifts on mother and father's day and overtime the message written in the cards attached get longer and sillier. He still remembers the stillness of your initial reaction when he first presented you with a card.

He hadn't really noticed how much you did behind the scenes until he got older and realized you were internalizing a hell of a lot of things. His early days of existence are marked by your ever encompassing presence in his life. His parents leave. You stay. You always stay even as he digs himself into the pit that is becoming Robin.

He can always rely on you. If there is any truth in his life then it is that you will always be there for him. So, when you tell him with dark shadows cast upon your face that he shouldn't go out as Robin tonight, he accepts with minor protests.

You keep detailed reports on patrol to keep everyone updated when you're filling in as Robin and the ones from Tim's early days are... rough. Tim reads them because of course he does, and talks with you about it. A lot. You insist that he shouldn't have to deal with Batman because Tim is like 13 and Tim keeps saying that he chose this. So, the two of you compromise on it. Teamwork makes the dream work, right?

No one else really reads the old patrol reports. What happens during the early days stays between you and Tim and Bruce. Tim thinks Bruce still feels guilty about it, about both him and you.

Tim shows affection for you the same way you show affection. He'll go to company meetings in your stead. He learns to cook and bring meals to you when you're too busy. He orders materials for your hobbies whenever he notices you're running out.

Your relationship is not immune to normal sibling shenanigans though. You yell, you fight, he stands a centimetre away from the entrance of your room for no apparent reason, the two of you want to kill each other sometimes because "mother and father always liked you better-" and "I never wanted to raise you-"

You and Tim are so crazily co-dependent even if it isn't obvious. You're a bit less dependent than he is but you've also revolved your life around him and everything you do is basically for him so how true that statement is can be debated.

Sometimes you think you need him in order to be allowed to exist. There is no role for you except in reference to him, to your little brother who you'd give the world to.

Tim literally doesn't know how he'd survive or live without you. You taught him unconditional love. You're his favourite person. You've always protected him. He can't fathom the idea of existing without you.

You're impossible to separate from him and him from you. Aren't the two of you one and the same? Where does one end and the other begin? Who is he if not a reflection of you and who you raised him to be?

Alsjfjak so yeah. The Siblings. Them.

[pimento-playing-hopscotch]

How do you think the show will deal with Grace being gone in season 5? Do you think they're going to kill her?

Hi anon!

I would prefer they didn't, but from the information we have, nothing else seems plausible -

Grace and Judd are definitely strong enough as a couple to make a commuter marriage work, but Judd isn't working and Grace has a job- making it unlikely she would get an offer for a better-paying job that is a distance away and it doesn't make sense for her to leave to go to school to get a better job- because if Judd is currently retired and Grace isn't working because she is attending school, then there is no money coming in and that isn't sustainable.

Grace's parents are in town, so she can't leave town to take care of them, and I can't think of another reason they would have her leave. Which, if Grace and Judd weren't such a strong couple, then I could see that taking care of Wyatt put a strain on their marriage, and she would say I'm taking Charlie to go see my sisters for a while - but Judd and Grace seem like too strong of a couple for that.

I hate to mention this, but it also seems likely to me just given the atmosphere surrounding this season. When the show wrapped, everyone who wasn't Ronen Rubinstein or Brian Michael Smith posted about the show like this is the final season (the Instagram page for the show literally made a post saying "It WAS a good run" - like there's a way to make that sentiment without making it sound like the show is ending - but it really feels like they were told when writing this season "anything can happen... but also, there's a very real chance this is the last season this show will have". And that combined with the take it or leave it deals and Sierra saying respectfully, I'll leave it and I won't be returning, makes it feel like they would make that choice.

But mainly, it seems like the most likely outcome because this has happened on the show. Every season except the first, this has happened. And this is different because it's a main character this time, but (The Walt Disney-esque reasons aside) Tim's reasoning for Gwyn's death was "well Lisa wouldn't always be available to film, so this made sense for the show" (which, it really didn't- there are other character deaths that suited the show's narrative a lot better. Her absence was literally the easiest to explain).

Lastly - it feels like since it was been such a long time since there has been anything canon happen in LS, it's tough to reconcile what we want to have happen on the show and what is more likely to actually happen, given how they've written the show in the past four seasons.

Take Carlos becoming a Texas Ranger - no one wanted this to be canon. When Rafa in various Cameos at the beginning of the year talked about the changes the characters would face, there were so many people saying this meant that Carlos wouldn't be a cop anymore.

But when the show comes back, they announce not only is he still cop, he's more cop- he's worse kind of cop.

I do think that they would never have Judd and Grace split up -

but given the state of the season and everything that's already happened on the show -

It seems to be the most likely outcome.

[myrandomfandomramblings]

Simple The Rookie 5x08/5x09 rewrite to separate the end of Chris/Lucy and start of Chenford and get to see a little bit more into Tim and Lucy’s thought processes and feelings.

Everything is the same except the end scene of 5x08 is essentially moved to the end of 5x09, combined with that end scene and expanded, and instead at the end of 5x08 there’s a heart-to-heart between Lucy and Angela.

Of course the office scene where Tim gives Lucy break-up advise is also changed, but only slightly.

---------

5x08 end scene:

“Hey, can I get your opinion on something?” Lucy asks as she approaches Angela’s desk.

“Of course.” Angela replies closing the file in front of her as Lucy pulls an empty chair over, “What’s up?”

“Uh,” Lucy stutters, “I’m actually not even sure where to start.”

“Is this about you buying a house with Chris?”

“How’d you know about that?”  Lucy asks, surprised.

“I have my sources,” Angela smirks, “So big step. How are you feeling?”

“That’s just it,” Lucy begins, “I don’t know what to feel. I mean I should be happy, excited. This is what I’ve always wanted. To meet a guy and fall in love, move in together and start a family, but…” Lucy trails off.

“…you didn’t fall in love,” Angela prods gently.

“No,” Lucy breathes, “I didn’t. I mean I wanted to. I tried really hard to convince myself that one day I would, but now, I just don’t think I’ll ever get there. When Chris started showing me houses I realized I just can’t picture that future. Not with him.”

Angela nods. “So did you come to me for break-up advice?”

“I- I guess I just wanted someone to tell me that it was okay to want to end it. I mean he’s a good guy, we get along well, have similar interests, want the same things in life. Am I crazy for not wanting to try and make it work anymore?” 

“You’re not crazy and you did try, but you can’t force yourself feel something you don’t and pretending otherwise just hurts everyone involved.”

Lucy nods, “It all sounds so simple when you say it.”

“Oh, love’s never simple,” Angela laughs, “in fact that’s how I know you and Chris never had it.”

Lucy raises her eyebrows, “Care to enlighten me?”

“The perfect partner doesn’t just fit into your life, they change it, and you, for the better. They challenge you and push you and make you a better person and they grow and change because of you. They are the person whose simple presence brings you happiness, comfort and excitement. The person who knows you better than you know yourself. The person you’d move heaven and earth for without a second thought. The person who can hurt you more deeply than anyone else. It’s not some formula where if somebody checks off enough boxes they become that person. They just are that person. Your person, wether you like it or not.” Angela stops then, noticing Lucy’s eyes glisten as they avoid hers.

“Hey, it’s ok, one day you’ll find that,” Angela says patting Lucy’s shoulder.

“What if I already have,” Lucy sniffs, “and I don’t know what to do about it.”

Angela follows Lucy’s gaze then and unsurprisingly finds herself looking at Tim across the bull pen.

She can’t help but smile as she turns back to Lucy. “Then you’ll figure it out. Just give yourself some time.”

Lucy just nods as she steals another glance at Tim.

“But first things first,” Angela smirks, “you need to break up with Chris.”

Lucy sighs throwing her head back, “I know. I just don’t want to hurt him anymore than I have to. After all, he almost died because of me, the least I can do is not completely break his heart. Ugh,” she sighs again, “It would be so much easier if I could just be the type of asshole who breaks up with people over text.”

-------

Office scene:

“So have you decided to move in with Chris after all,” Tim asks Lucy as soon as Chris leaves the room.

“No, I’m trying to break-up with him,” Lucy whines.

“And how’s that going?” Tim teases.

“I’m in the planning stages. I’m just reviewing the literature.”

“Literature? Lucy a psychology journal is not going to tell you how to break up with Chris. I mean, uh, just ask him to your office and ask for his playbook. Quick and easy,” Tim offers.

“His playbill?” Lucy asks, confused.

“His playbook. When you get kicked off a team you have to turn in your playbook. It’s a metaphor.”

“No, it’s cruel. I’m… I’m gonna handle it my way.”

“If... If you're having second thoughts-” Tim asks tentatively, hoping he isn’t pressuring her into ending it with Chris when she doesn’t want to.

“No, I... I'm not,” Lucy replies.

“Good,” Tim smiles and Lucy’s more confident in her decision than ever.

-------

5x09 end scene:

How's it going? Lucy asks, surprising Tim as he exits Mid-Wilshire’s front doors into the streetlight lit courtyard.

Tim sighs, “Survived my shift as watch commander, glad Grey will be returning tomorrow and I won’t have to do it again. What are you doing back?”

“Uh- Can we talk?” Lucy asks guiding Tim over to sit down in front of one of the flower beds.

When Tim just nods Lucy continues.

“I talked to Chris.” 

“How did it go?” 

“Uh, awful. Yeah. But it's done.”

“Honestly, I still don’t understand what took you so long. It clearly wasn’t working out. I don’t know why you wouldn’t just admit it. Was it guilt? Because of what Rosalind did to him?”

“Oh, like I’m the only one that stayed too long when things weren’t working. You dated a lifeguard. You don’t even like going to the beach.”

“This isn’t about me,” Tim interrupts, fuelled by the frustration that comes from unrequited feelings. Lucy tries to cut him off but he persists, “It’s not.”

“If it’s not about you then why do you care so much?” She spits back. He’s temporarily stunned into silence as he pulls back a bit and blinks to clear his head.

“You know why,” he finally offers and his tone has softened.

“I don’t actually,” Lucy rebuts “You continue to chastise me about staying in a dead-end relationship when you would still be in one too, if Ashley hadn’t pulled the plug for you.”

“You’re right,” Tim admits and Lucy’s fire starts to dissipate, “I stayed with Ashley far past when I knew it wasn’t going to work out, because it was easy and safe. But I wasn’t happy and when she ended it, instead of sadness I felt relief. And in that relief I found clarity. I didn’t want you to make my same mistakes. I wanted you to be braver than I was.” He pauses, waiting for Lucy to jump in but when she just continues to stare at him with big open eyes he continues.

“You asked me why I care. I care because I care about you. I want you to be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I thought you were happy with him, but then it became obvious you weren’t and you deserve to be happy, Lucy.” He knows he should stop before he says too much but every emotion he’s grappled with since that undercover kiss is now coursing through his veins, pushing him forward. “You deserve to find someone who truly makes you happy.”

“Are you saying that could be you?” Lucy asks tentatively.

“Is that crazy?” Tim asks, more vulnerable than she’d ever seen him.

Lucy shakes her head, “Not crazy,” she clarifies “but kind of terrifying, because if we do this and it doesn’t work I’ll have ruined the most important relationship in my life.”

Tim freezes then not quite believing what he is hearing. That she feels the same way. Yet, here she is not only confirming that he is the most important person in her life but also that them being together is a real option. They could choose that. Choose each other. Choose happiness.

Lucy must read his silence as hesitation because she starts to backtrack.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have,”

“You’re right,” he quickly interrupts.

“So we should just keep going the way we have been, right?,” Lucy proposes coyly, “It’s not worth the risk.”

“Unless it is?” Tim quickly offers. 

Lucy looks back at him questioning. He hesitates before clarifying. 

“I know it’s complicated, it could have ramifications not only on us personally but also professionally and we could come to regret it,” Tim explains, “but over the last few weeks I’ve realized that if we don’t at least try I’ll always wonder ‘what if?’”

“Are you trying to ask me something, Tim,” Lucy asks, voice laced with anticipation.

“I can’t remember,” Tim teases.

“Don’t make me hurt you,” Lucy replies quietly.

Tim pauses then, taking a couple deep breaths and allowing himself to really take her in, as he summons all his courage.

“Do you want to get dinner sometime,” he finally asks.

“Yes” she replies immediately and he can’t help but beam.

“Yeah?” He confirms. It stills seems too good to be true.

“Yeah,” she confirms. “I do.”

And they can’t help but stare at each other, broad smiles plastered to their faces as their hearts beat out of their chests.

[luvrodite]

I’ve been obsessed with soulmate AUs recently, so here’s a little idea i’ve been playing around with:

Everyone’s born with words somewhere on their body, unreadable at first. The skin is shiny, like an old scar, the words blurry and undefined. One day, you’ll see the first words you’ll ever hear your soulmate say to you, that shiny patch of skin blooming like ink (there’s superstitions about the colour your words fade into, as popular as astrology). The trick of the thing is, you won’t find out what your words are until you’ve become the person who is meant to hear them. The youngest person to get their words was seven, and the oldest 92 years young.

You and Jason meet at school, outsiders in your own way. You, the new transfer student to Gotham Prep, and Jason the newly adopted son of Bruce Wayne. You bond over your outsider status and shared interests, fast friends in no time. The kind of best friends that tell each other almost everything, comfortable in each other’s trust. Jason tells you about his fears that one day all of this, Bruce and Alfred, the manor, school, will disappear one day (he’s very careful to talk around being Robin, it’s not only his secret after all). He listens to you when you feel homesick, worried that you’ll never feel at home again. It’s a friendship built on shared secrets, on fears assuaged, and worries made better. You’ve never met Bruce or Alfred or the rest of Jason’s family. He asks you about it once, but you simply reply you prefer having Jason to yourself. That maybe one day you’ll meet, but for now your friendship is a private thing for you two alone.

