#yeah I gave the Lazarus pit a personality and a voice

[black-but-mildly-sunny]

You can’t run from a loaded gun

Jason Todd short fic -- tragic dive into Lazarus Pit

AU to the end of Gotham Knights (VERY MINOR SPOILERS(??) if you haven’t finished the game..so..)

Warning: Temporary death(s), minor cursing, violence, weapons, and torture

----

Legs burned like never before. Honestly, he wasn’t a huge runner, but this was becoming over the top, he would bet everything that Dick and Tim would be struggling as well (and the sprained ankle and deep gash in the legs didn’t help)

Run. Don't stop. Don't look back. Forward. 

He grunted as he heard the scratching as the bastard things, undead supporters? citizens? Creatures form the green lagoon? came closer and closer. The underground tunnels became less with turns and straightened out to and opening.

Jason grunted as the green luminescent light caught his eyes. He stopped himself fast, for the first time in what felt like hours, and stared in awestruck horror as he came nearly face to face with one the top things that ruined his life.

Why’d you stop? This was your fault. You should have stayed dead. Buried in the Earth.

He pivoted when he heard the familiar, sadly, sound of the talons behind him but still he didn’t turn. Taking in everything he knew he was out of bullets - guns empty. No knives and no swords. He felt cold and registered that his helmet was beyond useful, exposing his face to the elements. 

No. He didn’t turn until he heard that voice. Her. It was all a lie to lure him here. Was Bruce even dead, was he just buried out in that grave? 

Disgusting. Scars and stupidity. Of course, it was a trick. She just wants her soldier back. 

“He said you wouldn’t in this alone, and he was right. They in your ear telling you to fight. But you can’t.” He heard a click. It was distant but only a few feet behind him. “It calls to you. Like an old friend. Don’t worry, you won’t be separate for long.”

He turned and felt a warm sting pulse through him. He looked at her. She was in front of him. He was just feet above one of the pools. He was under a part of Gotham. How did they build this with no one noticing? Is Bruce alive? Why is he yelling in my ear, telling me not to die? 

I don’t want to die again. You will, and you’ll live again

Falling isn’t that long. He doesn’t understand why people say it feels like hours when really, it’s rarely over a few seconds to minutes. 

Hitting the green liquid was warm. He was warm finally. It was burning and so hot. He kept hearing words screaming in his ear, his head. A voice was talking. Soothing yet cryptic, it made his skin crawl. 

He was dead, but not anymore. This was the quickest. In and drowning in in the mystical pool. He couldn’t climb out. Wait he died right? He did die. The voices were just there. The hum was always there.  

......

Quiet. Too quiet. He roared out of the depths. Coughing up goo and clawing at his face. Eyes and lungs burned, but his ears were on fire. It was too quiet. He had to make noise. He heard a click again and gazed up. 

There she was dressed regal in white, and all the power was in her hands. He was going to help her rebuild and no one was going to end this kingdom just yet. 

“My dear Todd. The line of ‘al Ghul is not over yet. I haven’t even unveiled the final card yet. Just wait. And gain power. The family won’t even recognize you.”

Talia. Then bang. 

Did you miss me? I know you did. I whispered to you all this time. I gave you abilities, better than anyone in your family. Yet you reject me. 

Now we’re together again. We’ll burn the world to the ground and raise hell. Those Owls, Talons? They are nothing.

Batman, Bruce? Weak. Nightwing, Dick? Pathetic. Robin, Tim? Useless. Batgirl, Barbara? Redundant. 

Only one voice. The only one he needed. The one that as here and not dead.

Death and anger is all you need, Jason Todd. Red Hood.

[britcision]

Happy WIP Wednesday everyone! Hmmmm… What do I have for you today? Is it Danny’s question?

Nope! It’s Jason! ☺️ because I’m a bad person and I like making you all wait. I will tell you though, you’re getting Waylon’s answer from his own perspective, which is why Danny’s part cuts off where it did

———————

I’ll Take The Highway ii

Jason didn’t exactly object to being led out of the bar by Harley; Danny wanted to talk to Waylon in private.

Jason had figured Danny had something to ask the guy about. He hadn’t exactly expected not to be part of the conversation, but that was fine.

He’d know if Danny got into trouble. Fuck, Danny could handle any trouble Gotham could dish out, probably. And the rogues had some basic manners; not starting shit in Freeze’s place was one of them.

Penguin might put the squeeze on and make your life uncomfortable if you lit up the Iceberg Lounge. Dr Freeze’s cold shoulder was a lot more literal, and he didn’t do “proportional response”.

So yeah, he could be cool and give Danny some space.

It wasn’t exactly a surprise that Harley wanted to talk to him either, although he still didn’t see the point. But he let her guide him around the side of the building to a back alley anyway.

“Still fine, Harley,” he said before she could get started, both hands raised in front of him.

She gave him an all too knowing look and hopped up to sit on the dumpster. Put her about a head taller than him. Not that he cared.

“Sure, kid. You’ve been goin’ through a lot though, so I gotta ask; is there anythin’ ya wanna talk to Auntie Harley about?” She asked in her sweetest voice, interlacing her fingers under her chin and batting her lashes.

Jason snickered and leaned against the other side of the alley.

Shit, he wasn’t even annoyed with her play acting. The pit was a happy little puddle in his chest, all sunshine and roses.

A week ago he’d have walked away. Been pissed at wasting his time, getting in his way. How much of that had been because of the Lazarus pits, the problems with the ectoplasm he’d apparently been supposed to be solving?

Was that why nothing had ever been enough? Why he always had to keep pushing? Carve himself a patch of Gotham, keep going. Cut the crime out of Crime Alley, not enough.

Take up with the Outsiders, keep himself busy, rushed off his feet so that when he fell into bed for a couple hours a day he didn’t even dream?

When was the last time he’d taken a breath and just… relaxed? It all felt so long ago, but it had barely been a week.

It just. His whole life had unclenched, like it was a muscle he’d finally stopped using.

Fuck, maybe he should talk to Harley about it.

He got the feeling she knew though, those eagle eyes tracking his every move. They’d never really hung out, but he was uncomfortably aware of how well she’d known him.

How much of him was still the boy she’d known?

She was waiting for an answer, and all of a sudden Jason wasn’t sure what he’d say. Knew that if anyone in the world understood, it just might be Dr Harleen Quinzel.

He sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck, unable to meet her eyes. Fuck, he was getting as bad as Bruce.

And if that thought didn’t kick him up the ass…

“You ever wake up one day and realise your whole life’s been going wrong?” He finally asked, glancing up from the corner of his eye.

She’d dropped the cutesy act, leaning forward with her arms braced on the edge of the dumpster, her face professionally calm. Open. Sympathetic.

“Think I might know just a lil about what that’s like,” she agreed softly, and Jason snorted.

“Yeah. Well. Turns out ever since I came back from the dead I’ve been haunted. Literally. And no one ever noticed.”

He hadn’t even come all the way back, but he couldn’t say that. Not yet. But maybe he could share some of the rest.

Harley nodded slowly, giving him her full attention. Just waiting for him to go on.

It kinda felt like being under a microscope, but not in the cold, analytical way Bruce did that always pissed him off. Like she really cared, and was looking for all his broken parts so she could help him fit them back together.

Fuck, if his kid self had ever known he’d one day trust Harley Quinn over the whole Justice League…

Shit, he didn’t even know how much she already knew.

“The pit rage… it’s a psychosis people get, coming out of the Lazarus pit. Makes you angry, violent, stronger, like a blind rage. For most people it goes away. Mine didn’t.”

He almost wanted to laugh, bitter and sharp.

“Because it wasn’t just the psychosis. I’m not fucking weak, I’m not fucking broken, there’s something else living inside me and it made me so fucking angry all the time…”

The frustration was building again, but this time it was his. All his, not a bubble, not a stir, and part of Jason thrilled with it. He could feel however he wanted, just him.

He cut it off though, forcing himself to relax before Danny could notice. Could worry about whatever he was projecting in his aura.

He could kinda still feel Danny’s, which was new. Not brushing against his, not touching like they were close, but he was aware in a way he hadn’t been before.

Like if he shut his eyes he could point in exactly the direction Danny was standing.

“Danny’s the only one who noticed. Well, really, he’s the only one who could. It’s a ghost thing, and he… he got me help. I feel like myself for the first time since… since I came back.”

He hadn’t even noticed how much the background rage burnt through him until it stopped. Until he could look at his family and see their prodding for what it was; concern.

It was still surprising him, and maybe would for a while. Kinda hoped not though. It wasn’t the most cheerful train of thought.

Seeing that he’d run out of words, Harley gave him a moment to find more, then reached over and ruffled his hair. It was barely a strain in the cramped alley.

“Kid, anyone with two eyeballs t’ rub together can see Danny’s real good for ya. So why’s Bruce tryin’ so hard to keep ya apart?” She asked gently, and Jason snorted.

Rolled his eyes and folded his arms, caught himself doing it, and forced them back to his sides.

“Not rubbing his eyeballs together?” He asked dryly. Harley just snickered.

“Please, if we could get ‘im ta stop overanalysing everything that’d be the miracle. So what’s got ‘im on edge?”

Jason hesitated for a long moment, thinking about it. Finally he shrugged; as always, Bruce was a mystery to him. The man who’d taught him all the tricks to pick apart any mystery. Except himself.

“No idea. We played a prank on him and the Mansons at the gala like we told you last night?” He offered, already aware it wasn’t likely to be the answer.

Harley shook her head in agreement, which almost threw him off.

“Nah, you’re right. The whole making-out-in-a-closet shtick is classic, even if he didn’t see through it yet he’s never cared about you boys smoochin’ before,” she agreed, then sighed and tugged him in to press a kiss to his forehead.

“Whatever his problem is though, it is his problem Jason, an’ what he pulled at the gala has nothin’ t’ do with you or Danny. I already told ‘im off about not talkin’ to ya and I’m gonna do it again when I catch him. Right now I just wanna hear you say you know it ain’t your fault,” she told him firmly, cheeks held between both hands.

Jason fought the urge to roll his eyes. And the rising lump in his throat.

“I know Bruce’s bullshit isn’t my fault, Harley,” he grumbled through smushed lips. Harley squeezed his cheeks a little tighter.

“Then say it anyway. It ain’t your fault Brucie has a bug in his ass, and ya ain’t done anything wrong to deserve it.” She was firm as the wall behind him, utterly unrelenting.

And she could go on for hours, if memory served. Long enough for Danny to come out and see. That was why Jason told himself he gave in.

Nothing at all to do with the way her words ached and bled a gentle warmth into the icy void in his gut where the anger still roiled.

“It’s not my fault B’s got the emotional capacity of a wet newspaper. I don’t deserve his helicopter bullshit any more than anyone else,” he told her obediently, doing his best not to be too sarcastic.

Harley placed a kiss on his nose and released him.

“That’s my good boy. Now, more about this haunted thing. You boys got a plan?” She asked sharply, head cocked as she watched his face.

Cheeks red, Jason leaned back against his wall and pretended it made him out of reach.

“We do,” he said curtly, looking down at the trash strewn ground. Trying to explain it now would take too long, Danny would be out soon.

Of course Harley noticed, nodding thoughtfully and leaning back, kicking her legs.

“Well, if ya ever want to tell me more, you’ve got my number. An’ I’ll get Brucie off ya back for a while, even if I’ve gotta call in the Boy Scout. Whatever you aren’t tellin’ ‘im, don’t let ‘im rush ya,” she told him firmly. Jason had to smile.

“Aren’t you the one always telling us to communicate?” He asked half rhetorically. Harley grinned and hopped off her dumpster, making her way to the front of the alley.

“It only works if ya wait til you’re ready. Pushin’ an’ rushin’ only makes it worse,” she explained airily, stepping out into the street.

Turning, and freezing like a hound on a scent. Eyes narrowed, she patted Jason on the chest as he stepped out after her, not turning her head.

“Jason darlin’, be a dear an’ run get Auntie Harley her bat. The bike’s parked ‘round the back,” she said ever so sweetly, and that tone combined with the narrow eyed glare meant Jason knew exactly who she was looking at before he turned.

He did it anyway, eyes widening as he caught sight of Batman, in full gear, coming down the street towards them. Accompanied by John Fucking Constantine.

Had he seriously come to chase him away from Danny in person? In fucking costume?

The anger surged, his and the pit’s, held back only by the small woman in front of him. The dainty hand on his chest, that’d turn into an iron bar if he pushed it.

Sure, she couldn’t actually hold him back, but she didn’t need to. Whatever Jason wanted to say or do to Bruce, Harley could do a whole lot worse.

Anger melding into a vicious satisfaction, he turned straight back down the alley with a spring in his step.

————

Tag List: @welcometosasakiworld @kyrianclawraith @someonebored0100 @stealingyourbones s @starkcravingmad @frostedthroughghost @akikkobara @rainbowbunny0159 @littlefeather345 5 @violet-catsarelife @serasvictoria02 @wolfjackle @blacksea21090 @secretdestinywerewolf @anime-hipster-the-amazing @undead-essence @skitscratched @blackroserelina @snoodly-boop @trickerdi @mayoota-blog g @xysidhe @idkmrpianoman @little-apricot-the-writer @chaoticmistake @the-legal-shipper @bun-fish @aroranorth-west @demon-cat-goes-woof @perfectwastelandcreation @onyxlightdragon n @larks-and-katydids @peachesandcreamfemboy @jesus-camp-the-sequel @may-rbi i @mothman-the-mothman87 @viyatrix @stargirl1331 @idfk-man10 @thedepressedrobin @skulld3mort-1fan @rootsmudge @ravenshadow17 @cankoking @phantom-dc @mentalcarebear @magic-pincushion @redamancyardor @lyra689 @itsparadoxlacuna @alcorbearson @asphyxia778 @why-must-i-be-like-this @tkiesai @greenpyrowolf

[starlightshadowsworld]

The Red Knight part 4

Part 3

@8-29pm

@v-inari

@ninapiro

Jason flinched at the sight of fire, his arms shook as he instinctively threw them up to sheild his head.

Expecting the next thing to be the sound of a bomb, of laughter.

"Little Wing, hey. Are you with me?"

There was only one person who dared call him that.

But... Dick hadn't been there.

No one had been their in the end.

"Jason, hey its okay. Look at me, Jase, your safe. Please look at me, I promise everythings okay."

Despite the fear, Jason allowed himself a peak. And saw not the joker, not the warehouse.

But Dick, sitting right beside him. It was at the sight of him that Jason was suddenly aware he was hyperventilating.

"That's it, can you copy me Jason, in and out." Jason gave one big deep breathe, copying Dicks actions and felt himself starting to calm.

He let his arms fall limp at his sides.

For a while their was only his breathing that echoed throughout the room.

When it leveled, Jason slumped right into Dicks arms.

He had been asleep but felt exhausted. Jason didn't have the energy nor the care to feel embarrassed about slumping into his big brothers arms.

From the soft smile on Dicks face, and how he rearranged them both so Jason could comfortably rest on him, said he didn't mind one bit.

Jason let out a sigh, focusing on his brothers heart beat.

"You with me?" Jason nodded, relaxing as Dick ran his fingers through his hair.

He knew how to soothe all his siblings when they were going through it.

Jason was no exception.

He was just glad that Jason was letting himself be comforted.

"Sorry..."

"Hey none of that, we all have our shit to deal with."

Jason nodded, even though he knew this wasn't just the run of the mill panic attack.

"... What happened?"

Dick frowned, "you tell me, man. Once second you were asleep, the next you were gone. Their was green fire all around you... And than you were back here, panicking."

Jason blinked, absorbing what Dick said. He wracked his brain for answers but shook his head.

"I don't... I can't..."

He was shaking again, he didn't notice till Dick gently held his hands in his.

"Hey, it's okay. Well figure this out. Worlds best detectives right?"

The thing about Dick that Jason had missed the most was his optimism. His ability to walk into a room and just know how to brighten it.

So Jason just sighed, tiredly. Slumping back into Dicks arms.

"I thought... I was back there..."

He felt bad for bringing it up, feeling Dicks breathing hitch before warm arms warped around him.

Jason didn't need Dick to say it in words, his actions spoke louder.

He was safe.

"Dick, we got your message!" Said Steph, bursting through the open window. With Cass, Damian and Tim with her.

The door opened, Barbara and Duke walking in.

"Oh, yeah he's back?" Said Dick, looking down at Jason and back to them.

"I don't know what happened" said Jason, when they looked at him.

Damian made a beeline to him, grabbing a blanket and putting it over Jason. Before making space for himself in it. Jason blinked, not knowing what was happening.

Before Damian looked at him, midly offended.

"Why did you not tell me?"

Jason looked down at his hands. "I thought... I thought I could handle it."

Damian scoffed "Yeah, you were handing it so well weren't you?"

Jason closed his eyes, he deserved that. "I think I killed someone...?" His voice was quiet, soft.

It was unrecognisable to his ears.

Arms wrapped around him, these were smaller but just as secure.

Jason looked up at Damian. "I didn't want to, I was gonna give him a few hits for trying to sell drugs to kids..."

Damian's gaze softened. "Be as it may, you are no longer allowed to 'handle this' by yourself."

He looked at Jason, really looked at him. Seeing the eye bags, the stress, the exhaustion and his resolve only strengthened.

"I won't allow it... I've seen, a fraction of what happens to those that fall into the Lazarus pit. And I don't want you to do it by yourself."

He'd watched his grandfather, one of the strongest men he'd ever known be reduced to nothing because of that damned pit.

Heard his mother's stories of how her father had become unrecognisable.

Damian refused to let it take his brother too.

"Agreed, face it Jay your stuck with us." Said Steph, light hearted but her gaze was intense.

Jason felt tears well up in his eyes.

He hadn't realised just how hard everything had been on him alone. That even just the idea of not having to shoulder his burden alone made him tear up.

"Although, given we're no longer on a search and rescue mission. I say we get some food and talk about what happened." Said Barbara, looking at Jason.

Jason was answered by his stomach rumbling loudly. "Yeah, food, food sounds good" He replied, sheepishly.

She chuckled, wheeling her chair to the coffee table and setting up her laptop.

The rest of them were arguing over where exactly to get food.

"We're not going to Red Robin, it's closed."

"Aw come on, aren't you their mascot or something. Can't you sort something out?"

"Mascot?!"

Cass shook her head at them, sighing and sitting with Barbara.

Not before giving Jason a warm nod in greeting.

Jason returned it, still bewildered that his siblings wanted to help him at all.

After all he'd done...

Damian snapped him out before he could start spiraling.

Holding up Pride and Prejudice, Jason had forgotten he'd lent it to him after they'd hung out... Ages ago.

"I'm not one for spoilers but, please tell me Elizabeth doesn't end up with Wickham."

Jason smiled, ruffling his hair. An action that came naturally to him that Damian didn't object to.

"Trust me, she doesn't even entertain his advances." Damian smiled, approvingly. "Good, she deserves better than him."

He shot Jason a look "and you deserve better too." He went quiet for a few seconds.

Both of them were sat alone now, Dick had slipped out to go help with the food, seeing they needed a moment alone.

"Did you....did you think we would care?" Asked Damian, softer than usual.

It hit Jason than and there that Damian was just a kid.

He should be in bed by now, not worrying whether or not one of his big brothers was going to destroy himself.

Guilt hit him hard, they should all be somewhere else. Not having to worry about whether Batman's greatest mistake fucked up or not.

But Jason knew he didn't want that.

Jason shrugged "... I mean I wouldn't help me either."

He hadn't thought anyone would have cared.

Br-... He surely hadn't.

"Tch... Well I'm going to knock it into your hard head that we do in fact care." Said Damian.

Jason smiled "thanks, Dami."

Damian nodded, looking down at his hands. "You took care of me in the league. I didn't know that for a long time, you didn't even remember your name and yet..."

He looked back at Jason, determined. "So I'm going to take care of you too, because we're family."

Jason felt something in him crumble, felt tears well up in his eyes. "You know, my mother once said that tears are a sign that one has been strong for far too long. It's okay to cry Jason, it doesn't make you weak."

That was all Jason needed for the tears to fall.

Damian hugged him close. Tim walked in, food in hand and paused. Damian shook his head, that he had this under control and Tim nodded.

Putting Jason and Damian's dinner beside them and leaving them be.

Jason didn't know how long he was crying for, or what he was crying for until the sobs turned into sniffles.

"Sorry..." He said when they broke apart, Damian waved him off in a manner that felt very Alfred.

He picked up their food bag, peaking inside before groaning. "Really? You all spent 20 minutes arguing for McDonald's?!" Damian said, looking at his older siblings in disgust.

"Hey, when in doubt get McDonald's." Said Steph, nodding wisely.

"Ugh.. Americans. One of these days I'm going to introduce you to actual cuisine. At least Alfred and Jason have taste."

"Hey, what about me!" Said Dick, pouting. Damian thought for a few seconds before shaking his head.

"You could have been considered but you dip your fries into your milkshake like a heathen." He said bluntly.

Jason burst into laughter, it was the first time in a long time he'd laughed and everyone smiled secretly before debating whether or not milkshake in fries was that despicable.

All the while Damian didn't leave Jason's side.

Jason smiled, softly. What had started as one of the worst nights in his life was becoming the best.

He hoped he got more nights like this, it made him feel like he was home.

___________________________

The palace was calm far too calm that Sam should've known Danny would have waltzed in looking like the world had ended.

And she hadn't even finished her coffee, the things you do for friendship.

"You want me to get everyone?" She asked, Danny nodded eyes wide.

Sam gently but firmly sat him down, asking some frost giant guard, Phil to keep an eye on him.

Tucker, Jazz, Dani, Frostbite, Pandora and Valerie all showed up not long later.

"Danny?" Asked Jazz, concerned.

"I was just in the gardens, minding my own buisness." Danny huffed at the disbelieving faces around him.

"A ghost just came out of nowhere, they didn't have a shape and they were just crying in pain." He said, watching the teasing atmosphere dissappear.

Everyone looked in horror and suprise.

It wasn't uncommon for a new ghost to just appear. But they usually had a form, looking as they had done when they had died.

Even if they changed it later, they still had a form.

And in pain?

"I tried to reach for them, hell they were reaching out for me for help... And the crown... Went crazy, burst fire around them and than they just vanished." Finished Danny, arms folded and looking at the Crown of Fire on the table before him.

"It tried to attack them?" Asked Dani, worriedly.

"Not quite, if I may your majesty?" said Pandora, all eyes now on her. Danny nodded, handing it to her.

"The Crown of fire strengthens the King but it is also used to pick his Knight." Danny blinked "Knight? You mean like the Fright Knight?"

Pandora nodded her head. "You see the crown knows it's masters equal as soon as they put on the crown. And will find them, the ghost will be drawn to it.

The ghost will have to prove their worth and when that happens, they are surrounded by flames. And will than swear to an oath, to serve the King and this world."

Danny looked at the Crown, in suprise. Who knew a magical crown called the crown of fire had more uses than just being... Well... A crown of fire.

"Wait, the flames appeared before they could do anything... Does that mean they've already proven themselves?" Asked Jazz.

Pandora nodded "not to our King but to the crown, the crown knows they are worthy.

But you don't have to make such decisions until you meet them." She reassured looking at Danny who relaxed.

Frostbite sighed with a smile "I'm glad this won't be a painful processes like before."

"What do you mean?" Asks Danny, curious.

"Pariah did not heed the crowns warning. For you see the role of the Fright Knight is to not only serve the King but to challenge him.

To make sure he is working in the public interest, that he is on the right path. The ghost he chose, the Crown was not happy with."

Danny snorted, as did everyone else.

"Unfortunately he did publically destroy the ghost the crown did choose." Finished Frostbite solemnly.

Danny looked down sadly before becoming determined.

"Okay, so we just have to find this ghost and bring them here? That doesn't explain why they were in pain."

Pandora hummed, thoughtful "I'm afraid that I do not know for certain. It has many years since a Fright Knight was chosen. Perhaps they are in danger, calling out for help?"

Valerie got up "well, there's no time than the present. Sooner we find em, than the sooner we can help."

"Agreed, you will have my men searching." Said Frostbite.

"And my Amazon's." Said Pandora.

Danny smiled "than let's bring them home."

[sunflowers-and-mooncakes]

Even by Different Names, the Soul Remains the Same

Me being very late to posting a fic I wrote for @the-alice-of-hearts during trade, through I don't remember which one. Anyway it's been on AO3 but I'm finally getting it here on Tumblr.

***

It was a bright summer day when the two first met. Jason Todd had traveled to France begrudgingly under Bruce’s order to keep an eye on some strange activity there. He had been wandering around the local park, not quite paying attention to where he was going when ran straight into someone.

“Ow!” He looked down to see a short French girl around his age on the ground.

The black-haired boy held out his hand to her. “Hey, sorry about that,” he apologized in French with an awkward laugh.

“It’s alright,” she said, her voice kind and light. “Though, please do be more careful from now on.”

The girl reached out her petite hand to take his. Just as their fingers brushed against each other, a strange glow appeared around their wrists. As if by instinct, the French girl wrenched her arm away from Jason and stood up quickly.

She stared at him with a peculiar expression across her face.

“I suppose we’re soulmates,” she stuttered and glanced down at the mark that now adorned her wrist. This led Jason to slide up his sleeve and look at his own matching soulmark. It was just what seemed to be a series of swirls and lines, but he knew that they were the only two in the world that would ever have a mark like that.

As a kid on the streets, Jason never bothered to even so much as think about soulmates. He didn’t have the luxury to dream about some unknown person when he had to scrounge around for something to even fill his stomach. When he died and was subsequently resurrected, he refused to even entertain the idea. After all, he thought he may not even have a soul anymore, what with the unpleasant effects of the Lazarus Pits, so how could he possibly have a soulmate then?

Yet, here she was right in front of him. It was a strange feeling; meeting someone you’ve been told all your life would make you happy. What do you even say to them, especially when you met by knocking them onto the ground?

“Uh, yeah, that sounds about right,” the black-haired boy responded dumbly.

They continued to stare at each other and their wrists in silence. Any outside viewer would likely be frustrated by the lack of proper interaction between the two, but they simply did not know what to say. Finally, the girl took a deep breath and sighed, breaking the silent spell over them.

“Hi, my name is Marinette,” she introduced. For a brief moment, it seemed she considered sticking out her hand to shake his but decided against it. “I’m Jason,” he responded after another pregnant pause. He hadn’t felt this awkward since Bruce tried to have “the talk” with him.

After meeting Marinette, Jason’s stay in Paris got a lot less boring. While their first meeting had been a bit strange, the two quickly fell into more comfortable conversation the longer they spent time together. He enjoyed her company so much that he was actually upset that his time to return to Gotham was drawing near.

“Hey, Mari!” Jason called loudly as he walked into her parents’ bakery. The black-haired girl looked over towards the door from where she worked at the counter with a bright smile.

