#Dick: YOU TOOK OFF IN THE MIDDLE OF A FULL ON WAR IN GOTHAM TO GO GET WAFFLES?

[spacedace]

Reluctant War AU Part 4

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Everything I know about Flash and the FlashFam (& Flash enemies) comes from fandom and theflashmuseum on tiktok so fair warning on that lol

Sorry if Barry is out of character or things don't line up with canon. Canon is a stranger I think I passed in a crowded room once, I did not ask for its number lol

Anyway, time to touch a bit more on that whole Ancient of the Speedforce Elle thing yeah? Here be a sprinkle more of that and I promise there's more to come haha

Gonna start posting this on Ao3 soon, probably Monday or Tuesday, so heads up I may stop adding these parts here on tumblr once I do

---

It lived beneath his skin.

For a long time Barry had never believed in magic. His world was grounded, scientific, made of predictable rules and laws. Tools that could be used to explain everything strange or supernatural away as just another odd twist of the massive universe they all belonged to.

It took perhaps a little longer than it should have to admit that magic was as real as thermodynamics and gravity and atoms. That the world was a great deal stranger than even science - for all its own wildness at times - could account for. There were things that went bump in the night. Hells below and heavens above and things that crawled and clawed their way out from the places in between.

It was almost a little embarrassing how long it had taken him to admit to such things, when considering his relationship with the Speedforce.

A force of the universe. Like gravity or time, pushing and pulling everything along. Something that could be explained with all the familiar scientific concepts that had buoyed him along in life for so long.

Except.

Except.

Buzzing, burning, blistering. Not painful but felt. Making his hair stand on end, his fingers tingle and numb. Sliding against his veins, bouncing between scar tissue and freckles. Pressing out from the confines of his sternum, rattling against his rib cage as it shifted and moved. Twining around each and every vertebrae. Coiling over and under itself within his skull, darting along the paths of his neurons and nerves. It hummed in every cell in his body. Darted and danced in the space between the atoms that made up his very existence.

The Speedforce lived beneath his skin.

Lived.

Not existed. Not contained. Lived.

He couched it in terms of science, but science - despite his long time refusal to acknowledge it - wasn’t really able to explain the full scope of what he could feel. Not just the power of the Speedforce, but the…the identity of it. The living part that made it’s home in his body, existing in a way that was separate from him. Distant and indistinct most of the time, but…sentient.

He could feel it. Warm and excitable, delighting every time he tapped into it. Pushing him from behind urging him on and on, tugging him forward from ahead beckoning to go, faster, faster. Joyful in his victories, despairing in his loses.

It lived beneath his skin.

Until it didn’t.

He followed its joyful calls, pushed beyond what he should, what he knew was safe. Chasing that welcoming chant of faster, faster until he was there. In the Speedforce. More even, was the Speedforce.

He was everywhere. Beyond everywhere. In every possible everywhere it was possible to be. Every world, every universe, every multiverse.

To enter the Speedforce, to merge with it, was to become part of existence itself.

He couldn’t remember everything about it once he came back. He got flashes, sometimes, quick moments in dreams of places, of moments. What stuck with him most had been the feeling of it all. That had been the hardest part of returning. The sense of terrible loss, of having been surrounded by such a giddy, delighted, devoted love only to be pulled back from the heart of it. Returned to how he had been before, drifting at the edge of it all, it had been painful, agonizing even.

He…adapted, eventually. The sense of it all was still there, just distant. Something he’d come to feel he’d see again, someday.

It had been different, recently.

His powers were the same, he just as fast as ever, but…there was something…off. Changed. A sense that while his speed remained, the Speedforce had become, for lack of a better word, quiet. Distant.

He’d been having dreams, since it started. Not the quick glimpses of his time where he’d merged with the Speedforce. No, instead they were more nightmarish. Not nightmares exactly, though he felt like they should be with what they contained, but something else. Something that felt unnervingly real, left him confused and reeling when he woke with the certainty that when he opened his eyes he’d see the same as what his dreams held.

In the dream, he was in a room.

Cement and metal, hostile and brutalistic in design. He was bound in place, standing upright with feet and hands spread wide and locked in place within strange devices. Gleaming chrome and brilliant green, a painful thrum of energy surging through his body - not the Speedforce, something else, deeply unpleasant pulsing through every cell of his being and freezing him in place more firmly then the restraints did. Projectors hung from the ceiling, displaying images of landscapes, changing every ten second or so.

The sight of them made him nauseous, body shivering and spasming with the burning, agonizing need to go, but at the same time there was something distantly soothed by them too. Like a gnawing hunger abated with water and crumbs. The need for food not gone but the pangs diminished by the false feeling of being full.

In the dream he felt like he was dying.

In the dream he was afraid that maybe he couldn’t.

That he’d be trapped alive in that state forever, watching places he’d never see in person again as he was trapped in one place. His mind spiraling his Core splintering under the weight of it all, scared so scared. He wanted his brother, wanted to see the cement walls explode into dust and debris and see him there, ready to save the day like he had so many times before.

He just had to wait. His brother was looking for him, would have everyone in the Realms looking for him. He just had to hold on.

Barry didn’t have a brother. He only remembered when he woke, heart hammering in his chest fast even by his own standards, mouth tasting of bile and body aching with the need to go.

He hadn’t been sleeping much these days, even before the King of the Dead declared war.

It was having its effects, as sleep deprivation always did. His mind drifting, catching again and again on the dream, attention far away from the world around him. How many times had he been startled by someone calling his name, touching his arm? How many times had they given him a pinched, worried look that told him they’d been trying to reach him for longer than they should have before he noticed.

He was aware, distantly, of the glowering, stern faces around him. The flinty looks of his friends’ and partners’ eyes as they stared at the image of Waller’s scowling mug.

She’d declined an in-person meeting, hunkering down in some bunker somewhere trying to avoid the consequences of her latest atrocities. Or maybe just trying to avoid the very real possibility that one of the members of JL Dark might try to kill her for what she’s caused.

Or JL light, for that matter.

Bruce and Clark had their rules that they lived by, but Diana certainly wouldn’t hesitate to splatter Waller’s brains across the nearest available wall. In reviewing footage of one of the last battles - she’d been at the other one at the time, trying to contend with a ghost in the shape of an ethereal dragon - she’d recognized the spectral figures of Amazons long dead, fierce even in death as they fought with a warrior’s pride along side the rest of Phantom’s armies. They followed a figure that towered even above the Amazons, four arms and gleaming armor and a name that Barry associated with ruin and forgotten hope but who was so much more to Diana. Heroes long departed to the fields of Elysium, stepping out of their well earned rest to fight once more.

A few hadn’t survived the weapons the GIW shot them with. Barry didn’t know what that meant, for a ghost to die. If they simply returned to their afterlife or -

He tried not to think about the or.

They’d been going back and forth for awhile now. Voices faraway, muffled. The world felt as if it was underwater, blurred and cold. Clark had gotten to his feet at some point, Waller’s grip on a pen so tight on the screen he expected to see if burst at any moment. It was an important meeting, an important discussion. One he needed to be apart of, aware of, but it all escaped him. Sand held too tightly, slipping through his fingers. On the screen, Waller hit a button on the computer beside her and the image changed.

The world burned back to life in sharp relief.

The dream.

The room.

Cold cement. Projections of unreachable places on the walls. Chrome and green machinery in a configuration meant to contain.

It looked larger on the screen.

Maybe it was how small the figure held prisoner inside it was.

She was young. A child, no older than Superboy Jr. or Robin. She looked like Phantom - her father - but there were differences. Her hair was white, but it didn’t look like the spun starlight of her father’s. Instead it burned, the bright hot crackling of the plasma of a lighting bolt striking. Skin the blur of shapes caught just at the corner of the eye as you ran past, Eyes -

Looking at him.

The image had come up, a live feed - he knew it was live, knew he was looking at her where she was at that exact moment - and she’d been as he was every time he tried to sleep. Trembling and shuttering, eyes squinting against the pain, trying to stay open so as not to miss a single moment of the flat images imposed on blank cement walls. Desperate to fill the fathomless hunger burning deep down in the Core of her.

But then a shuttering breath and her eyes - the burning green of an afterimage - snapped up to the camera. Snapped up to look at him, recognition in her young face. And despite never having seen this girl before, he recognized her too.

The Speedforce lived beneath his skin.

She lived beneath his skin.

He could feel her there. Buzzing, burning, blistering. Not painful, but felt.

Not as felt as she used to be.

The image snapped back to Waller’s face, smug and self-satisfied. Talking - lying - about the how the girl was there, what the GIW’s intentions for her were. Barry was on his feet, but so was everyone else. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, could only hear static, the rush of wind, the crack of the lightning bolt. A call for help.

It was then that the alarms began to blare. On the screen someone rushed in to whisper into Waller’s ear. Bruce was running out of the room towards the Zeta tubes and Barry was right there with him and there was so much chaos around them, men in white and Gothamites and Ghosts banding together to rain terror down upon them and something massive and horrible and living towering above it all and Barry let go of that last bits of logic and thought.

Instinct, older than he was. The echo of a voice that had called him for years now, carrying him along, biding him forward:

Run.

Someone might have shouted after him as he left Gotham behind. He didn’t know.

All he knew was the pounding of his feet upon the ground, the wind in his face, the Speedforce lashing and frantic and hopeful burning and sizzling beneath his skin. Calling him further and further away until he stood in a vast, empty field staring at a single, rusted shack near ready to collapse before him.

He wasn’t alone.

Wally. Bart. Max. More still. Not just his family and friends. Eobard. Hunter. Thaddeus. Everyone touched by the Speedforce.

They didn’t speak. Bodies humming and thrumming, crackling with energy and intent.

Minds as one, they focused on the shed, the hidden hatch inside, the base hidden deep below.

The Speedforce lived beneath their skin, and no one was going to steal it away from them.

#dpxdc #dc x dp #dp x dc #barry allen #justice league #flashfam #dani phantom #danielle phantom #elle phantom #ancient of the speedforce elle #ever onward elle #amanda waller #eldritch speedforce #kinda #unsettling speedforce at the very least #cut to 20 minutes later to all of the speedsters & Elle at a waffle house having the world's most awkward family reunion #Dick gets a call from his bank about his card being used to buy several thousand dollars worth of breakfast food in another state #& immediate calls Wally like #Dick: YOU TOOK OFF IN THE MIDDLE OF A FULL ON WAR IN GOTHAM TO GO GET WAFFLES? #(because of course he gave Wally his card - he's bought Wally a god damn expensive ass apartment they're basically married) #Dick: I THOUGHT YOU WERE BEING MIND CONTROLLED #Wally: ....sorta? But like...in a good way? #Dick: How can there POSSIBLY be a good way of being mind controlled?! #Wally: you know what actually I'm gonna make our new mom explain this one #Dick: ...WHAT DOES THAT *MEAN*???

[arty-shadow-morningstar]

Graveyard Siblings (5)

[Masterlink] (PART 1) (PART 4)

-----

Mari and Cass sometimes switch their suits as they have the same body type. Cass would sometimes go out in full Hellbat gear and give the appearance that Hellbat is out more often than she actually is.

So Orphan/Black Bat also sometimes uses guns.

This also helps with concealing secret identities. Maria was rescued by Hellbat from Joker’s Henchmen. (Vicki Vale was getting sus of the new Wayne and Hellbat.)

Unfortunately since Hellbat rarely comes out and she had already made all of her appearance for the month and it wasn’t a busy weekend, the public had come to the conclusion that Hellbat has a crush on the newest Wayne.

Basically everyone thought that Mari has a crush on herself. Which led to some teasing and escalated to Mari announcing that Jason had a crush on Red Hood on live TV.

It didn’t help that a video of Red Hood and Jason re-enacting Romeo and Juliet with Jason on his apartment balcony and Red Hood on the roof was posted on the internet a few days later. (Thank you, Trixx and Tim’s awesome video editing skills)

Sadly, it was taken down 24 hours later. (Tim and the others have multiple copies of it, on the cloud or hardware, hidden around in the manor and their respective safehouses in the US.)

Some people kidnapped Jason to hopefully gain leverage over the Red Hood and to their dismay and nightmares for years to come, Hellbat came instead.

One lucky and incredibly brave reporter asked why she was there instead of her brother.

Mari being a little shit, “Red Hood may be a tough and scary guy but when it comes to his feelings, my brother is a chicken.”

Pictures of Jason tackling Hellbat somehow never made it into any papers.

The criminal underworld hasn’t taken a hint and Jason has been kidnapped a few more times.

Other times Jason was kidnapped:

Robin: Red Hood made a fool of himself in front of Todd recently and he doesn’t dare to show his face.

Spoiler: He was taking too damn long checking his hair even though I told him that no one was going to see it under his helmet and he was so offended that he is currently sulking in the bathroom.

Red Robin: Red Hood can’t think straight when he is around Jason. I mean have you seen the dude.

Arsenal*during a rare visit to Gotham*: Red Hood owes me one now.

Dick finally ends it by going out as Red Hood and rescuing Jason. Gotham is happy that Redson (Red Hood x Jason) ship has finally sailed.

-------

Kate, Babs, Cass, Steph and Mari were out on Mari’s first girls’ night since her move to the manor.

This is set a little after she came back from Paris with Jason.

They watched rom-com movies, did hair and nails, gossip about the superhero community and bitch and vent to each other.

Marinette off-handedly mentioned the crazy shits she had done during her stint as Ladybug. It started with asking about the T-rex in the Batcave and she mentions jumping into the mouth of a live one before.

Everyone in the room was shocked and after a few more questions, it was obvious that she was very reckless and self-sacrificing. Yep, she was going to fit into this crazy family just fine.

And Holy Shit. There is so much trauma packed into this kid. She needs lots of therapy.

Babs finally decided that they all needed to get out and have some fun. All in their respective suits and they went out.

Joined by Harley, Ivy and Selina.

Plagg came along because I want Plagg to meet Selina.

It was a chaotic night and it was a miracle that Bruce didn’t find out about what the girls did.

-------

Batman and Red Hood were on patrol together when Selina jumped in front of them.

“Hello, Boys”

“What do you want, Catwoman?”

“I want to meet my new prodigy, Kitty Noire.”

Cue Marinette jumping down from her hiding spot, transformed with the Black Cat Miraculous. “Hiya.”

Red Hood carries her like a potato sack and points his gun at the other two.

“Nope, she’s my sister and I called dibs. I adopted her. She’s off limits.”

“Legally, she’s mine.” Batman coughed out.

“I did it first. Emotionally. She’s my emotional support sister. You have plenty kids already, B and Selina, get your own.”

“Hey, I am still here and can hear you.”- Maria

-------

Alya was worried for Lila. She had been acting weirdly for the past month.

She looked very out of sorts. Her clothes weren’t in order and her hair was in disarray. She had bags under her eyes and her eyes looked wild. Lila didn’t look like herself at all.

She jumped at any sound and flinched at really sudden movements.

Alya tried to find out what was wrong with Lila and received vague answers.

One time Lila said that Marinette is to blame.

Alya reaches the somewhat right conclusion that Marinette was haunting Lila and hurting her because Lila used to come to school with bruises and claims that Marinette did it.

Alya goes to Marinette’s grave to desecrate it. (Yeah, go anger the ghost that is haunting someone.)

Unfortunately, the moment she tries to do something, the sky turns dark, clouds appear and the wind begins whipping. A Lightning strike near her and there was a cloaked figure beside her with a scythe.

All Alya saw from the figure was the blood-red lips in a very sharp grin and glowing blue eyes, raising the scythe high before she ran away. The scythe swiped the air where her head once was.

Alya didn’t get far before she tripped and blacked out.

When she woke up, she found herself in the hospital with no idea how she got there.

She was told that somebody found her with a concussion in the park and took her to the hospital.

------

The next one on Mari’s hit list was Natalie.

She wasn’t as involved in the whole thing like Lila, Adrien or Gabriel but she still did it anyways.

Her punishment is a little mild compared to the others and was more of a warning to Gabriel.

Natalie woke up in the middle of the night to see a not-so-dead Ladybug sitting on her vanity chair with the moonlight from the windows illuminating her body and her neck. Her suit was torn exactly like the day of that battle with blood dripping down her arms and from her open wounds. The shadows kept her face hidden but glowing blue eyes stared at her.

Natalie was scared at first. But she regained her normal cool composure.

“I assume you are here to extract your revenge for aiding in your unfortunate demise. But before you kill me, I regret my part in my entire thing and I apologize for everything I have done against you even though I knew it was wrong.”

“At least you show remorse over what you have done. Visiting my grave when even my parents didn’t and leaving flowers. I love those purple hyacinths by the way. Did you know that they mean sorry in the language of the flowers?”

“Why are you stalling my death? Just kill me already.”

“Madam Sancouer. You just played a minor role in my downfall compared to what Adrien and Lila Rossi did to me. And you showed more guilt over your actions than they ever did and Adrien claimed to have loved me. And like I have told the Bats, Death is too swift of a punishment.”

“Who are the bats?”

“None of your concern. You should be more concerned about yourself.”

“Lila sees the ghosts of her past and they haunt her. Adrien is in a living nightmare and has no control over his actions and is despised by everyone. What are you going to do to me?”

“Well, since you show some guilt over your actions, let me tell you a little secret. I am not dead. Not really. I mean I did die. But there was a spell in the grimoire that revived me. It took a few days to work.”

Marinette changed to her normal form. It was a little jarring to see an older Marinette Dupain-Cheng sitting on her vanity chair like it was a throne. The Ladybug suit and the wounds were gone. She looked a little familiar.

“Why are you telling me this? What was the point?” Natalie faltered as she wondered why the girl looked familiar. Marinette moved closer and her face was fully illuminated by the moonlight.

“I intend to take everything by which I mean everything from Gabriel Agreste for what he did.”

“M. Agreste just wanted his wife back. You just gave him your Miraculous, you would still have everything.”

“What difference would it make? Sure I had friends and family before but they turned out to be disappointing. I might have become a famous designer like I dreamed of and can't achieve because I died. Besides, he never said about wanting his wife to come back in his tedious monologues. For all we knew back then, he wanted them for world domination. He showed that he would end the world for them. For kwamis’ sake, he nearly started World War III, just for a pair of earring and a ring. He was willing to kill me to have her back. No wait, he did that too. If he actually read the translated grimoire or asked the Guardian or at least someone with magic for help instead or maybe used his head and made some who can heal as his champion using the Butterfly, we wouldn’t even be in this mess. Face it, Mme Sancour, your boss is a power-hungry and very controlling maniac who is also thankfully an idiot.”

“But- he- he just-. You are just a child, what do you know? M. Agreste knew what he was doing.”

“A child who had a normal life up until he tried to ruin it with his idiotic schemes and hiring Lila to do it. A child who had to fight a war on her own.”

“I am sorry you had to go through that but I doubt you and your little revenge rampage is going to solve anything.”

Ghostly Chains wrapped around Natalie’s body, squeezing tight like it was squeezing the life out of her.

“I was all for sparing you, you know. If you had actually listened to my side of the story, you would have spared from my ‘little revenge rampage’. This is going to be a little painful. Sorry about that.” In a tone that was definitely not sorry.

Pain coursed through Natalie’s body. Her skin crawled and itched as pitch back feathers grew out of it. Her bones turned to dust and reformed.

Where Natalie Sancour once was, there was a raven.

An omen of death and destruction for one Gabriel Agreste.

Marinette leaned down towards the raven. Natalie tried to peck her eye out but Marinette held the beak in a firm grip.

“Ah. ah ah. Luckily for you this is temporary. Mostly. Every night, you will assume this shape and each night the longer you will stay in this form. Slowly counting down the days until Gabriel’s downfall. Since you love helping him so much, you are going to help him know how long he has to live. The night you are a raven from sunset to sunrise, that sunrise starts the day Gabriel Agreste will be utterly destroyed.”

She released the beak and headed towards the window.

"Send him my regards."

With that, she was gone.

(Part 6)

#platonic jasonette #graveyard siblings #maribat #ml x dc #marinette meets the sirens

[avaritia-apotheosis]

Phantom Children Ch. 7

Massive thanks to my awesome betas for this chapter!

In Which: A Story is Given to the Locked Room

AO3 | Prologue | 6 | [ 7 ] | 8

DICK DOESN’T REALLY KNOW WHAT TO FEEL. Surprised, maybe? Though he really isn’t all that shocked. Not that the revelation of another Wayne kid isn’t surprising, it’s just that—well…

Bruce has a tendency to attract foolhardy kids with a strong sense of justice and a willingness to harp on Batman until he gives them wings and teaches them how to fly. It’s the way of the world. The sky is blue, the sun sets in the west, and little Robin-hopefuls flock to Batman like ducklings to their big, brooding, mother duck. (That most of them are black haired and blue-eyed with some sort of traumatic backstory is a coincidence. Probably. The universe is just weird that way.)

And Bruce, bleeding heart that he is despite all the steel walls and nuclear spike fields he placed around it, always had a soft spot for children. It’s what people don’t get when they call Robins and Batgirls, former or current, child soldiers. They think that Batman picks these children up from gutter alleys and unfortunate homes, breaking and reshaping them into crusaders for his war against crime.

(What most don’t get is that the easiest way to gain ‘favorite child’ status in the Wayne household is to just stay home and live the most normal life possible. All of them—with the exception of Damian and Cass—chose this life. And even those two chose to stick with it, even when Bruce was more than happy to give them a way out.)

Dick was one of the first to stand at Batman’s side. The original. The ‘golden boy’ as Jason always put it. He’d been there so early in Batman’s career that, years later, it’s nearly inconceivable to imagine Batman without his Robin. He’s been there for Bruce’s soaring highs, his crushing lows, his mundane middles, just as Bruce has been there for him. Sure, they’ve had their fights, but Dick had always settled himself with the knowledge that he was one of the few people that knew everything about Bruce Wayne.

But this . This nursery—no, this memorial . This monument that spoke of a life that could have, should have, would have been, is something that predates Robin’s existence. A story, a memory that had hurt Bruce so badly that he would rather hide it away than breathe even a word of its existence.

Until now. Until Bruce had no choice but to rip the wound open once more.

“Bruce. I—what’s going on?”

