#will post eventually on ao3

[ryemiffie]

Guys.. Stan canonically writes fanfiction, presumably posting it to ao3.. I bet that man has got the ultimate author's curse notes

"Sorry I'm late to update guys! Got arrested by the federal government for stealing materials from them to rebuild an interdimensional portal to save my long lost twin brother! But hopefully things will be more consistent now that I'm done saving him!"

"My bad for this being so rushed, currently living through the literal apacolypse!"

"Didn't mean for this too take so long y'all, had to reread the whole fic to refresh my memory after getting my brain wiped to kill the demon who used to date my brother, y'all know how it is!"

[spacemammal]

How About Breakfast in Bed?

Masterpost

This is my fist fanfic EVER sorry if its bad lol

I basically stole the entire idea for the inciting incident from a fanfic by Renee4567. Give it a read! here's the link:

Phantom's Hope

─ ✧ ─ ✧- ☽ -✧ ─ ✧ ─

Part 1: Tired

Danny was so incredibly tired. The alarm blaring in his ears was giving him a piercing headache. Why did he even have to wake up? He reached to turn the damned thing off before his head exploded. His limbs ached and felt so incredibly heavy, he didn’t want to get out of bed. What was the point when it was just going to be the same as yesterday? He turned his head to look at the same grey walls he looked at every morning. He needed to clean his room but couldn’t find the energy. There were dirty cups everywhere that he hadn’t bothered to take back down to the kitchen. His clothes were in a scattered mess on the floor along with other junk. His homework was littered across his desk and room. None of it was complete. Why even bother doing it?

“DANNY!” his mom was calling him from downstairs. 

“COME DOWN FOR BREAKFAST!” 

He didn’t want to go. He wanted to skip breakfast, skip school, skip being shoved into his locker, and skip fighting ghosts. He just wanted to stay in bed and sleep the rest of his life away. He knew he had to leave the safety and comfort of his bed eventually. No matter how badly he didn’t want to. He dragged himself out from his warm, soft blankets and rifled through one of the shirt igloos on his floor for his binder. Getting dressed was the first step to the day ahead, so he dreaded it.

He gazed into the mirror, taking his reflection in. His hair was messy and slightly overgrown. His clothes were two sizes too big with the pants fraying at the bottoms. His under eyes were dark, accurately reflecting his tiredness. He wore long sleeves under his shirt to hide the constant injuries he got from ghost fighting. He looked like a mess, but he didn’t care enough to do anything about it.

He made himself go down the stairs and sit at the table. The food in front of him looked ok. He didn’t really have much of an appetite right now, but he knew he would suffer later if he didn’t eat right now. He wanted so badly to just go back upstairs and get back in bed. Instead, he looked around the kitchen and spotted the simplest thing to grab. A bagel.

“How did you sleep sweetheart?” his mom startled him with her question. 

“I slept fine.” he mumbled the words through his bites. The bread was dry and cold, but he didn’t feel like warming it up or anything. It was a miserable meal.

“I’m still really tired though”  as he said it, he looked up to see his mom already in a full on conversation with his dad about an ‘amazing idea’ to catch Phantom that she’d had. Great. Now he’d have to deal with that too. He didn’t even know why he bothered saying anything. Since Jazz left for college, this is basically how every morning went.

It was a typical day, getting shoved in a locker by dash, getting yelled at by his teachers, saving the school from another ghost, and trying not to notice how Sam and Tucker pointedly ignored him. They liked him before, hell, the teachers liked him before, but since Phantom, his grades have been dropping, his schedule’s been full. He’s learned pretty quickly that teachers only liked him if he had good grades, and his friends only liked him when he had time to actually be their friend without putting them in harm's way. So at school, he tried his best to stay out of his own head. Most of the time, that meant being on his phone. Even outside of school he was on his phone, it helped him not think so much. There were funny things that actually made him laugh. There was news that he wasn’t directly involved in. He liked to look at what the Justice League got up to, it made him feel a bit better about his decision to help. 

He was laying in his bed like usual, this time he was looking through people’s instagram stories. They were all pretty boring until one caught his eye. It was about the Justice League. It said that they were coming to Amity? He wondered why they would come to a random county in Pennsylvania, so he looked up what it was referencing. 

What. He sat straight up reading the JL’s official statement.

“We will be visiting Amity Park to investigate ‘Phantom’ as there have been multiple reports that the creature may be a potential harm to the residents.”

They were coming to investigate Phantom. Why did they need to investigate him? They should be able to tell that he’s trying to help. Those reports saying he’s a threat aren't true. He’s a hero just like them. He’s just… trying his best to help.

Well. There’s not really much he can do. He’ll just have to hope that they see past the reports. There’s no way he can handle dealing with THE Justice League on top of everything else.

─ ✧ ─

When the Justice League came, Phantom was busy. Way more busy than normal. He’d hoped to be able to catch them. If not to convince them he’s not actually evil, then to just get to see his heroes in person, but Vlad must’ve let out a ton of ghosts in hopes he wouldn’t catch a glance. So he was stuck fighting ghosts while people were telling the Justice League how much of a menace he is. They were recounting tales of how him causing property damage, injuries, and striking fear into the hearts of the innocent. All while he was fighting ghosts and trying his best to keep their town safe. 

It wasn’t helping that he had the Ghost Investigation Ward and his parents hot on his tail trying to capture him. They shot their ecto-rays right at him, even managing to hit him every once in a while. It’s like they weren’t even trying to get the other ghosts anymore, it was just him. Luckily, he was able to get most of the ghosts fairly quickly and without major injury. He was almost done capturing them all then he’d be done. Luckily the box ghost was the only one left, and he had an easy time putting him into the thermos. As he secured the thermos’s latch, he was relieved to be done. Now he just had to return them all back to the ghost zone-

There was a sudden shooting pain in his shoulder. He fell to the ground and his vision was going spotty. He pressed his hand to where it hurt and braced himself on the ground, breathing heavily. His arm was stinging with pain and could hear his heartbeat in his head. What had happened? He pulled his hand from his arm to look at it as his vision came back. It was covered in ectoplasm. Where’d that come from? He heard people yelling behind him, but couldn’t make out their words. There was another pain, this time it was more of a knick in his calf. He looked behind him to see where this all was coming from and there was his parents. He looked back at his hand as he realized, this was his ectoplasm. He was bleeding. He was bleeding really badly. His parents were getting closer, they looked like they were ready to shoot again. His head was pounding, he had to leave quickly. He pulled himself to his feet, and started to haul ass. He was tired, so he wasn’t moving fast enough to outrun them, but he was moving. He just needed to go invisible and intangible and he could escape them.

He’d finally lost his parents, so he floated his way back into his room and collapsed. As he fell to the ground, his ghost form fell with him. He took a few breaths, clutching the fenton thermos to his chest, thankful that he hadn’t lost it when he was shot. He took another second to himself before examining his injury. His wound was deep and if he didn’t patch it up soon, he’d bleed out. When did ghost tech get so painful? He took out the med kid Jazz had made for him. She always thought ahead. When she first suggested it, he’d said no, thinking he wouldn’t need it. But in times like this, he was glad she cared enough to threaten him into listening to her advice. He couldn’t do stitches or anything, but with his ghost healing, it would be ok if he managed to hold his wound together. After disinfecting the gash on his shoulder, he pinched it together and secured it closed with band-aids. He’d been pretty sure he’d seen something like that in a doctor’s video or something? Whatever. He’d finished bandaging his worst wounds when he heard a commotion outside. He slowly peeked out his window to try and see what was happening. To his surprise, there was the Justice League. They’d been trying to interview people but it looks like it turned into a meet-and-greet of sorts. He’d thought they would’ve left by now, but they were answering questions and signing autographs. Maybe he could still talk to them. He pulled on a shirt that hid his worst injuries and headed outside, not realizing he was still holding the thermos.

─ ✧- ☽ -✧ ─

This was going on far longer than it should’ve. Bruce knew it was a bad idea to all come here, let alone announce it. Now they were being swarmed by people who wanted autographs or to ask them pointless questions. It was all getting out of hand. He knew that they should’ve gone undercover. If this Phantom is a threat, why let it know they’re coming? Batman wasn’t engaging with the crowd like the others were. He was here to help people, not be a celebrity. The crowd was a mix of people, but they were all here for different reasons. Some were just gathered to meet them. Some were complaining about the ‘ghosts’ that apparently haunt this town. As he scanned the crowd, his attention caught on a teenager approaching the group. He didn’t quite hold the same energy as the rest of them. Where other teens were enthusiastic and happy, he was hesitant, almost scared. But there was a glimmer of hope there. It was a strange mix. He was a skinny kid with black hair and blue eyes. Probably around 15 years old. He was wearing a short sleeved shirt that exposed the scrapes and bandages running along his arms. He looked tired, and he had a slight limp to his walk. In his hand he was clutching what looked like a thermos. The grip was tight, but the strangely high tech object looked comfortable in his hands. The boy opened his mouth, about to say something before he was interrupted. 

“ARE YOU GOING TO CATCH PHANTOM?!” The question came from the other side of the crowd.

They hadn’t been able to gather any real information on Phantom. Most of the people here simply didn’t like the ghoul. They had no evidence that the creature had any malintent at all.

Before Batman could answer, Superman replied  to the question with a  reassuring smile, 

“We’ll do our best.”

Why would he answer without discussing it first? They were going to have to have another meeting about this.

With Superman’s reply, the crowd around them began to cheer. There was only one among them who didn’t. The beat-up teenager he’d been observing. He looked stunned, broken even. He looked like they had just killed all of his hopes and dreams.

─ ✧- ☽ -✧ ─

Danny felt like he was going to barf. Superman had really just said that they would capture him? They believed he was a threat? No. No no no no he couldn’t accept this was happening. There must be some mistake. He looks at the heroes, trying to find anything. They’re joking, they have to be. They can’t seriously believe he’s bad, right? He searches their faces trying to find any hint that he had heard them wrong, that they’re faking it, anything. He’s been trying his best, they can’t think he’s evil. They can’t. He searches each of their smiling faces and he doesn’t see any sign that what they said was anything but the truth.

They want to capture him too.

Danny feels his world crumble as he loses all of the little hope he’d had. He began to give up. What was the point? Why even bother doing this? It was volunteer work that only ever left him injured and friendless. He looked down at the thermos in his hand. The smooth metal in his hand felt so familiar. He’d worked so hard to keep these ghosts from hurting people. He’d given his blood to keep this town safe. They still hated him. He was just a highschooler who was hurt and tired and just wanted to go to bed. Yet they still hunted him. How had he ended up like this? He used to do well in school and have friends and not feel like shit all the fucking time. He used to want to live. Now he was just wishing he could go back to before he half-died. He wanted his friends back, but they all hated him now. They didn’t hate him at first, but Sam got tired of making excuses for him and constantly helping him fight ghosts. Tucker was more or less the same. They’d left him. They didn’t want to fight ghosts. They’d realized what he hadn’t. The pointlessness of his mission. All that came of him ‘being a hero’ was him getting hurt. He was in so much pain he could barely move right now. So far he’d been able to avoid the GIW and his parents and Val, but… could he avoid the Justice League? 

‘We’ll do our best.’ Superman’s words were echoing in his head. If they caught him, what would they do with him? Torture him? Kill him? He could feel his emotions bubbling up in his core. He was scared, but he felt a little more free. He wasn’t going to protect a town that didn’t want him anymore. Why had he been doing it for so long? To think that he’d fought for them, bled for them.

He laughs. It’s a hollow laugh. The crowd looked at him like he was crazy. Some people started backing away in disgust. On second thought, he didn’t think it was that funny. He was in so much pain and none of them cared. He found he was still staring at the thermos he held firmly in his hand. It was the thing he’d used over and over  and over again to save the people who were now praying for his downfall. 

“I guess I’m really not wanted here.” he said it quietly, almost a whisper, but it was still heard. He could feel his fangs peeking out from under his lips and his hair start to float as he started to lose control over his form. The sky, that was just moments before sunny and clear, was now dark and stormy. He tightened his hand on the thermos and before he’d even realized it, he pressed the button to release the ghosts. They were yelling and announcing themselves until they noticed Danny, stewing in his emotions. He stared up at the ghosts puzzling them out in his brain. He was so angry, and sad, and so many things he couldn’t sort it all. 

“Oh shit” he recognized it as Ember’s voice.

“This seems like a bad time” This one was skulker. 

Soon, all the ghosts fled, citing Danny as the reason. 

He stared blankly at the now empty thermos.

“I just… tried to help” his voice breaks as he says it. Tears formed at the edges of his eyes, but they don’t fall quite yet. Something shifted in Batman as he looked at Danny, picking his every movement apart. The rain started falling and soon you could see his red blood seeping through his bandages and his shirt, exposed by the sudden water that was now soaking him. It gave his hair and clothing back the weight that it had so recently lost. Batman took a gentle step towards Danny. He looked up at Batman, searching for something that told him that the man didn’t hate him. He found nothing. His mouth was a careful, neutral expression. The rest of his face was covered by an expressionless cowl, so he found comfort in looking at the rough pavement instead. He wished so badly to not be here. He ached for the comfort of his bed. 

“I’m just so tired.” as the words fell from his lips, he began crying. He couldn’t help it, just as he couldn’t stop himself from falling to his knees and transforming into Phantom. He heard a few gasps from the crowd that had backed far enough away to stay out of danger but still watch. His wound had reopened and it was bleeding again. He hated being so exposed and vulnerable. He was a spectacle for them all to gawk at. But he didn’t have the energy to hide anymore, so he simply sat there. Slowly, Batman swooped down towards him. Danny flinched, prepared for the worst. Instead of pain, or an attack, he felt warm, strong arms around him. He looked up and Batman, the vengeance of Gotham, had taken him into his warm cape.

“You did a good job” the deep voice that came from Batman wasn’t as cold as Danny had been expecting. His voice was compassionate and gentle. Before he had even realized it himself, Danny was sobbing uncontrollably into the rough fabric of the costume.

It was a while before he lost all energy and stopped crying. 

“I can’t do this anymore.” his voice was quiet and he still clung to the cape as he said it. 

“That’s alright.” Batman’s voice was reassuring. 

“Did I…” he paused. Ancients, he was tired. “Did I really do alright?” He was looking at the cloudy sky when he said it. Wishing he could see the stars.

BEEP BEEP BEEP! He gasped for air and sat up straight as his alarm clock pulled him from his sleep. Oh. It was a dream. 

─ ✧ ─ ✧- ☽ -✧ ─ ✧ ─

This is just the first chapter! I promise it will get less angsty. Trust

Edit: I forgot to mention, danny's like 17 in this, he just looks younger (being trans'll do that to ya)

[lockeswoodss]

The Crimson Glow: Chapter 1

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!MDNI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You had long given up on meeting your soulmates. At 33, you felt like you'd miss the window. Pathetic off white pink strings, that had only darkened twice, were your only claim to them. That was until you started your across-state journey from Philly to P-burgh. Feeling brash after a recent breakup you threw caution to the wind and applied for a job across your home state. To your surprise, you were hired. With the encouragement of your close friends and brother, you committed to the new experience. For once, you were excited for adventure, that was until your strings began to darken.

CW: none? I guess cursing? If you see something please let me know 💛

A/N: While this chapter does not include smut there will be some in future chapters; it's a slow burn. Smut chapters will be labeled

Taglist: @nocturnalrorobin (also the requester of this prompt ^-^)

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

It would be an understatement to say that you’ve grown pessimistic when it comes to your soulmates. I mean fuck you were in your early thirties and your soul link of red strings had only changed from a pale pink twice in your life before going back to the default light pink. Yes, strings plural. You were part of the 2% of Americans who are estimated to have more than one soulmate. Despite this occurring in 1 in 50 people, your parents were from a generation where those who had more than one soulmate were ostracized. In turn, they had trained you since you were able to talk to only refer to one string. It had been ingrained in you to the extent that even now, as an adult, you had only told less than five people outside of your family about having two soulmates. Two of which were close friends, and the other two were past long-term relationships. Fuck what you wouldn’t give for a quote of your first words, or a countdown timer. Anything other than this off-white string that had been hanging over your head since childhood.

You knew that you could only be mad at fate to a certain extent. You had chosen to be career driven and bet on sure things rather than chasing after strings that had been stagnant for almost your whole life. In a way, you wish you could be as carefree as your twin brother. Benjamin, ever the romantic, took what was supposed to be a gap year from undergrad to grad school to find his mate. He headed east to Europe and backpacked across the entire continent before finding his soulmate, now husband, in Sicily. He ended up settling in London with his soulmate, Dante, eleven years ago and never looked back. Your parents’ reaction to his “lifestyle choices” was the final nail in the coffin before you both went no contact. You were the only thing left trying him to the US. You visited him at least once a year and talked regularly. You always wished you could be as carefree as he was. Despite your own situation, you were beyond happy for your brother. If not a bit envious, which led you to now, you pulled off at a rest station off of Route 76 on the verge of a panic attack.

You had just passed Harrisburg, two hours into your journey west from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. For the first time ever both your strings were red, overlapped and darkening as you got closer to Pittsburgh. You didn’t know what to do or how to process this new information. Your strings had been overlapped for about two years now, and you had dealt with and accepted the fact that your soulmates had most likely found each other.  No, it was the darkening that threw you for a loop. This had only happened twice, the first time the string had gone from off-white to red only to turn back light pink within a few hours. That same string, pointing east across the Atlantic, had briefly turned black to grey back to light pink. You’d never forget that day one of your soulmates had almost died. Your sting had gone black for a minute and 57 seconds.

You shook your head, dismissing that thought; you were already stressed as it was.

You don’t know how Benji and your friend, a Pittsburgh native, had convinced you to take life by the reins and be impulsive. Between your recent breakup and a job opportunity across the state, you had made the improbable choice. You quit your job and got an apartment on the other side of the state. You regret it now, dread building in your gut. You weren’t spontaneous, no, you were practical and thorough. You didn’t take these kinds of risks.

Fuck, you felt like you were going to throw up. You quickly exited your maps app. Your thumb was over your brother’s contact info when your call screen suddenly took over displaying an incoming call from him. You picked up before the first ring had ended.

“You’re okay,” Ben’s voice rang out before you even had the chance to greet him. The wails of your nephew faint in the background.

“I-” You started, voice shaky, you paused before taking a breath.

“It’s okay,” he said once again, voice level.

“They’re red Ben, like properly red, like the ones in the movies.” You responded, you somehow managed to get the words out evenly, before taking another deep breath.

“Sis, that’s a good thing,” he responded, smile clear in his voice.

“No, I don’t know what to do,” you sighed, pressing your forehead flush with the top of the steering wheel, “I always know what to do Ben.”

“It’s okay to not know what’s to come, most people don’t know what’s going to happen before they meet their soulmate. You just have to lean on fate for a bit before going back to being a know-it-all,” he joked, hoping to lighten your mood.

“Okay,” you sighed, breathing going back to normal. “But what if I’m not what they’re expecting?”

“Then they’ll be pleasantly surprised,” He responded,

“What if it’s a bad time? Or if I meet them before making it to Pittsburgh?” You ask.

“There’s no perfect time to meet your mates, and if you meet them before Pittsburgh, you’ll figure it out. Like you always do.” He said comfortingly,

“What if-what if they don’t want me?” you said, finally voicing your deepest concern.

“Sis,” he replied softly, his voice just loud enough to register on his phone’s mic.

“I’m just-Fuck, I’m a mess, I start at my new job in less than two days, my apartment isn’t set up, and I definitely needed to do a everything shower this morning, but gaslighted myself into not washing my hair.” You sighed, “Just,” you breathed, “What if I’m not good enough?” Your voice wavered.

“Hey, watch your tone, I know you’re not bad mouthing my sister. Not the one that put herself through college, a master’s program, and a licensing process to become an art therapist. Not the woman who devotes everything to her patients within boundaries. Not the one who worked pro bono at a grief summer camp because of a staffing shortage. Or on top of everything is an amazing artist. Cuz she’s an empathetic badass, who is way too smart to say any of that shit.” Ben responded.