Sometimes you and Jason will speculate about what your words will be, fingers tracing featherlight over still-shiny skin. Privately you hope your words will be his. It’s so easy to fall in love with Jason. The light in his eyes when he rants about the latest book he’s read, when he shares the biscuits Alfred packs for him, the way he listens to you so intently even if he doesn’t have all the answers. You can admit to yourself that you’re hopelessly in love with your best friend, but never out loud. Your friendship is one of the most important things in your life and you are terrified of destroying it.

When Jason dies, it’s like the whole world turns to ash. You never got to tell him. He died without knowing you loved him. His death rips you open like nothing ever has before, regret a constant salt in the wound. He never told you that he was thinking of leaving. It feels wrong at this point, to interrupt his family in their grief, another stranger claiming to have known their son. After all, how well did you really know him if you didn’t even know he was going to leave? Once you emerge from the fog of your grief, you turn it into fuel. You graduate and then hurry through a degree as quickly as you can. You take a position in a charity working with underprivileged children, determined that no child will ever be afraid of being tossed aside like Jason was. You make use of your Gotham Prep connections, rubbing elbows with the rich for just as long as it takes to pry open their wallets. Occasionally you see Bruce, or Dick, or the newest ward Tim at functions, always across the room before you quickly excuse yourself. You keep yourself so busy that when your words come in, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know…”, you barely give it a thought, just pulling the cuff of your shirt lower to cover your wrist. You never bother trying to read the rest of it. It doesn’t matter anymore.

Your world ends for a second time when you catch sight of the newspaper headlines at the local newsstand. “Lost Wayne son found alive” screams out at you, tearing into your heart bloody. You lose grip of your work bag, but manage not to lose your mind in the street. You call out sick, a first for you, and in your fog somehow make it to Wayne manor. You are indescribably rude to poor Alfred, pushing right past him, almost hypnotized by the voices coming from inside. A body tries to come between you, stopping you in your tracks. Years of grief, anger, and battered hope come roaring through you at the thought of being denied seeing Jason, alive after all this time. Your voice when it leaves you is dangerously low. “Jason Todd was my best friend and first love.” The body stiffens, but that doesn’t matter in this moment. “You are going to step aside and-” anything else doesn’t matter because a door is thrown open and there is Jason. Eyes wild, a good deal older and more scarred than before, but he’s alive. And then nothing else matters but the feel of his arms warm around you, the imprint of his jacket on your face, the smell of him largely unchanged. What catches your eye is the writing at the hollow of his throat, a stark black spreading across his collarbones.

“Jason Todd was my best friend and first love.”

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you felt the same.”

(I’m actually so sorry, this ask ran away with me and turned into this monster, oh my god. This AU has me in a chokehold and i need to scream about it)

- 🍂 (@fic-over-cannon)

i’ve been hoarding this in my inbox for AGES because work has been so busy lately that i never seem to get enough downtime to come up with a coherent thought let alone the brain cells to read but.

tumblr user fic-over-cannon i need u to write this immediately so i can devour it. i’m such a sucker for the childhood friends to lovers with jason because it holds so much potential. and a soulmate au too!! i’m beside myself. the last few lines of this had me feeling like i was genuinely running to find him - i can just imagine the urgency and the pain that propels you forward like you might lose him all over again if you’re not fast enough this time (not unlike bruce, i’m realising)

sighing over this and weeping into my hands

[rubydubydoo122]

Batfam Band Au

Jason Todd and Tim Drake are so Conan Gray coded. Proof? here,

Maniac - Jason: 'People like you always want back what they can't have, but I'm past that and you know that so you should turn back to your rat(bat) pack tell 'em I'm trash' Jason to Bruce after Bruce victim blamed his death Tim: 'Tell all of your friends that I'm crazy, and drive you mad, that I'm such a stalker, a watcher, a psycopath' Tim's speaks for itself, but like... probably Tim to everyone

Fight or Flight - Jason: 'something's gotten into you, you don't really look at me the way you used to' Him to Bruce. no explanation needed, 'Every single rumor that I've heard of you say, you were out with someone that I don't know' Jason when he saw the pictures of Tim as Robin 'fight or flight, I'd rather die than have to cry in front of you. fight or flight, id rather lie than tell you I'm in love with you' him with bruce. Him With Bruce. HIM WITH BRUCE. Like god, he's just a scared kid that wants his dad, but he'll never admit that, 'Now there's someone at my door, someone i've not met before, they've got, eyes like mine, a pretty smile and they've been crying for a while, cus they also didn't know' Jason with Tim after Damian became Robin (or a while after that ig, whenever they started to get along)

The Cut that Always Bleeds - Tim: 'Oh I, can't, be, your lover on a leash, every other week, when you need, oh I can't be, the kiss that you don't need, the lie between your teeth, the cut that always bleeds' Tim realizing that maybe being Bruce's emotional support child is no bueno for his mental heath. 'Say you love somebody new and beat my heart to black and blue, and they leave and it's me you come back to' Because Tim became Robin to essentially be Bruce's crutch until he could get back on his feet after Jason's death, and the problem with that is Bruce will never really get back on his feet because he's still limping from his parents death, 'But even though you're killing me, I need you like the air I breathe, I need, I need you more than me, I need you more than anything, please, please.' and that's kinda the case for all the Robins. Bruce pushes them so hard, almost to the point of breaking, and when they want to break away, Bruce gives them a sliver of validation creating a never ending cycle of them craving Bruce's approval.

Astronomy - Jason: 'cus socially speaking, we were the same, with runaway fathers and mothers who drank' Jason to Steph probably 'From far away, i wish i'd stayed with you. but here face to face a stranger that I once knew. I thought if I wandered, I'd fall back in love, you said distance brings fondness, but guess not with us' Jason to Bruce during UTRH, because Jason's death changed both of them so much, to the point where they can't recognize each other anymore . And maybe Bruce missed Jason while he was dead, but now that he's alive...'Stop trying to keep us alive, you're pointing at stars in the sky, that've already died, stop trying to keep us alive, you can't force the stars to align, when they've already died' Him to himself about continuing to forgive Bruce and running back to Bruce time and time again after all the shit Bruce has pulled

Footnote - Tim: 'I say if I waited, could that maybe help, you told me that patience won't change how you felt, for me' Tim to Bruce, knowing that he'll never be Jason, yet still yearning for that father/son dynamic (sh sh, Ik Tim doesn't actually see Bruce as his dad, but lets shift slightly into fanon) 'So I'll just take a footnote, in your life, and you can take my body, every line, I would right for you, but a footnote will do' Tim's entire Red Robin run, mainly to Dick, who is a little too busy trying to balance grieving and a feral child 'You taught me a lesson, that feelings are reckless, it's just like the novels, side characters end up alone.' Tim after loosing almost everyone he cared about within a year and turning cold and distant.

Winner - Literally this whole song is for the both of them and their parental issues Tim: 'Packed my bags at 14, I hadn't planned on leaving, but you haven't been back home for days' Like... we all do agree that Tim's parents were neglectful. They were literally never around. 'You don't really wanna hear the truth, do you? it's obvious to anyone who ever knew you. that all you ever want is to be right, even if that means you gotta lie to do it,' This is probably more fannon, but like Janet and Jack Drake Jason: 'Bask inside your victory, my heart that once was beating, bleeding in the palm of your hand' Under the Red Hood. batarang to the throat, 'Yet you have the nerve to miss me, how do I somehow feel guilty? when you're the one who let it get this bad' JASON TO BRUCE LIKE, TELL ME I"M WRONG. Bruce will claim to miss Jason, but then blame him for his own death in the same breath. "You don't really wanna hear the truth, do you? it's obvious to anyone who ever knew you. that all you ever wanted was to FIGHT. I WAS ONLY TRYING TO SURVIVE YOUR CHAOS!! WELL LOOK AT HOW IT"S PAID OFF' Jason got caught up in Bruce's "war on crime" AND HE DIED. HE DIED FOR IT. HE DIDN"T SURVIVE BRUCE"S CHAOS, HE"S STIL STUCK IN IT AND HE CAN"T GET OUT.

Family Line - THIS ONE!!! THIS ONE!!! I LITERALLY CRY EVERY TIME I HEAR IT BECAUSE IT FITS THE BOTH OF THEM TOO WELL Jason: 'My father never talked a lot, He just took a walk around the block, 'Til all his anger took a hold of him, and then he'd hit. My mother never cried a lot, She took the punches, but she never fought' Willis and Catherine. 'Scattered 'cross my family lineI'm so good at telling lies, That came from my mother father's side, Told a million to survive,' Father meaning Bruce. Lies meaning Robin and secret identies and stuff 'Scattered 'cross my family line, God, I have my father's mother's eyes,' Sheila's 'But my sister's when I cry, I can run, but I can't hide, From my family line' Do I have to explain this? Tim: 'It's hard to put it into words, How the holidays will always hurt, I watch the fathers with their little girls, And wonder what I did to deserve this, How could you hurt a little kid? I can't forget, I can't forgive you, 'Cause now I'm scared that everyone I love will leave me' I can just imagine little baby Timmy following Batman and Robin, and then casting a glance at a family lighting a minorah, while he knows his family's minorah is sitting in the closet because his parents still haven't come home from their trip. Jason: 'Oh, all that I did to try to undo it,' All the crimes he did to survive, made him try so hard as Robin to undo that, 'All of my pain and all your excuses, I was a kid but I wasn't clueless' Maybe it's how he feels about Sheila now that he's grown. Jason was alone on the streets before Bruce. He even empathized with Sheila, and tried to help her. Jason was optimistic, not naive. Tim: 'Someone who loves you wouldn't do this' Jason: "All of my past, I tried to erase it,' His time on the streets, his time as Robin, Sheila's betrayal, The LOA, his villain era, 'But now I see, would I even change it?' Because all of those things shaped who he is now 'Might share a face and share a last name, but We are not the same' He would've never done what Sheila did, he would never do what Bruce did, or Talia, or Wilis or any of the other adults in his life who have let him down.

Anywho, yeah, Conan Gray writing music for Jason and Tim is on my mind a lot.

[ollieofthebeholder]

to find promise of peace (and the solace of rest): a TMA fanfic

Read from the beginning on Tumblr || AO3 || My Website

Chapter 114: May 2018

Martin knew it was going to be a rough day when he woke up to find Tim playing with a prism.

Not that it had been a particularly good week to begin with, or even a particularly good month. The dispassionate aloofness that protected Martin in his dreams had started seriously eroding, and while that was probably a good thing—he’d been really worried about what it meant that he could just watch people, especially people he cared about like Gerry and Naomi, go through the worst days of their lives like it was a television program—it did mean his sleep was a good deal more restless, and he always worried he was going to wake Jon, or hurt him by accident. The progression through the dreams was getting far less orderly, too, and he struggled to figure out what the pattern was, if there was a pattern. If it wasn’t just meant to disorientate him, keep him off balance, and make him just as afraid as the people begging him to help not knowing he was just as helpless as they were.

Besides his petty little personal problems…things were getting bad for everyone else, too. Maybe worse. Melanie and Sasha had turned up Monday morning with the cats and a lingering smell of smoke; they were all fine, and the house had mostly survived, but the interior was a mess and they were going to have to stay in the Archives until her landlord was finished the renovations. Melanie was already betting against him changing the leasehold to say that she couldn’t have pets anymore. Tim had left after work that day and come back with Gerry and Umberto; Martin had assumed he just felt guilty being the only one who got to leave until Gerry and Daisy came up from the tunnels, where they’d been looking for vermin of some kind to satisfy both their hungers, looking shaken and pissed respectively. Gerry had had one of his attacks when Daisy nearly pounced on a particularly juicy-looking spider (her words) and he’d seen the black marks of potential death bloom on her face and chest, and they still weren’t sure what that was all about. That night he’d had a nasty Web-related flashback that they’d spent all of Wednesday searching to see if there was a statement in the Archives that matched.

And every time any of them so much as set a toe outside the Archives, it seemed, there were cobwebs everywhere.

Martin hadn’t heard Gerry’s flashback the night before, since he and Jon had taken to sleeping in the Archivist’s office—Jon refused to let him sleep alone, no matter how bad the nightmares got—but seeing Tim sitting at his desk, shining a tiny pocket torch through a triangular crystal that he was twisting this way and that and watching the colors play across the desk, gave Martin a pretty good idea of what it might have been about. He hadn’t asked, though, not yet anyway. He’d just gone into the break room to make them both some tea.

As he went through the familiar motions, made slightly off by the necessity of avoiding the small brown spider that had apparently taken it into its head to redecorate the shelves for Halloween five months early, he tried to remember the conversation they’d had half a lifetime ago, literally. He’d been on the cusp of fifteen, the lines on his wrists only just beginning to fade into relative invisibility and the rebellion and desire to push back against his mother and Aunt Mary’s treatment and plans for him only just beginning to form, fresh off his first broken heart and ripe for what would turn out to be the best year in chorus he’d ever had. Melanie had just found her niche and started planting the seeds that would eventually lead to Ghost Hunt UK, which she’d once confided she hoped would satisfy the itch of curiosity that fueled the Eye without actually binding her closer to it. And Gerry had been on the verge of adulthood, primed to up stakes and flee to the continent the instant Melanie and Martin were well and truly out of it. They’d all been so…hopeful. It hadn’t been a serious conversation because it wasn’t going to matter much longer, even if they hadn’t started consciously thinking that way yet.

Except, obviously, none of them had made it out. Here he was on the cusp of thirty, and they’d all ended up falling deeper into it—only Melanie was at a point where she even could possibly still walk away, and she was so damn stubborn that she wouldn’t—and Martin vaguely remembered making a comment about how once people who didn’t work for the Institute started calling you Archivist, you were probably in it too deep to be saved. It was darkly funny now, because Martin, who’d never considered himself important for anything to bother with, had somehow become at least the second most powerful servant of the Ceaseless Watcher in existence. And he wasn’t entirely certain he wasn’t more powerful than Elias, although he wasn’t particularly keen to try it.