“Hi, Jason,” she said, “I’m almost done with my shift here and then we can head out.”

Suddenly, a petite woman came out from the kitchen door. “We’ve got it from here, dear. Feel free to head out now.”

Marinette gave the woman a hug and quickly pulled off her apron. “Thanks, Mama,” she turned towards Jason, “I’m gonna go wash up and then I’ll be right back.”

The girl ran through the door her mother exited. The older woman then turned her attention to the black-haired boy.

“So, you’re the boy my daughter has been spending so much time with lately,”

Jason stood up a little straighter and coughed. “Yes, ma’am,” he said as respectively as he could muster. After all, it’s not every day you meet your soulmate’s mother.

“My name is Jason Todd,” he introduced. He felt as though the woman could stare into the very pit of whatever may be left of his soul.

After what felt like an eternity, the older woman gave him a soft smile, “All I ask is that you have her home before dark,”

“Absolutely,” he said, breathing in a sigh of relief. She really had him worried for a moment.

“Oh, and Jason was it?” she said quickly before leaning closer to the boy’s ear. “You may be her soulmate, but If you so much as hurt one hair on my baby girl’s head, I will be forced to take extreme measures.”

The black-haired boy pulled away stunned. Mrs. Dupain-Cheng may be small in stature, but he felt like she would find a way to deliver on that threat, even with all his vigilante expertise.

“Alright, all done!” Marinette said as she burst through the door. “Ready to go, Jason?”

Righting himself, he shook his head quickly. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Marinette linked her arm with his before leading him out the front of the shop, wrists slightly aglow. “So, where do you want me to show you today, Mr. American Tourist?” she asked teasingly.

He hummed, putting his finger to his chin in thought. “Well, we haven’t been to the Louvre yet,”

The two headed off in the direction of the museum, making idle small talk. They had been going about their days like this since they met. They would get together and Marinette would introduce Jason to a new part of her hometown. Sometimes it would be a famous monument, but other times she would show Jason a little spot all of her own. Places that held a special meaning just to her.

Those were his favorite days. Days that he felt like he was getting closer to her. Marinette and Jason had yet to fully address the soulmate situation between the two but continued to meet, nonetheless. The older boy hoped desperately that they would have enough time before his departure to figure themselves out.

Jason felt like a different person when he was with Marinette. He didn’t have to be Jason, the back-alley kid taken in by Bruce Wayne, or Red Hood, the rough and tumble vigilante. He didn’t have to be Jason, back from the dead, or even Jason, the comedic relief between his many adopted siblings. With Marinette, he was just Jason, an American tourist who happened to bump into his soulmate while abroad.

“So, I know we haven’t really talked about it but—” The black-haired girl began before being cut off by a loud shriek.

The two turned their heads towards the sound to see a man with pink hair running around making people disappear with a beam from his strange visor.

“Oh no, an akuma!” Marinette cried worriedly.

“Huh?” Jason looked at her confused.

“No time to explain!” She shoved him out of the way as a beam blasting their way. The girl grabbed onto his clothes and ran away from the ensuing fight, pulling him along with her.

After finding a place to hide, Marinette finally let go of his arm. “You stay hidden here, I need to go check on my parents.”

Jason looked at her flabbergasted. “Why would you go back out there? At least let me come to watch you back!”

“No,” she replied firmly. “You don’t know anything about akumas. I’m used to this, especially Pixelator. You should stay here where you’re safe.”

Then, before he could even argue, the girl had gone off in another direction. All of Jason’s instincts told him to get out there and fight, but he knew he couldn’t. This wasn’t Gotham, and he couldn’t let anyone think Red Hood was operating somewhere else or it could spell trouble.

However, he could at least chase after Marinette. While he appreciated the concern, he knew he could handle a supervillain situation. Plus, he was worried about the girl, running worriedly toward her parents in the middle of this so-called “akuma” attack.

Right when he was about to sprint off in the same direction as his former companion, a blur of red swung by, quickly followed by a black blob.

“Oh, Pixelator,” called the latter figure. “I’m ready for my close-up.”

Jason looked at the now clear figure bewilderedly. In front of him stood a boy in tight leather along with cat ears and a tail. Geez, and he thought Dick’s costumes were bad.

The boy struck a pose tauntingly at the villain as another figure came up to stand next to him. This time it was a girl in a red and black spotted suit. She spun what appeared to be a yo-yo with a mildly irritated look on her face.

“Not the time, Chat,” she said frustratedly to her partner.

“But, M’lady,” he whined back before the two descended upon the akuma.

It was then that Jason realized that these were the heroes he was sent to Paris to observe. They seemed young yet fought with the precision of seasoned warriors. Just how long had these two been forced to fight?

The black-haired boy watched the fight with a strange sense of awe. While he also fights villains frequently, it’s not often that he gets to see magic in action. The cat boy leaped from building to building, narrowly avoiding the beams that made objects disappear into seemingly thin air. Meanwhile, the spotted girl tried to draw closer to the akuma, sending out her weapon frequently to try and restrain him.

The battle was mesmerizing. Briefly. Jason wondered if this is what his tussles with the Rogues looked like to the outside view. He got lost in what felt like rehearsed choreography between the three.

He was so lost in the combative dance that he didn’t even notice the beam coming right at him.

“Look out!” The spotted heroine yelled. When he didn’t move fast enough, she dove towards him, slamming his body to the ground. The beam went sailing over them, taking out a nearby dumpster.

The girl scrambled to get back on her feet. As Jason got up as well, he noticed her hand clamped tightly around her other wrist.

“Did you hurt your wrist?” he asked, drawing closer in concern.

“I’m fine!” The heroine backed away as if to keep him from touching her. “But you better get out here J—random tourist!”

With that, the girl sprinted away back towards the fight.

When the fight finally ended, Jason made his way back to Marinette’s. The two spoke a bit and made plans to tour the Louvre another day. However, if the boy was being honest, he didn’t remember a word of what was said. He was too distracted wondering how on earth Ladybug (whose name he got from Marinette) knew he was a tourist. He supposed that as one of the sole heroes of Paris she might know all the citizens’ faces, but that seemed like a stretch in a city as large as the City of Lights.

Jason wouldn’t admit it, but he was extremely excited when Marinette informed him that she would be visiting him in Gotham. After he had left Paris, the two stayed in contact via video call, but it just wasn’t the same. Plus, despite Wayne Manor being filled with rooms, his brothers always seemed to find a way to find and annoy him when he was on the phone with his soulmate.

As soon as his family had found out about his soulmate, his brothers haven’t stopped bothering him about her. Dick keeps trying to give him romance advice, Tim wants to background check her, and Damian, in all his preteen glory, refuses to believe there could be someone out the willing to deal with him. He also suggested that if they do exist that Bruce should throw them in jail immediately because they can’t be good news if they enjoy spending time with the likes of Jason.

So here he was, impatiently waiting in Gotham’s airport for Marinette’s plane to land. It had been a pain keeping his family from trying to pick her up with him, but he managed to convince them that their meeting would be more personal if it was just the two of them. (There were also a few threats throw in, but that’s neither here nor there.)

“Jason!” he heard a familiar voice yell. He got up from his seat and began moving towards the sound, where Marinette was running excitedly towards him, luggage in hand.

“Hey, Mari,” he wrapped his arms around her in a hug. “Glad you could make it,”

As she hugged him back, their soulmarks glowed once again. He swore he would never get used to the warmth that would fill his body during the strange phenomenon.

“Me too,” she replied letting go of the black-haired boy.

The two began to make their way towards the exit when there was a crash. At first, Jason was ready to ignore it but then a deranged laugh filled the air.

“Damn it,” Jason growled. He quickly pulled Marinette into a nearby storage room.

“Listen,” he said, using a serious tone the girl was unfamiliar with from him. “Joker is attacking, and I need you to promise me you will not move from this spot until the Bats deal with the situation.”

Marinette nodded her head. Jason knew her parents had made her research the Rogues Gallery extensively before she was allowed to even think about going to Gotham. She knew the Joker was no joke at all.

The black-haired boy looked down at his phone. He’d gotten several coded texts asking him to step in as Red Hood. He also had orders to only take care of the citizens and not go anywhere near Joker. He almost laughed to himself. Like hell was he going to suit up and not go for that stupid clown.

“I have to make sure someone pulled the Rogues alarm,” he bluffed “don’t move from this spot.”

Marinette gave him an angry look. “Why do you need to go back out there?! I’m sure someone else handled the alarm!”

“Some people would rather run and save their own hides than make sure others will get help.”

“This isn’t Paris, Jason! You could die and never come back.” She cried.

He laughed cruelly. “I’m more than aware of death, Marinette. I’ve lived in Gotham my entire life and I know how cruel this town is. I will be back, so please, just stay here until it’s over.”

Jason gave her what he hoped was a reassuring hug and walked out of the storage closet. He almost wanted to cry at the scared look in the girl’s eyes as he closed the door, but he wanted to make sure Joker wouldn’t get anywhere near where Marinette was hiding. To do that, he needed to be Red Hood.

With practiced stealth, Jason retrieved his suit from the car he had borrowed to pick up Marinette and suited up in the blink of an eye. Once ready, he loaded his guns with rubber bullets and kicked in the airport entrance.

“Hey, you, deranged clown!” He yelled, firing a few rounds at the Rogue’s lackeys. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Well, if it isn’t one of the Bat’s many sidekicks,” the clown cackled.

Red Hood gave an angry grunt. “I’m not the old man’s sidekick, you crazy shit head.”

The Joker gave an unnerving fake pout. “Didn’t Batsy ever teach you some manners?”

He began unloading his gun on the lackeys, trying (but not really) not to hit any vital organs. Suddenly, he heard a girl’s scream.

Red Hood froze in the middle of his barrage. That was definitely Marinette’s voice. Without warning, he went running off in her direction, not even thinking about the Rogue behind him.

When he got to the storage closet, the door was kicked in surrounded by Joker’s henchmen. He should have known that the deranged man would send men to look for hostages to take, but in his rush, he had forgotten about the Joker’s favorite trick.

“Back off,” he said angrily. He fired his gun at the nearest henchmen, using his careful aim to ensure he wouldn’t hurt Marinette.

He continued to fire off round until all the men were on the ground. Red Hood approached the door carefully, afraid he might spook the girl even more.

“Hey, they’re gone for now,” he said gently as he approached the girl tucked in the corner. “You should get out of here before any more come by.”

He held his hand out for her to stand when a thought crossed his mind. If their touch resulted at all in skin-on-skin contact, then their marks would probably start glowing, subsequently blowing his cover.

Red Hood quickly pulled his hand back before she could take it. Marinette gave him a strange look but said nothing on the matter.

“Thank you,” she said, voice shaking a bit. “This could be odd, but have you seen a man named Jason Todd? He was here with me before he ran off to call in help. He never came back and I’m getting really worried—” the girl continued to ramble before he cut her off.

“I know who you’re talking about. Don’t worry about him, I sent him outside with the rest of the citizens and he told me to look out for you. That’s how I knew you were here,” he lied easily.

The girl breathed a quick sigh of relief before shuffling out of the closet and running quickly to the nearest exit.

That girl was going to be the death of him. Red Hood shook his head before heading off towards where he had left the Joker. The damned clown was going to get it for messing with his time with Marinette.

Red Hood sighed. It wasn’t often he got dragged to a Justice League meeting. As one of the more reckless vigilantes of Gotham, he was often left out of official business. However, all members were informed that there would be a special event tonight, so his siblings all pushed him into attending.

“Thank you, friends, for coming tonight.” Wonder Woman addressed the group. “I apologize for the late notice, but a matter of great importance has been brought to us.”

The Amazonian stood tall in front of them, as though threatening anyone who would dare not listen to her. “May I introduce to you, the current Guardian, Ladybug.”

As the familiar spotted heroine walked into the room, Red Hood’s mouth was slightly agape under his helmet. After he was sent to observe the Parisian heroes a year ago, he had been told that the Justice League would not yet be intervening in the matter as they were not equipped to deal with such magics.

It seems the situation had changed because before him stood the hero of Paris herself, the Miraculous Ladybug.

“Hello, everyone,” she said. “I am Ladybug, and I, along with my partner Chat Noir, have been defending Paris from the villain Hawkmoth for several years now. It has gotten to the point where we no longer feel able to handle the situation ourselves, and we greatly appreciate the help and training the Justice League will provide.”

Murmurs filled the room. Most of the younger members had no idea there was even a supervillain in Paris.

Wonder Woman said a few more words on the matter before everyone began to move around the room to socialize. After a moment of debating, Red Hood made the choice to approach Ladybug.

“Hello,” he said with an awkward chuckle. “I’m Red Hood, vigilante from Gotham,”

“Ladybug,” the heroine replied, “hero from Paris.”

As the two reached forward to shake hands, someone pushed Red Hood forward. In an effort to right himself, he hit his exposed wrist into his companion’s face.

“Oh shit, I’m so—” he began before getting cut off by a glow from his wrist. His eyes widened in shock and he quickly flitted his gave to Ladybug’s also glowing wrist, though it seemed dimmer through the fabric of her suit.

“Mari—” he was cut off again by Ladybug’s hand over his mouth.

“Don’t you dare say it,” she threatened.

He lifted her hand away from his face.

“All I’m gonna say is that this strangely makes a lot of sense.”

[themaribatpit]

Hanging by a Thread: Chapter 4

Rated M: DC canon-typical violence, suggestive threats, alcohol (drink responsibly)

Author’s Note: Thank you to @rebecarojas07 for calmly and patiently trying to explain American things to us in the comments of the last chapter.  

Content Warning: Adrien/Chat Noir salt, mostly references to his actions in Syren, there will also be some Chloe and Lila salt.   All for the purposes of making Marinette’s own self doubt and angst clear.  This is going to be a very angst-heavy chapter, you have been warned.  

Ships: Jason Todd/Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Dick Grayson/Barbara Gordon (side ship).

Taglist:

@aespades​, @neakco, @ladybug-182, @seraphichana, @zalladane, @luminous-carrot, @jayjayspixiepop, @cap-noodles, @livelifeauthorstyle, @thepaceperson, @moongoddesskiana, @vroomtaka, @laurcad123,  @prettylittlebutterflie, @twsssmlmaa

Chapter 3 - Chapter 5

Chapter 4

On one of the nights she went out searching, Marinette found the Red Hood perched on a rooftop next to a gargoyle.  A gargoyle that was probably looking a lot less serious than he was at that moment.  There was no doubt as to how they found each other.  It was how they found each other at the warehouse, at the dockyards, and now here on a rooftop. She slowly approached him from behind. “I know you’re behind me.” spoke the Red Hood without turning his head to look behind him. Ladybug froze as the Red Hood addressed her, as if he had eyes on the back of his head.  Ladybug remained silent, unsure of how she should proceed, until Red Hood broke the ice. “Y’know I wonder, how you always seem to find me no matter what. It’s almost as if you have some kind of Me Detector.”  Ladybug stuttered, trying to think of an answer. She grew silent and looked down. He looked towards her ”You don't have to answer, I figured it out. You can see the red thread that ties us together as well, right?” she nodded her head.    “Only way you seem to find me each time. I’ve been able to see it for as long as I can remember, what about you?” He asked. 

“Me too, I was always able to see it, and it went grey when you...” Marinette said, as if she still found it hard to believe that such a thing could happen to someone.  “Did anyone ever tell you how I died?” he asked. Marinette looked away, as she tried to hide the look on her face.  “Yes,” she answered meekly.  She sighed and shook her head, trying to remember why she went looking for him at all.  She took a couple of steps closer towards him.  “What matters is I wanna help,” she said. “Why? You don’t even know half of what I’ve been through.”  he growled, he turned to face her.  His helmet was still on, but his low harsh voice made his emotions very clear at that moment.

“Then tell me,” she said calmly, “trust me I’ve dealt with people who gave into their negative emotions, I can help you.” She had come too far to give up now, and she wasn’t about to turn back over something that she could help him with.  “Not like this,” he said, “listen to me when I say the boy you got matched with died that night.  He died because he was an idiot, who got himself killed by a psychotic clown.”  Was she supposed to turn back and abandon him now? Should she have just settled for someone else back in Paris?  The answers were no and absolutely not.  The person who stood before her might not have been the person she had imagined her soulmate to be, but she didn’t have the heart to abandon him now.  She could help him, whatever it was she was sure that she could find a way to help him, maybe with Tikki and Plagg’s help.  If what she was told about him was true, then he surely understood what they both went through in the past.  They both became crime fighters at a young age, they were thrust into situations where the fate of their world rested on their shoulders.  They were alike in a lot of ways that neither of them realised.  

"Please tell me, let me help you Jason." she begged.

"Do. Not. Call. Me. That." He growled and stomped towards Ladybug, their faces mere centimetres apart. "So who was it that told you? Was it Dick? Babs? The old man?"

Jason knew it would take a lot more than that to push her away, but he had to.  Even as Robin was still inside him,  railing against the bars that kept that part of him caged.  But he was dead in every meaningful sense of the word, and in his place was a cursed monster.  For both their sakes, he was trying to keep Ladybug at arm’s length, he was nothing like the gaudy rogues gallery she dealt with back in Paris.  A part of him wanted her help, but he doubted that neither she nor her fairy pals had any idea what they were dealing with.  To top it off, she was probably already under the Bat clan’s protection.  They weren’t even on the same side, so that added another complication into their already tangled bond.  He looked up at her and there it was again, that wide eyed sad look on her face.  Jason tried not to look at it for too long, no matter how much it made his heart ache to do so.  “What would it take for you to leave me alone?” he asked, “Want me to cut my own foot off?”

“I’m not even sure it’s that easy,” she said “I was always told that it will stretch and tangle, but never break.  That and it goes grey if one of us dies, that’s all I know.” “Look, I don’t wanna hurt you, Pixie,” he told her, “even I have limits.”. “Oh yeah? And what are they?  Am I just small fry to you, is that it?” she asked, Ladybug looked away as tears began to form in her eyes.  “Are you just disappointed to find out that I’m your soulmate?”

Marinette had come too far only to be told no, and no one has given her a clear answer as to why she couldn’t help him.  It seemed to be something more than the fact that he was a crime boss.  What brought her here in the first place was the fact that their soulmate bond had reignited.  It was truly at that moment where the two sides of herself felt like they were merging.   Marinette was trying to make sense of what everyone was telling her.  There was a reason why even he was refusing to let her at least try to help him. Ladybug would have been able to fix this problem in no time at all, while Marinette was on a gargoyle adorned rooftop begging her soulmate to let her help him.  

She barely noticed that the Red Hood was suddenly standing very close to her, she felt a gloved hand tilt her chin up to look at him.  She was still looking into the two white lights in his helmet.  “Do yourself a favour, and get as far away from here as you can.” he told her in a low but gentler voice, “I’m telling you this because you’re my soulmate, I don’t want you getting hurt because of me. You got that?” he let go of her and turned away, going back to the spot he was perched on. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.” she said whilst on the verge of tears, and with a twirl of her yo-yo she swung away into the night. Jason tried to ignore the ache in his chest, he was telling himself that he had to keep her away from him.  He was already used to not being trusted, but at that moment her sincerity and kindness were just too much for him.  There were other people out there who were far more deserving of it.  If she got too close to him, too close to the flame that was only stoked by the Lazarus pit, she would only get burned.  He already knew he would never forgive himself if she got hurt, their soulmate bond would probably just end up adding salt to that wound.  In a way he was starting to see why they were bound together, that’s what made it hurt even more.  They were very different people, that much was obvious. Maybe the divine being that bound them together thought it would be funny in a “opposites attract” kind of way.  Unfortunately for him, one of the things they had in common was that they were both very stubborn people.  That became clear when he realised it would take a whole lot more to get her to stay away from him. Over the next few days, Marinette threw herself into her design work, trying to take her mind off of her encounters with her soulmate.  Tikki was looking increasingly worried as she avoided talking about it, preferring to stay up all through the night working on her design projects.  Her designs tended towards soft fabrics and pastel colours. It was possible this was an attempt to avoid thinking about a certain someone who wore a red helmet and was dressed in Kevlar and leather. 

One night, Marinette got a text from Zoe, telling her that they were going out drinking with some friends.  She invited Marinete to join her, and she thought a night out would help take her mind off things.  As she looked through her wardrobe for something to wear, Tikki tried to approach her.  “Marinette, we need to talk,” she said, looking over at Plagg who was more interested in devouring the slice of camembert that Marinette had given him. ”You’ve been busy lately, and I just wanted to know if you were okay.” she said.

“I’m fine, what’s there to talk about?” Marinette said flippantly, holding the two different dresses up to her body as she decided which one to wear.  She didn’t want to talk about her soulmate, or even the mountain of work that she had just completed.  She wanted to go out and have some fun with her friends.  

“It’s just that you seemed distraught by what happened, we tried to warn you not to get your hopes up...” Tikki began. “I’m fine,” Marinette said in a harsher tone of voice, “I don’t want to talk about it.” “Marinette, it's probably for the best, we...”

“I said I didn’t want to talk about it!” Marinette snapped, “I came all this way to find my soulmate, only to find that my soulmate doesn’t want anything to do with me.  You were right Tikki, I should have just stayed home in Paris, is that what you wanted to hear?” Tikki looked to Plagg for help, but Plagg didn’t say anything in response.  “Listen Marinette, maybe whoever tied you two together made a mistake. Maybe this Red Hood is right and it will only end in tragedy. ” “Choosing me to wield the Ladybug Miraculous, hell, choosing me as your Guardian could have also been a mistake. Did you think of that?” Marinette argued.

“That was different, you proved yourself to be worthy of the Miraculous.” Tikki piped up, “This boy...”

“What? I’m good enough to wield magic jewelry but I’m not good enough for a guy who isn’t Chat Noir?” Marinette argued. “No!” Tikki cried, “I meant that this person might not be worthy of you.  Our magic, it did something to him, Marinette.  I can sense it, I can’t quite put my finger on it but something is wrong here.”

“I know, I have spent my teenage years fighting people who have been turned into supervillains because of their negative emotions!  Why should this be any different?” Marinette yelled.  “I managed to do it mostly by myself, with a partner who would rather spend most of the battle joking around and getting in the way!”  Marinette was getting heated, but she had far too much pent up emotion to care at that moment.  “And the way he would go on and on about us being soulmates, I hated it. Now I hate it even more because now I know for certain that he was wrong.” Marinette recalled. If she was still in Paris, she might worry about an Akuma finding her in this state.  

“You became a hero to help those people! It’s why you were suited to become a Guardian.” Tikki said.  Marinette wondered what good those powers were to her now? What was the point in being a hero who couldn’t save people? “I wouldn’t know,” Marinette spat bitterly, “right now I just remember you telling me that I had to be the perfect Ladybug, and an even better Guardian.”  It was true in a way, she already knew that Ladybug was perfect while Marinette was not.  Ladybug was confident, strong, and smart, she was able to save the day with nothing but her wits and whatever tool Tikki gave her to improvise with.  Marinette was the one who got bullied by Chloe and Lila, and Adrien did nothing to stop them.  Their adoration for Ladybug added salt to the wound, at times it almost made Marinette despise her other persona.  “You don’t mean that,” Tikki said before she turned to Plagg, “Plagg, say something, please.” she begged. “I mean, she certainly took it a lot more seriously. One time Chat Noir threatened to take off his Miraculous if I didn’t tell him a secret Ladybug was keeping at the time.” he said flippantly, before devouring the last of the cheese.  “Only thing that stopped him was Master Fu showing up with a potion.” He recalled, there was a silence that followed.  Plagg looked up and saw the two of them staring back at him.  Tikki looked shocked by the revelation, while Marinette looked absolutely livid.  “So I couldn’t do anything, step one foot out of line without you,” she pointed at Tikki, “breathing down my neck about being perfect.” she said in a harsh voice that was seething with rage, “Meanwhile, Chat Noir threatened to just toss the Miraculous aside and Plagg drew the line at being blackmailed into revealing a secret that was not mine to tell?”  Marinette’s fists were clenched tightly, her knuckles were bone white, and Tikki was a little afraid of her. “Marinette, please...” Tikki begged. “No,” Marinette growled, as she took off the Ladybug earrings and slammed them into the Miracle Box. She didn’t want to hear what Tikki had to say to her at that moment.  She was going to go out and have a nice night with her friends, where she wouldn’t have to think about any of this.  She stuffed them back into the box, before she looked over at the pink and white polka dotted dress that was strewn over her bed.  

There were two kinds of people who went to bars that didn't card: college students and legally dead people.  Jason was in the latter group, and long before that, he knew the location of every bar in Gotham that wouldn't card him.   Right now, he was trying to enjoy a few cold beers by himself.   It was usually quiet, he could sit, drink and drown out the the memory of the sad look in his soulmate's eyes whenever it flashed in his mind.  It was probably for the best, at least that's what Jason told himself.  Even if she was a superhero herself, what worried him the most was showing her the full force of what the Lazarus pits turned him into.  He didn't even think her fairy friends knew about that, the League of Assassins certainly didn't see it coming.

A small group of college aged girls made their way into the bar.  Out of the corner of his eye, the group looked like they were about to form a rainbow.  He heard a mixture of English, French and Italian bubbling from their little group. He looked over to see that among them, there was a brunette dressed all in black and grey,  a blonde with dyed pink streaks in her hair, and a dark haired girl in a pink dress.  They were a colourful bunch of people, probably Gotham University students on a night out.  One of them went to go and get the first round of drinks while the others gathered round a table in a separate booth.   Sometimes Jason would look over and his eyes would fall on the girl in the pink dress, who was now holding a glass of wine in her hand.  He told himself it was because she happened to be facing towards him.  If he stared too long, the blonde next to her might notice and point it out to her.  So he looked away, taking a deep drink from his own bottle.  

Zoe’s invitation couldn't have come at a better time.  Marinette drank deeply from her wine glass, as she tried to enjoy herself and drown out the argument she had with Tikki.  She took her role as Ladybug and Guardian of the Miraculous seriously, it infuriated her that the person she considered her partner didn't feel the same way.   She tried to drown out the possibility that not only had Master Fu chosen wrong, but that whoever had chosen her soulmate had too.  At the very least, her soulmate seemed to think so too.  Maybe it would be easier to throw the Miracle Box into Gotham Bay and hope that it would take her memories with it.

By the time Marinette was a couple of glasses deep into her efforts, Zoe leaned in to whisper something to Marinette.  "That guy's been staring at you for the past 15 minutes now." Zoe told her.  Marinette was pulled from her thoughts, as she looked over at Zoe.  

"What guy?" Marinette asked.

"Okay don't look now, but he's literally right in front of you." Zoe told her, "I'm sure he'll buy you another glass of wine if you bat your eyelashes at him."  Marinette playfully pushed Zoe away.  As she took another sip of wine, she looked over the rim of her glass at the guy Zoe pointed out to her.  Across the room, she could see the guy had dark hair framing a very sharp and angular face.  He wore a leather jacket, dark jeans and a t-shirt, he was certainly handsome, she'll give him that.  She wasn't going to just walk right up to him and ask him to buy her a drink.  

