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oncewhenalongtimeago · 9 months

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Always an Angel, Never the God Pt 2

Pairing: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III x Runaway!Reader

Words: 3119

After a few months alone in the sky, you find yourself with an unlikely roommate.

Tags: Gender neutral/intended Female, Runaway Reader, Angst, Unrequited love, Requited love, Heartbreak, grief

You grind your teeth, eyes watering as a heavy booted foot pushes you down further into the wooden ship floor. The ship rocks angrily as does your dragon, struggling against the barbed netting.

“Who are you? A new vigilante?” The leading trapper, Erik son of Erik or something, asked, bending down above you. He had, coincidentally, been the one to shoot you down.

“Where is your… hideout?” He leaned down into your ear at your silence, speaking in a raspy whisper. You got the vague impression he was trying to be intimidating, though the end results were more in favor of making you blush.

You were thankful for the hard wood covering your face and, therefore, your embarrassment. Of your belongings, you were only able to manage a mask and had taken to running around ensconced in furs with nothing but a dagger to your name.

You’d recon you looked much like a wild animal, straddling your nadder bare of a saddle. You had not done too well on your own. It was hard. You had always been a team player if by team player you meant a leech on society. At least, you had been told so.

So of course you had, unwittingly, stumbled onto dragon trapping territory. Extreme sport dragon trapping territory. It didn’t help that you and your nadder hadn’t been on the same page, you two being unable to sync in the way you’d seen the other riders with their dragons, which left a bitter taste in your mouth.

He’d go left when you were trying for right, and when you finally decided to just go with it, he would change his mind and throw you for a complete loop. It was safe to say that even if you got out of this mess you never wanted to step foot on his back again.

You breathed a silent sigh of relief just as the trapper let out an annoyed one, stepping off of you in favor of yelling at his men for damaging their goods. Meaning, your nadder. Was he really yours, though? He did try and make a break for it without you.

While debating whether or not you should try at the ropes shackling your arms together, you grunt frustratedly, noticing a new tear in your garb.

After running away and getting captured, you had not expected to be kidnapped again by some insane-looking madman in a mask. Though you did look like two of a kind, so it was fitting.

Your nadder had its wings torn irreparably, so, unfortunately, you had to retire him early.

You found small comfort in that it hadn’t abandoned you on the ship that one final time, though the irony that it had led you here was not lost on you.

He visited sometimes. He took to life in the sanctuary very well.

You didn’t, a borderline prisoner before you’d been able to win over the trust of the resident feral gorgon. Sort of. She was a woman who let you see her face, more on accident than anything else. You hadn’t let her see you or hear yours. However you weren’t inclined to speak of her nicely, least of all in your head, after the number of weeks you spent trapped in a cave at her behest.

Finally, you’d been let out. Let out enough to walk more than just the short stretch of stone and greenish ice that made up your prison. The endless turquoise was beginning to make you sick.

Recently, you found a real friend in the sanctuary, and this dragon, it was truly yours. Affectionately named, fed and groomed, you two were almost inseparable. It was the kind of friendship with a dragon you’d completely missed out on on Berk.

It was hard to maintain given your captive status, but that was alright.

There probably wasn’t any social profit involved in being a vigilante, which is why you assumed the crazy dragon lady had taken to speaking at you in her spare time. About the dragons, what they ate, what she had to do. Pointedly she gave away nothing of their true secrets, not that you wanted them, nor anything of her vigilant-ing. Not verbally, though the influx of injuries both on her and the dragons spoke volumes.

She did give away her name.

You groan, rubbing your eyes under your mask as you cradle the thing to your face with the other.

“You’re quite attached to your mask,” Valka said amusedly, shifting the logs roasting in the fire with a stick, pushing them back and forth as you sat in silence. You hardly ever spoke a word, nowadays.

Her dragon, the stormcutter, stared at you with large eyes through the licking flames.

Neither of you mentioned that the only real reason you’d been able to keep your mask so long was that she’d been kind enough to let you. An allowance you’d been given on a whim. One you clung to with all the nervous energy of Fishlegs to his dragon cards.

“... I’d rather not be,” You grumble, voice raspy from disuse, “It’s stuffy.”

“Oh,” Valka looked at you, amused and maybe a little surprised to hear you speak at last, before going back to tend to her fires, “I was starting to think you couldn’t speak.”

“Funny.” You said, lifting a sharpened stick off the ground, spearing it through a slimy, gutted fish from the basket beside you. Your nose wrinkled as you heard the sharp point break skin. No amount of faux stoicism could make it seem pleasant to you.

“I have a few questions,” You grimace under your mask as she asserts herself. She can ask them all she wants, but there’s no guarantee you’ll answer.

You might, probably, as keeping secrets hasn’t always been your strong suit. She’s certainly been trying to open you up for a while. You’ve not given her any leeway before though, no reason to give her any now.

“How did you tame your dragon?” She asked, pushing a particularly thick dragon searching for morsels. Valka guides its head gently away with her spare hand before any of the other dragons crowding around them get any ideas.

You wait for a moment, still wondering whether you should follow along. Eventually, you decide to answer.

“Wasn’t me. Someone else back home did it,” You huff, “I just followed along.”

“...But not very well,” Valka hums. It’s obvious she doesn’t believe you. Unfortunately for her, that is not your problem.

She pulls a small trout off her own stick, tossing it to a crowd of young dragons, who you knew had acquired a taste for the cooked, through no fault of your own.

You should feel offended, but you know she’s right. You lean away from a wandering dragon snout as it searches you for morsels. The stormcutter, after a look from Valka, shoos it away with a large wing.

“Where are you from?”

You feel the embers from the fire as they rise, the furs of your coat becoming nearly unbearable, your skin heated up rapidly. You wrinkle your brow with annoyance as you feel a drop of sweat slide down the side of your face.

“Where are you from?” You retort pointedly.

She studies you cautiously, as if she could glean your intentions from your body language. And she very well could. Or the heat was getting to you, the wells you’d spent in solitude had finally done some real damage to your psyche, and you were hallucinating.

“Berk,” She says. You sit back, surprised, “And you?”

“...None of your business.” You wonder how long it had been since she had left. You pray she would not know you.

Valka raised her eyebrow.

“I’m serious.” You ground your heel into the dirt. It was a touchy subject, still.

“Berk, too. …Stop looking at me like that.”

Valka leaned back against the ice wall where you rested, looking out over the empty ocean as dragons flooded to and fro the sanctuary. You squinted far into the distance, as if you thought you might be able to see through it if you tried hard enough.

Your hair tugged wildly by the winds out from behind your mask as you sat, one leg extended and the other bent as you leaned back against one arm.

You probably looked as you felt, weary and unkempt after a long flight over the seas with your dragon, who clambered among the icy spike-lined wall with clawed hands. You felt refreshed yet somehow at odds with yourself still.

You cared little for your bedraggled demeanor the same way you hadn’t cared for much at all in a while. It might have made a cool picture had you not slipped and fallen onto your face on the ice just a few minutes prior. Whether you had broken your nose or not on your mask had yet to be uncovered. All that mattered was that Valka hadn’t seen.

Dragons crowed. Through the cracks in the walls of the sanctuary, the wind would whistle through if it hit the right angle. Louder than anything else were the sounds of the waves crashing against rock.

But between you and Valka, it was silent. A contemplative silence, the kind of silence you shared with others after a long thought or a hard day’s work. That’s how you knew she was going to break it.

“Why did you leave?”

You are annoyed at the prospect but are no less expectant. After the moment passes, you are not surprised. However, it feels as if you are the one who should be asking.

“Why did I leave?” You ask, “Does it matter?”

A loose chunk of ice falls off the side of the sanctuary as a large titan scrambles violently down the side, chasing after a bright yellow baby. You spot a shape through the fog, distant and blurry enough to resemble a bird though there are no birds here. You pointedly do not think of your small hut, even less of green eyes, and tiny, fading freckles.

Valka tilted her head in your direction, reaching a hand out to scratch Cloudjumper under his chin as he lowered himself towards her, “It mattered to you.”

You open your mouth, but you are only able to choke on your breath. No one has ever said something like that to you, not in a long while. You don’t understand why it’s hitting you so hard. Maybe it’s the isolation.

You blame the burning of your eyes on the biting wind.

“Why did you leave?” You ask in return, once you’ve taken time for yourself, though you have an idea. You can’t keep your voice from sounding a little bit scratchy.

You unhook your dagger from your belt, trying not to seem so attentive. Instead, you take to carving random shapes into the ice. A gronkle. A nadder.

“I was taken.” She sighs, quieter now. Lost off in memory as you both often are.

The nadder’s spikes are much too long. The gronkle looks more like a sandwich than a dragon.

“Taken?” You prompt and you begin on the outline of a fury. The result is shallow and scratchy.

It’s one of your own designs, not the same as the one Berk uses. Astrid liked the other one better, not yours, so that was the one Hiccup went with.

“I didn’t leave,” She insisted, almost as if she was trying to convince herself of the fact, “I had a son, and a husband.”

You’ve seen her by the fires, while trying to sneak out of this hellish ice maze. She talks to herself then. On particularly paranoid days, she’s slept by you, in the same caverns, so you’ve heard it. She talks in her sleep and says things she would never say awake, or had you been around. It’s all so very unsettling.

“Really?” You remarked with false astonishment. The facade is flimsy, but you figured you’d give her the benefit of the doubt. The grace to assume that you’d no idea what she was on about.

With prompting, you might have seen it earlier. In her slim form, the one she kept hidden under thick furs and thicker armor. You squint. They have the same eye color. The same hair. They both have higher cheekbones, though her son more resembles his father in that aspect. That is all.

Valka shoots you a reprimanding look. Cloudjumper, now creeping down the wall behind you, taps you on the back of your head with its tail at her behest.

Valka was of the air. Though he had the same flighty tendencies, he was very grounded, like his father, though he might either be proud or loath to admit it. He loved flying, yes, but he loved inventing and processing and routine just as much, if not more.

He did when you were close. Of course he did, he spent his whole life on it. You couldn’t really say you knew him anymore.

You didn’t pin Valka as the type to enjoy the same in any sort of manner. But that suited you just as well. You found that as time went by and as you were granted more freedoms, you appreciated it. It made it easier for you to forget. To ignore.

In the end they, you and she, she and you, were one and the same.

“But what does it matter, if you never went back?” You grumble, pushing your dragon’s head away as it nudges you towards the cliff, crooning for more flying time.

You guessed that was why she clung so viciously to the safety of her sanctuary. Why she hated other people so much, why she’d had no faith in the humanity of other people, why she’d held you here so strictly. If things could have been different, then what did she give it all up for?

Though you’d never had something else. Not even the option. You’d never been given it. Valka hadn’t been given it either, but there was a sure difference between something being there and not.

The atmosphere is silent again, tainted with some darker undertones. If you’d had to put a name to it, you might have called it grief.

“I want to leave.”

Valka doesn’t look surprised at your request. And indeed, it’s been no secret that you wanted to leave. Maybe she was glad for it, or maybe she was sad at the news.

After all, you settled into each other's presence long ago. You had a good sort of companionship.

And from that companionship, you learned a lot without even trying, just by watching. Eventually she took notice and she took an active part in teaching you the truths she learned during all her years in self-imposed isolation.

You two weren’t incredibly close but you could tell Valka was grateful for the company, grateful to have someone maybe even a little bit like her, even if most of it was spent in silence.

You still left the Drago fighting for her. It wasn’t your fight, it was hers, and you made that clear.

Neither of you brought up Berk. Ever.

You were content to just come and go as you pleased, for a while. Nonetheless, despite your freedom, you felt restricted to the small world of the Sanctuary and the empty skies around it. There was no place for you on the ground or by the seas, where hunters and trappers swarmed by the thousands and Drago’s armies grew by the day.

You spent so much time learning from her and yet it felt like no time at all. Which was why you were shocked when you’d truly learned how much had come and gone in full.

You were out slinking in the shadows, seeking shelter from a storm on the same small rocky outcropping of island that had a shipful of trappers stranded, in a rage and a panic as they attempted to recover their assets. The winds had been too rough to fly, so you had no choice but to wait and listen.

You didn’t believe it at first. It had been…

Months.

You wondered if he’d been married, yet.

Years.

The idea hurt, not as much as you’d thought it would, still not as little as you’d hoped.

Under clear skies, you found an inn, untouched by everything except grass and trees.

You asked, “What day is it?”

The large man, a burly viking scrubbing down a wooden cup with a torn old rag, had looked down at you skeptically from behind a beaten pine and stone counter.

Two years. It had been nearly two years since you left Berk. Just as Valka’s attachments kept her at the Sanctuary, you needed to go. To run.

Since you had heard it, spoken it, the urge to run, to fly hadn’t abated at all, going from a wispy thought at the back of your mind to a full blown need. Your dragon too had become antsy, maybe feeding off of your nervous energy. Eager to take off, to fly new skies.

“Are you sure?” Valka asked searchingly. You two were stationed over a heavily planted cliff over a large main pool which consisted of the main cavern within the Sanctuary, once again in front of a fire, eating your own meals as the dragons below ate and exchanged fish.

You were already packed, your mask secured as it had been for all two years you had been in this place stuck between confinement and dwelling. You almost regretted it, not telling her your name, but you couldn’t bear yourself to her knowing who she was, not truly. Not until you’d washed yourself of that particular weight.

“Yes,” One day you would, if you ever saw her again. Once you were released from the heartache and pain of your own making, “I am. Thank you.”

You started out into the pale foggy sky, mounted your beast as smooth as you’d ever done, which is to say, not smooth at all. You’d only ever managed it right when Valka was watching, anyhow. It was odd how that worked, maybe the peer pressure was finally starting to kick in.

As you took off and the sanctuary became smaller and smaller both to your eyes and your mind, as the tight bundle of chains in your chest dropped and the world opened up to you once more, you felt light, and free.

Once again, there was no one to watch you and no one to hurt for besides your and your dragon. Endless opportunity. Thousands of ways to keep going.

You wondered what your face looked like.

You couldn’t wait to see it again.

#hiccup haddock #hiccup x reader #how to train your dragon #httyd #x reader #fanfiction #httyd imagine #httyd fanficiton

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jenniferswhor3 · 2 years

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you're not cool enough - stiles stilinski

teen wolf masterlist | masterlist

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spiderman!stiles stilinski x reader

summary; secrets get revealed and yet, you don't believe it

warnings; cursing, kissing

authors note; this spiderman!au is mostly inspired by that one picture of dylan

"no way, you're not cool enough."

if there's one thing you know about beacon hills, it was extremely unpredictable.

after finding out scott was a werewolf, your life became pretty hectic. you and your friend group were fighting all sort of supernatural villains. from kanima’s to nogitsune’s, safe to say you and your friends had your fair share of villains.

the one thing you could've never, ever, predicted was a superhero. you heard that right, the whole city of beacon hills and some surrounding towns had its very own superhero.

it wasn't unusual, there were other superhero around the world. it was just strange beacon hills had one. you had fought all different kinds of supernatural beings and evil people, so why a superhero. it was nice to have someone fight the non-supernatural criminals that were big enough the cause havoc that's too much for the police. but it was all so weird.

the villains kept getting weirder and weirder. it started out with bank robber and thief's, but it escalated, and fast. they started getting comic-like. villains that you would've thought you and your friends fought, but the masked man did.

there was a man who created a pair of metal wings the flew around destroying things, a former scientist turned crazy with robotic tenticles coming out of his back, and even a man who was electric.

sooner or later, it felt normal to have him around. he was like a blessing in disguise. often times you'd see him helping an old lady cross the street or returning a bike to a young boy who had tears in his eyes, he even bought him ice cream afterwards. the whole city fell in love with this masked vigilante, and so did you.

the blue and red clad spandex, mask-wearing, superhero quickly became some sort of celebrity crush. he stole your attention every time anyone mentioned him. you could only imagine what he looked like underneath that mask. the boy who called himself spiderman even sounded attractive.

you pictured this lean yet muscular body, dark colored hair either brown or black, and amazing cheekbones. you had doodled different samples of what he could look like. you had a major crush on someone you didn't even know what looked like.

but what you didn't know is you based your little masked crush on your best friend, stiles. stiles has had the biggest crush on you since forever, and so have you, except you didn't know of it. you always played off because you didn't think you could be attracted to your best friend.

you had spent multiple months wondering who in this crazy town was spiderman, you never, ever, thought it could be your best friend.

you and stiles were currently sitting on your living room floor with all your homework spread across the coffee table. you both were studying for a big test in your upcoming sociology class. you had the tv playing in the background with the news playing.

"okay, true or false: the–" stiles begins to say before the news interrupts him.

it was a news story about spidey's latest take down. "shh!" you silenced stiles to listen closely.

stiles only rolled his eyes at your infatuation to the superhero. he loved that you had a crush on spiderman because he was spiderman, but what he hated was that what if he told you he was spiderman and you were disappointed? what if you didn't like him?

he shook out all those bad thoughts and tuned into to what the news reporter was saying about his latest take down. the female reporter explained how he took down a group of bank robbers with high tech weapons. you partially had hearts for eyes as you watch phone footage of him defending himself. “i hope he’s okay.” stiles heard you mumble to himself.

once the story ended and the commercials rolled through, you put your attention back to stiles and your schoolwork. "i wonder who spiderman is."

"i could be spiderman." stiles said with a shrug.

"ha. funny." you say not taking your eyes off your paper.

you can sense stiles having a look of disbelief. looking up, you proved your senses, his jaw was slack and his brows furrowed. he was spastically trying to find words to say. "its because you aren't cool enough." you shrugged jokingly.

"pfft. whaat?! i am so cool enough to be spiderman." he stammered out.

you were only half-assing your words. of course your best friend was cool enough to be spiderman and you wouldn't doubt it either, considering all the weird stuff in this city. its just, you couldn't picture him as spiderman. you couldn't picture stiles as your masked crush.

weeks went by and the masked man still held your attention. stiles had been debating on whether on not to tell you. his major fear of you being disgusted by him being your masked crush shook him to the core.

it made him wonder how it would be like after he told you. would you be tame about it, would you somehow miraculously like him back, or would you stop being friends and never speak again. he also wondered if you would go and tell the whole city his secret identity.

you had also been doing some thinking of your own. about stiles, specifically. his boyish charm had been sneaking its way to your heart. his witty and sarcastic comebacks, his ability to make you laugh no matter what, and his charming good looks have been wrapped around your brain for weeks.

you didn't want to confirm it, in fear of potentially getting rejected and losing one of the best friendships you had ever experienced, but you had been falling for your best friends. not suddenly, but you realized you had begun falling for him a while ago. you don't know when or how but its been quite a while.

on one uneventful night, on your part, you had been sitting on your bed doing homework. your headphones were blasting your homework playlist loud enough so you couldn't hear any potential distractions. everyone else in the house was asleep so the was for sure gonna be no distractions.

except for the abrupt knock on your second story window. you hadn't heard it the first few knocks, the continuous knocks didn't line up to the beat of the song in your ears so you suspected in was something outside of your headphones.

your bedroom was on the second story and there were no surrounding trees anyone could climbing up or have knock on the window on a windy day. so naturally you were curious, and frankly a bit scared, as to who or what could be at the window.

now stiles had a long, long night. there was a new and unwanted villain in town and stiles, well spiderman, was the first to respond.

the new villain in town called himself grizzly. his motives were unknown but stiles knew he was some sort of ex-fighter with a bear themed design. he wore a suit of fur with real authentic, and sharp, claws. stiles had learned that the hard way.

grizzly had been wrecking havoc on innocent people of beacon hills. he was destroying property and stole valuables all to get the attention of spiderman. for some reason, grizzly had it out for him. the suit grizzly wore made him have some sort of super strength ability, making his jabs more painful.

their fight lasted longer than stiles thought it would. after countless punches, claw marks, and web slinging, the fight was over. the cops finally arrived and removed the costume from grizzly and took him into custody.

it was a nasty fight. stiles had more hits on him than he suspected. despite his mask, he knew he still had multiple cuts and bruises along his face, multiple on his arms and legs, and four deep slashes from grizzly's claws right on his torso, cutting right through his suit. he couldn't go home, not like this, nor to any of his friends houses to keep his identity a secret.

he was limping down the cold asphalt with nothing but the moonlight lighting his path. the roads were empty and stiles was thankful for this, no drivers would wander up to him and ask him for a ride– he just wanted to be alone.

not completely alone, his subconscious thoughts led him right to your driveway. he sighed, the truth was going to come out sooner or later. he didn't want it to be like this, he didn't want to have to tell you while battered and bruised. he just hoped you would take it lightly.

stiles webbed his way up to your second story window and knocked on your window, slightly wincing from the bruises on his knuckles. he hoped and prayed you weren't asleep as knocked again and again. sooner or later, due to his heightened senses, he heard shuffling around the room.

you had gotten up and cautiously made your way to the window. slowly opening the curtains, you were shocked to see the masked boy you had a crush on at your window. "spiderman?!" you almost shouted but stopped yourself when you remembered the house was sleeping.

he frantically nodded and pointed to the window, telling you to open it.

when he stepped in to your room, you finally see the damage he had taken. the four large slashes really catching your eyes. "holy shit! are you okay? what am i saying, or course you aren't." you rambled on.

spiderman didn't say any words to you, scared you would recognize the voice. "wait a minute," you started. "how did you know where i live? how do you know who i am?"

it was now or never. stiles needed to remove the mask so it wouldn't get weird. he needed to know you were safe.

slowly, he reached his hand the wasn't occupied by holding his side up to his mask and pulled it off his head.

the dark fluffy hair and honey brown eyes were truly recognizable. behind the painful looking bruises and cuts you could see the boy who you loved. for a moment all you saw was stiles, not spiderman, but finally came to your senses. "stiles?!"