“Ben,” you said, sniffled, eyes watering.

“You’re going to be okay. They are lucky to be blessed with your presence and happy to meet you. If not, I’ll fuck them up.”

You let out a wet laugh, a single tear escaping each of your eyes as you blinked.

“Thanks,” you sniffled, a soft smile on your lips.

“No problem. What are big brothers for?” he asked, jokingly.

“Just cuz you cut in line does not make you older.” You responded to a lifelong debate with an eyeroll he’d never see, “Sorry for falling apart on you.”

“Sis, I’m sleep training a five-month-old, who is on what I hope is the tail end of colic. You were a much-needed break.”

“Tell Atlas his auntie loves him.” You said, taking one last deep breath. The weight gone from your chest.

“I will.” You could hear the softness in his voice shift, Atlas most likely finally calming down for Dante in the other room, “If you need anything, feel free to call.”

“I will, love you,” you reply.

“Love you too,” he responded before you clicked off the call.

You took a deep breath; you plugged your phone back into its charging port and clicked on maps and cued up a hip-hop mix. You shifted from park to drive and merged back onto I-76. You took one last stop two hours in, but it just made you more tired. You white knuckled it until you got to the parking garage adjacent to your building. Your strings continued to darken, color plateaued when you drove into the city’s limits. They weren’t overlapping anymore. On was pointing up, something you’d never seen before, and the other was pointing off to the right as you face your apartment building. You texted Ben and your friend who lived in the city that you got in safely. You unloaded your backpack and a single suitcase that held all your valuables. For the first time, you found yourself liking the annoying squeaks of its broken wheel. It was something familiar.

After you locked your car, the next half hour was a blur. You signed the final paperwork at the office and got your keys. You boarded the elevator and clicked on the tenth floor.

Your breath caught in your throat as the red string that was pointing upward started to move laterally down, while the other started to point down. The above one kept moving downward until it was back to the height of your palm. Was this it? Were you about to meet your soulmate? Despite bitching about not meeting them for the better part of thirty years you felt wildly unprepared. The ding of your floor snapped you out of your daze.

Were they living on the same floor as you?

You shook your head, turning left as the building manager had directed you. You slowly made your way down the hall; your suitcase’s broken wheel squeaking was the only noise. Your head snapped down as you passed the last apartment on the right before yours. The string was bright crimson, bolder than you had ever seen before. As you walked on, the string went through you, through the wall into that apartment.

You paused. But then there was nothing? Maybe they were asleep? It was four in the afternoon, but you weren’t really one to judge; you always loved a good nap. That or maybe they worked nights? After waiting for a beat, you slowly walked down to your apartment door, keeping an eye on the door as you opened yours.

Maybe this was okay? While you were desperate to meet them, you also had just completed an over five-hour drive, and you felt and you’re sure, looked like hot garbage. You gave yourself no time to take in the apartment before crossing through the sea of reusable boxes to your bedroom. You quickly tossed your backpack on the sheetless mattress resting on a built bed frame. You pulled out the lounge wear you packed along with a towel and washcloth from one of the totes before rushing to the bathroom. If you were gonna meet them today you were gonna have clean hair god dammit. You turned on the water as you stripped, your string remaining solitary to the one spot in your neighbor’s apartment. You unpacked your toiletries onto the shower’s ledges before jumping in. Your nerves got to you again, loitering in the shower as long as you could justify. After drying off, you did your full extended post-shower routine; eyes never straying far from the solitaire string.

While you tried to start to unpack, you couldn’t help but stare at the string. Should you just go and knock on their door? Before you could scheme any further, your stomach grumbled. It was already five and you hadn’t eaten since the last rest stop. Maybe going to grab something to eat wasn’t the worst idea ever. It’d get you out of your current impasse of staring at a wall. You picked a well-rated Thai restaurant around the corner, ordering way too much for a single person. The entire trip lasted about a half-hour, but it was a nice break. You got some fresh air and were able to stretch your legs as you took in the neighborhood. When you got back to the lobby, your other string started to darken quickly, like it was speeding towards you. You debated waiting for it or going back upstairs so that you could all be together. You opted for the latter and retreated back to your apartment. The string on your floor remained still, only starting to move as you closed your door.

Your heart began to hammer in your chest as you placed the food down on your kitchen counter. You were about to check in with Ben before a loud knock sounded off. Hesitantly, you approached the door, strings bright red, almost glowing. They formed a “V” shape as you wrapped your hand around the door handle.

This was it

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

A/N: Thanks for taking the time to read! I am in the last month of my semester, so I don't have an update schedule as of now. Will hopefully be more consistent after mid-May. Hope you're doing well whenever you are 💛

Chapter 2: here

[crabsnpersimmons]

New 'Do, Same You now on Ao3!!

it's here! my silly hairdresser AU that sparked from my silly page of doodles is now a fic!! i hope you'll give it a read!

In the mood for something new? Come on in for a new hairdo! Day or night, dusk or dawn, Find what you're looking for at the Shooting Star Salon!

EDIT: they're handing out coupons for the salon! 20% off all services! Not valid with other offers. Valid until end of January 2025. (some of them are drawn in crayon by Clip himself 🖍️)

[hoomandoescosplay]

Mini Strategist | Jinshi x Reader

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

https://archiveofourown.org/works/66691057/chapters/172063273

[magicpiano]

Through weird experiments, Ra's grows a Tim clone from his spleen. As in the new clone grew around his spleen.

Now Tim is a pretty pro clone guy. He is relatively confident that he could work things out with his clone and, at the very least, have a neutral relationship with him. If he is lucky, maybe even a good brotherly one! So no the problem isn't that this other guy is a clone, or that Ra's made him, or even if he was brainwashed to try and kill OG Tim or anything like that. No, Tim considers these all minor or fixable.

The real issue Tim has with the new guy is that he now has his spleen. Tim had been planning to steal that back! But now he can't because it is in someone else's body!

[ellesthots]

code of ethics

iii. “possessive”

read on AO3 🤎

parts: previous / next

plot: things become a bit easier between you and your professor (now mentor)—but something isn't adding up.

pairing: professor!bruce wayne x student!reader

cw: 18+

word count: 3k

a/n: listened to 'bad decisions' and 'hands on me' by ariana grande on loop while writing this—if this were my main fic, i would've written like fifty bajillion scenes of lusting and personal time, but this is a miniseries, so, we move right along! trying new things <3

A one-on-one mentorship didn’t require a classroom, so you found yourself sitting across from Professor Wayne in his minuscule office. Evidently, billionaire or not, every faculty member got the same 100-square foot space that left barely enough room for one student in addition to a desk, filing cabinet, and two chairs. Deep brown tones filled his office, making it appear stuffy. 

You felt awful watching him squeeze into his tiny seat across from you; had he opted for the smaller seat so you could have room? Surely the higher-ups could accommodate him. Like you’d spoken aloud, he apologized while hunting through his desk. 

“Emailed the admin about booking a conference room, but they’ve yet to get back to me. Hopefully,” he pulled out a bottom drawer, a small, satisfied sound slipping past his lips that made you sit straighter. “They’ll respond soon, and we can get somewhere more comfortable.” 

Comfortable. You’d repeated that word like a mantra in the mirror as you picked your outfit for the first day. Against your better judgment, you’d gone with sweats and a tee; unprofessional, you’d chastised, but wearing anything else felt promiscuous. Hyperaware of how tightly the jeans hugged your waist and ass—and oh, god, you avoided your skirts like your life depended on it—you’d landed on a perfectly comfortable pair of thick, cozy sweatpants. You tugged at a loose thread as your focus landed on his hands. 

Blue was the color he’d chosen for his pen. Not black, not red, but a cool, even blue. How sweet. You pulled at the thread harder. 

“Do you have topic ideas?” 

“Yes.” Dutifully, you slid a folder out of the backpack you’d obsessively cleaned the night prior. Smooth manila protected your typed list, ranging from strict academia to looser creative pursuits. You pushed the paper to him, heart pounding. 

He stared, his head cocked slightly. He looked to you, the paper, then slid it back. “Which are you passionate about?”

“I thought we’d look over them and decide together,”

He shook his head, lips pressed in a thin line. You felt what he wasn’t saying. “I won’t be the one writing it. It should be about what you want.”

Your professor held out his pen, and your fingers brushed as you took it. It was weighty in your hand, and you very well could’ve imagined it, but the cushion where his fingers had been held warmth. His big, long, warm hands… they were what you wanted. Manicured nails caught your attention, and you bit back an audible ‘of course’. His hygiene was impeccable. What else did you expect from a man like him? Was he manicured elsewhere? 

“Circle the topics you’re most interested in. If you still need my help,” yes, I do, “then we’ll talk.” 

You knew it would be bad after the break you had, but not this bad. You were achingly aware, in fact, following out of the corner of your eye while you pretended to deliberate topics, that he’d switched his usual sweater for a button-up. With the top two buttons undone. 

Focus. 

You snuck another look, and he caught your eye with a curious squint. 

FOCUS!

In truth, none of the topics genuinely interested you. Scouring his faculty page online, you’d gone down his research and found topics he was engaged with, and went from there. Sitting only a few inches from him now, your play felt embarrassingly obvious. It could’ve been minutes or could’ve been hours, but nothing was circled, or underlined, and the pressure in the room shifted. 

“I don’t like any of these,” you admitted, once again feeling like a child owning up to a Big Mistake. What would the slap on the wrist be? Sending you home early? Emphasizing that you really needed to take this class seriously, only making you feel worse? 

Instead, he bridged the space between you. The depth of his blue eyes this close had you genuinely worried you’d drown. “If you had to write the paper right now, and no one would read it, what would you write about?”

You hoped he couldn’t feel the heat emanating off your cheeks, and fought to keep your voice steady. “But you will read it.” 

“I’m here to support, not punish.” He lingered a moment, holding your gaze so firmly that a small gasp escaped when he sat back against his chair. “The process will be more enjoyable if it’s a subject you want to dig into, and your writing will be better for it.” 

It’d been hard enough getting grades back throughout undergrad knowing someone had read what you wrote, perceived you, judged you. It was an entirely new thing when the single most attractive, naturally charismatic man you’d ever seen was judging it in real time, intimately. If you didn’t know him, and had seen him on the opposite end of the same coffee shop, you would’ve hightailed it out of there, holding your breath—never would you have even thought it an option to approach him. 

Yet here you were, mandated to share a teensy room with the object of such desire. 

“This isn’t like last term. This course is about development and revision, pass no pass.”

“Alright.” It didn’t settle the rhapsody that threatened to overwhelm you, but nothing would in his presence. He appeared to attune to your continued hesitance at once. 

“What makes you afraid of me reading it?” 

That you’ll think less of me. “You’ll think it’s elementary.”

“Pick whichever topic without regard for how I might receive it.” He waved his hand over the carefully crafted options. “Or pick from the assembly of my research credits you collected there.” 

Crap. Of course he could tell. 

It took you the rest of the class, but you finally selected your paper topic. When you shared it, Professor Wayne’s eyes flashed, and after your internal recoil, you noticed him grin. “It’ll certainly make for an interesting essay.” 

You shifted in the chair, the space between you and the shared desk seeming too tight. “Bad or good?”

“Neutral.”

He’d been too thoughtful when he said it. Pause… ‘neutral’. “A professional way to say ‘bad’ without hurting my feelings?” An hour spent with him and your filter was slowly removing itself. A smidgen of bravery gathered within you, though you couldn’t imagine how with the adrenaline-spiked overwhelm at how fucking perfect he was.

“Seems to be your Achilles heel, Y/n.” He stood, somehow managing to pull on his coat in the meager space. His perfect hair fell perfectly around his ears, swishing slightly as the jacket’s collar grazed it. “A harsh inner critic will only get you so far.” 

“Mm.” Your throat went dry as he towered over you. It was as if he’d plucked last night’s fantasies from your bedroom. Now, just press his hands onto the desk… lean closer… tell me he wants to…

“I mean it.” 

You bit your lip, blinking at warp speed. “Yeah?” Too pitchy, shit.

He nodded, oh, even just a nod… and it was only the first day! “Almost dropped out of my doctoral program twice.” 

“No way.” 

He grabbed his mug, and your eyes trained on the movement. Does Professor Wayne know all I can think about is his hands on me? “Overthought my dissertation from the day of admission. Didn’t think I could measure up.” 

Him having anything outside of strict confidence was so shocking it pulled you out of your lust. “And?” 

“Now I get this spacious office all to myself.” 

Your cheeks hurt from the slope of your grin, digging into the apples of your cheeks. The man was endearing; certainly more than he’d been a term prior. Was it pitying? Did he see you as fragile? Because good god, you wanted him to break you.

“My point being: I had to write it despite my concerns. Follow where my mind went. Learn to trust it.” 

“How did you?” If you could mimic a single crumb of how he moved so effortlessly through the world—billionaire near-miss-A-list-celebrity notwithstanding—you’d take it. Managing a string of conversation that didn’t make your core tighten would be helpful, too. 

“Trusted my supervisors. That if I were truly out of line, someone would’ve told me.” He walked around the desk toward the door, but stopped between you and it. The noise got harder to ignore, but you managed. 

“Like you did last term.”

“A bit kinder than that, I’ll admit.” He gestured for you to lead the way out of his office, and you shakily got up from your chair to follow orders. You stalled in the slim, empty hallway, lit mostly by passing headlights through the window at its end. 

He clicked the lock and strode just ahead. “You have a strong voice. It’s a shame you’re not trusting it.” 

His smooth speech was beginning to genuinely unravel you. If he’d been speaking to you like this in his office, when you had to stare into his face instead of at his broad, flowing shoulders… 

“I just can’t believe you ever felt that way. You seem like you knew all this stuff from birth.” 

He tossed a look back at you, the whisper of a smirk wearing his mouth. “That’s the trick, isn’t it?”

Mmm…

Professor Wayne held the door open for you into the building’s main hallway, and you hugged the folder tight to your chest as you skirted past. “Come with an outline for next week’s session.”

“Will-do.” Your voice was too deep, thrown, almost ragged.

“Hopefully we’ll have a more accommodating room by then.” 

You did not have a bigger room for the rest of the term. 

“Wonderful.” 

He handed your essay back without comment, which was too confusing to internalize his praise. “No edits?”

“Stellar paper.” 

“Like, I’d get 100 if I turned it in for a grade?”

“I’d invite you to TA on the back of the rubric.”

“Shit.”

If you had to pinpoint the moment you and Professor Wayne’s communication had become less rigid, it might’ve been at the reveal of his dissertation insecurity. Or two weeks later when he made an offhand joke about being an orphan, and his cheeks turned the slightest shade of pink when it didn’t land. 

Either way, things had become easy. For the last day, you’d brought him a coffee. With sessions being in the evening, you usually showed up with water or the occasional herbal tea; however, as your roommate made customary for the end of a term, you were headed straight for the club after. A latte for you, black coffee for him. 

And a pastry, as a parting gift. 

“What now? Since I’m apparently perfect?” You tapped your fingers against your exposed thighs, the minidress you’d thrown on only covered from the waist-up by a baggy sweater. Things were pleasant between you two, sure, but that didn’t mean you didn’t ache watching his lips curve around the edge of his cup, or linger when he rolled the cuffs of his sleeve. 

He checked the clock, and you attuned to the movement of his waist when he shifted. You’d miss this. His tiny office that made you both sweat, his dry one-liners, the perfume of citrus and musk that followed you on your walks home. 

“Guess you get out half an hour early.” A bit curt of a nod, you noted, but it could’ve been in your head. 

What wasn’t in your head, however, was how he didn’t rise to follow you out the door. You withheld a pout as you tucked your folder into your bag and stood. It was your favorite time of the week getting guided down the hall with him. It felt delightfully possessive; he was your mentor, you were his student. 

“Not coming?” One hand on the doorknob, watching as he glanced halfway up at you, then quickly back to his desk. 

His voice went quieter. “Have finals to grade.”

“That’s why my paper has no errors?” You teased. “Antsy to finish?”

“Have a good night.”

No joking, no awkwardly-delivered story about some niche aspect of his personal life: nothing. 

With a level of awkwardness that hadn’t existed since the first meeting in ethics, you caught his hint for you to leave, and left. The hallway felt massive without him guiding you, the walls colder. What the fuck?

The walk home was quick, his TA comment stuck like glue. The first order of business when you slumped into bed involved pulling out your laptop to peruse the class listings. After such a lackluster goodbye, you figured you could make up for it through another term. A jarring crack in your chest festered when you considered the possibility of that being your last ever interaction.

Ethics 511: Ethics Matters, An Explanation of Moral Qualities (TA)

Time: Wednesdays 4-6:40pm

Faculty: Bruce Wayne

Seats: 0/1 [OPEN]

You slammed it shut and paced the room, drawing an invisible pros and cons list, a frustrating experience that ended with you flipping it back open, wildly moving your cursor to the REGISTER button, and clicking SUBMIT with your eyes closed. 

The computer made a bad sound. 

Registration Locked: Requires Instructor Approval.

“Hey, Professor Wayne.”

He glanced at the yellow office slip in your hand and sighed. “The assistant position is no longer open.”

“Oh!” Your spine tingled at his flat affect, disappointment disorienting you. With one term left, this had been your single opportunity to work with him again. “Damn. It wouldn’t let me sign up online.” Had it gotten sniped in the two days it took the office to get back to you with the override form? 

He didn’t look over, opting to concentrate on whatever lay within his notebook. Right off the bat, it was apparent you were a nuisance. Your stomach twisted into a knot. 

You parted your lips to speak, but nothing came of it. Fuck. Say anything. 

“Get a conference room yet for your new mentee—”

“Sorry to cut you short, but I have a deadline to meet.”

He didn’t sound sorry. He wouldn’t even look at you, and practically cut off the last syllable of your sentence. 

You swallowed back bile and a thousand other questions. It was a knife to the heart that you weren’t worth looking at for two fucking seconds now that he wasn’t obligated to teach you. At least you’d go out politely. Kindly. Maybe that could be enough. You faked a cheery grin. “Good luck!” 

“Have a good evening.”

Invisible bruises peppered your skin moving down the hallway from his classroom. Reduced to tears once again, like the past three months hadn’t even happened. Prideful, you leaned against the wall before the exit and searched the schedule to double-check.

Ethics. 511. Ethics Matters. An Explanation of Moral Qualities. (TA). Wednesdays. 4-6:40. Faculty: Bruce Wayne.

Seats: 0/1 [OPEN]

You stomped back to his classroom, pausing for a beat at the door to catch your breath and reign in tears. Clenched fists at your sides. Biting your cheek. It didn’t make sense. He always made sense.

Peeking through the window panel, Professor Wayne looked beaten; his posture hunched over the desk unlike he ever sat. He ran a stiff hand through his hair, and the huff of his exhale ruffled the papers below him. He adjusted uncomfortably.

He seemed… flustered. Strung-out. You pressed the pushbar.

“Did I do something wrong?”

He startled like a gun had been shot, but his recovery was smooth. You thought an additional button had been loosened on his shirt. “I’m immersed in my work.” 

“Did you just pass me and say all that because I cried at the midterm?”

His shoulders dropped in disillusionment, and you tensed. He squeezed the words past his teeth. “You did good work. Now let me get back to mine.”

Vulnerability spilled out of you, your voice cracking. “I just—”

“Y/n.” His voice was firm, an edge creeping in. 

“You acted like I would be the perfect candidate. Classes start next week.” 

“I no longer need an assistant.”

“I just checked, and it still says ‘open’ online.”

“I’ll get it changed.”

“This doesn’t seem—”

“Let it go.” He glared at you while he said it, as fiery and brutal as swallowing hot coal. 