"He looks all right," Marinette said, trying to ignore Zoe's raised eyebrow.

Just as the other guy was getting ready to buy another drink, Zoe saw her chance.  She grabbed Marinette by the shoulders and pushed her towards the guy staring at her.  As the two ploughed towards the bar, people stepped back to give them a clear path towards the man sitting by the counter. 

Jason turned back around, curious at the ruckus behind him. Both Marinette and Jason froze as their eyes met, the two looked down to see the red string of fate. Zoe took this as a good sign, maybe this was love at first sight. As the two remained silent, Zoe nudged Marinette. When that didn't work, she dragged Marinette by the wrist and sat her down on the nearby stool.  Zoe then gave Marinette a light tap on the shoulder, a wink and a thumbs up before going back to her group of friends.

[night-fallz]

We’re Tired of Him

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Wally interrupts game night.

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Ao3 // Wattpad

previous II next

We’re Tired of Him (part 2)

Dick stared at the cards in front of him, eyes tentatively drifting to Tim and Jason.

Jason’s brows were furrowed before he slowly put down a +4, cheekily grinning at Tim. “I choose red.”

Tim’s face was blank, eyes switching from the stack of cards on the table to the ones that he was holding. In the end, he gave Dick a mischievous grin, putting down another +4. “I want green.”

Dick groaned and the cave was filled with his brothers’ laughter, they gave each other a high five while Dick grabbed 8 cards from the deck.

“You guys are cheating.” he accused.

Jason shrugged and Tim raised an eyebrow, neither one saying anything.

Jason had five cards left and Tim had three. Dick would be winning if it wasn’t for that stupid +8 trick they pulled off.

He put down a green card, leaving him with nine cards.

“Uno,” Tim called out, not flinching when Dick glared at him.

No one said anything for a few seconds until Dick’s voice cut through the silence. “I don’t want to play anymore.”

Tim gaped at him, “That’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair is the fact that the two of you are conspiring against me.”

“We are not!”

“Are too.”

“Are not.”

“Are too!”

“Jason, tell Dick that we weren’t cheating.”

Jason stared back at the two of them, unimpressed. “We weren’t cheating.”

Tim gave him a victorious look. As if he was trying to say, see. Jason agrees that we weren’t cheating, so we obviously aren’t cheating.

“That doesn’t prove anything.” Dick cried out, “Why would Jason admit that you guys were cheating?”

Jason frowned, “Are you accusing me of lying?”

“Yes!”

“That’s not very nice of you, Dickie.”

“I don’t care if it’s not nice of me. You’re cheating and I don’t want to play with a bunch of cheaters.”

Laughter filled the air and Dick turned towards it, launching himself towards the intruder.

Behind him, Tim took a defensive position, bo staff in his hand and Jason had his guns out, ready to shoot the intruder.

With rubber bullets, of course.

The intruder groaned in pain, “Well, at least I know that it doesn’t matter how old you are. You’re still a very sore loser.”

Dick glanced down, getting off the person when he realized who it was. “Sorry, Wally.” he apologized, offering his hand to pull the red-head up.

Tim frowned, “What are you doing here?”

“Yeah,” Dick added on. “Didn’t you guys have a mission or something?”

Wally sped over to the closest chair and sat on it, “Yeah, but we finished it pretty quickly.”

Wally’s eyes were focused on his hands and Tim followed the speedster’s gaze, noticing how they seemed to fidget.

Tim inwardly frowned, was there a problem or something. Everyone in the Justice League knew that the Batcave was off limits. And even then, they didn’t make an effort to try and enter it.

Wally was lucky that Dick was here or else Batman would’ve had to deal with him.

Thankfully, Jason spoke up, “There better be an emergency or something cause it's game night. And you just interrupted it.”

Wally opened his mouth, “You know Damian right?”

Tim stared at Wally, “Yeah, we know Damian. He’s our brother, you idiot.”

“No- I mean- like- I-“ Wally sighed, “I know he’s your brother, it’s just-“ he groaned, “I don’t know how to explain it.”

Tim wanted to groan as well. This was supposed to be game night. A bonding experience. He didn’t want to talk about Damian.

He would be lying if he said that he still didn’t harbor a grudge against the youngest member of the Wayne family.

When Jason tried to kill him, he was under the influence of the Lazarus Pit. And afterward, he apologized to Tim.

As far as Tim knew, Damian wasn’t under the influence of anything. All Damian said was something about how Tim wasn’t worthy of becoming the Wayne heir and tried to slice him with a sword.

Bruce said that he had a talk with Damian about it but the brat never apologized, so Tim hasn’t forgiven him.

Dick’s voice snapped Tim out of his thoughts, “Did Damian do something again?”

“Kind of.” Wally waved it off, “He was just acting like- well, himself.”

Tim winced, that was still pretty bad.

“What did he do?”

“It’s not important.”

“It must be pretty important if you risked going to the Batcave.” Jason pointed out.

“That’s actually not why I’m here.”

It was Jason’s turn to frown. None of this shit was making sense.

He knew that he should’ve just stayed with Roy.

Jason was under the impression that they would be playing games. You know, hanging out, making a mess, being forced to bond like brothers and all that shit.

He didn’t want to talk about the demon brat.

And if anyone asked, the answer was yes. He was still mad at the little Christmas gift Damian got him last Christmas.

What the fuck gave the kid the idea to give Jason a crowbar as a gift?

Jason still had nightmares about his death. The crowbar did nothing but made those horrors come more often every night.

He fought off the shiver that threatened to make its way upon his body.

“If you weren’t here to talk about the demon, then what did you want to talk about?”

Wally faced them, “You wouldn’t happen to know a way to get the bra- Damian to relax would you?”

Jason heard Tim snort at the question, “Trust me. If we knew a permanent way to get Damian to stop being so uptight, we would’ve used it by now.”

He studied the speedster, narrowing his eyes when Wally started to avoid their gaze.

“Wally,” Dick was using his i-am-the-leader-so-you-have-to-listen-to-me voice. “What are you trying to say?”

“I mean, what if we get him drunk.”

Jason blinked, “You want to get Damian drunk.”

When Wally nodded, Jason continued, practically yelling. “Why the fuck would you want to get Damian drunk? He’s gonna kill you.”

Tim shook his head, his mind already coming up with a million scenarios of how this would end up. “How did you even come up with the idea that getting Damian drunk would help him relax?”

“Getting him drunk won’t help him relax at all.” Jason pointed out, “It’ll probably only make him even more uptight and paranoid.”

Jason’s blue eyes glinted with something Tim couldn’t decipher, “Unless that’s not what you’re after. You want to get the brat drunk for another reason.”

Wally nervously nodded, “You caught me. Well us- I guess. The team and I wanted your permission to get Damian drunk so that we can learn more about him and gain blackmail material on him.”

Tim froze, mouth open in shock.

That was a lot of information.

Dick sat down, his head beginning to hurt.

He could see the appeal in learning more about Damian. He’s been living in the manor for around two years now and they still don’t know much about him.

If Damian opens up about his past, then it’ll be easier for the family to help him. It’ll be nice for Damian to start getting comfortable with people. After all, that was the whole reason that Bruce signed him up for school.

And who knows, maybe his baby bird could make a new friend or two. Cause Dick knows full well that he doesn’t have any at the moment.

The cave was engulfed with silence, except for the sound of Wally’s feet nervously tapping the floor.

In the end, the speedster himself was the one who cut through it. “So…” Wally’s voice trailed off, “Do I have your permission?”

Tim’s eyes were focused on the ground. “I don’t care what you do to the brat but I want to be in the tower when it happens.”

Wally smirked, nodding in acceptance. “Deal,” he turned to the others “What about you guys?”

Dick shifted uncomfortably in the chair, his back was stiff and Tim could see how conflicted his eyes were. With a little bit of probing, he knew that he could convince his oldest brother to agree to Wally’s demands.

“Come on Dick,” Tim said, his lips tugging upwards. “Aren’t you even remotely curious about what Damian will say?”

When Dick doesn’t answer, Tim continued. “You know that Damian has a hard time with, um, interacting with people. This is probably the only way we’ll get him to open up.”

He could see the gears turning in Dick’s head and Tim realized that he was so close. All he had to do was push a little more.

“Doesn’t Damian deserve it? Damian deserves people who understand him. People that’ll be there for him. Hasn’t Talia fucked up his life enough?”

Dick clenched his fists at the mention of the Al Ghul, “Fine.” He spat out, “But only because Damian needs this.”

Tim raised an eyebrow at him, not believing a word. “Alright.”

Dick wasn’t stupid. He knew that Tim was trying to manipulate him into agreeing. But it also doesn’t change the fact that his brother was right.

Talia did mess up Damian’s life. She was the reason that he hasn’t opened up to anyone yet. Why he was treated like such an outcast with the other capes.

If all Dick had to do was get his little brother drunk, then he would do it.

Tim turned to his predecessor, “And you Jason?” he asked. His head was tilted innocently but his eyes were calculating him.

Jason knew he would be outnumbered if he disagreed. It also doesn’t help that Tim had his I-can-get-you-to-agree-with-anything-face on.

He groaned in defeat, burying his face with his hands. He knew that he should’ve stayed with Roy tonight. After this, he would never go to a game night again.

He looked at Tim’s determined face and sighed, “I’m not gonna be able to stop any of you anyway. I’m in as well.” his lips formed a smirk, “It won’t hurt to gain blackmail material on the brat.”

Damian better watch out because the next time he puts a crowbar underneath his pillow, Jason was gonna send the video of him being drunk out of his mind to everyone that he was in contact with.

Jason knows that Tim would help him.

“So you all agree?”

“Yes.”

“You’re agreeing to getting your brother drunk.”

“Yes.”

“Huh, okay. Great.”

Wally’s face turns mischievous and it reminds Dick of when they were kids. Back when they just started with the whole vigilante thing.

“So are you guys free for the rest of the night?”

“Wait,” realization hit Tim like the brick that Steph threw at him. “You guys are planning on doing this tonight?”

Wally nods, “Well, yeah. The sooner the better you know?”

“And when exactly did you guys come up with this plan?”

Wally rubbed the back of his neck, “Like about two hours ago? We were just talking and it escalated from there.”

Tim doesn’t know how you can go from talking to conspiring an idea on getting a teammate drunk. At least, not unless-

“You know, you can admit that you were talking about Damian.” Tim leaned forward, “You guys aren’t the only ones that talk badly about him.”

“Tim!” Dick cried incredulously, “You shouldn’t talk about Damian like that.”

He shrugged in response, “You do it too.” he said, “Remember when you first met him?”

He felt his face turning red and he turned away from Tim, hoping he wouldn’t see his face. “That was a long time ago.”

“You were also complaining about him yesterday.”

“I was not.”

“Was too.”

Tim folded his arms, “So you’re a sore loser and a liar.”

Dick fought hard to suppress a groan, “You guys were cheating.” he cried out. “I don’t play with cheaters.”

Jason faced Wally. “What they’re trying to say is that yes. We’re all free tonight.”

Wally smiled brightly. “I knew that you guys would be okay with this.”

Jason nodded, deciding he should be nice for once and not point out how Wally pale and nervous the speedster was before he asked the question.

For someone with super speed, Wally took way too long to get to the point.

He could see why he was friends with Dick.

“You know,” Wally’s tone got Dick’s attention. It was the one he always used where he wanted to embarrass someone. And Dick was usually the target. “I remember you hacking the Mario Kart back when we used to play.”

“Did I?” he put on his best confused face, “I don’t remember that ever happening.”

Dick definitely remembered that happening. He beat a speedster at a racing game. Hacked or not, he was still the winner.

Tim pointed an accusatory finger at him, “I knew it. You’re the cheater.”

Jason shook his head in agreement, “Dickface over here has the biggest competitive streak. Remember when he put the steak in his shorts just so he could prove to everyone that he was Titus’s favorite?”

Dick forced a frown on his face, “Funny thing is, I don’t remember that happening. At all.”

“That took place two days ago!”

“I have bad memory…?” he meekly offered.

Tim scoffed, “We’re never having a game night with you again.”

“You say that every week.” Jason pointed out.

“Well, I’m serious this time.”

“Uh-huh.”

Tim didn’t like the amount of attention that was now focused on him so he turned to Wally, “So how are we going to get Damian drunk?”

“We were just gonna spike his drink.”

Tim swore, “You can’t just spike Damian’s drink. He’s gonna figure out that you guys are acting weird and realize what you’re doing.”

Wally fidgeted under Tim’s scrutinizing gaze, “Well what do you suggest we do?”

Tim smirked and Dick swears that the room just got colder.

“The kid is pretty much a prodigy at everything vigilante related thanks to his training, but he sucks at socializing.”

“Well, yeah. Isn’t that why we want to get him drunk?” Wally asked, not seeing the point in what Tim is trying to see.

Tim answered the redhead's question with a “Well, yes.” before continuing at his attempt to tell everyone his plan.

“But what I’m trying to say is that we can overwhelm him. Me and Jason will help set everything up in the tower and Dick will bring Damian there.”

“So we’re throwing a party?”

Tim furrowed his eyebrows, “I mean, if that’s what you want to call it, then yes.”

It was Dick’s turn to frown, “Why do I have to be the one to bring him in?”

“Cause he likes you better than any of us.”

“But still,” Dick groaned. “It’s gonna be so hard to convince him.”

“That sounds more like a you problem than it sounds like an us problem.”

“This is unfair.”

“Call it paying me and Jason back for accusing us of cheating.”

Before Dick could reply, Wally sped away, taking his brothers with him. And before he could even blink, they disappeared via zeta tube.

They left Dick alone in the cave, with the board games still out.

He rolls his eyes in annoyance, mumbling under his breath as he cleaned up the mess.

“Who gave Bruce the idea to adopt more children past me. If he wanted more children, why couldn’t he make sure that he got the ones that cleaned up after themselves and didn’t cheat while playing UNO.”

He huffed, proud of himself when he accomplished the task.

Now all he had to do was convince Damian to come back to the Titans’ tower so that they could help him.

How hard could that be?

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

note: okay, I reread this whole series so that I could get inspired to write this chapter. And can I just say, my writing was not as bad as I thought it was. Like I’m actually pretty proud of myself. 

That was really random but yeah.

(like I always ask, please comment any ideas, feedback, and criticism that you have. i love reading them. Oh! and if you see any spelling errors, please tell me. I don't have a beta reader so I mostly miss those things.)

[multifandomgirl-us]

First - Jason Todd

AU where you have a clock counting your time back till you die.

It made no sense. He was supposed to have more time. His clock said he had another 60 years or so. How is that to make sense when you are burying him at this moment? When the quiet sobs and cries of all who knew him can be heard in your surroundings. His death made no sense to you at all. It gave you no time to prepare like others had. At least everyone else that had passed away in your life followed their clocks, but not Jason. He always did have to be the first to do things you guessed. The first to be your friend, the first to try and steal Batman’s tires, the first person to take care of you, the first boy you loved, the first male you knew you could trust, and now the first person known to the modern world to defy their clock. 

As his casket was slowly lowered into the ground, your sobs grew stronger and Bruce’s grip on your shoulder tightened. His own way of showing his grief you guessed. As dirt was added on Jason’s grave, you watched with your blurry eyesight. A blur… that was a great way to describe the events that occurred the rest of the day. A day filled with almost as much sorrow as the day you found out Jason had passed. 

Jason wasn’t supposed to be out at this time. He was supposed to be helping you train. A sort of punishment instilled upon him by Bruce for disobeying Bruce’s orders. But as you went down to the cave to meet him to train, he was leaving on his bike. Heading to god knows where and only a note left for you to read. 

‘Left to help Bruce, we’ll train later’

You were hoping Jason wouldn’t lie to you but you had a feeling that he wasn’t telling the truth. So, you hopped onto the comms and paged over to Bruce to ask him.

“Did you call Jason out to patrol with you? I thought he was grounded,” you questioned.

“He is grounded! Go get Alfred, and tell him to scan for Jason’s location,” Bruce answered, confirming your suspicions.

“On it Bruce!”

You rushed up and into the kitchen, where you thought you would find Alfred but no luck. Your little legs could not go very fast but you used your top speed in order to find the self-proclaimed butler. As your legs carried you passed Jason’s room, you stopped, excited and relieved that you had finally found Alfred.

“Alfred! Bruce needs you to scan for Jason’s location, Jason snuck out!” The man followed you down to the cave and immediately went to look for your best friend. As soon as Jason’s location was pinged, he sent the coordinates to Bruce. You were just hoping that nothing had happened to Jason. He was reckless and jumped into situations without ever assessing the area. You knew one day it would get him hurt or worse yet killed and unfortunately for you and everyone else, today was that day. All you remember is Bruce getting to the warehouse, a large explosion, and you crumpling to the ground, tears clouding your vision. 

Apparently crying was all that you could do anymore, you felt helpless, useless even. The next few days after the funeral Bruce was gone. Either in the cave or out on patrol, hunting Joker down. You remember being on call when he finally found the clown prince. You finally had hope that Jason could be avenged. That he could be at peace, knowing his killer was no longer able to hurt anyone, but to your dismay, Joker remained alive. Bruce simply put him in Arkham, like that has done any good. You were angry, furious even at the man you looked at as a father. His only response being “We don’t break code.” 

You knew getting angry wouldn’t do anything so you trained. Trained until you could take care of the problem yourself. Unlike Jason though, you were better at hiding your emotions. You followed Bruce’s orders, let him boss you around and make you the best you could be. Unknown to him was your plan to get rid of the Joker. You never wanted to kill anyone but for Jason you could make this one exception. The monster had taken your person away. Your plan was fool proof, until Bruce caught on. Which landed you where you were now.

His hand gently caressed your face as you sat in the gardens of the manor, wiping away the tears that fell down your face. You sniffled as you looked into his eyes. These tears were different from those you had been shedding. These were tears of joy, joy over you waking up from the nightmare of a world in which he was no longer with you. You hear him ask ‘What’s wrong?’ but as you try to answer, nothing comes out of your mouth. You try again and still nothing comes out. Slowly, his hand disappears from your face and he is slipping away from you once more. You try to scream but again, nothing can be heard. Your mouth can be seen making the movements of you trying to call out Jason’s name over and over, but once again...silence”

You gasped awake trying to scream once more but then you realize you are no longer in the garden. You were in your cell at Arkham, put there by a man who you thought would get why you were trying to go against the code. The code that got your best friend killed. The code that he refused to break even though it cost him a child, a partner, your best friend. 

You realized it was just a dream, a wonderful dream that brought you out of your current nightmare. As you let your heart calm itself, you laid facing the ceiling, and wished that you could go back into the dream world. Maybe you could act crazy enough so the guards would sedate you and you can go back there. As you contemplated how you were going to slip back into your dream state, grunts and gun fire interrupted you. The shouts of your fellow inmates soon took over though, screaming at whoever it was to get them out. You sat up, curious to see just who it was that caused such a disturbance and ruined you going back into your dream land. Although the shouts of your neighbors were loud, you could still pick out a pair of boots, stomping their way towards your cell. Two shots went off at what you were assuming was the lock to your cell from how close it sounded. You crept toward the door just wondering why this person was so interested in breaking you out and just who it was. The door swung open revealing a tall muscular figure with a red helmet on and a clock reading 00:00:00:00. 

“Who are you?” you yelled at the strange figure. They simply stepped toward you with a syringe while you backed away from them. All of a sudden, they lunged at you, trying to inject whatever it was into your system. You fought back and forth which ended with you pinned against the wall, arm across your throat and needle in your neck. The plunger was pushed down and soon the dark cell which contained you turned completely black. 

“Jason! Where are you?” your little voice echoed in the damp.

“Shhh! Get over here!” Jason whisper-yelled to you. As you turned the corner, a sleek black vehicle you recognized to be the batmobile sat in the ally. 

“Jason are you crazy! You are seriously stealing the tires off of the batmobile?”

“Yeah, imagine what these will go for! I’m sure the guy can afford it anyways.”

“Ahem.” The sound of the deep voiced vigilante was heard behind you and your immediate thought was “Oh, shit!” You quickly turned around, ready to do what you could in order to give Jason time to run even though that would be pointless. Only this time when you turned around, it wasn’t the outline of Batman with street lights illuminating his background, it was just darkness. Darkness surrounded you and suddenly there was nothing below your feet. You fell through a black void. No destination in sight or anything to grab onto so you could slow down your fall, just darkness. You tried to scream, but like with most of your dreams, it was useless. Nothing came out and…

“Ugh,” a small grunt left your lips as you felt the bed that you just got tossed on bounce with your weight. The impact had woken you out of your daze only for you to realize that both your hands and feet were bound and the person who had taken you out of your cell was going through a bag that was sitting on a table about 5 feet away from the bed. 

“Morning,” you barely heard come from the figure in your daze.

“Who are you and what do you want?” you yelled at the Kevlar covered man.

“Oh princess, you don’t get to know that quite yet. You are just gonna have to be patient,” his deep voice resonated through your ears as he headed for the door. The door clicked close and the deadbolt was set. After he left, you worked on getting out of your constraints. The knots were done well, so well you almost gave up. But you didn’t know what this creep wanted and you did not want to find out. 

You had no clue as to when the man was going to reappear but you wanted to be ready in case he came back early. You quickly went for the knife sitting on the table but as you picked it up, you froze. Underneath the knife was a picture of you and Jason. 'Why would a stranger have this?' You asked yourself. Now you were curious and knew the only way to get answers was to dig around, so that's what you did. You opened every drawer and sorted through all the cabinets and when you got to one that was locked, you picked the lock to find not only more pictures of you and Jason, but also of the manor, Bruce, and Alfred. With all that, was your criminal record, the most recent being attempted murder. You should be sorry but the clown had it coming and you still seek revenge for what happened.

"You always were a snoop," his deep voice startled you out of whatever was going on in your mind. 

"So you know me, you know who the Batman is...who are you?" Maybe it was the drugs he had given you before but the only explanation should be impossible.

"I think you know princess."

"No, it's impossible. How can…"

"Thank Ra's. He put me in the lazarus pit."

"Jason...I" at this point you were almost in tears. You hesitantly reached up, eager to see his face. He bent his head down in order to help you out and to signify he was okay with revealing himself to you. As you brought the helmet down off his face, he brought his head up and his eyes met yours. As soon as those green orbs looked into your own, you launched at him with arms open to give him a hug. You had finally gotten your best friend back.

[choco-glow]

Day of the Dead (Robin)

April 27th.

The bed shifted, creaked as Bruce dragged himself up out of the comfort of his way too expensive (and totally worth it) mattress, followed reluctantly by an equally exhausted Selina. He insisted she use the bathroom first, taking that time to rub his face and scalp, forcing himself into an alertness that he didn’t feel…and Bruce ignored his constantly buzzing phone. He could hear Alfred puttering around in his own room down the hall, Damian’s near silent footsteps alongside his dog’s as the youngest Wayne limped down to let Titus out. Tim…Bruce sighed, knowing that Tim one of two places; passed out in the chair in front of the computer down in the cave, or passed out on the couch in the library, his laptop on the floor.

Either way, he was sleeping, most likely, and Bruce was going to take advantage of that.

“Hey.” He glanced up, and the smile on his lips was small, but real; she looked so good leaning against the doorway in nothing but her underwear and one of his old band tees, tousled hair sticking to her forehead from her shower, a sweet smile on her face, those familiar green-blue eyes always so dark in the morning. Bruce dragged himself upright to wrap her up in his arms, hugging her tight, and Selina melted against him, nuzzling his cheek. “Bruce…”

“Thank you for staying…” He murmured, gratitude thick in his voice, and she patted his bicep, popping up on her tiptoes to kiss his nose.

“Of course, sweetheart. Go wash up and get dressed, I’ll head down and help Alfred with breakfast?”

“Selina, you don’t have to…” She shook her head, chuckling, and he chuckled back, ignoring his impulse to just turn away and go brood. Brooding wouldn’t help today…

“I want to. I know what today is…and why it’s so hard.” He ducked his head, swallowing his next word, and she cupped his cheek. “Bruce. I mean it. Jason…” He lifted his head, blue eyes tired but crinkled from a weary smile.

“I miss him.”

“I do too. Go on. We’ll be waiting for you.” He nodded, and after a lingering kiss, despite Cat’s aversion to morning breath, Bruce let her go. The shower was hot enough to wash away some of the pain from his shoulder and upper back, and after washing up, he carefully redressed the bandage on his thigh, then pulled on a pair of old jeans and a tee shirt. It was Saturday, thankfully, so Bruce didn’t have to worry about a suit, and making his way down the stairs, he was glad to see visitors…especially these visitors.

Four years…four years, he’s been gone now. His heart twinged, but Bruce didn’t have to hold up a mask around Dick, who hugged him tight as soon as his first Robin saw him, nor around Barb, who he knelt to hug as well. Steph looked a little lost, a little nervous to be here, and Bruce hugged her too, whispering thanks to her as he’d done to the rest, and if Steph hugged his waist a little harder, her voice a little thick…well, Bruce wasn’t going to tell.

“Father, Alfred the cat is most worried about you.” Bruce paused as he set Steph back on her feet, turning to face Damian, who was holding his purring tuxedo cat and looking concerned…and Bruce couldn’t help the tiny, choked sob, because Damian looked so much like Jason at that age, his whole being focused on “comfort father”.

“So I see. May I hold him?” Damian nodded, and Bruce gently took the cat, smiling as Alfred bumped noses with him and settled on his shoulder, purring deeper still. “Thank you, Damian…”

“This is an auspicious day; we need all the comfort we can receive…” He murmured, and Bruce hugged his youngest tight, tears spilling over now…and Damian hugged him back, clinging to him tight.

“That’s…that’s true…c’mon everyone, we better get into the kitchen before Alfred the butler and Selina yell at us.” He murmured, and Dick chuckled while Barb smiled and took the lead. Damian pulled away from the hug, but not from Bruce, and they walked in hand in hand, taking comfort from one another. Jason’s photo, the last one taken two weeks before he died, was sitting on the counter, as always, with a candle lit…and the new addition of a tin can with the label meticulously soaked off, full of dandelions, and Bruce paused by it, lips twitching up in a fond smile.

“Master Bruce, I hope you don’t mind…I wanted…well…I remember Jason making those bouquets for us when he was a child…” Alfred murmured, and Bruce just pulled him into a hug, tears running hot down his cheeks now.

“I can’t think of a better thing…It’s perfect. Best bunch of flowers that’s ever entered this house.” They all shared a laugh at that, though Selina, Steph, and Damian looked a little confused, and it was Dick who explained, his voice warm and fond as he remembered all the times Jason would prowl the Wayne grounds, plucking dandelions and purple clovers, filling an old coffee can or tin can full to the brim and bringing them back to the house to share, his smile bright and happy.