“Won’t have to, either, as long as the bastard stays put,” he muttered at the spider that was peeking out from between the sugar canister and the powdered milk Hannah and Gail were always arguing over. He didn’t know if it was the same one as before or a new one. “And don’t go getting any ideas. Get out of here while it’s still your choice.”

The spider didn’t move. Martin weighed up the merits of pulling out a bit of the Archivist power versus the possibility that this was just an ordinary spider, then reached for a paper towel to either humanely remove it from the break room or squish it without getting guts all over his fingers. When he looked back up, though, it was gone.

The kettle clicked off with a sound similar enough to the tape recorders that Martin found himself instinctively looking around for where it might be. Then he shook himself back to sense, checked the mugs to ensure they were unoccupied, and busied himself with the tea.

Tim was still playing with the prism, in combination with a crystal ashtray he’d found somewhere. He started in surprise when Martin slid the tea under his nose and looked up. “Martin? What are you doing up?”

“I could ask you the same. It’s two in the morning.” Martin sat down in the chair that had once been his and was now Jon’s. “Nightmares ran their course, and there’s not usually any point in sleeping further once they’re done, I guess. Came out and saw you messing with this.” He nodded at the prism. “Let me guess, Gerry had a flashback to the time we tried to improve on Smirke’s system?”

“Got it in one.” Tim clicked off the torch and set it aside. “I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said—well, what Gerry said you said—about shining light through a prism. I know there’s not a way to put them back together, but…I mean, if you move the torch, all the colors move. There’s no way to move just one. And, I mean, there are only so many colors you can break light into.” He ran his finger over the point of the prism. “You can’t make new colors.”

“You can if you shine light through another prism and combine them. Or look harder at the overlap between the colors.” Martin took a sip of his tea. “I know what you’re thinking, Tim, but…well, the Flesh and the Hunt were just emerging, or at least just emerging in humans, when Smirke started making his classifications. They can splinter off from existing Fears. There’s…Dekker probably isn’t wrong about the Extinction.”

“Do you think Basira is?”

Martin hesitated. “I think Basira has her reasons for trusting Peter Lukas. I just don’t know what they are.”

Tim glanced over his shoulder towards where the trapdoor was, and where he, Gerry, and Daisy tended to bunk down. “Did you tell her what we found out? About how to quit?”

“I told her,” Martin said quietly. “All she said was that if we were planning to go that route, to make sure we submitted a letter of resignation so she could process the severance package. I can’t tell if that was a joke or not. She’s hard to read sometimes.”

What had been obvious, though, was that she was definitely not going to be quitting. Assuming that was even how she had to quit, now that she wasn’t in the Archives, or if she even could; even if the Eye hadn’t been too big on seeing the future, it still wouldn’t give Martin that information. She was absolutely committed to her plan, whatever it was. He still wasn’t sure if she was actually on Peter Lukas’ side or if she was playing some kind of long con on him too, but whatever she was up to, she wouldn’t let anything deviate her from that path.

“Daisy was telling us the other day that she ran into her, too,” Tim said. “Didn’t ask her about quitting, so she said, but…she’s worried she might have lost her way. Basira’s not the kind to give away what she’s planning necessarily, but there were…little things they used to do to reassure one another or communicate when they worked on the force, and she didn’t get any of those. So either she was really paranoid about being overheard, or she’s doing exactly what she says she is—helping Peter Lukas.”

“We don’t…actually know that he’s wrong,” Martin said cautiously. “Or that he’s doing something evil.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“No, I don’t, but Basira might. Or she might believe she’s tempering whatever it is he’s doing. But if she won’t listen—or share—there’s only so much we can do.” Martin sighed. “And if she won’t tell Daisy, she definitely won’t tell the rest of us.”

“She might tell you. She likes you.”

“Liked, past tense. I’m pretty sure she still blames me for what happened to Daisy. And since she wouldn’t have gone over to work with him if Daisy had been here, I think she thinks that’s my fault too.”

Tim snorted and rubbed at his forehead. “You didn’t ask Daisy to sacrifice herself. From what she said, you tried to stop her. It’s why the two of you worked so well together on all that, because you both trusted the other to do what was necessary and keep the rest of them safe. The rest of us, really.”

“I know.” And Martin did know. He’d just expected to be the one doing the sacrificing. “Anyway, I didn’t say it was my fault, I just said Basira blames me. And there’s not really a way to convince her otherwise. She’s…”

“Stubborn? Hard-headed?”

“Tenacious.”

“Same thing.” Tim stifled a sneeze.

“Allergies?” Martin asked sympathetically.

Tim shrugged ruefully. “Stirred up a bit of dust digging out the prism, I guess. I knew I’d seen it around here somewhere, but it had been a while. And it was covered in cobwebs when I did.” He must have seen something in Martin’s expression, because he added, “I’m sure it was innocuous, Mart. I saw it ages ago, and I don’t think anyone has touched it since.”

“You’re probably right, but I’m still suspicious.” Martin nudged the prism lightly. “Although…why would the Web even care? How would it even know?”

“Spiders spinning daydreams in the copses.” The last word opened up into a yawn, which Tim tried to hide behind a hand.

It wasn’t even a good attempt, and Martin didn’t bother pretending he hadn’t seen it. “How much sleep did you actually get last night? Or at all this week?”

“I took a nap yesterday,” Tim said.

“At eleven in the morning. For thirty-seven minutes. And you weren’t so much asleep as sitting with your eyes closed petting the cat.” Martin raised an eyebrow at Tim’s sheepish look, while at the same time mentally tallying it up as a personal win as well as a point in favor of his argument that Tim didn’t call him out on Knowing that, since it was awfully specific and could only have come from the Beholding. “Go lie down, Tim. At least for an hour or two. You need the rest, and Umberto would probably like someone warm to cuddle with.”

“Last I saw he was curled up with Daisy. But okay.” Tim yawned and stood. “Thanks for the tea. Sorry I didn’t drink it.” With that, he lurched over to the trap door. Martin heard a faint mrrp as Umberto, or possibly one of Melanie’s cats, came over to seek the new cuddle buddy, and then all was silent again.

Alone in the dark, Martin stared at the prism. He understood the nature of light better than he had at fifteen, and he understood the Fears a bit better too, or at least he felt like he did. The Ceaseless Watcher was surprisingly reticent on the subject of itself and its fellows.

Or maybe not that surprising. Martin wouldn’t want to give the key to his potential undoing to anyone he didn’t trust not to use it either. Probably the only way to really Know the actual truth was to go through with the Watcher’s Crown, whatever that might have entailed. He was the Archivist, after all; if the ritual didn’t involve him being a…sacrificial lamb or whatever, he would probably be very important in whatever new world was created. There would be no hiding things from him, he thought. No secrets he would not know, no knowledge that could be withheld. All truths, any lies, secrets and strengths and weaknesses, all at his fingertips…

Wait. Those weren’t his thoughts.

Martin winced and drove the heel of his hand into his temple, gritting his teeth as he tried to force the Beholding back into submission. The trouble with getting more powerful, having more safeguards, is that the temptations got bigger and harder to resist, too. He wasn’t the megalomaniac type, he’d never wanted to rule the world or anything, but being in the dark—with a lowercase D, metaphorically speaking—got frustrating at times and it was difficult to resist the urge to just…have that information. The lure of a world where he could, and where he could control the ebb and flow of information, was pretty damn powerful. If Elias was the one trying to set it in motion—or had been, since he didn’t seem able to do much from in prison, even if he had managed to charm himself into a few privileges—then restricting Jon’s, and later Martin’s, access to information, constantly setting them up for situations where having that knowledge would have made all the difference in the world, was probably the most effective method in existence of getting them on his side. If Martin hadn’t had the Archives crew as anchors, it would have been far more difficult not to go to Elias and say look, fine, I know you want to bring the Ceaseless Watcher into this world, tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it.

But he did have the others, and the image of what Jon’s face, or Melanie’s, would look like if he did was enough to make him mentally flip off the Eye and stride off to Peter Lukas’ office to go find himself something for a midnight snack.

Elias’s office, now Peter’s, actually had two parts, the large room in the back Elias had primarily used for storage and the small front room where he’d done his work. Peter used the back room as his primary office, on the rare occasions he was in, and the outer office had been given to Basira. Not that Martin saw either of them very often, but it was easy to see…well, it was easy to tell someone was using it, even if it was completely impersonal, even more than Elias’s office had been. The ledgers and fountain pens were gone, replaced with a squat ivory computer tower and a CRT monitor. The wire cup on the desk was the sort that came in standard office supply kits and contained generic, mass-market pens. The mouse pad was square and blank white with a brand name screen printed on the bottom right corner that was so worn and faded Martin couldn’t read it anymore. There wasn’t even a coat or shawl draped over the back of the chair, and even if it wasn’t that bad up here, Martin knew it was cold in the Lonely. Unless she’d got used to that by now.

There was, however, a spider on the handle to the door to Peter’s office. It moved up the door when Martin looked at it, but he didn’t trust that, and he decided, fuck it, he’d kill this one. He was getting damned tired of the Web and its ilk. Slowly, keeping his eyes on the spider to make sure it didn’t get away before he could, he reached behind him, found the drawer of the desk, slid it open, and reached inside. His fingers found something smooth and solid and heavy-feeling, and as he tried to grip it, something moved.

Click.

The slightly muffled voice that came out of the drawer was Gertrude’s. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course I do.” The voice that responded was wholly unfamiliar to Martin.

“Well, that’s a shame.” If Martin had been inclined to doubt Gerry’s memory and his mother’s statement, the tone of voice in which Gertrude delivered that would have left him in no doubt they were related.

Distracted from the spider, he turned, pulled the tape recorder out of the desk, and stopped playback, then rewound it and sat in Basira’s chair. It wasn’t something she was recording, and obviously if she meant for him to listen to it she’d have left it for him. Maybe she hadn’t listened to it herself yet. But, well, he was here, and she wouldn’t be in until the actual working hours started, and it was better to listen up here where he wouldn’t risk waking Jon anyway. He could rewind it when he was done and put it back and no one would be the wiser.

The recorder popped, indicating it had reached the start of the reel, and Martin pushed PLAY.

This time he listened much more carefully to the opening exchange. He heard himself in Gertrude’s words and tone—talking to Breekon, talking to Mustermann, hell, the way he’d spoken to his own mother on her deathbed—and wondered how much was being the Archivist and how much was being related and how much was just coincidence. The thoughts snapped out of his head, though, when she started talking about Agnes.

It wasn’t a proper statement. Not at first. That didn’t start for a bit, and he knew exactly when it did in the small part of him that held on when the Archivist swept over him, because the actual statement unfolded before him in grainy, sketchy black and white, like an animation pencil test being projected through an infrared camera thirty years out of date. But it was compelling in its own way, and in the way of most of Gertrude’s commentary, it answered a few questions and opened up so many more. The man who had once been the head of the Church of the Lightless Flame and later been Jane Prentiss’ landlord was jaded, bitter…and definitely scared. As defiant as he was at first, Martin could practically smell the fear the more Gertrude spoke, and something in him was almost disappointed that the man was dead and this wouldn’t be joining his dreams.

No. No, he definitely didn’t want to dream about this.

The tape clicked off, and Martin drew in a lungful of air, sitting back in Basira’s chair. His hand tightened around the recorder, and he felt the buzzing, at which point it occurred to him that he’d left the tape playing on the desk in front of him. He looked at his hand and, sure enough, there was a more retro recorder than the model that had been in Basira’s desk, recording away. When had he pulled that out?

“Gertrude didn’t mention what she did to Eugene Vanderstock,” he said slowly. “Neither did Arthur Nolan. And I sure as hell haven’t done any digging into it, since this literally just came to my attention. But the Knowledge…is there, whether I want it or not. I don’t want it. I wish I didn’t know what it felt like to be alive as your whole being is infused with grit, how painful that is, but I do. Good to know that works against the Fourteen, anyway. Or some of its agents. I’m not sure how high up in the Lightless Flame Eugene was, or how powerful. Not as powerful as Gertrude, that’s for damned sure, but…”

He stared vacantly at Basira’s recorder, then leaned forward to rewind it for her before sitting back with a sigh. “Hill Top Road,” he mused. “Everything keeps coming back to that. We’ve had so many little threads go towards it that never end up anywhere, so many stories that weave around it. And now this. I-I know it’s a story we knew, sort of, but at the same time…we didn’t know Agnes’ side of it. We still don’t, I guess. I wonder what she thought, growing up there. I wonder if she thought of it as home, or just a place to live. I wonder what made her decide to protect Ronald Sinclair, if it was the whim of a child who wanted to see what would happen or an attempt to prove she was capable of more than causing pain and destruction or just a desire to stop the Web from winning.” He sighed again. “I wonder if it was actually the Lightless Flame’s doing that kept Gertrude alive that long or if it was the bond with Agnes itself. I won’t let myself wonder if my bond with Jon and Gerry is strong enough to keep me safe like that.”

He shook his head and said again, “Hill Top Road. I can’t help but wonder how much centers around that. It’s not just the statements. The matron of the Sunnydene Children’s Home mentioned Mr. Fielding’s halfway house, Gerry and Melanie and I went to that Halloween party there…there have been so many things centered around it. The Web, the Desolation, the Spiral, the Lone—” He stopped and sat up straighter as the knowledge slammed into his head, for the first time in twenty years.

“No,” he breathed. “Not the Lonely. It wasn’t the Lonely that was after me then. It was the Dark. I just assumed it was the Lonely, but…fuck. No wonder those things at the swap meet were so interested in me.”

He sat in stunned silence for a few moments as the implications of that washed over him. He’d been wrong about that all these years. What else was he wrong about at Hill Top Road?