“So it is something.” Whatever window he’d opened for you was bolted shut, and it felt like it snapped off a finger as he slammed it. He faced his desk, an absent stare at the empty monitor. His silence was the final brick, and you chewed on your cheek as hot, angry tears wet your lashes. He didn’t respect you enough to even tell you why. 

He repeated himself, weaker this time. “I no longer need an assistant.”

You stepped closer, and his shoulders drew inward. What the hell was his problem? 

“Hi,” another student maneuvered around you to set up at the desk in front of his. Precisely where you’d chosen the first day of ethics. You could’ve fallen to your knees as she took your seat. “I hope I’m not interrupting, I wanted to go over expectations for the mentorship next term when you’re available.”

“We were just finishing, Isabel.” 

So much for his deadline.

The ease of the last term sat differently in your chest. Had it been so relaxed because he hadn’t actually cared? You stopped yourself before scowling at the woman—it wasn’t her fault she was his next mentee, but god, jealousy nipped at the tips of your fingers as she rose from her seat and walked toward what used to be yours. His attention, his consideration, his time; his eyes, his scent, the way your name sounded in his mouth…

“Appreciate the transparency, Professor.” You spun on your heel and left without looking back. Fuck him.

taglist: @noisylime, @serynstorylover, @crayzmarvelfan800, @dreamer7black, @sad-ghouls, @smellingbats

[inkyrainstorms]

Martian Stan AU - Aftermath & Discovery

The Beginning (1), Aftermath (2) (here), The Journals (3)

Extra! (The Apology)

Ford didn’t know how long it took for him to pry himself off the floor, but it felt like hours later when he managed to trudge his way upstairs, eyes burning and throat raw. There was new blood on his knuckles, and Ford couldn’t remember if it was Stan’s or his own. He’d tried to scrub the blood off of the portal, but most of it had been too high and Ford was so tired.

He couldn’t fall asleep in the basement, he chanted to himself, again and again and again and it only occurred to him once he stood swaying at the top the of the stairs, that is didn’t actually… matter, anymore.

It didn’t matter what Bill did, or didn’t do.

The portal was broken beyond repair. His brother was dead.

The journal is gone. his mind whispered insidiously, and he couldn’t remember if he’d always been so cruel to himself, or if it was a byproduct of Bill. You got what you wanted, Sixer. How does it feel?

Ford hobbled to the bathroom as fast as he could manage, and hurled his guts out into the toilet. When all that came up was acrid bile, though, and Ford wondered idly when we he last ate. It didn’t matter.

None of it mattered, Ford decided firmly, hands clenched on either side of the porcelain bowl so hard that they looked bloodless in the harsh white light. It didn’t matter what he felt, or didn’t feel.

Not anymore.

The journal was gone. That was a good thing, it meant that the portal could never be rebuilt again. Stanley made an honorable… he. He’d made an honorable sacrifi—

Ford hunched over the toilet and heaved again. Nothing came out.

Impossibly, time kept moving.

Ford was left drifting in the current, from room to room, machine to first aid kit to paper to specimen to paper to circling the door of his lab again and again like an anxious sentry. He didn’t process any of it, and eventually, the door was the only thing left in the house that felt truly real. It was the only mystery left that Ford could pay any real mind to, and most of the time he wanted nothing more than burn the whole thing to the ground.

Sitting against the door, head leaned back and staring at the ceiling, Ford searched his mind for something. Anything.

A plan, a goal, fuck, he’d take the will to actually get out of the house and get groceries despite the constant chance of being watched at this rate. There was near nothing left to eat in the cabinets that wasn’t rank with age, and Ford knew he was wasting away like this.

But there was nothing. No part of him cared.

He knew he’d always had the wildest aspirations as a kid and as a young man, that he’d never stop reaching for bigger and better heights, but the light had blinded him with its promise, and now he’d fallen. He’d fallen so far.

He’d said Icarus didn’t flap hard enough, when Fiddleford tried to warn him of his own hubris all those weeks ago. Now he was just glad he wasn’t an English major, because it had taken him all of this just to realize that Icarus had found the sun, been embraced by the promise of warmth, and burned for it.

Trust no one.

Ford traced an idle finger against the freshly bandaged burn on the underside of his hand.

And no one should ever trust you.

…

The worst part, Ford thought to himself as he brewed another pot of coffee and searched for a clean mug, was the uncertainty of it all. There was a grief in loss, of course, but not knowing could be so much worse.

Stanley could still be alive out there, among the creatures of the Nightmare Realm, all alone. He could be dying. He could be dead. He could be sitting on the other side, waiting, hoping Ford could open the portal and bring him home—

Ford slammed down the sole clean  coffee cup he had left hard enough to startle himself, and then sighed.

He’d have to go clean up the remains of the portal, eventually. Before he fell asleep and Bill…

Ford poured out the coffee and leaned heavily against the counter as he took a sharp swig. It burned the whole way down. 

What did he have left that Bill wanted? What reason did Bill have to keep him around if his research was beyond saving, if he couldn’t be threatened or tortured into complying anymore?

The next time he fell asleep…

Ford didn’t know what’d happen to him, and despite everything, damnit, Ford didn’t want to die. He couldn’t let Bill win, couldn’t become another footnote in the history of the world because he was just another one of the poor schmucks who fell for Bill Cipher’s lies.

Taking another gulp of liquid courage, Ford pulled his coat tight around himself and marched to the door of his lab before he could talk himself out of it.

Forget not sleeping in the lab. Ford couldn’t sleep at all until he found a way to sever Bill from his mind for good. Project Mentem had been a bust last he’d checked, but it was worth another shot. What else hadn’t he tried? There was something… a protection spell? A charm?

Ford contemplated his options all the way down the stairs, one hand keeping him steady on the wall while the other held his mug. 

He still wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted yet, or what his next step was, but Ford could do this. He just had to secure his mind, like he’d planned, and then get rid of the blasted portal once and for all. Nothing had changed.

Nothing had changed. Nothing had changed. Nothing, nothing, except that Ford felt hollow where there must’ve once been something warm and vital in his chest. He didn’t know if he’d ever feel warm again. He didn’t deserve to.

Ford remembered a detail about sleep deprivation, as the elevator neared the basement level again and his heart dropped in time with the doors hissing open. Hallucinations were a common byproduct of the resulting sensory overload and exhaustion. They could take auditory or visual form, though visual hallucinations were a more common symptom by over 52%.

That was the only explanation he could conjure for the faint singing that echoed through the dark, cavernous sub-level before him. 

“It’s not real,” Ford whispered to himself, hands a vice around the coffee mug. He felt cold. “Auditory hallucinations are an expected and well documented symptom to experience in conditions less dire than these. Focus on your intellect, Stanford. Focus, focus, it is not real.”

For a long stretch of time, seconds, or perhaps minutes, Fords feet were glued to the floor of the elevator. No matter how hard he tried, no matter what he said or did, the singing, or the static, remained steady and quiet. 

It wouldn’t go away unless Ford made it. 

Finally, Ford forced himself to creep into the basement, and then the control room to set his mug down on the desk. The music was louder now, more distinct here than it had been before. Had Ford left a radio on down here? Was that it?

Holding his breath, Ford crept around the trashed room, checking behind spare sheets of metal that had been propped up against the walls, kneeling to look under the control panels, and then behind them too. All the while, the music droned on, buzzing and humming and settling under his skin like an itch. 

-any- wind blows—

It got louder as he neared the very back of the room, the words filtering through the humming static and becoming clear. Ford couldn’t deny it anymore. That was a voice. He shivered hard, jolting like ice had been pressed to the back of his neck, and hurried forward. 

-really matter to me… To me. 

There was a pile of debris, in the back of the control room, farthest from the door where he’d entered. Stanley must’ve crashed into it, when Ford and him had been… when he’d…

-just killed a man —a gun against his head…

Ford slowed his pace, staring down at the dented metal plates and machinery that had fallen loose in a heap on the floor, the stray wires and screws jutting out of the mess every which way. Slowly, Ford sank to his knees and pressed his aching palms onto the cool floor beneath him.

He could hear the singing now. Warbling, staticky. Familiar.

-Life had just begun, and now I’ve gone and thrown it all away.

Ford choked on his next inhale, thin and trembly as it was, and searched through the wreckage with wide eyes. 

There. Nestled between a dented panel with half its screws undone, and a jumble of wires and smaller panels of sheet metal, was the source of the sound. 

For a long, long moment, all Ford did was stare.

Oh mama… oh ohh oh. Didn’t mean to make you cry.

If I’m not back again this time tomorrow…

Ford’s hands trembled as he reached out, carefully prying the radio out of the scrap heap and holding it up in the dim light.

Carry on, carry on…

As if nothing really matters…

The voice faded out. Static.

Ford set the radio down on his lap, gently, as it would shatter into a million pieces otherwise, and pressed a trembling hand to his mouth.

“Stanley?” Ford choked out, and it was like trying to breathe glass. But he had to know, he had to, because— because…

He sat there, dully staring down at the radio Fiddleford had cobbled together months ago, when they’d still been in the implementations stage of the data and blueprints they’d collected, when the preliminary tests had begun. A device to send and collect waves and other information from beyond this dimension without actually opening a rift.

And here it was. In Fords hands, dented and scratched and still whole despite everything. Ford had turned his sights completely to the portal before the it’s completion, since Bill had deemed the entire endeavor a waste of time and energy and an ineffective outlet for his genius.

Fiddleford must’ve completed it, back when he was still just as enthralled in the project as Ford was. He missed his old friend, but Fiddleford was likely back home by now, in California to try and reconnect with his wife and child. As bitter as Ford was, he hoped Fiddleford was successful. His old friend deserved as much and more. 

There was no reply to Ford’s question, except, Ford brought the radio to his ear and strained to listen through the faint static. Was that… humming? 

Doo- doo doo, yeah, no poindexter, I‘m done, man. That’s the last song of the evening, I’m not paid for overtime. 

Moses, wish I were getting paid for this.

Ford jumped, wincing at the sudden burst of noise loud enough to make his ears ring, then processed what Stanley, because that had to be Stanley, had said.

“Stanley! Where are you? Are you in the Nightmare Realm? You must be… what sort of method did you find to transmit your signal? Are you al—“

But Stanley continued speaking as though he hadn’t heard him. A thrill of irritation  went through him. Was Stanley ignoring him? Was this some kind of petty revenge tactic?

When’d that song come out anyway? ‘75? 

He hummed.

Sounds about right.

Ford shook the radio and bit back a growl, before he remembered that the technology in his hands was damaged and sorely in need of a repair and upgrade, and loosened his grip again. He set it down in his lap.

“Stanley, I need you to take this seriously, please, for once.”

Wow, that song was everywhere back then, wasn’t it? I remember thinkin’ Ford probably liked it when it came out, wherever he was. The nerd was probably in college.

“Stanley?” he tried again, but he wasn’t expecting a reply anymore. Stanley soldiered on, rambling about everything and nothing and Ford could almost hear the smile in his voice if it didn’t sound so tired. 

Hell, where’d I first hear it? Must’ve been over at a gas station in… eh, Kansas? Somewhere over there, the big ol’ middle states. 

We sure aren’t in Kansas anymore.

Ahh, those were the times. Me, the open sky, and so, so much dirt in my hair. Seriously, where did the dirt come from. I roll around in one haystack and suddenly i’m fishing filth out of my hair a month later.

Stanley went quiet again, before he laughed. 

Aw man, I actually like this story. Buckle in folks, and I’m taking us back to that weirdly cold summer day in Kansas, where I had to steal 5 prized chickens. For some reason.

Look man, when someone pays you a hundred bucks and tells you he wants chickens, you don’t ask questions. 

Anyways, I’d been-“

For the past few… well, it had to have been days since Stanley fell through the portal by this point, if Fords state was anything to go off of, Ford’s mind had been eerily blank. He’d been a hollowed out shell of his former self, a ghost in his home and life that held onto the living plane by only the barest threads and pure spite.

It was like a switch had flipped. Ford’s fingers drummed on the outside of the radio as he forced himself to his feet, mind whirling at a hundred miles per hour and making calculations and theories and discarding some and contemplating others, and he was nearly jittering as he walked out of the control room entirely. He’d need to find a way to secure this side of the portal from Bills influence, recollect his journals, and then, he was bringing his brother home.

He stopped just before he got into the elevator and turned around to stare down the wrecked portal that loomed overhead. The once perfect inverted triangle, now ruined and warped nearly beyond recognition.

He grinned in a way that was more just like baring his teeth.

“You may be a god, Cipher, and you may think you can control me, but never forget. I am a scientist.”

The portal stood dead as it had been, but Ford didn’t care. He whirled around and stalked into the elevator. He felt more awake than he had in days. And he had research to collect and a demon to banish.

Stanley was still talking, as the elevator began to shudder and rise, and Ford’s adrenaline shot began to ever-so-slightly wane. Something about… attack pigeons?

-And when I finally think I’m in the clear, I duck around one of the hay bales and come face to face with, and I’m not kidding here, a cow wearing heavy duty armor, like a helmet and shit the guy in ‘Nam would wear. It even had holes for the ears!

There was a strange sound then, and Ford realized with a start that it was coming from him. He was laughing. It wasn’t even than funny, really, but something about Stan delivery made Ford wheeze. 

When was the last time he’d laughed? It must’ve been before this whole thing started, when he’d been with Fiddleford or B—

The laughter died in his throat. Oblivious to Fords inner turmoil, Stan kept on jabbering.

And there I was, 5 chickens smuggled into my coat and in my bag —and if you’ve never tried to carry 5 chickens, never do, it’s hard as hell and not worth it at all— staring down ol’ Bessie. 

And then, because this fucking farm couldn’t get any weirder, the cow started moo-ing like it was setting off a tornado siren, and all the other cows in the whole place started mooing in sync too. It was fucking terrifying man.

They must’ve been calling the attack pigeons, because those suckers came back, and they started dive-bombing my sorry ass, and really, that was when I reached my limit.

I dove into the hay bale like a damn football player going for the end line, and even though it was by far the itchiest thing to ever happen to me, it saved me from death-by pecking so I’ll take take it. 

The itchiest, of course, save for my stint in Albuquerque.

Ford could almost imagine Stan shaking his head as he paused again. With a start, he realized he was still smiling.

Just. Don’t try selling pillows in Albuquerque is all I’ll say.

Stan gave an audible shudder. 

So many feathers… And itch powder. The itch powder didn’t help. 

Ford couldn’t help the chuckle that slipped out of him at that.

Tags! (I’m sure I’m forgetting someone, pls tell me if you want to be on the list! Or just follow the tag that also works) @aroace-get-out-of-my-face @pleasantartisanhottea @littlelilliana15 @empressofsamoyeds @pinesfamilycatsau

Super Epic Secret Surprise!

[quietly-sleeping]

@artsarasp i've been trying to work on this for two weeks now lmao. I'm calling it done.

Sitting across from the being occupying the body of his oldest friend was a daunting experience, the memories of the “Scenario Pusher” haunted him. He could still feel it, the shattering of Xuan Su, the shattering of his soul. 

However, it wasn’t nearly as painful as the brief flash of what caused him to draw his sword, the large box with a short note. All it said was a name, but that was enough. Qi crackled through his meridians as his mind lingered on the vision of the box. The being was staring at him, it wasn’t smiling anymore. 

[Yue Qingyuan should not take any more Small Scenario Pushers.] The being was as close to frowning as Yue Qingyuan had seen it. It almost looked worried. “You have said that if we take these missions, you will restore Shen-shidi.” Yue Qingyuan nearly didn’t recognize his voice. It was flat, cold, broken.

[This system cannot allow Yue Qingyuan to continue.] The being was unnaturally still, even before Shen Qingqiu’s last major qi deviation, he was always moving, waving his fan, running his fingers along the edges of his robes. The Shen Qingqiu after the qi deviation was always moving as well, the being that wore his shidi’s face was still. 

“Why.” Yue Qingyuan just wanted this to stop, Mu Qingfang, Liu Qingge, and even Shang Qinghua had seen things because of this creature. Yue Qingyuan had never seen Mu Qingfang like that before, distraught and inconsolable, sobbing about a disaster and injuries he couldn’t heal. [This system has calculated that if Yue Qingyuan continues to take missions, he will continue to act OOC. This system cannot allow this.] 

Yue Qingyuan ignored the bite of his nails as they dug into the meat of his palms, “You’ve said this before, what does OOC mean?” Calm, he will remain calm, he will not lash out at the being holding his shidi’s body captive. [OOC is the act of a character acting outside of its setting.] The being’s face slowly returned to the unnatural smile it typically boasted. 

“Is that what we are to you? Characters in a story?” Yue Qingyuan couldn’t understand this being. [This system cannot answer that.] The being had its smile back, but the longer Yue Qingyuan stared, the more certain he was that he could see something in its face twitching. 

“Do you truly believe that we are static characters unable to change?” Yue Qingyuan barely held back the roiling fury in his body, the emotion was choking him, and his skin stung as his nails drew blood. [Characters are capable of change, however, large leaps of setting…can cause…] 

The being’s words stuttered to a stop, eyes blank as it stared at something over Yue Qingyuan’s shoulder. [Warning!] Yue Qingyuan flinched back as the being’s voice changed, so much louder and higher in pitch. [Unknown power is interfering with–] Yue Qingyuan jerked up, the being was choking on blood. 

“Call Mu Qingfang!” Yue Qingyuan yelled. Disciples were waiting outside the room and startled into action at the call of their Sect Leader, their feet thumping heavily on the ground as they rushed away. Blood was dripping from the being's mouth and eyes as it choked. Yue Qingyuan lunged around the table to reach for the being. 

But once his hand touched its robes, Yue Qingyuan’s vision stuttered. 

He wasn’t standing in the same room. Instead, he was standing in a butchered version of the bamboo house. He couldn’t recognize the materials or style the bamboo house had been combined with, it didn’t matter though, since he could see the man sitting on the bed. 

The man wore the greens and teals of Qing Jing, Yue Qingyuan lunged closer, desperate to touch and confirm it was Shen Jiu. However, as his hands landed on the man’s arms, all he could see were the differences between this man and the Shen Jiu he grew up with. His eyes, silently shedding tears as he stared down at something glowing in his lap, were brown, his lips, red and bitten, were fuller than Shen Jiu’s. 

Something jerked in Yue Qingyuan’s chest as he realized this man, the man inside Shen Jiu’s body, wasn’t the Shen Jiu Yue Qingyuan knew. This was a stranger. Yue Qingyuan’s hands flexed on his arms, fighting between the instinct to let go and the desire to shake him for information. Where was his Xiao Jiu, how long had this stranger been in his body? 

No, Yue Qingyuan knew how long, knew it with a certainty that rotted in the pits of his stomach. Yue Qingyuan’s hands tightened on the man’s arms, he didn’t know this man, this imposter wearing his shidi’s skin. However, as the man shuddered and curled over the glowing book in his lap, something in Yue Qingyuan reacted. 

It was an instinct ingrained in him since childhood since he could recognize the youth clinging to the faces covered in dirt, since he knew that the way they grew up wasn’t right. His hands curled around the man’s back, bringing this fake to lean against his chest. 

Yue Qingyuan very rarely felt revulsion when faced with people. Yet, with this man that he knew under the guise of his shidi, he couldn’t help the sickening jolt in his chest. Even as he smoothed a hand down the crying man’s back, he wished that instead of this man, it was Shen Jiu. He wished that the person they were struggling to free from the being was the man who truly owned the name Shen Qingqiu. 

“Why,” The man’s voice was rough, torn from silence the tears he’d shed. Yue Qingyuan grimaced, carefully rubbing the man’s back as hands came to lightly grip the front of his robes. “Why am I reading this endless tragedy? It makes no sense.” The man whispered. It didn’t seem like he expected Yue Qingyuan to respond, so he kept silent. 

Yue Qingyuan was staring at him, looking at the man’s vulnerable neck, it wouldn’t take much effort. Damaging the man while in his mind would deal a heavy blow. Would it be enough to allow Shen Jiu to take his body again? 