“Perhaps,” Alfred interjected. “Perhaps it may be best to take this to the cave. Such a story should be told once.”

Bruce laughed, a broken, shuddering thing. “What is there to tell? I was naive with a heart too open and full of longing. I let myself hope, and I let myself get crushed . I picked myself up, moved on, end of story.”

Alfred raised an imperious brow. “As you are the one who always insisted on detailed reports, I do hope your summary to the boys downstairs would have a little more detail.” His face softened as he placed a comforting hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “What recent information that has been passed to us paints a worrisome picture, given what little you have shared, but know that this time you are not alone to deal with this matter. Regardless of what you do, the rest of the family is involved by proxy."

Bruce seemed to release some of the tension in his shoulders at that. “Yes. Of course. Dick, why don’t you see if Tim is back yet. I don’t want to explain this more than once, if possible. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure, I’ll get right on that.”

“And, Dick?”

“Yeah?”

Bruce’s gaze was intense. “How is Damian doing?”

He remembered the way Damian sunk deeper into the chair, hands clasping and unclasping at air. The white of his cast hanging limply as Damian’s legs could just barely brush against the cave floor. Dick swallowed a lump in his throat. “I don’t know. But I do know that he could really use his father right about now.”

Bruce gave a shaky nod and Dick left.

_______

Everyone has heard this tale before.

His boys have learned about the birth of Batman, of how a boy lost his parents in an alley at the age of eight. How at 14 he took to the study of criminology to an almost religious fervor. He took and aced every AP test, graduated high school at 16, headed off to get a college degree, then disappeared off the face of the earth.

Batman may have been born kneeling in the shadows of a dirty alley, but it was on the streets abroad where Batman grew up. Learning and studying and fighting until he knew what made the criminal underworld tick, how to escape almost every type of restraints, how to solve a murder with only the smallest of clues. He trained under a demon and met his daughter. When their ideas of justice clashed with each other, he tried to leave, they tried to stop him, and he set their base on ablaze.

He returned to Gotham the prodigal son, the favored prince, the charming socialite. Bruce Wayne took his place at the center of Gotham’s solar system, shining and bright and unbelievably foolish. Batman put on a cowl and learned the shadows of Gotham’s streets, and built himself up to be a symbol of fear and justice. Soon, he acquired a Robin to temper that darkness. To bring a light of hope, to instill a sense of peace— something more than vengeance and the night.

The rest is history.

Here is the part of the story that Bruce had omitted:

Early in his career as Batman, a man named Quayin had plans to steal a weather modifying US satellite. This, and certain other events, led to Bruce and Ra’s al Ghul crossing paths—and working on the same side. The details of that mission, in the long run. do not matter. Not anymore. What’s important is that accompanying him is his daughter, Talia al Ghul. She was as deadly as she was beautiful—and Talia was very, very beautiful.

It was a whirlwind romance. A storm of passion. Gotham’s Bruce Wayne and socialite Miranda Tate. * Batman and the Daughter of the Demon. The tempest reached its peak on that fateful day in the gardens of Wayne Manor. The hot summer sun and buzzing insects fading away as she pulled him aside and said “Beloved, I am with child. I am pregnant.” **

Bruce was caught unawares by the news. Stared dumbfounded at her until his brain caught up with his ears and he felt such unbridled joy bubbling in his chest. He laughed, clear and bright. He held her tight against him as if she held the world in her hands—because she did . Talia held his world within her and Bruce vowed to protect it with every fiber of his being. He called Alfred immediately to tell him the news and started arranging for discreet interior decorators and shipments for everything they needed for a nursery.

Thomas, for a boy. Martha for a girl. He swore that very day that it would be the happiest baby in the world. **

And then—

And then…

As Ra’s and Bruce planned their next move to stop Quayin from initiating a war between America and the USSR, Talia collapsed.

Talia collapsed and the baby was just…

Gone.

And suddenly Talia wanted nothing to do with him. Told Bruce to leave her alone, that their relationship would never be the same.

His child was gone .

By the time the rogue satellite was recovered, Quayin defeated, and all loose ends tied up, the nursery was fully furnished. Bruce took one look at it and then turned away. Locked the door and hid the key god-knows-where.

His child was gone.

Batman continued to work.

There was no use for an empty nursery.

--------

End Notes:

The story I'm using for the circumstances surrounding Danny's birth is basically a modified version of what happens in Batman: Son of the Demon. Modified so that people knew that Bruce Wayne and Miranda Tate were a couple and to give enough time for a nursery to be built along with the rest of the events of that comic.

*Miranda Tate is the name Tahlia al Ghul went by in 'The Dark Knight Rises'

**These lines are taken from Batman: Son of the Demon

#danny phantom #batman #danny phantom x batman crossover #dp fic #phantom children.txt

[venialsun]

to begin with, take warning (1/3)

[read on ao3]

1 | 2 | 3

Dick watched Damian physically try to not show his nerves on his face for a full ten minutes—with the success of a trained actor and the failure of a nervous fourteen-year-old playing it off to his older brother—when he caved. They had just driven past the Welcome to Gotham! billboard with “u sure?” and “go back to metropolis cuck!!!” graffitied in looping, hot pink script on the side. It’d be another twenty-five minutes of traffic before they made it to central downtown, and Dick could only stand so much of not-twitchy, not-nervous, I’m-above-this Damian before he burst into laughter and caused some problems.

So he said, “It’s okay to be nervous.”

And from the passenger side, feet up on the dash, looking at his phone, Damian snapped, “I’m not nervous! What is there to be nervous about? It’s an American high school. Big deal. Last week, I stopped a planet-wide catastrophe that would have killed billions in another galaxy, and every night, unless you don’t know, we fight actual monsters and supervillains who actively try to kill us. Some have even succeeded. This is nothing.”

“Yeah,” said Dick, “maybe don’t mention all that on the first day.”

“I know that.”

“And I think you mean ‘my friends and I went to space and stopped a war.’ You know you have to give them credit, too.”

“They’re not my friends,” said Damian. “I work with them. Father isn’t friends with every member of the Justice League, yet he’s worked with near every one of them on League missions. They are my colleagues.”

“So what you’re saying is that you are organizing and leading team missions?” Dick could not keep the amusement out of his voice. “What happened to ‘Teams are unnecessary and a waste of time’? What about the Titans? I know they invited you back.”

“Timothy leads the Titans,” said Damian. “And there’s no room for two Robins on the same team.”

“Mm, don’t know about that, but I also know neither of you would play nice long enough to really try. So no team, okay,” Dick agreed, “and you just happen to be having adventures with other underaged heroes of no relation to you on a periodic basis. And they’re not your friends.”

Damian blinked away from his phone—success!—and scowled. “I do not get your obsession with making friends, Richard,” he said.

Dick splayed his hands on the steering wheel. “I’m glad to see you hanging out with kids your own age, is all. It’s good for you.”

Damian snorted and looked out the window. Gotham’s littered streets and the growing mob of early-morning commuters blurred gray in the smog. In tones of great solemnity he said, “That’s what this whole thing is about, isn’t it? I am going to school to learn how to maintain a secret identity and cultivate a normal public persona. I will be surrounded by kids my own age, and I will be sure to make connections that I will treasure for the rest of my life. These next four years will be the happiest of my life, I know it.”

Dick laughed, and Damian smirked.

“Alright, smartass, I get it. You’re Damian Wayne, haver of too many titles and not leader of any teams, and you’re not nervous about going to high school. I believe you.”

They stopped at a light. Gotham Academy was a few blocks ahead. If they walked, they could be there in ten minutes. Driving as they were in the morning congestion, it would take at least fifteen. Dick didn’t mind. He hummed to himself, waiting. Damian went back to his phone. The light turned green. Dick eased his foot off the brake. They advanced slowly and made it to the front of the line of cars, when the light blinked yellow, then red, and they stopped again.

Damian said, “Father says you were a good student. Well-liked. Studious. Only Robin’s duties caused problems.”

“Bruce said that?” Dick rolled his eyes. “Of course, he did. School was fine,” he said, “though I was mostly focused on being Robin and then the Titans at the time. It was nice, I think. It seems so long ago. But it was hard to have a life there when the most important parts of my life were somewhere else.”

“Wait, Grayson,” Damian said, gleefully, “were you unpopular?”

Dick chuckled, and the light turned green again. “I don’t know what you mean, Dames. I didn’t have that much trouble, and I had a good group of friends. But sometimes I thought it was all a waste of time, time I should’ve spent being Robin. It wasn’t easy hiding parts of myself from my classmates. Keeping the secret meant I couldn’t really be myself or talk to anyone about anything other than school.”

“Until the Titans,” said Damian.

“Until the Titans,” agreed Dick. He glanced at Damian, still with his marginally tense shoulders. “If it counts for anything,” he said, “I don’t think it was a waste of time now. I’m glad I went. I think this is a good thing.”

“Tt,” Damian tutted, but his look was speculative.

“I won’t lie to you and say you will love school. But give it a chance. You might end up liking it.”

“Ever the optimist.”

Dick pulled up into the line of cars for day student drop-off. Gotham Academy stretched across the block, its front tower looming darkly over them in the morning fog. Teenagers in uniform and cheery-looking adults were wandering about, huddling in groups or directing the flow of foot traffic to the entrance and around the side of the façade.

“Got your schedule? Know where you’re going?” Dick asked.

Damian glowered at him.

Dick chuckled. “Right, right, ‘course you do. So I’ll pick you up at four o’clock, okay?”

“And not a minute later,” threatened Damian. And then he set his shoulders, got out of the car, slammed the door, and marched away like he was going into battle.

Dick couldn’t help himself. As he pulled away, he rolled down the window and shouted, “Have a great day at school, Damian! Love ya!”

Without turning around, Damian flipped him the bird.

A whistle blew, and in the rear view Dick saw an upset-looking woman, probably an administrator, point at Damian and loudly scold, “Young man!”

Dick winced, sympathetic yet unrepentant, and merged back into traffic.

Whoops.

•

Yanez knew this would happen, but she had thought it would be at least until midday. Homeroom hadn’t even started. She was busy alternating between threatening her teachers to smile and look happy to be here and smiling half-encouragingly, half-threateningly at students and shepherding them away from their hormonal clusters, when Headmaster Hammer cut a line through the crowd and headed straight to her. A sour-faced Damian Wayne kept pace behind him.

“Good morning,” she greeted, raising an eyebrow, and silently prayed for patience. “Can I help you?”

“Principal Yanez,” said Hammer. He motioned Damian in front of him. “Your student is in need of a reminder of our disciplinary code of conduct.”

Yanez did not miss the emphasis on your. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Hammer was still smarting over his demotion from Grand Headmaster of Gotham Academy, with the full powers that entailed, to “Grand Headmaster” of Gotham Academy, a purely honorary title that delegated tasks to the grammar, middle, and upper level administration that Gotham Academy had been divided into. She ignored him and looked down at the dark-haired boy in front of her. He glared back, defiant.

Ah. One of those.

“Damian Wayne, right?” she asked. “Isn’t it too early to be getting in trouble on the first day of school?”

“That depends on your definition of trouble, I suppose,” Damian said. To her surprise, he had the barest hint of an accent. British, maybe. He stuck out his hand. “You must be Samantha Yanez, the Head Principal for grades nine through twelve.”

Bemused, Yanez shook his hand. “That’s me.”

“I can only hope you are better than your predecessor,” said Damian. He glanced at Hammer and managed to make it seem like he was looking down his nose at him, despite being a full foot shorter. “He left much to be desired.”

“Note that down, Principal. Another perfect example of abhorrent and disrespectful student behavior,” said Hammer.

Yanez frowned. “What happened? Perhaps we should take this in my office.”

Already Yanez could see the curious bubble of students starting to form, talking behind their hands or blatantly recording on their phones.

“Certainly,” said Hammer. “It will help expedite the expulsion process.”

“That remains to be seen, Headmaster,” said Yanez.

She led them back to her office, past the crowds of mingling students and through the arching stone hallway that had been commandeered for the clerical staff. She took a seat behind her desk and indicated for them to sit. She tried not to be too annoyed when Hammer went instead to stand behind her, looming over like a gnarled skeleton.

“Okay,” she said. “Damian. Why don’t you explain to me why Headmaster Hammer has brought you in here? He’s threatening expulsion, but I only reserve that option for the most extreme of cases. Think this merits that?”

“Hardly,” scoffed Damian. “My brother was dropping me off and I flipped him off.”

“You—you flipped him off? You put your middle finger up at him?”

“Yes.”

Yanez barely resisted the urge to laugh and glanced at Hammer. His expression was thunderous. She looked back at Damian and waited, but he did not elaborate. “Why did you flip him off?” she asked.

“He is an embarrassment to me.”

“All brothers are embarrassing to their siblings, especially younger ones. Is there more?”

“No.”

“He has treated every administrator that tried to correct his behavior with rancor and disrespect,” said Hammer.

“Hrm.” Yanez steepled her fingers together. “Headmaster Hammer, could Damian and I have the room? I’ll take care of this. I’m sure you are very busy, and I know Principal Trammer could use the help with the elementary kids.”

Hammer scowled—Yanez knew he hated dealing with the primary school kids—but did not argue and took his leave.

When he was gone, Yanez took a moment to study the young boy in front of her. Petulant and angry, dark-haired, brown-skinned, and light-eyed, something tense and haughty in his shoulders—he looked every bit like any of the troubled kids Yanez had taught over her decades-long career. And yet nothing like them at all. There was something different in the set of his chin, the sharpness of his gaze, his crossed arms, like he was looking for danger and ready to meet it.

“Do you want to be here, Damian?” she asked.

Damian’s mouth twisted. “In this room, wasting my time? Not particularly.”

“Well, we can agree on that,” said Yanez. “But I meant here, Gotham Academy.”

Damian shrugged. “My family insists this will be an enriching opportunity.”

“They’re probably right. But I have looked at your records. You tested out of most of the core subjects, and your home-schooling portfolio is very impressive. Yet you are signed up for the standard ninth-grade honors track. When your Father and I met this summer to discuss the terms of your enrollment, he told me you insisted on it.”

Finally some of the animosity slipped from Damian’s face. He seemed intrigued. “You spoke with my father?”

“Only the once and very briefly,” said Yanez, “but yes. He said re-enrolling at Gotham Academy and coming back to school was your idea.”

Damian scowled.

“So I believe some part of you wants to be here, wants to be a student. Is that accurate?” she asked.

“I already regret it,” Damian muttered.

Yanez smiled. “Not the resounding yes I wanted to hear, but I’ll take it.” She reached into a side drawer and pulled out a quarter-sheet of yellow paper and scrawled down a few details. “If you want to be here, then being a student means abiding by some ground rules. Respect others, respect yourself, respect the school.”

“My respect is earned,” said Damian, “not freely given because of some archaic code of conduct.”

“Then you’re already miles ahead of most of the people in this building,” said Yanez. She handed him the slip of paper. “Respect is earned, yes, but you have to give people the chance to earn it in the first place. That means holding off on rude gestures and comments when it can be helped, which is most times. I am giving you two days of community lunch tutoring for flipping your brother off on school grounds and insulting the administrators.”

“Community lunch tutoring?” Damian echoed, scanning the slip.

“It is similar to detention, but instead you tutor other students and help them with their assignments. Report to the technology atrium during your lunchtime today and tomorrow.”

“Sounds dumb,” said Damian. “Why not just expel me?”

“For expressing your feelings and saying mean things to grown adults?” Yanez chuckled and shook her head. “Damian, this is a high school. If I expelled every bratty kid with no respect for authority and a penchant for dramatics, I would be out of a job. If you want to flip people off and bad-mouth teachers and administrators, that’s your business. It is not in my power to stop you, not fully anyway. You’re a smart kid. If you want to be a delinquent then at least be smart about it. If you get caught or the wrong adult overhears you, then you and I will be meeting more often, the repercussions will not be as merciful, and I will have to do a lot more paperwork. And Damian?”

She waited until she had his full attention, and he looked up, curious.

“I hate paperwork,” she said. “Don't let it come to that.” She waved a hand. “Now get out of my office. You’re late.”

next ->

#spades #fic #damian wayne #dick grayson

[fishfingersandjellybabies]

Still a Little Bit Yours (Part 1) - fic

Characters: Jon Kent, Damian Wayne, bit of Tim Drake and Maya Ducard Pairing: jondami Summary: Damian broke up with him, out of the blue. It didn’t make any sense. But, as it turns out, there’s a reason why it didn’t. A/N: Damian and Jon are in their mid-twenties and no longer go by Robin or Superboy (but not really Batman or Superman either, Tim’s last line is kind of a joke.) Title, and maybe vibe of this part, is based on ‘A Little Bit Yours’ by JP Saxe.

Part One | Part Two

~~

The phone almost slipped from his fingers.

Damian…did Damian just say what he thought he said?

“…What?” He whispered near breathlessly. “W-what did you just say?”

“I said I think we should see other people.” Damian replied calmly. “It would be for the betterment of both of us.”

“Since when?” Jon snapped, anger flaring immediately, but instantly morphing into confusion and sadness. His heart breaking by the second.

They’d been together for three years. Secretly pined after each other for the two years prior to that. Had recently talked about moving in together. Had been happy.

Jon was so, so sure they’d been happy.

“Since…recently.” Damian hummed blankly. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

“And the thought of doing this in person didn’t occur to you in your fucking contemplation?” Jon snapped. “Christ, Damian, we were just talking about getting an apartment!”

“I’m sorry if I hurt you. I know this isn’t what you want.” There was a hint of regret in Damian’s voice, but not enough for Jon’s liking, so it only fueled his growing anger further. “I…I don’t know what else to say.”

“Oh, really? Three fucking years and this is all you have to say?” Jon hissed. “I know you’re emotionally constipated, Damian, but…god. This is low. Even for you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not!” Jon shouted. A store clerk nearby glanced at him. And that was right, he was in the grocery store. He’d…forgotten. Forgotten the whole world existed, forgot it was collapsing around him by the second, as Damian hummed those words. “Because if you were sorry, you wouldn’t have fucking done it this way in the first place!”

He heard a mother a few aisles down murmur to her children to not use language like that. That people who talked like that were pathetic.

“I…I don’t know what your game here is, Damian.” He whispered harshly.

“It’s not a game.” Damian promised. “I respect you too much to play games with you. I’m just trying to be honest.”

“But you don’t love me enough to break up with me in person, apparently.” Jon countered. He closed his eyes, wouldn’t allow the tears to fall. “I…Damian, I’m going to hang up on you right now. I…I don’t want to say something I might regret.”

“That’s fine.” Damian promised. Then again: “I’m sorry, Beloved.”

Jon scoffed and pulled the phone away from his ear. He hit the call end button so hard the screen cracked under his touch.

…Great.

He stood there a moment, trying to take deep, even breaths. But it wasn’t working real well. Each breath was trembling, and it’s like his lungs suddenly didn’t work, couldn’t hold any air.

Did he do something wrong? Did he say something? They’d fought before, all couples do. They were getting better at communication, Damian was coming out of that emotional shell the League of Assassins put him in.

They’d kissed yesterday. Jon had held him in his arms, had kissed his nose and told him how beautiful his smile was. Damian had laughed and held Jon’s face, stroking his thumb along his cheek.

And now…now they were here?

“…Honey?” Jon jumped as a hand gently touched his elbow. He spun to find an old woman in an apron matching the store’s color scheme glancing up at him. “Are you okay?”

The world around him came whooshing back. He was in the middle of the grocery store. He…he was sobbing in the middle of the grocery store. Fat, ugly tears rolling down his face as he practically crushed his phone in his hand.

“Do you need me to call someone?” The woman whispered.

“No, I…” He gently placed his shopping basket – half full of this week’s groceries – on the floor and backed away. He clumsily ran his nose along his sleeve, a trail of snot left in his wake. “I’m alright. I’m…I’m sorry.”

He turned and barely stopped himself from flying out of the store.

~~

Jon laid in bed for two days, exhausting himself racking his brain, trying to figure out what happened, what changed, what he did.

He texted Damian, almost exactly twenty-four hours after the fateful call, but the other never answered. Never answered any text Jon sent. Or any call that he drunkenly made after that. Didn’t even give him the knowledge of being left on read.

He cried a few times, threw things a few other times.

None of this made any sense.

He thought about going over to Gotham. Walking up to the manor and banging on the door until someone answered. Thought about staging a protest until Damian agreed to see him, if the door answerer wasn’t said boyfriend.

…Ex-boyfriend.

Tears welled up in his eyes every time he thought of the term.

Ex. Boyfriend.

Jon closed his eyes, buried his face in his pillow. Honestly, he thought they were going to get married. He thought they were going to be together forever. He wasn’t ready to plan a life without Damian, not yet. They were supposed to grow old together, die minutes apart like in the movies. Holding hands until the end.

He didn’t lose Damian to death, like he always thought he would. He didn’t lose Damian to space or assassins or even to grief in the potential loss of Bruce or Dick. He lost Damian because Damian…simply didn’t want him anymore.

God. They weren’t supposed to break up after three years. They weren’t supposed to part ways in their twenties. They weren’t supposed to end things for no reason.

He thought he’d gotten pretty good at reading Damian. His ticks, his quirks. What upset him, what didn’t. He thought he was an expert. The world’s leading expert in Damian Wayne.

Apparently he was fooling himself.

He sighed, pressed his face further into the fabric of his pillow. Tried to ignore the memories threatening to overflow. Of he and Damian in this bed. Kissing, cuddling, lazing. Of Jon promising Damian the whole world, and Damian countering with the whole universe instead.

He wondered if he should call Kathy. Or Maya. Hell, one of Damian’s siblings. See if Damian had talked to them, if they had seen any signs. If they knew of anything going on.

He just burrowed under his covers, and kept his eyes closed.

~~

In the end, he didn’t tell anyone about the breakup. Not even his parents. There were intergalactic wars starting and government coups commencing – they had more important things to worry about than their youngest’s love life. And judging by the fact he hadn’t heard from any of the Bats, he had a feeling Damian didn’t mention it to his family either.

Just as well. They were adults. They could handle this as just that. Adults.

So he wallowed in self-pity for a few days, but eventually forced himself up. Took a deep breath, dried his own eyes and distracted himself with continuing his life. Focused on his job, on heroing. The world kept turning, even if he and Damian weren’t together.