There was an analog clock on the wall, plain and austere. Martin glanced at it and calculated, then stood decisively. “Right. I think this is a thread I need to pull. I can make the next train to Oxford and probably be back before everyone wakes up properly. It’s time to finish this once and for all. I’m heading to Hill Top Road.”

Click. The recorder shut itself off, which Martin took as approval of his plan.

He wasn’t thoroughly stupid. He went back through the Archives and left a note, just in case someone—likely Gerry—woke up before he got back. For just a moment, he hesitated and stepped into his office. Jon was still curled up in their nest of blankets, breathing lightly, looking peaceful and somehow younger than his age in his sleep. The temptation to crawl back under the covers, curl around him, and sleep a little longer was definitely present. Only the certainty that if he didn’t go now Jon would insist on going with him kept him from doing that.

Instead, he knelt down, pressed a gentle, tender kiss to his boyfriend’s forehead, and quietly let himself out of the Archives.

It was early enough that the sun hadn’t come up yet, and the trip to Paddington station was thoroughly uneventful. There was a bit of chaos stemming from the newly set train schedules, but more people lived in Oxford and commuted to work in London than the other way around, so despite everything Martin ended up having the carriage largely to himself, which gave him plenty of space and time to think over his plan.

He didn’t have one.

The shortest route to Hill Top Road from the train station took him straight through the park. Childish superstition warred with stubborn defiance, and in the end, he decided to risk it. Unsurprisingly, nothing happened. It could have been that he was too powerful to interest whatever had been here before, it could be that it had long ago left, but more than likely it was just too close to sunrise to be prime hunting grounds for the Dark, despite the clouds and drizzle. Whatever the case, he made it to the other side unmolested.

The house Judith Bradford’s grandfather had owned was gone, which was something of a shock; it had been the largest and most impressive house on the block, and now there was nothing but a slight depression where the basement had once been. Martin stared at it for a moment, letting memory and knowledge mingle. It had burnt down not long after construction on the replacement for the Fielding house had concluded, probably retaliation from the Lightless Flame for the loss of Agnes Montague, possibly just bad luck. Either way, it wasn’t where he was heading and it wasn’t any of his concern.

Still…as he continued on up the road, getting progressively wetter and wishing like hell he’d brought an umbrella, he couldn’t help but think back to the party. He actually hadn’t had a very good time even before Gerry made them leave; he’d spent about half the time avoiding the food so that he didn’t get called names for being fat and the other half of the time avoiding Lizzie van Pelt and Helen—Helen—what was her last name? They’d both been dressed as Anastasia and spent an awful lot of time trying to flirt with him, and since even back then Martin had been quietly in love with one of the older boys in the group he’d been very uncomfortable with it. He’d never much enjoyed the ones from previous years, either, and he’d really only gone because Melanie wanted him to.

There weren’t any good memories on this street. Not his, not Ronald Sinclair’s, not Ivo Lensik’s, not Father Burroughs’, probably not even Agnes’. He wasn’t going to learn anything that didn’t hurt. Why was he doing this?

Because, he thought. Because he couldn’t leave the mystery alone, because it was important to so many Fears, because there was something he didn’t understand. Because he’d felt so strongly that he shouldn’t dig more into Hill Top Road. Because the Web hadn’t tried a ritual yet either, as far as he knew—unless that was what Raymond Fielding had been up to—and the risk of Jon or Sasha being made a keystone of one was too great for him to let things alone. Because—goddamn it, Helen’s last name was Richardson, the onetime real estate agent who’d been taken by the Spiral had been the same pretentious snob who’d decided he would make an ideal partner and had insulted his sister in the bargain. Nobody deserved what she’d got, he thought, but it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.

Preoccupied with that, he walked up the front path of 105 Hill Top Road and reached for the door.

It wasn’t until he was actually inside the building, neat and well-appointed and sturdy and clean—apart from all the cobwebs—that it occurred to Martin that the door shouldn’t have been open. Nobody lived there—all their research had been very clear on that—and while it didn’t seem to be for sale, there was certainly no reason for it to be unlocked. And yet he’d just…walked in like he owned the place.

A feeling of foreboding crept up his spine. It was not helped by the soft click as the tape recorder he hadn’t realized he’d put back in his pocket clicked on.

Martin pulled it out and spoke into it as quietly as possible. “I’m…in the house. Not the house, of course, the one Raymond Fielding and Agnes Montague lived in burned down years ago, this is a rebuild. But this…this land, this spot, there’s something significant about it. And it invited me in. No…it led me in. I can’t help but recall that in Ronald Sinclair’s statement, he talked about being drawn back in by invisible threads, that he didn’t feel like he was making a choice but he knew it was a thing he was going to do. I’m in much the same boat. I can’t walk away now, but…why not? What’s keeping me here?” He took a deep breath. “I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”

Cautiously, he began moving through the ground floor. Like most fat people, Martin had always been very light on his feet, and like most children who’d grown up in abusive households he had long ago mastered the art of moving quietly without being heard. The building might be ten years old, but it had never been lived in, so the chances of creaky floorboards were slim, and there was every chance he could get through without disturbing…whoever had unlocked the door.

Christ, that was an unsettling thought.

“There’s no obvious basement,” he murmured. “I know that was in the old building, but Anya Villette’s statement suggested there was one in this building, too. I would have thought…” He trailed off, staring at what he’d at first assumed to be a closet. There was…something behind it. Something important.

Slowly, inexorably, both afraid to know what was there and afraid to walk away, Martin reached for the handle of the door. His fingers wrapped around it, and he began, with the same deliberate slowness, to turn it.

A hand clamped over his mouth, and another arm wrapped around his torso, restraining him with surprising strength. He let out a muffled curse and tried to poke his tongue through his lips and lick the hand to get whoever it belonged to to let go, but somehow, his lips wouldn’t part. The hand pressed over them seemed strangely…sticky.

“Sorry about this, Martin,” a voice, low and female and wholly unfamiliar, said directly into his ear. “Can I call you Martin? I’m going to call you Martin. Anyway, I am sorry, but I thought it was high time we had a little…chat. Face to face, as it were.” The person gave a low chuckle. It wasn’t especially sinister, but it nevertheless filled Martin’s entire being with dread. “Step into my parlor.”

[demonhanabi]

The Embryo Capacitance

One-shot. Originally posted on AO3 - December 2023

There comes a point in your life where you have to accept that this is it. That’s all there is to it. Nothing more and nothing less.

Penny comes to that realization at the ripe age of 28.

She had to give up on her dream of acting and now she has a soul-killing job as a sales rep, which apparently she’s really good at. So, yay or whatever.

Several things happen that make Penny finally say yes to marrying Leonard…none of them are good, sadly. Penny wakes up one morning with pretty bad back pain, Leonard calls her an old woman and she can’t let go of that comment for an entire month. Leonard starts hinting that she’s losing her ‘prime child years’, whatever the fuck that means. Penny is not turning as many heads, which is a hit bigger than she expected. And of course, her parents start asking about grandchildren, as if Tim didn’t already have 11 children with 5 different women.

Penny finally says yes to Leonard.

And then the shit really hits the fan after they tell the group. Howard and Bernadette act relieved, like Penny marrying Leonard will make their own marriage better. Amy calls dibs on the maid of honor role and Penny is too tired to fight her, besides Bernadette doesn’t exactly feel like her friend anymore. Raj is openly weeping and he can’t stop hugging them. Sheldon acts…strangely, and not strange in a Sheldon way.

He takes a good long look at Penny, like he’s seeing her for the first time and then tells her, quietly, so only she can hear, "My door is always open for you." which honestly freaks her out, because his intense look is replaced by pity.

Sheldon breaks up with Amy the next day. Of course the group is not going to let him get away with it. Penny is pissed because Amy has been non-stop crying since Sheldon broke up with her and while her feelings for the woman might be mixed, she’s still a friend.

Unfortunately, they all seem to have forgotten how stubborn and honest Sheldon really is. As Penny and the rest confront him about breaking up with Amy he stuns the whole room with his response.

"Seeing as Penny and Leonard have decided to destroy their current relationship in an ill attempt to deceive themselves that they love each other, well, that forced me to look at my relationship with Amy. She deserves someone that can love her, and that person is not me. I am not attracted to you Amy, I in fact find you sometimes intolerable." Amy only cries harder.

"It would be a disservice to our friendship to continue with this sham of a relationship. I refuse to become my father and have to reduce myself to constantly consuming alcohol just to tolerate my spouse." Sheldon turns a glaring look at everyone in the room. "You trying to force me and Amy ‘back together’ only reinforces my decision. I will not be Howard constantly hitting on other women despite my vows. I will not be Leonard not caring who I marry to as long as they’re ‘hot’. And I will not be my father, tied down to a marriage he hated just ‘for the kids’."

Sheldon enters his room and leaves the group to handle the ugly truth grenades he just threw.

Howard and Bernadette excuse themselves and neither can look Penny in the eye. Raj offers to take Amy home, the woman had stopped crying at some point and instead looked pensive.

Leaving only Penny and Leonard in the apartment.

Penny can’t deny what Sheldon said. Leonard had several times in the past abandoned her like yesterday’s lunch if a new hot woman paid any attention to him. She had found that he still had intimate photos from his time with Priya, and Penny might have hated Priya but Leonard keeping them wasn’t cool. She deleted everything and asked Sheldon to do the same with any backups Leonard might have had. Penny had refused to send Leonard any pictures after that.

"That Sheldon is crazy. It’ll be a relief once he leaves and you move in." Leonard can’t look her in the eye but still sounds confident somehow.

It takes her brain a moment to catch up with his words "What do you mean when Sheldon leaves? I thought it was his name on the lease?"

"Oh, that. He made a bet. He said you would never agree to marry me." Leonard looks smug "So he bet that if you said yes, he would be the one to leave. It’s in the roommate contract and everything."

"Huh." It doesn’t make Penny feel any better.

Read the rest on AO3:

[thattimdrakeguy]

for what it's worth, you're not alone with feeling like this for dc comics nor the upcoming movies. I lost 99% of my interest in the dceu too when I saw the line up and I've seen a fair few others express the same. I'm mostly just having fun going through the old comics atp and appreciating what I've always loved about the universe, but I'm not about to settle for mediocrity just to fit in to dc's current fandom. celebrating what we enjoy and leaving the rest seems a good way to move forward

I genuinely thought James Gunn was gonna fix some stuff up, 'cause I loved his Guardians of the Galaxy, and laughed hysterically at all the jokes in The Suicide Squad no matter how immature a lot of it was. So I thought 'Oh, okay so this is great'.

Losing Henry Cavill sucked, but ya know, I don't feel like a strange one thinking "Well, if everyone's being recast I guess that makes sense."

Now it's just "Well, okay, fuck you James Gunn. I love your movies that I've seen so far, but also fuck you. This new shit is insulting"

If the movies end up being a big success, I won't be surprised. I know most people don't really give a shit about characterization. You can literally write the characters as anything and little shit-munchers will do some mental gymnastics to defend it. It really doesn't matter.

But oof I've just had enough. I blocked a lot of stuff on Twitter, so I won't even get updates on anything anymore. I'll check out the casting and costumes probably, but anything beyond the Superman project, which I must admit I do have an interest in, because I feel like that could still be good, I'm checking out of.

Then with the comics it's like, oh boy, Tom Taylor? Woo-weee, can't wait to read severely out of character characters people praise because it did a lot of fan service no matter if it makes sense or not.

Like what is it, and modern comic book writers, and being unable to successfully write a satisfying book that gives something people wanna buy without relying on out of character fandom shit? Are they that incapable.

Dick's just a sitcom character, you wouldn't even recognize him if you were a time traveler that came from back when Dick was actually treated seriously, like who he was as a specific character mattered.

Tim's stuck in someone's fan fiction--like him calling Damian his baby brother? Bernard looking like that? That thin writing? Hahahaha give me a damn break, it's sooooo freaking bad. And his comic is so ugly. I know that artist would be perfect for something else, but not Tim, jeezus.

I was pretty excited when I thought Tim was going to be gay, because in my head I assumed it really took someone that new Tim's character well, and saw all the moments other gay people did that really connected to them and their experiences and let them relate to him.

Instead nah, it's instead "I really shipped Tim and Conner, and I wasn't sure if they let me do Conner. So I heard about Bernard, I don't know much about him, but he'll do I guess". Like there is no shame what so ever.

I don't even have a clue what's going on with Jason but I don't care, 'cause he hasn't been a good character since Under The Hood. I'm not down this this retconned filled copycat they've been peddling for over a decade. I want the actually interesting, stand-out Jason that had some of the biggest potential for character arcs. Not the one they fucked up time and time again.

Batgirls sucks. Like admittedly I haven't read it, but come on, don't pretend like enough hasn't been shared for it to be obvious. I know the characters well enough. There's a difference between 'Bad Faith' and 'Their is literally a massive gaping flaw right fucking there, look at it'. It has ruined them for the time being. I don't need to buy the entire sofa to inspect it further, when the massive coffee stain is RIGHT fucking THERE.

Damian hasn't been a consistently good character since Morrison. I seriously don't care what anybody says. If you have to put the character in situations and moments that would never happen or make no sense to make them likable, I think you're a bad writer, because fuck off, the original Damian as he grew was a great character, and I'm not here for this babified version made to appeal to the easiest common dominator. There is a difference between a character growing and just being out of character. I heard his solo wasn't that bad with him, but I still have no interest in it regardless.

So I can't read any of the Bat-Family. I thought about reading 'Batman' 'cause I heard after that really messy, badly paced, awkwardly written first arc it got better. But then again, I heard Teen Titans (2003), Tom Taylor's literally anything, Steph's Batgirl run, Super Sons and Red Hood and the Outlaws were all good, and those were some of the most frustrating reads of my life because they all changed the characters so much, or bad some of the most logic-less decisions that I was at a total lost at what made people like them.

I wanna read a comic the same way I enjoy a movie or TV franchise. Enjoy the stories, characters, arcs, and simply being able to enjoy it.