Was Shen Jiu even around? Had he left for good, like he thought Yue Qi had? Yue Qingyuan would deserve it, he’d deserve to be left behind because for months, years he had not known it wasn’t his shidi in his body. 

No. He did know, he knew this imposter took over Qing Jing Peak and his shidi’s body and said nothing. Because he was a coward, because he was selfish. He said nothing because he wanted the Shen Qingqiu who let him get close, who let him into his home without viciously digging his fingers into gaping wounds. The sect leader’s hand twitched from where it rested on the man’s back, the thought barely forming before the room around them shook.

He couldn't help the way his arms tightened around the man deliriously muttering to himself. It seems the qi deviation was getting worse, since blood was seeping through the walls, dripping steadily down them as the room shook again. Yue Qingyuan had pulled the man to his feet, keeping one arm around him as he eyed the effects of the qi deviation. 

Harming the man currently in the body of his shidi would only harm the body. Leaving the body’s cultivation unstable and potentially harming Shen Jiu’s chances of retaking his body. Hopefully, Mu-shidi has already reached them and is working to stabilize the qi deviation. Though, Yue Qingyuan thought with a grimace, he’d be thoroughly lectured on the dangers of touching a cultivator going through a qi deviation without knowing what kind it was or what caused it. 

Yue Qingyuan shuffled the man in his arms away from the bleeding walls as the room shuddered, glancing around he froze as he heard something other than the mumbles of the other man. Don’t you dare.

It hissed in his mind, the familiar tone freezing the blood in Yue Qingyuan’s veins. “Xiao Jiu?” He whispered, his eyes flicking around the room, desperate to catch a glance of the man’s silhouette. 

Don’t call me that. The voice snapped, it was him. Yue Qingyuan could feel everything in him relax for a moment. Even as the voice of his shidi hissed at him. It was fine, anything to prove Shen Jiu was still around. 

Now get out of here. Yue Qingyuan couldn’t see Shen Jiu, he could only see the blood dripping down the walls as they shuddered. “Shen-shidi,” He forced out, “Where are you?” Are you blind as well as stupid, Zhangmen-shixiong? The mocking voice slithered down his spine as he felt something grasp the back of his robes. It wasn’t the man in his arms, he was still clinging to the front of his robes with both hands. 

Yue Qingyuan went to turn, to see his shidi again after so long, but Shen Jiu’s voice stopped him dead. Don’t look. The hand tightened, and he could feel the tips of the fingers scratch against him. 

Listen to me. Shen Jiu said as if Yue Qingyuan wasn’t hanging onto every word, breathing them in almost greedily. You will leave here, and you will tell no one that it isn’t me you are trying to get back into control of this body. His voice was as close to calm as Yue Qingyuan had heard it in years. It lacked the usual undertone of mocking or derision, it made his eyes burn.

“Shen-shidi,” He wanted to complain, to beg his shidi, but the words wouldn’t come out of his mouth in front of Shen Jiu. You will listen. He hissed, something heavy coming to rest on the center of Yue Qingyuan’s back. He longed to press back into the feel of his shidi’s forehead, but the man in his arms kept him still. 

I may hate this, Shen Jiu began, However, I prefer this little idiot in control of our body to the machine keeping him hostage.  Shen Jiu’s words were nearly lost to the renewed shaking of the walls around them. Yue Qingyuan kept his eyes forward, but he ached to turn around. 

“Shen-shidi,” He began again, cut off by a sound of frustration from the man behind him. Shut up. If you don’t have to explain yourself, neither do I. The weight of his forehead vanished from Yue Qingyuan’s back and suddenly he was hanging on by a thread, only the weight of the hand twisted into the back of his robes holding him together. “I-” He couldn’t speak, nothing made it out of his tightened throat.

He tightened his grip on the man in his arms, at some point he had fallen silent, quietly resting for just a moment. Ask him his name. Was the last thing Yue Qingyuan heard before everything faded out.

It was just him, floating and lost in the darkness for the barest moments before he was falling into consciousness again. He snapped awake, sitting up quickly. It took only a moment to register where he was before he got up and left the private room on Qian Cao. He felt renewed and worn down. 

He couldn’t bring himself to be furious with the imposter in Shen Jiu’s body, not even the disgust and revulsion were there anymore. He was furious instead, with the being. The System. His shidi was in there, and he wanted Yue Qingyuan to bring him back. To give him back control over the body he was in. 

Yue Qingyuan could do it, he would do it. He would drag the being out of his shidi’s body and destroy it if he had to. And once the being was gone, he could begin to look for a way to separate souls. Two souls shouldn’t have to share a body, and Yue Qingyuan was willing to dig out Tianlang-jun if he must to build another body for the imposter. 

[hemi-demi]

Oop, Martin might have put a little too much effort in his performance review.

Jon will be fine though...probably.

You can see all 4 images in the set, uncensored, on my Bluesky

‹<–First Post <- Prev

The game is all done! Thanks to everyone who played and gave me Martin lots of encouragement. Would love to do this again sometime (if Jon can afford another dry cleaning bill, anyway)

[nyoomerr]

every day i cry a little bit about how binggeyuan has gotten popular/beloved enough that we have a zine for it.... and now that zine has opened preorders !!!

the art and fic in this zine (and the merch that comes with it!) is SO choice y'all, every contributor made an absolutely delicious meal to share with everyone! 💥💥 i worked hard too, so here's a little preview of binggeyuan being just a litttllleee intense about each other for my fic contribution 😌

preorders close on march 22nd, so order here now !! the zine is non-profit, and leftover proceeds after production/fulfillment/contributor copies will be donated to the PCRF 🕺💃

[villa-kulla]

Trinitas

“You’d like him, you know,” Thomas said.

“I do like him,” Aldo said automatically, twirling the stem of his wine glass, looking into its deep red like it was a scrying mirror.

“I mean as a friend. If you spent more time with him. You have a lot in common.”

“Do we use the same shampoo?” asked Aldo, raising an eyebrow. Thomas gave him a warning look but his mouth was tugging up.

“You’re both stubborn,” he said bluntly.

*

Cardinals like Thomas Lawrence and Aldo Bellini know all too well how slowly things move within the walls of the Vatican. But with Vincent Benítez's election cracking their world open, and the new Pope cutting away the old branches to make room for the new, both find that change is flooding in everywhere, mostly within themselves.

(x)

[noisylime]

Form and Figure

1. Registration

parts: next

battinson!bruce wayne x fem!reader

(eventual smut)

Art 111: Intro to Drawing

4 Credits. Lab & Studio

Instructor: Wayne, Bruce [email: b.wayne@gu.edu]

Course Description:

In this class, you will learn the basic elements of artistic composition, including line, shape, form, value, and perspective. Theory learned in lectures will be applied to various still life drawings using charcoal, pencil, and marker. This course is highly interactive, with each class requiring participation in studio time. Professor Wayne teaches a mixed lab and lecture course with availabilities for additional studio time outside of regular class hours. Materials not provided.

Course materials estimated price: $145.

To browse GU Bookstore bundles click here.

The phone alarm blasted through your skull, sounding like one of the commuter trains that rattled over your apartment had derailed and crashed through your ceiling. That actually sounded preferable to waking up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 am. The course calendar for Fall term at Gotham University opened in five minutes and you still hadn’t decided what classes you were going to take. It was your first term back in a long time.

Going to an out-of-state school had seemed like a way to find yourself on your own terms, and Gotham was far enough from home to feel like another planet. Two years of general education classes with a smattering of electives hadn’t quite been the elucidating experience you expected, but it had been fun. That had all gone to shit when you’d had to leave Gotham at the end of your sophomore year, taking an extended break from school to care for your dad. You’d called it taking a ‘gap year’ but it was closer to three.

Well, that was all over. Now you were a super-senior-aged-junior with enough trauma to stop your academic advisor from pushing you too hard to declare a major and almost enough credits to cobble a degree together.

You were currently waffling between majoring in civil engineering and English lit, both of which felt equally uninteresting. Last night you had planned out schedules for each option and decided to literally sleep on it, putting sticky notes with class codes scribbled on them under your pillow.

Rubbing sleep out of your eyes, you cracked open your laptop. You still had a few precious minutes to make a decision. The clarity you had wanted hadn’t miraculously come overnight, both options still sounded unbearable. You reached under your pillow and decided to go with whichever one you grabbed first. Civil Engineering, on a yellow crumpled 3x3 sheet.

Well, at least you were being decisive, which Titus would say was an improvement. Your friend since freshman year at GU and roommate for the past three months, he worked nights as a bouncer at a club, Mora’s.

Typing the codes into the school’s course registration system was a race to see if you could finish before the website crashed. Once you had double checked the numbers you clicked ‘submit’ and held your breath.

“You’re fucking kidding me!” you blurted as the schedule notification popped up. You’d gotten in to three of your four classes. And the fourth… “Waitlist full? It hasn’t even been two minutes!”

You closed the laptop and carried it out to the kitchen, sitting at the counter and pouring yourself a bowl of cereal. Crunching on Honeycomb violently expressed your dissatisfaction at the college experience to anyone who would listen.

“Damn, you’re up early,” Titus said, closing the front door behind him. He was wearing a smart black leather bomber over a white tee shirt, some gold jewelry accenting the outfit. He didn’t dress like your stereotypical idea of a bouncer, choosing to match the glam and glitz of the interior of the club. On the rare occasion a patron got on his bad side, misjudging his strength based on his appearance, they found themselves thrown to the curb in the blink of an eye.

“Hey,” you said.

He stomped off his military boots at the doorway and walked over to you, giving you a side hug which you accepted gratefully despite the glitter that transferred onto your black tee.

“What’s going on?” he asked, detecting your sour mood.

“Trying to sign up for classes. Everything’s full,” you said around a mouthful of cereal. You tapped the spoon on your closed laptop thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s not worth it, you know? College? It seems overrated.”

Titus plonked his backpack on the counter and pulled up onto one of the barstools. When Mora’s had remodeled over the summer he’d grabbed them from the dumpster, polished the stainless steel and conditioned the leather. You’d told him you could buy a set of stools that weren’t so beat up. He had waved your offer away, saying they had ‘character’ which apparently included the metallic squeak from the chair when he swiveled to face you.

“Honestly?” he said. “Yeah, it is. So overrated.” He grabbed a handful of cereal and popped a few of the hexagons in his mouth, crunching loudly. “My marketing degree does come in handy working at Mora’s, though.” He elbowed you playfully when you laughed.

Moving back to Gotham, getting this apartment with Titus, it hadn’t come cheap. You were lucky to not have to work through college for the time being, but it came with a catch. Your inheritance from your dad was locked behind a condition: finish school, get a degree.

“How was work?” you asked, wanting to think about anything other than the upcoming term.

“Broke up a few fights, had some drinks thrown at me, nothing crazy.” Titus pulled a handful of cards out of his pocket and slid them across the counter to you. “Some kids tried to pass these off as legit.” He crossed his arms on the countertop and laid his head down on them, closing his eyes.

You thumbed through the small pile of cards. The IDs were obvious fakes, the lamination had blistering from a defective card printer and the photos looked like they might be from a high school yearbook. “‘Drew Peacock?’ No fucking way. That’s so funny.”

“Yup. Droopy Cock, ha ha,” Titus said dryly, voice muffled from underneath his crossed arms. “And get this, there was a guy at the bar trying to tell everyone he knows the Batman. Like, actually knows him personally.”

He put on a faux sleaze-bag voice, dripping in slime. “’Hey lady, if you come back to my place I can ask him to come too.’ That type of thing.”

The Batman. Gotham’s resident vigilante, the Dark Knight himself. He was practically a myth, taking the law into his own hands.

“Are people into that kind of thing?” you asked.

“You’d be surprised,” Titus chuckled. “People are into all kinds of crazy shit. There’s something about the mask, the mystery. Gets people going.”

“Yeah, well, not me. Someone who gets off on beating the shit out of people in dark alleys? No thanks,” you said. You’d never seen the Batman and you never wanted to, the whole thing creeped you out. You preferred your men nice, bubbly, and vanilla.

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” Titus said. He stood up off the bar stool wearily and stretched, limbs creaking and cracking from a long shift. “Anyway, I’m going to crash. Get a good schedule for me, ok?”

Titus headed to his room, shedding layers of dark leather on the way. You opened your laptop and begrudgingly returned to the registration portal. Clicking through the remaining open classes, you hoped for something to catch your eye. Pottery? Yawn. Statistics? Please.

While you were browsing the course catalog, an email notification popped up in the corner of your screen. An announcement from the school’s Fine Arts department.

“Due to the high demand for Professor Wayne’s Art 111 course he has graciously agreed to open up another slot, available now. Seats are first-come-first serve. The course is open to all students, regardless of pathway.”

You were desperate to be done with registration and had no better ideas, so you took the email as a sign. You copy-pasted the course code into your schedule, clicked ‘submit,’ and waited while the loading icon swam laps around your cursor. Once you got a confirmation email of your Fall schedule change, you let out a sigh of relief.

It was only after you had signed up you started to wonder what you’d just gotten into. You skimmed through the course summary. Taught by Professor Bruce Wayne. That name rang a bell, but you couldn’t quite place it. The only catch was that it was a night class. That would have been nice to know before signing up. Too late now.

“You will learn the basic elements of artistic composition, including form, shadow, value, line…” you mumbled, reading the course description. The class sounded slightly better than abusing Titus’ goodwill to get a job at Mora’s washing dishes, spending the next fifty years paying back your loans while your inheritance sat in a trust fund you couldn’t access.

It hurt, knowing that your dad was making you jump through hoops for support even after he was gone. You’d taken care of him more than almost anyone, wasn’t that enough? Well, Dad, I’m doing it, you thought.

You closed your laptop and checked the time. Still painfully early. Going back to sleep might have been nice, make up for some of the stolen time, but you were too wired after the stress of registration. Instead, you tossed on a jacket and boots and headed out into the soggy Gotham morning in search of a real breakfast. One week left of break, you might as well try to enjoy it.

* * *

Standing in the checkout line at the GU bookstore, you again wished that you had looked at the course description of Art 111 a little more closely. Your arms were wrapped around a stack of art supplies carefully balanced atop two massive pads of paper, one was something called “newsprint,” and the other was “medium weight dry media cold press drawing paper.”

“What’s the difference, paper is paper,” you grumbled to yourself as you moved forward in line. The bookstore had just opened for the term and the line was as slow as you remembered it being back before you left Gotham. Some things never change, and apparently the number of cashiers at the GU bookstore was one of them.

You studied your pile of drawing implements, hoping you had gotten everything Professor Wayne’s syllabus had listed. Charcoal (vine and compressed), a kneaded eraser, a vinyl eraser, a set of sketching pencils in hardnesses 2H, HB, B, 2B, 4B, and 6B, a pencil sharpener (“please make sure your sharpener has a receptacle so we can avoid shavings on the ground”), a ruler, tape, and some other items buried underneath that you couldn’t remember. It was so much stuff that you’d resigned to a second, later trip to the bookstore for your actual textbooks once you had seen the size of the paper pads.

There were a few things you’d added that weren’t required, but you thought you might need. A pencil case, a few colored pencils just for fun, and a portfolio case to fit your supplies in. Wandering around the notoriously rainy campus with a big glob of wet paper sounded awful, so you’d splurged for the portfolio that was specifically labeled as waterproof.

When you finally reached the cashier, they eyed your mess of supplies warily. You plopped them onto the checkout counter, wringing your hands that were sore from holding it all for too long.

The cashier tallied up your total, beeping each item with a handheld scanner. You watched with unease as the price on the screen kept going up. Thanks, Professor Wayne, you thought. Real nice first impression, making me pay two hundred bucks for your class before I even get in the door.

“Student ID?” The cashier asked. She pointed at a sign hanging from the back of the cash register advertising a promotion. “It’s 10% off if you have it with you, this week only.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” you said and dug through your wallet for it. “Here you go.”

They took the card and turned it over, inspecting it. “This is from three years ago.”

Shit. You hadn’t had a chance to get a new one yet since moving back. “I’m getting a new one soon,” you said. “Like, tomorrow. I’m getting back to school after taking a break for a while.”

“Sorry, the discount only applies with current school year ID,” the cashier said.

“What? It doesn’t say that anywhere on this,” you said, pointing at the sign. “It just says ‘with student ID.”

The cashier gave you a look that said “I don’t make the rules.”

“Your total is two hundred and thirteen dollars and forty three cents,” they said flatly.

You scoffed. Typical GU, pinching pennies despite somehow pulling endless tuition out of their students. You didn’t like it on principle. If you were stuck taking classes here, you wanted to do it as cheaply as possible.

Someone behind you cleared their throat. You turned to see a student, probably four years your junior, wearing a flat cap and stiff brown sweater over a button down shirt. A collection of supplies that looked suspiciously similar to your own selections were organized in a shopping basket on the ground in front of him. Since when did they have baskets? He raised an eyebrow then moved his gaze to your scramble of items on the counter disapprovingly.

“What?” you said.

“Are you done?” the kid asked. As if you, and not the lack of cashiers, was the reason the line was stuck at a snail’s pace.

“Excuse me?” 

“I said, aren’t you going to check out? There’s a line,” he said, gesturing behind him at the ever-growing retinue of students, some of which were turning away awkwardly to avoid your gaze. He smiled smugly. “Or are you going to keep arguing about the senior discount?”

You just stared for a second, not believing what you’d heard. He waited for you to retort back, then when he realized it wasn’t coming, rolled his eyes and turned away.

Silently, you pulled out your card, paid the full price, and left with your armful of stuff.

* * *

“Seriously, when did people get so rude?” you asked Titus the next day, at Mora’s. You were eating together before his shift started to celebrate your first day of the term. Since you still had Art 111 class later in the evening, you’d brought your massive portfolio bag full of supplies with you to Mora’s, garnering a few looks on the way in from patrons you had almost smacked.

“Tell me about it,” he said, mid-bite into a hot Italian sub slider. “They’re fucking awful. Not us, of course.” A pickled pepperoncini fell off the sandwich onto his plate. You’d gotten a seitan pork roll and a slice of pie. It was your dinner, but for his schedule the meal was closer to brunch.

“I don’t know how you can eat those,” you said, pointing at the stray pepperoncini. “They’re way too vinegar-y.”

“Says the person having a Hot Shot,” he retorted. The drink was a Mora’s staple, half tequila half jalapeño brine. “The most brine-y drink on the planet.”

“Hey, there’s something about it, okay? We all have our vices,” you said, sipping the small glass. It was not a drink necessarily meant for sipping, but you liked to make it last.

A handful of Titus’ rings sat on the booth table from when he’d taken them off to eat. You picked up one of the pieces of jewelry and found that it was surprisingly heavy. It was meant for two fingers, the thick bands tapering to a slight point at the tip of each knuckle.

“Aren’t these illegal?” you said, turning it around in your hand. Titus grinned.

“What do you mean?” he asked coyly.

There was a third loop on the bottom, a wide oval that sat in your palm, giving you some grip. You glanced around to make sure no patrons were within hearing distance, then slipped it on and made a fist, miming a boxing jab. “Brass knuckles? Right? Aren’t these kind of retro?”

“That, my friend, is a gold statement ring.”

“It’s pretty heavy for a ring.”

“Maybe it moonlights as a paperweight.”

You chuckled. “You ever use it? Like actually on someone?”

He leaned back in the dark green velvet seat and sipped his blackberry lemonade. “Do you really want to know? I thought you didn’t like people who beat up bad guys in alleys,” he teased.

“Just wondering if they actually work,” you said, feeling the weight of the ring in your hand. It felt reassuring, the grip in your palm felt like it could do some real damage. “This kid on campus might need a good whack.”

Titus got serious and sat the four legs of his chair back on the ground. He held out a hand and you dutifully slipped the ring off and handed it back.