His heart hurt less as the days passed on. Not by much, his heart was still utterly shattered after all, but it didn’t hurt as much to inhale. Didn’t hurt as much to smile. Didn’t hurt as much to get a text or a call and it not be Damian.

Damian never answered when Jon tried to contact him. The first few days were understandable, but now the texts were housekeeping. Do you want your shirt back? I think you left Alfred’s cat treats here. I have a box of your stuff and your apartment key, if you’re in town soon, you can stop by and get it.

And still, like always, nothing. Damian was always stubborn, but now he was just being downright rude. It’d been almost a month now! Surely if someone as emotional as Jon could somewhat start to get over it, someone as stoic as Damian had probably completely forgotten about it by now!

He huffed as he watched a couple walk by the park bench he was sitting on, taking the momentary surge of frustration-induced courage to hit the call button on his (recently fixed) phone and hold it up to his ear.

They wouldn’t have to talk. This was just tying up the loose ends. Getting rid of the sentimental things. Getting rid of things that didn’t belong to him. That was all. That was all.

But the line didn’t even ring. It went straight to voicemail. And the frustration turned to hurt. Did…did Damian change his number? No, impossible. It still went to Damian’s voicemail, his phone was just off.

But Damian never turned his phone off. No hero did, and especially no one in the Wayne family. They were always on call, even when they shouldn’t be.

So, for Damian’s phone to be off…was he avoiding someone? Avoiding Jon?

He lowered his phone to his lap and stared at it. He was one of those people who put emojis in people’s contact names. Damian’s name was surrounded by the pink, growing heart, and the cat emoji that looked like Alfred.

He didn’t have the strength to take those away. Not yet.

He swallowed the lump in his throat that he didn’t realize was there, and put his phone back in his pocket.

He’ll just ship Damian his shit, then.

~~

He shouldn’t have. He really shouldn’t have. It’d make him the crazy ex. The ones Taylor Swift wrote songs about.

But at least once a day, he found himself listening. Tapping into his powers and listening for Damian’s heartbeat.

He didn’t do it often while they were together. Mostly because while together they were almost always together. Physically. So he could just reach out and hold Damian’s wrist. Put his ear to Damian’s chest. Watch the pulse as it beat along Damian’s neck.

It was a coping mechanism back then, used to calm himself. When the world got too much. When his day was bad. He could just focus on Damian’s heartbeat in any form. Drown the rest of the noise out.

Damian’s heartbeat now sounded far away, but Jon didn’t feel like pinpointing how far. It was slow and even, and that almost made him angry. Damian was calm. Damian was relaxed. Probably sitting at his easel drawing without a care in the world, while here Jon was listening for him like some kind of fucking lost puppy.

Every time he listened, it was slow and steady.

Stupid Damian, he’d think as he tuned his powers back out, furiously go back to whatever he was doing. Stupid relationships.

Relationships were overrated. Damian was overrated.

~~

“He what?!”

Maya’s shriek had Jon pulling the phone away from his ear with an amused grimace. He laughed as he switched the audio to be on speaker, and absently opened an app on his phone.

(A…dating app.)

“You didn’t know?” Jon hummed. His friend had called to ask some questions on a man she was tracking, someone who rumours said was from another planet. Kathy hadn’t known of the solar system, so she was trying the next best alien. As they talked, something about a crime scene came up, and she asked if Damian could help, if Jon could give him the phone. He had to break the news. “I thought you guys talked like…every day.”

“No way.” Maya scoffed. “Once a month, if that.” Jon could hear the frown in her voice. “And we did talk about a month ago. Maybe a bit longer. He didn’t say anything. In fact, he told me you guys were going to move in together, that he wanted me to plan a trip back to the States for a housewarming party.”

“Well…life comes at you fast, I guess.” Jon chuckled bitterly, remembering that call. He was in the room for that call, dozing in Damian’s arms, half listening to their conversation. He sneered at the choices the app was giving him. None of them were very attractive. “Because about a month ago was when he called it off.”

“Huh.” Maya mumbled. “I’m so sorry, Jon. If I’d had known that’s what he was planning, I would have beat the shit out of him. You were the best thing to ever happen to him, for gods’ sake! What the hell did he willingly throw it all away for?!”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Jon shrugged. This potential match wore a shirt that said Joker’s Biggest Fan on it, and Jon cringed instantly. “He didn’t give a reason. Just said that it was for the betterment of both of us, and that he was sorry.”

“Fucking turd.” Maya sighed. “I’ll call him here in the next few days, and see if he’ll tell me anything.”

“Good luck.” Jon drawled. “He hasn’t answered a single text or phone call since he broke things off. And I don’t know if that’s to just me or everyone.”

“You ask one of his brothers? Which one’s friends with your brother again? Jason?”

“Tim.” Jon corrected. He hesitated on this potential match option. Just stared. It was a woman. Dark hair, tan skin, standing in a desert. She was beautiful. And she reminded him of Damian. “And I haven’t seen or talked to any of them either. No cases have taken me out to Gotham lately.”

The next match had sharp eyes, ones that said they were smarter than everyone else. Cocky. That was like Damian too.

“Eh, they’d probably cover for him anyway. They’re all a bunch of freaks like that.” She grumbled. “Are you…doing okay?”

“I’m fine.” Jon lied, and he knew Maya heard right through it. “Time heals all wounds and all that. Better every day.”

“Oh, Jon…” Maya sighed sympathetically. Jon didn’t even have it in him to be embarrassed at her pity. Not when the next person on the app was standing on a rooftop, flag tied to his neck, blowing gloriously behind him. Looking far too much like every hero persona Damian’s ever been. “Hey – I’ll be back in the States soon. And I promise, I’ll make my first stop coming to see you so we can get drunk and stuff ourselves with pizza and scream about what an asshole Damian is. Okay?”

The next match was posed in the photo in a fencing match. Damian. The next surrounded by Great Danes. Damian. The next playing a violin. Damian. The next wearing a Batman costume at a Halloween party.

Damian.

Damian. Damian. Damian.

He sighed and closed the app. Stupid.

“Yeah. That sounds like exactly what I need, Maya.”

“Great. It’s a date.” She paused a moment. “Love you, dude.”

Jon hesitated, because he hadn’t said those words since Damian. Hadn’t thought them. Hadn’t wanted to think them, not for anyone. Not for family, not for friends. Not for a single person in his life. Still left in his life.

“Love you too, Maya.”

~~

Jon wasn’t a dreamer. He didn’t know if it was his Kryptonian side, or just how he was, but he didn’t dream often. And if he did, if he remembered them, it was only flashes. Only later moments of déjà vu. Never full sequences. Never lucid.

But…this.

They were in Kansas, out in one of Pa’s fields, lying among the wheat. Damian was flat against the ground as Jon laid over him, kissing him as hard and deeply as he could. They both had their arms around the other, grips tight and unyielding. Like if one of them let go, the whole world would disappear.

He doesn’t know why, but it was a noise Damian made. A quiet moan, and his fingers digging desperately into Jon’s shoulders that snapped him out of it. Made him realize.

This wasn’t real.

He began to lean back, pulled his arms from Damian’s shoulders to steady himself. Damian shifted too, but only to hold Jon’s face, to try and chase his lips.

“No, I…” Jon stuttered, his body wanting to do just that. Dive back in and devour Damian whole. But his mind didn’t let him, forced him to continue back until he was on his knees. “We can’t.”

He got to his feet and backed up a step, half turning away. Couldn’t bear the sight of Damian lying in the dirt, shirt half open and hair disheveled, chest heaving from arousal and exertion. “…Jonathan?”

“You’re not real.” Jon almost whined, running his fingers through his hair.

“Is that so?” Damian scoffed. “Since when?”

“Since I know we haven’t been back to Kansas in like a year.” Jon sighed, turning back. “Since I just remembered you broke up with me.”

“Absurd.” Damian laughed. Jon glared down at him, watched as Damian stood, and wiped the dust from his butt. “I would never do such a thing.”

“Well…you did!” Jon spat. “And over the phone! Not even in person!”

“You’re not listening to me.” Damian scolded. He raised his sharp gaze. “I would never do such a thing.”

“…What?” Jon whispered incredulously. “I just…I just told you that you did! And I…” He snorted, shook his head. “You’re not even real. Why the hell am I even trying to argue with you?”

“Because despite what you tell those around you, you miss me.” Damian sauntered over to him with a smirk, and poked at his temple. “Now I need you to use that big brain of yours and focus on what I’m saying. What it means.”

Jon looked down sadly. Gently reached up to take Damian’s hand in his, and turned so he could kiss his palm, could hide his face against Damian’s hand.

Damian just smiled warmly, stepped closer into Jon’s space. Cupped his other hand around the side of Jon’s throat. “Please just remember.” He begged softly. “I would never do such a thing. Never.” He leaned up on his toes, and pressed their foreheads together. “Not to you, Beloved.”

Jon leaned into the gesture, and parted his lips to kiss Damian again.

But then he woke up.

He woke up in the dead of night, with tears streaming down his face, and the memory of the dream burning against his skull.

I would never do such a thing.

“But you did, Damian.” Jon sobbed, clutching his pillow, curling his knees to his chest. Because it felt like his heart was going to tumble out, all the pieces that it had shattered into were going to come spilling out onto his sheets. “You did.”

He didn’t go back to sleep.

~~

Jon let out a low growl as he stomped out of the café. That was a bust. That was a huge fucking waste of his time.

But that’s what he got for trying to jump back into the dating pool.

The girl seemed nice enough in their limited texting interaction. She was cute and not purposefully looked nothing like Damian. She was bubbly and loud, and also not purposefully acted nothing like Damian either.

(Totally not purposefully. Totally.)

But he’d just spent the last hour listening to her rant about conspiracy theories that were already disproven one hundred times over, and rave about how Lex Luthor was the best and coolest and smartest person to ever exist, because he was rich and going to get them all to Mars. She never stopped to let Jon talk. Never stopped to take a breath for herself either.

Needless to say, there’d be no second date. He’d frankly excused himself with a lie to get out of this one early.

(And she’d already texted him about how great of a time she had, and she couldn’t wait to see him again, despite still sitting in the restaurant ten feet behind him.

Jon didn’t like to ghost people – not like certain ex-boyfriends of his – but this one…he couldn’t wait to.)

So it must have been fate that he chose that moment to leave. Not a few minutes before, or decided to suffer through the rest of his rendezvous. Because as soon as he walked out of the café, he spotted one Tim Drake coming out of the building across the street.

Funnily enough, Tim spotted him at almost the exact same moment. Except instead of waving or smiling like Tim normally would, his face visibly paled and his eyes widened, like Jon was the last person on Earth he wanted to see.

Jon frowned when he saw Tim glance around, like he was looking for an escape route. “Tim!” He called before the other could do just that, glancing up and down the street before jogging quickly towards him. “Hey, wait up!”

Tim took a step backwards, like he was going to try to bolt, but in the end stayed where he was, waited for Jon to reach him. Quickly pulled his phone out and scanned the screen before pocketing it again. “Hey Jon…what, uh. What’s going on? How are you?”

“Oh…been better. But trying to stay positive.” Jon laughed knowingly. Tim didn’t react. “How’s the family?”

“Good. Busy.” Tim shrugged. “Lots of, uh…stuff to do. You know how it is.”

Jon nodded, and the two fell into an awkward silence. Tim pulled his phone out again, but quickly threw it back in his pocket.

“How’s…” And Jon didn’t want to ask, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious. Wasn’t desperate to actually know, instead of guessing and assuming. “How’s Damian?”

But to Jon’s the surprise, at the sound of Damian’s name, Tim seemed to practically deflate. He threw his hands across his face, began shaking his head. “God, Jon, I’m so sorry. I know we should have called, or kept you in the loop or something. But we didn’t want you to become a target too or get hurt, or…”

“What?” Jon cut off, gut suddenly dropping. “What are you talking about?”

Tim peeked between his fingers, eyes narrowed. “…What are you talking about?”

“I…I haven’t talked to Damian since he broke up with me.” Jon murmured. Tim’s eyes instantly widened even more in surprise. “I just…wanted to know if he was doing okay?”

“Damian broke up with you?” Tim whispered. “When?”

“Um, I don’t know a month or so ago?” Jon shrugged. “Why? Tim, what’s going on?”

“How did he break up with you?” Tim demanded, suddenly all but lunging at Jon. His eyes darted between Jon’s desperately. “Was it in person?”

“No, it was over the phone.”

“What day?” Tim asked, almost giddy now. “What day did he break up with you, exactly? What day did you get that call?”

“Uh…” Jon pulled out his phone, and went to the call feature. He scanned the list until he found the one he was looking for. The one that ruined his whole life. “The seventh.”

“What time?”

“Like three or four in the afternoon?” Jon huffed. “Tim, why is this relevant? What happened?”

“Have you talked to him since then?” Tim continued, undeterred. “In any way? Text? Call? Carrier pigeon?”

“What? No! I…I tried calling him a few times, to return his stuff and all that, but he never answered.” Tim suddenly backed away from him, running both hands through his hair, like a case was just blown wide open. For the third time, Jon asked: “Tim, what the hell is going on?”

Tim hesitated for a moment, then looked Jon dead in the eyes. “Damian’s been missing for a month.” He said plainly. “He disappeared on the morning of the seventh.”

And just like that day on the phone, it felt like the world was being swallowed into a black hole beneath him. That the universe was disappearing around him, that it wasn’t real.

He could barely breath. “…What?”

“He, Duke and Cass were on a case in France. Without warning all three of them went radio silent. When we got there, we only found Duke and Cass half dead in a vineyard. They said they were attacked by a…a shapeshifter or something, lured them in by transforming into members of the Justice League. That they saw the shapeshifter and their crew dragging Damian away, but they didn’t see where to, or even what direction.”

Jon’s head was spinning.

“We’ve been looking for him day and night ever since. And when you didn’t come looking for him…” Tim winced. “We assumed he’d told you that he would be away on a mission, potentially for a long time. So your absence didn’t concern us. In fact, like I said, we were grateful. We didn’t want you getting wrapped up in this too, and potentially hurt.”

Jon was barely listening anymore, too wrapped up in what he’d just been told. That Damian had been missing since that day. That the reason Damian’s heartbeat sounded so far away was because he was, he was somewhere in Europe. That he wasn’t answering his phone because he was being held captive.

…That it wasn’t Damian on that call.

I would never do such a thing. Never. Not to you.

“…Beloved.” He murmured. Tim instantly stopped in his ramblings.

“…What?” Tim asked.

“On the call, when he broke up with me. First, he never gave a reason, which I thought was crazy. I guess…I guess it makes sense now.” Jon said thoughtfully. “But before we hung up. He said ‘I’m sorry, Beloved.’”

“…So?”

“That’s what Damian had me as in his phone. Not my name.” Jon explained. “Why would he still call me Beloved if he was breaking up with me?”

“…He would have said your name.” Tim said, the truth dawning on him. “The kidnapper wouldn’t know that. They wouldn’t know your name. So they called you what you were listed as.”

“And recognized that I was someone important to him.” Jon finished. “But…why? Why call me just to…break up with me? Why call me at all?”

“I don’t know. We can think about it later.” Tim was instantly back in detective mode, holding out his hand. “Give me your phone.”

“Why?”

“Because we can track where that phone call came from.” Tim wiggled his fingers impatiently. With his other hand, he pulled out his own phone, typing furiously with his thumb. Jon realized that’s why he was checking it so much, that’s why he was in Metropolis at all. He was looking for clues for Damian, anywhere he could. “And that might take us to where this bastard took my brother.”

“...Need a ride to the Batcave?” Jon asked with a sheepish smile. “…The sooner we get there, the sooner we can track this fucker and find Damian.”

Tim pursed his lips in thought, clearly not thrilled at the idea of including Jon, not after they all tried so hard to keep him detached, but eventually returned the grin.

“Get us in the air, Superman.”

#jonathan kent #jon kent #Damian Wayne #jondami #Tim Drake

[watchtower-feed]

Waynesitter’s Dating Life

✧ …

✧ You don’t even get a day off. What makes you think you have a dating life?

✧  Least of all a normal one where you don’t have millionaire vigilantes with boundary issues dropping envelopes filled with complete profiles of your dates.

✧ You’re moping in the Wayne living room, sprawled on a couch because your last date turned out to be involved in a human trafficking ring in Gotham.

✧ Worse: Cass and the boys had to save you.

✧ “Get over it, Y/N.”

✧ “But Jason, he was soooo hot! He had sex lines!”

✧ “We have those!” Dick lifts up their shirts to show you his and Jason’s V-cut abs. You look but you’re not impressed and Jason swats Dick’s hand away.

✧ “I can’t believe you tried to convince us that he was just being blackmailed.”

✧ You sway your hand in the air, dismissing his comment. “Tim, he had a baby-face that could rival yours any day, and he was charming. How was I supposed to know he was the leader of their operation.” You finally sit up and rub your face down harshly. “Ugh! Why do I have the worse luck in dating? I must be cursed.”

✧ “Or you live in Gotham?” Cass teases you from the floor while she plays with your styled hair, twirling the curls. 

✧ “I gotta get out of this city or else I'm going to end up like Bruce.”

✧ Dick suddenly gets this bright idea to cheer you up and feed a little bit of his ego. He huddles Jason and Tim behind the couch to look down on you. “Why are you wasting your time with strangers when you have three perfectly well-mannered, well-off, and well-chiseled bachelors in front of you?”

✧ You and Cass bend down to look under the couch, “Where?”

✧ Dick props you back up and he’s grinning wider as he grabs your shoulders, “If you had to choooooose” he drags out the word as he pulls Jason and Tim back to your field of vision, “Who would it be?”

✧ “Questions like these start wars, Dick.”

✧ “Replacement’s right. Haven’t you read the Trojan War?”

✧ “That’s what you’re going with, Jason!”

✧ You sit up straight on the couch and stare at the three of them, making them stop. You make sure to deliver your retort with a deadpan expression, “I’d wait for Damian to turn 18 then live the rest of my life as a gold-digging cougar. Oh! And I would build a pool in the West wing.”

✧ “I’ll allow it,” Damian answers from one of the armchairs in front of you. He’s leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands folded in front of his face. “But after we condition your hips to be fit for child-bearing.”

✧ You walk out and cry to Alfred because Cass won’t even let you into her room. She’s too upset that you would choose Damian and the manor over her and a little apartment in the middle of the city like you’ve always talked about.

✧ “It’s one thing to be called fat, Alfred. But to be told I’m not woman enough by a 13-year-old?” Your eyes widen as you clutch the hem of his vest, “What does he even mean by condition my hips?”

✧ “Y/N, why wait for master Damian when master Bruce is already in his prime. He could use a woman like you to keep him in line.”

✧ You grimace. “Alfred. Are we working for the same guy? Would you date Bruce?”

✧ Alfred gives you a long look before he speaks again, “Perhaps I can introduce you to one of my nephews when they visit?”

✧ “Now we’re talking.”

✧ One day, you do fall for someone. Someone great and surprisingly none of the Wayne’s are hounding you with background checks, date stakeouts, or random texts asking if you need help bailing out on the date.

✧ You’re happy for a while but then you start getting suspicious because of the lack of Wayne activity. They’ve done it to all of your dates before, so why not now? 

✧ You start stalking your date every now and then, trying to catch him and see if he’s actually Dick in disguise. Or he’s someone Jason paid off to show you a good time. Or maybe it’s one of Tim and Damian’s alien friends. He could be Cass, too. You never know.

✧ In the end, your longest almost normal relationship ended because of your own paranoia. He broke up with you because of all the sleuthing and doubts.

✧ You were so devastated that you couldn’t bring yourself to walk into the manor. So you walk home and you text Bruce and Alfred that you can’t make it. It took you three hours to get back to your apartment and your feet are killing you. You slump over the couch and before you know it, you’ve been staring at the wall until past midnight.

✧ You hear a lot of whispers and scuffling from your fire escape. You groan when you hear them creak open your window. “Go away.”

✧ “We come in peace. We even brought Steph.”

✧ For every physical talent Cass and the boys possessed, god took back an essential social skill. Aside from you, Steph is their go-to empathy guru. “Oh, baby,” she watches you untangle yourself from the couch and hugs you tight. “Come here.” You bury your face in her shoulder and swallow back a sob. You can smell the gunpowder and smoke.

✧ “Did you have to come in your suits? You’re going to get Gotham on my carpet.”

✧ Jason bends down to look at you and gives you a proud grin and thumbs up. "Don't worry, Y/N. We made sure that guy regrets hurting you."

✧ You stare at Jason and you start snickering little by little until it turns into full-blown laughter. "He's Alfred's nephew!"

✧ "Shit--!” 

✧ “Dick, this is all your fault."

✧ "Woah hey-- It was your idea--Hey! Tim! Cass! Wait for me!"

✧ “Damian, you knew didn’t you!”

✧ “See you in hell, Todd.”

✧ You grin against Steph’s shoulder who’s giggling, “He wasn’t really, right?”

✧ “Nope. Now, they’ll race to see who can apologize to Alfred first.”

✧ “They’re going to dig their own graves!” 

✧ You sigh in satisfaction, "I feel better already."

✧ Watchtower Masterlist ✧

#waynesitter #batfam #batfamily #batfamily imagine #batfamily fanfiction #batfamily x reader #batfam imagine #batfam fanfiction #batfam x reader #DC imagines #DC fanfiction #DC reader insert #watchtower-feed #acropen #lexyartem

[morgansunflower]

"You'llalways be my daughter Y/N"

Green lantern!Batsis! Reader

Y/N, leaves against her adopted dad's wishes. He refuses to give her his blessing. Both pained by hurtful though untrue word's.

"I will not allow it!!" Bruce yelled anger in his voice

I put on my ring revealing my green lantern uniform

"oh yes you will! I will not stand and do nothing when innocent people and lantern's are losing there lives!!" I yelled back at my adopted dad

"you are behaving like a child! You will get hurt or worse killed you are too young! "

"I'm a adult I was Robin I was trained by you, you taught me everything I know!" I brokenly said

He scoffed with a grunt "I forbid it! has long has you are my daughter and are of this family you will not join the war!!"