Reading and going "Okay that makes no sense" or "They so wouldn't do that" again and again feels like being grounded and punished.

Plus, old comics aren't even flawless, not that something has to be for me to like it. But when I read it so much that the flaws start sticking out more, then I'm making myself miserable again.

Like I used to be able to read Dixon's Robin run despite his shitty way of being, because it was good, and it still is, but those moments were Dixon projects parts of his own personality into the characters stick out to me way more now.

And the way fan's treat Bart made me too sad to read the good part of Impulse, and Cassie never had a solo I liked.

At least the mighty Ultimate Spider-Man is there, that never fails. But all this other stuff has me timid to read it.

--

Apologies for the rant and all, but all things considered what else do people do on Tumblr? Have polite conversation?

--

And for a long time just trying to share what I liked was enough for me, but I think I literally eventually simply said all I could say, and I felt I was repeating myself for ages.

Then there was seeing other fans just be total weirdos and lie about what happened, or at the very least stretch and hide details of the truth, just to make their favorite or what ever look better just to make people believe their desires:

Which is fucking creepy. Yeah you, who does that, in the event that you read this, it's fucking weird. Who does that, and why? Move onto something you actually like you kraken.

It's inevitable I might remake old posts for the sake of newer people, because some of the best vibes I've ever had was when I was making long informational posts for people to learn about the characters in easy to understand direct ways.

It satisfied my Autism and got me some praise, and compliments that made me feel like "Hey that mental thing I have isn't all bad!"

But when the people who used to care about that kind of stuff stops, and you're eventually left alone. It's pretty much back to the bottom for me, and my mental quirks are back to being a thing that causes me to be yelled at, by people who don't understand how I actually function.

--

I don't understand Ben 10 Alien Force in hindsight, why is everyone so different in a way that doesn't seem plausible within 5-seemingly-uneventful-for-the-most-part-years.

It felt like more of a reboot then the actual reboot looking back at it. And I loved it as a kid, and would probably still love reading it, but I feel like people don't talk about that enough.

--

Also the Eleventh Doctor makes me sad because I felt like he could've been the best, but when he stopped being "Old Quirky, formerly senile man in a young energetic intellectual body" and started treated more like a child it sort of ruined him. How you gonna give him moments where he's treated like the ultimate bad ass, he's just quirky, and then completely drop all of that to make him a joke. That's sad.

--

I also like WWE, but can't think of anything to say besides I think Roman Reigns is the worst part of the Bloodline and that he'd be better not being champion, because he doesn't make the titles feel like they truly matter. They're set decorations, rather than a plot point that feels important anymore.

Love the Sami stuff, and Roman's character work, but his matches without someone against him that's super great are really boring ignoring any storyline shenanigans that happen in them. It's a drag to have to wait to those moments.

[reidslovely]

Peter Parker - NSFW Alphabet

A/N: To celebrate my new laptop here is the alphabet I’ve been promising!! It’s rough but this is just a silly little gift for y'all. If you like it well enough I might make two more for Jeb and Link maybe Dennis

Pairing: Peter Parker x Fem Reader

Content Warnings: SMUT 18+!! mentions of breeding kink, ownership, panty sniffing, voyeurism, Peter just being an overall horn dog. 

_________________________________________

Aftercare - How are they after sex?

Peter is always very attentive after sex. Running around gathering towels, warm rags, heating pads- anything his lover may ask for. As their relationship progresses, Peter gets better at having these things prepared beforehand; but he can still be forgetful. His partner always has his full attention afterwards, it is sweet but he often forgets he also has to take care of himself after as well. Maybe that is just his selfless nature, but it is something (Y/N) is always reminding him to do.

Body Part - Favorite on his body/lovers body.

It wasn’t until after the spiderbite Peter found things about himself to like. Granted, he always had the cocky attitude but it was always his brain he relied more on prior. But now, as an adult and a superhero he finds himself admiring his arms more and more as the arms go on. Though (Y/N) would argue and say his chest, next to his face of course, was the best part.

On (Y/N) it was the hips. They were something to grab and pull them closer in heated moments. It was how he started all their interactions, sexual or not. A quick grab and pull into a kiss, or soft longing strokes.

Cum - I don’t have to explain this one.

Peter was never really shy or nervous about him cum in the moment, it was a natural thing happening to both of their bodies. It was fun to him, something playful. The first few times without a condom he’d dripple it on (Y/N)’s back, stomach, sometimes face depending on their moods. He absolutely adores finishing inside of his partner though, he loves the closeness of it, the risk even.

Dirty Secret - Something no one would expect

Peter is something of a voyeur. Now, initially that isn’t shocking, he watches everyone as Spiderman. But this goes so much further than just being Spiderman, and it wasn’t something he was even aware he was into until he started his relationship with (Y/N). He caught himself lingering in the bedroom window one night, watching them disrobe from their shower. It made him feel the best type of dirty, it was a weird power play that he wouldn’t have enjoyed prior. After making his presence in the room known, the feeling didn’t leave.

“Where are you watching me?” (Y/N) laughed. Peter shrugged looking at them, a smirk tugging at his lips.

“Would you mind if I was?”

“I left the curtains open for a reason.”

Experience - How experienced is he?

Peter had a long term girlfriend and while that gave him some experience it wasn’t until his early twenties that he finally started exploring more. There was a point when he was so grief, and guilt ridden he would fuck anyone who showed him the slightest interest. Being Spiderman was hard, and after Gwen, Peter couldn’t hold his anger in anymore. After a several patrols gone wrong due to his anger, he put his frustrations into sex to avoid Spiderman becoming what he was protecting New York from. This gave him new experiences, a few kinks, and led him to his now partner.

Favorite Position - Y’all know this one

Peter loves, loves the feeling of being deep in his girl- but he also loves to see the look on her face as it twists around his cock. So of course he’s a missionary guy- but he’s flexible. Sometimes watching from the bottom is better: her face twisting, her nails scraping down his chest. As long as he can see her he’s a happy guy.

Goofy - Are they more serious or relaxed in the moment?

It all depends on Peter’s mood, and (Y/N)’s also. They can be very giggly, hands fumbling over one another soft jokes spilling from their lips. Peter isn’t so heavy on her all the time. The first time they ever had sex it was filled with soft kisses, feet tickling against each other- it was perfect.

Hair - How well groomed are they? Do the carpets match the drapes?

The carpet is very curly, Peter does appreciate a good trim but is never fully bald, Spiderman only has so much time on his hands.

When it comes to his partners he doesn’t care. He knows she keeps it trimmed, but pussy is pussy- and he could eat it all day.

Intimacy - How are they in the moment? Romantic aspects

Peter Parker loves love, no matter how scared he was at first. He loves the hot, heated moments, but it’s the genuine need that really pushes him. He loves kissing her, pressing his lips to her head, or her lips letting it linger. The soft whispers of “I love you’s” or “I need you”. No matter how dirty, giggly, or sweet it was Peter treated sex as devotion giving everything to her, and setting her on a pedestal.

Jack off - Masturbation headcanon

Peter is not ashamed to admit he jerks off quite a bit- well, used too. Before (Y/N) came along he did it a lot…a lot. He just didn’t have time for Peter Parker stuff- then he stumbled upon the most beautiful girl after patrol one night. Shamefully, he would admit he did masturbate thinking about her that night- but not in a creepy way. Nowadays, having to do it himself is rare. But when he does, he always has something of hers nearby.

Kink - One or more of their kinks.

Peter is super into ownership, he loves the reassurance that (Y/N) is his and no one else's. He loves hearing her say it, he’s ruined anyone else for her. He’s ruined her for everyone else.

Breeding, Peter craves to have a family with her. He knows she would make an amazing mother, and that he would be a better father than he ever was- he’d be the man Ben raised him to be. This also plays into Peter’s need for ownership, for people to look at her and know she’s off limits, that she’s his.

Locations - Favorite place to do it

He loves the bed, it’s just classic. It’s a safe place, that he doesn’t feel he has to be on high alert. But, some nights when she does pay him a visit at the lab- he can’t help but get carried away with her. Pushing her face down onto one of the tables, pulling the dress up around her hips, and just sliding into her. There’s a thrill in it.

Motivation - Turn on

Domesticity. It is as simple as that, Peter loves the simpleness of it. Doing Sunday chores together, or sitting on the couch. In those moments he thinks about how perfect this is, how perfect she is. Which leads him to start kissing her, and from there…he has to appreciate her- duh.

No - Turn offs

He is a try most things once-kind of guy. As long as there is long, and consensual conversations beforehand. However, his hard no’s include bodily movements: piss, shit- it’s just not his thing and would never even look into it.

Oral - Prefer giving, receiving.

Pussy Parker was a nickname given to Peter by Flash senior year of high school- for the wrong reasons. Peter Parker loves to eat pussy, it’s just a well known fact amongst the friend-group. He is very open about the fact he could spend all day down there- and has. He does love the intimacy of receiving, but giving tastes sooo much better.

Pace - Rough or slow

Even when Peter is going rough- it is slow, teasing movements. There’s just something the way she clenches around his teasing strokes that gets him. Yeah, both.

Quickies - Are they even an option?

No. He likes to tease, to play to make it an event. That’s not to say he hasn’t but they are few and far between. No matter what deranged science experiment is running through New York this week he will find time to fuck his girl properly.

Risk - Experiment?

Again, try anything once kind of guy. The first three months of the relationship was pure experimenting, even now there are still things they will bring to one another eager to try. They love to find new kinks, it’s an even better feeling just stumbling on them.

That's how he found out he had a daddy kink.

Stamina - How many rounds can they go?

That spider-bite gave him an incredible amount of stamina. Sometimes having to stop himself when he can tell his partner has had enough. He could go all night into the morning if he really wanted. Maybe that’s the next thing he’ll ask to try.

Toys - Do they own toys?

Duh. The machine is the friend not the enemy. The red and blue vibe in the right drawer has been a happy participant in many of their adventures. Peter has never tried any on himself, but he loves using it on (Y/N).

Unfair - Do they love to tease?

Yes. It’s as simple as that, he knows it gets to her. Especially right before he leaves for patrol, he gets her on the edge before pulling her back. He’s lucky his webs shoot as far as they do because if she ever got a hold of him New York would have been destroyed long ago.

Volume - How loud are they.

Peter has always been very quiet in bed. Maybe that is because he lived with May for so long but he hardly ever moaned in bed. Till he met (Y/N), the first week of them sleeping together she received several noise complaints from her neighbors because of him. Earning them dirty looks in the hallway almost everyday.

Wild Card - Random head-canon

He’s a total pervert when it comes to panties. He is fascinated by the underwear she wears. Watching her slide them on, take them off. He even sniffs them when going down on her. Most of the time they're cute, with a silly little design on them. His favorites are a pair of soft yellow ones with a little bunny on the front.

X-Ray - What is going on under those clothes

Average size between 6 to 7 inches. It’s the thickness that gets you.

Yearning - How high is their sex drive.

Peter can become horny at the drop of a hat. Again, the heightened senses that came with the bite can push him from zero to horny at the slightest thing. He is ready to go whenever, constantly tip-toeing around and waiting for a cue.

Zzz - How quickly they fall asleep after.

It is always aftercare first, then sleep. Even then he waits for (Y/N) to fall asleep first. Holding her into his chest, or back to his chest kissing her head. Making sure everything is okay before he even thinks about sleeping.

_____________________________________

As always reblog, and leave a comment if you’d like!!

taglist: 

@bxcketbarnes @sincericida @toomanyfictionalboyfriends​ @andrews-lovr @helloheyhihowdyheya @raajali3 @ateliefloresdaprimavera @megmehz @lateridk @adhdhufflepuff 

[veryredd]

Irony

Tim drake x insecure reader

A/n: hello I'm finally back from work stuff. I can actually write more hc??

Another a/n: I wrote more than I expected hahahaa my brain go brrrrr

You were always very insecure

Being raised in a normal, safe and secured household especially for Gotham made you wonder when did your insecurities started to manifest

You never questioned it but just kind of accepted that it is just something you are

It was a huge surprise when Timothy Drake ask you out

The Timothy Drake

It was hard for everyone to believe

Even you yourself is doubtful of it

But you just kind of let it happen

You knew his ex girlfriend Stephanie

She the complete opposite of you

She was more outgoing, you were more soft-spoken

She was more athletic, you preferred the indoors

I made you question many time why did Tim choose you

I mean Stephanie is like the perfect girl

Plus his sibling, the Wayne family are known for being the perfect

Not to mention, he is a Drake

Your insecurities often get in the way of your relationship

Which led to many friendships crumbling

So it was difficult for you to hide your ever growing insecurities

Not to mention, he was fairly observant

So you had to be extra careful

Not it was any use

"hey Tim"

"yes?"

"you love me right?"

" yeah why?"

" no just wondering"

" if you are upset about something you can always tell me"

" don't worry Tim. I'm finee", you plastered on a smile before returning back to your school work

You felt Tim staring at the back of your head

"I feel like Tim does love me anymore"

"(n/n), Tim loves you to death trust me"

"I know I know but I can't help it Steph, some part of me feels that Tim will get tired of me and leave me"

"look you gotta talk to Tim at some point"

"…"

*sigh* " it's going to destroy you and your relationship with Tim at some point. You could either try and make an effort now or not do anything and risk your relationship going up in flames. Your choice"

You noticed recently Tim has been canceling your dates

Not to mention with the recent Arkham breakouts, you really don't know when will be your last day

Plus Timothy Drake is an ideal boyfriend that everyone wants

Surely he could find someone better than you if he really wanted to

You had a feeling that he was going out to meet someone but not sure who it was

You suspect that it was another partner

You know deep inside that Tim is one of the most loyal person you have ever met

But part of you believes that just like everyone else, he will leave after getting tired

"Timmy, you need to tell her at some point"

" I know dick but Arkham rogues can't wait"

"as much as I detest your romantic life, I agree with Richard. (L/n) is a decent partner"

"wow if demon child is saying that then you need to man up replacement"

"Tim, go take a break. We can handle it from here"

"see even B agrees with me. Look if Steph trust her then I think you can trust her with this"

"If you fail at courting (L/n), perhaps we could use other methods to officiate them into the family"

"NO! we are not NOT going to let her get involved in this. It's too dangerous"

"are you doubting your own romantic partner drake? I do not think they are that useless to not be able to defend themselves"

"they tried to lodge a knife in the head once because because I had the keys to your apartment"

"fine fine I'll talk to them"

"Timothy you don't have to sneak around me anymore, I understand. I'll leave first thing in the morning"

" wait wait wait (n/n) what are you talking about"

"I know I'm holding you down but you don't have to worry anymore"

"wait where did you ever get that idea from"

"…"

"you think I'm cheating on you?!"