“Honestly,” he said. “It’s pretty brutal. It doesn’t look like much but it will fuck you up. And not just on the receiving end. You can shatter your wrist holding one wrong. You gotta really straighten out your hand, use your whole arm. It’s more of a threat than anything. If someone thinks I’m gonna pop them in the face with this then they might rethink trying to pick a fight.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll stick with my taser.”

Titus nodded. “Probably a good idea.” He twirled the ring around and held it up, showing you some detail you couldn’t make out.

“What am I looking at?”

“Right on the knuckles here, see that?”

You squinted and bent over your plate, finally seeing a small symbol embossed on each point of the ring.

“Is that, what is that? A ’T’? And a snake?”

“It’s ’T. S.’,” he said. “If I ever do have the misfortune of using these on someone, they won’t forget who did it in a hurry.” He downed the rest of his lemonade. “I’ve really only used them once or twice. It’s more for show, you know, fit the ‘tough bouncer’ look.”

A woman came over to the booth and Titus pocketed the ring in a flash.

“Hi Nicole,” Titus said. “How’s it goin’?”

She flashed you a business-womanly grin. She was dressed fashionably, a look fitting for the club’s manager.

“Hello Titus,” Nicole said. “You’ll be at the door at five, right?”

“Yes, of course. I was just about to head down there in a minute.”

“That’s great, I’m just making sure.” She turned to you and noticed your half-eaten plate of food. “How is everything, darling? Can I get you anything? On the house, of course.”

“Oh, no, everything’s delicious. Thank you! I’m just nervous, can’t eat that much. I’ve got class tonight in a bit, and I haven’t been to school in years, so it’s, you know—”

“Scary,” Titus finished. “School’s hard, always stressful.”

You nodded in agreement.

“Oh, night classes! That’s exciting, what school?” Nicole asked.

“GU.”

“That’s so nice. Well, I hope you have a good first day. And Titus, make it 4:50 if you can, would you please?”

He agreed, and Nicole left the two of you to talk to a table of patrons across the room.

When she was out of earshot, Titus said, “Four fifty? Come on. We aren’t even busy until six.” He shook his head and sighed. Then, after a pause, he picked up his fork and pointed with it at your plate. “Do you want that pie?”

“Go crazy,” you said, and pushed the plate across the booth table. Titus had comped the food, taking it out of his paycheck at the employee discount. As far as you were concerned, it was all his anyway.

“So, what’s this class tonight?”

“It’s this ‘intro to drawing’ course,” you said as you fiddled with your silverware. “I just had to pick something random to fill out my schedule. It’s basic stuff, I think, but it sounded interesting. Professor Wayne something.”

“You know, that actually sounds fun,” he said, then stopped in his tracks. “Wait a minute, did you say ‘Wayne’?”

“Yeah. Why, do you know him?”

“Do I know him?” He let out a quick bark of laughter.

“What? What’s so funny?”

“You really don’t know who he is?”

“No? Should I?” You dug in the recesses of your memory and came up empty-handed.

“Damn, that is so wild.” Titus ran a hand along his close cropped hair. “You’ve been away from Gotham for way too long, girl. The Waynes are old money Gotham, the family’s been around for, like, ever.”

Old money Gotham brought to mind art deco buildings, caviar and expensive wine, limousines with private drivers. Your mind filled with a vague picture of an old man, possibly bald with a beard, wearing an expensive old-fashioned suit and a pocket watch. You couldn’t stand the upper crust types in town, throwing charity galas that only benefitted themselves.

“What, so he’s rich?” you asked.

“Beyond belief. He’s a billionaire, I think.”

You scoffed. “He had me buy all this stuff, like two hundred bucks of supplies on top of tuition. Must be a cheapskate.” You gave the portfolio bag a tap with your foot.

Titus shook his head and downed the rest of his lemonade. “That’s rich types for you.”

“But he teaches at GU? I don’t get it, what would be the point? Some kind of vanity project?”

“No idea.”

“If I had that much money, I wouldn’t do shit. No school, no teaching, just relaxing.”

“You and me both.” Titus checked his phone and saw the time. “Shit, I’ve got to run. Look, tell me how it goes, okay?”

You said goodbye to Titus, lugging your portfolio bag and backpack out the side door of Mora’s. You headed to the nearest subway station and boarded the line headed for Gotham University. Well, you thought, I guess I’ll see what all the hype is about.

Shoutout to @ellesthots for letting me borrow her creation, Mora's. This fic is not related to Fateful but I wanted to include a piece of it since she's inspiring me to write this. Thank you Elle!

Thank you for reading, more coming very soon! Thoughts & comments are welcome and appreciated <3

[trekscribbles]

Failsafe: Chapter One

So the idea for this fic has been fermenting in my brain for the last year-ish, and then last week I came across the John Rogers line "Eliot's job is to be the failsafe that never fails". And I couldn't help thinking...

What happens if the failsafe does fail?

And then the words started coming, so... enjoy!

It wasn’t a crisis yet.

Eliot had woken up bound to all sorts of things before—chairs, tables, support beams—and once, in Serbia, a stuffed boar. He could name a dozen people off the top of his head who might want him tied up for one reason or another. His current predicament wasn’t cause for alarm; it was just a matter of narrowing down who had managed to do it this time.

He was lying on his back, and a single light bulb seared through his eyelids from somewhere above him. Leather restraints on his wrists and ankles kept him flat against a metal surface. The sounds of thick-soled rubber heels tapped out a description of his attackers: four men, tall, in work boots. Hired muscle.

Expendable.

It wasn’t personal, then. Whoever had grabbed him might not even know who they had.

It wasn’t a crisis.

Yet.

“Dr. Baker,” said an oily voice, and Eliot blinked his eyes open.

Baker. He’d only been playing Dr. Baker for two days—who the hell had he managed to piss off already?

“Please,” he said, because he was supposed to be a quiet family physician who’d just transferred over from Omaha. “Whatever you want, you can have it. No one needs to get hurt.”

“How very Hippocratic,” his captor said.

Eliot turned his head, trying to get a better look at the man, but he couldn’t focus through the glaring light. “What do you want?” he asked, adding a hint of a tremble to his voice.

“We know you’ve been working with Dr. Grossman,” the man said. “What has he told you about his studies?”

Eliot licked the inside of his cheek, where a cut was still oozing blood. He hadn’t been there long, then—twenty minutes, tops. He glanced around the dark room and tested the left wrist restraint with a slow twist of his arm.

The man stepped into the light. His face was unfamiliar, but his stance said ex-military. “We know Dr. Grossman has been speaking with you and Dr. Gatraer about his experiments.”

He hadn’t been speaking enough—that was the problem. Eliot had gone in to observe Dr. Grossman after a patient of his died from an overdose of scopolamine. According to their client, Dr. Josephine Gatraer, it wasn’t the first time, but Grossman had yet to be held accountable. Eliot’s job was to figure out why Grossman was using scopolamine as anesthesia, and how he’d managed to avoid punishment for his obvious medical malpractice.

And now he was here, wherever here was. Somewhere close to the hospital, since that’s where he’d been when the four men had jumped him. He’d been winning the fight until he’d felt the sting of a dart in his neck, and the next thing he knew, he was strapped to a table in some basement—

No, not a basement. Eliot’s arm brushed against the edge of a plastic sheet, which they must have used to carry him down without suspicion.

He was in the morgue.

“I need to know what you know,” Eliot’s captor went on. “If I am impressed with your answers, I may not need to talk with Dr. Gatraer at all. We can let it end with you.”

Oh, it was going to end with him. There were no voices in his ear, so he’d either lost his comm in the fight or there was something interfering with the signal, and he couldn’t risk Nate escalating once he realized Eliot was missing. He had to escape, quickly, before they did something stupid like trying to rescue him.

“I don’t know anything,” Eliot said, making his voice breathy and shallow. “I don’t know—he didn’t tell me—”

“We know you’ve been meeting with him,” the other man hissed. He drew closer, and the single light glared over his pale face, accentuating his height as he towered over Eliot’s table. Intimidation by size and proximity—the man had experience with interrogation, or a natural inclination toward it.

And everything that came with it, judging by the tray of surgical tools behind him.

“You can help us save a lot of lives, Dr. Baker,” the man went on, cajoling now. He took a step, and Eliot shrank back as far as he could, inviting him closer.

“I don’t know,” he repeated. He balled his fists and pulled against the restraints.

The man leaned over him. “This doesn’t need to be painful. This is your last chance.”

Almost there.

“Make it quick,” Eliot rasped.

A fist hit his cheek, turning his face toward the wall—he jerked his left arm up and felt the strap on his wrist give way. It wasn’t enough. Eliot let out a whimper to draw another punch, and this time, the strap tore against one of the screws holding it in place.

“Please,” he gasped.

He braced himself for the hit, tensed his muscles for one final yank against the leather.

Nothing happened.

“Do you know what this is?”

Eliot turned his head. His captor held a small glass vial in one hand, displaying the label under the light. “Solanumine,” he read, and the first hint of real dread weighed in his voice.

“I see you recognize it,” the man said. “You’ve been talking with Dr. Grossman after all.”

Eliot glanced toward the other men, to the shadows of more guards waiting outside the door. Time to stall. “Solanum is the plant genus of nightshade,” he said in a shaking voice. “Solanine is the chemical which makes it poisonous. I don’t know what solanumine is, but it doesn’t take a doctor to figure it’s bad news.”

“Since you’ve discussed this with Dr. Grossman,” the man went on patiently. “You know that he hasn’t quite worked out the dosage yet.”

That would be why his patients had died. Scopolamine was also produced by nightshade plants, so he must have claimed he was using it for anesthesia and then used solanumine instead.

“An educated man like you probably keeps up with the news,” the man went on. “You’ve seen reports of scopolamine being used as a mind-control drug in South America.”

“Exaggerated,” Eliot rasped. “It doesn’t work that way.”

The man sighed. “Unfortunately, it does not. But Dr. Grossman has been working on an alternative—a synthetic derivative. It’s a tad harder to predict, but it’s showing excellent promise for use in interrogation. Would you like to know how it works?”

Eliot strained at the leather strap. If he could get one arm free…

“It lowers the inhibitions,” the man went on. “The subject enters a dream-like state, under which they are extremely susceptible to suggestion. Test subjects have been very forthcoming with information, and are quite willing to follow directions. I might ask you to empty out your bank account, for example, or walk off the side of a building. You would find the idea entirely reasonable.”

Now it was starting to look like a crisis. A tingle of unease spread through Eliot’s stomach. “I’ve already told you—”

“Yes,” the man interrupted. “And you shall tell me again, and this time, you’ll leave out the lies.”

The man reached for a syringe. Eliot ripped his arm up, and the leather squeaked in protest before tearing a little more—just enough. The man turned back as Eliot threw a punch, knocking the bottle free, sending the man staggering. Two thugs rushed forward and crushed Eliot’s arms against the table, holding him down as he fought to get upright. His right arm was still strapped down—his legs—he couldn’t move. He let out a yell and struggled, then bit back a groan as a needle pierced his arm.

“Relax,” the man said. “We’re just getting started.”

[quadrantadvisor]

Multiverse, Reverse Robins au, 2,514 words

-

Jason (Red Hood)

The imposters are good, Jason will give them that.

They need to work on their looks, unfortunately, because each one of them is a little off. Their Nightwing is too bulky, and his costume isn't made with Dick's flexibility in mind. Besides that, he's got an undercut that doesn't match the shaggy way Dick has his hair now, and his blue is too dark. And the swords. Those are different.

Their little Robin looks more like Dick, actually, Dick as he was before Jason's time, with his happy grin and his bright yellow cape. He doesn't match Damian's style at all, and Jason wonders if their intel was out of date. He tucks away his anger (the way he's used to doing, now) at these bastards roping some little kid into whatever con they're trying to pull. They can help the kid after they subdue him, and he stops trying to flip-kick people in the face.

The Red Robin outfit isn't bad, but the guy playing him is way too tall to be Tim. He doesn't use a bo staff, either, clearly preferring the armory of sharp little implements he keeps tucked away in his utility belt, including a wicked looking combat knife.

Which brings Jason to the current pain in his ass, the idiot trying to pass himself off as the Red Hood.

Yeah, they'd split off into pairs to fight. First off, for practicality's sake. Less risk of friendly fire if the only guy you're trying to punch is the one who isn't you. And secondly, it's just what you do, isn't it? Somebody gives you a set up like this, you go along with the poetic justice. No bat is immune to drama.

Jason is regretting that a bit, now. Fake Hood had taken him for a ride, leading him, he now realizes, far away from the warehouse where Nightwing and Robin had initially called in the disturbance. This other guy isn't the powerhouse that Jason is, but that doesn’t matter if Jason can't ever get in a hit. His movements are precise, deadly, and familiar in a way that makes Jason suspect League training. Jason is keeping up, but barely, and that's with the advantage of his guns. The other guy hasn't touched his, still gleaming red in his holsters, and Jason has a sneaking suspicion that they aren't filled with rubber bullets.

They're at a bit of a stalemate, standing on opposite sides of a dark rooftop, and Jason's trying to catch his breath but he can't relax, not when his gaze is locked onto his opponent, waiting for the minute twitch of muscle that will indicate his next move. He's wondering if he could get a shot off, wondering where to aim, when his comm crackles to life.

“Stand down!” Tim snaps in his ear. “Hood, Wing, the alternates aren't currently a threat. Deescalate however you can, and get back to the warehouse. We can explain this whole mess there.”

“Really?” Nightwing asks. He goes on to say something else, something about his doppleganger being incredibly threatening, thank you very much, but Jason stops listening, because there's something going on across the roof.

A mechanically distorted voice says, “What? No, I'd be able to tell. This guy isn't-” The imposter(?) cuts off suddenly, presumably listening to a response.

And then he… giggles.

“That isn't funny, Red,” he says, in contrast to the little peals of laughter making him subtly shake. “You- you get how fucked up that would be, don't you?”

Jason can't figure out what to do. Tim's intel is almost always good, but he can't get himself to stand down, not when, for some reason, that laughter is setting his teeth on fucking edge.

(He knows the reason. He'd know that cadence anywhere, he hears it in his fucking nightmares, but it isnt possible. He's in Arkham, right now, because Batman won't kill him and Jason isn't allowed to kill him and that uncomfortable truce is what got him his family back. Jason would know if he'd broken out, they wouldn't have kept that from him. They wouldn't.)

“Oh shit,” Tim says, and it makes Jason wonder how he knows, “Hood, is your alternate having some kind of fit right now?”

The sound escalates, from breathy little giggles to screeching laughter, and even with the hood's distortion, it's unmistakable.

It's the Joker's laugh.

It's the Joker.

And isn't this exactly some shit that Joker would pull, making a mockery of Jason's family, a twisted parody that fucks with his head? Tim's lying, he's trying to get Jason out of this situation, and Jason gets why, he does, but obviously the rest of them can't (won't) protect him from this, so if he has to take fate into his own hands, he will.

The green is creeping up, but Jason doesn't let it haze over his vision because he has to be in his right mind while he does this, not for them, for himself. As he stalks across the roof, he empties the clip from one of his guns and pulls out the live rounds, loads them into place.

He thinks Tim is calling for him, maybe the others, too, but the chatter over the comm is getting further away the closer he gets to his target. He should be smart, should take the shot, but maybe he's got more pit in his head than he wants to admit, because Joker, still laughing, pulls a knife, and Jason steps into his range to disarm him.

The strike is fast, but compared to the careful movements of before, he's practically telegraphing his actions. Jason sidesteps, and if the blade knicks him when he twists Joker's arm, he doesn't feel it. He's got the clown in a hold, now, and forces him to his knees with the gun against his temple.

If the hood is anything like his own, the bullet won't do it, not even at point blank range. Jason would like to get it off him, would like to see the life leave his eyes, but he doesn't have to. Jason moves the barrel beneath his chin, right where the armor ends. The pit rages inside of him, says this is too easy, says to make him suffer. Jason pushes it down. This is the compromise he'll make, this is what he'll do to try to maintain both his humanity and his peace of mind. The bullet will ricochet off the hood from the inside, will tear through Joker's brain at least twice, and he'll never come back from that, and Jason will finally be free.

It'll be easy.

This is too easy.

“Nothing to fucking say?” Jason growls, jostling the clown in his grip, because there's always some joke, some shitty twist.

The Joker just laughs.

“Unhand him this instant!” someone snaps, and Jason's finger twitches but somehow the trigger stays still. And now what's he supposed to do, because of course fucking Nightwing- but wait, that isn't- but it is, he's right there- it's both of them, two Nightwings. Fucking fantastic. Twice the guilt trip.

“Come on, Jay,” the Nightwing who's actually Dick pleads, and hey, what the fuck, codenames? In front of the fucking Joker, Dick? “Let him go, we can explain everything.”

“I'm not doing this again!” rips itself from Jason's throat, and he'll think later about just how wrecked he sounds. “I'm not just standing here and letting him go, Wing, not when one bullet can put a stop to all this, not when I can end him.”

“Jason,” Dick says, slow with forced calm, “that's not the Joker.”

“Don't you fucking lie to me!” Jason seethes.

His hand is wrenched to the side, the barrel facing open air, and before he can make a move the unfortunately familiar feeling of a high voltage shock courses through him.

By the time he's stopped seizing, Dick is at his back, supporting him with his own body and with arms under his pits and around his chest in a weird reverse hug. Technically, Jason's hands are free, but they're empty, the gun skidded to somewhere else across the roof.

Dick is murmuring into his ear, “Sorry, Little Wing, I'm so sorry,” and, “You're okay, you're okay, you're okay,” mantras meant to soothe his brother as much as himself. Jason wants to be angry, wants to snap at him to let go and fucking cut it out, but he's feeling strangely disoriented. He only has enough brainspace to pay attention to one thing, and that's the scene playing out in front of him.

Dick had clearly hauled them back a few steps, but Jason is still uncomfortably close to the bastard version of Nightwing (who, Jason realizes in hindsight, had tazed him while he'd been distracted by his brother, not cool) and the laughing maniac he should've killed. Nightwing is holding onto Joker's shoulders, his hands bouncing as the gasping, shrieking laughter continues.

“I'm going to remove your helmet now,” Nightwing says. He has a slight accent that Jason knows he's heard before, and his tone is professional, almost clipped. And yet, somehow, Jason can tell that this is a gentled version of the man's voice, the sharpest edges sanded away. His hands move from Joker's shoulders to the back of his head, carefully inputting whatever sequence allows for safe removal of the hood. Jason hears a hydraulic hiss when some sort of catch releases, and as Nightwing starts pulling the red metal up and away Jason can't help holding his breath.

At first, he sees what he expected to see. It's the Joker's expression, after all, his laughing face pulled into a rictus grin.

But the grin isn't right, somehow. The man is pale, but his face is unpainted, and the smile stretches wide, too wide, wider than even the Joker ever managed, and after a moment Jason recognizes the red, raised scar tissue on either side of his mouth for what it is.

Then, Jason takes in the actual features of the person in front of him. Dark hair, pale blue eyes, the cheeks, the jaw, the nose.

It doesn't make any fucking sense.

The Red Hood, collapsed on his knees in front of him, scarred face bare with no hood or domino to protect him as he struggles under the weight of his own laughter, is Tim Drake.

He's crying.

Jason is suddenly glad that Dick's holding him, because he's certain that he'd be on the ground, otherwise. Then, he realizes that he can't breathe.

Jason knows, logically, that his hood has sensors and filters that keep him safer than he could ever be without it. It is only every once in a while, when something stupid happens, that he regrets that he, a man with claustrophobia, decided to stick his head into a metal bucket.

Dick can probably tell that he's hyperventilating, and doesn't fight him as Jason gets his hands on the back of his neck and pulls off his hood.

Jason gasps in polluted Gotham air, and Tim's eyes snap onto him. Nightwing says, “I'm administering the emergency dose of your medication,” and then stalls, like he's waiting for a response, but all Tim does is laugh and stare. Jason stares back. He can't look away.