I scoffed and shook my head "I'm you're daughter fine by me you love me great but not letting me go and you will lose me has your daughter!"

"I'm not letting you leave" he said folding his arm's

I feel tears stream down my face I flew off

"where are you going?!" he asked

"why do you care I'm not you're daughter anyway"

I left to go fight in the War of the Green Lanterns. I hated leaving on bad terms with Bruce. I knew he only was trying to protect me. Finally after four years the war was over. I broke my left arm and I lost my ring. I sacrificed my power's to save earth. I made it to Gotham 4 year's. I didn't know it would hit me this hard. I sat on the bench at the park. I felt ashamed, guilt. I told Bruce I wasn't his daughter it broke my heart. I feel tears stream down my face. I miss you're siblings, Alfred and Dad. I never even told them goodbye. I took a deep breath and got up my arm in a lot of pain. I whistle for a taxi I went to Bludhaven to see my little brother. I went to his house, I slowly nocked. The door opened tears already streaming down my face. Dick looked at me shocked

"I was in town and I wanted to see my brother" I said crying

Tears started to fall from Dick's face. He touched my cheek

"Y/N.. You're home. What happened to you're arm?" he asked

He wrapped his arms around you gently. I rub his back remembering when his was Robin.

"daddy whose here!?" I hear a little girl say

I laughed crying and saw her she had Dick's hair and Barbara's eye's. I knelt down to her

"hi I'm Y/N" I say softly

Her face lit up

"you're my aunt! I have you're middle name!" I looked at Dick he shook his head yes still crying. I looked back at my niece "my name is, Mary!"

"oh Mary I love that name" I said

She ran off "mommy! mommy! Aunt Y/N is home!" she said

I laughed and stood up

"she's adorable, Grayson"

He smiled and dried his tears. Barbara rolled in, in her wheelchair! I had no idea she was in a wheelchair. I covered my face. She started crying I slowly walked to her and knelt down. I hugged her with my right arm

"oh Barb's" I said full of remorse

"it's OK you didn't know" she said crying

"I should have never left" I rasp

"hey you did the right thing besides I had, Dick"

"I'm glad for that" 

I stood up Dick hugged me again. Mary, hugged my leg

"have you seen anyone else?" Barbara asked

I shook my head no unable to speak feeling so much emotion

"I probably should" I manage to say

"I can give you a ride" Dick said

"you know yeah that would help" I said

Dick and I went to the Manor he dropped me off. Dick left to get Jason. I walked to the door and knocked. Alfred opened his face shocked

"Miss Y/N!" he said

"hello Alfred I'm glad to see you're still with us" I said

He shook his head at my comment and we embraced

"would you like some tea" he asked

"hmm that sounds wonderful but first I need to see my siblings" I said softly grateful to finally be home

Alfred gently nodded I walked to Stephanie's room. I took a deep breath and nocked

"come in" she said

I opened the door and saw her listening to music on her bed. She didn't notice me I grabbed her pillow and hit her

"hey!" she said mad

She saw me she covered her face crying

"Y-Y/N you're alive" she said crying

She hugged my waist crying. I kissed her head and rubbed her head

"I can't believe it you're here you're alive and what happend to you're arm!" she said

"I'm ok" I said

She let go of me and stood up you touched her cheek crying

"we have much to catch up on Sis but I need to see our brothers"

"no!" she said and hugged me

"later tonight will talk"

"yes!" she said exited

I laughed and walked to Tim's room I knocked

"come in" he said

I opened the door and saw Tim glued to the computer, has he usually is

"haven't I told you to take a break from that stupid computer"

"it's not-" Tim froze and looked at me

"hey Timmy" 

He got up and hugged me

"I thought I'd never see you again" he said crying

I rubbed his head he let go of me he noticed my arm

"I'm okay Timmy just a broken arm is all"

He sighed I kissed his head "I'm going to go see Damian" 

Tim rolled his eye's I ruffled his hair and went to find Damian. I opened his door he was asleep laying on his dog Titus. I knelt down. Titus woke up and saw me he wagged his tail

"hey Titus you miss me" I whispered

I pet him Damian rubbed his eye's and looked at me shocked. He looked at you're arm

"L/N! What happened to you! I will kill-" I cut him off

"Damian it's OK I'm ok it's just a broken arm" 

He hugged me crying "I forbid you from leaving" he mumbled

I smiled and hugged him tight crying. I walk into the study with my younger siblings

"Y/N Jason's here and he refuse's to believe me!" Dick yelled from the living room

We all walked to the living room

"I'm telling you Dick it's impossible Y/N has been gone for 4 years and she suddenly just--" he stopped when he saw me "shows up, Y/N what the hell happened to you're arm?!" he said

I walked to him "just shut up and hug me Jaybird"

He hugged me as I heard him crying I kissed his head

"please tell me you're staying home for good" Jason mumbled

"believe me little brother I'm staying for a long time"

I heard the door open I took a deep breath knowing it was Bruce. He saw me Bruce froze my siblings left the room, I started crying

"will you'll be happy to know I lost all my powers you were right I did get hurt" he walked closer to me "if you want me to leave for good I will. I wanted to say I'm sorry I left like I did" he touched my cheek

I started sobbing he hugged me. I hugged him tight with you're right arm

"I'm so sorry dad" I said

"you'll always be my daughter Y/N" he said with genuine remorse

#batfamily #batfam #bruce wayne #fight #green lantern #fiction #platonic #Batman loves his daughter #Coming back home #sad thoughts #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #damian wayne #barbara gordon #oracle #stephanie brown #Alfred Pennyworth is immortal #alfred pennyworth #Crying #Forgiveness #fanfic #Batman x daughterreader!

[meterokinesis]

Black and Blue

Read it on AO3

Prompt: “bruises”

TW for domestic violence, physical abuse, harm to children. Please read responsibly.

Summary: Bruce Wayne never expected his children to come to him whole. But he never expected Tim Drake to be so bruised.

(Or, Batman saves the boy who saved him)

Bruce never expected his children to come to him whole.

Dick had calluses and impacted musculoskeletal growth, along with an anger Bruce wasn’t sure would ever be sated. Jason was malnourished and coping with PTSD, and had scars with more history than most developed nations. But of them all, he expected Tim to be the least shattered; he’d grown up in the lap of luxury after all.

He never expected Tim to be so bruised.

                                           _________________

Tim was a smart kid, no doubt about that. Years ago, Bruce had taken a look at his records: straight A’s since kindergarten, fluency in three languages and working on a fourth, an IQ of 142. He wasn’t Lex Luthor, but it was impressive for a kid of just 13. Especially a kid who never seemed to stay in one place for long.

Tim’s school records revealed more than just his intelligence. He was taught by an au pair until kindergarten, then went to a private elementary school just outside Gotham for three years. From third to fifth grade he was enrolled at Gotham Academy as a boarder. Middle school was spent at another boarding school in Gotham, but he was allowed home on weekends. He’d start freshman year at a public school, Louis E. Grieves Memorial, the upcoming September.

Bruce didn’t pretend to know everything about child psychology, but he was sure that repeated upheavals were bad for any child, let alone one who was smarter than most of his classmates to begin with. He didn’t even want to think about Tim going to a public school in a few weeks.

It was the reports from Tim’s teachers that made Bruce hesitate the most:

Timothy struggles with connecting to other classmates.

Timothy stayed indoors during recess, claiming a stomach ache. When asked if he wanted to play with the others, he shook his head and went back to reading.

Timothy is a pleasure to have in class, but the school mandates that parents must sign off on permission slips, rather than nannies.

Timothy’s roommate frequently complains about Timothy’s nightmares. The Drake family doctor has prescribed sleeping aids to help the problem.

Timothy came back from his weekend at home with a black eye and multiple new surface injuries. He insists he fell while skateboarding.

It didn’t take a detective to know that Tim was being bullied. He was a skinny kid with gelled-up hair and an affinity for math. As Tim himself once put it, he was “every coming-of-age movie’s nerd who gets shoved into a locker.” That didn’t make it any better.

Bruce hadn’t realized that he was at the Drakes’ house until his knuckles stalled an inch from the door. The limo that hauled the Drakes around wasn’t in the driveway. This wasn’t a wellness check, it was a nice walk that ended in seeing his newest sidekick. That was an excuse he could live with.

He rapped twice: two loud, short knocks that seemed to echo. Not a minute later, he could hear locks clicking on the other side of the door, and there was Tim--all 5’2” of him.

It wasn’t Tim’s short stature or gelled hair that made Bruce’s heart sink, though. It was the bruises that caressed his jaw and temple that almost ended in a black eye. His nose was bruised, but Bruce didn’t think it was broken. Probably. The bruises were fresh, less than 24 hours old. Tim had been beaten up recently.

“Who did this to you?” He tried to ask gently, but it came out too harsh and too breathy all at once. Bruce reached out for Tim’s shoulder, but the young teenager avoided him with ease, like it was a practiced movement.

“‘S not important,” Tim mumbled, his tone achingly adolescent.

“I know you’re getting bullied, Tim. I know it’s been going on for a long time. I need you to tell me who it is so they can see consequences.” Bruce had never done this before. He’d saved kids from hostage situations and from the creepy guy on the playground. But he’d never had to save kids from other kids.

Instead of breaking down in tears like Bruce expected, Tim barked a short laugh.

“I’m not getting bullied, B. I’m Robin, do you seriously think Tyrone Wright bothers me anymore? Not to mention, I never have to see him again. He’s going to Gotham Academy next year.”

“Then who-” Bruce’s sentence fell apart as his mouth caught up with his mind. Fresh bruises. Not another kid. The Drakes left this morning.

Oh.

“Tim,” he began slowly, “did your father do this to you?”

Tim’s demeanor dropped immediately, and he wouldn’t look Bruce in the eye. Seconds passed without a response, and for a second Bruce could painfully feel how, in this moment, they were Batman and a scared child.

“He didn’t mean to,” Tim finally let out, his voice as quiet as a dying breath.

Worry churned in Bruce’s stomach. Those words were never a good sign.

“I need you to explain everything that happened last night, okay?” Bruce said, as gently as he could while his heart was breaking. “Do you want to talk here, or at the Manor?”

Instead of answering, Tim slipped back into the house, leaving the door open for Bruce to follow. Bruce crossed the threshold, and took in the Drake mansion. It was full of that post-modern, minimalist decor that Bruce despised. It looked sterile, like a museum or a morgue. It certainly didn’t look like a place that housed a 13 year old boy.

Tim led him past the foyer and the formal sitting room and into the kitchen, where he selected a stool at the island. The counters were marble and impeccably clean. The cabinets were glass and white-painted wood. It looked like something out of a magazine. Pictures lined the walls, but they were all landscapes of foreign lands. Bruce couldn’t spot a single family photo.

“Where are your parents? I thought they were supposed to be in Gotham for at least another week,” Bruce began, but he truly didn’t care that the Drakes were gone. Good riddance.

“They left this morning for Haiti. Some big dig started early and they couldn’t miss it,” Tim whispered, his tone much wetter than it had been a few minutes before. “We were supposed to have a big going-away dinner, but I was playing my music too loud and didn’t hear my dad when he called. He came in and saw me just sitting on my bed and told me to stand up. S-so I did and he slapped m-” Tim’s sentences were barely-suppressed sobs now.

“He hit you so hard you bruised?” Bruce prompted, frowning. “Has he done this before?”

“N-no. To both. I wasn’t ready and I fell and hit my head on my desk. It’s not like that’s what he wanted to happen.” Tim had managed to choke down the tears, and was now staring solemnly at Bruce. It was as if he’d learned to quiet his sorrow as quickly as possible.

“Tim…” Bruce murmured, but he could barely get the words out over the pain of his heart splintering. “You didn’t deserve that. It’s not your fault. Your dad shouldn’t have hit you. No adult should hit a child, ever.” 

Tim stared at the countertop, but remained silent. Bruce reached out to pat him on the back, but when his hand brushed Tim’s shoulder, Tim flinched. Bruce didn’t try to touch him again after that.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” he finally said, putting on the voice he used as Batman. “We’re going to go to the manor, take a look at your injuries, and watch some movies. Alfred will buy us those ice cream cookie sandwiches if we ask nicely. That sound good?”

Tim nodded mutely and pushed himself off the stool.

“Okay, what do you need to pack to stay at the Manor? Clothes, obviously--maybe a speaker?”

“He broke mine. Before he hit me.” Tim mumbled.

Bruce froze, just for a second. “Well, we’ll have to fix that. How about we get you a new WayneTech phone? You can download music onto it, and I’ll get you some earbuds too.” Bruce followed Tim as the boy wove his way through the house, all the way up to his room. It was starkly bare, with a few posters and knick knacks but not much else. Tim shoved clothes into a duffel bag, did a quick survey, then looked at Bruce.

“Ready.”

That’s it? It was shocking how easily Tim could pick himself out of this life, like he was a piece of lint on a fancy suit.

Still, Bruce smiled. “Then let’s go. I’m thinking Star Wars for the movies, how about you?”

Tim quipped something about how Star Trek was superior in every way, but all Bruce could think about were his other sons. It hadn’t even been six months since he’d lost Jason, but he was already letting another child in. He wasn’t going to let another little boy slip through the cracks.

And when the Drakes came home from Haiti, he would show them no mercy.

#whumptober 2020 #my writing #abuse tw #domestic violence tw #physical abuse tw #bruise tw #jack drake is a rat bastard abuser and i hate him #batfam #tim drake #bruce wayne #batman #robin

[danielslilangel]

Make Love Not War- Daminette (Pt. Two)

Part One

Part Two 

Part Three

The four Wayne boys entered the gym and found Marinette excitedly stretching as she talked with Tikki about something they were too far away to catch.

“Marinette,” Damian called as he took his place on one side of the large circle mat the boys used as an attempt to soften the blows they landed upon each other. He gave her a brief smile as she made her way over to her place, happy to be the reason she was smiling even if it was because he was about to beat her in a sparring match. She really is the sunshine of Gotham. “How do you want to do this? Single round? Best two out of three?” He wanted her to at least think he was taking this seriously in the hopes that she would actually keep her word and not ask again.

“Multiple rounds are fine with me.”

Damian paused for a moment before looked around and spotted Alfred as he walked by the door. “Alfred will be the judge since he’s the only one in this house who knows how to be impartial.”

“Is anyone in this house really impartial when it comes to anything involving Marinette?” Jason whispered from the sidelines.

“Of course I will be young Master.” The aged butler made his way to the outer edge of the mat. “The victor will be determined after one person wins two out of the three rounds. A round is over when one of you pins your opponent to the ground for three seconds. The person pinned must have both shoulders touching the mat for the entire count in order for the win to count. No moves are off limits, but weapons are not allowed. Both of you must stay inside the outer circle at all times or the round restarts. Forfeiting a round is grounds for an automatic win for the other person. Are you both in agreement with these rules?” He looked at both his charges and held a hand up in the air as they nodded. “Are you ready then?”

“Yes.” Damian rolled his neck side to side and shook out his arms to release some of the tension. He needed to move quickly but accurately to make sure he didn’t actually hurt her while winning.

“Oh, wait!” Marinette squeaked before leaving her place on the mat and running over to the corner where Tikki flitted in the air like a boxing coach.

“Giving up already Marinette?” Dick called.

“Don’t be scared sweetheart! We’ll make sure he gets what’s coming to him if he roughs you up too much.” Jason laughed as Damian held up his middle finger in his brothers direction.

Marinette simply ignored the brothers calls and thankfully took a hair tie from her kwami’s outstretched paw before tying her hair up in a tight ponytail so none of it fell across her face obscuring her vision. She wouldn’t have spent so much time that morning straightening it if she had known she was going to do this today. Turning back towards the mat, she had another thought and decided to take off her loose cold shoulder top off, revealing the black sports bra underneath. She didn’t want the extra fabric there to impede her movements or allow Damian to get a better grip on her, but she also waited a second to appreciate that her action had served another purpose of bringing a small amount of pink to Damian’s cheeks. He refused to make eye contact with her as she jogged back to her place inside the circle. He has no idea what’s about to hit him.

“Now I’m ready,” she smiled and took up her fighting stance, falling so easily into the role of Ladybug that she could almost forget that she wasn’t wearing her spotted suit.

“Let me know if I get too rough Angel.”

“I could ask the same of you.”

He chuckled, the low sound making her shake her head to clear it. “I will keep that in mind.”

Alfred raised a hand and stepped back, knowing it was best to remain out of the way whenever he took up the role of referee. “Ready? Begin.”

Damian moved first, darting forward while aiming to grab her arms, swing her to the ground and quickly end this round without her getting the chance to come after him and accidentally hurt herself. He hadn’t expected her to move quite so fast though, having thought that his girlfriend would remain the clumsy girl he’d gotten to know over the past year that they’ve been together. At least she actually does have some self preservation skills, he thought as she managed to slip behind him. Spinning around, he aimed a kick towards her side, wincing as he felt it connect briefly with her ribs. He really didn’t want to hurt her, but he pushed himself to step forward and jabbed at her, catching the same side with his fist though he made sure to reign in some of the force behind the punch.

She bent down on the mat after his hit and wrapped her arms around herself causing Damian to instantly panic.

“Marinette… Angel, are you okay? Did I hurt you? Do you want to stop?” He reached out to put his hand on her head but she lightly smacked it away and turned her gaze up towards him.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? It’s okay for us to stop now, you did really well. I wasn’t expecting you to get out of the way so fast.”

In her mind Marinette was rolling her eyes, questioning how this boy could seriously think she’d already been injured not even a minute into their first round. If he had been less distracted trying to control himself so he didn’t hurt her, he would have been able to tell that he had barely tapped her and that she was totally playing him. She loved Damian more than life itself, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t judge him for being so obliviously gullible. Time to knock his ego down a few pegs. “It’s fine, really. Let’s keep going.”

“You’re sure?”

“You heard the girl, stop being a pussy and fight your girlfriend like a man!” Jason teased.

“I don’t know if I would use this situation as a testament to his manhood…” Tim sighed.

Damian got back into position as Marinette nodded once more. He caught her eyes shifting to the left of him briefly before her gaze returned to his face so that when she moved her foot to take a step towards him, he was positive she would be aiming for his right. Trying to counter her obvious move, Damian side stepped and kicked towards her middle, once again finding himself surprised when he touched nothing but air as she dodged him. He immediately rebounded and launched a low kick behind him before turning and jabbing at her in successive bursts with each fist. One finally connected and he used the other hand to reach out to grab her arm, forcing her to duck towards the ground as he kicked towards her once more.

Marinette rolled to the right to dodge Damian’s kick, before pushing off the mat in a graceful back handspring and found herself face to face with him, a tiny smile forming as she caught his surprise.

He had not been expecting that move and he sure as hell wasn’t expecting her to sweep his legs out from under him before throwing herself down across his back, holding his shoulders to the mat with a strength he hadn’t known she was capable of possessing in her barely five foot tall frame. Try as he might, Damian found himself unable to raise his body up as she lay with her chest pressed up against him. He faintly noticed that she wasn’t breathing any harder than normal despite his efforts to move.

“One. Two. Three! First round goes to Marinette.” Alfred’s voice brought him out of his daze and he felt Marinette remove herself from the floor and stand up before moving away from him.

“I win!” She proudly exclaimed, waving to his brothers who were cheering her on from the sidelines.

Jason and Dick gave her thumbs up while laughing, knowing full well that Damian had been going easy on her. Still, she did manage to pin me and I didn’t think that was going to happen. I need to put a little more effort into this match than I thought.

“You didn’t win yet Angel, that round was just luck.”

“Well luck is kinda my thing so…” she winked and stuck her tongue out at him as he resumed his place across from her.

“Round two.” Alfred stepped back once more and lowered his arm. “Begin.”

Wanting to keep Damian on his toes, Marinette decided to strike first launching a punch towards his face with a high kick to follow.

Just as her toes connected with his cheek, Damian pushed her leg away with enough force to spin her around and swept a low kick to knock her off balance. Once again, she managed to somehow dodge him by using the momentum to jump over his kick like she was playing jump rope. Not willing to let her get behind him this time, Damian grabbed her shoulders and pulled her forward, causing the heroine to lose balance and fall into him.      

She lifted her knee, aiming for his crotch, but Damian expected the move from her being held in this position and grabbed ahold of her hands to spin her around so her back was facing him. Dodging a headbutt and before she could launch a backward kick, he gently lowered her to the ground in front of him and used a knee to hold her shoulders down. She reached a leg backwards to kick him off, but was too short to actually connect with any part of his body. Damian, being the man that he was, couldn’t help but notice her high level of flexibility. Muttering a curse as he felt her start to sit up, he, once again, gently applied pressure to the back of her neck with his hand to keep her face down on the floor.

“Winner, Damian!”

He stood up and extended a tanned hand down to help her to her feet and then stroked her cheek, tucking a stray strand of dark hair back behind her ear so it no longer fell across her face. “Guess your luck ran out, huh?” He smiled and leaned in to plant a small kiss on her forehead, but she stepped back and looked at him with a single eyebrow raised.

“That’s what you think.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that she is completely screwing with you.” Tim’s laughter echoed through the gym, earning him a glare from the youngest Wayne.

“Excuse me?”

“Dude, she totally let you win that round.” Dick chimed in, already regretting his decision in the bet they had made. Marinette definitely had some hidden skills.

“Girl’s a freaking hustler!” Jason joined in on their teasing.

“What?” He turned from his brothers and found Marinette looking up at him with the face of an angel. “Are they serious?” She just kept looking at him with her eyes wide, lashes fluttering with feigned innocence. I just got played. “Weren’t you the one begging to see how you’d fair in a fight against me? Why would you purposely hold back?”

“I could ask you that same question.” She raised her hands up in exasperation. “You didn’t even try in the first round!”

“I didn’t want to hurt you anymore than I already had after that first kick!”

“You barely touched me and even if you had hurt me, I’m a big girl and I can handle a little pain.“ She felt her cheeks flush with anger as she moved back into her starting position. Chat had underestimated her back in France and it had led to him purposely throwing himself into danger more often than naught to keep her out of reach of the akumatized victims. She still firmly believed that his arrogance was the reason why it had taken so many years for the heroes to defeat and capture Hawkmoth and she wasn’t going to have a repeat of that situation here with Damian or the rest of the heroes of Gotham. She would show them that Marinette/Ladybug was an ally worth having around and not just some trinket they could keep in their back pockets for safe keeping. "Stop acting like I didn’t save Paris thousands of times, often on my own, over the last 3 years, nearly singlehandedly defeating a super-terrorist, and start treating me like you would anyone else you were practicing against!”