“…At first, we offered him the flowers from the garden, and Jason just shook his head, looking scared, and said that he got in trouble for pulling those. No one cared about the wildflowers.”

“Oh, what a sweetheart…” Selina breathed, and Bruce and Alfred settled at the table at last, which prompted Dick to pass them the plate of pancakes and motion to fill up.

“He really was…c’mon, let’s eat, best way to remember our boy.”

“Here here! And whatever we do, avoid Buzzfeed today.” Barb raised her OJ in a toast, and Bruce closed his eyes with a sigh.

“God, I hate Buzzfeed…”

“Same here, old man. Same here.”

—-

Six months I’ve been back, and not a Bat to bother me. Jason settled in for a quiet Saturday morning, and ignored cable for a change; he knew what was going to be all over the news today, and he, for one, didn’t want to hear yet another poignant portrayal of his death. At least Bruce wouldn’t be out in public today; he’d learned that from running through the old news stories from the last few years, and frankly, Jason was grateful for it. It…meant that Bruce at least care enough to mourn him. Even if the goddamn Joker is still alive…

He sighed, and pushed away the anger he still felt at that fact, and pulled out his guns, then pulled up YouTube on his TV. He scrolled through his usual recommended list, feeling…restless and a little out of his element; it was the first death day he’d spent back in Gotham, and his normal goofy favorites just…weren’t going to cut it. Then he saw the one video he didn’t expect to see.

Buzzfeed Unsolved: Jason Todd, Wayne or Robin?

A grin split his face.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

—-

“Welcome to Buzzfeed Unsolved. I’m Ryan Bergera, and this is Shane Madej. Today, we are covering the mysterious deaths of two important people in the deadly metropolis that is Gotham City…or are we?”

“Wait, what?”

“Jason Todd Wayne, the adopted son of billionaire Bruce Wayne, and the second Boy Wonder, Robin, both of whom disappeared the same day, April 27th…and have never been heard from again.”

“Ryan, you said it was one murder!”

“And therein lays our mystery, because the more you hear details of the case, the more you wonder if these two boys were really the same person.”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh…I smell a conspiracy!”

“Shane, you smell lunch.”

“And a conspiracy! C’mon, out with details, gimme something, Bergera.”

“Hold your freakin’ horses, dude, lemme go over things…” Jason watched with unconcealed delight as he disassembled his pistol, cleaning each part as Ryan laid out the admittedly sparse facts of the case; of course, Jason knew the truth, but he was frankly somewhat impressed with the story that Bruce and Alfred had concocted. Of course, they couldn’t say the Joker beat him to death with a crowbar and blew up a building on him ( and even Bruce couldn’t have guessed that Talia al Ghul had stolen his corpse from the morgue, gave them an equally beaten dead kid to bury, and dumped his ass in the Lazarus Pit). But the story of Jason being killed as a hit out on the Wayne family was all too likely.

Batman had a lot of enemies.

Bruce Wayne had a lot more.

“No one was ever charged for Jason’s murder…here’s the last video of the press conference where Bruce explains things.”

“…Jesus, he’s barely keeping it together…I know he’s a billionaire, but he’s got a lot of heart…poor guy…”

“Yeah…I know we tend to fuck around on this channel, but…this kid died. Pretty badly, from what the evidence shows.”

“Man…so, you said there were theories, right?”

“Yeah, and they only get worse from here.”

“Well, we started the program with a dead kid; can’t get any worse than that.” Jason paused the video and just…stared at Bruce’s face, the tears on his cheeks, his exhausted appearance…and sighed a little.

“Sorry Dad…”

—-

“Theory number one: Dick Grayson killed Jason Todd out of jealousy. It was rumored that the brothers didn't get along and Dick and his father didn't have a good relationship when Jason came to the household.” Jason’s eyes narrowed at that one; whoever thought up that crock of shit had another thing coming. Sure, he and Dick had bickered like brothers, but at the end of the day, Dick was his brother from another mother. Even now, even with everything that had happened…Jason missed those hugs something fierce.

“I mean, that’s a pretty cut and dry one…”

“So it would seem…but if you look at the interviews, there’s nothing in Dick’s demeanor that shows any resentment or anger. And both Jason and Dick were orphaned at early ages and adopted by Bruce, so…”

“Yeah, I dunno. It’s cut and dry, but…at the same time, it doesn’t really make sense.”

“Especially given that Dick every year celebrates Jason’s birthday; I mean, killers can be weird, we know that from the last several seasons, but…I dunno. It doesn’t really fit.”

“Probably some asshole detective looking to close it up.”

“Probably…”

“On to number two!”

—-

“Bruce Wayne killed Jason Todd. This was, actually, the first big conspiracy theory to hit the web. Thankfully, it quickly died when people saw just how devastated Bruce was for months after his death, but apparently there are still some trolls on public forums who accuse Bruce Wayne of killing his son.”

“…That’s utter bullshit. Fuckers.”

“Right there with ya, buddy. Right there with ya. Onto three?”

“Please.”

—-

“Jason isn't dead, because of sightings of a homeless boy who wandered all around Crime Alley and looked exactly like Jason Todd. He was completely battered and bruised and suddenly disappeared after a year in the streets, likely due to a trafficking ring.” Jason raised an eyebrow at that, and turned his AK, Shane and Ryan’s incredulousness a comfort. He wasn’t sure why he was still watching this, but…it was kinda nice. Nice to have people be pissed off for his sake.

“Jesus Christ, Gotham, y’all are so dark.”

“May be why their superhero is Batman, dude.”

“STILL. Could this one have some merit, though, since he was an orphan?”

“This one is one of the strongest theories to date, because Jason was from a place called the Narrows, not far from Crime Alley, and according to Wayne Enterprises official documentation in their family museum, Jason had had issues with drugs and abuse, though to what extent, only the family knows. It’s a pretty ugly idea, but…it’s possible.”

“I think I’d rather be dead, Ryan, than go through that.”

“Same. Same…”

—

“Now. We move onto the disappearance of the second Robin, who vanished the same day that Jason Todd supposedly died. Possible theories of the disappearance of the second boy wonder—”

“Ryan. Ryan. Buddy. Champ. Are you implying, really, that Jason and Robin are the same kid?!”

“I’m just reading the script!”

“You wrote the script!”

“…I may be implying that they’re the same, yes.”

“I KNEW IT.”

“You don’t know shit.” Jason started laughing, and paused to get himself a fresh beer, ordering pizza while he was at it. Alright, this wasn’t so bad after all…

—

“He is hiding. Some say he hid from Batman, and some say Batman is hiding him from others. They don't know what, though. Some even say he quit the job.”

“Alright, I’ll bite, who’s ‘some’.”

“Paparazzi, conspiracy theorists, Alex Jones, etc…”

“Ah yes. The enlightened crowd.”

“Pftt…This is the weakest one, so we’ll go ahead and lay out the second theory while we’re at it. The second Robin died. After Robin stopped appearing with batman for an entire year, the same time Jason Todd died. This used to be a widely spread theory, until people realized maybe talking about the death of a boy in a terrorist attack for a conspiracy theory after his father broke down in public isn't the nicest thing to do.”

“And this is your theory.”

“This…is the strongest one I think, and the one that has the most emotional punch. But let’s be real; if the second Robin was indeed Jason Todd, then his Batman HAS to be Bruce Wayne. And c’mon. We’ve all seen the nightmare surrounding THAT theory.”

“Uh, yeah. No thanks, I do not ever need to write another “But the butts don’t match” article ever again in my life.” Jason snorted at that, cracking up laughing, and when he googled “The Butts don’t match”, he had to pause his boys because the ensuing hyena laugh had him flat on his back for ten minutes, absolutely losing his shit.

“Oh Christ, I love the internet…”

—-

“Next theory. He’s a kid, he took a break from vigilante-ing to do something else.”

“Now see, I like this one; that’s like, the most wholesome version. I hope this is the real one, but…”

“I know, man. I know.”

“Sigh.”

“Sigh.”

—-

“Almost there. Some people believe the second and the third Robin are the same, although many people disagree, considering witness reports that they looked very different, and the Robins were very distinctive in their fighting style and personalities.” Jason snorted at that, shoveling a slice of pizza into his gullet, and even the boys were looking a bit annoyed at that theory, Shane more than Ryan.

“Question.”

“Yes?”

“How the hell do they know about fighting styles?!”

“Gotham City Police.”

“Oh. Well, that makes sense now.”

“Also, apparently Commissioner Gordon likes the third Robin more, which tells me they’re definitely not the same.”

“Yeah, if anyone other than Batman would know, he would. What’s next?”

“This one is kinda great, but also a bit outrageous.”

“Ooooh, juicy. Spill the beans, Bergera!”

—-

“Some even believe that the second Robin is now the infamous Red Hood. Gothamites have been known to try to stalk the dude but it's never successful, and supposedly, even the Batfam won’t bother him.”

“I mean, that’s a cool story, but how true is it?”

“Considering the guy wears a red freakin’ helmet with eyeholes and no mouth, who knows how true it is?”

“Still a nicer story than the butts. And hey, Red Hood is pretty chill, man, I think he’s probably the best thing to hit Gotham in years.”

“You’re a Hoodie!”

“The fuck is a ‘Hoodie?”

“Red Hood groupie.”

“Uh, hell no, I just think he’s cool.”

“Uh huh…Well, folks, that ties up our deep dive into the murder of Jason Todd, and the disappearance of the second Robin. To date, this case remains…Unsolved.” As the quiet music that ushered in the ending screen and credits, Jason sat back, working his second slice of pizza, and chuckled a little to himself. If only they knew…well. His people knew who he was; old man Falcone figured it out the second day Jason had been home. The Narrows had welcomed their boy back…And they weren’t gonna tell anyone. They didn’t trust Gothamites, they didn’t trust the Bats…which was why Jason had carved out his place here again, with gunfire and brutal justice. They trusted him.

He turned YouTube over to something mindless, and padded over to the window, feeling the sunshine, weak though it was, break through the clouds and warm his skin. Jason leaned against the familiar brick, and opened the window, letting in a rush of cool air, reminiscent of spring.

It was good to be home.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Alt Ending, Part 6

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Tag: @solangelo252

“I’ll just write one scene”

Good news! It wasn’t acid!

Bad news! It was so much worse!

Marinette had apparently learned nothing from the last time she’d been thrown into painful green liquid. That thing about holding your breath? Yeah, that doesn’t work when you were screaming your whole way down. It also didn’t help that she backflopped and whatever air she’d managed to hold onto left her with a gasp right before she was submerged in the cold green.

Of course, the lack of oxygen was the least of her worries.

Every wound she’d ever gotten had reopened, one at a time.

Burns her hands from the times she’d helped her family in the bakery. Skin got sloughed off her elbows and knees from years of trips and pushes. Her nose cracked under a kickball gone awry. A hole slowly tore itself into her cheek from how often she bit at it.

But that wasn’t the worst part. If it had just been that, she would have been fine. She inched through the water between gasps for air as the Lazarus waters churned to keep her head under, searching desperately for shore through all the green, but it wasn’t to be. She was distracted by the end of the first minute by a whole new world of pain.

She had forgotten about most of the akuma stuff. Call it selective memory or repression or whatever, but now it was coming back in literally excruciating detail. All the times she had missed jumps on patrols and snapped another part of her leg in half. Her trademark yoyo’s string dug into the skin of her fingers, threatening to cut off her fingers and even occasionally managing. A mind controlled Chat’s Cataclysm, setting every cell in her arm alight before killing them entirely.

Levity came in the form of being a Gotham vigilante. At that point punches and kicks and slaps and even the odd slash with a knife were nothing in comparison to a Cataclysm --.

A chunk was torn out of her side and she cried out. The bullet buried itself in her, that wasn’t what hurt the most. The area around the bullet was torn to shreds and steaming and generally just everything skin should not be doing.

She knelt in the water and pressed her hand to the wound, taking deep breaths of the green for the first time in a while and remembering that that was a bad idea when her vision threatened to go black.

No time to think about that, though!

She was mercilessly pulled back to her old pains as she felt something cold pressed to the side of her head. A blade dug under the skin, pushing down and sawing through the cartilage of her ears, taking the pinna with it. The last sounds she ever properly heard were the screams tearing themselves from her throat. Fingers scraped the wounds as she begged and pleaded for him to stop, digging into the frayed skin and fractured bones until it pulled out its prize.

The acid was back. It ate at her skin and pushed itself down her throat and into where her ears had been and sept into every inch of her until she could feel nothing except for pain. Every nerve ending screamed for an end to it, for death to take her finally.

And then it was gone. And she, foolishly, hoped it was over. After all, that was a perfectly viable death. She could have absolutely died in that moment, the acid could have dissolved everything of use or suffocated her until her body finally gave out.

But then came the thirst.

And, somehow, the thirst was the worst part.

At least with everything else it was something she had dealt with, it was things she knew she could get through. She’d done it before, she’d endured it, and that was fine. But the hunger was different. She’d spent those last few days completely out of it. Mostly lost in a world where her problem was less the fact that she was slowly dying of dehydration and more that everyone in her life thought she was stupid and useless and more trouble than she was worth.

And she almost missed that. Her constant nightmares had made her more or less numb to that by this point.

Instead, she felt the slow gnawing at what the acid had left of her stomach. Her throat torn to shreds, her mouth hopelessly dry despite the water that she was drowning in. The fatigue taking over every part of her until she could no longer fight against the pit holding her under. Every cell in her body seemed to give out, one by one. They knew it was useless, that she was useless, that there was no point in hoping SHE of all people could get her hands on it in time. Lidded eyes slowly, painfully, raised to look at the shore only a few feet away. She tried to force herself to grab onto something beneath her despite the fact that she was shaking so badly she knew it was impossible, tried to drag herself the last bit…

She slumped forward, gone before her head had even hit the bottom.

~

She woke up to fingers trailing through her hair, slowly and gently pulling knots out of damp locks.

And then they pulled their hands out.

She was allowed to roll off the person’s lap to cough and sputter and gasp until the bulk of the water was out of her lungs. Even after she’d managed to expel it, she felt weak and shaky. She refused to move out of the position she was in, forehead pressed to the cool rock in the cave, knees tucked under her, hands covering the back of her neck and head protectively. She couldn’t care less that she was touching her own lung water, that there was still a steady trail dripping from her parted lips. At least when she was like this she didn’t have to face whatever had happened to her in the time since she’d passed out.

“Marinette?” Said Damian from somewhere near her, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it.

She gave him a cough as an answer.

She took one last, shaky breath of semi-fresh air and then forced her eyes open.

Yep, that was a puddle of lung water. She looked down at the rock beneath her, taking in the ugly green tint that the waters cast upon it.

The shivering wouldn’t stop. She didn’t know whether it was her weak muscles or the intense cold that had soaked into her bones.

A hand rested upon her back and she forced herself to look over at Duke. He looked at her, concern etched in every line of his green face.

Wait, green?

She blinked a few times to try and get the last of the water that would be in her eyes out, but it didn’t seem to be getting any better. Frustrated, she brought her hands up to try and rub the green out.

It wasn’t working.

She rubbed harder, started trying to almost pull off her skin and might have even popped her eyes out if hands hadn’t caught her wrists and pulled them away from her face.

She looked up at Damian for a few minutes, taking in the odd tint in her vision that made his skin a sickly color. She felt like up, but there didn’t seem to be anything in her stomach to throw up with.

“How’re you feeling?” Asked Damian carefully, still not releasing her.

Her irritation spiked and she wrenched her hands free. “Fine, thanks.” She had to tear the short words from her throat, it was raw and scratchy and she hated speaking but she continued on regardless: “I’m not a civvie, Dami, you don’t have to pretend like you care.”

He reeled back like he’d been slapped -- well, no, she’d seen him take far more than a slap without flinching, but you get the point -- and she couldn’t find it in herself to care.

Still, she forced a “sorry” through tight lips. He hardly seemed perturbed by just how fake the apology was, probably used to it considering he had as many siblings as he had, and left to go talk to his mother.

She flopped back onto the stone despite the fact that it was too cold, that SHE was too cold, and just laid there. She glared at some stalactites on the ceiling like they had personally offended her.

Duke’s face carefully poked its way into her vision and she looked up at him for a minute before sighing and reaching a hand towards him. He got the idea, locking his hand with hers and pulling her to shaky feet. She leaned against him heavily, head resting against his shoulder.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t realize… I didn’t think it would be that bad...”

She shook her head slightly against his shoulder and he let himself trail off.

Damian and Talia were speaking in Arabic. Marinette couldn’t translate most of it, but she got the general gist. Damian was saying thanks over and over again (one of the few words she’d managed to catch onto in Arabic outside of swears) and Talia’s hand motions assured that it was fine. Damian hesitated slightly before wrapping his mother in a hug and, though she tensed up at first and seemed unsure what to do, she carefully returned it.

Marinette felt like she was intruding. Her gaze fell to the floor.

Oh. Someone had taken her miraculous off of her, she realized as she looked down at herself. She wore one of Jason’s hoodies and a pair of Cass’s old sweatpants, both stolen from their owners. A hand came up to touch her hair and she noted absently that it was still pushed out of her face with a cloth headband from when she was doing her skincare routine right before the incident with the Rogues. It was like nothing had ever happened.

Honestly, it was almost weird to see casual clothes on herself rather than the swing-style dress she’d been wearing for who knows how long --.

Huh. She wondered if Kaalki was okay. She hoped so, she would have felt awful if the kwami had gotten hurt because of overuse.

She looked at Duke to ask, and found him stressing over something on his phone. She tried to peek over his shoulder and pouted when he angled the phone away and continued to type out a message.

“Dukeeeeeeee. Duke. Duke. Duuuuuke. Duke. Duke,” she whined to be annoying.

He didn’t answer outside of moving the hand on her shoulder up to cover her mouth. She licked his hand and saw disgust flicker across his face before he brought his hand up to try and wipe her spit off on her forehead. She recoiled and pressed back against the offending hand, holding him off.

They continued on like this for a good minute before Damian sidled up between them and forced them apart.

“You’re both children.”

Marinette huffed a little and clung onto him, partially to be annoying and partially because she still felt horribly weak and cold. He seemed annoyed but he supported her weight as they started walking back through the compound.

“Dami, you’re the youngest one here. If we’re children what does that make you?”

“A baby,” said Duke, pocketing his phone.

Damian’s face burned red and he clicked his tongue. “I’m hardly younger than either of you.”

“Three months is a long time,” Marinette said wisely.

“Three years is even longer,” Duke said, even wiser.

A scowl made its way across the least wise person’s face. “Why do I put up with either of you?”

“Because you love us,” said Marinette just as Duke said “Because you’re a softy”.

Duke grinned and held up a hand for her to high five and she did so, only to regret it when she was forced to remember that there had been spit on that hand. He smirked at her disgust. She vaguely considered murder.

Duke’s amusement slowly disappeared and he looked at Damian. “They’re on their way. Should get here within a few hours.”

Damian cringed.

Marinette buried her face in his shoulder and closed her eyes, considering everything. She doubted that when they said ‘they’ they weren’t including Bruce. Even if she didn’t have her quick and easy murder method anymore, she could still be deadly. Then again, she would have to fight off however many batfamily members just to get to him and by the point she did so -- IF she even did so -- she would be exhausted and easy for Bruce to subdue.

Hm. It was worth a shot, at least.

~

Marinette stared at the suitcase on the ground. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Mari, you look dead on your feet -- don’t laugh I’m being serious -- and if anyone saw us walking you through town... it would be bad.”

Her slight smile at the unintentional joke slipped into a frown as she bit the inside of her cheek. “What if I say I have trauma related to suitcases?”

“Considering you’ve already been in it and we just watched all your trauma -- or, at least, all the things you would consider to be trauma -- play out, I’m going to have to say I don’t quite believe you.”

A dark look passed over her face and, for a moment, she swore the world looked just a little more green.

But, then, she held her hands out and let them tie them off with some rope.

(Of course, she knew how to get out of it, but it would be a pain and, really, what would she do if she could get out? Suitcases aren’t exactly easy to get out of from the inside.)

“Sorry about this, Mari,” said Duke.

She hummed her understanding.

They closed the suitcase over her. Without a giant dress in the way, it was actually a pretty roomy space. Still, it took a lot of shifting to find a position where her bony knees and elbows didn’t dig into her. This didn’t last long. Now that she didn’t have the warmth of another person she was unbearably cold. Bony limbs be damned, she wasn’t going to freeze to death in a suitcase of all things.

Once she stopped shifting around they started walking. She rested her head against the suitcase, eyes struggling to remain open, and found they were talking about food in the areas around them. She wanted food. She told them so. There was a beat where they stilled and then Damian promised to get her something.

Alright. So they could hear her in there. That took away the calling the police option, but that didn’t matter much.

Out of boredom, she pulled her phone from her pocket and clicked it on. To her surprise, it actually worked.

She stared at the home screen for a moment. She and Jason were flipping off the camera while Tim looked on, unamused. She’d used to think the picture was cute. Now, though, with her vision tinted green and the knowledge of what she was going to do... she found tears springing to her eyes. She looked at the screen for just a second longer to check the time -- 15:00 -- and then turned the phone around and used it as a light.

With nothing else to do as she waited for things to pan out the way she wanted, she examined herself. It was weird to look at her hands and see them in perfect shape. Old scars from the oven and repeated punching without proper protection on her knuckles and lines from her yoyo were all gone. No hint of anything that had ever happened to her. It felt weird. Like she wasn’t really herself anymore.

She tripped out on that for a while until she heard voices.

Alright, go time.

She slipped her phone back into her pocket. She doubted anyone would think to check her for one.

She carefully pulled her headband down and slipped it in her mouth, then knotted the fabric behind her head a few times until it was so tight it almost hurt.

Marinette took a deep breath and then started screaming through her makeshift gag.

Three things happened in rapid succession: the light chatter around the three of them petered out, Duke swore loudly, and then the bats broke into a run.

Despite their best efforts, though, they got caught. It’s kind of hard to run and do parkour when you’re toting along a suitcase, especially if you don’t want to hurt the person inside. The suitcase rolled to a stop and she could hear mad scrambling as Duke and Damian struggled to get away without risking their civilian identities.

Marinette squeezed her eyes shut and started thinking.

The bats were going to hate her for this. She was going to have to actually put in effort to die now instead of having an instant death via taking off her miraculous. Harley probably didn’t know that she was still alive (or, rather, around, because the ‘alive’ thing was very recent) and Marinette couldn’t even be sure she cared.

Tears sprang to her eyes. Good, good. Keep thinking about that.

Harley was going to be so pissed at her for taking so long. Harley would always love Joker more than her. Harley was probably just using her for her own gain. Harley didn’t care about her and never would, or at least not in the way Marinette so desperately wanted her to.

By the time the suitcase was opened Marinette was full on sobbing. The sudden influx of light certainly didn’t help the situation.

She whimpered and shielded her eyes despite wanting oh-so-desperately to step out into the sun and bask in its rays for the first time since before Harley.

Some god must have been listening to her for once, because a pair of hands carefully lifted her out of the suitcase. She slowly, almost reluctantly, looked up at her ‘savior’. The kind-looking woman had moved to block most of the sunlight and the little parts that escaped surrounded her head like a halo. Marinette gave her a wet smile as her gag and the rope binding her hands were removed.

The woman spoke to her in Arabic and, though she didn’t understand any of it, the soft edge to her voice made her feel so safe. Marinette choked out a sob and allowed the woman to gather her into a hug.

Briefly, her gaze lifted from the woman’s shoulder and she saw Damian and Duke getting held back by some random citizens. If the civilians had seen the watery smile on her face they would have thought it was just happiness at finally be saved. The two bats knew better, the slightly sour looks on their faces told her so.

A hand came up to run through her hair and she buried her face in the woman’s shoulder as she began to cry even harder.

~

The officer was holding Duke and Damian at gunpoint as two citizens worked at trying to cuff them. He only put his gun back in its holster after he was sure that they weren’t going to be running anytime soon.

Marinette didn’t know for sure what the cop thought was going on, but she had a few guesses. After all, she worked in law enforcement too, however unofficially. If she’d seen someone in her state -- clothes hanging off her too-thin frame and shaking like a leaf after being pulled out of a suitcase -- she would have instantly assumed trafficking or, at the very least, kidnapping.

Knowing what the officer was expecting, she also knew exactly how to play into that idea. Really, the boys had had no chance.

“She’s our sister!” Damian tried to argue.

The officer, Ali, looked at the three of them with a skeptical frown. Damian might have passed as her family, they were both mixed white and chinese (he was also part arab, but half-siblings exist), but Duke definitely couldn’t.

“Did you know these men before… all of this, ma’am?”

She sniffled and brought a hand up to swipe under her eyes. Technically, if she were actually a trafficking victim, the answer would have probably been ‘yes’, most trafficking cases started out on the victim’s terms. She also knew that, when victims were truthful about this, they often got thrown into jail for prostitution. She didn’t feel like getting thrown in a cell.

“N-no. I was just going to work and they -- and they --,” she cut herself off, dissolving into sobs.

Ali pulled her into a hug and she tried to ignore the fact that his hand was definitely too low.

She could practically FEEL Damian and Duke’s annoyance. This looked bad for them, all three of the present bats knew it, and the real explanation wouldn’t be believed.

The two boys were filed into the back of a police car and Marinette was allowed to sit shotgun.

The cop offered her a shock blanket and, despite not being in shock, she took it. She was so unbearably cold despite her thick layers and the fact that it was the middle of summer.

She watched the cop walk around the car to the driver’s seat and everything was quiet as they started off towards the police station.

“You’re an asshole, Mari,” Duke said in French.

She glanced at the cop, but he just looked confused. Fair enough. English was a pretty common second language around the world because of business and tourism, but no one learned French if they didn’t have to.

She gave a wet laugh. “Yeah.”

The cop frowned. “What are they saying?”

She waved him off. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not!”

She fought back a bit of laughter and turned in her seat to look at the two of them. “What’d you boys really expect?”

“You’ve never tried to leave before, forgive us for thinking that wouldn’t change. It’s called…” Damian frowned for a moment before finding the term he needed: “Learned helplessness.”

“Tell me you didn’t pay attention in psychology without telling me. Learned helplessness is where you try a bunch of different things and nothing works so you learn not to try again. I never tried anything.”

“Oh so NOW she knows about psychological trauma,” complained Duke.

A true frown made its way across her face. “I’ve always known about psychological trauma. It was Hawkmoth’s whole thing in Paris.”

“She knows intellectually, she’s just woefully unable to apply the teachings to herself,” said Damian.

Marinette scowled at him. “Harley. Didn’t. Traumatize. Me.”

All she got were two eyerolls and she huffed, turning back around in her seat and crossing her arms. The boys switched languages and, after checking to make sure she didn’t understand, started chatting.