Nightwing retrieves a small tubular device, almost like an epipen, and presses it against Tim's leg. That shouldn't work. Tim's wearing body armor, same as the rest of them, and there's no way a needle could pierce it, but Jason looks as Nightwing draws the device away and there's a small raised circle of hard plastic on Tim's thigh that the head of the device fits into perfectly, like it was designed for that purpose. An injection spot, built into Tim's clothing, specifically for whatever drugs fake Nightwing just pumped into him.

Immediately, there's a difference. He doesn't stop laughing, or smiling that horrible fucking smile, but the manic tension is gone. He doesn't look like he'll shatter at a touch anymore, too brittle to be handled. The curve of his spine gentles, muscles no longer pulling it to the point of snapping. Jason watches as slowly, oh so slowly, Tim gets quieter, leans more into Nightwing's hold on him, starts gasping more than laughing.

Dick is talking behind him, into his comm, it sounds like. If it's important, someone will get his attention.

Finally, Tim breaks eye contact. “T- tell him,” he says to Nightwing, struggling between gasps and giggles, “tell him what you, gave me. Jay doesn't, he doesn't like, needles.”

The strange Nightwing turns his head, and Jason gets the impression of a sharp, searching gaze behind his domino. He's nothing like Dick, not at all, but something niggles the back of Jason's mind, some sense of familiarity regardless. He tosses something, and Jason automatically reaches up to catch it.

It's the empty tube of medication, which does seem a lot like an epipen, up close. “It's a combination,” the man says. “The antidote for Joker venom, an antipsychotic, and a mild sedative.”

“What the fuck?” Jason hears from his own mouth as he looks down at the innocuous little tube.

“It's only used in emergencies,” Nightwing adds, and does not clarify any further.

Jason doesn't know what to say to that. He shakes himself out of Dick's hold and grabs an evidence bag out of his jacket. He watches Nightwing, to see if he'll object, but he doesn't. Jason slips the medicine tube inside the bag and tucks it away.

“There you are!” Dick says in a bright tone, one meant to cover his anxiety and relief.

Jason turns, and finds that their roof has gotten a little crowded. All four Robins have arrived, his brothers mingled in with their copies, copies who don't quite match in ways that are now sticking in his brain. Tim, Jason's Tim, is standing right there, pressing his mask against his face like he'd broken the seal on the adhesive, and it isn't sticking quite right. Other than that, he's normal. He's fine.

The Robin, the one in the classic colors who Jason had thought looked a bit like Dick (oh God, could that be-?) gives a little whistle. “Trust Red Hood to cause drama!” he says in a bright tone that is too too familiar (fuck, fuck he is). “Must be a universal constant.” He grins, cheeky, looking past Jason.

Jason isn't processing fast enough to be offended for his own sake, but he turns and checks on Tim, other Tim, the Tim who apparently also has a claim to the Red Hood name. Tim is propped up on Nightwing's shoulder, looking drowsy and relaxed. He's looking back at Robin, and his lips are pressed tightly closed, but he's smiling, and it reaches his eyes.

Alright, then. This is probably fine.

Jason snorts, to get the kid's attention, and rolls his eyes. “Comes with the job description,” he snarks.

The kid lights up. Jason feels distinctly weird, having that smile directed at him, but it's not… bad.

Yeah. This is fine.

-

I'm planning to add a reblog with more information on this au/fic idea, so if you're interested, watch this space.

[ellesthots]

Fateful Beginnings

LIII. “drain you”

read on AO3 🦇

parts: previous / next

plot: the aftermath of the first kiss.

pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x fem!reader

cw: 18+

words: 11.8k

a/n: hiiiii <3 a favorite chapter dare i say... you'll see where the title comes from !! i had so many alternate titles i was considering for this, but that one just had to be it.

the title runners up (in this order) were: treacherous (t swift), happy not knowing (carly rae jepsen), put it to rest (carly rae jepsen), favourite colour (also carly rae lmao), and stand still (sabrina claudio). lil mini playlist for yaaaa :)

Everything was fine. 

Bruce’s head thudded against the back of the bathroom door as he slammed the weight of his body against the wood. Walter snaked between his legs, meowing and chittering just loud enough to overwhelm his sighs. 

Everything. Was. Fine. 

As much as he wanted to run it through his thoughts, truly comprehend the matter, he couldn’t get it through the sludge. The only thing tethering him, present on an endless loop, was the pressure of your lips burning against his. How your mouth curled into a smile. Everything else was null.

And, Christ, that smile… it’d sent his heartrate skyrocketing. It said: I like this. I want this. I’ve wanted this. Stopping his most basic instinct to mirror that grin almost hadn’t happened, lest a visceral sensation of tragedy hadn’t interrupted. That smile was safety, and comfort, and desire, everything you couldn’t feel with him. It was: this has gone too far—and how much restraint it took to tear himself from the couch told him all he needed to know about where his cards were. 

‘Sorry’. Impulsive, maybe. Genuine? Did you regret it? 

He wished he did. Half his muscles were strung to Gotham and the other half strained to get you. 

Eighteen meows. Quite grounding to be able to count something, track something, and run shaking, cold fingers onto something soft and persistent. 

He fought to wrangle his garbled thoughts into anything coherent, but they wouldn’t budge. His brain refused to function. His lips tingled and ached in an inescapable way that made him want to slice them clean off. Only the most basic of thoughts strung together; you’d wanted to kiss him, and he’d let you. He couldn’t grasp the feasibility of playing it off with his only recollections being pressure, warmth, and a smile. 

Bruce could say he didn’t like it. Call it a mistake. But he didn’t… it wasn’t… he leaned against the door again, face sweating. Dismissing it out of the gate was fucked up, then he’d have to scramble to recover, and it would be a convoluted mess. It happened. You wanted it. He seemed like he wanted it, probably. What the hell was there to do with that?

The clock didn’t tick in here, just far enough from the kitchen it was utter silence when the creature wasn’t talking. If you hadn’t just kissed him, and he hadn’t loved it, his head wouldn’t be full of sand and marbles and empty, swirling feelings of dread, jesus, fucking, shit!  

It couldn’t work, it wouldn’t work, it shouldn’t have happened, he should’ve been more in control, and decisive, and aligned with what needed to, Gotham; he shouldn’t even be in this place, and he certainly couldn’t stay, but he couldn’t run out and leave, he’d have to mention it, or he could play coy, or he could, or you, or… 

He’d never felt more exhausted. 

Eventually, because he was breathing or deliberating enough, an actual idea threw him some reprieve. It was entirely possible that he’d given the wrong impression at the recent City Hall meetings, and you’d thought—accurately, but he’d never admit that—he was into it. That was a far more approachable angle than stammering through a conversation about why his lips were on fire. 

Before he could convince himself to adopt the bathroom as his personal studio apartment, Bruce threw himself out into the hall. With each methodical step towards the kitchen, he rehearsed its beginning. ‘I didn’t mean to’…

You stepped into the hallway, likely alerted by the walking location device constantly attached to his ankle. Panic froze the last neuron, reading you worse than he ever had. Words vomited out of him. “I didn’t mean to give the wrong impression.” 

Staring. Hard. To try to glean anything from your posture, your face, but there was nothing. The late-afternoon light sliced you at the waist in a way that was almost uncanny, and Bruce hid a flinch when you spoke. 

“What do you mean?”

Again, impossible to read.

“This won’t work.” Slowly his brain returned to him, in flashes of letters and sporadic half-sentences. “You and me.” 

He had to step closer. Your face was too dark here. 

“I can’t have a relationship right now.” Another step. “Not with you.” 

That caused some movement; you leaned away, a squint twisting your features. He stalled where he stood, about five feet separating you. “Who said anything about a relationship?”

He mirrored you without hesitance, his pulse starting to race. “You kissed me.” 

“And?”

And? 

He eyed you warily, unable to parse your stance. You seemed angry. Was he so off to reach that conclusion? Were you deflecting?

“Do you think I’m like everyone else? Waiting for you to pick me?”

Accosted was a better word. Like the very notion was offensive. “If I hadn’t stopped…”

“I’m not capable of setting my own limits?”

Bruce was starting to see purple; not red, not stars, but a dizzying, overwhelming, hazy purple. Angry and frustrated like he was so off-base, like what happened was as benign as Alfred grabbing his glasses and cane in the morning. Like this didn’t have serious implications for the both of you. 

“I need to go back to Gotham.” He pushed past you with gritted teeth, his hands in fists at his sides. The sand of his thoughts transformed to fog, frustrating and intrusive as ever. 

“I’m sorry that I made you uncomfortable,” 

“You didn’t make me uncomfortable.”  

“But you’re assuming a lot about how I feel, and I don’t appreciate it.” 

That hurt more than Bruce cared to admit. He spun around in a daze. “What else would that mean?” 

You shrugged, launching his exasperation to the forefront. 

“You just want a hookup?”

“It means for ten seconds I wanted to kiss you.” Crossed arms, a glare, and a voice sharp as a knife. “You’re filling a lot of blanks.” 

“You have a lot of blanks.” Childish how smartly it speared out of him, but nonetheless true.

“You don’t have to project how everyone else has treated you onto me.” 

Bruce scoffed, bloated with so many emotions he couldn’t possibly name just one. Like the evidence wasn’t in plain sight. “You smiled.” 

“So?”

It hit him like a shot to the chest, and he swallowed it. “What did that mean?”

“I like kissing.” 

“Me?”

He could hardly believe he’d asked that. 

Something flashed across your face, and he couldn’t read it; like he was an alien and you were the first human he’d ever seen. But what he did know was that you were going through a lot, and you’d already brought up sex far too often this trip, then kissed him, and now he was forcing you to talk about it. 

He backed off. “I shouldn’t be asking about this, not now.” 

“I’m not a baby.” You uncrossed your arms and deepened your glare, like you hoped it would set in stone and crush him. As if it already wasn’t. “Shit like this has happened all my life. I’m capable of thinking under stress, thank you.” 

“I need to go home.” He wasn’t doing this, not now, not here, and in two seconds he was at the couch grabbing his bag, stuffing the duffel to zip it. 

“Don’t do that shit.” Your tone bit at his elbows, his wrists, his ears, his nose, ankles, anywhere bony and exposed, like frost. “If you want to speak so freely, fucking do it.” 

The polyester was rough between his fingers. The door looked inviting, and turning to look at you seemed menacing, but allowing this to build until he blew up would only distract him from his work. He pretended like his pulse wasn’t echoing between his ears, and his fingers weren’t bitingly chilled, and asked in a quiet voice. “What am I to you?”

A pause that was too long tempted him to turn around. The tick of the clock was louder than before. He projected over it. “What am I to you?”

“A lot of things.” 

Bruce chewed on his cheek, tingles running up his arm. Something percolated under the surface; did you know he could tell there were things you weren’t saying? “I can feel them.” 

Silence from behind. He swallowed, hard, conjuring the courage to get the words out by any means necessary. Kicking himself for knowing better than to ask questions he didn’t want the answer to, he tolerated the bitter truth that you were always the exception. 

“Why did you want to kiss me?”

He thought he heard a sigh behind him, and peeked over his shoulder to see how… meek you looked. Face scrunched, fixated on a patch on the carpet between nervous glances. Electricity traveled his spine. “Tell me.”

Your inability to spit it out had him almost spiraling. Whatever it was, it had to be terrible, and more terrible than anything you’d alluded to before. You sank under the weight of his eye contact, and he stiffened. “Please.” His voice was on the edge of raspiness. 

“Because.”

He turned around, noting that you looked afraid. Posture slumped. Small. He heard the sound of his own voice pressing on it, squeezing it to finally pop. “Because what?”

You chewed on your lip so hard it was like you were trying to rip it off. Oh, god. What the hell were you—“I like you.” 

Bees swarmed him.

“You can’t.” It fell out, breathlessly, like he hadn’t been breathing that whole time. “You can’t.” 

“I know.” 

Suddenly he was facing you, fully, but he couldn’t parse when he’d turned. Your living room turned into the arctic, his body carved out, running emptier than autopilot. “This will never work.” 

“I know.” 

You stomped to the kitchen and grabbed a cup. He followed on your heel. The water was broken glass exploding against his ears, his senses attuned to even the slightest movement or sound. You folded over the sink, practically chugging the water, ending with a soft gasp as your hands framed the sink. 

It was a rock in his stomach. Utterly indigestible.

The fog turned to cement that wouldn’t allow a thought to pass through. Hot, sweaty, tense, his throat feeling like it might close, jammed full of kinetic energy. 

“It’s good we got our feelings out.” 

He sounded like a goddamn idiot. 

You slammed the glass on the counter with such force he was shocked it didn’t shatter. “One of us did.” 

“I feel…” Why couldn’t he read you? Why were you saying that? “Similarly.” 

He didn’t register saying it, because he really wasn’t saying much of anything. You’d whacked him upside the head with a fucking confession and here he was, floundering.

“How romantic.” 

Obviously frustrated, you took off down the hall. Nothing felt real, like his mind was a fun house. “This can’t work.” 

Walter sprinted past him to paw at your leg, but you weren’t slowing. 

“It’s impossible, it won’t happen.” He was so fucking anxious you weren’t listening to him; if he couldn’t get through to you that this couldn’t happen, if he had to keep denying you, he didn’t know if you could stay around him. After your admission, he didn’t know if you could regardless. He couldn’t fucking grasp the thing, your words slipping through his fingers like warm butter. 

“I know.” You shoved your door open.

He rushed the words out as you stormed into your room. “Then we both know. That’s that.” 

“That’s that.” 

The door slammed in his face. 

Bruce stood there a few beats with a heaving chest, and blinked away the spots in his vision. Jesus Christ. 

Begrudged, he slinked to the living room and finished zipping the black bag. Why had he forced it out of you? 

Once it was neat, the handles folded together in his palm, he stared limply at the door toward freedom. You probably expected him to abandon ship. He’d done it every other time. He could hear his words to Alfred, feel the thunder of the gas pedal beneath his shoe.

He fell into the couch and laid his head in his hands. Hot flashes beamed out of his skin like his flesh was also vying for escape. This didn’t feel good. Staying or going. 

Walter wasn’t even out here to assist regulation, tucked in with you. He strained to hear anything, like a cry or an angry curse, but there was abject, despicable quiet. He hated that more than anything else. 

He couldn’t very well let himself sit here. Nothing would come of it. 

Bruce rose, walking on soft feet to not creak the floors. You looked embarrassed when you’d said it, like you’d planned to never say it aloud. His follow-up hadn’t exactly been accommodating, dancing around it like the words would flay him alive if he reflected it. If he’d told you and you’d responded as he had, he might’ve beamed himself off the face of the earth. 

He stalled a foot before your door. Though his veins were still lava, and his stomach was a fucking riot of chunky gravel, the very least he could provide was an apology. One that, he thought grimly, if only you read into, you would clearly see his confession written all over it. 

“I’m sorry.” He stepped until his nose was practically touching the door. “I don’t think you’re waiting for me to pick you, I’m assuming a lot.” 

A muffled “Mm.” sounded behind the door, close to the back wall. Possibly said through a pillow. 

“It just…” he rested his forehead against it, his eyes falling shut. “It doesn’t work.”

“Not with me.” 

He sighed, the gravel grazing the soft sponge of his esophageal tissue. “Not with anyone.” 

His body seized when you yanked the door open, flattening your hand to his bicep and shoving him to the side to jog past. “Get over yourself.” 

The room began to swim again, unceremoniously returning any respite the pause gave. 

“You’re fucking Bruce Wayne, you can get whoever the hell you want.” 

Back to the kitchen again. Bruce scowled, and hesitated before following. “I don’t want.” 

“Frankly, it’s insulting.” You tossed the remaining water from the glass into the sink, then filled it only to dump again. You were doing anything to avoid looking at him. “I never even said I want a relationship. Purely assumption. And you say you don’t think I’m throwing myself at you, sure.” 

“I never said you were throwing yourself at me.” 

“You didn’t have to, you were thinking it.” 

“Speaking on assumptions, alright.” The purple haze had dissipated, a pink glow rapidly intensifying to red. Slipping under his fingernails. Always. Always!

“‘I feel similarly’,” you mocked, cocking your head and wagging your hands for good measure. He ground his molars together. 

“What do you want me to say? It can’t happen!”

“I never asked you for a relationship!”

“Then why did you tell me?” Bruce slapped his hands to his sides, vibrating with frustration. He felt like he might cry. Or scream. He felt your presence across the kitchen like you were fused to his skin. “What am I supposed to do with it?!”

“Anything but what you’re doing right now.” You scowled at him like he was dirt, like you hadn’t just said you liked him, like every word out of his mouth was blasphemy. 

“What do you want from me?”

“You to not hate me would be nice.” 

A monosyllabic, lopsided laugh cracked out of him. “I already told you, I like you!” 

“Now you did.” 

Fuck. He watched as you walked back down the hall, shoulders hunched away, swimming in disdain for why the hell it had to happen this way. Screw romance, even thoughtfulness, because apparently every time he looked at you he melted into mush that seeped into all the most confused, triggered parts of him. 

You weren’t stopping, and he didn’t have the heart left to ask you to reengage. You’d go into your room, and he’d grab the bag he’d dropped at the foot of your couch and take off in his rental car. Alfred would find a nearby jet, and he could be back before midnight. Throw himself into the suit and forget about this. 

“Is that even true? That you like me?” 

Your body was tightly coiled, reminiscent of a rattlesnake preparing a strike. He flashed with white-hot heat that was almost cold. “What?”

“Or do you think I’ll tell if you don’t reciprocate?” 

Completely caught off-guard, he took a meager step back, like he wasn’t already splitting in two. “You think I’d do something like that?”

You sneered at him. “Like it’s such an impossibility.” 

Bruce’s shoulders could’ve reached his ears they were so tense, chest overinflated with breaths that were too big, and too fast, spitting the words past his teeth. “Why did I leave, then? Why didn’t I pimp myself out and really sell it?”

“It’d be pretty fucking obvious, don’t you think?”

He squinted, right on the edge of a rageful glare. “If we’re indulging conspiracy, the conversation’s over.”

Bruce turned and made a beeline for the duffel: freedom. The weight of it was a soothing reminder that he didn’t have to think about this if he didn’t want to. Another love proclamation he could write into the ether with all the others. 

“Not even gonna deny it?”

Right as his fingers touched the doorknob. He pulled it open a bit further, trying to give himself permission not to respond. He managed to get it open enough to creak on the hinge’s rusty end, then grimaced. “Staying in Gotham was your idea. Kissing was your idea.” 

“That doesn’t answer my question.” 

Sure did. If you were folding baseless theories into these feelings that plagued him every fucking minute of every fucking day… “People have treated you pretty nicely since we went public.” 

The sound that spilled out of you made him sick. “You’re disgusting, honestly.” 

God, it murdered him to be so horrendously mischaracterized, to the point he ditched the idea of leaving and dropped the bag on the shoe bench. “You hated me!”

“You hated me!”

“Seems like you still do.” He went towards the dining table to the kitchen, wanting to avoid looking at you for a single second and begin picking himself up. 

“Yeah, that’s why kissing was my idea.” 

“I don’t understand you.” He opened the fridge just to open it, realizing with chagrin that he was doing precisely what you just had. 

“Says fucking Batman.” 

The rage that fueled his spirited journey past you ached with an undercurrent of pain. Had none of the months before meant anything? If he weren’t touching your refrigerator, he could swear he was holding in vomit at the back of his car at the beginning of August, with you half a second from digging pepper spray out of your bag at his payment admission. 

“What is your problem with me?”

Able to stare you down now, the injustice screeching at him to face this and put it to rest. You squirmed with your own frustration, hands moving wildly in front of you while endless things unsaid flashed across your face.

“You’re so, fucking, closed off!” A spark of spit flew out on the floor between you. 