"i know, i know. listen, i just–"

"what the hell? how long has this been a thing?"

"um– well, about a couple years." he finally looked you in the eyes with a pity, half-assed smile, "surprise."

"no way," stiles' eyebrow raised. you decided to poke at him a bit. you weren't mad, a bit surprised in all honesty. but you can discuss all this later after you help clean him up. "you're not cool enough." a smirk almost present.

"wha–" stiles stared before you interrupted him.

"im kidding." you say with a small bit of chuckle. "now," you say looking at his cuts concerned. "what the hell happened to you."

while stiles explained the fight and this man so called named "grizzly", you were cleaning and stitching up his cuts. you needed him to take off his suit so you could have more access to all of his cuts. this left him in only his boxers, which stiles rocked a permanent shade of pink spread across his cheeks.

by the time you finished cleaning up stiles, he looked like the poster child for child safety. "thanks." stiles sheepishly said. between the amount on flinching and blood, you're surprised neither you or stiles didn't pass out.

"its no problem. now, explain everything."

so that's what stiles did. he told you how he was bit by a radioactive spider, he explained all of his new powers, and even explained some of the villains he fought. "still think im not cool enough." stiles said teasing you as he picked up on your amazed expression throughout the storytelling.

"yeah, yeah." you let out a small laugh. "i just did a load of laundry, some of your clothes were in there. i can go get them if you want."

"yeah, sure. that's fine."

as you ran downstairs, stiles rehearsed lines in his head like he was performing in a play. he was trying to figure out everything to say to you.

you also have been doing some thinking of your own. none of your feelings have changed, in fact, your feelings have amplified. having your masked "celebrity" crush be your real life crush.

you returned with a pair of sweat shorts and a t-shirt. "i'll just– i'll leave you to change."

before you could even turn the doorknob, you felt something attach onto your back and spin you around. you found yourself chest to chest with stiles. he had webslinged you towards him. his arms wrapped around your waist while yours fall to his chest.

both heavy breathing, stiles speaks up first, "i didn't really think this far through." he gave a small chuckle which you returned.

your smiles faltered and silence fell over you two.

oh, fuck it, you both thought while pulling each other closer till your lips met. the molded together like they were meant to be together.

you both pulled away after needed some air, resting your foreheads against each others. “i’m so glad you turned out to be spider-man.” you said just above a whisper, still not taking your foreheads off each other.

“yeah?”

“yeah,” you nodded leaning in for another kiss. you two had made you way onto your bed.

“be mine?” stiles said as he pulled away for air.

you smiled sweetly and nodded, leaning in for another kiss.

after many minutes of kissing, you two were now cuddling in sweet silence. “so am i cool enough now?” stiles brought up. all you did was laugh and nod in response before curling up impossibly closer to him. you had your very own super hero as your boyfriend and you couldn’t be happier.

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makethatelevenrings · 1 year

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HAPPY 3K FOLLOWERS!!!! (Also congrats on making it to the halfway point of your thesis!)

For the bingo, could we pretty please get "Wanna bet?" with Dick Grayson?

thank you!!!! hope you like :)

want to join in the celebration? see the bingo sheet here

“I don’t know if you could tell but I just rolled my eyes,” you commented. A low chuckle sounded over the comms and then that warm, honey sweet voice followed.

“I felt a disturbance in the force,” Dick Grayson teased. “I take it you didn’t like that last joke?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, that was supposed to be a joke?” He snorted at your tone and you continued on, “I figured you plucked that straight from the shitty pun section of the Reader’s Digest.”

“I hate that you guessed that right.” A gleeful chuckle escaped you. Ever since Barbara told you that she needed to expand her operations and enlisted you to help, you never figured you would become Nightwing’s “person in the chair” but here you were, set up in your small Bludhaven apartment with various pieces of technology strewn around you and three monitors tracking crime reports in the city.

“Nightwing, we have an attempted robbery currently three blocks to your right on Roosevelt Avenue.”

“On it, Pythia.” The name came from being an oracle of Apollo at Delphi, something Barbara was very proud to come up with once you agreed to take over Nightwing’s operations so she could focus on Gotham.

Since starting this working relationship with Nightwing, you had become fast friends with the snarky vigilante and you appreciated his love and devotion to this city. You saw the risks he took and the people he fought. You saw it all from behind the screen of your computer and it broke your heart. You wished you could do more than give him information in an attempt to give him a leg up, but sometimes he came limping back to you with a black eye and that shit-eating grin and you were helpless but to apply an ice pack to his eye and bandage his cuts.

“Done and dusted,” he crowed. You sighed in relief and then let your lips curl up in amusement as you watched his fight from a security camera you hacked into.

“That was some fancy footwork there, ‘Wing. You trying to impress someone?”

“Nah,” he hummed over the line. “I’ve got my hands full already.”

You clasped your hands together and rested your chin on your knuckles, eyes peering at the map as you waited for a new dot to appear to dispatch him. “Hmm? I thought a charming man like you would never let himself be tied down.”

“I’m not usually the one being tied down,” he retorted. You stifled your laugh and played with the small silver band that rested on your ring finger.

“Oh, really? That’s salacious. I should tell the tabloids. Local vigilante spends his free time tying helpless folks up. Whatever shall we do?”

“Well, see, now I’m going to have to make sure you don’t spill my secrets.”

“You’ll never be able to silence me.”

“Wanna bet?” The rough, throaty tone that he spoke in made your body tingle and warmth flushed through your veins. You cleared your throat and studied the map once more. It was a slow, quiet night for once. Even though it was only two in the morning, he could afford to take off early.

“Come home and show me,” you murmured.

“Don’t have to tell me twice.”

Tag List:

@someoneimsure @perpetual-fangirl900 @visagebrise @cursedandromedablack @alexxavicry @the-wayward-daughter @raging-trash-of-mind @bunny-kawa @khaylin27

#dick grayson x reader #dick grayson imagine #nightwing x reader #nightwing imagine #dick grayson #honey's 3k celebration

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thesakuragarnet · 7 months

Text

PHOENIX: A Pro Hero Toya Todoroki AU (Chapter One)

THIS FIC IS 18+ ONLY!!!!!

Summary: For most of his life, Toya Todoroki was a loner. He was a scrawny, broody kid only known for getting in an explosive fight that led to him being held back. That is...until he met Keigo Takami. Navigating love, his own demons, and the road to becoming a Pro Hero, will Toya Todoroki be able to prove his father wrong?

TL;DR: What if Rei Todoroki saved her eldest child from his accident at Sekoto Peak and he got the Hero Arc he deserved?

Tags for the full fic (which is heavily tagged in the author's notes per chapter on AO3): DabiHawks, Pro Hero Dabi, alternate universe, child ab*se, implied sexual content (including implied consensual sexual content between teenagers), underage drinking, implied/referenced r word, explicit sexual content (between of-age consenting parties), graphic depictions of violence, anxiety disorder and panic attacks, s*ic!dal thoughts, eventual happy ending, fluff, smut, angst, implied/referenced s3lf harm, hurt/comfort, Vigilante League of Villains, Geten is not a Himura, POV TOYA TODOROKI

Word Count: Chapter One, which is posted below, is 3,245 words. The full fic (which will be completed on 11/21/2023) is roughly 270,000 words.

AO3 link to the full fic

Chapter One: MONTAGE (Year: Early 2117)

It’s the first day of my repeated year, and not a single person even looks in my direction. The reputation I built for myself isn’t exactly helping; I’d nearly incinerated another student who was talking shit about my sister last semester. He deserved it; it’s a shame he wasn’t in the ICU after what he said. Nevertheless, every single person in the Private Hero Training Academy avoided me like the plague. I skipped orientation this year, thinking it wasn’t worth it. I’d just be paired with yet another loser who would always find an excuse to not be my roommate and switch out; I didn’t care to make friends anymore.

I sit quietly at the smallest table in the corner of the cafeteria, my hair falling over my eyes as I stare emptily into the bowl of noodles. I shove it to the side; I’m not in the mood to eat anything right now. Tears prick my eyes as I think about what happened when I was home last week.

“IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT! IF YOU WEREN’T SO DAMN WEAK HE WOULD BE ABLE TO HANDLE IT!” My father bellowed at our mother as Natsuo, Fuyumi, and I struggled to keep Shoto sheltered from the noise of the violent slaps that echoed through the house.

“HE KNOWS NO DISCIPLINE!”

SMACK!

“HE KNOWS NO MANNERS!”

SMACK!

“HE IS A FAILED EXPERIMENT!”

SMACK!

I suddenly break down and put my head on the table, resting my forehead on my arms so no one will see my tears. ‘I wish I didn’t exist anymore.’ I think to myself...

…

...

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

A rapping noise echoes on the wooden table.

“Hey, you’re Toya, right?” A sprightly voice calls. I keep my head down, staring at the darkness that I formed in the shelter of my arms. I try to keep my body still so they can’t notice I’m crying, and I struggle to stop.

“Who wants to know?” I gripe, keeping my voice steady.

“Oh, I’m Keigo Takami! I’m your roomie this year! Hey, are you okay? Or just tired? Hope I didn’t wake you up,” Keigo laughs.

“Are you new or something?” I snap, not in the mood to talk.

“How’d you guess?! Yeah! I’m a first-year! Ready to become a hero! Anyway, is it okay if I sit here? I don’t really know anyone yet.” Before I can say anything, I feel him sit down next to me.

“Are you gonna eat your food?”

“Not hungry,” I say flatly. I briefly activate my Quirk on my face so all the tears evaporate, but no one can see it the way I have my head down.

“Then why’d you get it?”

“You ask a lot of damn questions don’t you,” I growl before raising my head to look at him. Keigo Takami’s Quirk is obvious at first glance. The fifteen-year-old sports an elegant pair of feathered, red wings on his back. He returns my glare with a bright smile, and an emotion I’ve never felt before rips through my entire body.

“Are you not scared of me?” I ask, indignantly, but, once again, Takami just returns my venom with warm, caring eyes.

“Why would I be scared of you? Hey, did you know your hair is turning white?” Keigo points to the white streaks that pepper my crimson hair.

“Stress. And my mom’s Quirk.” I mumble, suddenly wishing I had a hood that I could pull up to hide it.

“Oh. That’s cool. I guess. Hey, you sure you don’t wanna eat anything? You can have half of my sandwich!” He extends half of his PB&J to me, but I put my head back down. Keigo shrugs, and, then, his eyes light up.

“OH MY GOD! I ALMOST FORGOT TO ASK! Your last name is Todoroki, right? As in Endeavor’s son? What’s it like having such an awesome Pro Hero as a dad?” He excitedly asks, and my brain fills with screams.

“I WON’T LET YOU SLEEP UNTIL YOU’VE PERFECTED THIS MOVE! GET UP!”

A phantom pain in my stomach forms where I got kicked last week; I’d forced myself to stand and finish the exercise, burning my shoulder in the process. I feel my emotions setting my Quirk into overdrive; I’ve gotta get out of here. Without saying a word, I immediately stand up and walk out of the cafeteria, leaving Keigo alone, worried, and confused.

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

A Few Months Later

(Almost the end of the First Semester)

“DAD I DIDN’T MEAN TO HURT SHOTO!” I scream as I wake up from a horrible nightmare...well...a memory. I’m covered in cold sweat, and I’m shaking uncontrollably. A faint blue glow permeates the darkness of the room, and I panic as I realize I’ve set my pillow on fire.

“SHIT SHIT SHIT!” I whisper heatedly as I get up on my knees and struggle to put it out with my trembling hands, burning myself. I bite my lip as I endure the pain to snuff out the flames, leaving a tender red mark in the middle of my palm. When I successfully put it out, my mind flashes with my father’s terrifying, furious gaze; all I hear is my mother and my siblings screaming at me. I continue to shake uncontrollably and begin hyperventilating. I stare at my open, shivering palms...The weapons that I used on my little brother. It was an accident. But that didn’t change the fact that it happened. If Mom hadn’t acted quickly, who knows what could have happened. And it would’ve been all my fault. Tears start streaming down my face, as I start rocking back and forth, desperately trying to calm myself down.

“Toya?” A sleepy voice echoes through the darkness, and a feather whizzes by my head before pulling open the curtains on the window, letting moonlight flood our room.

“Are you okay?” Keigo asks as he rubs his eyes and starts to sit up. I say nothing. Words can’t come out of my mouth; my chest is unbearably tight, and my stomach is in a knot. I feel all the color instantly leave my face.

“Trash can,” I manage to croak out as my dry mouth suddenly fills with saliva. Thankfully, as soon as I heave, a flurry of feathers brings a trash can to sit in front of me on the bed. I grab it quickly and thrust my head into it as I get sick.

“You’re definitely not okay.” Keigo’s worried voice is at my bedside next to me; he must have gotten up. I breathe heavily as I lurch again, and Keigo sits beside me before patting me on the back; I flinch at his touch and retch until there’s nothing left in me.

“I hate everything,” I cough as I try to catch my breath, water leaking out of my eyes. I spit into the bucket to get the horrible taste out of my mouth.

“Even me?” Keigo says in a sing-song voice, and I look up briefly to give him an annoyed glance. He hands me a rag, and I snatch it from him, wiping my mouth before setting the trash can and the rag on the other side of my bed. Just in case.

“Did you have nightmares about your dad again?” Keigo asks, concern in his voice. I shudder and nod, squeezing my eyes shut.

“You should probably be on something for those night terrors and panic attacks. That’s not healthy. You can’t just keep throwing up dinner every other night,” Keigo touches my shoulder, and I shrink away from him.

“My folks wouldn’t care even if they knew,” I mutter as I feel the waves of anxiety and dread flood my body. I start to move to go back to sleep, grappling with the covers, forcing Keigo to get off the bed.

“Do they not know?” He asks.

“There’s a lot they don’t know,” I growl, turning my body away as the tears start flowing down my face again. I pass out from pure exhaustion.

…

...

Two hours later, I wake up screaming again, except this time I can’t move. I’m paralyzed with the fear of my dad’s gaze burning into my very soul; I whimper and shake, hating how pathetic Keigo must think I am.

‘Dad’s right, all I ever do is show weakness.’ I keep my eyes shut, trying to calm my dark thoughts and not jump out the window to end all the pain once and for all. ‘It would be so easy just to hit the ground from how high up we are… the seventh floor….I doubt I’d even feel anything. And then, my family wouldn’t have to bear the burden of me anymore.’ With eerie timing, I feel the paralysis fade away. ‘This is my sign.’ I think to myself as I take a deep breath and prepare to roll out of bed and end my life. Suddenly, I feel a warmth surrounding me, and my body freezes.

“It’s okay, Toya. He’s not here,” I hear the familiar voice whisper as I open my eyes and see a pair of red wings enclosing me in an embrace. I instantly think to push him away so I can finish what I started when a wave of calm washes over me as the feathers brush my face. They’re very soft and comforting...something I don’t feel very often, if ever. My nightmarish thoughts seemingly melt away as I lean into the wing, allowing my senses to fill with something other than physical pain and emotional numbness. Keigo gingerly drapes his arm over my shoulder, limply pulling me toward him.

“If you want me to go away I will. I know you don’t really like hugs. But...You looked like you needed one badly,” Keigo’s voice echoes through the silent room. I roughly shake my head as I bite my lip and let my tears flow. This time, it’s a mixture of emotions that sparks them; the normal ones: fear and anguish, but also: peace. I squeeze my eyes shut and focus on the silky feathers and the sound of Keigo’s breathing, my shaking breath slowly calming down to a smooth even pattern. My chest fills with a warm glow that I’m not used to; whatever it is, I know it isn’t my Quirk because it’s the complete opposite of pain.

“Thank you,” I choke out through my tears as I sleep peacefully for the first time in my entire life.

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

The Beginning Of The Third Semester

(First Week of September)

I was planning on going home for the weekend, but my heart told me otherwise. My dad could go to Hell for all I cared. This was gonna be the night I confessed. I’d practiced this for weeks by myself in the bathroom mirror, but my nerves were all over the place. This should be easy considering this was the person that made me realize I swung both ways. But, it’s also the first time I’ve ever felt strong enough to do something about my feelings. I don’t think I could handle rejection though. In fact, Keigo was pretty much all I had to live for lately. I don’t think I’d be able to keep on living in this Hell without him.

‘Keigo. I like you. Let’s go out. Simple enough.’ I think to myself as I splash water on my face. On Friday evenings after class, Keigo and I typically played poker by ourselves. Instead of poker chips, we just used chicken nuggets. I’d put on the only nice outfit that I owned; a black, long-sleeved button-up with black slacks. I kept the top two buttons undone so I didn’t look too serious, and I combed my hair so it didn’t look so spazzy. It had almost turned completely white at this point, and the only trace of red remained at my crown. I take a deep breath and head back to our dorm.

...

I grab the handle and take another deep breath, trying to hype myself up.

‘Alright. You got this, Toya. Be smooth. Be cool. You can be charming… Right? Just don’t make a fool of yourself.’

However, when I open the door, the lights are off, and Keigo sits on his knees on his bed with the chicken nuggets in a fancy-looking tray instead of lying on the bed like they usually are. He has a candle lit on his nightstand, and, when he realizes I’m inside the room, he seems to freeze up and get nervous. I raise my eyebrow and close the door behind me.

“Where’re the cards?” I ask as I walk over to sit across from him cross-legged on the twin bed. That’s when I noticed that I’m not the only one that cleaned up. Keigo’s normally unkempt hair is neatly brushed, and his feathers even look shinier and more orderly than normal. He’s still wearing his normal black and yellow T-shirt, but it looks brighter, almost like it’s brand new.

“Um, I thought we could...just eat the nuggs tonight instead. And. Uh. Talk?” Keigo stammers, and I see his face flush. I blink.