She slowly started to nod off, head resting against the center console. She was without her normal coffee, and she kind of regretted not waiting for Duke and Damian to get food before enacting her plan, and she’d more or less cried herself out earlier…

The only thing keeping her from sleeping was Ali’s hand, resting right on top of her head. She wanted to think it was innocent. In her experience, cops almost never were.

The chattering cut off when they came to a stop and she slowly lifted her head up and looked around, expecting a police station. Instead, she found a normal red light (or, at least, she was pretty sure that it was red, her vision was still tinted green). She frowned a little and turned to look at Duke and Damian…

They had disappeared from the backseat.

She shot up and hissed a curse. Of course they could break out of police cars -- now that she was thinking about it, she was pretty sure Duke had mentioned doing it before.

Ali looked back and she saw his face change from calm to confused to annoyed. He tried to smooth his expression back into a neutral one and assure her that everything was fine, but she didn’t really care about him anymore.

She reached into his belt and pulled his gun out of its holster. Safety off. Finger on the trigger. Evade the hand trying to take it away. Push him back with a foot until he’s pressed against a window. Check that he can’t move much. Point at his head.

“Thanks for the help,” she chirped. “Or, at least, for trying.”

She pulled the trigger.

Blood and gore splattered everywhere. Point blank range always had that effect. The shock blanket managed to keep most of it off of her, but some got on her face and in her hair.

She thought she’d be more disgusted. If not with herself then at least with the blood. Instead, she reached a hand up slowly to rest over where the blood had hit. It was… warm. She hadn’t expected that she could ever feel warm again.

She slowly looked at the body. It was gushing blood all over her foot and she found she almost didn’t care. She almost found herself smiling. It was soaking through her old sneakers, warming her in a way nothing else had since she'd been dunked in the Pit.

And then the color… kwami. It wasn’t green, it wasn’t brown or black like what normally happens when you mixed red and green, it was RED.

A sickening smile finally made its way across her face.

The screaming started. She pulled herself from her haze, released the body and watched it slump. Right. This was going to suck if she got arrested.

She shed her blanket and leaned over the body, checking for and taking everything she could use. Taser. Extra bullets. A baton. Tear gas. Wallet…

Yeah, that was everything, she was pretty sure. She, reluctantly, wiped the still-wet blood off her hands to pull her hood up and cover her splattered face and then slipped out the door. No one stopped her -- probably because of the gun in her hands -- and she was allowed to disappear down an alley.

Alright. She was free.

She wasn’t FREE free, obviously, the bats would find her eventually. But she had some time out. What should she do first?

… she should probably get the blood off. Getting arrested would suck.

She slipped out the other side of the alley and started weaving her way through the city in search of a gas station. There were a good amount in Tibet, so it didn’t take too long to find one. She ducked into it to wash the remaining blood off her face and hands and, after being prompted to buy something by a clerk in return for being allowed the pleasure of using their dingy bathrooms, bought a tiny bag of chips.

Then she was back to walking aimlessly. She made sure to switch directions often, occasionally even going back the way she’d just come. The less predictable her movements the better.

She nibbled at the chips as she went. She’d only bought them to get the cashier off her ass, but she actually was pretty hungry. She had to fight herself not to scarf the entire thing down.

Right, basic needs have been met, what next?

She pulled her phone from her pocket and checked the time. 20:00. The bats were definitely in the city.

She hesitated slightly. They probably assumed her phone was dead, even she had, so they probably hadn’t started tracking her yet…

She swallowed back her fear. She needed to do this before one of the bats realized and actually started tracking her.

A few clicks later, she was pressing her phone to her ear.

It didn’t even ring once before she got an answer: “Marinette?”

“Maman,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

Marinette could practically hear the way her mother’s shoulders slumped in relief. She rested her head back against the wall, tears springing to her eyes for what felt like the millionth time that day.

“We thought you were…” Her mother didn’t dare complete the thought aloud.

Marinette held back the ‘Well, I was, but I got better’ that was on the tip of her tongue. Her mother didn’t know about her activities as Ladybug and she was never going to. Marinette took a vow to protect when she started heroism, and that definitely extended to her parents.

“I’m alive. Surprise,” she said after a moment’s consideration.

Sabine gave a little laugh and Marinette didn’t care if it was forced because it was HERS. A sob built in her throat.

“I hope you know you owe me more explanation than just that, young lady. It’s almost been a year! Your father and I --.” Sabine stopped herself and softened her tone. “We’ve been so worried. Are you okay?”

She swallowed thickly. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m... fine. And… I can’t explain, there’s just so much and… yeah. It’s fine, I’m fine, everything’s fine. I just needed to hear your voice again.”

Her mother hesitated. “That sounds an awful lot like you’re about to disappear again.”

“I am,” she confirmed, because lying would hurt her mother more in the long run. Still, she almost wished that she could have lied because listening to her mother sob was almost unbearable. “I’m sorry. I can’t talk long. I just wanted to call and tell you guys that… that I’m okay. And that I love you.”

Her mother’s breath caught.

Marinette glared at the ground.

She waited for her mother to get her breathing under control.

“I love you, too, sweetie. Would you like to talk to Pere?”

She hesitated and then mumbled a no. She couldn’t. Talking to her mother was hard, but at least her mother was practical. Her mother knew that Marinette wasn’t going to change what she was doing. Her mother knew that Marinette was doing what she felt like she must.

Her father, though, her father would plead with her. He’d promise to protect her. He’d promise that she could come home, that they could deal with it together, that everything is easier to handle when you do it with others. And she just might believe him.

“Goodbye,” she whispered.

The phone slipped from her hand and she barely paid it any mind as it shattered on the concrete below.

She slowly slid to the ground beside her phone and rested her head in her hands. Tears that she’d been holding back since she started the call spilled from between her fingers. Her breath came to her in shaky gasps that were definitely not enough in the long run and her lungs hurt as she struggled for air between sobs but it was nothing compared to drowning in acid so she was fine.

No. Not fine. Fine implied that things were, if not going distinctly ‘well’, going vaguely in the right direction. Marinette felt like she’d seen a fork in a path and then ignored both choices in favor of whacking a new path through the forest. She knew, somewhere, that she was only getting further and further from where she’d originally intended and yet she couldn’t turn back. Because turning back would mean looking and seeing all the plants she’d killed on her way through the brush that hadn’t even needed to die and she couldn’t face that. She couldn’t. So she kept going. Kept praying that, somehow, she’d find her way back to the path.

So, no, ‘fine’ wasn’t the word. She was… she was dealing. She’d deal.

She took a few more deep, steadying breaths before picking her head up. She needed to leave. Tim would start tracking her soon, if he hadn’t already, and she couldn’t beat all the bats at once.

She chanced one more look at her phone. The call had disconnected and now she was staring at her home screen yet again. The picture of herself smiling at the camera with friends was cracked, her face lost in a spiderweb of broken glass.

Marinette took a deep breath and then brought her fist down on the phone. It shattered and went dark beneath her hand. Blood, warm and red, slowly dripped along her arm and she stuffed it in one of her pockets before she could start dripping on the ground.

She started aimlessly walking around again. She’d find a motel or something after a few hours. For now, she needed to be untraceable.

She knew she should take off her outfit. They were looking for someone in a hoodie and sweats. But she couldn’t. It was the last thing she had of either of them, of any of the bats. Even if they were on different sides, she still cared about them. She still found herself wanting them to be happy.

She just wanted Harley to be happier.

Which meant she was going to have to put some effort in.

She bit the inside of her cheek.

The bats would find her no matter what, it was a given. They had access to pretty much every camera in the world, access to satellites for the things they couldn’t see with the cameras. She could only evade them for so long. It wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when.

Which meant that she needed to be the one to decide on when. It would never be an even fight, they had years of experience on her, but she had infinitely better chances if she caught them off guard rather than the other way around. She had to find them before they could find her.

She’d have to go online at a library or something to see if Bruce Wayne came along. Him leaving without much notice would probably draw Vicky Vale’s attention and an article would be made.

If he hadn’t then she’d have to figure out a way back to America. This was the better option, she thought. They wouldn’t expect her to be able to get back easily without a passport and a limited amount of money, so she might just be able to sneak up on Bruce.

If he HAD come along she’d start checking out motels and hotels. He’d get a bunch of rooms that were right next to each other, preferably ones that were linked together. She’d have to check for rooms with the lights on and blinds closed. Painstaking, but it could work.

Of course, it was also very likely that Bruce had some sort of safehouse here, or that she just wouldn’t happen upon the right hotel, and she wouldn’t be able to find him that way. If that were the case...

Her hands slipped into her pockets and she felt her fingers brush over the cold metal of her gun.

Well, she knew one way to attract a bat.

[ectonurites]

for the character headcannons ask game, jason and cass?

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT im putting this one under a cut because it got SUPER long bc i cant shut up ever

lets start w jason

A (realistic headcanon): 

ok using the ‘realistic’ category here loosely but GOD i love the idea of Damian & Jason having interacted while Jason was staying with the League before getting dunked in the Lazarus Pit. like. this obviously would need to be set more in preboot and following the Lost Days & Batman Annual 25 version of Jason’s resurrection, but god the idea of it just makes me scream in a good way. Like... these are things Jason likely doesn’t remember very clearly once he’s brought back to life more fully by the pit because he was uh pretty catatonic, but Damian being a little kid and knowing about the boy that his mother keeps around the base, that she’s trying to help bring back to health. Damian not even knowing that’s his big brother, just that he’s a presence that shares his mother’s attention. Jason again being unresponsive but like, ok god you know that part of lost days where Talia shows the others observing him that he only fights back at those he perceives as genuine threats trying to hurt him, 

Because Jason can perceive that she’s safe, she’s not actually trying to hurt him, he trusts her because she saved him? thinking about lil child Damian who is ya know already being trained in fighting stuff and like the idea of him trying to provoke Jason just to see what happens but Jason not fighting back because on some level be it his connection to Talia or even little baby Damian visually reminding him of Bruce, he knows that Damian is safe too 🥺 

and then when Jason and Damian meet again in Gotham as Red Hood & Robin respectively, Jason not really remembering because there was so much going on back then for him, but Damian realizing that oh... that was Him

B (hilarious): 

alright so if we are looking at comics currently, in modern stuff jason is what, like 22? hes old enough to drink in the US but still definitely early 20s so around my around my age, thats what im using as a basis here. if we adjust timeline and still consider his death having happened when he was 15, that puts it around 2013. and then coming back to like interacting with people about three years later if we still kinda base things off of the preboot timeframe (since we never got a super solid retelling of the timeline of death -> resurrection -> training -> tries to get revenge aside from knowing he went to the all-caste instead of the lost days version of the story) making him reenter the regular world and stuff around age 18 in 2016. meaning a solid three years of pop culture that he was entirely missing, and like im sorry but he really doesn’t strike me as the type to bother looking into what he missed, he’s kinda busy focusing on other stuff. lets take a quick look at some major things from those years. 2013 gave us ‘what does the fox say’ and ‘the harlem shake’ . 2014 had that time U2 just put a fuckin album on everyone’s phones, The Fault In Our Stars movie came out. 2015 introduced the phrase ‘Netflix and Chill’ and the whole blue & black vs gold & white dress debate happened. imagine any of the other batkids (or even arguably roy during rhato stuff) bringing these things up and jason’s ensuing confusion. thank you for your time

C (heart-crushing): 

so. there are two specific instances from rebirth era Jason i want to bring up here and much like a lot of these it’s less a headcanon and more of an inference based on observations, but i wanna take a sec to discuss Jason’s relationship with other people’s death. early in rebirth, Tim ‘dies’ from that whole thing in detective comics. he didn’t actually die, we as readers know, but in-universe they all very much so thought he was dead. frustratingly a lot of the batfam wasn’t really shown mourning him aside from in the Detective Comics Rebirth title itself (which just. when a major character dies even if its temporary- that should have a ripple effect) BUT an exception to that is in RHATO 2016, where we get this offhanded comment in Jason’s internal monologuing

similarly later when Roy, who like, had an incredibly close relationship w Jason that had just gotten mended before Heroes in Crisis, gets fuckin murdered in that whole thing... Jason doesn’t go to his funeral either. He leaves a dramatic voice mail and then visits the grave on his own later, choosing to instead keep working on the mission they’d started rather than going and taking the time to mourn properly.

Jason’s relationship with death is incredibly complicated, obviously. He has died, he has come back, and he now is willing to cross the line most other bats won’t and will kill people when he deems it necessary. I think thats something important though- he doesn’t just like... go around killing for fun (usually, some writers preboot made him a little murder happy but even then usually this still was vaguely followed) he kills people he thinks deserved it. Like, even looking back at the mess of Morrison’s Jason during Batman & Robin 2009, Jason was still trying to bring a sense of justice with who he was killing (”punishment that fits the crime”), it wasn’t killing for the sake of killing. He sees things in this kind of almost black and white ‘people who deserve it’ and ‘people who don’t’ way, and he has no problem dealing with death when it’s with the people he thinks deserve it. 

but when someone who doesn’t in his mind ‘deserve it’ gets killed? i think he just goes into total avoidance mode. throws himself into other things he’s doing, tries not to dwell on it too much no matter how much he still thinks about it (this is especially evident in him consistently telling people “i’m fine!” after what happened to Roy, despite bringing Roy up literally like every few issues for a WHILE after he died and very clearly still struggling with it, Artemis is the only one who gets through to him on it a little bit) 

but yeah, I just think that from Jason’s relatively unique situation of having been murdered, he knows what it’s like and he is perfectly fine wishing that on people he thinks are bad and deserve it, but it crushes him to imagine the people he loves and cares about having to experience something as painful as what he went through. not to mention the whole “I came back, why do I get a second chance at all this when they, who are a much better person than I am, probably won’t” mindset we get some implications of him having 

D (canon is a coward and won’t) 

hello DC i am once again insisting a batfam member is bisexual

CASS TIME

A (realistic headcanon): 

ok so we know cass likes ballet. thats canon. however i think we also should in general explore cass experiencing other types of dance/performance as well, be it herself as a performer or even just watching. like... god imagine her & like my brain just automatically for group activities puts her with tim steph and duke but also for this in particular I feel would be a Jason embraced activity, but like them going to see a broadway show or some other professional theatre or something, and her just being enthralled by the reading of body language of the performers! like again by any point in current stuff cass does have like, the ability to speak fine (reading still hard tho) but even so I think like. okay im a theatre kid if that’s not obvious from the Everything About Me but one thing I always do after seeing a show is ya know spend dinner afterwards discussing it with whoever i saw it with.

I just think that like, bringing those people i just mentioned to the table to discuss seeing a show after would be so FASCINATING because cass would bring this whole perspective of critiquing their acting on a whole different level- not based on how well they delivered lines out loud, but by what their body language was saying as they moved on stage. like im very amused by the idea of cass getting a totally different picture in her mind about what a character’s motivations were because she was paying way more attention to what their physicality was saying vs the words that were written and how they were delivered. i think the debates her and the others would have would be EPIC there. jason defending the text as it was written adamantly and cass being like ‘ok yeah sure but thats not what they did’

B (hilarious): 

cass having no concept of money because why would she bother? is SO funny to me. like it’s not that she couldn’t be reasonable if she wanted to, but like, she knows that the Waynes are well off so it’s not something she actually needs to be concerned about, so she just goes hog wild. takes steph out to fancy dinners and makes steph order for them since cass ya know doesn’t really read the menus, and steph’s like ‘jesus christ this costs-” “don’t worry about it” “but cass-” and she just holds up one of bruce’s credit cards and steph’s still like “but you don’t even know the range-” “it is fine”

bruce does not have the heart to tell her to stop

C (heart-crushing): 

i mean this is pretty much canon but especially now after death metal where she’s remembering, not just being told by a guy using weird alternate timeline technology, that she used to be an adopted member of the Wayne family... like that hurts so bad. To look at these people who have ya know been kind to her, Bruce has still been a father-like figure to her (i mean literally from the moment they met in New 52 canon during the flashback in Batman & Robin Eternal, where he’s telling her that she’s not a monster just because of what people forced her to do.... that she’s a hero... that hug.... dad behavior), and they do to some extent treat her as family... But to then really know, to feel and remember that she was actually adopted! She was a part of their family. To look at how she’s been calling herself Orphan while working with them this whole time... that’s so heartbreaking! I have cried about this idea so much! I want so badly a conversation between her and Bruce now where he offers to officially adopt her again, I need it so bad and if it doesn’t happen at some point in the next year or two I will be so distraught.

D (canon is a coward and won’t) 

i want an in-depth exploration of cass’ relationship to her own gender. being raised without language and you know with so much of her life being independent (remember: CASS RAN AWAY AROUND THE WORLD WITHOUT REALLY KNOWING ANY SPOKEN LANGUAGE) and outside of an organized society impressing too much of gender expectations on her, i feel like the way she experiences it would be very unique! like sure she’s so far been fine with being assigned ‘girl’ (ya know that comes with batgirl, and how people just automatically treated her based on how she looks) but in terms of gender expression and like her actual relationship with ‘traditional femininity’ etc like... because of how she was raised I just think she’d have a really different perspective on it that could be cool to explore, and I think she’d fall outside of the binary after she really thinks about how she identifies.

tldr on that: she/they nb cass is what i’m getting at here

[rhub4rb]

Home is Where the Heart is

AO3

[First Chapter] - [Previous Chapter] - Next Chapter

-_-_-_-

The smell of freshly baked bread was the first thing Marinette noticed as she came to. Then she heard her mother calling her from downstairs, and warmth filled her, simply because of the familiarity of it all. It brought tears to her eyes, but for the life of her, she couldn't figure out why.

Running a hand through her hair (Marinette could have sworn it was short and not long anymore), letting out a tired sigh, before swinging her legs over the edge of her bed. Her body was sore, and as she stretched, she heard the satisfying cracks and pops from her back, sighing again, but this time in contentment.

Marinette looked around her pink bedroom, her eyes landing on the sleeping form of Tikki, bringing a fond smile on her lips. She would wake up the kwami later, Marinette thought as she checked her phone. It was Saturday, and as far as she could remember, she didn't have any plans. She could Tikki sleep in then.

"Marinette?" She hears her Maman call again.

"Coming!"

She looked at Tikki again, her smile warm and content, before opening the hatch to her room and going down.

Everything was right where it should be.

-

"How do you know about that?" Bruce's voice was sharp and cutting as he snapped at the kwami of destruction, an expression of rage and confusion overtaking his features.

"I can sense death, old man," Plagg huffed as if insulted. Then, he grinned, his cat-like appearance becoming more apparent, if possible. "and just so you know, so can Marinette."

A stillness entered the dining room which hadn't been there before, not even when Plagg or Wayzz had revealed themselves at first.

"Are you implying something, cat?" Bruce hissed, which seemed to annoy Plagg more than anything.

"Other than you guys being terrible at keeping secrets? No, nothing at all," Plagg said 

A growl could be heard from Bruce, but he seemed to bite it back, thinking better than to retort another time at an already upset pocket god.

Awkwardness filled in along with the silence, Plagg seemingly not caring about the news he shared with the family, as if it was obvious Marinette had known, and maybe it was. Not that the family knew that.

Jon looked worriedly from Plagg to the rest of the family, as if trying to find something to say that could diffuse the situation at all, but he stayed quiet, his brows furrowed in thought as he mulled everything over.

"So she's known our identities all this time?" Tim asked.

"Not all the time," Plagg said, in a tone that implied he thought of them all as idiots. "I think she figured it out after her first or second night here."

"Why didn't she tell us she knew?" Dick asked, his voice sounding much less accusing than the rest of the family.

"You didn't tell her and she has no use for the information anyway," Plagg shrugged. "She was waiting for you to feel comfortable to tell her yourselves if you were even going to."

The awkward stillness returned, but this time, everyone n the room thought of every interaction they previously had with Marinette. It made Tim pause.

"You can't take care of anything if you don't take care of yourself first."

Had she known then? Maybe that was what had given it all away. If she knew who they were, then she also knew that Tim was the one who she fought.

"When you say that she can sense death—" Jason started.

"You reek of Lazarus pit," Plagg said, giving Jason a look. "I think you gave her nausea that first dinner, and not just from your awful people skills."

Tim snorted, but he tried to stifle it as Jason glared his way.

"Marinette will probably want to help you with that, you too,"  Plagg said, looking at Damian. "You don't reek as bad as the Walking Dead over there, but your soul is not as clear as it could be."

Wayzz waved Plagg off, probably to get the cat to stop talking.

"This is a conversation to have when Marinette is awake," Wayzz said, interrupting them before they could continue. "and that may not be until this winter season is over."

Everyone, save for Plagg and Wayzz, froze. That was 3 months. Alfred looked at the two kwamis, panicked.

"The balance-"

"Is not as important as Marinette recovering," Plagg cut the butler off with a heated glare. "and there's nothing we can do about it without her, anyways. Even if we were to get a new Guardian, which we won't," he stressed, "Marinette would be the one to hand over the Guardian title, which she needs to be awake to do so. Not that it matters, because it won't happen."

If looks could kill, Alfred would have been dead where he stood. Considering it was the very embodiment of destruction that was glaring at him, maybe that wasn't so far off.

"Alfred brings up a fair point," Damian said suddenly, and the glare was quickly directed in his direction. "you're valuing the life of one person over that of the entire world."

"Someone has to," Plagg snipped. "and considering it won't be any of you guys, it might as well be us."

"The Order is supposed to be unbiased," Alfred said, regaining his bearings.

"Which is why Marinette is the Guardian," Wayzz said, not letting Plagg any closer to the family as he could see the kwami of destruction wanted to. "Marinette is more than willing to sacrifice her own life for that of the rest of the world."

That finally seemed to shut the family up. Jon looked heartbroken knowing this, even if it was something he started to realize deep down.

"But she will wake up, right?" Jon asked, and it was the first time he asked the kwamis anything directly, he realized.

Wayzz looked at him with a gentle smile on his face and flew up in front of Jon, landing on the hand Jon extended for him.

"Marinette is strong, she will return. Despite everything, she is not the type to give up."

It was weird, hearing how others, how tiny gods, saw Marinette, how her strengths were why they believed so strongly she would return.

"Have faith in her. She has come too far not to have it."

-

Marinette's parents had gone down to the bakery already, but that wasn't much of a surprise. The mornings were always the busiest.

Her maman must have made breakfast though, as a plate of pancakes and a glass of orange juice was placed on the table already. She would have to thank her maman later. Despite how quiet it was, the ever-familiar scent baked bread reached her nose from downstairs and tension eased from Marinette's shoulders.

There was a bone-deep feeling of rightness that left Marinette feeling content, that this was how everything was supposed to be. And yet, something felt off. She had been so cold when she was sleeping, and this warmth felt... manufactured.

The thought left before she had the chance to process it however, a whisper of worry from another life.

-

“Are we just going to leave her here?” Damian asked, and the sharp glares he received from- everyone simply made him glare back. “I’m not saying we need to leave her, I simply think she should be somewhere we can monitor how she’s doing more closely.”

That made every one pause. He had a point, even if they didn’t want to admit it.

“I thought you hated her,” Tim said, making Damian level his glare at him instead of everyone in general.

“I may not be fond of her, but even I know it would be stupid to leave her without proper supervision,” Damian said indignantly, lifting his nose up in the air. “Besides,” he mumbled. “It’s my fault she’s like this.”

A second passed in silence, then another.

“Well yeah, no shit,” Jason said, shaking his head like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You kicked her out during a storm.”

Jon looked at Damian wide-eyed.

“You did that?” There was clear disbelief in his voice. Damian hadn’t told him what happened, only that Marinette was missing during the storm and that they needed some help finding her. “You kicked her out?”

Jon’s voice became harsh as he glared at Damian.

“Why would you do that?”

“I wasn’t the only one distrustful of her, Todd avoided her like the plague!”

“Yeah, avoided her,” Jason said defensively. “I didn’t kick her out!”

The yelling continued, only growing louder and louder as Bruce lost control of the situation, if he ever did have control over the situation in the first place.

-_-_-_-

@constancetruggle @mojos-biggest-fan @lysslovesanime @heredmaquam @luciferge @scribblinggraveyard @thatfandomsgirl @eliza-bich @ki77h3dr4g0n @crazylittlemunchkin @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @skyel0ve @serenacross200 @valeks-princess @thebananathatwrites @aurordraws @nothernbluetongue @bluerosette23 @xxmadamjinxx @graduatedmelon @tritaledkitsune @tinybrie @shamefullove @screechingflapbiscuitpeach @danielslilangel @vivilakitty @kurogaya913 @elspethshadow @theatreandcomicfreak @naoryllis @lordsmeldingtonthethird @thanks-captain-obvious @iloontjeboontje @bamagirl513 @jessigurl-design @queenmj10 @marinettepotterandplagg @purplesundaze @chylou34 @sturchling 

[damianwaynerocks]

Ghosts in Gotham

Danny Phantom / DC Comics

Dedicated To: @lexosaurus​

Summary: The Batfamily has been through their fair share of the supernatural. That’s why they originally weren’t worried whenever ghosts started showing up in Gotham City. Until one day, something happens; Batman is captured and taken into the Ghost Zone. With no way to go in there themselves, with no way to fight the ghosts inside, the bats decide to call the person who can; Danny Phantom. Together, Danny takes Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown and Damian Wayne into the Ghost Zone before the Batman is lost forever.

Word Count: 2744

A/N: Yes, I did put a Ben 10 villain in here. Sue me.

Masterlist

Chapter 4

__

"Fenton, do you have any twos?"

"Go fish."

Damian grumbled something in Arabic as he picked up a card from the pile.

"I feel like that was a bad word."

"You would be correct."

Danny turned to Stephanie. "Steph, you got any fours?" he asked. Stephanie huffed as she handed him a four of hearts, and Danny grinned victoriously as he took two fours and laid them on the ground.

Seeing as they had a two-hour trip to get to the prison, the four had set the Speeder on autopilot and decided to play a card game. Usually, the Infi-map would have their trip being two seconds, but something was wrong with it, so it was much slower than usual.

"Yo Timbers, you have any kings?" Danny asked the oldest boy. Tim smirked and shook his head.

"Go fish, Ghost Child," he replied. Tim had found it hilarious that Skulker referred to Danny as 'Ghost Child,' and had taken up calling him that as well. He turned to Damian. "You got any twos, Demon Spawn?"

If looks could kill, Tim would be six feet under. Damian threw the card at his older brother, whose eyes gleamed as he laid the twos down by his side. "Danny, you have any... sixes?"

"Yes, sir, I do," Danny chirped as he handed over the card. Tim turned back to Damian.

"You have any threes?"

"No, Drake, I do not," Damian said with a proud smile, "Suck on that." Danny and Stephanie clapped.

"You're learning slang!" they said simultaneously. Damian rolled his eyes, before looking at Stephanie.

"Brown, hand me your sevens," he ordered and smiled proudly as she gave him the cards. "Uno!" he shouted.

"Wrong game, dude," Danny said, "But good effort!"