“So I’m a puzzle for you to break open?”

“Ugh!” Your eyes squeezed shut until they were mere slits, and you crunched your body together to a compact crouch before springing up again. “The only times we actually talk is when we’re like this. I fucking hate it!” You gripped your hair, yanking at your scalp like it might rip out. He felt a pang in the pit of his stomach he was petrified to look at. “But there’s nothing to do about it because you’re, you, and you’ll weasel out of any situation where you have to be vulnerable.” 

Were you joking? “I’ve told you more than anyone else.” Unconsciously closing the gap between you, propelled by some fucking force. “I’ve been panicked and, and, psychotic in front of you—”

“Because you had no choice, Bruce!” Your eyes were bright, if a bit wet. “If none of that happened, you wouldn’t even remember me. If I hadn’t recognized you that night, you never would’ve, none of this…”

“I can’t have anyone in my life. I can’t.”

“You won’t, not can’t.”

“Are you forgetting about Penguin? Miller? That journalist?” He didn’t think he’d ever been more upset in his life, words flowing through him without any filter. “Every fucker online with shit to say about you? People aren’t safe with me.” 

“People aren’t safe at all in that city, stop acting like you’re the exception.” 

“You’re not gonna die because of a little crush.” His lip trembled, barely containing a curse. “I don’t care what you have to say about it.”

“I know you don’t, you’re so fucking stubborn.” 

“I know this work. I knew this boundary before I started.” 

You shook your head like you weren’t accepting a word of it. “You’re gonna fucking kill yourself. It’s never gonna be over.” 

“The city can change.” It was Selina all over again, and Alfred, and Dory, who probably knew but wouldn’t ever say anything, just staring at him like he was an idiot, like he had no idea what the hell was he was doing, when he knew it better than anyone. This was the only way. 

His monologuing was interrupted by you going uncharacteristically silent, mouth wide open. His skin went cold, and he went toward it like a thirsty man panting towards a mirage. “What?” You stood straighter, and his eyes narrowed. “Say it.” 

“Not right now.” Your nostrils flared, and you dug your teeth into your lower lip. “Not while we’re fighting.”

“When are we not?” 

“Last night.” 

Your gaze dropped to his wrist, bringing forward the subtle weight of the plastic beads strung around it. He looked at yours, and the glint of glitter on your fingers shimmered in the waning kitchen light. His cheeks burned, inflamed, his skin itching. The release of his breath. The sound of your shoulder thudding into the doorframe to rest against it. Even Walter didn’t disrupt the thick silence. 

“I hate this. Arguing.” You sounded worn through, your voice ragged and drained. He imagined he looked the same, and let his shoulders drop. 

“Me too.” 

Achingly dejected by how haunted you looked, just now hitting how caustic he’d been, he let the silence hang without rush. A sorry wouldn’t sink in right now, not with your eyes that glossed over. It was the whole reason he tried not to linger, though he so often failed, and kept his list of contacts short and sour. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, yet here he was. 

Walter wandered to you, slow and melancholic. The few feet between felt like a canyon. Everything ricocheted, his defenses ground into dust. You moved like you might leave, and his heart nearly leapt out of his chest at the concept of actually being apart—and worse, you being alone in your hurt. He couldn’t tell if his question was in poor taste, but you looked like you had after the kidnapping, and it made him want to puke. “Want a hug?”

He thought it was a definite no until you pressed your arms tight to your sides and squished into his chest. Certain his arms wouldn’t be soothing the way you needed, he waited to wrap his arms around you until he felt shuddering, rapid breaths against his ribs, and his shirt began to cling to his skin. 

He held you lightly, disoriented beyond measure, and let your tears calm before speaking. He wasn’t sure he’d had more than one coherent thought the past half hour, and didn’t know when they might come back, but the feeling of being a burden remained steadfast. You only required comforting when he’d hurt you. If you weren’t nestled to his chest, it might’ve caved in. “I’ll leave in the morning.” 

You squeezed him tighter. 

Bruce rested his head against yours, body heavy like he could sleep a thousand years. “I just don’t want to fight anymore.” 

“Leaving won’t change that.” 

He wasn’t sure that anything could. When he was sure you’d stopped crying, at least audibly, he pulled away, keeping his hands wrapped around your arms to stay connected. “What do we do about it? This can’t work.” 

You oscillated between looking at him and past him. You fell into his arms again, and his eyes shut reflexively alongside the hum of your words against his skin. “Doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

“That’s not the problem.” Caught between wanting to know you more than he’d known anyone and not wanting to know you at all was a terrifying in-between. The world was too cruel. Inhospitable. If there was a way, he might’ve fallen into you right then. “Friends still need to interact.” 

“Everyone already thinks we’re dating.” 

Images of your desecrated life stomped out by his name cinched his throat. “Makes things less complicated if we don’t.”

“I never said…”

“I’m preempting.” He grimaced, losing himself to the reality of being with you. Terrifying, and so persuasive when your bodies were flattened against each other. “It would only be two months, and they’ll be spent finding those journalists and going to rallies.”

He didn’t know if he was saying it to convince himself or you. 

“I just don’t want to stop knowing you.”

Bruce leaned back, concerned. Your soft, round cheeks were a beautiful lilypad for his gaze to caress in place of his hands. “You’ll always know me.”

The movement of your chest against his stalled. Even if you stopped and never interacted again after today, a piece of him was nestled in you. Saliva pooled in his mouth this close, wanting so, so completely to feel your kiss one last time. Maybe…

You inched nearer, dropping to look at his mouth. Your lashes were so full, your skin supple. He’d stood from the couch too early. If he’d gone just a little longer, he’d have something to replay and remember besides this invisible, soft ache from the driveby. Maybe…

Claws on the floor scraped loud enough to startle you, and Walter nipped at your ankle. Both of you broke apart as you jumped back, chastising him. 

“Looks like you’ll always know me, Walter would murder me otherwise.”

He struggled not to deflate at the distance. Fate really didn’t want you together, did it? 

Your sigh could’ve moved mountains, and you whipped your head back like you’d just gone for a sprint. “We’re adults. Friends. That happen to like each other.”

“That happen to like each other.” He really needed to step up his conversation, and cut the useless echoes.

“It’s totally fine, you know.” The feline flicked his tail when you gave him a loving scruff. “There’s lots of people I’ve liked. Didn’t mean anything happened. It’s so normal to feel this way, just our bodies reacting to something otherwise… benign.” 

Maybe.

While you caught your breath, and he pretended his was entirely under control, he mused on it. Discipline kept coming up. “No, you’re right.” He was great at being disciplined. That was all this was. “I got in my head.”

You snapped your fingers and went again to drink water. “And that’s the thing: if you don’t say it, it festers. But now that it’s, it’s out, you know. It’s kind of… neutralized.”

“A little.” He wasn’t quite convinced. His lips still ached. 

“Like,” you married your hand to your hip, deep into brainstorming. “I hate arguing, but it always feels better after because we fucking talked.”

“I agree.” In order to agree he couldn’t look at you, which defeated the point. He said he wanted to be honest, right? “But it feels strange, too.”

“This whole fucking hour was insane, like… it doesn’t even feel real.”

Were you talking to him? You paced around the kitchen staring at the tiles. 

He cleared his throat. “Just feels weird in general.”

“I mean, of course it feels weird, the start of everything was so abrupt, and half-done.” 

One last time. A ridiculous idea latched onto him, birthing a strange sort of relief. He shoved his apprehension to the side and forced the words to be said. “Want to finish it, then?”

“Finish what?” By the way you asked the question, he could tell you already knew what he meant. 

Did you just want to hear him say it? Did you want him to change the subject? His heart raced. “The kiss.”

Your laugh was bright, shining loudly to the point he couldn’t decide whether to bask in its sound or sour to its implication. “‘So it can be done with’ or some shit?”

It felt weird to him, too, but he couldn’t refuse the part of him that desperately wanted an escape. Probing worries as to whether he was being self-serving wouldn’t penetrate, and the only way out looked like scratching the memory’s itch by making it more complete. “So it won’t fester.”

The shock that went through your spine when he said it; the way it ricocheted off of you and bounced around in your stomach, jamming all the butterflies awake. It had been abrupt; who was to say that when you went to bed that night, you wouldn’t be up staring anxiously at your ceiling overthinking things you did or didn’t do, wishing you had a do-over to make it right and alleviate the embarrassment?

Would it make the guilt easier to take, or would it amplify? 

“Uh,” you struggled to find the words to communicate the message. The truth was, you didn’t know how you felt. Ripped apart, torn in pieces on the ground and flying high above it. Horrified by the pulsing ache of his lips against yours and reveling in it. And by god, if you hadn’t been on word-vomit mode since the second you confessed, scrambling your insides until nothing was recognizable. You took a step back like your body might betray you. “It’s fine, we don’t, nah.” 

Bruce nodded. “Yeah, that—it was ridiculous,”

“I mean, it probably wouldn’t, no. It’s fine, it’s whatever.” 

“Totally agree.” 

It’d been hard to look at him since you’d admitted it, and harder now. All at once you were hyper aware of your body movements, every limb foreign. 

“What do you want to do?”

The first thoughts were all too sexual—looping back around to that kiss, letting the last of your filter crumble and let it all fucking hang out. It felt like the way Mar had described drinking back home; a slippery slope that felt like you could teeter on the edge, but once you had a taste, all bets were off, inhibitions evaporated. You couldn’t bear to imagine how you might act if that filter left you with Bruce. Couldn’t imagine how either of you would come out. 

“Well, this is the last time with the house to ourselves.” It didn’t feel right to linger on that point, not after his proposition, so you avoided eye contact and walked to refill the glass. You felt so fucking weird doing it, excruciatingly aware that you’d used it as a fucking prop for the past hour, and he was undoubtedly reading into it now. 

“Is there anything you’ve wanted to do?” But couldn’t were the totally benign, normal words Bruce couldn’t bear to push out. He was still losing his mind over how he’d asked you to kiss him, and how stupid and manipulative it probably sounded. ‘So it doesn’t fester’ rather than ‘I want to kiss you’ but that wasn’t true, either. He didn’t really want to kiss you, it brought him pain to even think about. 

“Um,” you kept injecting filler words like it would create more space between the both of you. “I’m not the famous one that always has to hide.”

Bruce shrugged, and you dug your teeth into your tongue, acutely aware that you could be kissing him right now if you’d just agreed. How easy it would have been to say yes. How much your lips fucking burned. “Nothing I’ve really wanted to do.” 

You almost said ‘nothing?’ to challenge the introvert, but that was probably true. He had good disguises that no one had read into before, was comfortable enough walking out in broad daylight with them. If he wanted to go somewhere and not be caught, he could, and had. If anything, he would have to hide more here, because if you ever ventured anywhere close to a city, people might see you and make the terrible connection. 

So you tried to think. Really, really tried. 

“We could go for a drive? Maybe?” The faucet dribbled pitifully, and you squeezed it down to pinch the last bit closed. “But, no, gas is like four bucks here, and my dad’s truck is not reliable for anything but a necessary trip.” A drive was the least romantic thing you could think of; watching a movie? Too datey. Going for a walk? How would you hold your hands to keep them from being open for holding? What would you even talk about? A drive meant music and scenery that you could drift into, if the capitalist hellscape hadn’t drained your resources.

Bruce stared at you, blankly. 

Right. The billionaire with the fancy rental car that flew you here on a jet wouldn’t share your concern about gas prices. That was one thing you liked about Gotham, even if it was terrifying to use as a single woman—there was the opportunity for free public transit, and most things were within walking distance otherwise.

“You want to go for a drive?” 

A ridiculous grin snuck up on you. Yes, you wanted to go for a drive, but it sounded like the way you’d ask Walter if he wanted a treat. A special treat at that, getting to be driven around completely empty back roads with the fucking Batman. You nodded, and scurried out the door. 

As you buckled into the passenger you messed with the radio to connect your phone; with the windows rolled down and your Favorites playlist on, you directed him to the outskirts of town with a relaxed ease that was purely posturing. You hadn’t considered the fact that being in a car meant being in a small, enclosed space together. 

Eventually Bruce followed your last instruction and turned down a gravel road past a farmhouse. You told him he could go wherever he pleased, but to look out for barn cats and squirrels, who tended to run around these parts. Initially you watched the gas meter, a tad anxious about him spinning out on the gravel, before talking yourself down that he was him, and he was careful, and he was everything you thought him to be before you knew the man behind the mask. Competent, skillful, agile… you leaned your head out the window to get some air. 

The city wasn’t too different from Gotham, at least on the outskirts. The main differences were the amount of plain fields, not old construction sites, and the clarity of the sky. Bruce stared at the trees, the old wire fence lining the road, the occasional cow or horse that loitered in the middle of the grass. Actually, it was pretty damn different.

He wished it wasn’t so light outside, leaving no shroud to hide his face under. Micromanaging his expressions was hard, his mask almost fully gone, and the weight of the conversation drilled into him like a sharp nail. He knew why he thought it wouldn’t work to be together, but why you? And thought things had been said, it still felt like beating around the bush; ‘I like you’ begged clarification, for example. How much? In precisely what way? Did you have fleeting thoughts about him, or did they keep you up at night? What the hell was he even feeling? 

A pothole jolted him out of thought, and a hard ding of a rock onto the side of the car made you pull your arms inside. 

“Isn’t the rental company gonna hate if the paint’s scuffed?” 

“Don’t really care.” 

“I guess you don’t have to care about things like that.” 

A hint of frustration. He knew that in you well. 

“This the music you like?” He adjusted his posture to be more relaxed, placing a single hand on the top of the wheel and dropping his shoulders. 

“Want me to change it?”

“No.” Bruce glanced at you, and you had an eyebrow raised at him. “Just wondering.” 

“‘Cause I’d put on music I hated.”

You seemed pretty normal. Like nothing of note had occurred. A twinge plucked his heart. It was excruciating to know that you liked him (again, how much, in what way?), but it was a different type of excruciating to think that he was alone in the depth of it. He couldn’t well ask you, not in the car while you were miles from your home. 

This didn’t have to derail him. He was taking you on a drive, and that could be enough. You didn’t seem to have a lot of time with people who weren’t actively harassing you under the guise of friendship, and what had he said he’d do for you? Show you something different? That didn’t include pouting or ruminating over a hastily-knit kiss. 

He cleared his throat. “Why’d you want me to drive out here?”

“You don’t like it?”

He made a noise under his breath, somewhere between a snort, wheeze, and sigh. Were you always like this, or just with him? On some level it was amusing. Refreshing, even. “I like it. Wanting to make conversation.” 

“I used to go on drives in my dad’s Subaru before we had to sell it, and I’d love to go up into the forested area. Felt like an escape.” 

That word again. Every place that was private to you was an escape from the otherwise horror of your existence, apparently. He knew the feeling well, but didn’t know how to pry about it without coming across… well, prying. His parents always told him not to do that. Stop the endless questions. Said it put people on guard.

Everything felt redundant. The questions he wanted to ask that he had already, the same swirl of conversations. If only he’d had more practice with these things, then maybe he could act fucking normal for once. Even with you this small-talk thing felt like pulling teeth, and the way his mind tried to get around it was by coming up with the most random, strange questions that felt obtrusive and outright ridiculous to ask. 

He let his head fall against the seat. Honesty. Talking like he writes. “Have you ever ridden a horse?” Ridden? Rode? He was in such a tornado of overthinking that it took a full five seconds of deliberating on whether or not you could ride a cow before he felt like an absolute dimwit. 

“No.” You stuck your hand back out the window. “Have you?”

“N—”

“Maybe, actually. When I was little. Think there’s a picture of me on top of a llama.” 

The thoughtful crease between your brows was cute. You took everything he said so seriously. 

He blinked. He needed to pay attention to the road. 

“Stole my next question.”

“I’m sure.” You surfed the air with your hand—not paying enough attention! “I interrupted you though, sorry.” 

“It’s okay.” He put both hands back onto the wheel, nervous about his capacity to focus. “I like it.” 

“You like being interrupted?”

He gulped, tightening his grip on the wheel. “By you.” 

You faced out the window, struggling against a grin. Did he actually like you? In that, he meant what he said, and it wasn’t just a reflexive response to placate you? Bruce Wayne? 

Thinking back to your conversation at the coffee shop last May held a different weight if that was true. What the hell would they think if they saw you walking hand-in-hand? Your stomach flopped, twisting in on itself. Would probably think he lost a bet, or feel sorry for him for having to endure you.

What the hell was there to love if no one had found it already? 

His offer hung over you like a wet blanket. If he knew the truth, would he still feel that way? Was he right about the festering? Would it be wrong to do it as a kindness for him, knowing full well how much you’d enjoy it too? How selflessly motivated could it be if you’d been daydreaming about that very thing for weeks, and the only reason there was anything to fester was due to your impulsive desire in the first place? 

Bruce headed up a sharp incline, a hill that the Subaru had hardly handled back in its time. He climbed it with total ease, like all of Gotham was at some ridiculous incline and it wasn’t a problem in the slightest. Outside of voluntary emotional vulnerability, what couldn’t this man do?

Anxiously, he checked on you every few seconds out of his periphery. Did you trust him to go up this route? He’d never doubted his driving skills before now, but his body seized knowing that the higher he crept, the more horrible the fall if the car malfunctioned, or the greater the horror if his foot slipped. His heart pounded, stressed beyond belief at the realization of the murder machine of the vehicle.

“Whoa,” you sat up and looked out the driver’s window past him, and he flattened his back to the chair to give you a better view. He’d never get enough of learning what made you tick; nature was the boldest and brightest yet. “I’m not able to really look at this while I’m the driver.” 

It was idyllic; between full trees you saw the farm you’d passed, and the cows and horses looked small as ants. He toed the gas when you faced front, and the coast range adorned the skyline. The gravel hadn’t been replenished in a while, and the denser pack brought the car’s noise down a dozen decibels. Like you’d entered a bubble.

Bruce rolled down his window, bursting cool air through to both of you that whipped at your cheeks and hair. Pine and the freshest, cleanest air you’d smelled in ages blessed your sinuses. You turned the music up. 

He loved seeing you like this, getting flashbacks to being stuck in the mud. You looked giddy. He felt himself blush, the combination of the clean air and your million-watt smile making him weak. He concentrated on the road again. Focused on his breathing. These feelings filling him up, after everything that just happened, too… and the music was so you, and the wind made the scent of your shampoo fill the cabin, and… he took a deeeep breath. He liked this too much. All of this. 

You looked at your phone, noticing a text from your mom a few minutes prior. Breathing through the brief adrenaline rush, you relaxed into your seat at the lack of emergency. 

Excited to see you and BRUCE tomorrow!

It looked like it autocorrected his name somehow. That, or she was even more excited than you realized. 

I tried to get the doctors to clear me early, but they say it’s standard procedure. Your dad is more antsy than I am to get home, and I’m the one in the hospital bed. Hope you and BRUCE are getting some shut-eye. Tell him Debbie will be coming to meet him tomorrow, too.

Another text a minute later. 

I know about the secret, honey. All she knows is he’s your boyfriend, and you know how she is about that. Can’t talk her out of it if I tried.

Debbie acted like some sort of bodyguard over your relationships, and it’d always made you uneasy. Drilling you about not having a partner, about having a partner, about not being serious enough, about what they did for work; practically anything and everything you could imagine, she’d drill you over until you made up some excuse to leave the conversation. God forbid Debbie knew he was from Gotham.

“Hey.” Two bars turned to one, and you noted you hadn’t downloaded any music of his. “What artists do you like?” 

He looked like he was startled by the question, and you felt a bit bad. Was he enjoying himself before you interrupted? Why did you care so much if he was entertained? 

“Nirvana.”

You couldn’t hide the smile that split your cheeks. “I could’ve guessed.” 

He made eye contact with you for the first time since the drive, and a rod of pure ice welded itself to your spine. You exchanged smiles and rushed to your music before the bar left. 