‘There’s no way we had the same idea. There’s no way he actually likes me back.’

“Okay?” I say as I move to grab a chicken nugget, only for him to slap my hand away.

“I need to talk to you first.” He blurts out, his voice wavering. He’s trying to maintain eye contact with me, and his feathers start to ruffle. I can see the sweat on his forehead, and a small smile forms on my face.

‘Oh my God, he DOES like me back!’

“Listen, you’re my best friend. And... And, I hope this doesn’t ruin what we have, but, I-” He stumbles over his words as I slide the tray to the side so nothing stands between us.

‘Fuck it, I’m just gonna go for it.’ I start to close the space between us, but Keigo is oblivious as he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath to confess.

“What I’m trying to say is: I L-”

I stop his words short as I kiss him, and he makes a surprised noise before completely relaxing. He kisses me back, making my heart flutter, and, for the first time in my life, reciprocated love washes over me. He starts to lean back onto the pillow, and I move with him, positioning myself so I’m looming over top of him. His wings start flapping, and I laugh as I break the kiss, propping myself up on my elbow and looking down at him with a smirk. He stares up at me with huge eyes, and I laugh again.

“Warn me next time you’re gonna do that,” He whispers, his face beet red. I’ve never seen him so flustered before, and it makes me grin even more to realize the kind of power I have over him.

“Okay, here’s your warning,” I say as I lean down and kiss him again. He reaches up and limply puts his hand at the back of my neck, pulling me closer. My heart feels like it’s going to beat out of my chest. I’ve never ever felt like this before, but I love it. For once in my entire life, someone cares about me just as much as I care about them. I run my hands through his hair as I breathe him in. He reaches up with his other arm and starts undoing the buttons of my shirt. Before he gets to the last one, I grab his hand tightly and pull away from the kiss.

“We’re not fucking. I want to make that clear,” I say, bluntly. He can’t afford to get too attached to me...just in case. Keigo rolls his eyes and jerks his hands away from my grip before undoing the last button.

“There are other things besides that, hothead,” He whispers as he slides my shirt off. I smirk and lean back down, slipping my tongue in his mouth, making him make another surprised noise; his wings stiffen for a moment. I reach over with my other hand and snuff out the candle, surrounding us in complete darkness. My heart thuds as my tongue dances with his, and I start grinding up against him. The sensation is intoxicating, and I grind rougher as his hands slide up my abs and my chest. My body seems concerned at the random influx of dopamine that is never present, and my entire being is tingly with a warm, positive feeling. I break away from the kiss as we both start breathing heavily; I move to kiss his neck.

“I love you,” I let the new words drift past my lips without even meaning to say them aloud; I don’t even care if it’s too soon to say them. I can’t help how I feel. My heart swells as I hear him echo my words; I leave dark marks on the side of his neck and start to move further down when he pushes himself up with his wings, knocking me backward on the bed. I blink in surprise and start to push myself up.

“Whoa whoa, wait a second, birdbrain. I’m the one on to-” Keigo kisses me before I can finish my sentence and starts taking my pants off. In a panic, I hold my hand up and let a small ember burn as a warning, causing him to break the kiss.

“I said no fucking!” I snap, feeling betrayed.

“Relax, Toya. I said there are other things,” His words hang in the air, and he starts trailing kisses from my neck farther and farther down my body. I fall silent as the night air consumes us...

...

The next morning, I wake up in my boxers with Keigo fast asleep on my chest. I smile down at him before abruptly realizing that last night was the first night in years that I didn’t have a nightmare or a panic attack. I trace his feathered wing lightly with the tip of my finger, causing him to stir awake.

“Good morning,” He yawns, stretching and sitting up. A smile creeps across my face before I can hide it, and I tousle his hair.

“You know we can’t tell anyone about this, right?” I say quietly, and Keigo frowns.

“Well, why not?” He snorts, climbing off of me and getting out of bed to get dressed.

“We just can’t,” I say as I put my finger on the candlewick and ignite it, giving the room a blue hue.

“Too bad. I’m still gonna try to hold your hand, and you can’t stop me.” Keigo laughs. I rub the sleep from my eyes.

“Fine,” I grumble as I climb out of bed. Before I can get my bearings, Keigo hugs me tightly.

“I knew there was something beneath that tough guy act,” He smiles, and my expression softens.

“Come on, we gotta get ready for practice. I reserved the training room for this morning,” Keigo says in his sing-song voice as he flaps his wings, lifting himself off the ground. I smile and get dressed before he opens the window. I raise my eyebrow, and he just grins before holding his hand out to me. I tentatively take it, and I cling to him as he sails out the window into the open orange sky, heading toward the training field.

#dabi x hawks #fanfic #my hero academia fanfiction #ao3 writer #dabi #dabihawks #toukei #pro hero dabi #hotwings #ao3 #hero dabi #smut #fluff #angst #pov dabi #mha mirko #mha hawks #todoroki family #touya todoroki

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maxwell-grant · 4 months

Note

I can probably guess, but how would those individuals getting the Death Note make things worse?

Well,

While she probably should have the book over Light, Emilia is far more ambitious and dangerous that he could be even without the notebook. She's sort of this embodiment of a child's imagination/rebellion in that she's this rebellious firecracker that can do basically anything and has very little respect for grown-ups and very little tolerance for injustice, but she's also egotistical and stubborn and has very little breaks and a very stunted sense of morality, among many other flaws. She's not really that bad, she's a trickster with a big heart trying to make the best of a fiercely opinionated brain and a lease in life she was never supposed to have, she grows for the better but, she did think about cutting off an angel's wings just to see what happened (she later saved the angel by beating Popeye with food poisoning). She held the world hostage with a shrinking spell to try and force the U.S President into ending war forever. Her first appearence had her win a fight by carving out a scorpion's eyeballs with a barbecue spit. Again, she's not evil, but she tends to rejects concepts like "nuance", "social filter" and "not getting to do what she wants right now". She absolutely would have a list planned for the occasion, and there would be a lot of politicians and big shot important folks in there. I'm starting to reconsider my stance on whether she should have the book or not.

The Golden Amazon actually is just straight up evil though. In the first book, she destroys most of England and attempts to rule the world by replacing humanity with synthetic beings, by the second she's leading a secret society of superwomen from the Amazon, and in the following books, while she became an "anti-hero" in the loosest sense possible, that's more so because she succeeds in taking over things and so now has to defend her matriarchy from aliens and saboteurs (I think the books might have retconned some details as they went along but she seems to be either defending Earth so she can rule it or already being it's ruler). She is the Dominatrix of the Solar System, the greatest scientist who ever lived, a cruel, ice cold murder expert superhuman who pretty much doesn't need the Death Note in any way, she really really doesn't need any kind of help in killing/torturing people. The real danger here is her learning about the existence of the shinigami and the shinigami world and deciding she doesn't like death gods in on her territory (existence itself) and deciding to do something about it.

The Black Bat, I mean, Tony Quinn is kind of a piece of shit. He's a scarred and miserable District Attorney turned vigilante serial killer who brands the corpses of the criminals he kills, and unlike The Spider he's not exactly dealing with apocalyptic extreme circumstances to make this behavior less insane, he's just fighting mobsters. Passing the Death Note from the son of a cop, into the hands of a disgraced District Attorney who already decided to go out at night to murder crime with guns and has associates at hand to help him do it is just, well it's not exactly a step up from the threat Light Yagami posed.

El Sombra, look, Djego tried, he truly did. He did a lot of good. If you gave him the Death Note, he'd use it exclusively to kill Nazis and he'd mean it, because that's all he ever did, if you handed him the book during the events of El Sombra and Gods of Manhattan he could have done a lot of good with it. It's just, Pax Omega happened, and what became of him is absolutely not someone who you want to hand something like the Death Note to. He failed, and he failed where it mattered most, and his reward for failure was becoming version 2.0 of everything he hated most and nearly dooming the entire planet. Even if he could have used it to kill Hitler and every member of Untergang, there was no happy ending to the tale of El Sombra. He just failed too profoundly for that to be possible.

The Whisperer, see The Black Bat's deal but times ten, or really just read that editor note above introducing him. The Whisperer is "Wildcat" James Gordon, a handsome young dandy Police Commissioner who, once elected, turned out to be a total maniac asshole (famously burned down an illegal casino as Commissioner, didn't even put on a disguise to do it) and who fights crime by transforming himself into an unrecognizably older persona so he can murder people with impunity. I feel like I don't have to elaborate much here, what's wrong with this guy is fairly brutally self-evident.

The Blue Morpho, because, well how long you've got? Even if you've never watched The Venture Bros and don't know all the horrible things he's done personally, I feel like "cartoon supervillain moonlighting as a dark violent pulp hero in order to kill all the other supervillains in town standing in his way" is fairly self-explanatory. Mr Fitzcarraldo here offed his world's Legion of Doom in one blow pretty much by accident. He's not really out to kill for killing's sake, he just wants to get one guy really badly, but he doesn't really care who he has to get rid of to do that, or even just killing people to solve minor dumb inconveniences like avoiding paying taxi fare or being annoyed by a henchman. He might have the biggest on-screen body count in a show that has Brock Samson in it and only became deadlier as The Blue Morpho, that's no small feat.

Hugo Danner, because there is not a single aspect of Hugo Danner's life that didn't suck and that he didn't find a way to make worse. Hugo Danner was every bad/evil/stupid take on Superman published years before the genuine article. Hugo Danner is the Garth Ennis Superman pisstake that Garth Ennis loved the character too much to actually do. Hugo Danner enlisted in WW1 and only realized he could have ended it single-handedly after he'd already slaughtered thousands and thousands of poor infantrymen with his bare hands and the war ended, and promptly hated himself for being such a colossal idiot. He could not conceive of solutions that didn't envolve "squeezing continents into submission" and punishing all the people too stupid and scared to love him the way he thought he deserved. He hated himself too much to even kickstart plans to create a master race. He got himself killed by cursing the skies and being struck by a lightning bolt on the final page. There's not a lot that the Death Note could have done to save his life from being a shit show, but all he ever did was perpetrate that shit show on others so, yeah, good riddance Danner you stupid bastard.

#replies tag #pulp heroes #pulp fiction #golden amazon #boneca emilia #hugo danner #the whisperer #the black bat #blue morpho #venture bros

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as-is-above-so-below · 1 year

Text

In the Middle of the Night (Jason Todd x OC)

Masterlist

Chapter 8, Chapter 10

story summary: Melanie Withers and Jason Todd do everything together - including but not limited to stealing tires off Gotham's famous vigilante. The newest additions to the Wayne family begin their journey, learning how to navigate their new family, life as vigilantes, adolescence, grief, and rebirth.

chapter summary: Happy New Year from the Batfamily! (and also, SURPRISE WALLY NAME DROP! AAAAAAA)

December 2012

Strong winds tugged at Redwing’s cape, the yellow fabric billowing behind her on her gargoyle perch. People littered the streets below under the soft glow of neon and street lights; they poured in and out of various bars and nightclubs, despite the frigid temperatures and quickly accumulating layers of snow.

Nothing could keep the city of Gotham from a good time on New Year’s Eve.

She grabbed the hems near her midsection and clipped them together, securing them around her torso for warmth. Robin did the same on the next statue, tugging his hood over his wet hair. While cold fronts and heavy snow were typical for that time of year, the continued steady drop in bitter temperature over just a few hours wasn’t. She raised her gloved hand to her earpiece and tapped open her comms.

“Oracle?”

“Hi, Redwing! How are you this fine winter evening?”

“Cold. Unnaturally cold,” she grumbled, dusting the heavy flurries off her shoulders. “Could you pull up weather patterns and temperatures for the last ten years?”

Robin shifted from the balls of his feet to a seated position, his legs dangling below. He rested some of his weight onto his hands, pressed forward between his legs. “What’re ya thinkin’, Red?”

“I’m thinking that it was thirty degrees when we left the cave, and we’re about to drop into the negatives in the span of,” she turned back to look up at the clocktower behind them, “three hours.”

“Abnormal weather conditions don’t necessarily mean Victor’s involved.”

Batman crouched on his heels between them following his question, shrouded in his black cape. Like them, he had a winterized version of his suit on – the usual color scheme, but slightly bulkier with the extra layers and warming factor built in. The bat symbol at the center of his chest had more shine than his usual suit.

“I don’t know… I could be wrong, but this doesn’t feel right.”

“You have a good sense of climate, Redwing!” Oracle chimed back in. “The chill you’re feeling is way below normal. Gotham normally hangs in the thirty- to forty-degree range in December. And temps definitely don’t drop this fast.”

Batman hummed in affirmation, a proud smirk on his face. “Don’t ever doubt your instincts. Well done.”

“But why now? Freeze covered Gotham in ice in the middle of August before; he doesn’t need cold weather,” she wondered, looking to her father for ideas.

The bat tapped away at his gauntlet, pulling up the records from his last encounter with the man. “I found Victor so quickly before because it was the dead of summer. He could be using seasonality as camouflage.”

Oracle’s voice echoed in their ears again, “I’d be willing to bet he hoped we would be preoccupied with this evening’s festivities.”

A smart move on his end, considering they were just now noticing the weather fluctuation.

“Assuming he built the same kind of devices, there were three units I had to track down before they reached their full potential. My analysis then estimated it would have taken five hours to freeze the city over.”

The winged duo nodded solemnly, meeting each other’s white eyes. “It’s already been at least three. We don’t have much time,” Robin pointed out, rising to his feet again.

“I could reach out to KF and see if he’s available to help?”

“No need! I think I have an idea where at least one will be.”

“Care to share with the class?” she asked. Her forehead wrinkled where her eyebrows were concealed under her mask.

The boy smirked as he pulled out his grapple gun, his arm hanging loosely by his side. “Freeze is the sentimental type, right? Do you still have his wife at the lab?”

“Yes.”

“What better place to attack Gotham from than the tallest building in the city?”

“You think he’s at Wayne Tower?” Redwing stood with him, readying her own line.

“I don’t think. I know.”

Her eyes rolled behind the white lenses of her mask. “Fascinating.”

“What, my charm? Dashing good looks? Searing intellect?”

She stepped forward so only her heels balanced on the beast’s nose. Her arches and toes hovered in the air. She tapped the muzzle of the tool against her chin with pursed lips as she pretended to think. “Your enormous ego,” she finally concluded, laughing wildly as his boyish grin morphed into a hurt expression as she tipped over, letting her body fall head-first into the neon lights below.

Redwing allowed herself to freefall for a few seconds before firing the grapple hook. It caught on a nearby water tower, launching her back towards the sky.

In the year since Bruce had adopted them, Melanie had learned that Dick was right about at least one thing.

There’s nothing like flying.

Her earpiece crackled to life again. “Ego?!” Robin cried, appalled, coming into view about forty feet to her left. “My ego is well-earned! I deserve an apology!”

“And how might I get back into your good graces, Boy Wonder?”

“It’ll be midnight soon. I think a New Year’s kiss is in order.”

“Who else would I kiss?”

“No PDA on duty.”

“Golly gee willickers, Batman.” He took a high-pitched voice, mocking the original Robin. “Don’t be a party pooper. You swat spit Catwoman in the field all the time!”

“I do not. Even if I did, it would be different.”

“Hypocrite.”

“Focus,” Batman snapped, the blue halo from the Wayne Enterprises logo coming into view. Lo and behold, a structure resembling a stocky cell tower sat on the roof, pumping a cold front into Gotham’s atmosphere. Nearby, a similar unit lit up the Foxteca building; in the distance, a third condenser at the Sporting Complex.

The group took refuge on a neighboring rooftop as Batman cataloged the force they were going up against. “I don’t see Victor’s heat signature,” he mumbled, making a mental note. “You two distract his henchmen. I’ll shut down the weather machine then we'll move on to the next. We have to be quick.”

“Yessir!”

With the plan set, the two birds took to Wayne Enterprises, scaling the side farthest from the equipment. While they would work on the goons, Batman would sneak up the back to access the interface. Two loud cackles drew the attention of the dozen or so men to the teens; Robin traipsed the curbed edge like a tightrope while Redwing juggled R-shaped shurikens atop an exhaust vent.

“So,” Robin started. He spun on one foot to turn back around and go back the way he came. “You all have two options. You can surrender peacefully, and we leave you for the GCPD. Or, we can kick your butts, and you’re arrested anyway. Your call!”

Despite his generous offer, Regulator brutes charged them, a few hanging back while their gauntlets whirred to life.

Robin sighed dramatically, hopping down from the ledge. “They just never learn, do they, Wing?”

“They don’t, Rob. They really don’t.” She snatched one of the sharp weapons out of the air on its downward arch and directed it into the muzzle of a rifle. The gun backfired, causing its holder to reel from the bright flash of heat.

As Robin sprinted forward, Redwing jumped from the vent onto her partner’s locked and ready hands, propelling her into the air in their enemies’ direction. She swiftly moved between enemies, sometimes kicking some in Robin’s direction for an assist. She prioritized enemies with guns first, wanting them disarmed and out of the way quickly. Despite the freezing air, Redwing still felt a layer of sweat forming underneath her thermal layer from the effort of the fight.

Bullets pinged off the concrete and metal structures around them as they dodged and weaved through their trajectories; the sharp, tangy smoke almost overwhelmed her senses.

As the number of active targets dwindled, Redwing felt a hot muzzle press against the back of her skull; she immediately pivoted, barely knocking it away for the bullet to miss. “Oof, that was a close one!” she laughed, ripping the rifle out of the man’s hands. “Almost got me there!”

While she was quick to knock him unconscious with the butt of his gun, she wasn’t fast enough to avoid the massive hand that wrapped around her bicep and yanked, sending her skidding across the roof. Her shoulder audibly popped, and she groaned at the sound and sudden shooting pain down her arm.

As she tried to her shoulder it back in, the last lackey loomed over her. Allowing herself to get grabbed was a big mistake that allowed her opponent to hold all of the power, especially now that one of her limbs was out of commission. She could fight with what she had, but adjusting to the ache wasted precious time that she did not have.

At least, until a sticky pellet thudded against the Regulator’s gauntlet and activated, volts of electricity arcing through his arm to the ground. He stumbled back, leaving Robin open to slide underneath his grip and forcing him to topple by tripping his feet.

“You heard her, man! It’s not her time.” He, too, fell unconscious when the black-haired boy was finished with him.

“You good?”

She nodded, gripping her bicep with her opposite hand to brace it to her side.

“You were tellin’ us about being quick?! What the hell, B? What’s taking so long?” Robin pressed, helping Redwing up while nursing his own bruises at his side.

“These condensers are different,” Batman grunted as he typed at the machine’s terminal. “We have to shut them off at the same time. We’re going to have to split up.”

“You can’t figure out how to disarm them manually?”

“No. That will take hours, which we don’t have.”

He stepped away from his task to inspect Redwing’s limp limb, pressed against her side. The girl hissed as he tried to twinge it with barely any pressure, jerking away from his touch. Robin certainly had a busted lip and a few bruises of his own.

“It’s dislocated.”

“Batman, I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. I’m calling the Batmobile to take you back to the cave–”

“We need three people to turn these off,” Redwing cut him off, turning her shoulder to her partner. “Robin?”

He sighed deeply, gingerly looping his fingers around her wrist and bracing her back. “Alright–”

“Robin, don’t you dare–”

POP!

“GAH–” Redwing took a deep breath before letting out a whoosh of air. “See? All good!” She turned momentarily as if to look around, hiding the pained expression on her face. “Christ on a cracker, that hurt.”

Batman was pinching the bridge of his nose over his cowl, his head bowed and shaking. “Nightwing’s supposed to be my problem child, not you two.” He took her arm and tested her mobility, moving and rotating the appendage in all directions. When he was begrudgingly satisfied, Batman sighed again. “Fine, but you’re staying here. Robin, you go to Foxteca; plug this into the terminal before I give the signal. I’ll cover the arena.”