"So, Danny," Stephanie said, "Why do you call Future-You 'Dark Danny' when you could call him something that isn't cringey like 'Dan?'

"'Dan?'" Danny echoed, "That sounds so... normal. Like can you imagine newscast being like, 'the world is ending, and soon we will all be slaves to Dan.'"

"It sounds much better than Dark Danny," Damian piped up as he took a card from Tim. "That sounds like a roller coaster ride at Six Flags."

"The gremlin's right," Tim agreed. Danny glared at them.

"I'm feeling so attacked right now, guys, and I'll have you know that my girlfriend came up with that name."

"You," Damian said derisively, "Have a girlfriend?" Tim rolled his eyes.

"Damian, yes, you knew that. Samantha Manson, you've literally met her parents at a gala one time," he paused, "Did you not pay attention at all when we were reading Danny's file?"

"I only cared about his abilities as Phantom," Damian replied as Danny exclaimed, "I have a file!?" simultaneously.

"Uh, duh," Stephanie answered, "You think we'd tell you the greatest secret ever if we didn't run a background check first?"

"So you guys know I died, then?" Danny asked nervously, scared of what they'd think. Yeah, sure they knew he was half ghost, but would they think it was weird that he was technically dead? That he wasn't technically fully human?

"Yeah," Stephanie answered as though it was obvious. Danny blinked.

"And... you don't care?"

"You believe you are the only one who has died before?" Damian rolled his eyes, "You are not as special as you think, Fenton. Get over yourself.”

Danny's jaw dropped. "Wait, you've died before?"

"Damian and I both have!" Stephanie said before Damian could reply. "We call ourselves the Dead Robins Club. Jason's in it too. Dick wants to be in it, but we won't let him because he only faked his death, he didn't actually die."

Danny's eyes lit up. "Can I join!?"

"You are not a Robin," Damian pointed out, "So no, you cannot." At Danny's frown, he sighed, and added, "But if you are going to be a child about it, perhaps we could speak to Todd and see if you could be an honorary member."

"Hey, we have like, thirty minutes left till we get there," Tim spoke up, "So let's go over the plan again."

Danny cleared his throat. "Right. So I'll be the distraction. I'll fly in there and cause a ruckus, and distract Walker so you three can get in and find Wulf."

"And because we're humans, we can just walk through things," Tim added, "And I get the collar off of Wulf, and we rescue you."

"There are so many holes in this place," Damian pointed out, "What if Wulf does not trust us? What if Drake cannot get the collar off?"

"Well, that'd suck," Danny replied, "But I trust him, don't worry. The only part that should be difficult is getting me out. Totally do-able, just difficult. But I've done it twice, so we should be fine."

"Yeah, we got this!" Stephanie cracked her knuckles with a grin. "We've succeeded on missions that had way lower odds than this," she paused, "Hey Danny, this Walker guy wants to keep order in the Ghost Zone, right? What are the chances he'd help us?"

"Like two percent," Danny answered, running a hand through his hair, "And even if he does believe us, he'd lock us up here and go after Dark Dan- I'm sorry, Dan," he rolled his eyes at his friends' pointed looks, "by himself, and he doesn't know how he works. This is our best bet."

"Don't worry, we've got this!" Tim promised, "I've broken Jason out of jail before, I'm basically an expert at this."

Thirty minutes later, they had arrived. The four jumped out of the Speeder, Danny pushing a button inside that turned it intangible before he got out. He turned to his friends. "So," he said, "You guys ready?" At their nod, they began.

Danny flew into the air, over the barbed fence. "Hey Walker!" he yelled, "Look at me! I'm a distraction!" He shot a barrage of ecto-blasts into the sky, lighting up the prison in lazarus-green flashes in a similar fashion to fireworks on the Fourth of July.

He grinned as he saw ghosts in police-like uniforms swarming out of the entrance and heading towards him. He rushed towards them, his eyes lighting up as he shot a beam of ecto-energy at the guards, blasting them aside.

A few guards lifted their blasters to their shoulders and fired. Danny did a backflip in the air, contorting his body around the shots before sending back some of his own. This continued for a while, Danny darted in and out of their ranks. He was smiling widely as he lifted both of his hands above his head, a large ball of ecto-energy crackling in them. "You ready for this!?" he shouted as he prepared to throw the massive fireball. "Yippee ki yay, moth-" he was cut off as a net was shot at him, enveloping Danny and sending him crashing to the ground. He groaned as he looked up, and wasn't the least bit surprised to see who had caught him.

A large ghost in a snow-white trench coat with a face of the same color was sneering at him. "Well well well, if it isn't Danny Phantom," Walker smirked, "Causing a ruckus outside my prison? That's against the rules."

_

"This way," Tim said quietly as he led Damian and Stephanie into the compound. Well, Tim wasn't truly the one leading. Cujo was in front of them, nose to the ground, intent on sniffing out Wulf.

Damian and Stephanie had their backs to one another, the former using the latter to guide him as he was facing the rear, watching for anything trying to sneak up on them. "The Ghost Zone reminds me of the Lazarus Pit," he muttered to himself, "And Phantom's hair is white from it, just like Todd's streak. I wonder..." he stopped talking as Stephanie came to a sudden halt.

They pressed themselves against the wall as six guards marched past, hauling a chained Danny behind them. He was glaring defiantly at Walker, seemingly mocking his stern words, showing no fear.

"I think we're good," Tim whispered as they passed, "Now let's-" he was cut off as he leaned harder against the wall and fell right through it, dragging Stephanie and Damian with him.

"Crap," Stephanie huffed, rubbing her head. "Did you forget that we're like the ghosts here? We can phase through everything here." She frowned as Cujo jumped into her lap, licking her face. He seemed to have phased through with them. "And I guess Cujo can too."

"Red Robin, if only your memory was as strong as your grip," Damian snapped, using Tim's hero name, "Then perhaps we would have found Wulf by now."

"Hey, I'm following the same dog as you," Tim retorted, "Now come on, let's go. The sooner we get out of here, the better."

Cujo yapped as he turned to the right. He dashed in that direction, seemingly having picked up Wulf's scent again. The Gothamites followed him through the prison. They reached a pair of sliding doors below a sign that read 'Dangerous Prisoners' above it.

"Sounds like our guy," Stephanie said. Tim nodded in agreement as they stepped through the doors, phasing through them.

All three of them shivered, a chill running up their spine as terror possessed them. None of them voiced it to the others, but they all got the sense that they were near something that was positively evil.

Cujo, however, didn't seem to mind. Or, if he did, he didn't show it either. He pranced down the hallway, looking over his shoulder and barking at the heroes to follow him. They did so, walking slowly and looking both ways.

They were all more terrified than they had ever been in their lives.

Cujo stopped, wagging his tail with his tongue lolling, in front of a cell. He barked again as he waited for Damian, Tim, and Stephanie to catch up to him.

Wulf was massive. He appeared to be a humanoid-wolf hybrid with a green undertone and a silver collar. He snarled, his hackles rising as the three stood in front of him.

"My name is Red Robin," Tim began, "And this is Robin and Batgirl. We're friends of Danny Phantom."

"Friends of... Dan-knee?" Wulf asked gruffly, his teeth bared. Tim nodded.

"Yeah. He sent us here to break you out," Tim took a hesitant step forward, "But first I have to get that collar off of you. Can I do that?"

Wulf slowly nodded and watched Tim phase through the bars of his cell with narrowed eyes. He flinched as Tim pulled out a small device from his utility belt and set it on the collar. A holographic screen and keyboard appeared above his gauntlet. Tim typing something on the keyboard, and with a blink of the device, the collar fell off.

Wulf rose to his full height, towering over Tim. The latter stood up straight. "Danny has been captured," he said, "Will you help us free him?"

Wulf looked at him and grunted. He turned intangible and phased out of his cell with Tim close behind.

"Fantastic," Damian said with a nod, "Now, let us go find Phantom." The five began to leave but stopped dead in their tracks as a terrifying voice spoke.

"Humans!" the voice hissed.

The Bats turned around to see a terrifying ghost. It had a purple cloak with a spindly tan and black striped body and one glowing purple eye and the same collar that was on Wulf around his neck. The ghost narrowed his single eye as he spoke.

"You are freeing this oaf but not me?" the ghost snarled, "You are leaving me to rot? Me? Zs'Skayr? The High Ecto-Lord of Anur Transyl?"

Wulf snarled as the others were frozen in fear. Something was wrong about this Zs'Skayr. Batgirl, Robin, and Red Robin were heroes. They'd fought with the Justice Leauge. They'd gone toe to toe with Joker.

But Zs'Skayr?

They couldn't explain it, but this being was absolutely horrifying.

"Who are you?" Damian was the first to speak up, shaking like a scared dog being brought outside for the first time. Zs'Skayr's eye flashed.

"I am Zs'Skayr!" he roared, "The most terrifying being in the universe! Arch enemy to the Omnitrix!" he met Damian's eyes. "I am the one who can break you free. I can save your friend and destroy this cursed prison."

"We can't let you that," Tim croaked, "Absolutely not."

Zs'Skayr's eye did not leave Damian's. He cocked his head. "There is a darkness in you, child," he hissed, "One you are trying to overcome. Do not fight it! I can give you all the power you could ever desire!"

Damian gulped, clenching his fists and staring Zs'Skayr right back. "I do not need your power," he said stiffly, "And I do not need your help."

"Let us go," Wulf interrupted, putting a paw on Damian's shoulder. "Need help Danny."

Damian nodded, and with another glance at the Hellish being, they left.

_

Danny closed his eyes in pain at Walker's punch, but refused to fall. He looked up with a gleam in his eyes.

"That's really the best you got?" Danny scoffed, "You're losing your touch! You've known me for two years and that's all you can do?"

"Just tell me why you're here, kid," Walker replied. Danny groaned.

"I already did!"

"You think I'm stupid enough to believe some lie about time travel?"

"I mean, yeah, I think you're pretty stupid," Danny replied, "But I'm not lying!"

"Sure you aren't, kid."

Danny gave the ghost a blank stare. "You know, Walker, you seem to have trust issues. That sometimes stems from trauma. Do you want to talk about it?"

Walker narrowed his eyes before punching Danny in the face. The boy turned back to him and laughed.

"I've fought Pariah Dark, Fright Knight, and you multiple times and you think a measly punch is gonna shut me up?"

He was stalling. Danny just had to keep it up until his friends could get the cuffs off of him, and he could freeze Walker.

Speaking of freezing, Danny froze as he slowly shut his eyes and sighed, "I've gotta say, though, you might not be the only one who can be stupid," In a ring of light, Danny transformed back into a human, and phased out of the cuffs with ease.

"Ha!" he yelled, "In your face!" He shifted back into his ghost form and grinned as his hands lit up in blue light. "You know, I hate to just run out on you like this, but I gotta go." With a flash of light, Danny thrust his hands in front of him, and a bolt of ice shot from his palms. Walker screamed as his body was encased in ice.

Danny shook his head as he floated to the ground. "Now, where oh where are my friends?"

"Right here, my guy!" At the sound of Stephanie's voice, Danny turned around to see his friends, with Wulf close behind. Danny's face lit up.

"Wulf!" he shouted with glee, "I've missed you, buddy!"

"Miss you too," Wulf replied.

"Let's get out of here," Tim said, "Before they realize you and Wulf have escaped."

A red flashing light lit up above them. Damian sucked in his teeth. "Too late."

Danny waved his hand. "Come on, let's go!" With that, the group dashed forward, phasing through the wall.

They skidded to a halt as they were faced with ten guards. They swung their batons. "Freeze!" one of them yelled.

Danny shrugged. "If you say so," he blasted them with a wave of ice, freezing the guards. Tim grinned.

"Nice one, Phantom," he praised as they continued forward, tucking a rolling above the frozen ghosts with ease.

They phased through another wall, Wulf leading them forward. Two guards appeared in front of them, but Wulf swatted them aside with ease. Phasing through another wall, they were outside.

They were almost to the Speeder. Danny looked behind him and saw an army of guards swarming out of the doors of the prison. Danny skidded to a halt in the air and turned around. He blasted the group with ice, freezing half of them. The other half, though, they kept coming.

Danny turned back around, phasing into the Speeder where the others were already seated. "Come on, Tim, let's go!" he urged, looking outside the window as he spoke. Tim pushed a button on the control panel, and the vessel rose into the air and, with sonic boom behind them, shot into the air and away from the prison.

[brucewaynehastoomanykids]

Request from @kallura-juniblade "Hi, I saw your post of requesting for more stories? Maybe where Damian had promised Raven to never used the Lazarus Pit prior JLAW? I really do love angst, hehe."

And so I shall deliver. Though, I decided to add a bit of a twist to it: instead of doing the setting prior to JLAW, I want to do it after, but with a different ending, where the flashpoint never happened, and Damian breaks his promise AGAIN.

_____________________________________

It had been years since Apokolips. And, whilst myself and the rest of the remaining fixed the earth from its damage, I had hoped that afterwords, things would be calmer, that Damian and I could actually start a semi normal life. And our life was normal for a long while. But soon, it was interrupted by villains, both new and old, reimagining from the ruins. Damian had decided that it would be in our best interest to become heroes again to stop these villains, to which I reluctantly agreed.

Though, maybe I shouldn't have.

Things started off normally. We would fight the bad guys, live to celebrate another day, and Damian would leave with his father every now and again for his own missions in a once large and glorious Gotham.

But one day, he came back angered. He spoke about how he was 'rusty' and 'unfit to help save the innocent'. I knew this wasn't true, and I tried my best to reassure him. Of course, it didn't work, not fully. His anger only continued to spike until it almost became normal to see him like this... and it was surely abnormal when he wasn't. So, when the time came where he was actually proud of himself and his abilities, I could tell something was seriously wrong.

"Damian, what's wrong?" I asked, rather bluntly after a while. Though I was happy to see him smile and be back to his usually cocky self, something seemed very off, like he was hiding something. Something he didn't want me to know.

"I'm fine." He replied in a almost sweet tone, his face away from me, about to retreat from the conversation to go God knows where.

"Then will you stop and look at me for a second? I can tell something is off about you, and I want to help, but I can't when you shut me down."

He turned to face me, rather dramatically. "There's nothing wrong." He matched my bluntness now.

But I wasn't having it. "You can't keep this all bottled up, you know? Bottling it up won't do any good. So stop pushing me away, and shutting me out."

"Yeah, well, I shut everyone out. Don't take it personally. It's just easier. Besides, you mean to tell me you don't do that as well?"

"The difference is that I don't run from the people who try and help me, Damian. So, tell me, why do you run away from your problems all the time?"

He only ignored my question and gave me a slight glare. "I'm fine. Stop asking."

I decided it was time to drop the tension before this caused a fight. "Damian, please, I just want to help you, alright? Please talk to me about it."

"I'm okay," he assured, calmly, "I'm perfectly fine." It was then, he saw my face. I supposed I had a pitiful look, because after a short pause of silence, he caved in. "Yeah... okay, I'm not fine."

"Then please, tell me what's wrong."

"I don't know what's wrong, okay? I'm just... really tired."

He was dodging, again. And worst of all he was lying. I could tell he knew exactly what was wrong. And I was starting to believe I knew what he was hiding: the only thing we could possibly do to make me upset with him, was to use the Lazarus Pit again. But on who? Unless... he did it to himself... I had been told horror stories of how that pit can cause the mind to, in a way, reprogram. People, once kind hearted and innocent, came out as heartless, blood thirsty monsters, and those stories were only confirmed when I laid eyes on Dick years ago after he was thrown in. If Damian had done the same treatment to himself, it would explain his recent hostility and secrecy.

"Damian, I'm not leaving you alone until you tell me what's wrong, and don't try lying to me again." I demanded. "I have my suspicions but please... tell me I'm wrong. Just tell me... that you didn't use the pit again...?"

My voice began to waver and slow its pace. I felt like a child trying to sneak her way out of punishment for something she did wrong. I couldn't help it, I was too scared of the answer. The answer that, in words, never came. But his eyes spoke for him. They pleaded for forgiveness, but still managed to show some light of anger behind them as if to say 'Are you happy now? Huh? Does this make you happy? To know the truth?'

"Don't look at me like that..." He finally spoke.

"But you promised... twice..." I had hoped my words wouldn't come out as pitiful as I felt, but it seems I couldn't help myself. I quickly regain my sternness by adding, "I was an idiot to ever trust you."

"If it's any consolation, I did all of this for you." He took a step towards me, to which I only took one back.

"That's bullshit and you know it!" I snapped. "You did this for your own selfish needs!"

"It's true!" He persisted. "Raven, you know I couldn't have been any sort of help or protection against the bastards that lurk outside! I did this to be stronger, to help and protect you and what remains of my family! I did this because I love you!"

"Well, if this is love, I don't want it."

Damian stared at me wide eyed and shocked, but didn't say anything. We had stayed that way for a few more minutes before I finally spoke again.

"This stops now. And you're going to let me help you... I hope you realize how much pain this causes me to learn."

"I don't want to be saved." He said plainly as he began to walk away.

"Don't look away when I'm talking to you! Don't you dare do that!" I snapped, grabbing his arm and forcing him to face me. "Do you think you can just walk away from this?"

Damian glared. "I don't need help alright?! I just want to be better than I was!"

My eyes widened for a moment before looking away at him briefly, muttering to myself of how I wish I could just set him on fire for his behavior. Not only had he broken the same promise twice within just the span of a few years, but he didn't even want to tell me how he was really feeling? How deep his desires for power went? Did he not trust me enough?

"And did it ever really occur to you how much this hurts me? Or how badly this will hurt your father?" I looked at him sternly.

His eyes softened. "I just want to ensure people I love don't die tragically again... I can't have another war, Raven. Besides, I feel like the opportunity to impress my father left years ago."

I let out a long, exasperated sigh. "Are you done? Can you actually act like the adult you are? Face the truth, Damian. You didn't do this for me, for Bruce, for anyone other than yourself. You want to be better than that thirteen year old boy I met all those years ago, and why? To make yourself feel improved? To make up for that time we spent just being normal people for once? I had thought you'd actually enjoy that after we got together, but I suppose I was wrong..." I put squeezed the bridge of my nose between my right pointer finger and thumb. "You disgust me so much right now... I hope you knowing that at least counts for something. I'm done trying to help you."

He was silent for a moment, I could tell he was pondering over his next response. I was counting on an apology--a real apology. Or maybe even a proper explanation. Imagine my surprise when he finally said, "Well... maybe you're right, Raven. Maybe I was, and still am selfish. Maybe I didn't do it for anyone else--anyone I love. And on that note..." his eyes glared icy daggers, "maybe I just never loved you."

At first, I was shocked, and saddened by his words. But soon, sadness turned in to anger as I matched his glare and gritted my teeth, sneering, "You know what? I hate you! I'm sorry it took so damn long to realize that. I should have never entrusted you with anything of mine, especially my love. You're simply not worth it... very well, Damian. If this is how it's going to be, then fine. I'm leaving you." I turned to back my things, but not before ending my angered speech with a stern, "Goodbye. I won't be back."

It only then seemed like reality hit Damian. His expression grew panicked as he blocked my way, grabbing at my shoulders tightly.

"You can't leave me, not you!" He said, pleading. "If you go then I'll have no one, so... please don't go. Stay here with me."

I sighed. "I'm sorry, Damian... consider this a taste of your own medicine."

His eyes flared back into their angered state as he gripped tighter, yelling, "I order you not to go!"

I glared at him. "You have no right to order me around, you never did! It's time you got to know how it feels to be betrayed!"

I managed to escape his grasp to lock myself in our once shared room to back my belongings into a small suitcase. I called Clark and told him the situation. He and I had grown rather close since Apokolips. I even consider him to be a father to me. Clark agreed to pick me up as soon as possible. When I walked back into the main area, Damian sat on the couch with his hand between his hands. I was just about to walk out the door before his words stopped me.

"Is this really the end?" He spoke sadly.

I gave him a sad look. "I can't do this anymore... not with you. I gave you a second chance, and you just used it to stab me in the back. I hope you grow up one day, Damian, and maybe then things will be different. But for now, this is, in fact, goodbye."

And with that, I walked out the door.

~

Months passed, and Damian only got worse. According to Bruce, he had become "Ra's 2.0." He was full on addicted to the Lazarus Pit, and back with the League of Assassins. I had tried my best to ignore any reports of Damian for my own sake, but it hurt Bruce, I could tell. So, I decided I was going to Infinity Island to stop him myself, for his fathers sake. Though, at the time, I didn't want to admit it was for mine and Damians as well.

My arrival mirrored that of what happened last time. Assassins tried to attack me, I fought to the best of my ability, and, boom, Damian shows and stops the attack. Except, it wasn't the late teen that met me, it was someone I had never seen before.

Damian's skin was a sickly pale, and slung to his body as if he had been deprived of neutrience for months. His hair had grown to the tip of his jaw, and his glazed eyes made him look much older than he was. It was clear his body wasn't taking the pit well.

He had lead me to a room in the palace to talk privately.

He huffed. "'Goodbye. I won't be back.'" He mimicked my passed words. I was amazed he had even remembered them, honestly. Had what I'd done really affect him that much?

"If it's any consolation," I stood tall to him, "I didn't want to come. I only came for your father's wellbeing."

Damian's eyes softened. "Is that how little you think of me?" He huffed again. "I wish I could ignore you like you ignore me."

"And I wish that was equivalent to how much you hurt me, just like how I wish I could increase that pain. But I know that if I had the chance, I wouldn't do it... because as much as my pride doesn't want me to admit it, I do still care about you at the very least. You can't open the story of my life and skip to page 738 and think you know my feelings, and you can't judge my story by the chapter you walk back in on." I shook my head. "But enough of the past. Damian, you need to stop this... you need to come back. You're just not the same anymore..."

He laughed. "Come back for my father? I think not."

"Then come back to me."

"I beg your pardon?" He cocked an angry brow.

"Come on, I know you need a reason to get out of here and I have one: me. I could be your reason to return."

The look on his face made it seem almost as if he was pondering the idea. But I should have known he was too far gone. After a moment of silence he ordered me to leave an never return. To which I reluctantly abloged. When I returned to Clark, who I was now living with, he could tell things did not go the way they were supposed to. He comforted me, telling me it was for the best to move on at that point.

~

Since then I've been living with Clark for two years. I never knew how much I would love living on a farm, but here I am. It's very peaceful. In regards to Damian, you would think after two years of separation I would be over him, but it simply wasn't the case. I've loved him longer than we've been separated, and maybe that's my problem, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm still very much angry with him for what he did. Clark had hoped by now I would find someone else to take his place, but with me holding onto love and anger from the past, it was evident I wouldn't move on for a while.

I was sitting on the porch, enjoying the nice morning air, and reading a book with tea. The birds sang and the sun slowly rose in front of me. And it was in that same distance from the sun I saw a man walking up to the farm house. I had at first thought that maybe it was the mail man, but I could never mistake that silky black hair. It was Damian. My Damian, not the malnourished and meek Damian I had seen prior. His skin was back to it's normal tent, his eyes as well, eyes that expressed kindness, not anger.

He stopped in his tracks when he saw me, and stared slightly wide eyed before saying, "Well, I had come to Kent's home in hopes he would know where you are, but I never expected you to be in the first place I look..."

I rolled my eyes. "Damian, leave. I don't want you here." I slammed my book closed.

"Will you at least listen to what I have to say?" He offered.

"We don't all get what we want." I grabbed my things and began to head inside and fetch Clark, but a hand stopped me, causing me to snap my head around and give the man I love a icy glare. "Look, you lost your chance to come back, alright? And don't you dare try to blame what happened on anyone else but yourself because there's no one else to blame. Your actions made sure of that. It's all on you."

"Raven, please--"

I released my arm from his grasp. "No, you don't have the right to come back to me and pretend everything is okay again!"

"I know everything isn't okay, that's why I'm here! Look, Raven, I changed my ways for you! I love you, alright, I never stopped! My pride didn't let me see that until now, but Raven... I can't take the loneliness anymore..."

I was shocked at first, but soon regained my hostility. "How dare you stand there and tell me you still love me?! Was it not you just a mere two years ago that told me otherwise?!"

Damian winced. "Can we please pretend I never said that? I know it hurt you... I'm sorry for the pain I've caused."

"Sorry doesn't fix everything. Especially everything you've done in the past two years."

"People change, Raven. I'm not who I was before, can't you see that? I really am sorry for what I did." He sighed and grabbed at my face, pushing it to look him in the eyes. "Please just look at me--really look at me."

And I did. His eyes had that same plea for forgiveness they had years ago when this mess first began. He really was sorry, I could feel it. And all he really wanted was for me to see that. I suppose I should grant him his request. After all, I do still love him, too.

I let out a sigh. "Apology accepted. Trust denied..." I looked down for a moment before lifting my eyes back to his again. "Is what you say true? You still love me? I had figured by now you would have moved on with someone else..."

Damian chuckled. "Do I look like I've moved on? Though I will admit I tried to move on, but nobody is you. And I came to the realization that I simply can't move on, and I don't want to. Because... I think I'm in love with you, and that feeling terrifies me. Because I wanna fall in love with you and nobody else, but you still have your hostility against me. Truth be told, I'm willing to stay with you until the end, but it's you who keeps telling me to stay away..."

"Because it was you who broke your promise... be honest with me: if I hadn't found out on my own, were you ever going to tell me?"

He pondered the question for a moment before shaking his head. "No, because I was set on guarding myself. I didn't want you to see who I had become... and quite possibly who I still am..." he lowered his eyes to the ground. "I've changed a lot in two years, but I still question whether it was enough to make a full recovery. I want to fully move forward, but how can I if I don't know which way I'm facing? And even if I did, what if I'm in too many pieces now to even fix myself?"

It was then I saw how much he had changed. This was the first time ever that Damian had spoken to me of his emotions and baggage. He was emotionally available to me for the first time since I had known him, and I couldn't help but feel sympathetic to his words.

I cupped my hands over his face, forcing him to look at me. "Hey, I know you're hurting... but you're not alone anymore, okay?"

Soon I began to feel something wet and warm run between the pad of my thumb. My eyes widened as Damian's flooded with tears that didn't seem to want to cease any time soon. Without a moments hesitation, I pulled his head to my shoulder, allowed his arms to wrap around me, and allowed him to cry.

We stayed like that for about five minutes before Damian lifted his head and sniffled a small 'my apologies'.

"It's not a bad thing to cry, Damian," I assured him, "I personally think it makes a person stronger."

Damian smiled slightly. "So... you know you can trust me now, right?"

I returned the smile. "I think I'm starting to see that now, yes..."

"Then allow me to ask this of you, Raven: can we pretend we never broke apart?" He gave me a lazy smile and pleading eyes.

I giggled slightly. "Well, I don't recall a fight or a reason, so I have to ask you: we broke up?" I replied playfully, holding back a laugh. "Oh course we can. Even though sometimes I wish I I didn't, I love you, Damian Wayne. And I'm happy you're willing to let me in now."