“You know what? Fine.” He let his mask as the Prince of Assassins fall into place and moved to face her on his starting mark. He would appease her curiosity, giving her everything he had from his seventeen years of training, and then tend to her wounds, both physical and emotional after the last round was over. “But I’m never doing this again.”

“As long as you take it seriously this time around, I’ll keep my promise and never ask again. But if you’re too scared to actually fight me, I’d forgive you. I won’t love you any less because of it.” Her smile was almost feral-something she had picked up from having Chat as her partner for so long- as she lowered herself into her fighting stance once more. She really hoped he wouldn’t hold back now. If she didn’t beat him when he was actually trying, he would never be able to let himself focus on anything else but her safety when they were out on patrol. More than her desire to be taken seriously and be respected for the hard work she had put in to be the hero she was, Marinette didn’t want to see Damian/Robin injured because he was trying to prevent harm from befalling her.

“While I appreciate how cute it is that you think you’re the scariest thing I’ve faced, I am absolutely not going to back down. I won’t be taking it easy on you this time either. Just remember to tell me if I’m too much for you to handle Angel.” He smirked and waved Alfred forward, eager to end this. The sooner she realized that he was there, willing and able, to protect her, the sooner they could go back to normal and stop the only disagreement the two of them had.

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

Alfred cleared his throat, briefly drawing the pairs’ eyes away from each other. “Round three. Winner decides the match’s victor.”

TAG LIST (Let me know if i missed you/you’d like to be added!) :)

@zazzlejazzle @jessigurl-design @xxmadamjinxx @imfreakingmagical @constancetruggle @shizukiryuu @segajr @mystery-5-5 @black-streak @heldtogetherbysafetypins @eliza-bich @2sunchild2 @northernbluetongue

#daminette #maribat #maridami #damimari #marinette dupein cheng #miraculous ladybug #my writing #first time writing an action scene #comments welcomed

[wellthatjusthappend]

Can we Deadshot appreciating J's ass while Dick loses it? please and thank you!

Nice! I don't remember if Jason and Deadshot have ever worked together (or against each other) in the comics, but I feel like they would get along.

Also, thank you everyone who sent in villain suggestions and prompts!

Dick was getting a little worried that he’d get too used to Jason sleeping by his side.

Not that they’d really done anything but literally sleep next to each other, but it was… nice. Really nice. It made coming back to his apartment feel like an actual home sometimes rather than just another base of operations. Jason wasn’t there at all really during the day- though Dick sometimes woke up to find an extra plate of breakfast sitting around for him after Jay left- and their patrol schedules rarely synched up, but the simple fact of another person’s warmth beside him of Jason made Dick feel calm in ways he’d never expected.

He felt like he had been starving, but hadn’t realized it. His chest felt light and full in ways he couldn’t quite describe.

Dick still didn’t know why Jason had changed his mind and decided to stay with him. He said that he’d sorted out everything about the knife already (though Dick wasn’t sure he’d ever taken the threat seriously in the first place) so it didn’t make much sense. But Dick couldn’t deny that it eased much of the worry that had been building in his chest that Jason was with him and not out there getting seduced by some villain.

For some reason that relaxed feeling made him think that it would be a good idea to invite Jason onto a case he was working on.

There was a new supplier on the streets trying to break out into the market by slipping samples of his new drug into middle and high schoolers backpacks. Mostly he’d been hitting Bludhaven schools thus far- Dick had been a bit overwhelmed by some new gang wars lately so it took a while for him to notice- but apparently the guy was based out of Gotham.

Probably wanted to test the success of his drug before he tried a market where the Bat or the Red Hood might come down on him.

For good reason too, since Jason looked like he was going to murder someone when Dick showed him the case files.

“Keep it non-lethal Hood,” Dick warned as they suited up.

“Bastards like that deserve to burn in hell,” Jason snarled, the sound much more menacing through the voice mod of the helmet.

“I’m serious Hood-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the rules about working with you goldie,” Jason waved him off.

Dick still caught himself double checking that the bullets Jason had loaded were rubber.

It would always be weird working in masks in daylight, but sometimes there was no way around it.

They hid themselves in the shadows of a roof overlooking a school Dick had heard was starting to have more issues with the drug. Jason was tense beside him, and Dick had to remind himself that trying to lay any comforting hand on him right now would probably just end in violence.

They stayed in mostly silence as they waited for their mark to follow his usual routine and come up to the rooftop to set up shop for the burgeoning addicts of the school. Jason was better at long distance than he was, so Dick was hoping they could settle this quickly without terrorizing the school.

“Sniper on the building to left,” Jason suddenly said.

“ What?! ” Dick whipped around just to catch the slightest glint of a scope on a nearby roof.

“Doesn’t look like it’s aiming for us,” Jason commented.

“A sniper aiming anywhere near a school doesn’t sound good,” Dick shook his head, “I’ll go around back and see if I can take them by surprise. You stay here in case our guy comes out.”

He kind of though Jason might protest, but he just grunted his agreement. Dick supposed someone selling to kids would be a higher priority to him, especially since he could probably punish him more if Dick was busy.

Stomping down the bad feeling in his chest, Dick grappled up to a nearby ledge before scaling the building by hand to ensure a silent approach. When he pulled himself up onto the rooftop he saw the tripod and sniper rifle still poised and set up on the other edge of the roof, but no sign of the sniper himself.

Dick ducked just in time to miss a fist to the head.

He dropped automatically and kicked out, just barely missing taking the snipers legs out from under them.

“What the hell, aren’t Bats only supposed to come out at night?” grumbled a familiar voice.

“Deadshot?!” Dick said in surprise.

“Aw hell, what’s Lawton doing here?” grumbled Jason over the comm.

Dick didn’t really like the familiar way Jason said his name, but he had no time to dwell on it with one of the deadliest assassins in the world poised to fight in front of him.

“What are you doing here?” Dick demanded, hands gripping his escrima sticks a little more firmly.

“Same thing as you, I’d imagine,” said Deadshot dryly, “unless there’s more drug selling scumbags hanging around kids that I don’t know about.”

“Lawton,” Jason said having apparently abandoned his post in favor of landing on the roof next to Dick and pulling off his helmet. Dick barely had time to process his alarm when Jason grinned and strode forward to clasp hands with Deadshot with a camaraderie that Dick didn’t like one bit, “good to see you man.”

“Should have known you’d be around, kid,” Deadshot grinned, clapping Jason on the back, “I liked your work on that fucker who was hanging around Madison school a couple months back. Nice and clean.”

Jason preened under the praise, and Dick scowled deeper. Not just because he didn’t know what had happened at Madison school- and he was pretty sure he wouldn’t like it when he found out- but also because Deadshot had not stopped touching Jason for whatever reason.

The fact that Jason didn’t even seem to notice implied that it was probably normal for them.

“You didn’t really answer the question before,” Dick said coming up beside them and barely resisting shoving between them, “What are you doing here?”

Deadshot looked between them, a hint of a smirk gracing his features for a moment.

“Don’t really tolerate bastards that target kids,” he shrugged, “I’ve got a daughter in Gotham, y’know? I do what I can to clean out the trash every now and then.”

“‘Priciate it,” Jason said back honestly, “I’ve missed working with you, man.”

“Right back at you, kid,” Deadshot said, giving Jason’s arm a squeeze, “One of these nights we should hit 10th and make a little noise. My kid has to take that road to the bus stop and the gangs there have been a little too arrogant for my liking.”

“It’s a date,” grinned Jason.

Dick ground his teeth.

“You better not have forgotten our no killing rule, Deadshot,” Dick said with a hard look.

“Ah, are you Bats the ones cramping Hood’s style these days?” Deadshot said lazily.

“They wish,” Jason snorted.

“No killing in Gotham, or it’s back to Blackgate,” Dick warned.

“Right, sure, like that place has ever held me,” Deadshot said dryly, making Jason snort. Dick glared at him.

“I’m serious…” Dick said gripping his escrima sticks a little tighter.

“Don’t worry, Nightwing, I’ve got a kid, remember?” Deadshot placated him, “I’m not going to do anything that is going to get me caught and sent to jail.”

Key word caught , Dick thought.

“Speaking of which, you want to take the shot, Hood?” Deadshot asked, jerking his chin towards the scope.

“Hell yeah,” Jason said, his face lighting up like Christmas had come early. Dick supposed they were nice guns, but Jason could have just as nice ones if he spent more time at the Manor.

Dick noticed Deadshot’s eye flicking down to admire ass and thighs ass he crouched down.

Dick made an angry warning sound, glaring at him. Deadshot just grinned in response.

“God, you’re obvious,” he chuckled quietly so Jason wouldn’t hear.

“Stay away from him,” Dick hissed back.

“Easy, birdy,” Deadshot said giving him a patronizing look, “He’s a bit young for me. Doubt the kid even knows he flirts as much as he does.”

“You’re flirting back,” Dick accused.

“Hardly a crime,” Deadshot said mockingly, “‘sides, I can still admire a nice view when I see one.”

A pointed look at Jason’s thighs again.

“You-” Dick started hotly.

*BANG*

Even silencer muffling things, the sound of the rifle going off was still startling.

“Got ‘em,” Jason said standing with a satisfied look.

“Nice one,” Deadshot said coming to admire the view as well.

“Jesus, Hood, we agreed non-lethal,” Dick cursed as looked as well at the supplier bleeding out on the rooftop.

“Sure, and it won’t be lethal if you get your ass down there and do your job until the pigs show up,” Jason shrugged without a hint of remorse.

Deadshot laughed and Dick cursed both of them again as he launched himself off the rooftop to the next building.

The guy would live, but he’d no doubt be crippled for life. No slipping into schools unnoticed anymore. A nicer fate than what Deadshot would have chosen no doubt, but Dick wasn’t in a charitable mood.

A glance at the rooftop where he’d come from showed that Jason and Deadshot had disappeared together somewhere.

Jason was going to drive him crazy by the end of this.

#story resquests #sequal requests #fic: a certain type #ch. 4 #deadshot #what is that ship name even called? #my writing #Anonymous

[emotionalcello-makefanfics]

Your Tears in My Dreams (DamiJon) Part : 1/2

Rating : General Audiences

Summary :

His best friend always has that smile. Bright and refreshing like a can of cold soda on a hot and humid summer. But one day, when they were walking down the halls to class. Jon stopped, and for once in Damian life, he saw Jon cried. ---- Dick cleared his throat, his darting eyes finally landed on his jade eyes, “Why do you want to know now?” “Curiosity,” Damian shrugged, “I’ve never seen him cried before, that was the only time he did and I forgot why he did.” “You think it’s your fault?” “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

Inspired by this beautiful art of Jon crying and Damian not knowing what to do by @glitter-dc

Read on AO3

Click Keep Reading to read on Tumblr.

Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Jon was his best friend and the only friend that ever counted, but their relationship didn’t start smoothly. As a privileged nine-year-old boy that only knew about the expectation he’s meant to fulfill in a world of adults, Jon’s sincere friendly approach was extraterrestrial.

Yet, no matter how much Damian pushed, Jon insists. To Damian, Jon is nothing more than his father’s journalist best friend’s son. Damian had understood the political need to befriend each other, but Jon never sees it that way.

Jon who’s always as bright as the sun when he smiles. All his frontal teeth would show, and the one teeth on the top right that bent inwards sticks out more than the rest. The apple of his cheeks became prominent whenever he’s too excited, and blush just like roses in full bloom whenever they were running, or if it was a hot day. His eyes would shine like clear lakes under the high noon. Strands of his raven-black soft curls bounce cheerfully and swept through the wind like feathers whenever he moves.

Always, Jon would smile through the rain, through the bad scores he gets, and through the wounds that he gets whenever they’re playing too rough.

His best friend always has that smile. Bright and refreshing like a can of cold soda on a hot and humid summer.

But one day, when they were walking down the halls to class. Jon stopped, and for once in Damian life, he saw Jon cried.

It was the first and the last time Damian saw him that way.

The memory comes in as a dream, played like a slow-motion clip that lasted forever. Long enough that at one point, Damian asked why Jon cried, which of course, Jon in his dream didn’t make a sound any other sound than sobbing. But when Damian woke up, it felt like it lasted a second. Like every dream, Damian thought he’ll forget it after a few seconds being awake. But this time, the way Jon looks at him with his sorrowful eyes and downturned lips, stays the whole day, and the day after that, and so on.

Damian can still feel chills down his spine at how deeply Jon’s eyes pierce through his soul. The details of how strands of his black loose curls tossed around because he just took a nap at break time. The way his tears sticks to his lush lashes and glisten like morning dews on blades of grass under the light of dawn. His tightened jaw as if to hold his voice. Bawling with a heavy stream of tears rolling down his red apple cheeks.

Every detail of that moment would never be forgotten, but only that one frame, in that perspective that felt prolonged forever. Damian can’t remember anything more after or before that.

To be expected of course. After all, that happened ten years ago.

++++++

“Ah, Master Damian, I didn’t expect you for another day,” the family butler, Alfred, called from the library where he’s been cleaning. He takes off his usual suit and only wears his white button-up with sleeves rolled.

“Sorry for the unexpected arrival, I’ll clean the room myself.”

“Was there something urgent sir?” Alfred is as sharp as ever, Damian missed that about him.

“Yes, I’ll ask you about it later.”

Then Damian continues to walk down the halls and into his room. The room is still fairly clean, he’s touched that Alfred cleans his room even though he never stays the night in the manor for years. Whenever he has business trips in Gotham, he always stays in a nearby hotel, and only came for a quick dinner together, only if that family was in town.

It’s been forever since he last enters this room, just by the whiff of scent already felt like a blast from the past.

Back when the politics of his country were heated and dangerous, Damian was sent here to seek refuge. His family’s company, the League of Al-Ghuls, were caught between the heat. Though now that he’s older, he knew that his family participates in that political war. That’s why Damian’s life was in danger.

So, he was sent to a place owned by a father he never knew he had at nine years old. It was not expected that he had grown fond of the place and elongated his stay until his mother demanded him to come back to have proper education for her standards.

Ever since he was a child, he’s meant to continue the family business. Now he’s considered perfectly weaned and being trusted to have good judgment for the benefit of their empire. It is how their family is. It is what Damian had excepted with consent. Then life just swept Damian away.

The last time he was in this room, he was 15. There’s a picture of him and Jon by his desk. A thin layer of dust accumulated at the top of the frame. It’s a picture of them on a school trip to Ocean City. Jon had many friends beside Damian, but he wanted to take a picture together first.

Damian cracked a smile, seeing little Jon wearing his dad’s bright blue bucket hat on top of his awry hair, and a smile bright like the sea on their background.

He looked for his old stuff. Pictures, diaries, books, anything that can give him a clue. When he’s checking one of his bookcases, there’s a row dedicated to journals, textbooks, and sketchbooks. He recognizes some of the journals’ spine. When he takes it out, his heart raced.

It’s his diaries, not just any diaries too. He used to exchange them with Jon. They’ll write about their day and give them to each other once a week, or sometimes once a month. It was Jon’s idea from an old Japanese comic he bought from a discount box. It was ridiculous and Damian had thought it was intrusive.

Damian doesn’t know how Jon can talk him into sharing his personal thoughts with someone. Saying his feelings out has not been his strong suit, but writing it is another story. It’s easier to tell his secrets to inanimate objects that’ll never judge him. But what really made Damian went along with it, was because Jon’s diary is entertaining and fun to read. Usually filled with dad jokes his father told him and things he gets in trouble at. The way Jon writes it is just like how he talked with all his quirks and slang.

The tradition doesn’t last their whole friendship though. Some time into their teens, they stopped exchanging their diaries.

Though Jon never asked for his diary again, Damian kept writing out of habit. His brown covered journal, the last one, is a diary he never gave to Jon.

Flipping through the pages, he noticed that he didn’t write them on a regular basis. Some are days apart, some weeks, even months. Most of them are from 2009 to 2010, and the only content in there is frustration, anger, and self-pity that he’s too proud to tell anyone else.

Right at the last entry that stops in the middle of his journal, he finds the one he’s been looking for.

‘17 November 2010

Something absolutely bizarre happened today. Jon cried. I was lost for words at seeing him cry for the first time since I have ever known him. Jon is not one who cries easily, or ever. He’s strong and he had pulled through a lot of misfortune that happens to him with only a frown or anger. He had a very deep wound on his forearm from scrapping it upon a loose nail on a plank, he bled a lot but he just hissed and screamed in pain, in that process, he shed a tear, but it was not ‘crying’. Even when his father scolds him badly after we went to town till 4 AM, all he did was frown.

We were just talking as we head to our class. I didn’t ask why at first. He was terribly sad and I’m afraid of saying the wrong words. So, I just pat his back and took him somewhere people won't see. I don’t want him to feel embarrassed if someone sees him like that when he clearly needed to cry. Maybe he’s been holding back something that he didn’t tell me.

It was also the first time I ever missed class. Of course, my mother will be more upset about this more than father, but I did not feel regretful. Jon needed me for once, and the consequences are light compared to the situation. Though I will not enjoy the incoming international call.’

And that’s it.

Damian sighed in defeat and disappointment with his fifteen-year-old self. He admits, he was not the most emotionally intelligent child back then. Even so, this means Damian is worried over Jon’s well being more than what caused it. Jon was precious to him at a point, even more than his duty as an Al-Ghul.

Since his own diary doesn’t reveal what he’s been looking for, he would need to ask from someone else.

++++

‘I’ll be staying in the manor for approximately a week, I hope it’s okay.’

‘Of course, you’re more than welcome. I’ll be home for dinner.’

‘Alright, I’ll tell Alfred to anticipate you.’

“Who’re you texting with?” his older brother, Dick came to the living room with a big jug of tea. His hair is a mess as always whenever he’s back home, and a wardrobe just as hideous. It’s six months too early to be wearing an ugly Christmas sweater, and Dick paired it with a skimpy boxer.

Damian had come to terms with it, only because Dick is his favorite brother.

“Is it a speeecial someone? Maybe someone... who is not your wife?” Dick raised his eyebrows scandalously and takes a loud slurp of his tea.

Damian scoffed up a chuckle, “You know my relationship with my wife is strictly business, she has her own set of lovers.”

“I still can’t understand what’s the point in marrying, if all it was is for business.”

“Politics in an Al-Ghul family is different from a typical American one. It’s why my mother became a Wayne for a short yet beneficial time before their scheduled divorce, and conceived me, just as she planned.”

“I... still can’t get my head around that. Family isn’t politics.”

“I’ve come to know that thanks to you, and this family.”

Damian gave him a thankful smile while Dick melts with eyebrows downturned. Really, they’ve come a long way. The one that really thought him the meaning of love and family is the Waynes.

“Then where are your own set of ‘lovers’” Dick looks ups and close his eyes dreamily.

“And why would I told you about my affairs?” Dick gasped, putting a hand on his chest, again, this particular sibling always able to make him crack a smile,  “I was texting father, in case you’re still wondering, he’ll be home for dinner.”

“Good to know you’re on good terms! When did that happen?”

“Ironically, by being his business partner I get to see him and talk to him more than I was just his son.”

Dick burst a fit of a laugh, almost spilling his hot tea to his bare thigh.

“So, I heard you wanted to talk to me.”

“Yes, I hope I’m not taking your time from work.”

“No! Tomorrow’s Sunday, and I do visit on weekends when I can.”

“And the others?”

“Well, you know our siblings, they came when they can, but they’re all busy doing their own thing. Jason’s on tour. Tim won't be back for a year, a project in France. Duke’s with Doctors Without Borders. Steph...” Dick trails and made a face.

Damian’s jaw hits the floor, “Don’t tell me, she married him?”

Dick chuckled, “Yup, now she’s in the middle of a jungle in Indonesia, teaching anyone that needs it.”

Damian shook his head with a defeated smile, “Last time I was here, even the mansion feels crowded with... was it six of us? Now it feels a bit empty.”

“Well, little hatchlings ought to left the nest sooner or later,” Dick rubs his head. “So, you wanted to talk to me, but it’s not about reminiscing the past, isn’t it?”

Damian smirked, ever the detective.

“On the contrary, it does have something to do with that, but not about our family,” Damian takes a deep breath as quietly as he can, “You’re the one I talked to the most when I was a child.”

Dick squints his eyes, “Yeeees?”

“I was wondering if I ever said anything about Jon in particular.”

“Jon? As in Jonathan Kent? Your bestie?”

“Yes, Dick, Jonathan Kent. Is there something wrong?”

“No no! Just... it’s been so long since you talk about him.”

Damian just shrugs.

Dick put his cup of tea down on the table and narrowed his eyebrows, “Alright? What do you need?”

“I believe I had a fight with Jon, or maybe I made him so upset that he cried. Did I ever talk about these things with you?”

Dick sighed and tips his jaw to the side and raise his eyebrows, already at loss, “You were totally mega best friends with Jon. Honestly, I can’t choose, you were complaining about him a lot.”

“Only at first,” Damian chuckled, remembering again, “He was not the friend I asked for, but among all the wrong button he pushed, once when he pushed the right one.”

“And that is?”

“He treats me like a child, but as an equal, and expect nothing of me. Most of all, he’s incredibly patient.”

Dick is making a face, biting his lips from smiling too widely. Damian rolled his eyes and his older brother keeps him to himself.

“Ahem, did you know when you made him cry?”

“My diary said it was November 17th of 2010.”

“I think I was in Barbados with Barbara then, for the honeymoon?”

“That’s right, I wouldn’t have called you then.”

Dick cleared his throat, his darting eyes finally landed on his jade eyes, “Damian, why do you want to know now?”

“Curiosity,” Damian shrugged, “I’ve never seen him cried before, that was the only time he did and I forgot why he did.”

“You think it’s your fault?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

++++++

“As in Jonathan Kent?”

“Yes, Alfred. I don’t think I befriend any other Jon. Or any other person,” Damian chuckled lightly.