Robin took the flash drive from their father and tucked it into his utility belt. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, brushing a spot of blood off her cheek with his thumb.

She smiled warmly and shrugged. “I think I can handle pressing a button. I’ll be fine. Besides, you owe me a kiss.”

“Me?! No, no, no, you’re supposed to kiss me–”

“If I have to tell you two to focus again, you’re suspended for a week.”

Batman wasn’t one to make threats lightly, and neither Redwing nor Robin wanted to find out how strict the man was feeling. Redwing laughed and shoved him away before heading over to her station.

It took Batman and Robin some time to get to their respective locations. Long enough for the eerie silence to make the hair on the back of her neck stand. Nothing but the cold wind gusts and mechanical buzzing in her ears.

Something was missing…

“Batman, Robin. Do either of you have eyes on Mr. Freeze?” she questioned, taking cautious steps toward the middle of the skyscraper’s roof.

“Negative.”

“No, why?”

The air shifted, setting off alarms in her mind. Redwing dove forward just in time to not get crushed by a giant mecha suit’s fist. She rolled easily and sprang to her feet, finding herself face-to-face with the man himself. The temperature dropped noticeably around the icy metal, the vapor from her breath thicker and more visible than before.

“Ah, the Girl Wonder. I was expecting Batman.”

Victor Fries played into his villain persona well. His voice didn’t just have a cold tone; the vibrato sent actual chills down her already taut spine.

“Sorry to disappoint, Victor,” she replied, readying her fighting stance. “I guess he just didn’t think you were much of a threat.”

Her opponent chuckled darkly, his heavy steps clunking on concrete as he closed in on her. “She thinks she’s Batman,” he growled. “How quaint.”

Redwing slid under his downward swing, sprinting back toward the weather machine at the now far corner. Freeze just caught the corner of her cape, which she immediately released as soon as she felt the familiar tug. Out of his reach again, she tapped her comms back on. “Speak of the devil!”

“He’s there? I’m coming back to you–”

“There isn’t time!” the girl interrupted, narrowly sidestepping an ice ray. The ends of her hair had long since gathered an icy sheen from the wet air and subzero temperatures. “We have to do this now!”

Her evasive skills would be the hot ticket item for their next team meeting, considering how often Redwing was snatched up during this encounter.

Freeze seized her by the back of her neck, stopping her in her tracks and lifting her off the ground without effort. She scrambled for one of the pouches on her belt, only for it to be torn away and slammed into the ground. “I don’t think so, little bird,” Freeze snarled and pulled her face forward, stopping just short of smashing the protective barrier around his head. Redwing was forced to ignore the chattering in her ear, focused only on steadying her breathing and figuring a way to do her part and shut down the terminal behind Freeze. The man adjusted his grip, now keeping her suspended from the front.

“Why…are you…doing this?” she choked out, slowly slipping her hand over her stomach, then her breastplate…

“Batman and Mr. Wayne took my Nora from me,” he shared as if it was obvious. His corpse-like, blue skin was infinitely more horrifying up close. “I intend to retrieve what is mine and leave this wretched city a tundra when I’m done with it!”

“Redwing, now!”

“She’s not…your…property.” Finally, she pressed the ‘R’ on her chest, dispensing another golden shuriken, and, with a year’s worth of practice and great skill, hurled the star at the red switch.

Flip

“No!”

The cold front spewing into the night sky immediately started to narrow until it dwindled into nothing, the various gears and pieces slowing to a stop. She assumed, in the distance, the other machines and beams had similar reactions. Already the heavy, white storm turned into soft flurries, more representative of a New Jersey winter.

The plan had worked.

“Red, hold on! I’m coming!”

“No!” Victor roared again, charging to his creation, only to find a black screen. The drives permanently disabled the software once it was shut down, making it inaccessible. Forever. “You insignificant little witch! You’ll pay for this!”

And suddenly, the bruising pressure was gone, and she was flying again.

And flying.

Then falling.

Her ice-tipped hair bit and stung her face as she slapped at her hip, gloves meeting her suit helplessly with wide eyes.

He took her belt; her grapple–

And no cape. She’d ditched it, effectively clipping her own wings.

She wanted to scream and call out for Robin or Batman, but the panic and violent terror gagged her as she plummeted toward the empty city street. Would her father be the one to retrieve her broken, bloody body, or her brother?

Not Jay, anyone but Jay…

Jason

A body slammed into hers with a grunted Oof, knocking her path to the snow-covered pavement off course. It was like colliding with a brick wall. Her body jerked from being caught at the waist before being enveloped in a tight hold and turned in the air, nose pressed against a firm chest; she smelled musky sweat, gunpowder, and the lingering twinge of mint toothpaste.

They soared for about two seconds before their trajectory arched back to the ground. When they finally hit solid ground, the other person hit first, cushioning her landing, before they tumbled down the street. When they slowed to a stop several feet from the initial impact, the cage around her loosened, and her loose body flopped face down into the crisp snowfall.

“Red! Red, hey!”

Redwing let out a low groan as she was flipped on her back and shaken, eyes squeezed shut. “Am I dead?”

Robin was visibly relieved both at her consciousness and her ability to speak. “Nah, you can’t die just yet. It’s 12:06.”

January 2013

Jason.

Kevlar hands delicately cradled the sides of her neck before frosty, wet lips pressed into her rosy cheek. The sentiment continued across her face – on her forehead, nose, the corner of her lips. Some barely touched her flesh, overlapping with the edges of her mask or hair. Each word he spoke was punctuated with a loud peck.

“I - love - you - so - much.”

Redwing mustered the strength to softly tap his cheek with two soft pats. “Love you t-too. Good…save…” she wheezed, arm dropping back down and displacing some white fluff back into the air. If the fact that her whole body already hurt was any indicator, she was in for a world of hurt over the next few days.

Robin allowed her a moment to gather herself before slipping his hands under her shoulders and forcing her to sit up. He moved to one knee, some joints cracking and popping at the effort, and wedged his arms under hers until the crooks of his elbows settled in her armpits.

“C’mon,” he ordered, rising to his full height, hoisting Redwing to her feet. He slung her good arm over his shoulder, adjusting until he found a comfortable position. “You have to get back to the Cave. The Batmobile’s right here.”

Immediately, her heels dug into the road. “Wait, Freeze–”

“B has it handled. You’re in no shape to fight. You need to go.”

“Mmm’kay…”

For once, she complied with his orders, feet dragging as he mostly carried her to the car. The driver’s door opened for them, and Robin took the utmost care in lowering his other half into the seat before swinging her legs in.

“Happy New Year, Rob.”

“Happy New Year, Red.”

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whatisonthemoon · 1 year

Text

Right-Wing Vigilantes Spreading in Philippines (1987)

▲ Pictured: Members of Alsa Masa, an anti-communist vigilante group supported by CAUSA Bolld added for emphasis By Seth Mydans New York Times April 4, 1987

A year ago in the densely populated urban shantytown of Agdao, three men gunned down a notorious Communist hit man, raised their rifles and shouted, ''Arise, masses!''

With this now-legendary incident was born a right-wing vigilante group whose imitators are quickly spreading through the Philippines in a new approach to counterinsurgency.

Many military and Government leaders, including President Corazon C. Aquino and Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, the Chief of Staff, have endorsed the concept of anti-Communist vigilante groups, even as fears have grown that a new form of armed terror has taken root in this violent nation.

The central Government appears to have been caught unprepared as copycat groups spring up around the country, and observations on the scene clash with military assurances that they are spontaneous and unarmed. Outside Influence a Question

Interviews with officials in Manila, Cebu City and Davao, of which Agdao is a part, left unanswered questions about any possible outside coordination of these groups and their new strategy.

Among other organizations, Causa, the political arm of the Unification Church founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, appears to have sought to capitalize on growing right-wing sentiment in the Philippines.

The original vigilante group, which has taken its name from that cry of vengeance, Alsa Masa, is armed and controlled by the local military commander in the city of Davao, which had become known as an urban ''laboratory'' for the insurgents.

With a system of checkpoints, armed patrols, taxation, propaganda, forced recruitment and summary justice that consciously mimics that of its Communist enemy, Alsa Masa has largely succeeded in driving the rebels from a city where, in many areas, they had taken effective control.

The Alsa Masa leader in Agdao, a 45-year-old tire dealer named Rolando Cagay, said his group raised money with weekly benefit dances.

Mrs. Aquino's secretary of local government, Jaime Ferrer, has ordered local officials throughout the country to form unarmed vigilante groups patterned on a village association called Nakasaka, or People United for Peace. Unarmed Only in Theory

Davao's military commander, Col. Franco M. Calida, dismissed the notion that unarmed groups could succeed, saying, ''This is an armed struggle.''

A reporter visiting Davao del Sur, a few miles south of Davao, where Nakasaka members man checkpoints with machetes and bows and arrows, found that some of them also carried pistols and homemade pellet guns.

There is an atmosphere of surprised relief in Davao at the quick retreat of open Communist force. The level of violence has sharply dropped in a city where three or more people were killed each day, either by the insurgents or the military.

But it is not clear to what extent the vigilante group was responsible for the rebels' retreat, or what its long-term success may be.

Colonel Calida said the withdrawal of the rebels from Agdao was a result of the success of ''deep penetration agents'' who touched off a violent reaction from the Communists. The rebels' fear of informers brought a series of killings in Agdao that alienated a previously supportive population. 'We Became Angry at Them'

''They were like gods here before,'' said Alejandro Amorado, standing at an Alsa Masa checkpoint in Agdao, speaking of the Communists. ''They killed the abusive people or drove them out of here. The people loved them.''

''But then they started killing even people who had not done anything -ice cream vendors, people who sold slippers,'' he said. ''We became angry at them.''

A local spokesman for the National Democratic Front, an umbrella organization that represents the Communists, acknowledged that the rebels had made mistakes and that Alsa Masa had been ''tactically effective'' in forcing them to return underground.

But the spokesman, who called himself Ka Gary, said several the vigilante groups were what he termed ''Alsa drama,'' putting on a show of converting to anti-Communism while they await a backlash that could ultimately play into their hands.

Some military officers expressed private concern that ''deep penetration'' could work both ways and that the weapons they issued to vigilante groups could fall into the hands of the insurgents. 'No Way to Be Neutral'

Meanwhile, Alsa Masa and its imitators have succeeded in polarizing the population.

''In the fight between democracy and Communism there is no way to be neutral,'' Colonel Calida said. ''Anybody who would not like to join Alsa Masa is a Communist.''

Alsa Masa members interviewed at checkpoints around the city said that each home was required to contribute one member to its nightly patrols and that the houses of those not cooperating might be painted with a red ''X.''

The Roman Catholic Church has also been caught up in the spreading polarization. The Auxiliary Bishop of Cebu, Msgr. Manuel Salvador, said recently, ''We really cannot blame these civilians who decide to arm themselves.''

As he spoke, vigilante groups were listing as targets other local churchmen who have been active in human-rights work. Priests of the Redemptorist order in Davao have been labeled ''Redempterrorists,'' and a group of Carmelite nuns has received threatening letters.

The police commander for Davao del Sur, Col. Jesus R. Magno, called the vigilante mobilization ''basically a psy-war operation.''

On a local radio station, a broadcaster named Jun Porras Pala read from a right-wing Causa manifesto and threatened doubters with retribution.

''We will exhibit your heads in the plaza,'' he told his critics in a recent broadcast. ''Just one order to our anti-Communist forces, your head will be cut off. Damn you, your brains will be scattered in the streets.''

It appears that the vigilante groups have carried out several killings as well as other acts of intimidation. Colonel Calida said 11 Communist rebels had been killed by vigilantes in Davao.

A former leftist militant who is setting up an Alsa Masa branch in Cebu City, Marianito Ventura, said: ''Of course if we come across a member of a sparrow unit, we liquidate him without notifying anybody. That is what they are doing to us.'' Sparrow units are Communist assassination squads.

He said his organization was useful to the military as a means of avoiding investigations of human rights abuses. ''We in the Alsa Masa don't give a damn about a review from the top,'' he said. Vigilantes in Other Regions

In recent weeks, vigilante groups have been quickly forming in other regions, adapting themselves to local conditions, and reports of abuses have begun to reach Manila.

On the sugar-growing island of Negros, planters have formed El Tigre, a network of armed groups whose threats this week drove 78 families to flee a rebel-influenced mountain area.

On the island of Cebu, a group called CACA, or Citizens Against Communism Army, has sent out armed patrols in remote areas that look in photographs like Communist rebel patrols and are said to have carried out attacks similar to rebel attacks.

In some areas of Mindanao and Cebu, right-wing groups have linked up with machete-wielding religious cultists called Tadtad, or Chop Chop, who believe they are immune to bullets and who ritually mutilate their victims.

Elsewhere, renegade military officers implicated in recent coup threats are said to have formed armed groups that advertise themselves as anti-Communist squads. Political Coercion Feared

Opponents of the vigilante groups warn that they provide the makings of private armies for a new generation of the warlords who have exercised local power in the Philippines.

''In a country with a very recent history of warlordism and fascism and right-wing military activism, I think this is a very dangerous phenomenon,'' said a senatorial candidate from Cebu, John Osmena. ''These groups can become the new instruments of political coercion.''

Already, the rapid growth of Alsa Masa throughout Davao has affected the tenor of local politics.

Few politicans openly criticize Alsa Masa, and even Mayor Zafiro Respicio, a human-rights exponent in the past, has found it expedient to endorse vigilantism., despite privateley expressed doubts.

''The whole city has turned right, hard right,'' said the managing editor of a local newspaper, Alberto Tesoro.

On a visit to Davao recently, President Aquino endorsed unarmed citizens' groups as a ''concrete manifestation of people power and an effective weapon against Communism without the use of firearms.''

But a political science professor at the University of the Philippines, Francisco Nemenzo, called this notion ''a mockery of the concept of people power,'' the term Mrs. Aquino gave last year to the peaceful protests that helped force President Ferdinand E. Marcos from power.

A correction was made on April 6, 1987: Monday, Late City Final Edition

#mindanao #the philippines #unification church #unification church in the philippines #philippine church #moonies #causa #anti-communism #alsa masa #politics #national democratic front #national democratic movement #communist party of the philippines #Corazon Aquino #cory aquino #communism #revolution

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xaracosmia · 1 year

Text

ꕥ — WELCOME TO EXO COSMIA, WARREN WORTHINGTON III. 🌑

ꕥ — OOC INFORMATION;

name / alias: Swerve age: 24 pronouns: he/she/they ooc contact: swearthling on tumblr and twt other characters in xc: brainiac 5, lancer

ꕥ — IC INFORMATION;

Name: Warren Worthington III

Age: 33

Pronouns: he/him

Series: Marvel comics (X-Men)

canon point: um. circa uncanny x force 2010. that’s what i’m going with

app triggers: implied suicide, mind control, invasive medical procedures, blood mentions

personality:

Warren has been a lot of different, contradictory things. Fundamentally, he’s an honest person, someone who listens to his heart. He might be fully capable of stretching the truth, playing an angle - and he is an expert schmoozer, as a born rich bitch - but when it comes to the important stuff, what you see is what you get.

Under the best circumstances, what you get is a confident, outspoken, and compassionate person, sometimes prone to arrogance or hot-headedness, but with his heart in the right place. He wants to make the world a better place, and a lot of the time, he manages to pursue that goal without getting caught up in the self-doubting moodiness some of his peers suffer from. Under the worst circumstances, his transparency puts his worst thoughts on full display. He can be defeatist, bitter, downright resentful, and apocalyptically violent.

He deserves some benefit of the doubt, as he has some very literal demons to battle. When all is said and done, he has an astronomical amount of restraint and self control, capable of keeping his cool in difficult situations.

His honesty and emotional awareness used to make him a remarkably free person, having lived a charmed life, relatively free of worries. As hardships came, Warren was brave enough to face them without losing himself, until he wasn’t. Nowadays, he’s a person defined by suffering, even after time to heal and grow away from that definition.

something your muse struggles with: His stubbornness. Usually, he’s a reasonable person, but once Warren gets it in his head that something is important, it can be hard to talk him down. Prone to pointlessly tackling problems alone, and frequent source of arguments.

your muse’s greatest strength: His convictions. He believes deeply in a lot of good things, and he’s pretty good at making those things happen. It’s saying a lot that he remains (relatively) uncompromised despite the horrible, ungodly power that he’s been cursed with (being rich).

background:

Angel was born into exactly the kind of life you’d expect “Warren Worthington the Third” to have. Warren grew up as the heir to a large and very wealthy corporation, destined for all the luxury and privilege that came with his station. The first thing to divert him from that destiny was his mutation manifesting when he was a teenager - in Warren’s case, in the form of the giant bird wings that grew from his back.

Warren decided on three things. One, this would be a secret, from everyone. Two, once he learned that his wings actually did allow him to fly, he decided that they could and should be used to help people. And three (the only of these three that has never changed), flying is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to him, and the greatest joy of his life. Many mutants resent their differences, but from the very beginning, Warren loved his wings more than anything.

Professor Xavier found Warren through the news of a mysterious angel showing up to help with disasters, and recruited him into the first class of students at his school for gifted youngsters. Now with a place where he could be himself, and surrounded by mutant peers, Warren continued to use his gift to help, for the good of the world and et cetera.

Years later, he’d lose the luxury of getting to keep his wings hidden, and life as a public mutant brought its own complications. Warren and his fellow X-Men were able to continue their vigilante hero work, but for Warren, things came to an end when his wings were horrifically injured in a fight. They were amputated against his will, and that loss more or less broke him.

His friends thought he took his own life, as they watched him go up in flames, and he wasn’t far from it. Fortunately or otherwise, Warren had caught the eye of a supervillain recruiting underlings, and Apocalypse saved him from death. In a way. He forced Angel to become one of his Horsemen, fitted with lethal metal wings and the title of Death.

Warren’s friends were able to save him eventually, and defeat Apocalypse (for a while), but the damage had already been done, and Angel would never be the same. Over time, he’s healed from the loss of his wings and his personhood - with his natural wings miraculously regrown and everything - and he’s been able to resume a life as close to normal as a once-dead bird man can have. He remains an occasional superhero, and an occasional monster.

powers / abilities:

Archangel - The form given to Angel by Apocalypse, which Warren can shift into at will (ish). Archangel’s wings are made out of techno-organic metal, with feathers that can be launched like throwing knives, coated in paralyzing poison. Archangel is faster and stronger than plain old Angel, but usually only shows up for activities involving murder. Most of the time, this is on purpose, and is used for good. Sometimes, it is not on purpose, and is used for copious amounts of bloody violence.

Healing Blood - Angel’s blood has healing properties, the main benefactor of which is obviously himself. He heals faster than a human, and he can also donate to share the effect with others.

inherent abilities:

Mutation: Those big ole bird wings. His mutation allows him to fly, and comes with other little fringe benefits, like eagle-eyed sight, superhuman stamina for long flights, and (according to some) inhumanly good looks ✌️😔

items / weapons:

none

starting ability: Archangel

starting item: nope

extra:

i am not a marvel stan but i am an x men stan

i am closing my eyes to the vast majority of romance plots he’s had. some of them deserve to be forgotten but most of them are just tedious and way too much information lol

marvel canon is a nightmare and i’m doing whatever i want

i hc that warren is a little dead. just a teeny bit undead. just a wee bit not living.

babey i can be your angle or yuor fucked up and evil angle

bigly inspired by early x force and x men first class. mwah

discord id: angel.#6742

passcode; healing blood. just like cata. that’s crazy! put him in cata

#xc application #mun: swerve #exo cosmia

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illeaadante · 2 years

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I'll probably just put it on AO3 but I'll absolutely throw you the link once it's up and link the inspo post.