He grinned, and looked around for a moment. "I feel as though there are more words to be said in moments like this, but I don't know of them. So allow my actions to speak for me."

And with that, he leaned down, lifting my chin to his and planted a much needed, and much longed for kiss on my lips.

_____________________________________

I hope it was to your liking!🥺

[queencestqueen]

Silence: Ficlet

Inspired by October Spooky Writing Challenge’s prompt, “Silent.”

Summary: [In a non-specific AU timeline] It’s the day of Oliver & Felicity’s wedding and Thea can no longer stay silent.

Warnings: Implied romantic feelings between half-siblings (obviously,) NOT for fans of Felicity Smoak.

          Thea Queen was a master of silence, or to be more accurate, she was a master at staying silent. Not always and certainly not when she might be best served by remaining mum. (Though heaven knows that there were times where if she had stayed quiet, she would have saved herself a great deal of grief.) No, Thea saved her silence for when she truly needed it: not interfering in her brother’s love life.

          When he had started to date Laurel Lance, Thea stayed silent. She could see right from the introduction of the then brunette Lance that Laurel wasn’t a good match for her brother.  Oh sure, Laurel was beautiful, brilliant, and witty. She even made Oliver want to be a better man; that much was obvious when, at her urging, he registered for college classes even though he’d never been particularly studious. On the surface Laurel and Oliver had seemed like a couple that was in for the long haul. Laurel had even gotten the metaphorical Moira Queen stamp of approval, a feat which none of Oliver’s other romantic conquests could boast.

          Thea, on the other hand, held her tongue as the rest of her family welcomed Laurel with open arms.  It wasn’t that Thea didn’t like Laurel, because she did, Laurel was driven and wickedly smart. Had they met in any other manner, Thea might have even felt a sisterly-like bond with the woman… but they had met as result of her relationship with Oliver and there was no getting around that. The fact of the matter was that Laurel and Oliver would never last.

          Laurel was independent as well as ambitious and, while those are fantastic qualities, they made her a poor match for Oliver. Though he had not yet recognized it at the time, Oliver belonged with someone who needed him. Not a clingy mess or anything, just someone with moments of vulnerability. Someone who could stand on their two feet and yet was unafraid to turn to him, when the need arose. Laurel needed no one, but herself.

          Despite seeing the end of that relationship coming from a mile away, Thea stayed silent. Her older brother wouldn’t have taken dating advice from her anyway.

          She was silent when Oliver started seeing Sara too, and yeah, Thea had known about that long before anyone else had. They hadn’t been super stealthy... or maybe Thea had just been paying too much attention. (She had been going through a Harriet-the-Spy phase back then.) Either way she could have told both Oliver and Sara that it wasn’t going to work out. A relationship that starts with deception cannot end well. Thea stayed silent though. Oliver didn’t need her input on his romantic endeavors; he was a grown man and if he wanted to cheat on his girlfriend with her own sister, Thea telling him that neither Lance sister was his forever after would have only complicated things.

          When Helena had shown up at the Queen family mansion and claimed to be dating Oliver, Thea didn’t doubt it. The woman was every bit Oliver’s type. So, Thea had done the well-mannered thing, invited the older woman inside, and held a polite conversation with her, but even as Helena informed her as to how she and Oliver met, the youngest Queen had to bite her tongue to hold back pitiful chuckles. The other heiress was just setting herself up for a heartbreak. Much like Laurel before her, Helena was a ferocious woman, but she would never need the eldest Queen.

           Then came McKenna Hall. The vice detective probably Oliver’s most stable paramour. She knew who she was and who she wanted to be. Neither she nor Oliver seemed to realize that meant doom for their relationship. As great as she was, she’d never be happy with a domestic life as Oliver’s partner.

           Thea had remained silent in the face of all those romantic failures. Why? Because she trusted that the parties involved would realize the truths that Thea had.

           Watching from the doorway as Oliver struggled to get his bowtie just right in the standalone mirror, she had to say something. Silence was no longer an option.

           “Ollie,” she said, his steel-blue eyes meeting hers in the looking glass.

           “Woah, Speedy,” Oliver said, laughter tinting his words, “you look…”

           Thea wasn’t surprised that he had no end to that sentence. When she’d received the e-mail with the link to purchase her gown, she had had much the same problem. What could one say about a florescent green, mermaid silhouette gown with a square neckline? She looked like a radioactive cucumber!  If all of that weren’t enough bad enough to see the gown tossed in a garbage bin, then the weird ruffle that started below her knees and a single eye-catching flower accoutrement on the right side of the bodice sure were.  Oliver couldn’t come up with a compliment because, well, there were no compliments to give. Not in this garbage.

           “Hey, don’t blame me. I didn’t pick it.” Thea said, taking a few steps into the room and closing the door behind her. The charmeuse fabric of her dress made an atrocious noise as she moved. Gah. She was done with this damn dress already, and she’d only been wearing it for half an hour!

           “Felicity had a very specific vision for today,” he shrugged, his tone seemingly happy, but Thea could hear the slight wavering in his voice. “Happy wife, happy life, right?”

           Bridging the distance until she was standing behind him in the looking glass, Thea was struck by the dichotomy between them, He looked every bit the suave, charming billionaire. No doubt there were countless women out there in the world bemoaning the loss of an eligible bachelor as the clock ticked down on this wedding.  Watching as his eyes met hers, Thea was knocked breathless at the soft smile that turned his lips upward; the stark black of the tuxedo really made his steel-blue eye stand out even more.

           It was time for her to break her silence.

           “You can’t marry her, Ollie.”

          Time seemed to stop. The little side room went silent. Thea couldn’t breathe, mentally preparing for the fallout of such a statement.  

          Then he chuckled and Thea was thrown. That certainly wasn’t the reaction that she was expecting.

           “Did John put you up to this? One last joke before I get hitched or something?” He turned on his heel to look at her, as opposed to the mirror.

           “What? No.” Thea was a little insulted that when she finally gave voice to her thoughts, Oliver believed they belonged to someone else. “It’s no joke either, I’m serious. You cannot marry her, Ollie. She’s not your forever.”

          “Not ‘my forever?’ What does that even mean?” Oliver asked, tone turning slightly defensive.

          God!  What wasn’t he getting about this? She’d said he shouldn’t marry her. What was unclear about that?

          Knowing that time was running out and they’d both be summoned to the altar before too long, Thea didn’t have the luxury of being gentle in imparting this truth. “You deserve a love that’s deep and unending. A love that’s real. A love that’s about who you are and who you will be in the future. Felicity can’t give you those things, Ollie. She loves who she wants you to be, not who you are. Please, please tell me you can see that.”

          The look on his face was so betrayed that Thea felt utterly gutted. But no matter how bad she felt in the moment, Thea knew she had to persevere. If she backed down, let him go off and marry the blonde, he would suffer the consequences for years to come and she couldn’t allow that. If the price of saving him from himself was his anger or hatred, well then Thea would just have to bear that.  She was his sister, his supporter, and she had to stand strong. She had to make sure he knew he deserved better, so much better …even if he hated her for it.

           “Now, Speedy, really? I’m getting ready to walk down the aisle in just a few minutes and you’re throwing this at me?”

           “I thought you’d come to your senses on your own!” Thea answered in frustration, “It’s not my fault that she’s pulled the wool over your eyes so tightly. For heaven’s sake, Ollie, you were in a compromised emotional state when you two first ‘hooked up!’”

           A look of confusion flitted over his features, “How do you-”

           Thea waved her hand dismissively, “I was out of it, yeah, but Malcolm sees everything.”

           “Malcolm,” He echoed, his words carrying a tinge of darkness, “of course. I don’t know what he told you, or why he thought it was appropriate to talk to my little sister about it-”

           “Because I asked,” Thea supplied with a slight eyeroll. “When Felicity made a point of mentioning your,” she put the air quotes around the word with her index and middle fingers, “’relationship,’ to me upon our first conversation after returning to the city, I was thrown. Last I knew you two hadn’t even been on a date and then suddenly she was tossing around the ‘relationship’ word. I figured the only person I’d get matter-of-fact information was from, without any bias, Malcolm and I did.”

           “Oh,” his righteous indignation faded quickly.

Reaching down to take ahold of his hand loosely, Thea pulled him over to the small sitting sofa in the far corner. She sat herself down on the very edge of the couch, cautious of wrinkling her gown even though she hated it. Lacing her fingers with his, she looked over at him seriously, “Do me a favor, Ollie, remember that day, remember how you felt after you took me all the way to Nanda Parbat? Remember what you were feeling that night, okay?”

          He nodded.

          “Now, let me ask you a hypothetical question. If our situations had been reversed, if it had been you in the Lazarus Pit and I had been feeling what you were, what would you have said to me if someone had come onto me in that vulnerable state? If I’d then started a relationship with that person?”

          He didn’t answer right away, giving some serious thought to the hypothetical that she’d put forth. When he did finally speak, it was halting and hesitating.  “…I’d have rung his neck.”

          Seeing that her point was finally starting to penetrate the spell that Felicity had cast upon her brother, Thea pushed the issue cautiously, “Would you have let me marry someone who manipulated me like that?”

           This time his answer was immediate. “No.”

            “I’ve spent countless hours watching you and Felicity play ‘relationship,’ Ollie, and it feels like every time you two hit a bump in the road, she makes it your fault somehow. With her, you are always to blame. God forbid she take responsibility for anything. She’s constantly trying to change you. That’s not right.” She flexed her fingers against his, holding tighter to his hand, “You shouldn’t need to change, not if she’s meant to be the one. You deserve someone who loves you, truly, madly, deeply.”

           “Now you’re just quoting Savage Garden lyrics.” Oliver pointed out, the corners of his lips twitching.

           “I’m being serious here!” Thea said with an aborted laugh.

           “I know,” he assured gently, squeezing her fingers in return. “Speedy, I love you and I appreciate where you’re coming from, but it’s… not that simple.”

           “Why not? It’s not like you two have kids together or anything…” A beat then, “she’s not pregnant, is she?”

           “No, no,” he assured quickly, calming her racing heart with those two simple words, “nothing like that.”

           “Thank god.”

           When he shot her a surprised, slightly hurt look, she quickly sought to justify her immediate response to the possibility, “Not like that. You know if she were, I’d love that child like my own, same as I do with William.”

           His look faded, momentary defensiveness abandoned completely, “I know you would, Speedy.”

           “Then why isn’t it simple?”

           “Any minute now, John’s going to come in that door to fetch me for my wedding. Felicity’s already in her dress, all the guests are here. It’s too late.”

           “It’s not over ‘til someone says, ‘I do.’”

           “Speedy…”

           “No, Ollie, I’m sorry but you can’t marry someone simply because not doing so might inconvenience some people. You should get married because you’re in love, because you want to spend your life being committed to one person.”

           Oliver asked, “Who says I’m not in love with Felicity?”

           Thea snorted, “Me!”

           “I know you’re just trying to look out for me, but… this is my choice.” He reached out and gently tucked one of her carefully styled strands of hair behind her ear. “I’m not getting younger, Speedy. I’m a single parent who leads a dangerous life and keeps so many secrets. I’m not exactly a hot commodity anymore.”

           A slightly hysterical laugh tumbled from her lips in shock. “That’s bullshit, Ollie, and you know it! You’re a handsome billionaire with a heart of gold who saves lives every day. And yeah, you have a kid, but William’s strong and he can endear anyone to himself without even trying. You are just settling for Felicity because it is easy, because she already knows everything. You can’t get married because you’re scared to put yourself out there. It isn’t like you, Ollie, to shy away from anything, but that’s exactly what you are doing right now.”

           “I’m being rational, Speedy. My life’s not easy, but Felicity’s still here. She’s seen me at my worst, she knows what it takes to be with me.”

           “So have I!” Thea snapped, frustration reaching a boiling point.

Listening to Oliver lament how great Felicity was just because she stuck around made Thea sick. He saw that as a positive. What a fucking joke.

          Personally, Thea thought Felicity was a lamprey. Oliver was just the bigger fish that she’d glommed onto. Of course, she stuck around, she’d found someone to feed off of; she’d be a fool to walk away from that. That was not worthy of admiration and she was so done, hearing her brother sing the blonde’s praises. Why couldn’t he see her for what she was? Boy she must have a magic pussy, she thought uncharitably.

           “Yeah, but I can’t be with you,” Oliver said with a weak smile.

          Thea answered thoughtlessly, “Says who?”  

          The room fell deathly silent. Her words hanging heavy in the air. Oh god. Why had she said that aloud? Fuck.

          She’d come in here to protect him from himself, not dump her emotional baggage on him. This wasn’t about her. It was about him and now, he looked like he’d seen a ghost.  Thea had to act quick to get the conversation back on track.  “Ollie, please, don’t marry her. You don’t have to settle for easy. You deserve a marriage of true love, deep love, not just comfortable.”

           “Thea-”

           Two heavy knocks sounded on the door before John entered the room, “Ready, Oliver?”

           Oliver looked between his closest friend and his younger sister. It was time to make a choice.

[raywritesthings]

Happy Accident 2/3

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Oliver Queen, Laurel Lance, Felicity Smoak, Curtis Holt, John Constantine, Barry Allen, Iris West, Cisco Ramon, Caitlin Snow Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen, Barry Allen/Iris West Summary: Felicity’s punch has consequences no one intended, driving Oliver to take drastic measures with their own unexpected result. *Can be read on AO3, link in bio*

It was difficult trying to move in all this wet leather that clung to her skin like it was stuck with glue. Being cold and uncomfortable was distracting in itself; she hadn’t had any physical discomfort in that other realm, hadn’t wanted for any material need.

But now she was here in the real world, she was pretty sure. Oliver had brought her back even though she’d thought that was impossible now. “Is that a Lazarus Pit?”

“Yeah. Turns out there were more.” He pulled a big, fluffy towel out of a pack that Laurel eagerly took when he crouched down to pass it to her. He stayed there, smiling at her in a way he hadn’t for a long time, a way that always guaranteed to turn her insides to mush. Laurel tried to find something else to distract herself with.

“Who painted my nails black?” She was really starting to worry about her dad’s mental state if this was what he’d chosen to lay her to rest in.

“...you did?” A vaguely familiar voice said in what seemed to be a question. Looking past Oliver allowed her to see Curtis Holt, the man that had helped them save Oliver’s life and rescue Thea and Felicity from Brie Larvan’s attack on Palmer Tech. Felicity was here, too, staring at Laurel with an unreadable expression on her face.

Constantine had circled around to stare at her as well. “Oliver, if something’s gone sideways, I need to know.”

“It hasn’t — it’s not bad. You were right, I couldn’t find Black Siren’s soul.”

“Oh, she didn’t have one? Color me shocked,” Felicity muttered.

To Laurel’s surprise, Oliver ignored her entirely. “But it turned out that, even though her soul had fallen out of our Earth’s vibrational frequency, Laurel’s hadn’t.”

“Wait,” said Curtis. “You’re telling us this is Laurel-Laurel? Like the good one?”

Laurel raised an eyebrow at that. Since when had she been a ‘bad one’?

“Yes,” Oliver confirmed.

Felicity’s mouth fell open. “Laurel body-snatched her own doppelganger’s body?”

“This isn’t my body?” Laurel asked, her heart — or someone’s heart — doing a funny lurch. She ran both hands down her face. Everything felt like herself, except — was there a hole in her nose? She had a nose ring now?

“Hey, it’s gonna be okay,” Oliver promised, his hands on her shoulders helping steady her. Behind him, Curtis and Felicity seemed less convinced.

“Oh man. Oh man, this is way beyond what I signed up for.”

“Why did you grab the wrong soul? You really thought it was a good idea to just mix and match people’s souls? This could be a disaster!”

“If everyone could shut it a moment?” Constantine demanded loudly, and they did. He nudged Oliver back a couple feet and stood over her, waving his arms and murmuring what to her basically sounded like gibberish under his breath. When he at last stopped, his shoulders sagged in relief. “For better or worse, she’s stable. An exorcism shouldn’t be necessary, and it’d be damn difficult to do since she is so compatible with this body.”

Laurel leaned slightly away at the word ‘exorcism’, but felt the tension leave her upon hearing the rest. She wasn’t totally sure how she felt inhabiting what was apparently a version of her body from another Earth. And really, what had happened to the other her that had led to Laurel inhabiting this body?

“How exactly did the other me die?” She asked. She had to assume the other her had died if they’d been trying to get her back with a Lazarus Pit.

The range of reactions was something to behold; from Oliver’s wince to Curtis squeezing his eyes shut and shying away to Felicity’s stiff, “There was an accident. But that doesn’t really matter, now, because… you’re back. The real you, this time. Kind of ironic considering she pretended to be you at first.”

“She did?” Laurel really wasn’t sure what to think from the bits and pieces she was learning about the other her – though she couldn’t help thinking that real was an oversimplification of what she was in relation to her doppelganger. Her doppelganger had been real, too, had lived and died. Was it right for her now to be living in her place?

Laurel didn’t want to be dead, though. Before she had died had been some of the best months of her life; she’d finally felt like she had everything to live for. She couldn’t and didn’t want to change that she was back, as selfish as it seemed.

“It’s a long story,” Oliver said. “There’s a lot we’re gonna have to catch you up on.”

“Wish I wasn’t used to that feeling.” Laurel shifted so that she could get back onto her feet — or her doppelganger’s feet. She didn’t know if she ought to keep reminding herself of that out of respect to the other woman or if it was just going to end up driving her mad. She was a little unsteady in the heeled boots she had on considering her feet were still damp inside them, and Oliver rose to his own feet to steady her, one hand on her arm, the other supporting her back. She smiled up at him a bit timidly; that other place she had been in was beginning to fade from her mind, and Laurel couldn’t help but to focus on the last conversation she remembered having in the land of the living until now.

“I’m going to need all of you to step outside while I place the protective enchantments over this Pit,” Constantine said.

They filed out, Laurel wrapping the towel tighter around her shoulders as she was met with cold mountain air. Oliver guided her to shelter against an outcrop of rock, one hand rubbing her back to help warm her.

“So what was the plan after this, exactly?” Felicity shouted to be heard over the wind. Laurel shifted to try and make a little more room for her friend to come stand with them, yet Felicity remained where she was using Curtis as a buffer.

“I was going to call a secure ARGUS transport,” Oliver said. “But we don’t need them now.”

“We do need a way to get a legally dead woman back into the US, though,” Curtis pointed out. Laurel found herself wondering why he was here. Not that she had anything against Curtis, she just would have pictured John or Thea being the third person to accompany them on this resurrection mission. Then again, she had no way of knowing how long it had been or what might have happened to Thea or John in the meantime. That was an unpleasant thought.

Oliver nodded. “Felicity, see if you can get a hold of Cisco.”

Their friend turned away to do just that. Laurel desperately wanted to know why there was still such a coldness between the pair, and why it no longer just seemed to be on Felicity’s side of things. And why had Oliver apologized to her about Felicity? Except it hadn’t been to her, it had been to some other version of her. Something had happened that no one seemed to want to get into right now. She’d let it go for a time, but once she was warm and in comfortable clothes, Laurel wanted to know just what exactly had been going on while she was dead.

Constantine joined them outside. “Well, you lot got a way back yet?”

“Working on it, John,” Oliver told him.

“Then I suppose this is goodbye for now,” he said. “Laurel, always a pleasure.” The man leaned in and gave her a light peck on the cheek, which Laurel couldn’t help noticing had Oliver grimacing. “You take better care of these Lance girls, Oliver, or I might have to steal them from you.”

“Well, Sara speaks for herself, but I’m happy where I am,” Laurel said before Oliver could try to speak up on her behalf. He looked mollified by her answer anyway.

Constantine shrugged with a grin. “Worth a try. Right then, I’ll be off. Good luck in your new life!” He turned and sauntered down the mountain path, only the trail of cigarette smoke left in his wake after a moment.

“Cisco says he’ll make the breach and that we just step through,” Felicity shouted. “He doesn’t want to come to Siberia, apparently. Can’t imagine why.”

“Step through what?” Laurel asked, but then her answer arrived in the form of a strange, blue, rippling circle of energy opening up just a few feet ahead of them.

“Oh, thank you,” Curtis said before promptly running through it and not coming out the other side.

“Ollie?” Laurel asked.

“Just trust me,” he said, taking her hand as Felicity went through next. Laurel nodded and walked through it with him.

She could see nothing but blue all around them for a moment, and then they had somehow stepped out into some sort of command center of a room with computers and metal tables. Caitlin Snow and Cisco were there, along with a woman Laurel didn’t know.

“Thanks for the pickup,” Felicity was saying as she rubbed her hands together. “I was not looking forward to going back down that mountain.”

“So what were you all doing out there anyway?” Caitlin asked. She froze as her gaze passed over all of them and stopped on Laurel. “Oh!”

“Uh, hi,” said Laurel. “I’m back.”

Rather than surprise or even happiness meeting that statement, however, Caitlin paled, the unknown woman reached for a gun and Cisco sent some kind of blast of that blue energy at her, knocking her clean off her feet.

“We’ve got Siren!” He called out.

“Hey!” Oliver rushed to her side, but to her own amazement, Laurel was already shaking it off and getting back to her feet with her fists clenched. Figured this was the kind of welcome she got when coming back from the dead. “Just give me a minute to explain,” Oliver was saying.

Laurel saw a streak of lightning rush into the room straight toward her, her fight or flight response kicking in of its own accord. Without her even willing it, she released a scream like she used to with her choker device. Except instead of it just producing a noise this time, she felt the power of it rush out of her in waves that impacted Barry and pinned him against the opposite wall.

“Laurel, Laurel, stop!” Oliver’s hand on her arm snapped her out of her fighting stance, and the scream let up.

She backed up a couple steps, one hand going to her throat. “How did I do that?”

“It- she could do that,” he answered. “She was a metahuman.”

“Oliver, are we sure she isn’t still — that maybe some of her is still in there?” Felicity asked, eyeing Laurel warily.

“John didn’t seem to think so.”

“Okay, is someone going to actually explain what we’re talking about and why Black Siren shouldn’t go back in the pipeline?” Cisco asked, loud enough to cut through what seemed to be a brewing argument.

“Because I’m not Black Siren,” Laurel said. “I’m me. And I didn’t mean to do that just now. I didn’t even know I could. I’m sorry,” she said to Barry, who was just struggling to his feet with the unnamed woman’s help.

“Well, thanks for the apology,” he grunted. “But I’m not following. You’re not Black Siren, you just have her clothes and her powers and look just like her?”

“Well, that’s what happens when Oliver decides to drop original Laurel’s soul in Black Siren’s body on a whim,” Felicity remarked.

The Flash team all looked suitably stunned. Laurel shifted a bit uncomfortably. She really didn’t know what the process was for accepting that you were yourself, but slightly not at the same time. Somewhere else, the body she had always known was still rotting away in a grave. Somehow she kept whatever contents might have been in her other self’s stomach at the thought.

“So… she’s our Laurel instead?” Caitlin asked at last.

“Yes,” Oliver seemed glad to answer.

Cisco was the first of the group to approach, scrutinizing her for a long moment. “What was the thing I asked for in exchange for the Canary Cry?”

“What did I say I’d do if you showed anyone?” Laurel answered with her own question. The others looked, if anything, even more wary.

But Cisco’s face split into a wide beam. “Can I hug you?”

Laurel, who had not been hugged yet since coming back from the dead, opened her arms obligingly. Cisco practically flew into them.

“We missed you so much! I love how no one from Star stays dead!”

Cisco’s teammates were all relaxing now that he had given the green light of sorts, and one by one approached her for hugs as well, though in the case of the woman who came up after Barry it was accompanied with a, “I’m Iris. It’s really great to finally meet the you the others have all told me about.”

“Thank you.”

“And you’re a metahuman now? I mean, this is even more awesome,” Cisco was saying.

“Is no one really going to miss the other me?” Laurel couldn’t help asking. A part of her felt she ought to stick up for her not-self.

When her question was met with a round of shaking heads from just about everyone but Oliver, she cringed. She could only imagine the worst.

“So how exactly did her soul replace Black Siren’s? And how are you gonna explain Laurel’s being alive? I mean, is she gonna resume living in Star?” Barry was asking Oliver. They were good questions, but Laurel was honestly starting to feel a little overwhelmed to consider it all. She still didn’t even know how long she’d been dead for.

“You look like you could use a shower and maybe some of your own clothes,” Iris noted. “Come on, I can show you where to find stuff.”

“Thanks,” Laurel said, catching Oliver’s eye briefly as she made to leave the room. He nodded, indicating he understood where she was heading, then returned to speaking with Barry. “So, when did you join Barry’s team?”

“Oh, I’ve known for a couple years now,” Iris answered her. “But I’ve known Barry since we were kids. We finally decided to give dating a shot a couple months ago.”

Laurel returned Iris’ happy smile with one of her own. “Good for you. Dating your best friend… it’s really special.” It had been one of the happiest times of her life before it was over.

But why was it starting to feel like Oliver didn’t think it was? Was it his happiness to have her back that she was misreading, or had something changed in a way she’d never dared to hope?

---

Barry gestured for Oliver to follow him out into the hall since Felicity and Curtis were already talking with Caitlin and Cisco. “So how exactly did this all start?”

“That’s a long story,” Oliver said with a sigh. “But I guess it started when Black Siren really did come to town. Prometheus, another archer, had broken her out and wanted her to pass herself off as our Laurel to mess with our heads, I guess. We ended up realizing it was a trick and capturing her, only Felicity let her escape to try and follow her to Prometheus,” Oliver explained, a frown on his face as he continued, “which nearly killed a security guard and led to Siren dying when Felicity sucker-punched her.”

Barry’s eyes went wide. Felicity had killed someone? He just couldn’t picture it. “And then?”

“And then, I… I don’t know if I can explain what watching her die again was like for me, Barry. My own team doesn’t even understand it. I called John Constantine, and maybe it was rash, but when he told me there were still other Lazarus Pits out there, I couldn’t just… not when my team was responsible. Not again. I know that sounds — she wasn’t even my Laurel—”

“No, I get it. I’ve met other versions of my loved ones, too. It affects you.” He could still remember holding Earth-2’s Iris close as her Joe slipped away from them at the hospital, a lump in his throat that had made it painful to breath. “And trust me, you don’t have to explain what watching something like that does, how desperate it makes you. I know.”

And the thing was, Barry thought he was starting to get something else, too. He had heard about Oliver and Felicity’s breakup last year a month or so after it had happened. When they had all met up to combat the Dominators last month, the two had seemed on good enough terms for a working partnership, but nowhere near the level of intimacy they had had the same time last year — when they hadn’t been fighting in one timeline, Barry supposed.

So when Oliver had told him about the dream world the Dominators had stuck him and some of the others in, that it had been a perfect life with his parents still alive and him about to be married to the love of his life, Barry had wondered at the time about the lack of a name. Part of him had assumed that Felicity had been implied, yet now he was starting to think that hadn’t been correct. Especially when Oliver and Felicity hardly even seemed cordial with each other now if Felicity’s sarcastic remarks and Oliver’s clear frustration with her actions towards Black Siren were any indication.