"…"

"why, how, who "

"you are not ?"

"No never"

" you are always canceling our plans"

"look whatever you are thinking is not true. You are perfect and I love that about you. Heck even Damian likes you"

"bu-"

"no you are the only one I want and will ever want"

"hahaha it's kind of cheesy". The corner of their mouth tucked up into a grin

"I'm being serious here!". Tim's face contorted from a disbelief expression to an exasperated expression. His eyes had a glimpse of mischief

"no but seriously, who would I be with if not you"

Your smile flattered slightly

"I don't know? Everyone else?"

"look I want to tell you honestly what I've been doing but I can't be sure that you will still want me"

You thought about it for moment

You totally forgot why you and Tim got along in the first place

It was your insecurities that brought you two together

Weird but hey, it worked

"you can't scare me that easily"

Tim grabbed your wrist and tucked it

"follow me"

You recognise the drive to the Wayne manor

Having been there a few times, it was a sight you were used to

Upon reaching the manor, he led you towards a grandfather clock

You were busy admiring the room before you heard a click

"(n/n) come on"

You peered down the descending staircase

As you strolled down it hit you

"holy shit"

You glanced at Tim's face hoping you see some sort of reaction

As usual, he remained a poker face

"Todd I will maim you"

"try me demon child"

"jay! Dami!"

"hmmmm hello?"

Both Jason and damian freezed

Damian straighten himself out before walking towards you

"(L/n)"

" hello Damian"

" holy shit replacement yo-"

A knife came flying towards Jason's face

Jason ducked to avoid it

"what was that"

You smiled with malicious intent behind your eyes

"(n/n) calm"

The tension was so thick if felt suffocating even compared to Gotham's air

"so the bat fam Huh?"

" oi don't lump me with them"

" you literally have a bat symbol across your chest plate "

"i-"

"come on jaybirddd"

"don't call me that"

"wait wait that would explain so much"

All heads snapped towards (y/n)

"no wonder why if felt so off putting"

"batman is your true identity not Bruce Wayne"

"when I first met Bruce Wayne, not going to lie I was actually disappointed because mister Bruce Wayne felt so fake"

Bruce narrowed his eyes

"now that I see this, I don't think I'm worried about loyalty"

"I sense there is an underlying but there"

"well I'm worried about your workaholic tendencies. I mean without knowing about this I'm already worried "

" I'll look after myself don't worry"

" Ew (L/n), drake, your displays of public affection disgust me"

" hahahhaaha"

Both of you smiled knowing things will only get better

[ragingbookdragon]

I Saw It Coming When You Threw The First Punch

Batmom x Batfamily One-Shot

Word Count: 1.7K Warnings: Explicit Language, Mentions of Violence

Author's Note: I honestly feel like I get my irritation from people out by writing stories where the characters punch people. I live vicariously through my characters. Enjoy! -Thorne

Getting the call that his wife had been taken into GCPD custody was not one that Bruce had ever expected to receive. Not in a million years. And yet, low and behold, Gordon had called sounding apologetic that she’d been detained after a physical altercation at the gala she’d hosted earlier that evening.

Which was absolutely baffling to him, because the only person more anal retentive about screwing up at a gala than Alfred, was his wife. So, something must’ve seriously set her off if she’d hauled off on somebody. And Gordon had made it quite clear that it was his wife that threw the first punch, though beyond that, he didn’t know what else had occurred because she’d invoked her rights to the company lawyer and to remain silent, simply staring at the wall while the other officers tried to get a story out of her—Bruce knew she wouldn’t crack. Other than him, his wife had a reserve that no man, alien, or god could break. He’d never say it, but he was envious of his wife’s willpower.

He arrived rather quickly with all four sons in tow, knowing that the sight of the entire family would probably help her chances of getting out and they waited patiently to be escorted to where she was being held.

When they arrived at the interrogation room, they saw her sitting there with crossed legs, hands placed palm down on the table. Her eyes were closed in what Bruce recognized as her deep meditative state; the one she used to fight off telepathic control from enemies—she was probably recounting what happened that night.

“What are the charges?” he asked Gordon and the older man sighed.

“Simple battery and public disturbance.”

Bruce hummed lowly in his throat and gazed at his wife. “How do you see this playing out for her?”

“If the woman she keelhauled doesn’t press charges, there’s possibility of probation with community service.”

He had to play naïve. “And if she does?”

Gordon met his gaze. “Then you’re looking at your wife going into lockup for a year.”

Bruce let out a sigh. “I’ll call our lawyer then.”

“I’ll give you and your wife some privacy,” he replied, hitting a button on the keypad beside the door, and the glass went dark while the glowing red button recording the room turned off.

“Thank you, Gordon,” he said, and the detective waved as he walked off, closing the door to the interrogation room behind him. Bruce looked at his sons. “Let’s go see what set your mom off tonight.”

***

The door to the room opened but she didn’t open her eyes, still under the cold water in her retreat.

“(Y/N),” someone murmured and though the voice was familiar, she didn’t come to yet.

“(Y/N),” they repeated a bit firmer. “Come back up.”

Ever so slowly, she allowed her mind to come back from the deep waters and she opened her eyes, smiling at her husband and sons.

“Good evening family.” Damian immediately sprinted to her and buried his face in her neck, and she laughed, running a hand through his short dark hair. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“You are in trouble,” he murmured and pulled away to look into her eyes. “We will do whatever you need, Umi.”

(Y/N) snorted. “Don’t worry about me baby. Knowing Little Miss Martha May, she’s not going to press charges over our spat.”

“I think simple battery is bit more than a spat, mom,” Dick worried, brows furrowing in concern. “What did you two even start fighting about?”

Her eyes darted to the glass then to Bruce and he said, “Gordon turned off the cameras.”

“Mom,” Tim started, and she looked at him; he held up his phone screen. “I just assured that you’re protected here.”

She nodded and let out a sigh. “I knew I should’ve just walked away but I couldn’t help it. She just set me off like a match to gunpowder.”

“What’d you guys even duke it out over,” Jason questioned, and she sighed again, recounting the night.

***

“You’ve thrown another wonderful party, Miss Wayne,” Lucius murmured, handing her a champagne glass.

She grinned widely, thanking him. “Thank you, Lucius, I try.”

“Clan couldn’t come tonight?”

“You’ve always been perceptive about us, haven’t you?”

“To use your words, I try,” he laughed, and she nodded.

“Patrol started early tonight,” she said inconspicuously, eyes shifting around to glance at who was walking near them. “Besides, most of them only come to these to appease the crowd.”

“Ah, yes, I forgot that you’re the only one who actually enjoys these.”

“Only when Bruce and the kids are here,” she corrected. “It’s easier to bullshit when they’re here to pick up the slack.”

He barked a laugh and she chuckled in return when someone walked up to them. She turned and immediately grimaced at the old classmate of hers.

“(Y/N), such a beautiful party you’ve thrown tonight,” the woman greeted, though it was laced with cheerful fakeness.

She plastered a smile on her face. “Good evening, Marianne. I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”

“Oh, you know me, I’m always up for a party.” Her eyes drifted around. “Where is your husband? I wanted to thank him for the gift basket he sent after my operation.” Marianne gave her a sarcastic smile. “Isn’t it rather off for a host to avoid his own party?”

Note to self, yell at Bruce for sending her a gift.

“He had to work late tonight. So did the boys.” (Y/N) matched her smile. “I’m sure they’d be delighted to know that you thought of them though.”

Something shifted in Marianne’s eyes. “Oh yes, the children you have.” She leaned in close and murmured, “You know I’ve been hearing some rather negative rumors about yours and Bruce’s decision to adopt orphans rather than have some of your own.”

(Y/N) blinked, not sure if she should be shocked or unimpressed. “Really? Care to enlighten me?”

Marianne waved a hand. “The major one is that you simply took pity on the strays because you were barren.” She felt like she’d been slapped across the face and her jaw dropped as she gaped at the woman.

Apparently, that was all the ammunition that Marianne needed because she offered a sympathetic smile an placed a hand on (Y/N)’s arm. “Oh, you poor dear.” She patted her arm again. “You should’ve come to me instead of adopting orphans. I would’ve been happy to be a surrogate for you.”

(Y/N) shrugged the hand off her arm and reached up, pulling the silver teardrop earrings from her ears. “Yeah, those orphans aren’t mine, not biologically.”

She pulled off her diamond wedding rings and handed them and the earrings over to Lucius who took them and stepped back.

“But you know what they are?” she glowered at Marianne and seethed, “They’re my sons.”

The next thing anyone knew, the two women were rolling on the floor, their hostess throwing punches that seemed to make everyone wince when they connected to the woman’s face.

***

“And all I remember was being escorted down here,” she finalized, eyes drifting to Bruce’s.

He simply stared at her for a moment before he let out a heavy sigh and put his face in his hands. “I’m proud that you defended our family, but at the same time, I’m disappointed that you let Marianne set you off.”

(Y/N) crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh, so you’re taking her side?”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” Bruce shot back. “If she decides to press charges, you’re going to be in lockup for a year.”

“She’s not.”

“You don’t know that, (Y/N).”

“No, I do,” she blinked and leaned forward. “If Marianne doesn’t want me to ruin her image with shit she did when she was a teenager, she’ll keep her mouth shut and take the blame for this.”

“What’d she do, Ma?” Jason questioned curiously and she turned her attention to him.

“Enough that’ll disgrace her image amongst every elite this side of the globe if she tries me anymore.”

Before anyone could say anything, the door opened and they turned, seeing Gordon walking in. “Good evening, Miss Wayne,” he greeted, and she smiled.

“Good evening, Jim. How’s your night so far?”

He chuckled. “Not too bad. I got to detain my favorite socialite and listen to all my officers speculate what she did.”

(Y/N) lifted her hands palm up beside her shoulders. “I live to please, Jim, you know that.”

“I do.” He walked over and handed her a few papers. “When asked if she wanted to press charges, Marianne Walters declined. She instead gave a rather detailed statement that she instigated the fight and threw the first punch.” He stared at the busted lip she had. “Does that match what happened?”

She quickly looked over the papers and nodded. “Yes, that’s true.”

Gordon sighed. “Do you wish to press charges?”

(Y/N) shook her head. “No,” she smiled. “There’s no reason to make a fuss about this.”

“…Miss Wayne, you and Miss Walters are all over the news.”

She shrugged. “And people have very short memories. They’ll forget about this.” She handed back the papers. “Send this to my lawyer and she’ll handle it with the prosecutors.”

“You think they won’t press charges despite Walters?” Gordon asked and she nodded.

“Oh, they won’t,” she said then looked at the clock. “Am I free to leave? It’s been a long night.”

Gordon let out a heavy sigh and nodded. “Yes Miss Wayne, you’re free to leave now.”

(Y/N) rose. “Wonderful.” She looked at her sons. “Boys, let’s go.”

They followed her and Bruce stood from the table, standing beside Gordon. “Thank you, Jim.”

Gordon grunted. “I know (Y/N) threw the first punch.”

“You do?”

“Of course, I do.” He huffed. “And I don’t blame her either.” He watched (Y/N) laugh at something Dick said while the others groaned around him. “You’ve got a good woman, Bruce. Good wife. Even better mother.”

Bruce looked at his wife and let an easy smile cross his lips as she pulled them all into hugs. “Yeah…yeah, I do, don’t I.”

[witch-hazels-musings]

Hi Hi!!! I was wondering if I could request a reader treating their S/O's wounds after a fight/accident. Possibly with Diluc, Kaeya, and Albedo? Thank you so much I absolutely love your writing :D

^ I love Albedo so much - silly little forgetful genius 

Warning -> cleaning injuries, playful/joking 

Character X GN Reader | Anthology  

Includes: Diluc, Kaeya, Albedo⚘

Diluc

Diluc would be pretty angry if he got hurt. It doesn’t matter hoe either, it could be because he was out protecting the city or found himself in a fight, but his pride would be hurt the most if it was because of an accident 

He’d beat himself up for being careless and not paying attention - don’t mistake his terrible mood for being annoyed at you, it’s all turned inward 

“This is a pretty bad cut.” You take his arm in your hand and look over the wound. It’s hard to tell, but it looks as if it spans from his triceps to his upper bicep. The blood has soaked into his shirt and when you go to examine the rip he pulls away from you. 

“You don't need to fuss with it.” 

“It’s not as bad as it looks.” 

“Of course I do.” You reach back out to him but he pushes your hand away which makes you huff. It was admirable how much he did and how hard he fought for others, but sometimes his pride got in the way of what was best. You wished he would let those walls down easier. 

Diluc was always so much for you - in everything he did you couldn’t keep yourself together and you felt your body tingle from the tips of your fingers to the bottom of your feet. You loved him and sometimes it was painful 

“Still, it needs to be treated.” You reached for him for the third time and his hesitancy began to slip. Carefully, you unbuttoned his shirt, keeping a close watch on his facial expressions. His eyebrows are furrowed and his mouth is turned into a frown but he isn’t fighting you. Once you get enough of it unbuttoned, you slide it over his shoulder, and, as if you could forget, you catch sight of his beautiful skin. The muscles around his eye scrunched as you slide the sleeve of his shirt over the injury. “Sorry.” 