Meanwhile here's a cut moment from it that won't get used bc I decided to go a different route for Phantom's hero status but feels too fun to just lose to the void.

He’d balked when she told him her favourite hero the second time they’d hung out just the two of them. The sun was bright in the sky and already threatening the integrity of the top scoop of his ice cream.

“You don’t just stop looking up to your hometown hero just because you move to a bigger city, Dick,” she’d pointed out with a laugh while he recovered.

“Okay, point. But you’ve been in Gotham a few weeks right? Got any opinions on the Bats’N’Birds?”

She hummed, taking a lick of strawberry while appearing to consider it. “Hard to say without running into any of them,” Jazz started, keeping down a grin of her own when she caught a smirk curling his mouth, “but Red Hood is pretty impressive.”

The smirk dropped into something that could almost be called betrayal and it was all she could do to not snap her fingers with an Aha! as her suspicions took root. “He’s your favourite? Not Nightwing? Or- Orphan? Even Robin?”

She patted his arm, but her smile was mischievous enough to put a ghost to shame. “I didn’t say favourite, it’s just impressive anybody would take on the Narrows for their haunt.” The word crossed her lips before she even realized it. She pressed on before he could ask about it. “Besides, isn’t Nightwing in Bludhaven not Gotham?”

He shrugged, having recovered from his brief pout. “He comes over often enough to lend a hand. He got his start in Gotham you know, before spreading his own wings.”

“It’s good he’s come into his own.”

That got rid of the rest of his hurt pride to give a smile warmer than the sunlight.

god that's so fuckin' cute

Jazz: hm, I wonder if my boyfriend is a vigilante? Maybe Red Hood?

Dick: *pouts*

Jazz: ah, different vigilante, probably nightwing, gotcha

#I love it #I'm so glad that my DPxDC au is what got traction #let's talk about Jazz fenton's deeply weird childhood and penchant for finding out secret identities #move over 'tim test' Jazz Fenton's about to psychoanalyze her way into uncovering the entire justice league #asked and answered #danny phanton #batman #danny phantom batman crossover

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marauderundercover · 3 years

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Day 6: Party

WARNING: GRAPHIC VIOLENCE

Continuation of days two and three

Marinette grins at her reflection in the mirror. The costume was perfect- close enough to the original that you could tell who she was, but also with her own touch so that she didn’t hate looking at the costume. She’d even curled her hair slightly. The knock at the front door makes her squeal in excitement, knowing exactly who it is.

“Cass!” She cheers, opening the door and grinning widely at her best friend. Sure, Cass didn’t talk a lot (she was like Luka in that way), but she always seemed to know when Marinette needed help out of her own head. And she was eternally grateful for that. She was even more grateful that Cass had agreed to do a duo costume with her since Jason apparently didn’t want to dress up. He was ‘too old’ or something. Well, Marinette wanted to have fun and wear a damn costume.

“The suit is amazing! I’m not sure the cowl I made will be good enough for it.” Marinette says worriedly, examining the stitches on Cass’ costume. “Where’d you say you got this?” She asks, frowning. It was definitely higher quality than the Halloween store downtown. Cass just smiles, the one that basically says ‘not telling’. Mari just grins, used to it by now. She passes the cowl to Cass and grabs her own domino mask, sliding it on. Posing next to Cass in the full length mirror, Marinette takes a picture and sends it to the group chat that Jason had recently added her to. Dropping her phone into her purse and grabbing her keys, she turns to Cass.

“Ready?” She asks.

“Ready.” Cass says. Marinette grins. Look out, Gotham, Batman and Robin are out on the town.

---

Dick squeals as the picture comes through on the groupchat. He was beyond relieved that Jagged had scheduled his Halloween party two weeks before the actual holiday. It meant that he, and the rest of his brothers, could actually go instead of being on the extra patrols they always had to schedule around the holiday. Grinning, he opens twitter.

@flyingrayson

Look at my little sisters! Aren’t they the cutest?! #halloween #Waynefam #jaggedstone

[image description: One girl stands with a hand on her hip, dressed in what is obviously a spin on a Robin costume, including: a domino mask, black tights, dark red tunic with a Robin logo, gold belt, knee high emerald boots, and a dual sided cape black on the outside and gold on the inside. Another girl stands next to her with her arms crossed over her chest, dressed in what is obviously a Batman costume, including: black catsuit, yellow utility belt, black cape, and a redesigned black cowl.]

---

Marinette pecks Jason’s cheek and grins.

“What, not a Robin fan?” She asks teasingly at his frown. He huffs.

“Not really. More of a...Red Hood guy.” He says, and she snorts.

“Of course you’d like the one with guns.” She says, shaking her head with a smile. “His costume is actually probably one of my favorites. Well, besides the whole helmet thing.” Jason grins, pulling her in and giving her a sweet kiss before he glances behind her and groans.

“My brothers just walked in.” He says and she smiles.

“Go say hi, I’ve gotta go ask Uncle Jagged a question really quick. I’ll be right back and Cass and I can show your brothers our awesome costumes in person.” She says, pecking his cheek before walking away. She looks around for Jagged, but frowns when she doesn’t see him in the main room. Pulling out her phone, she sends him a quick text asking where he is.

In the garden with Fang!!!!!!!

She shakes her head fondly. Of course he skipped out on his own party to spend time with his crocodile. Smiling, she heads out to the garden to try and get to him. She’d wanted to see if the man planned on being in the US around Thanksgiving. Bruce had already invited her (probably to get Jason to show up) and said she could invite any of her family as well. Since her parents and superhero partner were both dead and her grandparents didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, she decided she’d really love Jagged and Penny to come instead. As she walks outside, she’s shocked that Fang doesn’t immediately run up to her.

“Uncle Jagged?” She calls, frowning. Where was he? And why was it so dark out here? Fang was scared of the dark. Jagged never would have brought him outside without more lights on, he was too protective of him. She tenses when she notices a slumped figure next to the bench Jagged had put in the gardens for when she visits. It was one of her favorite places to sit and design.

“Hello?” She calls, watching the figure for any movement. Seeing none, she steps closer and her stomach drops. Immediately she runs over and checks her Uncle for a pulse. She sighs in relief when she feels it, but the gash on his head is worrisome. How-

“Hello, Birdie!” An amused voice rings behind her, making her blood run cold. She whirls around and manages to catch a glimpse of the man’s pale face before a thick piece of metal flies at her head and the world goes black.

---

“Jaybird! Where’s Mari and Cass? They’re blowing up on twitter, even MDC liked my tweet!” Dick says happily, making Jason scowl.

“Did you seriously post my girlfriend all over your twitter?” He asks grumpily. Dick nods.

“Oh yeah. Her and Cass looked too cute to keep it to ourselves. Where are they anyway?” Dick asks, scanning the room.

“M said she needed to go talk to her Uncle about something. Personally, I think she was just avoiding you guys. You all crowd her every time you see her.” Jason reprimands, crossing his arms. Replacement rolls his eyes.

“It’s ‘cause she’s so much cooler than you. And she’s not an asshole like you are.” He says.

“Something’s wrong.” Cass says, suddenly appearing at Jason’s side. He jumps slightly, but then frowns at her.

“What?” He asks, surprised to see the deep scowl form on her face.

“Don’t know.” She huffs.

“Well if Cassandra believes that something is wrong, we should investigate.” Damian says, looking relieved that he wouldn’t be asked to socialize with anyone. A startled scream from outside makes the five vigilantes tense before running towards the noise. Jason curses when he realizes it’s Penny Rolling, Jagged Stone’s….something. She’s kneeling by a slumped figure, shaking it until a groan escapes it. Jason feels his blood run cold when the figure’s hair catches the light. It’s Jagged. Then where-

“Where’s she? Where’s she at?” Jagged slurs out, blinking wildly.

“Who?” Penny asks, gently holding the man’s face. Jason frowns at the gash.

“M. He wanted ‘er.” He says, and though the man is looking around crazily and slurring his words, Jason can tell he’s completely serious. And M-

“Do you mean Marinette?” Jason asks, stepping forward. Jagged frowns, but nods.

“Crazy clown.” He adds before turning and throwing up in the grass. Jason growls and turns on his heel, ready to go hunt the damned clown down. Out of everyone in this damned city that he could’ve targeted, why did he choose her?

“Jason, wait.” Dick says, grabbing his wrist. “We need to have a plan. Come on. You can’t just go out like this.” He reminds him lowly, Jason’s eyes narrow but he follows anyway. Might as well use the good tools. That fucking clown won’t make it to morning.

---

Ice cold water falls over her and Marinette sits up, gasping in shock at the sudden temperature change.

“Little cold, Birdie?” A voice asks before walking around and standing in front of her- a huge smile on his face and a thick piece of metal in his hands.

“Nothing I can’t handle.” Marinette says, trying not to let her voice shake. This was the villain. The one she never wanted to meet. The one that gave her boyfriend nightmares that he couldn’t explain to her. And now she was alone with him.

“If you’re sure, we could have some...fun before Batsy arrives.” He laughs.

“Why would Batman show up?” She asks. “You do realize this is just a Halloween costume, right?” She flinches as the piece of metal- a crowbar, she thinks shakily- stops inches in front of her face.

“How stupid do you think I am? Of course it’s a costume. A costume posted by one Dick Grayson. You’re a Wayne, somehow. And Batsy always shows up when a Wayne is involved.” Joker says, his twisted grin making her sick to her stomach.

“I’m not a Wayne! Batman isn’t going to come for me.” She argues, cursing her decision to not wear her earrings today. Some days were harder than others, especially leaving in a mask. Even if the mask was a costume. Every time she tried to put on her earrings today, she shook and started to panic. Granted, it was probably for the best. Because she would definitely be tempted to transform and she did not want to give Joker that kind of knowledge.

“Wayne or not, one of the bats will come. You have friends in very high places, Birdie.” Joker tuts, twirling the crowbar in his hand. She flinches as it nears her face, making Joker laugh. “If I wanted to hit you, I would.” He says. She doesn’t even have time to figure out what he means because her shoulder explodes in pain. The pain is blinding and she wants to scream but no sound will come out of her mouth as she gasps for breath.

“That’s no good. A silent bird is a dead bird. So sing, Birdie.” Joker demands, and he aims slightly lower this time, shattering her left arm. And she screams. The pain tearing at her throat nothing compared to the pain in her arm, her shoulder. She sobs, the shaking making the pain worse, but she was unable to stop. It hurt.

“S-stop!” She manages to yell, nearly biting her tongue when Joker grabs her chin and forces her to look up at him.

“Hmm. You’re right! The internet should definitely see this.” He laughs, pulling a phone out. She shakes her head, flinching as he whacks the crowbar against the floor near her chair. He points the phone at her, and she knows he’s recording. The bastard.

“Hello Gotham! Look at this little Birdie. I’m afraid she flew too far, and now we have to clip her wings.” He says, sighing as if he’s actually apologetic. He sets his phone up on the table and stalks over to her before turning and waving at the camera. She watches him move the crowbar around warily, her breathing shaky. God, she hoped Jason wasn’t watching this. Hoped he was somewhere safe, not trying to go do something stupid. She winces as Joker acts like he’s about to hit her, only to stop before the crowbar actually connects with her good arm.

“I told you, I’d only hit you if I wanted to.” He chuckles.

“Go to hell.” She spits out, ignoring the voice in her head (that sounded suspiciously like Tikki) telling her to shut up. To not antagonize the crazy man with the crowbar.

“Gladly.” He says with a grin, rearing back and swinging the crowbar out to hit her in the ribs. Her scream echoes around the room and she has no time to catch her breath before he’s attacking her ribs again. Tears stream down her face, but she can’t scream, she can’t even catch her breath. I’m going to die, she thinks, and the thought is terrifying. She didn’t want to die, she wanted to live.

---

“Do we have a fucking location or am I about to go shoot up every goddamned warehouse in this city?” Jason growls as he zips through the streets on his bike. He knew Babs and Alfred were back at the cave, watching the livestream and working to locate Marinette. And even though he couldn’t see the video, the audio playing through the comms was enough to make his stomach churn.

He didn’t give one singular fuck what Bruce said. He was going to kill that goddamned clown the minute he saw him.

---

Marinette glares at the Joker, barely able to keep her head up. For some unknown reason, he’d decided to use his fists on her face instead of the crowbar. Not that she was complaining. She wouldn’t have survived multiple hits to the head. Not with the force he had. She watches him, and she knows he’s saying something, but she can’t tell what it is. She’s too tired, too hurt, to care what he’s saying anyway. Unless it’s some magical cure to stop her from feeling like she’s broken into a million pieces, she doesn’t want to hear it.

Eyes wandering behind him, she’s relieved when she notices the costumed figure. The cowl, the cape- Batman did come. How strange. Though, she had assumed that Joker was live streaming. So that could definitely explain that one. Deciding she was out of immediate danger, she lets her eyes droop shut, reveling in the darkness that surrounds her. She let’s it stay, and she can feel things slipping away, some of the pain lessening. It’s nice, until someone is poking her and talking much too close to her. She lets out a whine as the person forces her eyes open.

“‘m tired.” She mumbles, wincing at the pain that comes with breathing, with talking.

“I know, kid, god I know. Just keep your eyes open.” A voice says. She blinks, the blue marks on the suit in front of her helping her to identify the vigilante.

“Couldn’t fight.” She spits out, tears springing to her eyes as her attempt at conversation makes her chest ache.

“But you’re fighting now, you’re staying awake. You’re doing such a good job, I’m proud of you. Stay awake kiddo.” Nightwing says quietly. She vaguely feels the ropes slide off her wrists and ankles. Fighting to stay sitting up, because slumping will hurt more than she’s willing to allow, she sighs.

“Jason’s gonna worry.” She mumbles, and Nightwing hums.

“Ambulance is almost here, kid, just stay awake.” He says instead of asking about Jason. She hopes Jason is okay. Hopes he isn’t mad at himself for letting her go talk to Jagged alone. Suddenly, sirens are close and she lets the world finally slip away.

---

The pain is the first thing that clues her in. She isn’t dead. Which is a relief. But the way her entire body aches, is not a relief. Forcing her eyes open, she sighs at Jason’s slumped form in a chair next to her bed. She wished she knew how long she’d been in the hospital so she could scold him. Because he was still wearing the outfit he had on at the party. Which meant he hadn’t given himself a break. Just as she’s trying to decide how to ask the nurses for pain medicine, Jason’s eyes open.

“Marinette!” He gasps, starting to lunge forward, then stopping himself. “I thought, god, M, I thought-”

“‘m okay.” She says softly, and he frowns.

“Okay? You were nearly beaten to death with a goddamned crowbar. You’re not okay.” He argues. She sighs.

“I’m alive, and I’m with you. I’m okay.” She insists, wincing. He looks like he still wants to argue, but stops himself. He scoots closer and holds her hand, kissing the back of it softly.

“I’ll never leave you.” He promises. She smiles softly, before falling back asleep, finally safe.

Tag list: @maribat-october-rarepairs @stainedglassm @kittenmywaythrulife @laydeekrayzee @doll246 @queenz-z @deathssilentapproach-blog @literaryhiraeth @unoriginalmess

#angst #maribat #maribat oneshot #jasonette #maribat marinette dupain cheng #maribat jason todd #maribat joker #maribathalloween21 #maribat dick grayson #maribat tim drake #maribat batman #maribat damian wayne

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iphoenixrising · 3 years

Text

DickTim Week Day 4: Dark!Dick and Vampire!Tim

So. So. *Steeples fingers* this may or may not be the fic for you. Yet another combination prompt because the people on the Capes and Coffee Discord are fucking enablers. You know who you are.

Warnings for: captivity, blood-letting, missing-in-time Bruce

The hidden bunker is outside the city limits of Gotham, a perfect place to stay off the grid.

Officer Grayson makes the drive with the radio on WKKG, All Gotham, All the Time. He moves his head to the beat of the pop song blaring over the line.

The outside of the abandoned gas station looks positively deserted and if they were any more rural, tumble weeds would be rolling around the decrepit gas pumps.

Officer Grayson parks around the back of the building out of sight and grabs the paper bags from the passenger side, holds his cup of coffee in the same hand, whistles to himself as he gets out of the police cruiser.

A complex locking system on a seemingly outdated walk-in freezer opens up to an elevator that is decidedly the newest fixture in the place.

He hums the chorus of the pop song from the radio on the way down, small smile on his face reflecting back at him from the mirrored doors.

The underground is a completely different world.

Apparently constructed to be a bunker, the basement is lead-lined and spacious with all processes set-up to stay off the grid, perfect for his needs. He has a separate power supply, a separate HVAC system, a security system with nearly imperceptible cameras to make sure no one, no one gets close enough to the property without alerting him immediately.

And he certainly doesn’t want anyone finding his personal mission here.

Officer Grayson puts one of the grocery bags down on a table littered with notebooks and read-outs he’d left the last time after he’d gotten samples. He sips on his coffee as he walks around the first room, lit only by the emergency lights at the top of the low-slung ceiling, and turns on the power, turns on the lights in the rest of the bunker.

The beeps behind him are the locks resetting on the elevator, the only way out.

Dick is still humming when he passes into the next room, blocked on either end with thick, metal doors complete with a complex locking mechanism and impressive alarm system. The many tables in this room are filled with laboratory equipment, a biotechnician’s playground.

Half-completed analyses are still running on the impressive screens mounted overhead, status bar at 68%.

Five-gallon buckets under the tables with black Sharpie denote chemical names with dates scribbled hastily below.

Dick sips his coffee as he looks up at the running totals, makes mental notes, compares previous tests and results.

It’s discouraging, but Dick just sighs to himself. Of all vigilantes in Gotham, he’s the optimist, and he knows that each failure will just bring him closer and closer to success. He just can’t give up.

Bruce is counting on them.

With his coffee and bag in one hand, he lets the analysis churn, and enters his code in the next door, then places a palm print on the pad outside. Leans down so his eye scan can be completed.

Unlike the other rooms, the lights come on the second the door fully unlocks and opens to allow Dick entrance.

The reason for that is to turn on the intense sun lamps to further weaken the figure strapped down to the gurney in the center of the room, strategically lessening the possibility of an attack.

Dick puts the bag and his coffee down on the only table in the room.

“Sorry I didn’t come yesterday. Rupert Thorne had a big shipment planned and we were up late tracking it,” his voice is light and cheery, his smile wide and white. He comes to the side of the gurney, takes note of the slight burning smell that always seems to permeate the room no matter how much he tries to avoid it by making sure there’s always something between skin and pure silver. Struggling dislodges whatever he uses, so the result is the smell of burning flesh.

He clicks his tongue in disappointment, looking down at Timmy’s closed eyes and painfully pale face.

His frown deepens when Tim Drake rolls his head over to face the wall instead.

Silver chains wrap his arms, legs, neck, and torso, rendering him utterly immobile. Holy relics hang over the gurney as an added safety measure. He’s completely naked under a flimsy sheet.

“Aren’t you going to say hello?” He asks softly. “I’m letting Alfred pick up Dami so I can spend some extra time with you today.”

IVs are grotesquely hooked into each major artery, set on slow drain. The multiple blood bags hooked under the gurney show the slow trickle as the bags fill to a crawl.

Tim’s violet-blue eyes crack open a sliver, but he doesn’t look away from the wall, away from freedom.

“That isn’t very nice,” Dick’s tone stays soft, yet firm. “You know what I’m trying to do here.”

The sound of Tim trying to swallow is heard over the soft mechanical beeping, the hum of working equipment. “You know how important you are to this, Timmy. I don’t like how you keep refusing to be a team player.” Dick pauses just a moment, eyes narrow, “is this still about Damian being Robin now? Because you know how many times we’ve been over this.”