“Thank you, Barry,” Oliver said, drawing him out of those thoughts.

“Hey, you were there for me about Flashpoint. I am always gonna be in your corner no matter what the call,” he said. “So I guess you guys went to this Pit?”

Oliver nodded. “Yeah, we met John there and restored Siren’s body to life. When people are fully killed, their souls have to be restored separately. Laurel and I rescued Sara’s last year, but when I went in with John this time, there was nothing at first. He thinks that because she was on a different world to her own, her soul was lost to us.”

“Wow,” Barry said, making a mental note never to die on another Earth. “You said there was nothing at first?”

“Yeah. But then I heard a voice calling for me. It was Laurel. I don’t know how or why they were connected like that, how she knew I was there. But I am so thankful.”

It was hard to wrap his head around. Barry was a scientist first and foremost, no matter how strange the science in his life had become. He didn’t fully understand everything that went on in Star these days any more than they seemed to understand metahumans. Though who knew if that would change now that Laurel was one.

But if Laurel was alive again and Oliver was happy, then Barry supposed the rest of it didn’t matter much in the end how it had happened. Just that it had.

“What are you going to tell people? I mean, everybody knows she was the Black Canary.”

Oliver looked down. “I wish Evelyn’s actions hadn’t made me do that, now. I haven’t spoken to Laurel yet about what people know. We’ll have to figure something out.”

Barry nodded. Anything else he might have said, however, would have to wait, as footsteps announced the arrival of Iris with Laurel. His girlfriend had supplied Laurel with the full STAR Labs apparel line, it looked like, and the two were chatting away like old friends as Laurel towel-dried her hair.

“And there they are,” Iris remarked, smiling at Barry in a way that always made his stomach do funny flips. He couldn’t help but notice Laurel’s smile seemed to be having the same effect on Oliver.

“Feeling better?” He asked.

“Yeah, now that I’ve sort of taken stock of things.”

“Oh?”

“Well, other me clearly got into her fair share of fights judging by some of the scars I have,” Laurel remarked. “Kinda weird they’re in different places than mine were. Also, I have tattoos, now.”

“Really, where?” Oliver asked with a grin that had Barry’s mouth dropping open.

Laurel, for her part, just rolled her eyes. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“C’mon, we better regroup with the others,” was all Oliver said in reply, still grinning as he offered Laurel his arm. She took it, and the two headed back into the cortex.

Iris stepped up to Barry’s side and slipped her arm around his back, her head leaning on his shoulder. “Aw, I’m glad they’re still cute. Teenage me’s kind of having a freak out right now.”

“Yeah?” Barry shook his head. Iris and her magazines. He much preferred her writing. Together, they followed their friends back into the room.

Caitlin and Cisco had abandoned their conversation with Curtis and Felicity to come see Laurel again.

“We have some data on hand about the sonic scream already, of course, but it’d be amazing to get a full, comprehensive picture now that you’re the one in control of it.”

“Also, I’m thinking suit update. I mean, what’s a back from the dead party without presents? If you let me keep Siren’s suit for the measurements, I can have it ready by the end of the week.”

“Thank you,” Laurel said. “That’s really sweet.”

“It is, but you guys might be getting ahead of yourselves,” Felicity interjected. “Let’s not forget that Oliver kind of outed Laurel as a superhero last year.”

Barry winced as the smile dropped off Laurel’s face while she backed a step away from the group, away from Oliver. “What?”

“Yeah, right over your grave,” Felicity added.

“There was a situation with an imposter,” Oliver explained. “I was going to tell you. I just wanted you to have some time.”

“Well, she did need to know, Oliver,” Felicity argued. “I mean, I don’t even know if Laurel can come home with us, at least not publicly.”

“We will figure it out,” he said, his voice taking on a harder edge that Barry knew meant it was time for the other person to stop pushing. But Barry also knew Felicity tended to struggle with those sorts of social cues.

Sure enough, his socially awkward friend continued, “How? This isn’t exactly something you can take back. I mean, you had a statue built in Laurel’s honor — even if her doppelganger just destroyed it — and Quentin even confirmed he knew Laurel’s identity which cost him getting his job back—”

“My dad gave up his job?” Laurel asked, looking distressed at the prospect.

“It wouldn’t have been good for him to take it, Laurel, he needed the time in rehab,” Felicity said, and though her tone was a soothing one, Laurel did not look any calmer, and Barry didn’t blame her. 

There was something about the smile playing around Felicity’s lips that didn’t quite seem sympathetic and raised the hairs on the backs of his arms. He had spent enough time over the last few years with men who had claimed to have his best interests at heart all the while that they schemed and acted to hurt him, and he had gotten good at spotting the feeling. But why would Felicity of all people be giving him that feeling?

“That’s another thing, actually,” Felicity was saying the same time that Barry’s mind raced with these observations. “If Quentin hears about Laurel being back, he’ll want to check himself out in the middle of his treatment. You really did not think through the ramifications of doing this, Oliver.”

“Felicity, that’s enough,” Oliver commanded, causing everyone in the room to stand just a little bit straighter. Felicity’s mouth, which had opened again to speak, snapped shut. “What is done is done, and whatever the complications that arise, we will deal with. I would much rather live in a world where Laurel is alive and have some issues to sort out rather than a simpler one where she is not here. I’d have hoped you felt the same way.”

There was a stunned moment of silence where Caitlin, Cisco and Curtis all stood there gaping. Iris watched at Barry’s side, her slightly widened eyes the only giveaway to her feelings on the matter and Barry himself had little clue how he looked on the outside, only knowing that he would never have thought he’d see Oliver take that tone with Felicity; not since the disagreement they had had all those years ago when Barry had been brought in on the secret of the older vigilante’s identity.

Laurel stood at the midpoint between them, her arms crossed in a move Barry recognized was far more about shielding herself than it was about projecting power. Her disbelieving gaze slowly swept in Felicity’s direction, who scoffed.

“I- of course I prefer it! I just think you have a bad habit of making incredibly impulsive decisions without considering all the facts or getting the rest of the team’s consensus.”

Oliver didn’t even bat an eye. “Impulsive decisions like going behind my back and giving the recruits separate parameters for a mission that ran completely counter to my stated directions? Or like releasing a dangerous prisoner in the hopes she’ll lead you to her commander?”

“You- you did that, too,” Felicity declared. “Last year, with Anarchy!”

“Yes, and I was wrong! Which Laurel pointed out to me, privately instead of bringing it up in front of the team or our friends, something that in all the years we have worked together, you never fail to do,” Oliver shouted. He then squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, voice returning to a normal volume as he added, “I didn’t like doing that with you, just now. I understand why you took those risks with Siren, what you are going through. I wanted to address it later, see what you needed to let the team keep working.” His frown deepened. “But you never have afforded me the same courtesy, and I am realizing that you never will.”

“Oliver—”

“I need to ask you to take a leave of absence from the team.”

“What?”

“Oliver,” Laurel said softly. “If this is about just now, I’ll be fine. I don’t want people kicked off the team just because they disagreed about bringing me back.”

“If it was just that, I’d consider other options. But this has been an ongoing problem I’ve made excuses for in the past, and that’s only compounded things.”

“What, because I make my own decisions and don’t just follow your orders? That’s enough to get kicked off a team I helped build?” Felicity demanded.

“I recruited you,” Oliver said. “I thought it would be a good idea to have an expert on the computers, but that does not make you an expert in the field. A woman died a few nights ago because of an impulsive attack you made on her after Curtis had already taken measures to neutralize her threat. When that catches up with you, when you can see past the anger and grief you are feeling over Billy and think about what you did, you are going to need the time off.” The anger had almost entirely receded, and it struck Barry now why Oliver was doing this; he was trying to be kind. “When you’ve had that time, we can talk. And that will include laying some ground rules about how the team is going to operate.”

Felicity nodded, her eyes particularly bright behind her glasses in a way Barry knew meant she was holding onto her tears. “Well, I can save you the time, because it is going to operate without me.” She turned and marched for the exit to the cortex, turning once to call over her shoulder, “Good luck with the recruits since they basically all hate you.”

She left a very long and awkward silence in her wake.

“Um, for the record,” Curtis began in a small voice. “While I don’t exactly hate — it’s a strong word, you know — but I do, at times, find you extremely difficult to work with, and I’m not sure how I feel about what just happened.”

“Then take some time off to figure it out, Curtis,” Oliver replied. “I need a team that can function as a cohesive unit. We are never going to defeat Prometheus when we’re too busy with infighting. Decide what’s more important to you, and then stick with it.”

Curtis gulped and nodded.

Oliver turned out to face the wider room. “I’m sorry that had to happen in your space, Barry.”

“No, it — well, it’s probably best we know the situation,” he decided. “I guess I just hope things work out for the best.”

“We should probably get home. All of us,” Oliver added, with a look at Laurel.

“What are we going to tell people?” She asked.

“That’s something I’m working on, but I know you’d rather be in Star than anywhere else.”

Laurel’s lips turned up in a small smile, and she nodded.

“I can get you guys back to your base to avoid bumping into anybody who shouldn’t know yet,” Cisco offered. “And I’m still gonna get started on the suit.”

“Thanks, Cisco,” Laurel said, walking over and hugging him again. Barry thought his friend was quite happy with that development.

A new breach was made, and the remaining Team Arrow members stepped through, the somewhat tense and awkward air in the room breaking as the breach closed.

“Well, that was… something,” Iris commented. “I hadn’t realized things were so bad with their team.”

“Neither had I,” Barry admitted. He had always viewed the Arrow’s team as a well-oiled machine, something to aspire towards. It was almost comforting to know they had their issues the same as his team had had theirs. Barry hoped it never came to a head the way things just had between Oliver and Felicity, though.

He couldn’t help wondering, however, if perhaps that had needed to happen. The last couple times Barry had seen Oliver, the other man had seemed tired, run down, and missing some part of that unbeatable drive he brought to everything he did. Now it seemed he had regained it with new vigor, and it didn’t take a genius to guess what had caused it.

Barry only hoped Oliver did figure out some way for Laurel to return to Star City officially, and as a free woman. He needed her just as surely as Barry needed Iris. And like Oliver had just proven, even death could be conquered in the face of love.

[themaribatpit]

Hanging by a Thread: Chapter 3

Rated M: DC canon-typical violence, suggestive threats

Author’s Note: Neither of us are actually American, and DC Fanboy has some gripes with certain American habits.  Please feel free to tell us how uncultured we are in the comments, and try and explain yourselves to non-Americans.

Ships: Jason Todd/Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Dick Grayson/Barbara Gordon (side ship).

Taglist:

@aespades​, @neakco, @ladybug-182, @seraphichana, @zalladane, @luminous-carrot, @jayjayspixiepop, @cap-noodles, @livelifeauthorstyle, @thepaceperson, @moongoddesskiana, @vroomtaka, @laurcad123,  @prettylittlebutterflie

Chapter 2 - Chapter 4​

Chapter 3

Dick slumped down on a chair when they returned to the Belfry.  He ripped off his domino mask and let out a sigh. “Damn he’s good, then again he was taught by the best.” 

“Dick!” Barbara gave him a dirty look. They both looked towards their French guest to see her still lost in thought. 

Ladybug transformed back to Marinette, and then slowly walked over to get herself another cup of hot chocolate to cheer herself up. As she operated the multi hot drinks machine in the Belfry, she thought about how incredibly convenient the device was. Barbara and Dick mentioned that unless it was winter, no one else used it for hot chocolate. 

Hot chocolate dispensed from the machine, and as she picked up the paper cup, a shadow loomed over her. She was able to make out the silhouette of an imposing figure with demonic pointed ears. She squealed in shock, spilling her hot chocolate on the figure. 

Dick rolled off the chair laughing, “Oh, better fly away home Ladybug.” “How long have you been waiting to use that joke?” Barbara said without looking away from the screen.

“Since the moment I met her, Babs,” Dick retorted.

After the initial shock, Marinette was able to see the figure clearly and realised she just spilled hot chocolate on Batman. The Batman. Marinette paled at what she had done, she fumbled around looking for tissues. All the while apologising profusely as she tried to find anything to wipe the Caped Crusader clean from this chocolatey mess. Her mind ran at a mile a minute, thinking of what Batman would do to her for spilling hot chocolate on him. She thought of how Batman would squish her like a bug, or perhaps he would break all of her limbs, and send her on the first flight back to Paris while tied to the cargo hold. Her mind was catastrophizing and going into a full panic as she stumbled around the kitchenette. 

Marinette found a damp cloth and began wiping Batman vigorously from head to toe and hoping it would somehow lessen her punishment. She looked up to see that Batman continued to stare at her with his infamous glare. Seeing that her attempts to clean up her mess had no effect, she ran back towards the main room and grabbed Dick, holding him in front of her as a shield. 

Batman slowly followed, without saying a word he stomped into the main room and came to a halt right in front of Dick. “Uh, hi.” Dick awkwardly greeted Batman. Marinette shakingly peeked her head out from behind. 

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng, also known as Ladybug.” Batman’s low voice boomed with authority. “What are you doing here in Gotham?” 

Marinette yelped and went back to hiding behind Dick. Barbara interjected, “She’s here to investigate a recent use of the Lazarus Pit, mainly the Red Hood. From what we gather the creatures that give her power were also the ones who created the pits.” She explained on Marinette’s behalf. 

An uncomfortable silence hung in the room as Batman contemplated her answer. “Fine,” he relented. He turned and walked away. 

Marinette released a sigh of relief as she saw Batman leave. Dick took out his phone and began tapping on it, he just had to notify the rest of the Bat Family of what had just transpired. After a few moments he put his phone back in his pocket and walked away, “I’ll get a mop” he yelled back at Marinette and Barbara. 

Marinette then slumped on the dining table, hands in her head. Completely embarrassed at how she made a fool of herself in front of one of the world’s greatest heroes. Barbara calmly patted her back in consolation. After she calmed down and got herself another cup of hot chocolate, Marinette decided to head home.

On the way back to the apartment she shared with Zoe, she checked the messages that Zoe sent her during the past couple of days.  “Hey, are you okay?” The first one read.  “I haven’t seen you in the apartment for a while now,” she said, followed by a message that said “Please don’t be dead, I can’t afford rent by myself.” Marinette sent a quick reply saying, “I’m okay, I’ve just been busy taking care of some things.  See you tonight.” she said. When Marinette got home, she logged onto her computer to see a few messages from Alya, asking her of how she found Gotham City. Expressing worry for her friend, especially with the notoriety of Gotham's crime rate.

Marinette typed up "Hi Alya! Gotham is all right, I can take care of myself, you know that."

Alya decided to video call Marinette and her face appeared on screen. "Hey!" Alya waved her hand to her friend.

"Hi" Marinette gave a tired wave back.

"Everything okay?" Asked Alya.

"Fine, just tired from moving into the new place." She explained.

"By the way, could you open up a portal with Kaalki to my room?" asked Alya.

Marinette complied with her friend, as she put on the horse Miraculous and opened a portal. Soon a paper bag dropped from the ceiling and landed on the floor. "I had a feeling you might want something to cheer you up, I went to your parents' patisserie earlier."

Marinette opened up the bag to see several treats from the bakery.  She thanked her best friend profusely, and began eating them “How are things back in Paris?” Marinette asked, taking a macaron out of one of the boxes, she smiled as she took a bite out of it.  It was almost like she was 13 again, and her dad had given her a box of macarons for the first day of school.  

“Nothing we can’t handle,” Alya said, winking at her. “So, have you met any of Gotham’s vigilantes yet?” Marinette rubbed the back of her neck.  “Well, yeah,” she might as well tell her some of the things that happened.  “I accidentally spilled hot chocolate on Batman’s cape,” she confessed. “And you’re still alive?” Alya’s mouth hung open in shock. “Well, he does have a pretty strict ‘no killing’ policy,” Marinette told her. “Okay fair enough, how are you still in one piece?” Alya asked, still somewhat shocked.

“He just kinda glared at me, and I hid behind one of his sidekicks.” Marinette told her, “So, that’s how.” “Ah so you’ve met the sidekicks then,”  Alya gave her another knowing smile. “Some of them, Nightwing being one of them.” Marinette told her. “Did you get a good look at his assets?”  Alya gave her a wink, and Marinette rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure his assets were spoken for,” Marinette said, and before Alya could say anything more she quickly added “and no, I am not telling you who the lucky person is.” “You’re no fun.” Alya pouted mockingly, but she couldn’t stay angry at her friend.  Alya noticed the faraway look in Marinette’s eyes at that moment, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Marinette wondered how best to phrase it, “do you know anything about the Red Hood?” she asked.

Alya’s eyes widened in shock, “You’ve met him? Are you and Zoe living in his territory?”

“No, at least not that I know of, I just…” Marinette assured her, “Do you know anything about him?” “Give me a moment,” Alya said, quickly turning away to search for something on her laptop screen, “must have heard something about the guy…” she muttered.  Marinette never really told Alya about her soulmate bond, and she wasn’t about to start now.  “Says here he’s a crime lord that operates in Gotham City, that he took over Black Mask’s crime syndicate not too long ago…” Alya told her, “Pretty brutal to those who cross him, by the sound of things.” “Good to know,” Marinette muttered. “Marinette, are you sure you and Zoe are okay?” Alya asked. “We’re fine, just that Ladybug ran into him while working with Batman’s sidekicks.” Marinette told her. “I should have been there, it would have been a fun interview for Ladyblog.” Alya chuckled, and Marinette raised an eyebrow.  “I mean, after the fight of course, or maybe I should just stop talking.” “Try pitching the idea to Vicki Vale or Lois Lane, I’m sure they would jump at the chance.” Marinette joked.

"Just you wait until I get my Journalism degree, I'll bother you everyday for a scoop." Alya retorted. The two of them continued to laugh and joke with one another before Marinette went to bed.

The next morning, Marinette was woken by someone gently nudging her awake.  “Get dressed dummy, we’re going out.” she heard a voice say. Marinette looked up and blinked a few times before Zoe’s face came into view.  “What time is it?” Marinette groaned. “9am,” Zoe told her, “we are going to go out and get some breakfast together.” Marinette groaned in response, but slowly got out of bed.  Zoe leaned against the doorway, crossing her arms and smiling.  She chuckled slightly at the sight of Marinette’s tousled hair, Marinette smiled slightly in response.  “All right, all right, give me some time to get dressed.” she said and Zoe left, closing the door behind her. 

The two friends sat down to eat breakfast at a nearby diner, and Zoe began telling Marinette all the ways in which America was very different from France.  “First of all, they call the 24 hour clock ‘military time’, I never understood that.” she explained before taking a bite of her pancakes.  Americans made pancakes a lot thicker and fluffier compared to crepes, was another thing Marinette noticed.  “Oh, no more 2 hour lunch breaks, and as a French person, you will get made fun of for having more time off work than the Americans.” she said.  

As the two finished breakfast, Zoe paid the bill and left a tip. Marinette raised an eyebrow at Zoe for paying what was higher than the bill. “Marinette, remember, always tip whenever you go eat at a restaurant or a diner.” She explained. 

“Why? Isn’t there a service charge added? Don’t the servers get paid?” Marinette asked.

“Not at all.” Zoe deadpanned. 

“What?” Marinette exclaimed in shock, she quickly covered her mouth as eyes turned to face her for her outburst. 

 Zoe beckoned Marinette to follow her, “Come on, I’ll show you all the hotspots in Gotham City.”

 The two walked out onto the street and across several blocks.  Zoe stopped as the two reached their destination. She then pointed to an old gothic tower, “That there is the old Wayne Tower, creepy isn’t it? Built in 1888 by Cyrus Pinkey for the Waynes right at the heart of Gotham City. It’s been closed for a few years now, since Wayne Enterprise moved to the New Wayne Tower in the financial district.”

 Marinette’s eyes widened in recognition, it was where the Belfry was located. She remembered the gothic tower, but she had no idea it was the old Wayne Tower. She decided it would be best to keep quiet about this revelation. 

 The two continued sightseeing as they ventured into Robinson Park. “This park is amazing, the biggest park in the heart of Gotham. Also it's very close to Gotham U, I’d love to come here everyday after class to unwind.” Zoe explained. The two calmly walked across the park, enjoying the scenery and stopping by to feed some ducks.

 “Anyway I need to get some things on the way back,” the two then walked to a nearby grocery store and bought groceries. Being on a budget, Marinette eyed the price tags frugally, calculating how much it would cost her. Zoe smirked at Marinette, knowing what would come next when the two went to the cash register. Marinette was thrown into a loop as the total amount did not match the price tags. Marinette tried to ask for an explanation from the cashier, but they were not helpful. The cashier only said that it was tax, “Why isn’t tax included in the price tags?” she pleaded to the cashier.

The cashier gave Marinette a light shrug. “That's just the way things are.” 

Marinette pulled her pigtails in frustration as to why the final price doesn’t match the price tag. “Ok fine, what's the tax in America?”

Zoe took the chance to intervene and explain it to her friend. “It depends, it varies between states, counties and even cities.” 

Marinette banged her head against the counter in frustration. “Why? Why is it so crazy here?” 

Zoe and the cashier laughed at Marinette's antics. The cashier asked “You new here?” 

Marinette did not lift her head up, “How could you tell?” 

The two made their purchase and walked home, Marinette had to do a double take on the loaf of bread she bought. She stopped Zoem and said that they needed to go back to the grocery store for another loaf of bread, because this one had expired. Zoe snatched the loaf from Marinette’s hands and took another look. “Nope it's fine, remember America uses Month/Day/Year here.” Zoe explained. Marinette’s eye twitched as the two walked back to their apartment. 

The semester began the following Monday at Gotham University. As a Fashion & Design student, Marinette had long studio classes which usually kept her busy during the day.  She would have to spend even longer hours in the studio if she had a project due.  When Zoe wasn’t attending lectures, she had a part-time job that kept her busy as well.  So Marinette didn’t see much of her by the time she managed to return to their apartment.

Over the course of the next few days, she would go to her classes by day and go out every night to search for her soulmate. However, the Red Hood had proved to be elusive, always alert to the movement of the red thread that tied them together.  Marinette found that the thread changed wildly.  Some nights she stopped by the Belfry, exhausted and dejected. Barbara had noticed this and decided that she had to know about Jason, it might change her mind or it might not. She deserved to know if she was going to go looking for him every night.

One night when she entered the Belfry, Barbara gestured to Marinette, “Come over and pull up a chair.” Marinette followed and brought a chair to the computer. The two sat side by side, “Mari, you deserve to know more about Jason...the Red Hood.”

Marinette’s eyes widened at the mention of her soulmate, “Please tell me more about him.” she begged.

“Marinette, I’m sorry, we knew more about him but we didn’t tell you.” Barbara apologised.

Marinette was hurt at how they were withholding information about her soulmate from her. “Why?” was all that she was able to say.

Barbara took a deep breath, “Because Jason was the second Robin.” 

Marinette’s jaw dropped at this bombshell, her soulmate used to be Robin. It would explain the skills he displayed out in their last encounter. Marinette wondered how tough his life was, how he suffered at the hands of the criminals of Gotham at such a young age. Some of the things he said back at the dockyards were now sounding like they came from experience.  “What was he like?” she asked, wanting to know what her soulmate was like before his death. 

“Angry, rebellious, Jason always felt like it was him against the world. He was caught trying to steal the wheels off the Batmobile, that's how Batman found him and brought him in.” Barbara explained. 

“How did he die?” Marinette asked.

Barbara grew silent at the mention of Jason’s death. “He tried to pursue the Joker, but it was a trap. The Joker caught him, tortured him for god knows how long. I saw his bruises, it-it was as if he was beaten over and over again with a crowbar.” Marinette covered her mouth and her eyes welled with tears as she heard the gruesome details of her soulmate's unfortunate end. 

“To make matters worse, he locked Jason in the room with a bomb.” “What about the Red Hood?” she asked. “We...we buried a mannequin in a wig,” Barbara explained, “the real body was taken by the League of Assassins, trying to make up for what happened.”

Marinette stood up and rushed to the guest room, she had heard enough.  She could not imagine the pain and suffering her soulmate had been through his entire life.

Jason had been constantly on the move, knowing that his soulmate was out looking for him.  He tried to shut off the part of him that wanted to get close.  He was honestly surprised the Bat clan hadn't told her every horrific story they had about him.  Either they didn't know they were soulmates or she was knowingly walking head first into the lion's mouth.  If she didn't find him, then she might stumble upon a group of his men at work, and they might be a lot less forgiving.   If he was constantly checking over his shoulder, making sure the girl wasn't close by, things were bound to start slipping through the cracks.  

He himself had various safehouses scattered around the city, but he couldn't keep running forever.   It was getting ridiculous, he had faced crime lords, assassins and even gone toe-to-toe with Batman multiple times.  Yet here he was, running and hiding from a girl who was about a foot shorter than he was.  He knew why, of course, he wasn't afraid of her but she should be very afraid of him.  He had hoped that she would give up the search, as she drew closer and closer to finding out the truth about what happened to him.  But life had never been that easy for Jason, and sooner or later she was going to get too close to the untamed monster beneath.  If she got hurt because of him, he wouldn't be able to forgive himself.  Not even his old self could forgive that.  He would have no trouble protecting her from other criminals, not that she really needed it.  However, whatever came crawling out of the pits was something else.

After putting a swift end to some people who were causing trouble in his territory,  his mind wandered back to Ladybug.  Specifically, the sad look in her eyes when he explained how brutal and unforgiving Gotham could be.  He tried not to think about it, because that look made him want to hold her close, and reassure her that everything would be okay.  Thoughts of how the idea of her gave him hope all those years ago would come bubbling to the surface.  It made him want to protect her, to ensure that this world wouldn’t hurt her the way it hurt him.  When she looked at him with those eyes, it made him want to believe that she trusted him to do just that.  He shook his head, and told himself that what he was also the very thing she needed protecting from.  

Most nights Jason had nightmares about failing to save her.  There were even nightmares where she died by his hands.  Her blue eyes would become lifeless and vacant, her skin would feel ice cold, and he would end up cradling her limp form in his arms.  Batman would just love it if those nightmares came true.  It would only prove to him that Jason was nothing more than an unhinged monster he couldn’t cage.  It wasn’t as though the Bat had much luck caging the real monsters in Gotham anyhow.  Most days, Jason’s skin crawled as he remembered the feeling of the Lazarus pit’s waters.  The creatures she was palling around with were the ones who made it. They probably didn’t give a damn about the evil they had inflicted on the world because of it.   For all he knew, being around her little fairy friends would make the effects much worse.  Still, when he snapped back to reality, he would see the string glowing red, just as it had always done.  Occasionally moving and twitching as his soulmate searched high and low for him. Maybe the time had come to have a little talk, soulmate to soulmate...