You’d seen him many times before, but the air in your lungs always escaped when you did, there was something beautiful about him with his shirt half off - how it accentuated his chest and back muscles, the way his vibrant hair complemented his dark shirt and pale skin 

You began to clean his wound. First, you wiping it with a cloth, making sure to use a gentle touch so as to not irritate the skin anymore before applying the medicinal cream you often kept on hand. 

Even as your eyes looked over the injury, you couldn’t help but glance at his face and look for any sign of discomfort. Soon, you found your gaze trailing down his neck and over his chest. It was unbelievable how attractive he was, and you couldn’t understand that out of everyone, he chose you. 

You rummaged through the medical supplies until your hands found the bandages. Shifting closer to Diluc and resting his hand against your outer thigh you began to wrap his injury as carefully as you could. 

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” 

“Not particularly, all that you need to know is the issue has been dealt with.” His chin rested in his free hand and he avoided your eyes. 

“Hmm. I’m not surprised, you’re more than capable. I’m nearly done.” You wrapped his arm a few more times for good measure before clipping the bandages together with one of the small metal clasps. “That should do. We should change the bandages tomorrow, but I don’t think you’ll lose the arm.” You chuckle and bend to your side, the items in the medical kit a disorganized mess and you work quickly to get them back in order. When you sit back up Diluc is still sitting in the chair in front of you, which you didn’t expect. 

You open your mouth to say something but stop when he turns to you. He runs his fingers against the side of your head, pushing strands of your hair over your ear. His hand rests there for a second, his thumb sliding across your cheek and you feel the goosebumps climb up your back and over your shoulders, seeping into your heart. 

“I’ll be more careful next time.” His eyes shift back and forth between your own, his face haloed by fiery hair. 

“Mhm.” You nod and he releases you. You gaze at him as he stands by the dresser and works his way into a fresh shirt. 

Kaeya

Kaeya loves being pampered by you - he cannot get enough of your touch anyway, and when you care for him, clean him up - all your attention on him - well he gets kind of a big head 

“How many times have I told you to be more careful.” You scold him as you position yourself behind the chair. 

“At this point, I’ve lost count.” He bent backward and tilted his head until he could look up at you. Even though the two of you had been together for some time, he still found ways to set your veins on fire. 

He looked at you and at this angle, you were given a perfect view of his neck and chest. You couldn’t help but notice the discolored skin where he had been injured in battles past. He may be quick on his feet, but he was still human. 

As nimbly as he could, he wrapped one of his arms around your back and pulled you close to him. 

“Who needs to worry about being safe when they have their own personal nurse.” You laughed and leaned down to place a quick kiss on his forehead. He hummed and the sound warmed your chest.

“I might be out of a job if you don’t be more careful.” You traced your fingers up his neck and along his jawline before giving him a gentle pat against his ear. “Now lean up so I can work.” 

He complied, returning his arm to rest on his legs and you settled back over his shoulder. With a light touch, you gripped onto his bicep and pushed it further into the light. The injury, while painful looking, didn’t seem to be too dangerous. 

Kaeya was cocky - sometimes more than he should be, and while he was perfectly capable of keeping himself out of harm's way, he didn’t know everything all the time 

Taking care of him like this was intimate in its own way. He wanted to be close to you and normally his hands were the ones trailing their way across your skin, but when these situations came up you had more justification to touch him without reservation 

The cut stretched across his shoulder blade, almost as if a blade was deflected from striking him in the back. You grabbed the cloth from the warm tub of water and wring it out until there were only a few drops coming off of it. Wrapping it around your hand so you have more control, you slip your pointer and middle finger into the cloth and hold it together in your palm, this way you can clean the skin around the cut more efficiently. 

You admire how flawless his skin is as you clean the blood. You hope this doesn’t leave a lasting scar, but honestly, it wouldn’t be the first and unlikely to be the last. As carefully as you could, you begin to clean the edges of the injury. When you hear him suck in the air quickly you stop. 

“Ah, did that hurt?” 

“Heh, nothing I can’t handle.” He laughs in good humor and shifts a bit in the chair. 

“Oh, so I can stop being so gentle then?” 

“Now hold on.” He begins to turn around, his confident smile already slipping. 

“I’m kidding.” You reassure him with a snicker, placing your hand on the side of his arm. “Be a good patient and relax.” 

You finish cleaning his wound and covering it with the healing ointment before working on placing the bandage. Thankfully, the Knights always had everything on hand so it made the whole process quick and relatively painless. 

“I think we are good.” You pack away the items and place them back into the medical cabinet, the door closes with a satisfying click. Walking over to the small refreshment table you pour water into a cup and make sure you take both it and the pain medication back to Kaeya. As you make your way back to him he’s already putting his shirt back on, a shame really. “Here, these should help with the pain.” 

You hold out your hand to him and wait for him to finish. When he turns around and his eyes land on the pills in your hand he smirks. 

“I know another way to alleviate pain.” He walks toward you and you already feel the urge to roll your eyes. 

“And what is that?” 

“Kissing.” He looks down at you and pulls at your shirt. He closes his eyes and leans down to your face but you hold him off. 

“Hey now. Why don’t you take these and then we can talk.” You knock your knuckles onto his slightly exposed chest and with a huff he concedes. Quickly, he takes the medicine in his hands and tosses them in his mouth, you offer him the water but he doesn’t take it. “Good jo…” He cuts you off. His lips connecting with yours and his hands pulling you close. 

He pulls away and looks at you, “See, my way is so much better.” 

“Cheeky.” You poke back and fail in your attempt to get away from his lips. 

Albedo 

He’s taken care of himself for so long that it’s still a shock sometimes to have someone dote on him as much as you do - you’re always around to help him and he’s starting to find your company quite enjoyable 

Here’s the kicker - Albedo wouldn’t notice if he had been injured until way later - so when you react loudly near him he doesn’t completely follow nor understand what has made you so upset

“Albedo! What happened?” You reach out to his face and when he disconnects from the papers that have kept his attention for so long you see the confusion in his eyes. 

“Y/N, sorry. I’m not sure I know what you mean.” 

“You have a cut on your face.” You brush his hair away from his forehead and shake your head as you see the cut across his brow. 

He reached up and touched his head, when he pulled his hand back to his line of sight and saw the blood on his fingertips his reaction was calm. “Well, this is a surprise.” 

You turn around and walk toward one of the cabinets in the research facility. It wasn’t uncommon for small accidents like these to happen here. Often, the experiments would become quite volatile or their reactions unexpected. You pulled the items from the shelf and remembered the time an unfortunate student lost his eyebrows. 

Quickly, you made your way back to Albedo’s side and placed the medical box on the counter next to you. As you rummage through the items in the box you start to talk to yourself, narrating out everything you were doing as well as your thoughts. 

“I know there should be some things in here that will help. I could have sworn that it had, ah yes. Here you are tricky thing.” You tear open a small bag and pull out a cloth. As quickly as possible you get it wet and feel it begin to lather under your fingers. “I’ll use this to clean your wound and then I’ll bandage it.” 

You walk back to Albedo and place your hand against his cheek. He’s been watching you this whole time and lets you do as you please. “Where is Sucrose when you need her. At least she seems to keep you out of harm's way … sometimes at least.” At this point, you are mumbling, and more to yourself than you are to Albedo. When he laughs you freeze, one hand resting under his chin and the other against his forehead. “What’s so funny?” 

“You’re so upset that you’re talking to yourself.” 

“Oh … really?” 

“Mhm” 

“… I didn’t even notice.” You feel your ears get warm and pinch your lips together. 

“It’s fine. I often talk out loud when I’m looking at my research.” 

It never ceased to amaze you how similar the two of you were - how you could both get so lost in whatever you were doing that the world seemed to fade away 

Still - Albedo was the only person in your life who could keep your attention on the here and now - from the day you met him he was your present and, hopefully, your future 

“This should be enough, does your head hurt?” You placed the bandage over his injury. The research facility was really to thank for the adhesive additions to small bandages like this. Somehow, they managed to make the edges sticky enough to adhere to the skin, but not too much to make it impossible to remove. 

“No, it seems to be okay. Thank you.” He reached up and grabbed your hand and let it rest in his lap. 

“No problem.” You avert your eyes and let them rest on the floor. He gives your hand a squeeze before letting you go and the warmth of his palm leaves yours chilled. The two of you just live in the comfortable silence for a second, he glances your way and you push the medical box along the counter. Finally, you break the silence, “I should put this back.” 

You pack up the items and close the box before walking back to the cabinet where you got it. As you slide it back onto the shelf the question you never got the answer to slipped back into your brain. 

“Hey,” you begin, turning around and leaning against the counter. “So do you remember how you got the cut on your head?” You cross your arms and stare at him from across the space. 

He scratches his head with his pencil and shakes his head. “I can’t recall. Oh, are you busy though?” 

“No, I’m free the rest of the day.” You reply. 

“Excellent, would you be inclined to stay and assist me? I have a number of things I’m working on and would appreciate the extra hands.” 

“Sure. Where can I start?” You push yourself from the counter and take a few steps toward him. 

“Ah yes, I need to organize the specimens in the closet back there … ” he stands and begins to walk toward the back closet, you head that way and reach it before he does. “There were a number of things to do …” 

His voice trails off as you open the door and find a great number of items littering the floor. Boxes, books, papers, and other random items spread about in complete disarray. 

“Oh … I think I remember how I got injured.” He stares over your shoulder and in defeat, you cover your eyes with your hand.

[soulmate-game]

Not related to the other two Bio!mom Harley AUs that I did. Just... similar. I wrote this instead of sleeping, as per the usual.

—*—*—*—*—*

“I need your help.”

No accent, no threats of violence, no beating around the bush (figurative or otherwise). No fighting or unconscious bodies.

Just Harley Quinn with her hair down, no makeup, and completely serious, in the center of the Bat Cave. Even though her usual exaggerated Brooklynn accent (circa 1950s) had become a pretty inseparable part of her personality over the years, every now and then she forcibly stuffed it down and used her mostly unaccented voice. The one reminiscent of days with less colors on her face, a high bun, and a pristine white lab coat.

Every single one of the Bats and Birds present, fresh from an interrupted patrol thanks to her, could count the number of times they had seen Harley like this on one hand. Bruce would have the most recollections, but everyone else would have plenty of fingers left on said hand. So they all knew, especially when Bruce willingly pulled down his cowl so he could look Harley in the eye, that this was the start of something they were not likely to forget. And maybe their chances of survival were slim too.

“Harley,” Bruce’s voice was still gruff, seeing as he was still mostly Batman at the moment, but his eyes were soft. “Maybe you should tell us what you need help with first. And sit down. You look exhausted.”

Sure enough, there were dark circles under Harley’s eyes. She let Bruce-man lead her over to one of their debriefing tables and sit her down. She let out a huge sigh, her fingers tangling in her loose blond locks.

“I have a confession, and it isn’t gonna leave this cave, capiche?” The slight return of her accent relieved a little of the tension, but not much. Taking this as their cue, the rest of the bats spread out into their usual seats at the table. Bruce stayed near Harley, keeping a hand on her shoulder in silent support. Harley didn’t continue talking until he gave her a solemn nod in agreement. She gulped— an action that immediately returned the tension.

“... fifteen years ago, back when I was still with Joker, I disappeared off the Gotham scene for a few months. I’m sure a few of you remember,” she looked up, and a couple of the older vigilantes nodded. Really, Jason has still been Robin back then. But the memory stuck out in his head now that he was thinking about it.

“Yeah, you were breaking away from him a little bit, which was weird at the time,” Red Hood mused aloud, arms crossed. “I think you helped us out a couple times and did some of your first team ups with Ivy before you vanished. Then a few months go by and you were back in action with Joker, so we mostly ignored it as you just being you.”

Harley nodded. “Ah, my Ivy’s a lifesaver, even back then. She helped cover up the timeline by keeping me in action for longer than I should’a been without putting me at too much risk.”

“Timeline…” Red Robin spoke up, eyes huge even behind his mask. “You don’t mean—“

“Harley,” Bruce breathed, having also caught on. “You were pregnant?”

The air went still. Harley sniffed, eyes watering even as she smiled.

“Oh yeah. Shouldn’t have been possible, ya know? Me ‘n Joker being dumped in that damn acid should have made us both more sterile than an operatin’ room. But I knew I couldn’t raise a kid, so after she was born—“

“You kept her?” Damian interrupted, earning a gentle cuff over the head from Dick. Harley just snorted.

“Yeah. Not gonna lie, I thought about abortion. But the baby didn’t do nothin’ wrong, and I was still in love with Joker back then so I was ecstatic that I was able to make something new with part ‘a him in it. Still, I knew a baby didn’t deserve to be raised in Gotham. Especially not my baby, not with my enemies and history. Not with who her father was. I knew he’d never want her, never let me keep her. So I spent the last five months of my pregnancy lookin’ around for the best possible family to take her in. And I found them in Paris, France. A sweet couple, both of them bakers. Sabine, she’s both adorably sweet and super kickass. Comes from a Chinese family that is crazy about teachin’ their women martial arts. But nothing shady about it, I triple checked. Just bonding through kicking people in the face. Which is perfect, I wanted my baby to know how to defend herself. I knew she’d need those skills eventually. And Tom, that’s Sabine’s wife, he’s a gentle giant. Same size as Bane, but as harmless as a puppy and makes the best croissants ever. Seriously, the best.”

“Harley,” Bruce gently prodded, but there was a tiny grin on his face. Seeing her behaving so… so normally, so proud and reminiscent, was a rare treat. Bruce would be lying if he said he wasn’t proud of how far the woman had come. How she had freed herself and become a better person, mostly on her own.