Tim closes his eyes again, a muscle in his jaw jumps.

“Well, I think you’ve been sulking about it long enough,” Dick brusquely throws the sheet out of the way to show IVs, burns, and the network of complicated blood vessels below deathly pale skin. “You knew even before you went to Iraq my choices were the best for everyone, not just you.”

Dick checks all the leads, makes sure the drip is slow. He doesn’t so much as lift up the solid silver chains and nudge them with the cloth he keeps underneath, the point of it is to try and keep Tim’s skin from burning, temporarily cauterizing his veins and killing the supply. The last time the chains were displaced this much, Dick had made the mistake of lifting one, giving Tim enough power to bare his fangs and lunge. Since then, the chains have stayed put, only shuffled around a little.

“And if you would have just listened to me and stayed in Gotham, you wouldn’t have been caught by vampires in the first place. You know that, don’t you? If you would have worked with us at home, Ra’s would have never taken that much of an interest and led them right to you. Heck, you might still be alive and have your spleen.”

Shaking his head in frustration at all the events from last year when Bruce’s body was brought back, when the Battle for the Cowl had forced him to raise his hand against Jason again and break his heart over Little Wing again, when he knew Tim didn’t need any more mentorship, didn’t need the support and encouragement Damian did after losing their father, and the ultimate decision to let Tim decide his own future after Robin, when seeing Tim six months after his disappearance as a vampire in a cape, all of it had made the choice on how to handle this situation.

How to fix everything that had gone so horribly wrong.

Do what he had to do, try disseminating the secrets of immortality so they could bring Bruce back.

And like this, Tim is going to help him do it.

“But it’s okay,” he’s back to smiling again, “we’ve worked past all that, haven’t we, Timmy?” Dick is satisfied all the leads are fine and the slow flow unimpeded. He steps back to the bag on the table.

In one hand is a pint of O Positive. In the other, a Krispy Kreme with sprinkles.

Both their favorites.

“C’mon,” he cajoles after taking a bite of his donut, “it’s one of Steph’s extra pints. I know you’re going to like it.”

He holds the oozing bag to Tim’s averted mouth and patiently waits, nibbles on his donut in the other hand.

“Why don’t,” and the tone is hoarse, faint because Timmy mostly doesn’t really talk to him anymore, “you just kill me?”

Dick pauses mid-chew, blinking down at the eyes filling with bloody tears, the hitch in the chest that doesn’t really move anymore.

Dick swallows the bite, suddenly more like ash than icing in his mouth. “You know I can’t do that,” is more harsh than he means. “We don’t kill. Not even vampires.”

“Then let me go.”

“Can’t let you go out and kill people either, Tim, and I need the supply for testing.”

“This is torture. This is fucking torture and you don’t even give a shit about me anymore–”

With a flick of his fingers, a crucifix falls right on Tim’s chest, and the screams are awful, horrible, but that is probably never going to outweigh the smell.

By the time Dick finishes his donut, Tim is weakly writhing in agony and the screams have died down to soft whimpers, mouth open to show those killer fangs.

He dusts his hands off and pulls on a glove from the Nightwing suit under his uniform, gingerly lifts the holy item off, grimaces when tissue and flesh stick to it.

“Kill me,” Timmy whimpers. “Just fucking kill me.”

Dick scoffs and takes the chance to lean down, presses his mouth to Tim’s forehead. “You know I can’t lose anyone else,” is the softest of reprimands. “Don’t worry. Once I just figure this out, we’ll get Bruce back and he’ll help us reverse the turning. Before you know it, this will seem like just a bad dream.”

Dick presses another kiss to each eyelid, talking softly against the deceptively soft yet immortal skin. “And when you’re back to yourself, we can be together again. I’ll take care of you just like I used to, promise.”

Dick leans back up with a small smile on his face and familiar fondness in his eyes. He holds the bag up to Tim’s mouth again, ignores the red tears streaming down the pale face. “We’ll get there, okay? I’m close to the answers we need. I just need a little more time. But, I have to have samples to work with, which means you to drink, Timmy.”

Like usual, the pink tracks down his face stand out starkly in the false sunlight when Tim finally gives in and punctures the bag with his fangs.

#how is this my life #dicktim #dicktimweek2021 #dick grayson #tim drake #vampire!tim #dark!dick grayson #tw: captivity #this might not be for you #and that's okay #winter goes a little off the rails #because writing #my fic #my writing

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batarella · 3 years

Text

3 birds 1 stone - chapter 9

‘Dick, Jason, and Tim. Supposed brothers 'till the end, until all three fall in love with you. Who wins your heart?

The man who earned it, the man who stole it, or the man who always had it?’

A/N: The first part of this chapter includes the whole scene of how the reader lost her leg, and it does get pretty violent and explicit. I also have to warn that the cause of the accident can get pretty heavy and heartbreaking. This series, as it isn’t already obvious enough, is just about as frustrating and angsty as other love triangle stories there are.

WORDS: 11,923 WARNINGS: violence, building caught on fire, 3rd degree burns, bone fractures, survivor’s guilt, heartbreak, death

MASTERLIST | 3 BIRDS 1 STONE MASTERLIST

-----

‘Falcon Saves the Commissioner’ ‘Gotham Times’

‘The long beloved heroine has stolen the hearts of many as the vast criminal ring in the undergrounds of Gotham City has once again been interfered. Commissioner James Gordon, who had been reported missing the past two days, was kidnapped from his own home by the masterminds of Harvey Dent and Oswald Cobblepot, also known as Two Face and Penguin respectively. The City of Gotham has been in the state of panic since reports first arrived and a search party taking place in different parts of the city.

However, hope has since been restored and the safety of Gotham no longer as compromised as the vigilante Falcon, with the help of her known crimefighting partner Red Robin, had swooped in and saved the Commissioner, who was held captive at the top of Gotham Plaza. Reports of the heroine literally flying to the rescue, with her trademark wings helping her glide all the way from the building opposite the scene of the crime, have astounded the citizens with her will and bravery.

The Commissioner has thanked the crimefighting duo for their rescue and has been released from Elliot Memorial Hospital Monday night. No severe injuries have been reported and he has since returned to work as the head of the Gotham City Police Department. Gotham has joyously thanked the heroes, especially the young Falcon, for their service to the citizens. They continue to patrol the crime-ridden city and have grown increasingly popular, with the people calling them the fearless heroes we don’t deserve.’

----

“You made the headline!”

Red Robin probably shouldn’t be on his phone reading some news article when two other things were happening right then. One, the runaway that was speeding so recklessly was down the wrong lane and would have definitely hit a few headlights if it hadn’t swerved and narrowly missed a few pedestrians, and that if you weren’t to catch them, it might mean another night of painfully waiting for another robbery to happen just to catch these fools. Two, none of your hands should have been free enough to hold a damn phone at all, not when you and Red Robin were heavily relying on a single grappling gun each to hold your weight, flying past the empty skyscrapers as if it were any leisure.

“Tim, put your phone down!”

“I’m serious!” You both reached a rooftop and already you were on the way to the next one. The car frantically swerved again, this time almost running into some pizza truck. “People love you.”

“Maybe because I’m the only bird in the family who actually has wings,” you snorted.

And at that, you lived up to your name.

You, the Falcon, grappled up a nearby tower and ignored Red Robin’s cry. You were fast, and in such little time you’d reached the top, the cold mist breezing your lips like newly melted ice rode up to your skin. And when you did, you let out your wings.

Then you soared.

Maybe if you weren’t in some high-speed car chase, you’d have closed your eyes and enjoyed the slow, stagnant hover, when you weren’t descending just yet. You’d either fly even higher up in the sky, your ears thanking you violently in the process, when you’d shift your wings and stay in this calm, where you weren’t moving up nor downward. It was then when you felt that peace, as if miles away from the nearest conundrum.

You tilted to the side when you felt that slow descent, and below, you saw Red Robin frantically trying to catch up with you.

You laughed, then dove down, right to where you saw the worn-out red car was heading for, at an intersection where dozens of other cars would have been hit.

You pressed into your communicator. “Tim. I think he’s heading for the docks.”

“I think this is a hoax.”

“You think their boss is trying to give us the goat they’d sacrifice?”

“Might be part of their plan to distract us.”

You shifted your wings, then you landed onto a rooftop rolling to keep your balance, then you were running, Red Robin at your side.

“We’ve got the lead. Wait for them by the boardwalk.”

“Copy.”

Red Robin went over to the fishing port, all the way over to the other end, and you jumped over the ledges, swung by a lamppost, and let your boots completely obliterate this shed’s skylight to break your fall. Knee on the ground, and the room you were in eerily silent, you peeked over the door to see what was outside.

They’d be here in a few seconds.

There. A post holding up the phone wires. You grappled up to the top, crouched over, and waited for the car to drive over to the corner.

And these idiots slowed down, thinking they’ve lost you.

At the sharp turn, you leapt off to the post as if gravity was nothing you’d fear. And with your boots, your wonderful, padded boots that made you jump over larger heights and not hurt even your toes when you landed so harshly, dented the car’s roof and you had to hold tightly onto the metal just so you wouldn’t be thrown off by the sudden swerve.

Then it was Red Robin’s turn. From over to the fishing port, his grappling gun fired right into the roof of the car, and it shattered the windshield right where the driver was at. Left. Right. Then Left again. The driver was going nuts, and you only had so much time. You took out the one at the passenger seat and Red Robin the driver. From out the side windows, you shattered the glass, pulled them out from their collars, and got out of the car just before it crashed into the boardwalk.

And it wouldn’t have been pretty, with it drifting off the slippery wood and not stopping until the vehicle finally fell over the edge onto its untimely death deep in the ocean floor.

By then, you had the two robbers flat against the drenched cement, faces to the dirt and their teeth forcibly gritting from how hard you were both holding them down.

“Fuck!” The one beneath Tim growled. “Alright, alright, you got us!”

“We surrender!”

“Then it shouldn’t have to hurt so much when you tell us who you’re distracting us for.”

“What?!”

You slammed the noisy one’s forehead against the road.

“You know what he means,” you whispered.

“We don’t know about no distraction!”

Red Robin got out his bo staff and pressed it against his skull, just enough to hurt his temple.

“I told you. It shouldn’t have to hurt so much. Doesn’t mean I won't do it.”

Your knee holding down his back, you pressed it harder down his spine until you heard a yelp.

“Talk!”

“I told you! We don’t know nothin’!”

“What don’t believe that.”

The one beneath Tim was shivering down his toes. “Some guy on the phone told us about the bank and promised us a car and some guns if we give him a cut! That’s all I fuckin’ know I swear- ah!”

Tim held his face further down against the ground.

“Does this guy on the phone have a name?”

“I don’t know! Swear! Seemed sketchy and all but who are we to pass up on a free car?!”

You looked at Tim. A distraction still seemed likely, otherwise whoever hired them would have just robbed the bank himself with his own goons instead of hiring some amateurs who thought that 1994 Honda they probably stole from a junkyard was something they couldn’t pass up on. That or their boss was even more stupid than they were.

You grabbed your guy by the neck, hauled him up, then growled to his ear.

“You must be stupid to think we’d believe that-“

“Piss off if you don’t!” He dared scream at you, then you rewarded him with a smack of your knee down the small of his back.

“Who hired you?”

“We don’t fucking know-“

“Falcon.”

Red Robin’s finger was up to his ear, and he was staring intently at the ground. Batman.

“We got our answer.”

“Oh,” you sighed. “No need for these guys then.”

“What the fuck do you mean -“

With one swift move, you grabbed them both by the hair and slammed their faces together, teeth clattering to the ground, and they lied unconscious. Tim went on to listen to Batman bark orders at him while you tied them up by the lamppost and called the police.

Tim nodded at you, pointing to his ear. You tuned in your communicator to listen to their line with Bruce.

“…About ten robberies staged. High and low profile. It gave Lynns and his men time to set fire to three fire departments all over Gotham…”

“Lynns?” you said. “Garfield Lynns?”

“Firefly.”

“I’ll send you all the coordinates. Signal, Black Bat, and Spoiler. You three handle the one in Bristol. Robin, Batgirl, and I will take Otisburg.

“Nightwing, Red Hood, Red Robin, and Falcon. You four handle the fire in Cauldron. The fire goes on for two blocks.”

“I’ll send you all the coordinates,” Batman told his team. “I expect a call afterward.”

His way of telling you all not to die, to promise him that you wouldn’t die, that you’d be alive by the end of it so he’d yell at you for an hour over the smallest things you missed.

You heard everyone voice out their nods at Batman, then you and Tim grappled up to the tallest portside shed nearest you, then you were heading for the coordinates.

“Looks like we’re alpha team for once!”

You felt your heart joyously leap when you heard that familiar voice. Cheery and bright. Already, you felt that rush to work even harder than you were expected to.

You pressed onto your communicator when you jumped across a narrow gap between two buildings.

“We’re not exactly team alpha, Nightwing.”

“Well. There are four of us. And we’re handling the biggest fire.”

“Batman’s always alpha,” you laughed. “Maybe he’s handling the most important fire.”

“You can't possibly think there’re arson cases more important than the others?”

“It depends on what’s on fire,” Tim interrupted, and you shot up a tower and let the air take you to what you could now see was a large black cloud in the distance, spanning across almost the whole avenue and growing as tall as a plaza-wide mushroom.

“I see it.”

“I see it, too.”

Another voice. Deeper. Muffled.

“You there, Red Hood?”

“Well, hey there, pretty bird.”

Even in the air, gliding between the concrete jungles of the city, you managed to roll your eyes beneath your mask. You could tell Tim let out a groan, which you heard from your communicator.

“It’s Falcon, you ass.”

“Nah,” Jason laughed. “I like pretty bird.”

“Falcons aren’t very pretty.”

“Yeah,” you heard Dick’s voice again. “But you are.”

The lack of response from both Jason and Tim’s line told you Dick had blocked them off just so he could say that.

Your feet landed onto the concrete of the building just a few more minutes away, and you had your lip too harshly bitten. Maybe it was from the impact on your soles. Maybe because that rush up your skin at Dick’s remark made you want to leap even further off the edge of that building.

You fled to the site. Jumping. Running. Gliding. And at the sounds of screams, sirens, alarms, you went faster.

Tim had caught up to you. Poor thing was panting, and he rushed up to your side.

Then Nightwing came into view, also running across the gaps of rooftops just a few yards away. Black and blue suit, still as light as day even under the moon’s not so generous shine. You smiled at him.

All the way over to the other side, on the roads underneath, you heard the harsh thunder of a motorcycle battling the cries of the uncontrolled flames. Red Hood wheeled up so he could drive past a blockage on the road, which you hadn’t known was from Flynns or the police themselves, but people were surrounding it, and at Jason’s warning, they made way for him to drive past the blockage, actually leaping with the vehicle in the air until his wheels slammed onto the cement.

You could do this. Two. Maybe even three blocks worth of fire.

If it weren’t from suspicion from a hallucinogen or some mirage from how large the fire had become, you could have sworn you saw three duplicates of Firefly, aiming their flamethrowers at the many windows of wood, stone, and steel.

“Firefly has goons now?”

“Seems so,” Nightwing said. “You guys got a plan?”

You and Tim stuck your grappling hooks onto the last rooftop’s ledge and jumped off the building. When you were on the ground, on the street right in front of the fire department that had your skin, eyes, and hair feel like it was burning down to your bones, Nightwing landed gracefully on your side, and Red Hood carelessly drifted on the road, jumping off his seat to join the rest of you and assess this rather difficult situation.

“There are people still in there,” Red Hood said. “I can see them.”

“We have to go save them first.”

“Firefly’s men-“

One of them, who had a fucking jetpack identical to the crazed pyromaniac’s, hovered over the four of you standing on the side of the road, and it was going for the next building.

“About fifteen civilians inside.” Red Hood finished his scan.

“I’ll save them,” you said. “The rest of you take care of those flies.”

“Absolutely not.” Nightwing’s voice was stern. Not something you wanted to argue with. “You need someone to go with you. None of us should be left alone.”

“I’ll go with her.” Red Robin, always your partner, stepped to your side. “We’ll take care of the people. You and Jason fight off those fireflies.”

Jason clicked his guns. “Promise I’ll play nice.”

Dick eyed Tim. A solid, knowing glance, then he turned to you.

“Be careful.”

“You, too.”

“Everyone.” Tim picked up his Bo staff. “Move!”

Your wings wouldn’t be of any use. Not when you’d have to work in a building aflame. Your wings weren’t very fireproof. So with your skintight, cape-less suit looking similar to Dick’s, you and Tim both flung yourselves up from windows and lampposts until you reached an entryway that didn’t burn you at first contact.

You scanned the place. There. A few rooms away. Two bodies huddled together. You went straight for the door until Tim grabbed you by the back of your suit and pulled you away.

Just in time, before a wooden beam from the ceiling came crashing down the burnt foundation, tearing a hole on the floor where you were standing just then. You stiffed. “Thank you.”

“I said be careful.”

Tim then expertly jumped over the beam, on top of the fallen debris that had fallen to the floor that wouldn’t crumble under his weight or would burn his palms when he pushed himself up, spinning in the air to get across the room. You followed right behind him. If you ignored the smoke you desperately tried to keep off your lungs or your skin about to be burnt off, it wasn’t so different from your vault back at home. You were faster, swifter. Your feet were off the ground for a few good seconds and the rush that went with your movements both cooled down your skin and made the fire around you worse. You caught up to him and soon you reached the end of the room seconds faster than he did.

Red Robin nodded, already trying to pry the door off its damaged hinges when he landed. You helped him.

“Dick-“ he grunted. “-taught you well.”

“Thanks.”

The door broke off, and you surveyed the room. The two bodies. Still breathing. But barely. You and Tim went up to them and he covered their heads with his cape.

“Come now,” you said, and you realized one of them must have been ten years old. He was shivering. The other, not much older.

You and Tim got them out of there and not a patch of their skin had to be burnt off. Hopefully, it’ll be the same for the rest.

Then you went in again. In that building alone, there were three more people inside.

Tim broke down a door with his foot, then you vaulted yourself up on beams to reach places Tim couldn’t, and you came out with a five-year-old girl in your arms. She’d been hiding under her bed. Not the brightest idea. But apparently, fire drills need to be done even at this age.

“Tim,” you coughed through the growing smoke. The poor girl was unconscious but breathing. You covered her head with Tim’s cloak. “Why are there so many kids?”

“Orphanage.”

You wanted to skin Firefly’s burnt flesh. Alive.

An orphanage just a block away from the fire department. And still, it was torn down in flames. You helped the kids out, then went on to the next building.

This one was burning so much more than the last.

The fireflies were here.

As you and Red Robin reached the window, the only available entryway, the wall to your left exploded from the other side and Red Hood broke down that very wall with his weight, landing on his back with the worst profanities that would even make Satan blush spurt out of his mouth.

“A LITTLE HELP HERE?!”

Tim got his staff, and as the menacing, horribly burnt creature flew into the room, a mock-up of wings strapped to his back and even more flames spurting out of his jetpack almost completely obliterating the floor underneath, you used what was left of the wall to your side, pushed both your feet against it so you were flying sideways, then your foot slammed on his head. With him stunned, Tim tore his staff right against his jetpack, unlatching it.

Then you flung it across the room so Jason could shoot at it, exploding before it even reached the ground.

“Where’s Dick!?” you asked.

“Third floor.”

Almost as if on cue, the ceiling above you collapsed, and with the boards and slabs of wood that fell through, a body landed painfully on its back. You ran to the site, looking up. Dick was there.

“Nightwing!” You screamed. “Be careful before you hit someone!”

“Sorry!” Then Dick disappeared.

“Where are the civilians?” you asked.