“I have not heard you talk about sir Jonathan in a very long time.” Alfred grabs the plates, and Damian grabs the utensils.

“Dick said that too. It’s just something I’m curious about.” Damian puts the spoons and forks on the sides of the plates on the dining table.

“When did it happen?” Alfred asked as he gets a bowl of salad with beans while Damian grabs a bowl of baked creamy mushroom penne.

“We were 15.”

“That’s ten years ago, Master Damian, why does it matter now?”

The question stabs through his chest like a dull knife, “No, it doesn’t matter.”

“I’m not late to dinner, am I?” walked in a man with a suit in his hand, loose tie around his neck and an opened button at the collar. The middle-aged man smiles when he sees Damian there.

“I’m impressed you’re not,” Damian put his hand on his hip.

“I’ve missed eating dinner with you a lot. I’m not gonna miss you again when you finally decide to visit your old man.”

“I’ve seen you a lot, father.”

“As Bruce Wayne, a business associate, not as your dad.” Bruce put a hand on Damian’s had and rubs it. As annoying as it is that his father ruined his coiffed hair, it always feels comforting to be patted on the head. The sensation will remain a mystery.

“I’ll put my things away and get Dick,” Bruce announced and walks out of the kitchen.

There’s a pulsing throb in his chest. His eyes are on the door his father walks out from but his feet stay rooted in their place. Damian has gone this far, it’ll be a waste not to try. So, he chased his father out and meets him in the hallway.

“Father,” he called, and Bruce turns around, “There’s a reason I’m visiting.”

“I figured. You don’t usually stay in the Manor if it’s not for the holidays, and our conference will only take two meetings.”

“I took a few days off after we’re done with the trade.”

His father knits his thick eyebrows together, looking concerned, “Why are you taking days off? That’s unlike you.”

Now Damian felt foolish. The matter feels even more trivial now, Damian finally sees that. He flew over for a conference that could’ve been done by his close peers just so he can ask his family about his ‘dream’. His father is right, this is unlike him. How did he even get here? Damian had hesitated before. Brushing off ever coming back to Gotham unless it’s for business purposes. Even at holidays, he’ll never force himself to spare the time to come, and if he does, it’s never longer than two days.

But this time, before he gets to hesitate, he was already on the way here.

“It’s alright, Damian, you can ask anything,” His father comforted, already treating it seriously.

With a heavy heart, Damian raises his shoulders, “It’s just.... something that incites my curiosity, it’s nothing to be concerned about.”

“Let me judge that after you tell me.”

Damina bites his lips, crossing his arms and hold onto his elbows tightly. Eyes darting around, before he finally just let it out.

“It’s about Jon.”

Bruce raised his eyebrows, lips parted open and eyes widen, “Jon,” the man breathes. “As in that Jonath-”

“Yes, Jonathan Kent, son of your best friend Clark Kent,” Damian cleared with a firm and irritated voice. Sighing, he cleared his throat, “Something happened when we were kids. I know Jon. He’s always bright and happy, but I remembered that he cried in front of me once, and he looked devastated. I don’t remember if I ever asked him why. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

His father’s sharp eyes soften as he noticeably holds his breath, “Damian...” he called gently, “You know what happened when you were kids.”

Damian paused, breathing mindfully as if to stay calm, and he managed to squeeze out: “This is before that... in 2010”

“That’s ten years a-”

“I know,” Damian raises his voice, frustrated. He knows it’s silly of him to ask around an uncertain memory from ten years ago, but... “I just wanted to ask if I ever told you about Jon crying. Please just tell me if you remember or not.”

Though Damian already knows his father wouldn’t have known anything. Bruce was a distant father when he’s a child. His friends were only Dick, and Jon who he thought was a beneficial ‘friend’.

It doesn’t hurt to try to ask, Damian thought. Somewhere in his childhood, he forgot when, he and his father tried to mend their rocky relationship. Even though they don’t share the same last name, they’ve been family.

“You did mention it to me,” Bruce said, and Damian’s heart jumps.

“Do you remember what I said?”

“Yes,” Bruce chuckled, “You were in a sour mood. I thought it was because of something I’ve done again.”

Damian huffed with the corner of his quirking up, “We weren’t always rainbows and roses, but this one is not because of that, right?”

“No, you told me about Jon. You’re upset with him, not angry or irritated. You always know what to do, but that time, you don’t.”

“Me? Upset with Jon?”

“Not as in at Jon. You told me that Jon is keeping secrets from you, and you’re upset because of that.”

“Now can you tell me why you cried?”

Jon finally stops crying, and his deep frown turns around, but this smile is not the same. His red-rimmed eyes look at Damian with his clear blue irises pooled in tears like overflowed ponds.

It feels like the world stopped in that quiet gymnasium they snuck into.

“I don’t think I can ever tell you why,” Jon’s voice croaks weakly.

“What? You don’t trust me?”

“No, Dami...I’m just afraid.”

“Of what? What could’ve scared you enough to not let me know?”

“I can’t tell you! Just, drop it! Okay?” Jon burst, and immediately looks guilty. He folds his arms and leans away from Damian who’s left puzzled.

Damian is angry, but mostly, disappointed? He thought Jon is close enough to lean on him, but it certainly doesn’t seem so. Even in anger, Damian doesn’t have it in him to leave. After years writing diaries, it doesn’t feel as heavy now to tell at least a snippet of sentimentality to Jon... In vocal form.

“Fine, keep your secrets, what is a man without a few? But know this Jon. You are a person that is dear to me, dare I say even more than my family. You’re the most treasured friend of mine, and I only wish to ease the pain that you’re feeling.”

Jon wails even louder that his voice echoes in the empty gymnasium. He can’t believe Jon’s still able to shed even more tears after the previous wave of pouring rain. Damian hold his breath and leans away, the guilt makes him uncomfortable being this near to Jon. He might just make things worse. Let’s never say his feeling out loud again, he had learned his lesson.

Just as Damian was about to scoot away, Jon loops his arms around Damian and squeeze tight.

“Stay with me for a bit. I know your mom’ll be angry, but can you skip class?”

Damian scoffs, Jon asked as if Damian would say no, which is absurd. Damian put his hand on top of Jon’s while the other is on his back, rubbing them gently to comfort. A wet patch is growing on Damian’s chest where Jon pressed his shut eyes. Warm stuttering breath felt through the shirt and onto Damian’s skin. Closing his eyes, Damian buries his face on Jon’s soft black curls.

Jon smelled like the sun.

“Yes, I can Jon.”

The memories come slowly, it’s not as clear as the dreams, but it’s one puzzle pieces among many, and this one fits where it should be.

“Did I say anything else?” Damian leans closer.

“I asked what would you do about it, but you just shrugged. You’re quiet for a few days and then Jon started to come over again.”

Damian sighed a breath he didn’t know he’s been holding. Now he remembers what happened after, but he still doesn’t know why Jon cried. Jon couldn’t have started crying out of nowhere. Must’ve been something he saw, or something Damian said to him.

“Why does it matter now?” His father asked, rubbing salt on his wounds.

Damian clenches his hand, “I dreamt it, I thought I’ll forget it later, but I didn’t,” he confessed, “I couldn’t sleep... I feel restless remembering that I had done him wrong, that I had made him cry and not knowing why. I wanted to seek the reason and say I’m sorry.”

“Then why don’t visit the Kents?”

Damian’s whole body tensed, “No, I can’t. Something this trivial, I can’t possibly-”

“It certainly isn’t trivial for you if you can’t sleep because of it.”

“It’s my own fault, I shouldn’t bother them for something like this.”

Sighing, Bruce puts his hand on Damian’s shoulder, “They’ve asked about you whenever I met them, they care about you enough to worry. They’ll be delighted to see you.”

Damian bites his lips, still hesitant, “You think so?”

“I know so, I’ll call them to expect you.”

“It’s okay, I’ll do it myself. They still live in the same apartment?”

“No, they live in their farmhouse permanently now.”

“Thank you, I’ll call them after our deal is done,” Damian stated.

“They’ll welcome you, there’s nothing to be nervous about.”

Even so, Damian can’t stop the uneasiness piled up in his chest, “I hope so.”

tbc

#damijon #supersons #supersons fanfic #Damijon fanfic #Jondami #jondami fanfic #super sons #super sons fanfic #jonathan kent #damian wayne #no powers au #they're the same age #maybe angst #who am I kidding of course it's angst #romance #no sex #not dangerous?

[violetsmoak]

Tabula Rasa [1/?]

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

Blanket Disclaimer

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

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

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

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

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

________________________________________________________________

“Three cheers for the happy couple!”

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

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

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

Time to be ‘on’ again…

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

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

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

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

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

I know that better than anyone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then there was that bachelor party he organized…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because if very well could be true.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Tim…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Tim should be okay.

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

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

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

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

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

Who exactly is Tim Drake?

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

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

“And Dick?”

“Yeah?”

“Congrats.”

“Aw, thanks, Timmy.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A familiar gleaming scarlet helmet.

Red Hood.

He debates with himself for several minutes.

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

He clenches his fist.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you sure?”

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

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

“You’ll be the first.”

“You’re lying.”

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

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

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

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

⁂

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

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

This is one of the reasons I avoid Chinatown.

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

That’s over, apparently.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A.k.a. his replacement.

A.k.a. Red Robin.

A.k.a. his soulmate.

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

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

Her sword stays on the ground.

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

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

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

Tim makes no move to go after her.

Which, seriously?

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that was not what he was expecting.

“How do you know this?”

“She told me. She’s one of my CIs.”

“And you believed her?”

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

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

“I ducked out early.”

“Well, that’s lame.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Call it a civic duty.”

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

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

“Maybe not every time.”

“Point still stands.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Vulcan.”

That brings him up short. “What?”

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

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

Tim gives a noncommittal shrug.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Wish you would.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because Jason doesn’t get to be happy.

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

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

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

Time to find out for sure.

And no more moping over this soulmate crap.

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

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

Ponzi schemes don’t buy manners, I guess.

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

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

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

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

And one dead one.

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

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

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

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

The encounter bothers him.

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

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

Maybe it’s not me that spooked him.

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

“There was another shooter,” he realizes.

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

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

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

⁂⁂⁂ 

Next Chapter

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<3 Violet

#jaytimweek2019 #jaytimweek #jaytim #jaytimbingo2019 #fanfic #jaytim fic #batfic #tim drake #jason todd #prompt: soulmate #a lie #bright vivid colors #danger #enemies to lovers #soulmate aversion #soulmark tattoo #angst #drama #romance #introspection

[secretlystephaniebrown]

Hands Curled Like Talons: Chapter 2

... things got busy, okay? but WE'RE BACK

A Mouth Full of Blood A Soul Full of Sorrow A Face Full of Scars The Bitter Taste of Graveyard Dirt A Golden Haired Ghost A Different Game ‘verse Previous Ao3

Stephanie Brown sat in a corner of the Bat Cave, and her hands shook as they lay on her thighs.

The Cave was crowded, packed tightly with vigilantes of all stripes. Cassandra was there, Duke by her side, occasionally turning her eyes towards Steph, as if to make sure that she was still there. Duke had brought Steph a glass of water, an hour ago, and she had drunk it to placate him, like she had eaten the sandwich that Alfred had brought her twenty minutes ago. It was a hollow motion, but it provided them reassurance that she was, in fact, alive.

She did not have the heart to tell them that Talia had once told her that she had been catatonic and still would eat and drink and fight.

Tim was across the room next to a man known as Batwing, with Tam Fox, who he was trying hard to pretend he wasn’t dating around Steph, as a strange form of acknowledgement for the connection that had once existed between them, going over footage of Steph’s apartment, looking for clues.

Dick Grayson and Damian and Colin were standing next to Bruce, arguing about something that Steph probably should care more about than she was.

Barbara Gordon, flanked by Dinah Lance, a woman that Steph remembered dearly from those golden days as Spoiler, but who probably had not spared a thought for Stephanie Brown in years, held court in a corner, speaking on a headset, directing the Justice League and her Birds of Prey, ensuring that the rest of the world did not fall apart, even as Gotham fell into chaos.

There were others in the Cave—Katherine Kane, Selina Kyle and her unfamiliar protégé, Helena Bertinelli, Onyx, a woman with blue hair who she had never seen before, another woman with no face in a blue trench coat, and Jason Todd—but she was numb to all of them. They might as well have been passersby on the street, for all that Stephanie Brown absorbed them.

Perhaps she should be grateful, that so many had rallied when Nell was in danger, even if none of them were here for Nell, and certainly not for her. Bruce and Barbara and maybe even Cass had called them, and they had come flocking, to seek the little lost girl. It was an impressive force, that they had put together, and they stretched out further, into the rest of the world, with them being only the tip of the spear point.

If a force like this had existed, all those years ago, would she have survived those fateful three days at the hands of Roman Sidonis?

Old scars, scars that not even the Lazarus Pit had healed, throbbed with old pain, and she closed her eyes against it, trying her best to stop from shaking until she fell to pieces.

Her very bones felt as if they had been transformed into ice. Goosebumps crawled along the length of her skin, despite the heat that was produced from all of the bodies in one place.

Nell Little was gone, and statistics danced behind Steph’s eyes whenever she blinked. Statistics that told her that Nell was dead. Beyond that was a further dread, a dread that went back to a children’s rhyme that she had chanted in time with the slap of a skipping rope on concrete.

“Speak not a whispered word of them / Or they'll send The Talon for your head.”

What could she have done, to bring this tumbling down upon them?

If the Court was real, they had evaded the eyes of the Bats since at least Stephanie Brown’s middle school days. Why had they chosen now to reveal themselves, to risk the wrath of the Batman and all of his followers, to take a single little girl who was under theirs, and more specifically her protection?

“Stephanie?” A familiar voice pulled her out of her reverie, if not her numbness.

Kara Zor-El stood before her, her face a strange expression of concern.

On autopilot, Steph tried for a flirtatious smile, but it felt flat and dull on her face, and only deepened the lines of worry on the other woman’s face.

“Supergirl,” she said. “How’s Metropolis?”

“Better now that you’re not in it,” Kara said. Her eyes were an inhuman shade of blue—Superman and Superboy were the same way. Her hair was a paler blonde than Steph’s had ever been, not quite platinum but not Steph’s golden waves that she had once been so proud of.

She was gorgeous and whole and wonderful and her eyes were full of real worry, despite the dig.

She was everything that Stephanie Brown was not, in short.

Stephanie Brown was dangerous, and Kara knew this. She had known this since that first night in Metropolis, when she had kissed her. She had known this when Stephanie had pulled out a fistful of Kryptonite and ran away. She had known this when she had come to the Cave, after Bruce Wayne’s death, and found the woman here, tension humming through the air.

Now…

Kara could remember Scarlet. She had been young, and worried for Stephanie Brown, and small. Scarlet had been in Metropolis, that day on the rooftops; that day of fire and kisses that bruised.

And she was missing.

Stephanie Brown met her eyes, and Kara’s heart skipped a beat. Stephanie’s heart beat almost lethargically, but Kara knew better than to be fooled. It was shock, of sorts, and a sort of shock that Kara had seen before.

Nell Little was missing, and Stephanie Brown was going to destroy herself over this.

Kara had been wrong, before. She had been so sure, back in those early days of the truce with the rest of the Bat Family, won after the Battle for the Cowl, that the truce, that peace, that uncomfortable compromise, would shatter into a million pieces, because Stephanie Brown would not accept limitations, would not last long under the shadow of mistrust, under the weight of all of that painful and loaded past.

She had been wrong.

Stephanie Brown, the Red Hood, had stayed. She had stayed when Bruce had returned, she had stayed through thick and thin, through good times and bad…

But none so bad as this.

Stephanie Brown was on the verge of falling apart or exploding, and Kara wasn’t sure which one was more dangerous.

The rest of the room was watching, keeping an eye on her, because she was one of them, even if she didn’t want to be, even if they didn't want her to be. Stephanie Brown, with her messy golden locks, sheered short for convenience, with her scars and her leather jacket, was one of them.

But she might not be, after all of this was said and done.

Stephanie Brown was like fire. She was dangerous and destructive, beautiful and deadly, and she consumed everything around her, whether she meant to or not. If she exploded, it would be outwards, and the collateral could be the entire city… or everyone around her, including Kara.

Kara was not used to being hurt, not here, in this world.

She wasn’t good at staying away from dangerous things.

“Did you see anything?” Stephanie said, her voice surprisingly steady as she met Kara’s eyes.  

“No,” she said. She had spent hours looking, on Barbara’s request. She had scoured Bludhaven too, searching for any hint of these Talons and Owls and especially of Nell Little. “They must have used lead, wherever they took her.”

Stephanie Brown closed her eyes, and took a breath so deep and so long that Kara worried it might shatter her.

“Of course,” she whispered. She pivoted on her heel and stormed up the stairs, throwing her leather jacket off as she went, leaving her helmet behind.

Kara followed her, drawn by some instinct that she could not quite place.

The steps up to the Manor felt longer than usual, dragged on by each beat of Stephanie Brown’s heart. Kara could have raced up them, of course, but she kept pace, staying only a few steps behind Steph, each step just loud enough to let the Bat know that she was here, that she could say something if she wanted to be left alone.

Stephanie said nothing at all, and Kara kept following.

The Cave had been too small, too full of people, to deal with the explosion that was rattling around in Steph’s ribcage.

There was a room, purple and soft, a room for a child that was never going to come back, a child that had been buried in the ground, and Steph walked towards it, ignoring her silent, Kryptonian companion.

Nell Little was gone, because Stephanie Brown was a failure. She had brought this down upon them, somewhere, somehow. She had angered the Court of Owls, had awoken a fairytale, a nursery rhyme, and now it was war.

How many wars was it now, wars for Gotham, had she soaked her hands in? Her first rampage, her second brutal reign as the Red Hood, the Battle for the Cowl, and now this? A War of Owls, a War for Gotham?

She had brought the sky falling down around them, and surely, eventually, the other Bats would finally admit what they all already knew; that Stephanie Brown was cursed, and outsider to them and their ways, and that she would never be one of them again, if she had ever been in the first place.

The scream that was building in her throat pressed against her lips, threatening to bubble over, but she held herself back, biting her tongue before the taste of blood filled her mouth, and she gagged.

“Do you think this is a game?”

“Stephanie?” Kara asked, and Stephanie grabbed the nearest vase and vomited.

The taste was foul but Stephanie gripped the vase with both hands so tightly that she thought it might break, breathing heavily as her shoulders shook, the tears threatening to break loose.

Nell was gone, and Nell was in the enemy hands, and Nell had run right into a trap, and they weren’t going to find her.

The vase was taken out of her hands, and a glass of water was pressed into it.

“It’s not your fault, Stephanie,” Kara said, and those alien blue eyes of hers were full of kindness as Steph drank the water.

It was kindness that Steph did not deserve.  

Kara Zor-El had been a convenience, back in Metropolis. A useful team-up to take on the Black Mask’s expanding operations into Metropolis, to try to draw him back in to Gotham, where he felt safe, and where Stephanie could be sure that she could reach him.

The team up had been a convenience, because Kara was bulletproof and didn’t ask too many questions, and everything else that had followed had just been… natural. Kara was beautiful and funny and clever, and Steph hadn’t had a single regret, even if it had ended in literal flames.

Kara didn’t know, not really. She had watched the buildings go up in flames, but she hadn’t seen the true depths of who Stephanie Brown was, or know what she was really capable of. She hadn’t seen her shoot Tim Drake through the leg in order to kill one of the Mask’s men. She hadn’t seen her beat him to a bloody pulp, only stopping because Cassandra Cain had intervened.

She hadn’t seen Stephanie Brown bring down a roof on her and Bruce’s heads, just in the desperate hopes that she might kill the Black Mask with them, not caring if either of them had lived or died, as long as she had gotten her vengeance.

Kara did not understand, even if she thought she did, what exactly Stephanie Brown was.

Maybe none of them did, downstairs.

Stephanie Brown was no hero, was not the girl with a laugh and a purple cloak that had gone into the ground. She was not Robin or Spoiler, she was nothing but the tattered and bitter remnants of that girl, and what was left was a killer, a monster.

She still was the woman who had nearly beaten Tim Drake to death with her hands, because he had dared to take on the weight of her crimes for himself, who had ran away from everyone who had ever loved her for fear of what would happen if she allowed them to see her.

She had pretended for months upon end, trying to be something she wasn’t, trying to create the illusion of someone who could, maybe, be a hero again one day, but now, Nell was missing, and Stephanie was under no pretensions about how this had happened.

“It is,” Steph whispered. “If I hadn’t—”

“Stop that,” Kara said.

“Stop what?” Steph threw out her pain towards Kara, sharpening her words like the knives that she no longer used, because Cassandra Cain had asked her to stop, because Cassandra Cain was still trying to build her dead best friend up out of the scraps that was Stephanie Brown. “Stop knowing what I am?”

She stepped closer to Kara, throwing aside the empty glass.

“I’m a killer. I don’t do that anymore, but that doesn’t change what I am.”

“You—”

“I can’t bring them back,” Steph snapped. “I came back, but they don’t get to, and maybe that’s good for most of them, but there’s no way that nobody I killed could have changed, could have been better. Why do I get to live and they don’t? Why do I get to change, and they don’t? Why do I get a second chance, Kara?”

Kara opened her mouth.

“I’m going to get Nell back,” Steph said. “One way, or another. I’m going to get her back. And who knows? Maybe I’ll back down that hole again. Maybe I won’t. But I know that I’m done. After this? I’m done.” She closed her eyes.

“There’s never going to be enough to fix what I did.”

She was never going to be Stephanie Brown, the Girl Wonder, again. She was never going to be young and full of a joy that tumbled outward, boundless, swinging across rooftops. She was never going to be Spoiler again, full of a youthful righteous rage and a fierce and persistent knowledge that she was helping people.

Maybe she had once been that girl, who had been Cassandra Cain’s best friend, Tim Drake’s girlfriend, Bruce Wayne’s Robin, Crystal Brown’s daughter, but she was nothing but a spiteful shadow of that girl. She had taken everything any of them had ever given her and crushed it beneath her feet in the name of her vengeance.