“What’s your favorite album?” 

He laughed under his breath, looking a bit sheepish, and you brightened. So adorable when he was like this. “It’s basic… Nevermind.” 

“You can tell me.” 

“No, it’s—”

Bruce peeked at your lap to the glow of your phone, said album halfway downloaded. You smirked, and he bit his cheek as his chest overinflated. “Funny.” 

The trees grew denser, and Bruce had to pop on the brights to make sure he could see. Pops of light filtered between branches. Chilly air reminded him of home, but home hadn’t felt this full in decades. 

“I’ll just shuffle it?” 

He nodded, unable to form many words. 

Drain You burst through the speakers, and it transported you to his work station. The familiar grit and abrasiveness gave you the warmth of staring into the sun, and it hit you that if everything went to shit, you could always put the album on and think of him. 

It was hard to imagine with him so close; when he was really gone, and you were home for good, how would you cope? 

Bruce stopped on a dime, making your seatbelt lock. A giant log blocked the path forward, the trunk too gargantuan to be picked up by anything but a machine. Disappointment was interrupted by a slice of bright sunlight filtering through the trees. “Wait,”

You unclicked your seatbelt and leaned closer to his open window, squinting in the path of the beginning of a sunset. Orange and pink swathes of clouds painted a golden haze over the pastures. You pointed for Bruce to look, but he was fixated on you. His eyes dropped, lashes fluttering a little as he shifted his head to look out the window. 

Your mouth went dry. It never failed to have you feel like an animal, but his fucking scent was driving you wild again. It was the perfect blend of clean, citrus, and musk, and how it mingled with the pine created a sinister cocktail. His hair was slightly damp, a little fluffy from the shower, and the slightest bit of stubble peppered his jawline. You balled your hands into fists out of his view. Mmm.  

Focus on the sunset. Was this the first time he’d seen one unobstructed? The ones in Gotham were… mediocre, at their very best. Too covered in smog and smoke to be able to see anything worth seeing; now that you’d been up in these hills, breathing that fucking air again would kill you. 

For the first time, you felt bad about thinking so harshly about Gotham. Could it really be so bad, if he came out of it? If the person who was making you swoon, despite all your better judgement, was born and raised within its walls? 

You leaned a bit further to peek if there was another way around the log, but it stretched to the far perimeter of the road. You startled when your arm brushed his, your breathing hitching with it, and you couldn’t help but track the movement of Bruce’s hand clenching around the steering wheel. 

Though you’d just spent the afternoon arguing, you felt pretty aligned. Maybe because the arguing was familiar, maybe because he was the only person to actually stay with the argument and not leave; it felt kind of pathetic, and toxic, but he was persistent, which was more than you could say about anyone else. In a sort of twisted, backwards way, it made you feel like you were worth it. Worth arguing with was better than worth nothing.

He felt you staring at him, and he froze. Slipping. He was slipping. He knew the sunset would look so beautiful on your skin now that you were closer to the window; he caught it dancing off your hair in the corner of his vision. It was bubbling up to a peak he couldn’t ignore much longer; it was barely tolerable to stuff down at its current riot, but good fucking god, if you made him look at anything but the trunk of that tree, he might break. 

Your eyelids got heavy, a mist clouding your vision. Festering, was it? “It can’t happen, right?”

He grinded his teeth together, his knuckles going a stark white against the steering wheel. “It won’t.” 

“It’s impossible?” If it was, then it would be okay. If there was no possibility of this turning into anything, then another kiss wouldn’t be such a sin. It could mean something without meaning everything. If that even made sense. If anything fucking made sense anymore. “It’s not going to happen?”

“No.” 

God, that killed you, and lit a fire under your ass. You shifted closer. Bruce turned, scanning your face like he was trying to take in every millimeter at once. 

He doubled down. “Not at all.” 

You were slightly out of focus this close. He couldn’t decide if it was a choice at this point, getting swept away. The dotting of fine lines etched into your skin, each fold and wrinkle around your eyes, every line in your lips not visible from a distance. This hope was inappropriate; dangerous, even. His hand pulled halfway off the wheel. His chest burned. Tight with an aching, fluttery mess of emotion. He didn’t have to be here; but damn, he wanted to be. 

You forgot that you were in the car apart from the center console jamming into your stomach, but even that was bearable as the moment slowed to almost nothing. A space between time. Where the music faded, and no witnesses could shift the narrative. 

“I think you might be right.” Where a kiss could be a simple kiss. “It’s festering.”

He took a slow, tall breath, palpitations piecing apart his heartbeat as his mind caught up to his body. Your lips, plump and inviting, wet with spit he wanted so badly to taste. He put the car in park and pulled the e-brake.

If this could be alleviated, even a notch, he’d do anything. His voice was a ghost, tinny yet stronger than he felt. “Can I kiss you?”��

Would the sun rise tomorrow? Were his eyes the prettiest blue you’d ever seen?

You scooted forward by placing a hand on top of his on the wheel for balance. You’d have to be present for this. Let it flow through you if this was the last time.

You leaned in but he leaned back, and your stomach flipped. He didn’t want this? Seconds ticked by while you stared at him, faces mere inches apart. 

Overwhelmed with how fast everything was happening, consumed by a desperate need to memorize it all with photographic precision, Bruce took a second to take you in. Where to appreciate first? 

He slipped a hand around your jaw. The skin was soft and smooth. Hot to the touch. 

Quick. Just finishing it off. 

He dove in slowly, quantifying the force of each puff of your breath. Counting the two seconds it took his skin to cool down from the heat of it. 

The gunshot of your lips against his. The precise moment his body turned to molten honey. The push of your bottom lip on his, and the fullness of it.

The kiss lingered, not enough for either of you to spill yourself into it, but long enough to develop a taste. 

You might’ve been embarrassed if you weren’t buzzing. “Maybe a little more?”

His response was flustered, hasty. “Yeah, yeah.” 

Memorize. The roll of your lower lip, the tentative way your upper lip bumped his; how your lips were just wet enough to slip across with poetic ease. The feeling in his stomach; a blend of pooling heat and ensnaring wire. 

Your brows knit together, a shaky hand gripping his hair. The console dug into your ribs. Never feeling his kiss again. Remember. Remember. 

Neither of you opened your mouths very much, too focused on preserving it, too distraught over possibly disturbing the fragile peace of whatever kept your lips locked. Neither of you could fully sit in it, terrified of a touch that was too rough, or a noise too loud that might permanently strip your mouths of such honeyed comfort. 

Presence. Beams of the sunset forced the slit of your barely-opened eyes closed. Your hip slipped in the seat, and you gripped his hair to steady yourself. A low, smooth sound gasped out of him and you nearly lost it, a frayed whine barely contained.

You pulled away, terrified you were losing where you ended and he began in a way you couldn’t get back. Too thrown, and too late, you felt a sob brewing. You’d gotten off too soon. It was done. It was fucking done, and you weren’t ready for it to be done.

Bruce witnessed your eyes flash, dilated pupils rendering your eyes dark despite being bathed in sunrays. You moved in frantically, and he pushed his head to the back of the seat, placing a gentle hand to your shoulder. He took a full breath, big enough that you mimicked. Your breathing steadied as he inched closer, nestling his hand to your jaw like he was cut from the same stone.

He dropped little kisses from your cheekbone to your lips, barely registering your reaction beneath his own. If he could do this every day, he might actually be happy. To stay in with you. Soak you up. Drown under you. He exhaled into the return of your kiss. 

Pressure. Warmth. Movement. Texture. Your mouth was warm, but not hot. More pressure than before, but not by much. He studied your kiss like a crime, from the left corner of his cupid’s bow, where you always landed first, to downloading the pitch of your breath and its cadence; to the width of your open mouth when he rushed a split second’s inhale, and how hard his body pressed into the seat. Slow, steady, methodical, encoding the data into the very core of his memory. His spare hand skimmed up your side to the other half of your face, and cradled it like you were something fragile, like his kiss could break you, like you weren’t fire itself.

Bruce was a fucking great kisser. With your face cradled in his hands, he imparted slow, languid kisses on every inch of your lips, turning you to mush. His tongue teased yours, and you felt drunk. He was too much. Too much of everything all at once. 

Focus. He lit sparks throughout your body with the caress of a hand, the delicate pressing of his mouth to yours. He was so gentle, and you loved that, you really, really did, but that wouldn’t be enough to tide you over for the rest of your fucking life. Not enough when seeing him on billboards, magazines, when stalking paparazzi photos on your phone from your bedroom three thousand miles and days from this memory. 

Memories faded, even the most spectacular ones. Present slipped to past, muddying the faces, voices, and places that mattered most without apology. Gripping this like a precious gemstone might not make it stick, it hadn’t worked before, but if this was the last time, and he had a death wish, you wouldn’t blame yourself for trying.

“Is this helping?” you gasped out, and he nodded. 

“Yeah.”

He looked a bit harried, a feature you rarely saw on him. Frustrated, sad, distressed, worn, absolutely—but this specific brand of frazzled was like it was designed to drive you hysterical.

You slammed the center console out of the way, pulling him by the shoulders to bridge the gap. If you couldn’t work, this kiss would. It would have to. 

Bruce obliged, shifting his hips closer, his mouth slipping to your ear in the process. Your lips latched to the nape of his neck and his eyes rolled back, his hand slipping on the seat as his elbow buckled. You caught him by cupping his face with your hands, returning the favor. 

You looked at each other, Cobain screaming in the background. His dilated eyes that matched your own, and the haphazard hair that hung in front of them. Your panting mouth, pooling with saliva.

You were both fucked.

You launched at Bruce, deepening the kiss until half your body was slung across his. His fingers found your hips and it was all you could do to keep yourself from straddling him; you couldn’t even help the soft gasps he threaded out of you. 

Too much. Not enough. You couldn’t breathe. You didn’t want to. All you wanted was to consume him. By the way his teeth dragged on your bottom lip, and the puffs of ragged, frayed breaths escaping him, you could imagine he did feel similarly. 

Holy shit. At least he thought it was helping until you were practically on top of him. 

Nervous to push things, he kept his hands tightly bound to your shoulders and above—a Herculean feat when you were making the most delicious sounds to distract him. It was too easy to get lost in you, too easy for his mind to start running away, a body obsessed with its own hunger.

In a moment of blissed-out frustration, body tight with need you couldn’t adequately express and punctuated by rough kisses, you dug your teeth into his lip, not noticing it was hard enough to nearly break skin. The first unrestrained sound fell out of him, a desperate, filthy noise that shoved all your decorum off the table. 

Reeling from the bite, his body tense and hot, for a good ten seconds he didn’t register you’d abandoned your seat. As he felt the weight of you spread across his lap, a head rush annihilated his last defenses, opening himself to whatever the hell you wanted to do. Anything. He burned with it.

Finally balanced on his thighs, you lapped at the crook of his neck, his pulse throbbing under your tender, bruised lips. His hoarse whimper in your ear made the last thread snap, and in a total flurry his shirt was yanked through his hair and tossed to the passenger side. You gasped as his flaming skin met yours, and wrapped your arms around his neck as his hands settled on your waist. 

Skin. He was nothing but. Pliable, willing, following each instruction of your touch. You rolled your hips back to get some friction, unapologetic because your mind held a singular focus; it only sought his body, his taste, his smell, his sounds. 

Bruce didn’t think he knew the true meaning of the word sacrifice until now, with your body atop his. When he’d signed up for a life of isolation, he hadn’t thought a feeling like this existed. Nothing lit him up like this. He whined into the grind of your hips, already mourning the inevitable loss of every day he wouldn’t touch you. Every inch he wouldn’t kiss. All the things he’d never say, and never hear. 

He almost didn’t notice when you began fumbling with the button of his pants, his body already resigned to yours. When you started on the zipper, however, the accidental brush of your hand so close to his hard dick made him pause trailing sloppy kisses along your jaw.

Stars peppered his vision, and he guided your eager mouth to his so he could look at you. You kissed at his cheek and the side of his mouth, and your hips sank down until only thin layers of clothing separated you. The rocking of your hips made his head fall back, words failing him. It wasn’t until your cool fingers dipped below his elastic waistband that he sighed the words out. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” yes, you were sure, you never wanted him to stop touching you. Bodies on bodies, skin on skin, his delectable, goosebump-riddling kisses that latched perfectly onto your skin. 

He pushed his hips higher, splaying his arms across your back as he pulled you in close, arching your back. The windshield fogged from the pants of breath and shared sweat, and you took advantage of the new angle he provided, placing a hand on his chest like a mount. You shoved lower, perfectly catching the length of him. “Oooh,”

Bruce short-circuited, every dopamine receptor going off at once. 

He trailed quivering fingers under your shirt like he was nervous. “I don’t have a condom.” 

What? 

Fuck!

“Oh my god.” A smattering of blinks and you were pushing off of him, surprised at the tension of your fingers slipping out from the waist of his boxers—you didn’t remember unbuttoning his pants. What the fuck? What the fuck?! 

Bruce was shirtless in the driver’s seat, slunk down to half the height he was before; hair ruffled, face red, pants slung low with the button popped, fly down. Holy fuck.

Shame transformed the heat to coal once more, and you wanted to rip the door off the car and run away. The ache between your legs made you sick. How close you’d come made you sick. It was supposed to just be a kiss, he’d only agreed to a kiss, only to bridge the gap, not create a new one. He never would’ve, wouldn’t even entertain the idea if, if he, if, he knew. 

The log ahead faded in and out of view, and you tried to grasp a solid breath to keep the floor from falling out. Every time you blinked, you saw the turn of his hips, and the way his face knit when you kissed him. Like it was all he’d ever wanted. No, no… 

“Bruce,” you hiccuped. He crept forward, concerned. “I can’t,” sentence fragments gasped out of you like you’d entered a confessional while harboring a demon. “You don’t know, you don’t, know,” it was impossible to get a supportive breath. 

“What don’t I know?” His soothing tone almost made you dry-heave. He placed his hand over yours, calming your bouncing knee, and your hand immediately went numb. 

Though it always felt on the tip of your tongue, you’d never rehearsed how you might actually say it. The words felt monumental, especially coming off of that, and you wrestled with a desire to preserve a last good moment against a call to justice. This didn’t feel like the right time, but none ever had, and this disorienting mess threatened to pull you under completely if you didn’t exorcise it.

Your voice shook so badly it was almost unintelligible. He leaned closer and stared at your mouth with a lightly furrowed brow, his thumb rubbing the back of your hand. You sucked air through gritted teeth. “I didn’t tell you everything that happened, I didn’t,”

“When?” Bruce loathed to see you like this; stuttering and snotty, something parasitic eating at you. You bursted into rattling sobs, your body crunching in on itself. His breathing could’ve given out. 

“That night you jumped.”

God, he wished he could’ve told himself not to. If there was any way to go back to that invisible moment, hidden behind some ridiculous trauma cloak, he would’ve torn himself from the ledge to give you a modicum of peace. “Y/n, I’m sorry,”

“I didn’t tell the truth,” you squeezed your eyes shut, levitating above your body to force it out. Your molars slipped against each other, and your fingernails dug into your thighs, still shaking from being stretched across his lap. “About what I saw, about seeing—”

“Stop.”

“You need to know that I—”

“I don’t.” 

“Yes, you do.”

“You don’t have to say anything.” Bruce wouldn’t let you relive it. 

The worst part of when it happened to him all those years ago was having to recount it to the officers, the detectives, the doctors, his therapists, his every step, move, look, color of every damn brick in that alley. He’d long been convinced that stunted his healing more than anything else, forcing him to plant roots in that moment so deep they were unremovable. If someone had just told him it was okay to move on, maybe he could’ve, and you wouldn’t be stuck in this spiral.

“You don’t understand, Bruce,” 

“Whatever happened that night,”

“I don’t k—”

“Whatever happened, I don’t want to know.” 

Why wouldn’t he want to… this was the last thing you expected, thinking he would have a million questions and all but beg it out of you. The conviction in him tugged you to melt, but you resisted.

He thought of the blood and bruise, the flesh puffed up out of his father’s chest, and fought to keep his voice kind. You’d brought up this guilt for weeks, and if it was anything like his own, it would leave kicking and screaming. “Whatever you had to do—”

You tried to gather yourself, blinking away the flood of tears irritating your eyes to look him dead in the face. “Even if you’d hate me?”

An intrusive image of his mother sputtering in a pool of their combined blood, her subtle cry of “Help,” and how he’d turned away, terrified, never failed to make his gut cinch. Even if you’d done that. Even if you’d turned away, or froze, and he suffered for it. 

“You did what you had to.” You wouldn’t recount it. Not to him, not to anyone. It didn’t matter what you saw. It didn’t matter what you did. You were… panicked. There wasn’t a single thing he could imagine you doing in that state that he’d hold against you. 

“I don’t know about that.” Maybe you could’ve gone to Alfred again, or got Bruce another inpatient stay, or blocked the exits, or… let him die. You felt your blood squeegee out of your pores. 

Underneath his convincing gaze, the question of what mattered more grew increasingly ridiculous. Had you done what you could? Was it able to be swallowed, and you were blowing it out of proportion out of some misplaced sense of honesty at all costs? At the cost of him?

Bruce blushed, fighting the instinct to close off. Your gaze was pleading, sorrowed, and he exhaled through pursed lips. “I don’t know if I’d be here right now without you. That’s enough for me. Let it be enough for you.”

A lump rose in your throat. A last ditch effort to free yourself from this torment. “I can’t hold it, please,”

“You don’t have to tell me for it to go away.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, and you’re out of it,” 

“Please let it go. You don’t have to carry it. I don’t want you to.” He looked so serious but he couldn’t… there was no way he knew what he was agreeing to, though he kept saying it didn’t matter. Your mouth fell open, grasping for words that wouldn’t come. He gave the smallest nod, desperate to pull you out of the quicksand. “I want to move on.” 

You sat in that for a minute. His blue eyes were so fucking steady, and the guilt was so fucking heavy. 

But if he was grateful for it. 

If he didn’t want it. 

“I mean, when can I tell him that I wasn’t the witness?” You recalled the phone being heavy in your palm. You remembered the silence that followed the question.

“Never. The spiral it would send him down would be catastrophic.”

You nodded, swallowing the last bits of saliva in the sahara of your mouth. At least you tried. “Okay.”

Bruce didn’t know if he should believe you, but for now, you looked calm. That could be enough. He grabbed his shirt that hung off your headrest. “Do you want to get back?”

“Yeah.” Dazed, you fumbled for your seatbelt ‘til it clicked in the lock. Bruce, already buckled, didn’t put the car in drive, a thoughtful expression coloring him. 

“Don’t feel bad about all this. Glad it all happened.” 

Just now those feelings circled you, the evaporating mist affording a sliver of self-consciousness to creep in. He knew you better than you gave him credit for, and it finally let a breath to the bottom of your lungs that he’d caught it.

Bruce put the car in drive and did an impeccable turn down the one-lane path. You wondered where he’d learned to drive like that. The fastest he’d driven. How fast he could take this car. All the things you could ask him if he stayed. 

“That whole thing was ridiculous.” Both of you startled when you laughed, little control over volume or pitch. “I’m just crying and you’re sitting there fucking halfway in the chair.” 

The position he’d been in was strange. He didn’t think he’d ever stretched his back that way, half wedged into the back and bottom of the seat, balancing you. 

“I didn’t think you’d get on top of me,” he admitted, running a hand over his sweaty scalp. “Unexpected.”

“In a bad way?” 

He peeked over at you, mischief layering his tone. “What do you think?” 

The only rational explanation for why you were both functioning and talking about it was the remnants of adrenaline coursing through you. “I think you liked it.” 

He looked both ways before turning on the main road, revealing a faint hickey above his clavicle. Did you have any from him, or was he too careful?

He cheekily reasserted your boundary, reminding you he hadn’t forgotten. “Friends who like each other.” 

“Friends.” 

“Friends.” 

Two months. You could handle two months. 

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