“Over there.” Jason pointed at a hallway. A quick scan told you the bodies were all over the place. In different rooms.

The windows behind you suddenly burst into flames and eventually detonated. You shielded yourself. Tim and Jason to the ground. When you turned around, another one of Firefly’s goons had their thrower pointed right at your face.

“Falcon!”

You leapt out of sight just in time, and you used the beams to fling yourself up, at the destroyed wall that had now let the colder air in.

A risk, but you took it valiantly. Just like a vault. Nothing different from a vault. You ran, hands to your side, let the wind take you. And you only wished the floor was stable enough, because wishing was all you could rely on. You ran. Then you flipped and your hands were to the floor, placing all your weight to your palms, spinning. Then it was your feet again.

Just at the last ledge, in your true gymnast fashion, your hands pushed you further up in the air, as high as any human could jump up to, then you spread your wings when you reached the peak and soared, right at the combatant that shot his eyes up at the sight of you flying straight at him.

You grabbed him by the throat, wings entangling with your own, then you were a flying mess in the air. His jetpack was already malfunctioning, and you directed it to land straight back to the floor where you came from.

But as soon as you got him back on the ground, the firefly had grabbed you by the shoulders and pinned you down so overwhelmingly strong, you needed Tim to smack his head and throw him all the way over to the floor.

“We can't handle these guys alone.”

“But-.”

“Even Jason here’s having a hell of a time.”

“Don’t worry,” Jason snorted. “I’m fine. I’ll try to hold these guys off. Go save everyone.”

He then shot the fly’s jetpack with his explosive bullets, and the light detonation threw him towards a wall.

“Jason!”

“He’s still fucking breathing!”

You panted, the surging nerves, the numbness of your fingertips still there. Jason took care of the fly and hauled him out of sight.

“Come on.”

You went to the rooms, broke down the doors and walls almost with just your foot alone. Two. Three. Four people. A college student. A lone middle-aged man. And in a room far too small for anyone to possibly, humanely live in, a single mother cradling her baby she didn’t even know was still alive. So close to having the smoke take over her lungs, you grabbed the baby with one hand, her arm over your shoulder with the other, then she limped with you as Tim held a small child in his arms, carrying them all out to safety.

The fire was getting worse, and from above, you heard Dick’s screams from being thrown around above you.

You won't have much time before this whole building gives out.

Then, just as you thought you’d cleared the last room, you heard a cry from one of another one of the rooms, the one at the farthest end that had no scans of a body just minutes ago. Now, you saw there was.

And the body was too small for you to notice the first time.

You turned up your scanners, really looked around, for anything else you might have missed. Anything small.

Shit. Another. To the other end of the hall. It looked like an adult, curled up in the corner of his room under a table. Why would he hide under a table in a fucking fire!?

“Falcon!” Tim came up to your side. “You see anyone else?!”

“One there. And another on that side. Let’s take that one first,” you nodded at the door with the child behind it.

“No. There’s no time.”

You both dodged a piece of a ceiling that had fallen in just a foot away from where you stood. Dick. Being mauled too close to death just above you.

“I take him,” Tim said. “You get the child.”

“Tim, I’m not going to leave you alone.”

Another piece of wood from the ceiling. Gone. The wall near you had burnt to a crisp, which made it hurt less when Jason was flung to the ground by another firefly just where the wall used to be.

“We don’t have time to come back for both.”

“And if we don’t, we die!” you said. “I can't leave you alone, Tim.”

“Everyone should be saved. I’ll be fast, then I’ll be right there with you. I promise.”

Tim pushed you to the door, and already he was on the way to the end of the hall. “Be careful!” he screamed at you. With your fists clenched, hoping this wouldn’t backfire on him anytime tonight, you rushed for the child.

“You fucking mosquito son of a bitch!” Jason yelled as his guns went into this uncontrollable frenzy. All over the walls, the floor, anywhere. Just so he’d finally put that flying bastard to the ground. It shot its thrower at Red Hood’s face and so narrowly did he dodge the flames.

He rolled on the ground, eyed the attacker like it was a bomb to defuse. Another shot from his flame thrower, just one good shot, and there will be no other way for him to turn to but even more fire, and it’ll possibly collapse the whole room.

So Red Hood shot at his gun, at his arms. Finally, he got it to drop the weapon to the ground.

Jason grabbed the firefly by the throat as soon as he’d shot down his jetpack, and he flung him across the other side of the debris to trap him, the barricades, to the hallway of rooms where you’d gone into. He stays there long enough and he’d definitely catch on fire. And even if it didn’t, he needed it to be kept away. There were more flies for him to take care of. And they were, quite literally, flying towards him like moths.

A thud, coming from the ceiling above.

Up a floor, Dick wasn’t handling it any better.

Nightwing smashed his escrima sticks against a firefly’s temples, then gave it just enough voltage to stun him. He kicked him off his body, smashing his back against the already charred wall that broke upon impact, but it didn’t take him down. Not yet. Just his ability to fly.

The firefly stood up, snarling much like an animal, then clicked his thrower to point it at Dick. He was leaping, swiftly and gracefully around the smoke-infested debris just to not get burnt.

Dick was finally close enough to grab him by the collar, flinging it over his shoulder, smashing his body against the weakening ground.

But the firefly was too strong, and not long after, he had Nightwing choked to the floor. He had him held down. Dick landed a hit to his face, or what he could see of his face through the mask, then the firefly hit him back. Another. Another. Each time, the floor started to break underneath.

Outside, all alone because he insisted, Tim had safely made his way through the flames.

Always. Every night, by your side. You never left it. Not when it meant his life. Tim was outside, cape to his nose, and he left the building so he could take the nearly unconscious man to the safety grounds away from the smoke. But when he’d come back, pieces of wood had fallen in the hallway where you’d go into and had barricaded the way. You were on the other side. He’d left you alone.

Alone, amid the worst fire you’ve ever had to work through, you coughed out even more of the smoke, tears in your eyes, then broke down the last door in three slams against your shoulder. You were weak, flailing, your chest twisting at the heat and the smoke. But you do not fall. Instead, you push yourself further. Harder.

But it wasn’t anything at all you thought you could handle. You didn’t think you’d be alone in the room where the fire had started. The epicenter. The one so fully engulfed, there was almost no place at all for you to walk on.

You grabbed the child’s unconscious body. He might have been dead by then. He felt lifeless. But as you were on your knees, you almost could not stand. Your weight was too much, and the fire too close to your skin. For a moment, when the pain in your throat and chest came to the very worst, your body started to give out.

At that moment, three things happened. Three things that should never, ever have happened at the same time.

One of the fireflies, the one Jason had thrown right at you and had trapped behind the barricaded debris, picked himself up and saw you from out the hallway. You heard him growl despite the scorching flame.

The ceiling, already so charred, broken, burnt, mists of wooden shards falling right down to your hair. The fighting that went on upstairs was causing it. You couldn’t stay there long. You had to get out before the ceiling collapses. Fast.

And, on top of all that, with the fire that grew worse, your chest twisting, a child almost lifeless in your hands, you were alone. No one was there to help you.

You gained enough consciousness to push the last of your strength. You could do this. You knew you could. If you could just hold on a bit longer, with the child in your arms, and go out the same way you came in, it’d be fine.

But just as you pulled yourself up your feet, the firefly was lunging straight for you.

The child was dead. A boy of six. You were sure of that when something so much larger and stronger than you, that very man who no longer looked like a man, who looked more like a burnt corpse dressed as a moth without wings, lunged at you and grabbed you by the neck. You dropped the child’s body, and the way its limbs were so twisted when he hit the floor, it almost hurt as much as when you were slammed against the wall.

Flashes of red, white, yellow, and even black, the color that scared you the most when it came to circumstances like these, it was all you could see past the gritted teeth that exposed themselves so horribly to you when his mask had been taken down. He was wounded, yet he had the strength to do this, to squeeze your throat so rigidly that in the matter of a few minutes, at least to you, it lasted a few minutes, you were as blue as the night sky. A horrible color when it came to skin.

You wanted so badly to scream, but even if you did, it wouldn’t be of any use. You were alone. And with so much holding you back from just being able to breathe, you couldn’t hear a thing. Not your limbs squirming about, not the man holding your throat crying to let out the smoke from his own lungs, not the fire nor the collapse of the walls. No one had found you yet, and your bones and muscles alike had barely enough will in them to do so much more than just flailing so meagerly. Your lungs, your neck, your throat. It wasn’t enough that you were choking on smoke and debris, his clutch on your flesh gripped on as if none of the flames had any sort of effect at all.

Then.

Then there was the ceiling.

Whoever was up there, he was getting beat up. Hard. And it was making it break even worse. You felt the wood’s dust fall to your eyes. You had to move out of the way, but you couldn’t. No one to help you. No one to help you flee.

Just before that horrific flashes of black and surprisingly inviting, riveting flashes of white overcame everything else your eyes could still pick up, just before that tightening in your neck became less of a pain and felt more of a descent, a slow, painful descent, it all stopped.

You could see color. You could see the flames. The charred wood. The scattered cement from the walls. You could hear it all again. That scorch. That rage. The screams from the onlooking civilians. And the pain was gone. You could breathe. There wasn’t a hand on your throat any longer.

And it all lasted not more than a second. Half of it. A quarter of it even. Still, you felt it, not knowing it might have been your last.

The ceiling above you collapsed.

So did the wall you were being slammed against.

Huge slabs of wood, beams for support, floorboards from the level above, it all came crashing down as if apologetic for the delay, because they weren’t unforeseen. They were expected. You just didn’t get to move away in time.

It hit the firefly’s head the second the first slab tumbled down, and the rest of it followed. With how you fell, and the wall behind you breaking as well, your back was on the floor. But that wasn’t what hurt. Not even a little.

No.

Not when a sizable wooden beam in flames, one that held up the ceiling before it collapsed, fell in and crushed the bones of your leg.

You’d never forget it.

You never thought it was possible for there to be so much pain, not even when it was necessary. And a lot of the time, all the time, in fact, it was necessary. This time, it must have been. It must have been for a purpose. To defeat a foe. To save a life. It had to be.

Because the way that immeasurable weight hit your shin, breaking your tibia in half and twisting it in a way that was far too horrific for any onlooking eyes, you saw it. You saw everything. And God, have you never seen anything so horrifying before.

Then the flames from the beam had spread to your leg. Your suit. Your flesh. That, you felt for a short, agonizing few seconds.

Then, the pain from the burn completely disappeared. Your skin had gone.

Your scream right then, a deathly, ghostly scream, was the worst thing that could have ever heard in your life.

And that scream was what saved you. Otherwise, no one would have known you were there.

Otherwise, not Red Robin, Nightwing, nor Red Hood would have found you, even when it was far too late.

“FALCON!”

“Y/N!”

“NO!!!”

-----

Even in such a drug-induced, near unconscious state, you were aware.

Even with your eyes closed, and your brain playing lighter, less heartbreaking scenes for you to go over in your sleep, you were aware.

Even with everything being nothing more than a blur, the sounds, the lights, the chattering included,

Somehow, you were aware.

You were aware enough to know you’ve been here, on this very bed, for more than a week, and that since then, you haven’t opened your eyes, much less muttered even a syllable for anyone to hear.

You were aware that there were people around you. Sometimes just one, two, mostly three. Three men? Unclear. Often, lots of times, there were more. Different color hair. Different voices. Some sweet. Some deep. Some roughed up and husky. Some nothing more than a whisper.

All of them bearing the same guilt, pity, sadness.

You were aware things weren’t looking so good. Not with a cast over your neck, when you couldn’t even turn to your side when the bruises hurt as much as a tight squeeze. And because of that, when you did manage to open your eyes to some extent, you couldn’t see what went on below your waist.

And judging from what you could see on the ceiling, the murmurs around you, the occasions when you could see the looks on the visitors’ faces, straps holding up your elevated leg, you knew it couldn’t possibly be what you’d expect.

You weren’t awake yet. But you knew where you were. You were aware of what happened. Sometimes you could hear the voices so clearly you felt so close to just talking back. But that couldn’t be, because you were unconscious.

Damn everything.

Damn it all.

Why couldn’t you just be asleep enough to not witness any of this at all?

The last thing you saw, before your eyelids were weighed down by some unimaginable force, was the slightly matted window on the door where you saw Tim’s head facing his brothers’. They were talking.

You couldn’t hear what they said.

But if you could, it wouldn’t have made things at all better.

Tim couldn’t keep his eyes away from you, looking into that window to save his own life and watching you get lost in this illusion of peace, this illusion that taught the people around you that nothing was screaming at all, when in fact you hadn’t stopped screaming since that beam fell. He saw the cast, no longer the shape of a foot, and it hurt all the more to keep seeing it absorb itself into reality.

Jason was right beside that door. He visited just as much as the rest of them. Them being Tim and Dick. But he couldn’t look at you. Not for a second. He hasn’t even turned his head at your direction for more than what he needs to. And he rarely needed to, so he pressed his back against that white wall and let his weight slump him down. He hasn’t talked much. He hasn’t spoken at all.

Dick stood in front of the two, facing the door. He had his arms up to hug his chest. He did not sleep. Not for many nights. He was as bad as Tim now. His once so mesmerizingly bright eyes now stared so dimly and emptily at the white paint, he must have thought to say something, anything, to let out what everyone was thinking right then.

But instead of a word, the first word that day, he ended up catching Jason’s eyes, who glared back the minute he caught Dick watching him for too long.

“The fuck you looking at?”

Dick shook his head, then he let his attention get drawn away yet again by the floor.

“Fuck,” Jason mumbled, then his hand was too harsh on his hair. “Fuck this. I’m tired.”

Dick scoffed at that. “Go ahead. Go home and disappear for three weeks.”

“I meant that I needed to sleep after staying up the past thirty hours, shithead.”

He didn’t face Jason despite him and his nerves popping out of his skin like he desperately wanted to squeeze his eyeballs out of his sockets.

Tim, on the other hand, didn’t even do so much as look at his brothers when he heard them bicker. He just stared at you, how silent and peaceful you looked. Still unknowing.

“How…” Tim swallowed. “How did we let this happen…”

Jason watched the dark corner of the opened supply closet nearby. Dick turned his head the other way, eyes seemingly closed as he listened to the cart being wheeled right past them. That, the scent of ethyl alcohol, the chilling white paint, the flush of cold, and the beeping sound coming from somewhere down the hall, it was all anyone could sense, especially when in so deep in thought.

“We should have… I should have-” Tim finally brought himself to look away from the window. “I should never have let her out of my sight-”

Dick pulled on his shoulder. “Tim-“

“Don’t tell me it isn’t my fault.”

“But it isn’t your fault.”

“I said don’t tell me that!”

He swatted Dick’s hand away and placed his deep into his hood where no one would be able to touch him.

“You think that, too,” Jason chewed on his cheek. “Don’t you Dick?”

“Don’t I what?”

“Blame him?”

He was probably so close to just lunging at Jason just then but he didn’t. Not here. Dick just snarled at him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You do,” Tim said. “I know you do. You look at me and Jason like we’re poison.”

Jason shrugged. Dick didn’t know what to say. “Like you two don’t look the same at me.”

“Admit it,” Jason stood from the wall. “You blame us for what happened.”

“I never fucking said that,” Dick growled.

“Good,” he said. “Because so do I.”

“You blame us?”

Jason had his teeth gritted so much they would have broken.

“We all blame something. It’s too hard to admit. But none of us should have to,” Tim whispered. “It was an accident.”

“An accident that wouldn’t have happened if not for us.” Dick chewed on his knuckles, and Jason stood taller, sighing and raising his hands like this ‘point proven’ sort of gesture.

Tim looked back at you again.

“She’ll never forgive us.”

“She wouldn’t have to,” Jason said. “She’ll blame herself.”

“That makes this even harder,” Dick hissed when his teeth dug into his flesh too much. “She has to blame us. At least. It’ll be better for her.”

“Maybe she should be blaming us because we are to blame.”

The silence that followed after was sharp enough to cut glass. Tim grabbed all the hair in his head and pulled, grunting, hissing, gritting his teeth, letting the tears slowly seep.

“Tim-“

Tim laid against the wall. He wasn’t as tired as the two. Staying up for two days wasn’t so much as a change for him. So he had the energy to cry, while Dick and Jason could barely hold themselves up, no matter how much they looked like they wanted to break down themselves.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Tim held his head. “I let this happen to her. I left her alone-“

“Tim, you have to stop-“

“Are you convincing him that it wasn’t his fault, Grayson?” Jason stammered. “Or are you talking to yourself?”

“Jason, will you just shut up-“

“You wanna live in this delusion?” He cried. “Go ahead. But you're not doing anything better for him.”

“I am trying to make sure our brother doesn’t beat himself up for something he didn’t do

“And what do you know about what he did? You weren’t there. You were all the way up on the third floor not having a clue what went on.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Todd?”

“You know what. I’m saying this,” he raised his arms and turned from Dick to Tim, then back again. “I’m done keeping silent. That beam fell on her leg because you were up there making the goddamn ceiling fall in.”

“You son of a bitch-” Dick pushed Jason’s chest.

“She even told you to be careful up there,” Jason said. “You didn’t listen.”

“What the fuck do you want from me?!”

“So you’d know you’re not the only one who knows all that.”

“And why is that, huh?” Dick stood him off, chin up high. “Why’d you bring that up? To lighten the weight on your chest? Tell yourself it wasn’t just your fault and that fucking firefly you threw right at her?”

Tim had been silent since Jason mentioned the wooden beam, but by then, his face had shot up and he was staring at the two squaring off.

“You might as well have handed Y/N right into his clammy hands. You threw him over that barricade he couldn’t escape from. Right after you told her you’d keep them off.”

Jason looked like he could break stone with the ghostly look he gave his brother.

“I didn’t fucking know she was there.”

“Then where else would she have been? You told her to save everyone in the building. And you knew she and Tim needed your help keeping them off.”

Jason shoved Dick in the chest. “You don’t think I fucking know that you-“

“Wait.”

Tim’s voice stayed soft, though it was solid. When he looked up at his brothers, faces flushed and just as full of shame as it was so full of rage for the other, Tim stuttered.

“You two caused this to happen?”

What should have been apologies, or mutters, reasons, excuses, fights to be right again, convictions for their truths, perhaps even lies, Dick stared back and his mouth fell shut. Jason got his hands off him, placed them on his sides. He was silent, too.

“Why didn’t I know about this?”

For once, Jason looked at Dick and it wasn’t so murderous.

“Dick-“

His big brother. The one closest to him. He should have been the one to tell him everything. He might have expected this from Jason. But not Dick.

But they had the same silence, the same guilt-stricken, awfully dark, hooded eyes.

Dick started. “You didn’t… You…” He looked around to make it easier. “You were taking all this harder than the rest of us.”

“Clearly, so should you!”

Tim has never raised his voice before. That wasn’t even much of a scream. But his voice cracked, and there were tears at the ends of his mouth.

“Tim-“

“I thought I was the only one to fucking blame,” Tim stammered. He wouldn’t say this. Not when he was calm. Not when it didn’t involve you. He was always so quiet. The one at the corner finding a place to take a nap. Not the one to accuse. To point fingers. To lash his anger out on others.

“I almost went fucking insane the past week. Now you tell me you two were the root of it all?”

This shouldn’t have to be what he felt. This was just his own guilt taking control. He wouldn’t burden others with such blame to lug around.

“Listen, I-“

“The beam that fell, and that fucking goon that held her down from escaping-“

“Tim, it still would have been a hell of a lot better if you were there,” Jason said.

“If you weren’t there at all, none of this would have happened!”

“Oh!” Jason cried. “Okay. It’s all my fault because I did exactly what was agreed on by the team while you left her alone when she shouldn’t be?!”