She had been dead for days before they found her body, and she had never forgiven them for that, and the entire city of Gotham had paid, because she had been unable to accept that they had limitations, that they had been unable to avenge her, that they had been too… good to compromise like she had, to put her killer’s skull beneath the barrel of the gun, to take that decision into their own hands.

Stephanie Brown had been unavenged, and so the entire city had paid, because she was selfish and angry, and she would have robbed them of their greatest protectors in the name of her revenge. In her desperation to kill Roman Sidonis, she could have killed Batman, would happily have done so, if it meant that the bastard had just been dead.

The girl who was Robin had ran straight into a monster’s arms, believing herself to be helping, and it had been the thing that killed her. Her trust in Batman, her attempt to do right, had killed her, had led to her being six feet beneath the ground and clawing her way up through graveyard dirt.

What was left after the graveyard, after the Lazarus Pit… that wasn’t Spoiler, wasn’t Robin, wasn’t anything that any of them could recognize, not really.

What Stephanie Brown was now, was a killer and a monster, and nothing could ever change that.

When she opened her eyes, Kara was gone, and Stephanie Brown was standing alone in a hallway, with a shattered water glass at her feet.

The room was full of whispers and the rustling of feathers.

Nell Little kept her eyes tightly shut and kept her breathing even, terrified of giving any hints that she was awake, when she didn’t know where she was.

“She’s old,” one person said.

“Not too old,” another said. “You were older.”

“She fights well.”

“Yes.” A hand, gloved and strange, brushed against Nell’s forehead, and her eyes flew open without her meaning to, but it was only in time to catch the barest hint of a black, eyeless mask and the tail end of a feathered cape.

Nell Little sat upright, and her cape was missing.

There was a room, filled with children, all staring at her with wide, strange eyes.

The room felt like a room in a movie; large and concrete, the sheets thin and scratchy, the blankets grey and worn, the lightbulbs protected by cages.

They had taken her armor and her cape and her mask, leaving her in the tank top and leggings she wore beneath them. At the foot of the bed she was in, lying atop the covers, there was a folded set of clothes; grey and blue in color, the same clothes as the other children wore.

There were five others in the room, one in each of the beds.

They all stared at Nell, but did not get up.

“Hello,” Nell said. “I’m Scarlet.”

The one right across from her looked at her with wide, panicked eyes, and held a finger to her lips.

Nell frowned and got to her feet.

There were no windows, in this room that was not quite a cell. It was small, with the six beds almost pressed against each other, the ceiling just high enough that if Nell stood on her toes and reached, she could not quite reach the caged frame of the lightbulbs. The seam in the wall that marked the door was not quite invisible, and it resisted all of Nell’s attempts to push or pull it open.

A hand wrapped around her wrist, and Nell pulled back, yelling.

All five of the others had followed her, their eyes strange and wide, eerie in their silence.

One of them, a different one than before, pressed a finger to his lips, staring at her with wide, amber eyes.

Nell jerked her arm out of the grip of the girl who had shushed her the first time, glaring at all of them.

“Who are you?”

This time, all five of them pressed their fingers against their lips desperately. The first girl, with tangled hair that might have once been red, but was now dull and limp, pointed at the door, then held her finger up to her lips again.

“They’ll punish me if I keep talking?” Nell guessed.

All five of the others nodded.

They were strange, these children, with their matching clothes and scared eyes. Nell was not quite the oldest of all of them—there was a boy, one who had done nothing to distinguish himself, but whose hair was the longest of any of them, who looked to be her age or a little older.

“Do they punish you?” Nell whispered. If it was just her, she could take it. Steph had taught her to be strong, had given her the tools that she would need to take it. If it was just her, she would scream and batter at the doors and when they came to punish her, she would make them fight for every inch.

But Steph would come for her, and so she wouldn’t risk the others, even though they were strangers, just to make herself feel better.

The others nodded, all of them looking down, and Nell took a deep breath, and nodded.

Relief shining in their faces, the other children took her hands and led her to the bed furthest away from the door.

The smallest of them all—the last boy, who looked to be seven years old, with straw colored curls—climbed beneath the bed, and returned, carefully cradling in his arms a handful of treasures.

There were two feathers, a handful of small steel balls, a shard of mirror, and two equal sized lengths of a wooden pole.

The boy offered Nell these eclectic items; the toys, Nell realized, that they had to play with, in this small room.

Nell, unsure, selected one of the poles, and the girl with limp-red hair took the other one, and enthusiastically raised hers, motioning for Nell to come forward.

The three boys took the balls and feathers and set up a crude game of marbles, while the last girl, the one with black hair and freckles that were fading, took the mirror and sat on the bed, staring at the door.

Nell stared at this scene, unsure of what to make, of these strange children in this strange room, before finally lunging forward with her stick to combat the other girl.

She parried easily, with a fierce grin, and as she grabbed Nell by the wrist to pull her forward, a whisper carried from her closed mouth to Nell’s ear.

“My name is Carrie,” the other girl whispered, and Nell’s eyes widened as she continued to spar, a strange kind of hope kindling in her chest at this tiny sign of rebellion.

#A Different Game Verse #Stephanie Brown #Kara Zor El #Nell Little #Bat Family #DC #Steph Writes

[bat-losers-inc]

Collisions in the Dark (Ch 18): Prophylaxis

Summary: Damian plays devil’s advocate to Tim’s cause in order to help him see his grandfather’s endgame. Afterall, who better to help Tim stand up to Ra’s al Ghul then an al Ghul himself? 

Chapter Notes: Prophylaxis: A strategy that frustrates and protects against an opponent's plan or tactic for fear of the consequences.

“History is painted by the winners. Keep your paints wet. Trust me, I have things to say.”— “Landscape with Several Small Fires”, Richard Siken.

When Tim pushed himself out of the nest of blankets he’d made in the center of the bed, the sun was already setting over the rooftops across the street. Tim shoved a pillow against the headboard and propped himself against it. He twisted his watch around in his wrist and examined the time. Despite sleeping for nearly twelve hours or more, Tim’s limbs still felt heavy with sleep.

A brown paper bag was tossed into the space between Tim’s crossed legs. Tim’s eyes flashed up to Damian, slouched in the same chair from the other night, now pulled to the end of Tim’s bed. The younger boy’s eyes were fixed on him, head resting against his fist, looking bored.

Tim unrolled the top of the paper bag and peeked inside to examine the contents. A bottle of water and a baguette sandwich.  Tim’s stomach growled at the sight of food and he had the sandwich unwrapped and was tearing into it in an instant.

A hand seized his wrist, effectively stalling him.

Tim blinked up at Damian, who’d moved all at once from the chair to the middle of the bed.

Tim spoke around a large bite of sandwich, his words muffled. “What?”

The younger boy gave his wrist a squeeze. “The only thing you’ve consumed in the last sixteen hours was two shots of vodka. Eat slower. You’ll only make yourself sick.”

Tim nodded, eyeing him warily. He shook Damian’s hand off his arm, and went back to his sandwich, slower this time. He stared down at his sandwich, taking the time between bites to process that information. Damian had seen him at the bar, Tim had to assume that he knew about Slade and the deal Tim had made as well.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” He eyed him beneath his lashes. “Buying me food. Watching over me while I sleep? Our relationship was never at that level. When did we suddenly become this.”

He gestured vaguely between the two of them.

Damian shrugged and picked at the upholstered chair. “I should have been the one to go on that mission, but you took my place and gave Ra’s something you knew he couldn’t pass up. In doing so, you increased the risks ten-fold. I owe you, but I couldn’t give you the help you really needed in Gotham… not when everyone was so busy trying to keep you safe and righteous. Now you’re here. You’re doing what you need to do to survive, even if that means cutting your ties and playing dirty. After I’d found out you’d left Gotham, I knew this was when I’d finally be useful to you.”

His words settled uneasily inside Tim’s stomach. There was something almost eager in Damian’s voice, like he’d been restless to offer his aid to Tim and was glad that the time had finally arrived. Tim had never thought about how all of this might have made Damian feel. He didn’t think the boy would want to be involved.

Tim pinched the bridge of his nose. “What is it exactly, that you think you can do for me, batbrat?

“Ra’s may be my family by blood, but you, Dick, Bruce, you’re the family that I chose. I chose to follow Bruce’s rules when I came into this family, but it’s never as simple as all of that. I was raised to follow in Ra’s al Ghul’s footsteps… to be a merciless killer, and every day it’s a struggle not to act on those instincts.”

Tim swallowed, mouth dry. Who was this boy that was exposing himself to Tim? He was so unfamiliar to the boy Tim had known two weeks ago. Tim looked Damian in the eyes and felt like he was looking at a kindred spirit, someone else with a war raging under his skin.

Damian leaned forward in his chair. “Bruce likes to simplify the world into black and white, but you’re stuck in a gray area. Forget what other people think, the only right and wrong is what you decide. This is affecting your life. You’re allowed to choose for yourself and whatever you choose, I’ll help you.”

Tim swallowed, mouth dry. “Even if I decide to kill him?”

Damian inclined his head. “I’ll follow you, but you should know that that’s not the right decision.”

Tim wanted to laugh. “Says who?”

Damian was quiet for a moment.

"Why do you think he’s doing it?” he asked Tim. “Sending the photos? Calling you? Coming here?"

He sounded like a teacher prompting a class into discussion. Like he knew the answer that Tim didn’t and was guiding Tim in the right direction. Tim decided to play along, willing to let an uncommon event such as this play out, if only to see where it went.

"He's trying to distract me so I'll make a mistake." said Tim.

"Exactly," grunted Damian. "He knows that your emotions are your weaknesses and he knows that you know that as well.”

“If he knows, then why do it? He knows he won’t get a rise out of me that way. Why not just change strategies?”

“Because he’s getting exactly the results he wants by playing it this way.”

Tim squinted at him. “How so?”

“Let’s run the scenario through a bit further… Ra’s wants you to be emotional, so what do you do? You stomp those emotions down, stop patrolling, lock yourself in the manor so you can think of a way to defeat him. But you're going up against the world's most notorious villain, who can you rely on to help you? Whose strong enough? None of your friends, that's for sure. So you start conspiring with villains like Deathstroke. Villains who share Ra's’ sociopathic-mindset. And the more you start to think like him and fight like him the more you start to become him."

"I wouldn't let that happen. I'm not like him." objected Tim, but the logic made sense. Damian’s theory was clicking into place.

"Oh no, not yet you aren't." Damian's smile was cold. "But there's a very fine line comprised of morals and friendships that separates you from him. But not everything has unfolded yet. So let's keep going..."

He tapped his fingers on his chin like he was thinking over his options.

"Let's skip to when Batman finds out who you've been working with, because we all know he's going to eventually. Ironically, it'll play out just like that little lie you spun for Grandfather that got you into this mess in the first place. Except this time, it will be for real and when Batman disowns you you'll have nobody to help you— and I mean nobody— not Jason, who despises you; not your family, who's been sworn against aiding you; and not your friends, who you've separated yourself from for so long you barely know them anymore. And then you'll be easy pickings: either you'll come to him willingly or he'll snatch you up. And then that's it... You're his.”

“Last night, Tim… that was a precursor for what's about to come."

Tim stared at him, the full weight of Damian's words sinking in, and he realized that he was right. Ra's was playing Tim like a flute.

"I thought I was the tactician in the family." He grunted more than a little afraid of this side of Damian. Tim thought it must be the al-Ghul side of him.

It was confirmed not a second later when Damian replied, "Grandfather might call you 'Detective' but I’m an al-Ghul. I've watched him defeat men without ever lifting his sword. I know how it’s done. And trust me, I've thought about ruining you many times in the past."

"Then what can I do? It's hopeless." sighed Tim, shoving his food away from him brutally. He didn’t have much of an appetite after that revelation anyway.

Damian crouched down in front of him so that they were eye to eye. It was an unnerving sight. "Stick with the people who make you you . You face your fears,Tim… You face Jason."

Tim tore his eyes away and stared into his lap. His fingers played with the oversized t-shirt he wore, stolen from Jason’s apartment.

"Jason hates me," said Tim, "He'll be more inclined to gut me on sight than help me. Even against Ra's."

"As much as he despises you for your past choices, Jason could never hate you enough to send you back to Ra's. Jason doesn't know Ra's like you and I do. He assumes Ra's will lose interest eventually. He’s wrong."

"It's a sentimental thought but what would winning his pity do for me?" asked Tim.

"Win Jason back to your side and you'll have strayed far enough off of the path Ra's has sent you down to change the outcome.”

Tim looked up in time to catch Damian’s smile. For a second he thought he’d imagined it.

“It's all a game, Tim. Change the outcome, change your fate."

And for the first time in a very long while, Tim felt hopeful. It made Tim feel giddy enough that he had to bury his teeth into his bottom lip to keep from making some kind of embarrassing noise. He had no delusions that persuading Jason would be an easy task by any means, but he was willing to try if Damian’s theory held true.

#collisions in the dark #Tim Drake #Damian Wayne #Red Robin #robin #batman fic #batman #DC comics #ra'stim #jay/tim #JayTim #Ra's al Ghul #bat-losers-inc #LittleDarlingXOX

[whetstonefires]

fictober prompt #7: “No worries, we still have time.” This one got so long. For a sprint prompt.

“Great. Just great!”

“No worries, we still have time.”

“That’s what you think!” Tim slammed the car trunk. “We have time assuming I-95 isn’t backed up around Baltimore and assuming we can get this tire changed in under fifteen minutes and assuming the spare isn’t flat and assuming that blow-out didn’t damage anything else in the car and assuming we can find the restaurant without any issues and are you filming me?”

Steph grinned over her phone at him. “You’re gonna have to stop being so funny if you want me to stop sharing you with the internet.”

“Grrrrahahaaaa!” Tim threw the lugwrench at the ground, then followed it onto his knees, picked it up, and started levering at the hub cap with the pointy end. “Fine. Whatever. Be like that. Hi internet, here’s how you change a tire. Observe how I wedged the rear wheels for safety’s sake before getting started.”

“Tch.” Steph saved the vid, locked her phone, and stuck it in her pocket before squatting down next to him. “It’s not actually a life-or-death issue whether we make our reservation on time. You could stand to relax a little. We’re on vacation.”

The hubcap popped off. Tim got up, rummaged in the equipment box for a few seconds, and came up with the jack. “Not like you take things any more seriously when it is a life or death issue.”

“I do so!”

“Fine. You do. But you still give me a hard time about—fretting. Like I’m making problems more real by trying to solve them before they have consequences!” He wrenched at a lug nut, probably over-loosening it.

Steph rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, still crouching. She kept her knees close together because this skirt wasn’t all that long. “Are we really doing this right now?”

“Why not?” He’d finished with the nuts, and tossed the lug wrench underhand back into the equipment box.

“Because you’re in a snit and we won’t get anywhere useful, we’ll just get in a shouting match and wind up extra-late and in shitty moods for our dinner date with your geriatric crush.”

Tim shot a poisonous look over his shoulder before going back to wriggling the block that went under the jack for stability into place in the roadside gravel. “He’s just cool, alright. He did a lot of hero work in Gotham before Bruce was even born.”

“I know. I think it’s really cute how you’re still such a fanboy.”

Tim slid the hydraulic jack into place where it needed to be under the belly of the car, and stood up, clutching the handle of the thing. “Would you not do that.”

Steph grinned up at him. “What?”

“Talk like that. It…when you say nice things so they’re insults. It really gets to me.”

“Wow. Okay.” Tim started pumping the hydraulic jack, careful long smooth strokes like he had for some reason taken the time in his busy busy schedule to practice changing a tire. Steph’s eyebrows climbed as she watched. “…this is why they call it ‘jacking off,’ isn’t it?”

“Oh my god.”

“I thought you weren’t religious.”

Tim turned his face away, but he couldn’t hide the warmth in his voice. “Shut up. I don’t want to laugh right now.”

“Why not? Laugh!” Steph stood up, waving her hands in encouragement. “Relax! There is literally nothing that matters on the line! Mr. Scott isn’t going to think less of us for having a bad tire any more than he would if we missed dinner completely to save a bus full of schoolchildren being taken hostage.”

Tim didn’t argue, but his smooth rhythm on the jack didn’t stutter either, and the set of his chin looked mulish. Steph folded her arms. “Why can’t you enjoy not being under pressure for once? Why do you have to waste every second of your life worrying about some other second you can’t control? It’s exhausting! It pisses me off! Hey, look at me!”

“I thought you didn’t want to do this now.” Tim lowered the jack handle to the ground carefully.

“Shit. I didn’t. But for real! It’s bullshit, Tim! You already decided calling triple-A wasn’t efficient enough so you were doing things yourself, I don’t see how dwelling on all the things that might slow us down later is supposed to help anything now.”

“How is deciding everything’s going to be fine, so you don’t have to make any effort to consider the steps necessary to counter all the reasons it might not be, ‘helping?’”

“Because you can’t plan for everything! When you try all you do is make yourself and everyone around you miserable, and when a thing happens you’re just going to have to improvise anyway!”

Tim flung his hands out, time a-wasting now with no progress on the blown tire. “You think you can just do whatever works for you right now, and leave other people to deal with the fallout.” Steph’s fist clenched, because they never talked about her ‘death’ but that couldn’t not be referencing it. “You never take any responsibility,” Tim rushed on. “No matter how many times it goes wrong, you think you can just take action in the world without having to deal with what that means.”

Steph refused to get drawn into the same old argument. “I’ve been getting better about that. I’ve been working at it. But you? You’re just getting worse! You used to know how to have fun!”

They’d actually had a lot of fun so far, since leaving Gotham, but of course at the first hint of things going wrong he had to fly off the handle and lock down, and go into a snit fit when she tried to be optimistic. “Wasn’t this trip supposed to be about finding yourself and all that crap? What’s that worth if all you do is keep turning into Bruce?”

“For crying out loud, Steph, don’t make this about him.”

“How can I not?”

“Because it’s me! These are my personal hangups about my personal screw-ups! I can’t just offload it all on Bruce! Do I go around blaming anything about you on Cluemaster? Or your mom? Or even Barbara?”

Well, no. Bruce did, sometimes, because of his bullshit ideas about heredity that were honestly one step short of the outright eugenics Damian had been raised on, but that wasn’t really Tim’s bag. He was a critical jerk, but his criticisms tended to be about her, personally. If they were tangled up with where she came from, it was only at the subtext level. “I’m not doing it to score points or something,” she told him, “I’m saying you’re like this because he’s a bad influence, and you need to chill the fuck out. Before you alienate everybody you know and give yourself the cardiovascular issues of a dude three times your age!”

“Rrgh!” Tim turned his back on Steph and went back to loosening lugnuts, with his fingers now. It was a few seconds before he spoke, low and through his teeth. “Do you know how many people died in that war you started? Really died, not just fake died and ran away to Africa?”

The tight line of tension up his back was no match for the sick swoop in Steph’s gut that he would even bring this up. “That was not my idea.”

“Do you know?”

“It’s not like all your scheming and plotting means no one ever gets killed!”

“No. No, of course it doesn’t. But—fewer. That’s the whole point! That’s why I do it, why we do any of it! If I do everything right, fewer people get killed. That’s the point. And if I mess up, more people die. That’s what happens. When we mess up. So we have to do everything we can to not.”

His right hand twitched as he talked, not quite trembling but not able to maintain a consistent grip on the nut, either. Maybe he hadn’t loosened this one enough. His hand slipped off, twice, before he managed to get it turning.

Steph fought to even out her breathing. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair for him to turn every little thing into a giant drama and then talk like it was his moral obligation to do so, like she was flawed as a person for not being as screwed up as him.

She didn’t say that. She didn’t say anything close to it that covered up her own vulnerabilities better, either. She breathed. She’d been practicing this, ever since the months after her so-brief-it-counted-as-fake death when everything had made her too mad and scared to see straight. She’d done a lot of reading about ways to be okay. She’d even talked to a couple of people. Besides Leslie, who hadn’t been in a great place to advise her even if Steph had been able to listen.

“But…” she said finally, getting back to the core of the issue instead of reacting. “Nobody’s going to die, if we’re late to dinner.”

Tim’s hands still weren’t steady, as he smoothed his hair back, almost definitely getting some sort of grime or grease in it. “That…I know. I do know that.”

“So why are you being a dick about it?”

“Hah.” It was a ragged sound, not entirely unlike a laugh, but mostly just a word. “Don’t know how to stop, I guess.”

“So you’re gonna stop now?”

“I’ll try.” He twiddled the last lugnut free, then gripped the blown-out tire by the rim and heaved it loose, sliding it free of the fixed bolts. The jack held. This was good, as either the car didn’t come equipped with jackstands or Tim had decided to dispense with them for this operation, since he wasn’t going under the car himself.

Steph frowned, watching him bend with his arms full of wheel, to set it down in the gravel by the road. Something about how that had been resolved didn’t feel right. His emotions that had been making him lash out had been acknowledged, categorized as misdirected, he’d conceded the point. She’d won. With logic. So what was wrong.

She was trying to be better about this stuff. She still thought the amount of responsibility these batboys took for everyone else ever was condescending and bullshit and also basically a form of self-harm, but she could acknowledge that even if her normal approach was good for her mental health it led to her dropping the ball, sometimes, when she really couldn’t afford that. Or other people couldn’t. So. Middle ground. What was missing, in this conversation. What had they skipped.

While she thought, Tim had retrieved and now carefully hefted the replacement tire—not the normal mini-spare deal, this ride was kitted out with the assumption you might need to change a tire yourself and then immediately engage in a high-speed carchase across several hundred miles of terrain. It wasn’t flat, either. As he fed it onto the waiting lug bolts, Steph got the problem to click. “No one’s going to die,” she said. “But…you’ll be sad if we miss dinner with Mr. Scott. Or if turning up late just makes us look bad, and he doesn’t take to you. You want to impress him, and you’re worried about it.”

Tim finished getting the wheel into place before grumbling in his throat, shoulders hunched up toward his ears. “Yeah, okay, I’m an inveterate suck-up. You’ve got me. I give in. Let it go. Where the hell did I put the lugnuts?”

“Windshield wipers.” He’d laid them out there in a row, apparently having auto-selected a flat surface without consulting his conscious mind. Steph felt her mouth draw in like she’d bitten a lemon. “Also, no, shit, I’m not actually trying to give you a hard time.”