“Right, right. The point,” Harley took a breath, rubbing her forehead. “I came clean to Tom and Sabine, but apparently they knew who I was the whole time. They just didn’t care— did I mention they are perfect? Anyway, once I explained everything, they agreed immediately to adopting my baby. They’d been wanting kids, but it would’a been too risky for Sabine’s health. That’s how I found them anyway, they were in the market to adopt. We named her Marinette. She took Tom and Sabine’s last names, hyphenated. We decided Quinn would be her middle name. And after that, I came back to Gotham and told myself that she was in good hands and I needed to forget about her. Cuz I was no good for her. I knew that. I went back to my old tricks. And then…” Harley chuckled, but it was self-depreciating.

“Then a few years passed, and I started breaking away from Joker for real. Then we broke up, I blew up Ace Chemicals while you guys were outta town doing Justice League and Young Justice shit. I started dating Ivy. And—“ she smiled softly at the table, clearly seeing something the rest of them couldn’t. “Then Ivy convinced me to go see her. Visit my baby, see how she’s been. And I did. Marinette was seven years old, but damn it to hell she was gorgeous. And say whatever you want about me and Joker— most of it will even be true— but neither of us are stupid. And she inherited all of our intelligence. All of it. She got my blue eyes. But she got his hair, which meant Sabine teased me relentlessly about ‘are you sure she isn’t that Wayne’s kid?’ And don’t make that face Bruce, you’d be lucky to have a kid half as beautiful as my Mari-pie. No offense, Damian. Anyway. Anyway, this is the important part. Or part of it.

“She sat there and listened to everything I had to say. Everything. A little seven year old, who could barely understand English at the time, and she listened without interrupting once. She never threw a fit, she wasn’t angry or confused. I told her about the things I’d done in the past— well, G rated versions— and she didn’t care. She called me Momma Harley right away, said she wanted to meet Aunt Ivy sometime soon, and started telling me everything about her that I’d missed. From that day on, she became my sunshine. The light of my life, and I still call her at least once a week every week. When I disappear for a few days out of the city? I’m visiting her—“

“You’re banned from international travel, Harley,” Dick scolded, but he sounded way too amused for it to work. He knew she had her ways, anyway. Nobody could actually stop Harley damn Quinn from doing whatever she wanted.

“—Ugh, she tells me the same thing every time! Disappointed glare and everything. I don’t know how I gave birth to such a goodie goodie, but somehow I did. Not important though! The important thing is, I’m always the first to hear when something new happens in her life. And we had decided that she wouldn’t visit me in Gotham until she was at least eighteen, but apparently she disobeyed me— which I should have expected honestly— and entered you guys’ WE international scholastic competition.”

“Oh no,” Bruce pinched the bridge of her nose. “Marinette Dupain-Cheng? The contest winner?” He finally pulled out a chair and sat down. “The winner gets an all-expense paid trip to Gotham for them and their whole class.”

“Exactly!” Harley threw up her hands. “Mari told me last week, and I’ve been trying to talk her out of coming ever since. But she’s inherited both of our stubbornness too, and she isn’t budgin’ a bit. ‘Momma Harley, I wanna see you and Auntie Ivy though!’ And ‘Momma, Gotham’s nothing I can’t handle,’ or my favorite, ‘Maybe you’ll finally get to see me dropkick someone three times my size then, and I’ll prove it.’”

“So that’s what you meant by you need our help,” Tim said as he leaned forward over the table. “Joker just broke out of Arkham yesterday. You want us to protect her.”

“I’d prefer if one of you was with her outside of the mask too, as often as possible,” Harley confirmed. “I can’t stop her from coming here anymore, but I also don’t trust Joker for a second. As soon as he sees her, I’m afraid he’ll make the connection.”

“She looks like him?” Damian asked, scrunching up his nose at the ugly mental image of Joker as a teenage girl. Harley shook her head, solemn.

“She looks like a dark-haired mini-me,” she corrected. “She even keeps her hair in pigtails as her way of showing support for me. And I know Marinette can kick ass, Sabine’s trained her well. But Marinette inherited more than I’d like from me,” Harley ran a hand through her hair. “I didn’t notice it until she was thirteen. She got a crush on a classmate, and it was almost like watching videos of me back during the early days of— well, of Harley Quinn. Just without the crime and insanity. She didn’t even realize that she was almost stalking the poor kid until I pointed it out, and luckily I was able to put my doctorate to good use and we nipped that right in the bud ASAP. She never meant it that way, anyway. As soon as I explained things to her, she was horrified and immediately asked me to help her learn how to have a healthy relationship. That was a fun discussion,” Harley grimaced. “But she still gets attached to people really, really easily. Once she grew out of her crush on that boy, she adopted him as her unofficial brother. She already calls Selina “Auntie,” even though I’ve barely mentioned her to Marinette. She gets attached fast, and deeply. And I’m afraid that even after all the warning I’ve done, all the stories I’ve told her—“

“You’re afraid she’ll get attached to Joker just like you did,” Bruce finished for her, closing his eyes. “Because she knows he’s her father.”

“Yes,” Tears were slowly dripping down her face already, her hands curled into fists so tightly that her knuckles were paper white. “You know how he is. If he finds out she’s his biological daughter, he’ll immediately try to take advantage of that. And he’s far too good with his words for people like me and Mari. I’m worried outta my mind. Please. Help keep my baby safe from him.”

“We will,” Jason no longer had his helmet on, or the domino mask that he usually wore underneath it. All of them knew masks were merely formality with Harley nowadays. And he needed to look her directly in the eye so she could see how serious he was. “I can sign up as a bodyguard for the class. It won’t be weird, seeing as they’re tourists and this is Gotham. They also have several rich kids in their group if I remember right.”

Bruce nodded, agreeing with Jason. “That’s a good idea. I can lead the class on their tours of WE personally. That’ll serve the purpose of keeping an eye on her and shutting up the investors that keep begging me to make more public appearances for the sake of the company. Marinette’s name is already released to the news as the winner of the contest, so we can’t keep her out of the spotlight long. Tim, you’ll have to keep an eye on any and all pictures of the class. Try to erase or doctor the images with her in it well enough that connections between her and Harley can’t be easily made. Dick, you and Damian will be in charge of keeping an eye out for any activity from Joker. The slightest hint, and you notify all of us. We’ll decide on a case-by-case basis who is necessary to stick with the class and who goes after the clown.”

“She’s gonna sneak out of her hotel to stay with me and Ivy,” Harley admitted, bringing the (now slightly judgemental) attention back to her. She raised her hands up in surrender. “She didn’t tell me that, and I didn’t approve or suggest it! I just know my baby too well to not realize that that’s her plan. Could ya provide an escort?”

Bruce sighed. “This is gonna be an eventful month.”

[robinofgothamcity]

♡ scenario: meeting dick's ex girlfriend and it going awkwardly well

♡ characters: jason todd ( red hood ) x fem! reader

♡ note: not checked for grammar or spelling mistakes / i'm sorry but have yall seen that comparison of Jason Todd from Titans to the comics that the DC Titans twit made? bc every time i look at it, it takes me out. my twitter groupchat have slaughtering it all night :').

you in Dick's apartment, fiddling with a few of his weapons as he sternly told you to put it down before you hurt yourself. you, clearly not bothering to listen, continued to fiddle with the batarang as it managed to hit you on the nose. in between Dick's laugh, he wheezed out an 'I told you so'.

"fuck off, when are we going to your dad's place?" you asked, "I want to get back home before we get back to our apartments later than we already are," you mumbled, getting up and grabbing your keys.

Dick ushered you out the door, murmuring that he'd buy you a coffee on the way to Gotham as compensation for helping his family out. you were Dick's ex girlfriend and although the two of you ended on friendly terms, you managed to know his families secret and thus, you decided to help Dick out with his hero work in Bludhaven.

the two of you had realized a while into the relationship that neither of you were really into each other romantically. it felt a bit forced with the kisses and dates and a part of you saw the way Dick felt about his ex still. you weren't mad at the way he felt about Barbara but you could tell that he still had feelings for her and you didn't want him to deny his true feelings for her anymore.

both of you hopped into your car and made your way over to his father's place. you had met Bruce a while back when you were dating Dick and by extension, you had met Dick's younger brother Damian. he was still a bit of a prick to you every time you met him but Dick had told you that Damian was just that way with everyone. you had a few interactions with Duke and Cassie from time to time but it was only when they stopped by. the only two you had yet to meet were Dick's two younger brothers, Tim and Jason.

you had heard stories about them it wasn't anything too crazy. all you knew was that Tim was a bit on the shyer side and Jason was the one with the crazy backstory. they hadn't told you everything about Jason but you did know that Jason was dead at one point and managed to come back. how? you didn't know and frankly, you didn't want to know. knowing that this world was filled with superheroes from out of this world and held supernatural abilities was enough for you.

by the time you arrived to Bruce's place, you had Dick take in your back pack as you sipped away on the Starbucks he had bought for you. Dick entered through the batcave, waving a hello to everyone as you saw Damian and gave the little gremlin a smirk before chasing him for a hug.

"get away from me you peasant," Damian screamed, grabbing his blade and pointing it at you. you laughed, sitting down on his chair, "aww, and to think I thought you'd be happy to see me!" you giggled, taking your laptop out of your bag with a few other things.

you noticed that there was another person in the room that you hadn't familiarized yourself with and got up, "hi, I'm ( your name ), Dick's work partner," you said, stretching your hand out for him, "and the pain in my ass." you rolled your eyes as the man chuckled, "I'm Jason," he replied. his voice alone made the hair on your arms raise in goosebumps as you found his voice extremely attractive, "pleasure," you responded, trying not to sound nervous.

Dick wasn't the smartest of all brothers, clearly but it didn't exactly take an idiot to see the way you immediately acted around Jason. he noticed the way you pulled yourself back a bit as Jason stood up to give you a proper hello. when he first met you, you were instantly the confident person you always were but this time, you were pulling yourself back a bit.

"so, how did you meet Dick?" Jason asked. you laughed, "we're partners at work and I even dated the asshole for a while," Dick whipped his head around as you heard Damian hollering from laughter, "I'm right here!" he exclaimed. you rolled your playfully, "please, I heard the way you talk about me to Barbara," you pressed, making Dick slump down in his seat in shame.

Jason laughed at the way you managed to make Dick fall back. he had never seen someone do that to him before and frankly, he kind of liked the way you poked at Dick a bit. everyone knew he was the easiest target to mess with but it seemed as though you were professional at it, just like Damian was.

"so, who are the ones on patrol tonight?" Bruce asked, getting up. Damian and Dick raised their hands as they all looked to Jason, "you're still hurt from your previous run in so you will be sitting this one out Master Jason," Alfred spoke up. you saw the way Jason wanted to argue but Alfred gave him the 'you better not try it' look.

"you can stay with her," Dick offered, slipping into his suit, "she's helping out with communication tonight since Tim is off doing work with the Titans." you gave Jason a wave of encouragement as he agreed, not as excited as you thought he'd be. you shrugged it off, waving everyone off with a 'be careful' lecture.

the batcave went silent as Alfred had offered to bring the both of you coffee for the long night. you were sitting across from Jason, your legs crossed as you slipped in your headphone into one ear to make sure you could hear what Damian, Dick, and Bruce were saying clearly. you cracked your neck, trying to make it unstiff as you gave the three of them their coordinates of where they were to meet if they all separated....which was the first thing they did.

"so, why did you and Dick break up?" Jason asked suddenly. you lifted your head up, "oh, we just realized we were better off as friends," you replied, "everything felt kind of forced and a bit weird so we figured it was best to just be friends before it got any weirder."

Jason nodded, smiling underneath his stoic face. he knew he wanted to make a move on you but realized it was a slimey thing to do so quick. he hadn't known the real reason to the break up but figured since you were still friends with Dick, it clearly meant that there were no hard feelings, especially when Dick was trying his time again with Barbara.

the two of you remained silent, sipping away on water and coffee. a few yawns crossed your face as you tried to keep yourself awake. this wasn't the first time Dick had you doing this but you hadn't went strictly from work to Dick's place and didn't get the chance to take a nap before leaving. Jason saw the way you were fighting off your sleep and chuckled.

"tired?" he asked. you nodded slowly, "long day and an even longer day tomorrow," you replied. you saw your phone ping up with text messages as you let out a groan of annoyance, "something wrong?" Jason asked, seeing the way messages came in left and right.

you flipped the phone over, "it's dumb. some guy I was seeing hasn't stopped messaging me ever since I gave him my number and even when I told him I wasn't interested, he still kept going," you confessed, wanting nothing more than to chuck your phone against the wall to make it stop.

Jason thought for a moment. he could play this one of two ways. one: trying to give you mature, adult advice or two: being the petty teenager he used to once be. "wanna try to get him back?" he asked, quickly checking the communicators and cameras to make sure everything was still okay. you nodded your head a bit slowly, not knowing what he was hinting at.

Jason grabbed your phone, quickly taking a photo before writing a few thing down and sending it. your eyes widened, seeing what he wrote out.

"might wanna stop texting the girl who has no interest in you."

you gave Jason a look as he laughed, "what?" he asked, going back to the cameras and communicators. after a while, you got a message that they were heading back to the cave as others took their place. you clapped in tired happiness as you shut the computers down and put every thing into your bad so you and Dick could head out as quickly as possible.

"leaving already?" Jason poked playfully. you smiled, "I have work in the morning and I doubt you'd want to spend anymore time with me," you joked back. Jason grabbed your phone again, this time putting his number into your phone before shooting himself a message.

"you couldn't even wait a day?" Dick said as he got out of the batmobile. you shrugged playfully, "what can I say? your brother is hot," you responded, waving your phone with his number in it. Jason choked on his spit as Damian gagged, "gross, keep that shit to yourself," Damian yelled, slamming the door of the batcave as he made his way to his room.

you gave Jason a wink goodbye before getting into Dick's car.

"see ya soon sweetheart."