The look he shot her was dubious, before he went back to screwing on lugnuts.

“When you’re worried about something, and I tell you you shouldn’t be, you feel like I’m saying your emotions are dumb,” said Steph.

“Aren’t you?” He didn’t sound sulky so much as guarded, and trying not to sound even that. Why was this dork so bad at pretending not to care except when he was too damn good at it?

“Well…sometimes, yeah.” Because his feelings were dumb a lot. Except that was actually an asshole attitude, wasn’t it; just because his opinions were stupid didn’t mean his feelings were. She guessed. People were always acting like her feelings were stupid, though, did she owe them any better. Ugh. Was she really trying to have a psychological breaththrough while yelling at her ex who was changing a tire on the side of the interstate.

Tim snort-laughed again. His shoulders were coming down. He spun the second lugnut into place. “Okay.”

“But, uh…mostly I just want you to stop being such a downer. Just because you want to feel like crap doesn’t mean I’m obligated to join you.” Wow, so understanding. “Uh. Your feelings aren’t actually dumb. It’s fine if you want people to like you. Even if you should maybe get used to the fact that sometimes they don’t.” He was actually kind of spoiled, to be so used to approval that not getting it scared him, to expect people to help him just because he made a good impression. He was such a child sometimes. Such a man.

“I am used to that,” Tim said. “People don’t like me all the time. I’m not all that likable.”

At least he didn’t sound self-pitying about it, but Steph rolled her eyes. “Sure.”

“I know I have unfair advantages when it comes to making a…strong impression,” he continued, rather irritably, “but I’m sure you hear the same about being a gorgeous blonde. Advantages just means it must be more your fault when you fail.”

“Owch.”

“Generic you.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

The last lugnut as snugged as he could get it by hand, Tim turned a handle and the hydraulic jack depressurized, letting the car sink onto its new wheel. They both watched it in silence.

Tim glanced sidelong at Steph. Gauging something. “I’m sorry I yelled at you?”

“I’m…sorry for making fun of your anxiety because it made me feel bad.”

“I’m…sorry for making you feel bad?”

“Okay, let’s stop there,” said Steph, because this felt like something that could get out of hand. Infinite apology recursion.

Tim nodded. “Could you pass me the lugwrench?”

She went and fished it out of the box he’d thrown it into, while he got down on one knee next to the car again.

“You messed up your nice pants pretty bad,” she pointed out, passing the wrench over. “That’s actually probably worse than being late, in terms of making a good impression.”

“I was sort of thinking you’d drive the rest of the way,” Tim said, bending to his task. “So I can change as we go.”

“…well played.” She’d avoided getting involved in the wheel-changing because she was mad, and because it wasn’t so much a two-person job, and because he was the one who wanted to do it in such a rush and she wasn’t destroying this dress in the attempt. But she couldn’t really argue it wasn’t fair to expect her to drive, now. She even liked driving.

The prospect of facing possible traffic jams and trying to find the right street address and park near an unfamiliar restaurant in an unfamiliar city during rush hour was a lot more intimidating now she had to do it herself, though.

Tim smirked. Ooh, he knew exactly what she was thinking. “Fuck you,” she told him, but nicely.

It caught him by surprise, and he snort-laughed. Didn’t make a dirty joke, because it was Tim and he could be prim like that—Steph was like 95% sure he was still a virgin—but clearly thought about it. The atmosphere lightened as he continued making sure the new wheel wouldn’t fall off. The sound of passing vehicles going 70 miles per hour was much louder when they weren’t making any noise of their own. Good thing the interstate shoulders were so wide.

Tim tightened the last nut, and sat back on his heels. Steph smoothly traded him the shiny hubcap for the lugwrench, and walked over to shove the tool back in the kit. She was pretty sure this box had been well-organized when Tim took it out. Oh well, he could reorganize it at the next motel, next time he got a burst of OCD energy. Better than going through the cold-case files on his laptop. Tim finished forcing the hubcap into place and came after her, stooped under the awkwardly balanced weight of the jack.

It went into the box, too, with its little foundation block, and they wrestled the lid down and the emergency kit back into the trunk, on top of the spare tire compartment, now containing the ruined tire and also refusing to completely close.

Tim handed over the car keys, wiped his hands on a wet-wipe and then a paper towel because of course this car had both, and dug into his luggage for a spare pair of slacks. He was of course the sort of nerd who packed more than one pair of nice black slacks for a roadtrip vacation.

“If there’s one thing I can say for my superhero career,” Tim said brightly, as Steph pulled out onto I-95 heading south again and prepared to merge left, while he began to contort in the passenger’s seat, “it’s that it taught me to get my clothes off fast in adverse conditions.”

“I’d say ooh-lah but that’s basically the opposite of the ingredients for a hot striptease.”

“There is absolutely nothing I can say to that that does not make me look worse, good job.”

#fictober 2018 #stephanie brown #tim drake #batfam #fic #my fic #relationships #these two were so bad at respecting one another's points of view #okay? #also yeah i went and made their road trip literal #and i think alan scott is supposed to be dead shortly before flashpoint #but the moon blew up in the same storyline so #eff off brightest day #he lives in baltimore #hoc est meum #minimal revisions we die like pigeons

[diedformyownsins]

Settle For A Draw | Red Hood and Batman

Jason was atop a skyscraper in midtown, eyes set over the city. Patrol duty. Dick was at home, probably keeping himself entertained. He was good at that. The incessant rain was pounding down on the indifferent man, and he made no attempt to avoid it. A police broadcast played in his cowl. [Code 211S, silent alarm triggered at Gotham Museum of History. Officers unable to respond. Activating the Bat-signal.] Jason smirked. With a flying leap, he was off the rooftop, grapple gun in full form. Man, I really need a glider. Traveling above ground is getting old.

He arrived at the museum within five minutes, landing softly on the roof. He could see flashlights inside, a lot of them. Fifteen? Jesus, that’s ballsy. Still, better get going before Bruce shows up. Opening up a hatch, he slipped inside, noiselessly hitting the top floor. Creeping to the balcony, he began to assess the situation, judging the angles, the trajectory needed to begin his attack. He pulled a smoke pellet out of his belt, hefting it in his hand before tossing it to the ground level. He followed it down, landing invisibly. His infrared lenses activated, and he began his attack.

With a small grunt, the first man was out, his head bouncing off a marble pillar. Number two went down the same way, a silent takedown. No need to use a gun here. Drawing several shuriken, Jason hurled them at a cluster of the men, using the distraction to leap into the middle of them. A kick, a right hook, and an elbow handled them. He thought he heard a nose break. Spinning around, he found himself face to face with none other than the Batman, two unconscious men at his feet. "Nice of you to visit, Batman. Mind giving me a hand?“

As if on cue, the cargo door opened, and thirty more armed men swarmed the lobby. "No time to argue-go!” Jason was already rushing the group, determined not to use his pistols tonight. After all, he had to prove that he could beat Bats at his own game, right?

Since his return to the public eye only a short time ago, Bruce had seen a lot of action. Minor things - raiding drug dens and breaking up gang meetings - but enough to get him back in shape after his extended absence, and after Joker stuck him in the side with his knife. Again. He was in top form, now. Or at least very nearly. More importantly, however, his confidence had returned. Attitude was everything in a battle that was really based more on scaring the enemy than on overwhelming them.

He arrived at the museum perhaps seven minutes after the signal lit up Gotham’s cloudy sky, to find that the fight had already begun. All at once, Bruce was surprised and not surprised. He was getting the idea that people had emerged to take his place, in his absence. He couldn’t help being glad of that - Bruce wouldn’t always be young and strong.

It took nothing to slip silently into the depths of the museum. The enemy was distracted by whoever was fighting within the cloud of smoke that had expanded to fill the hall. Bruce’s infrared vision made short work of the cloud and it wasn’t long before he had floored several opponents.

It wasn’t long before he found himself face to face with another masked vigilante. If things hadn’t happened in such a rush, Bruce might have taken time to put this man together with the man who had challenged him at the cafe, but Bruce’s mind was in the game and the only identity that mattered just then was the red hood that covered the other man’s face. He didn’t have time to think about the meaning behind that snide remark.

Always the type to stalk from the shadows, Bruce left charging head-on into the crowd to the other man. He raised his grapple gun and hoisted himself off the floor, soaring nearly twenty feet over the heads of the mob of thieves. At the last minute, he loosed the tension on the line and plummeted down. It was a move he had practiced dozens of times. Against people like this, it was highly effective. As he reached their level, Bruce snagged his hands in the collars of two of his opponents and then grappled upwards again. The men screamed as they were hoisted off of their feet and brought helplessly into midair.

The screams and gurgling noise coming from the Batman’s wake of destruction only spurred Jason on.

Jason knew he was a better fighter than Bruce, he knew it. He had been raised as a warrior since childhood, he had been trained in every martial art known to man (and several that were curated from long dead civilizations, thanks to Ra’s and the League). He was 16 years younger than Bruce Wayne. He had to show that he could hang with the Batman.

And so, Jason tore his own swath of destruction thorough the mob, bones breaking and flesh giving way to fists, when he saw it-what the men were after. “The diamond. Bats, the diamond!” Without another word, Jason was airborne, grappler taking him to the mezzanine, pointed straight at massive red diamond that was surrounded by the thugs.

He landed silently, close enough to the men to touch. Reaching out, he disarmed the first, then knocking him out with a swift rabbit punch. Thug number two aimed his shotgun at Jason. A swift kick sent it careening to the ground level. Jason grabbed him by the collar, tossing him into the last man. They collapsed into a pile. Spinning around to check on Batman, Jason let his guard down, just for a split second.

The next thing he noticed was the hard steel of a gun barrel pressed against his back.

Shit.

Bruce did not make a practice of being where people expected him to be. He heard Red Hood’s warning well enough, but he trusted the younger man to deal with a small cluster of thugs on his own. Red Hood had already held his own with the others, after all.

Instead of following Red Hood immediately, Bruce took the time to down every last one of the thugs in the back of the room before they could following the younger vigilante to the diamond. It wasn’t a difficult job, even if he was just a little bit rusty. He smashed a couple of heads together, twisted a few arms the wrong way and slammed a man or two to the ground.

Still, by the time he had knocked the feet out from under the last man, he wasn’t surprised by silence from the direction of the diamond’s case. Looking up, he saw exactly what he expected - Red Hood standing among a series of fallen enemies. For a heartbeat it seemed that they had finished, but Bruce should have known that nothing was ever really that simple.

A movement in the shadows distracted Bruce, and he looked off into the corner. A man with a gun crept closer to Red Hood, who was working on the very last of the thieves and was apparently unaware.

Firing his grapple into the ceiling, Bruce was lifted into the air. He sailed across the room to the platform where the display case had been set up. Just as the man put his gun into Red Hood’s back, Bruce’s feet collided with his ribs. The impact carried both Bruce and the shooter over to collide with the diamond case, and the sound of gunfire echoed all around them. Landing, Bruce rolled to his feet and smacked his gauntlet into the side of the criminal’s head. He crumpled, senseless.

Only then did Bruce look up to see if the shot had hit or missed its target.

The bullet had missed Jason by inches. Mentally cursing himself for the slip, he began to fight back with a vengeance, no longer caring how injured the men he faced ended up. Several shoulders were rent beyond repair. Another man was elbowed in the nose so hard Jason thought he might have killed him. He didn’t allow himself time to consider checking for vitals. This was war, and Jason and the man who had killed his father were on the same side, against all odds.

Jason fell in seamlessly with Batman, each using the other man as both backup and cover, appearing to all the men as if they had been fighting side by side for years.

For the first time in Jason’s life, he felt drawn to Bruce. Jason cast a stark sense of fear into the men he faced, but the Batman was more than that-he was fear. Every inch of him, from his boots to the ears, exuded dread. Jason was a bit awestruck. Still, he fought on, not stopping until Bruce did. He would fight to the death, if just to prove he was better than Batman was.

Was there no end to these thugs? They crawled into the museum like grimy cockroaches, charging in without thought to their wellbeing. It made Bruce think that this was more than just a diamond heist. Something else was here, something he was missing. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to dwell on that thought for much longer. The ten or so that were left in sight had frazzled nerves and wide, frightened eyes, bodies running on heightened adrenaline as they rushed forward to meet the two vigilantes.

Working with Red Hood was almost ideal. The other man held his own while still looking out for Batman’s back, and he was a near-flawless fighter. He was brutal and perhaps a tad excessively violent, but he knew what he was doing. His movements spoke of extensive training beyond what Bruce knew, but his actions were slowed by his anger. He lost his vision, saw red, as it were.

With precision, he disabled half the men and rendered them unconscious just as Red Hood was finishing up as well. Having recently returned to the vigilante scene, Batman was slightly out of breath, though he’d be hard-pressed to admit that. Still, the diamond and whatever else they were after was safe, they had come out of the fight relatively unharmed, and as always, he’d spoken too soon.

The shot went off before he was really able to process it.

Bruce hadn’t seen it.

Jason had.

The man was mere feet away from Batman, brandishing a 12 gauge Mossberg shotgun. Without a second thought, Jason dove off the balcony, tumbling after he hit the floor.

This is gonna hurt.

There was no time to warn him. Jason would took the shot, directly to the ribcage. His armor would absorb most of the blast, but it would probably break several ribs, if not more.

The gun fired, and the Red Hood crumpled. He felt his spleen rupture before the pain made him black out. His last conscious thought was “If anyone is going to kill Batman, it’s gonna be me...”

Red Hood had taken a near-fatal hit for him, pieces of his armor caved in where the shot had struck. Within seconds, the situation had been analyzed, processed, and the thug with the shotgun was down on the floor with a snapped arm and shattered knee, the firearm thrown yards away. No one was left standing but Bruce.

As he let his cape fall over his shoulders, Batman looked down at Red Hood, a pest and a very dangerous adversary, as he started to bleed out onto the floor. He could leave him there and it would be one less problem to worry about later on. The situation was reminiscent of Ra’s al Ghul’s final moments, something Batman regretted later on in only the smallest of ways. The strange kid who’d approached him in that cafe months ago and threatened him because he’d killed—not saved, not saved, not saved—his father came to his mind. He’d ruined people by letting Ra’s die, but he’d saved many others by not letting him live. He’d played God. It was wrong.

It begged the question then, or maybe it didn’t. Was it enough that this man was dear to other people that Batman would allow him to live? Did that matter? The streets he’d claimed as his own were lost already—others had risen to fill the gap he’d left behind, Hood being one of them. The red of the fake Bat on his chest then stood out more than the small pool of blood forming around him. If Batman was going to save him, he was going to have to trust him—and soon. He could hear the police sirens outside finally.

With a quick call to Alfred demanding both the Batmobile be sent to his location and the med bay be prepped, Batman squatted down beside the outlaw and quickly checked his vitals. “This will hurt,” he said under his breath, though he was sure Hood could not hear him. He looked thoroughly unconscious. Bruce was no medic, but he knew Red Hood had a very high pain tolerance and he should not be unconscious by a gun wound. He had internal bleeding, most likely, which raised the stakes considerably higher. As gently as he possibly could manage, Batman lifted Hood into his arms and fled the scene.

When they had arrived at the secondary cave under the Wayne Foundations Building, Blake had been there, a surprise in itself, and had asked questions. Bruce hadn’t cared to answer at the time, too focused on his task to spare much attention to his protege. As it turned out, Red Hood’s spleen had ruptured and several of his ribs were cracked, a few broken entirely. He spent an hour in private emergency surgery with Leslie Thompkins, Alfred having refused the daunting task. As per request, Leslie had left Hood’s helmet on to conserve his identity. The rest of his gear had been shed, however, and was currently sitting atop a lab table being holographically scanned by the Batcomputer for immediate analysis.  

Bruce had taken to staring at it as Leslie finished up, having taken a bit of offense at the poor structural integrity of the armor. No wonder it had caved; it was considerably worn, outdated even. To keep his hands and mind busy, Bruce made several corrections and modifications to the chest guard while he waited. He hadn’t touched much besides a small receiver of some sort that kept beeping, a small red light flashing near the top of the device. For some reason, he kept it on hand when he went to talk to Red Hood minutes after Alfred informed him of the outlaw’s regained consciousness.

The younger man looked positively livid to have been forced to rely on his enemy for anything at all and was already trying to leave, despite Leslie’s constant insistence to stay put. “Do as she says and stay there,” he said once he walked in the med bay. The two stared at each other for some moments before Red Hood relented and sat back, still looking ready to jump up and dash away. His injuries must have had taken a lot out of him, for him to concede so quickly. Bruce hadn’t taken him to be the obedient type. The IV stand wobbled before settling still.

“Your armor is insufficient, yet you deliberately put yourself in harm’s way for me.” He didn’t ask why, though the question remained in the air. He remained silent for awhile, assessing. A muffled, urgent beeping could be heard, though it was very faint. It seemed to pique the Hood’s interest more-so than his current physical status. “This keeps going off.” Bruce dropped the receiver into Hood’s lap, expecting him to turn it off.

Instead, the IV stand crashed to the floor.

So this is what the Bat HQ looks like. Funny. I expected more doom and gloom. Shit, that hurts.

Jason realized he was still alive, and in a great deal less pain. Didn’t mean it felt good, though. Forcing his way through the fog and haze, he located the center of the pain-his side-and focused on minimizing it, bringing the pain down to a manageable level.

Finally able to respond to Batman, he spoke.

“My armor isn’t Wayne technology, sorry to disappoint. Some of us work on our own gear. Can I have it back?” Bruce didn’t respond, though, as Jason saw for the first time just how damaged it was. His heart sank, just a bit. That had been his oldest suit, his original prototype. He’d not planned on any actual firefights tonight, and had let sentiment get him nearly killed.

He turned his attention back to Bruce. “Why did you save me? You could have easily let me die there. What stopped you?” Before he could get a response, Batman tossed a beeping receiver into his lap. Jason blanched, jumping up faster than his broken body could allow.

With a practiced movement, he reached over his armor, drawing his .357 revolver, loaded with Kevlar coated, armor piercing rounds. It’d shred most bulletproof vests, and certainly put the hurt on the Batman. Pointing it at him, he gestured to the device.

“I need to find the source of that locator. Now. My gear is ruined, so I’ll need a batsuit. And transport."

Batman didn’t move. Jason was beginning to lose his temper.

"There’s a boy who I care deeply about at the other end, and he’s in trouble. That beacon is for emergencies only, he’d never activate it unless he was in grave danger. I need to find him.”

Bruce wasn’t reacting fast enough. Jason sucked in his breath before pulling a dangerous trump card.

“Bruce. It’s Dick Grayson we’re talking about.”

Even with a firearm pointed at him, Bruce’s only reaction was to tighten his fists. He knew Dick Grayson, alright. (How was Hood related? There were puzzle pieces he needed to put together, but he didn’t have the time right now.) The child was rambunctious, overly-talkative, and disturbingly lighthearted and cheerful 24/7. It was no wonder he’d managed to find himself in trouble. Bruce had had the joy of meeting the kid precisely three times—twice when the child had been residing in the manor as an orphan and once not too long ago, when he’d finagled his way into lunch with the billionaire while trying to hide in one of his cars.

Still, a (wounded) criminal was asking him to give him a suit and a means to get where a frightened (possibly wounded) child was. Already, he’d extended his hand in mercy; there was no reason for him to comply with Hood’s wishes other than the fact that someone so mind-numbingly innocent was in need of help. Already, he knew he couldn’t deny a man’s request to help a loved one, even if it meant giving up equipment that would further exacerbate Batman’s struggle in taking Red Hood down. The Batman fought for the safety of the innocent. He could, however, drug Hood and go himself. Before that thought could go any further, he swiftly turned on his heel and walked over to the western wall of the cave where the batsuits were kept.

“You can take an older model of one of my own suits.” The man placed his hand on the biometric recognition security panel burrowed into the wall and tried not to think about the fact that he was handing over more Wayne Technology to someone he didn’t trust. He was greatly regretting his decision to preserve Hood’s identity. “Security override,” he said into the system, “Master access authorization code TDK02.”

The wall opened up and Bruce stepped aside so Hood could put on the armor, busying himself with remotely starting up the newly re-made Batwing and opening up the outside access tunnels. Planning on going along, Bruce locked his cowl back into place just as Red Hood vaulted himself into the Batwing and took off.

He holstered the weapon after Bruce turned his back, not stupid enough to believe that he had intimidated him in the slightest. He spent the next few minutes removing the belt, holsters, sword and sheath, and several other tools that he could salvage off of the old suit, not wanting to waste any undue time. Satisfied, he swiveled around to see Bruce opening up the vault.

A set of eyes peering at him from a dark corner caught his attention, and Jason swiveled to meet them. They blinked at him, then met his gaze without fear. Curious, he knelt down, bringing his eyes to the height of the shadowed ones. Bruce muttered something about the suit’s security code. Jason looked back at him, and then again to the corner. The shadowy figure was gone.

Donning the suit that Bruce handed him, Jason quickly fit his gear over it, grinning as he felt the superior build quality. “Thanks, Bruce. I could get used to this.” Leaving the cape on the floor, he darted past Bruce and slid into the Batwing. The canopy closed, and Jason mock saluted before  flying off. He gunned the machine towards the old circus grounds, following the steady beeping on the locator. He tried not to think about what had cause Dick to activate it.

He soon reached the source, landing (and locking) the Batwing on the dusty ground. He slung his sword over his back, making sure his gun was loaded. He heard a simpering voice, then a cry of pain. Sprinting as fast as his injured side allowed, he tore through a tent, finding it empty. He searched three more before coming out on the other side of the grounds, finding the Joker standing over Dick Grayson, who was bloodied and holding his stomach in pain.

With a roar of anger, Jason cleared the distance between them, his gloved fist striking the Joker in the mouth. A bloody molar spun through the air as the man stumbled, caught off guard. The pain that shot through Jason’s side sent him to his knees, clouding his vision red. He forced himself to his feet, drawing his sword and holding it at the clown’s neck.

“You’ll die for hurting him, you sadistic fuck." continued in Better Men

#p: settle for a draw #y: year two #c: the pretender #c: icarus #c: bad company #jason todd #bruce wayne #red hood #batman