“Jason -“

“Everyone knows Y/N almost never leaves your side in combat. She always had you. She was better as your protector, which means she’ll never willingly leave you alone.”

Tim’s tears had fallen to his chin. It was too much out of his control. Too much out of anyone’s control.

“I swear if you don’t shut up right fucking now-“

“You’ll what, Grayson?!” Jason pushed Tim aside and eyed Dick down. “Fine. Blame me. If it does you any better, salvage whatever light she’ll see you in, give you more of a fighting chance with her, huh?”

Dick never looked so badly like wanted to tackle Jason to the ground. He never told Jason about you. He shouldn’t have known, but of course, he knew. “You can't possibly allow her to look at you like you cut off her fucking leg-“

Tim was giving Dick that same look. Dead. He was dead to him.

“This has nothing to do with that-“ Dick pushed him back.

“You caused that fucking beam to fall that snapped her bones and burnt off her flesh-“

“Because that fucking firefly you lead to her held her down! She could have escaped!”

“I told you-“

“You didn’t know where she was?!” Dick cried. “She wasn’t anywhere around you. She only could have been in one fucking place. Behind the barricade. In the apartments. You knew she was there. Maybe you thought you killed that firefly when you threw it off. Maybe you thought it wouldn’t reach her. Or, maybe, you just didn’t care. You didn’t think about how she’d be able to handle it. And even if it did cross your mind, you probably thought she could fight it off on her own!“

“Don’t you fucking tell me what I thought in the middle of a fucking fire.”

“Then don’t patronize me ‘cuz I didn’t have fucking pillows around when I got mauled by a bug and not break the ceiling! Or Tim for thinking saving a life was worth risking their own!”

“WELL THEN, I hope you two think it was fucking worth it.” Jason pointed at the window, at the sight of you so motionless on the bed.

“If I didn’t know how much of a pain in the ass you are when your guilt is eating you up, Jason-” Dick stuck his finger against Jason’s temple and he pushed it aside. “I wouldn’t let you hear the end of this.”

“Is this a threat, Grayson?”

“Do you want it to be?”

“Dick, stop-“

“Stay out of this, Tim.” Dick pushed him aside, and Tim shoved him back even harder so he’d hit the wall. Even Jason looked surprised at him.

“I’m not a kid, Dick.”

Even more so would they have fought, right in that very hallway in Elliot Memorial, if not for Bruce Wayne stepping out of the room, only in his sweats, and he shot every single one of them the dirtiest look.

He blamed himself, too. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here so much. Not when you weren’t one of his adopted kids, not when he had to sit in that room for hours with your own parents nearby, crying, wondering what happened, not having a clue who their daughter even was.

This wasn’t the first time. Even when you weren’t his child, it was the same as when Babs got shot in the spine.

He never let himself hear the end of it. Bruce blamed himself.

Bruce blamed himself for ever trusting Dick, Jason, and Tim to make sure you’d be ok.

“She’s awake.”

The three of them stood still, staring back at Bruce who couldn’t give them a colder look. One so full of hidden resentment, one he tried to hide. But it was all clear, even from those two words alone. He might as well have spelled it out for them.

‘You are all to blame. All three of you. Even if just one of you wasn’t so careless, this wouldn’t have happened.’

He might as well have said that. He should have said that. They needed that kind of reality being thrown right at their denial. They needed that push.

When he left, already it had shifted.

They were going to have to face you now, actually look at you in the eye, and you wouldn’t have to be told. You already knew why this all came to be. There wouldn’t be any use in an argument, evidence, technicalities, bickering. All that shoving and yelling. It’ll all be for nothing.

Because at the end of the day, no matter how much the brothers wouldn’t want to accept this kind of spilled blood anywhere near their skin, it’ll always be true. The only person they blame the most, more than the others, will always be themselves.

Dick, for not even thinking of being so careful with the collapsing floor, even after you told him to. He should have taken it to the second. Maybe on the street.

Jason, for letting that firefly loose, because he was too confident you’d be able to handle it on your own.

And Tim, for not just letting you go alone, but insisting that he not go with you even when you pleaded. Because he thought he’d stop at nothing to save as many lives. He didn’t think about you.

Being in the midst of fire won't cut it.

Dick broke the silence first.

“I’m sorry…”

Tim and Jason couldn’t look at him. Jason faced his own feet. Tim at the door. His face was soft. No longer so rageful.

Tim spoke next. “I’m sorry, too.”

This was about as much affection, affection as it was, that they’d ever shown each other. Jason tried to brush it off by rolling his eyes, keeping his face out of view so no one would see his face trembling.

“Yeah… sorry…”

This was all there is. Guilt.

They can blame whoever they want. It’ll all stem back to their own self-blame that was chipping their flesh away like maggots.

Tim took the first step to the door, heading into the room, and Jason and Dick followed right behind him.

They couldn’t go anywhere near you. Not like this. Not even when they were the boldest. They couldn’t. The cowards they were stood the farthest, lined up a few feet away from the foot of your hospital bed.

They couldn’t possibly face you, not when just minutes after you’d woken up, already your cheeks were soaked and your cries eerie and painful. Your eyes were swollen, neck held back with a cast.

Barbara held you in her arms. Barbara. Of course, it would be Barbara. The only one in the family who knew what it was like to wake up in a hospital and so suddenly lose a bodily function, something so simple as to walk, and not be able to do it just like everybody else. Not being complete anymore. Not be whole.

She was a few of the lucky ones to find that clinic in Africa that gave her that implant. You, on the other hand, probably won't be so lucky.

You. You woke up in that bed, and you didn’t have to hear anything from their conversation outside. You knew exactly what they talked about. You were aware. You didn’t have to hear any part of it or even see the expressions they bore.

That moment you sat up, just enough so you could see just how much damage had been done.

Your right leg had burns. Red marks, scattered all over your skin and ones you knew wouldn’t heal so lightly. You’re to see them for the rest of your life, and you’ll never escape it. The burns went all the way down your toes.

But not even that worried you. You couldn’t care any less about your skin. At least, you actually still had toes on your right leg.

The left one.

The left leg.

You didn’t have one anymore.

You had two thighs.

You had two knees.

One shin, one calf behind it.

Five toes at the end. Burnt as they were.

And the other.

Nothing. Air.

A stub. A useless, ugly stub, sticking out just three inches from your knee. You couldn’t even feel it sting, not when you could obviously see just how much had to be cut off.

Then.

You screamed again.

From a few feet away from the foot of your bed, Tim was in tears, wanting so badly to come to your aid and hold you. Jason looked smaller, despite being the tallest in the room. Right then, he shrank himself from the shame. And Dick. He was shaking. For once, he didn’t know what to do.

Barbara’s soft arms held you so tight, but none of it could muffle your cries.

-----

Could one blame you?

If they’d just known the whole story?

Even after two years, two horrible, spectacular, overly eventful years that passed by all too slow and too fast,

Even after you’d gotten over the nightmares that came and went when you couldn’t sleep without feeling that flame surge past your flesh,

Could you even blame yourself? For not knowing who to trust? To open up to?

Could anyone blame you for being so god-awfully confused, now that you admit to being confused, and so indecisive? For not knowing what, or who would bring you to that eventual happiness?

Could anyone blame you for wanting some kind of release to let all this go, and find that release as yet another option to oblivion? Could you blame yourself for being so desperate, stupid, so careful, just to allow yourself to move on, at the same time convince everyone else that you had?

The only thing you had for yourself after all that were your paints and canvases. They could only have done so much.

But now, with you in front of the Wayne Manor’s staircase fixing up the last of your canvases on a presentable easel, it had gradually felt like it was, in fact, enough.

Tonight, at almost six in the evening, you’d set up twelve of your newest works, the best you’ve ever made. Gotham skylines. Portraits of unknown faces. Hillside landscapes. Action shots you’ve taken from around the city and copied.

You fixed the last one, just as Bruce came up to the foyer with an outstretched smile the moment he saw what you’d fixed. That man rarely smiles.

He eyed them all, more carefully this time, paying attention to detail. You explaining those details when he didn’t catch them. You explaining each of your pieces. Him nodding approvingly.

“This will be a great for everyone, Y/N.”

A smile. “Thank you.”

“And it’ll be amazing for the children most of all.” Bruce kept his eyes on the portrait of an unknown woman with beautiful dark skin. “Will you really give everything away?”

“Everything,” you said. “I won't keep a cent. This is what the auction’s for.”

Bruce beamed at you with so much pride, probably just as much, maybe even more, than he’s given his own children.

Not long after, he left and had Alfred help you out with putting everything back in your satchel. You were smiling. You hadn’t stopped smiling for a while.

You placed the first easel and canvas back into the bag that you’d laid in the staircase just as you heard rumbling footsteps coming from directly above. And just as you thought they’d get nearer, they stopped.

You looked up, and it wasn’t anything you hadn’t expected, nor prepared for.

Dick, however, looked surprised in the least. His hand on the railing caressed the gentle wood as well, motionless the moment he caught your eye. You were calm, serene, and somehow, that smile didn’t even leave when you met his gaze.

His mouth parted open, and by then you didn’t want to just stand around. You nodded at Dick, silently, then you went back to the second easel.

“This dastardly thing,” Alfred muttered. You laughed and started to walk over to him, if not for Dick and his strides longer than yours.

“Here, Alf.” He helped the old man with the knob. It folded right away. Alfred rolled his eyes. “I can take it from here,” Dick said.

Alfred raised his hands, landing harshly at his sides. “I never could work any of those contraptions.” You found yourself feeling warmer at that sight of how gently he’d helped him and handled the knobs. You worked in silence. He did, too. He did not speak. Neither did you.

But even after such a high-strung chain of events, and the drastic way it all had to culminate, with you right back to where you started, there wasn’t at all a feeling of torment, awkwardness. Sure, it wasn’t all the same. You weren’t as close. The laughs felt a bit off. You didn’t hold his hand anymore and maybe you didn’t let your gazes linger for too long when he was so brightly lit by the sun or even just a single bulb. But you were friends. You were there. It was more, so much more, than how it could have ended.

You twisted the knob for the last easel, crouching down, but the base wouldn’t stop hiking up from the ground. You pulled your hair back, squinted, then as a shadow blocked your light, you looked up. Dick was there. He was smiling at you and he held the top of the easel down so it wouldn’t move when you unhooked the knob.

You smiled at him. Softly. Sweetly. He smiled back at you and it kept with the current of that growing peace. He held the easel, and you the canvas, when you went over to your satchel to stick it inside.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

You placed the satchel at the side of the staircase, away from the steps. Dick watched you with his head down intently. Then when you made your way up, hand on the railing, you heard him speak just when you thought he had nothing else to say.

“I’m watching Bruce Almighty tomorrow morning.”

You turned to face him, and that bashful grin made you want to chuckle. You allowed yourself to.

“I’d love to join you.”

Another nod, silent, then you went up the stairs. You heard him go to the parlor.

Peace. This must be it. Peace.

Four months of peace, since any other incident happened. This was what you needed. Time to think. A chance to know what things were, what you were.

Because all there was that replaced that hurricane beneath your chest was this bright, breezy whirlwind that instead cooled down those very thoughts.

You reached Tim’s room, knocked three times, and stepped in immediately taking off your sweater.

Tim was leaning against the headboard and had his laptop resting uncomfortably on top of his lap.

“Tim,” you groaned. “You're not working are you?”

“Nah. Among Us streams.”

You snorted and picked your phone out of your pocket, scrambling to his side. Tim shifted, giving you some room, then when you settled beside him, he laid his head on your shoulder. He kept his eyes on his laptop and you made sure he didn’t change so much as a tab. Four months of seeing his sleep schedule back on track, his coffee a tenth from before, and his workload split in half, it calmed you to see him this way. It even made his skin glow.

As he kept his eyes on the screen, you pulled out your phone, with that expected twinge of disappointment when you saw you haven’t a message, the same for so many weeks.

You opened your texts anyway, just to make sure.

You: ‘Hey. It’s been a while. Call me?’ (12 weeks ago)

You: ‘Jason. It’s me. You didn’t change your number again, did you? (11 weeks ago)

You: ‘I guess you did. I’ll keep texting anyway. No one’s heard anything from you in so long.’ (9 weeks ago)

You: ‘Hey. Call me? We heard it got bloody in that raid yesterday. I hope you're alright.’ (6 weeks ago)

You: ‘Hey.’ (2 weeks ago)

That was it so far. You didn’t want to bother him. He didn’t want to be bothered.

But, just today, you let yourself annoy him. Even for just that day in August.

You: ‘Happy birthday, Jason.’

Peace. With everyone. With yourself.

You needed those months to know what it was like to not have any of them at all. To just be a friend. Not a lover.

You let your head fall on top of Tim’s.

A few hours later, you jumped at a ring on your phone. You glanced at it, eyes squinted. It was almost midnight.

Jason: ‘Thanks.’

So much of a smile, and a gentle spike up beneath your chest, when you stared at that message for so many minutes. Partly to let that warmth linger. Mostly out of surprise.

Peace.

You knew there was peace.

But peace did not mean fulfillment.

You still couldn’t tell anyone what you needed, what would hurt less, what choice you were supposed to make.

Because it wasn’t about that anymore.

This was you. This was time for yourself. Four months of not even pining or thinking about boys, working on your pieces, not mulling over your unrequited love or your broken heart or your broken memories or that sheer memory of what happiness used to mean to you. You never needed that. It was you, and every unfortunate event that life had forced into you, that made you so confused.

You still couldn’t make a choice right now, but you weren’t confused anymore. It wasn’t about what you needed, and you didn’t need any of them. Those four months told you so.

But you did want to have love. Eventually. Soon. One that lasts.

Eventual happiness, the ones that can only come from loving and being loved by another, from family, you knew could only be found within them. Dick, Tim, and Jason. You knew it was one of them. For so long as you could think, you knew you couldn’t find that kind of happiness elsewhere. You couldn’t imagine loving another.

Which means, with the peace you had in you now, calming the once tyrannic tides you’ve been forced to reckon with, you knew your heart was there, with one of them. The challenge will be to find out who.

And from now on, you knew you had to choose, and actually think about who to choose, and no longer will it be about whoever lessens the pain, to give in to pressures, to the overwhelming declarations, the to release that pent up whatever’s. This time, in your state of peace, you will figure out who you loved and will stay in love with for the rest of your life. Solely. Wholeheartedly.

You will choose for love.

No longer to just go with the tides.

The tides, you realized, had been there since that very night. That night you had to get your left leg amputated because so much of your flesh had been burnt and your bones were beyond repair.

The tides, you realized, had stemmed from not just your hatred for yourself, for that blame that inevitably crowded your already populated mind, but had stemmed from their guilt. All three of them, because of how much they blamed themselves and how much they let it destroy them just as much as it destroyed you. Because of that, of how they let their resentment for each other and themselves get the better of them, drive them to do so many things they wouldn’t be so proud of, which made that start of the year so hellish. It was all of you. Your anguish for yourself. Their resentment for their self-blame.

Dick not knowing how to treat you right after, treating you differently, treating you like you couldn’t care for yourself. Almost getting married, then later not. Spending too much time with you, then not making a move. You assuming what was worst, then so suddenly, him pouring out his heart just before he was asked to leave town and not see you again.

Jason keeping his distance, staying away, not even calling in the holidays when he wasn’t around, and only ever calling any of you when he absolutely had to or felt like it. Knowing what his brothers felt, and knowingly inching himself closer to you when he saw you hadn’t chosen either just yet. Taking advantage of your vulnerability to quench his desires. Almost using you to get back at them. Then breaking your heart.

Tim trying too hard to make it up to you, buying so many of your paintings even when it wasn’t so necessary when he knew you wouldn’t decline. Confessing his love that night after Dick’s wedding, when you hadn’t a word to say back. Confessing his love for you again, kissing you on Christmas Eve, even after how much he’d hurt you before. You unknowingly choosing him, only for him to make that decision for you and drive you away, even when he thought it was best.

But then, of course, there was more. So much more than just that.

These vicious tides, caused by a disturbance, an accident that wasn’t so often deemed an accident, were not alone, it not for the chilling breeze that went with it, the moon that pulled them that was silent and beautiful, the shoreline that remained unmoving, warm to the toes when it needed to be. The rustling of trees. The ones that surrounded the tides, overpowered them.

Dick not wasting a moment when he saw you upset, filling so many of your days with the kind of contentment you could never bring to yourself. Never missing the littlest things that so much as caused a smirk up your lips, and bringing those details to life to earn that smile. Supporting you the most, with your passion for artistry, your hobbies, the things you loved to do, he pushed you to do. Watching you, caring for you, giving you everything you wanted all for the sake of seeing you happy, even when he should or shouldn’t. Even when you were never his to begin with.

Jason knowing exactly what it was like to be you, understanding that, letting you know that he understood, that you weren’t alone in any of this at all. Knowing he didn’t have much of a chance, stopping himself from falling in too deep for his own sake, but not when it was you who needed him to fall. To at least be with him. Giving you that solitude, letting you know that he, too, wanted to treat you well, wanted you to feel just as beautiful as he thought you were, even when it pains him in the end.

Tim loving you from the moment you met. That sweet, fairytale love story of when you were friends first, and his love that grew from that. Best friend turned lover. Your love story, how you came to be, could all be a novel on its own. Caring for you, staying even after a relationship that hadn’t worked out the first time, knowing you needed him more than anything and anyone there could possibly be. Your partner as heroes, your partner now. Albeit friends or lovers. It didn’t even matter. And after then, even when he loved you so much, still kept your best interests in mind, only ever thought about what was best for you, or what he thought was best for you, all for the sake of you no longer being hurt the way you used to.

That was what surrounded that cruel tide that pulled you back miles away from the shore you just wanted to land on. That tide. That night. The guilt. The blame. The loss. The regrets. Those were the tides, and everything else, it was beautiful.

So now, what will it be? Other than to place it all to the side, forgive that night for what it did to you. move on. No longer will you let it pull you with its current. No longer will you let it get in the way of your happiness. Of their happiness. No longer will you let its lingering darkness settle for too long before it settles for good. No longer will you let the loss of your damned leg cause the loss of your whole life and happiness.

Because of course, they weren’t to blame. Blaming yourself, or someone, would mean they were solely responsible for the penalties that stemmed from what they did, intentional or not. They weren’t responsible. Not even a bit. For what else would it be, other than an unfortunate arrangement and timing of events, something far beyond the control of even the strongest deity. That if the same things done were done differently, would at all be the same. No, they weren’t at fault. They weren’t to blame.

And if you did believe that they were, even in the slightest, then it would be why you’ve been how you had been, how you just couldn’t know, or admit to yourself, who you were to give your heart to. Why you couldn’t open up, afraid that somehow, deep within your own crevices, you hadn’t forgiven them.

But it wouldn’t matter. You have forgiven them, at least now, if they had done anything at all that was to blame. And you didn’t think so. You couldn’t bring yourself to think so. Not when you no longer let that loss be the cause for further pain than it’d already rooted.

No longer, not with who they were, and how they loved you.

Dick, who always had to love you from afar, and never let that love falter despite it being so painful and tempting.

Jason, who had to fight against that love thinking he hadn’t a chance at making you as happy as he knew you could be.

And Tim, who won your heart the first time and gave you these wonderful years as a soul who couldn’t be more perfect beside yours.

They were selfless, gentle, caring young men, who’d bend the world for you if they had to.

One of them, you were sure, will ultimately, wholly, have your heart.

-----

MASTERLIST | 3 BIRDS 1 STONE MASTERLIST

-----

A/N: The next parts definitely won’t be as heavy as this one, but to those who stayed behind and leave the loveliest comments, know that I’m here at all because of you guys 🎉

MAIN TAGLIST:

@everyartistwas-firstanamateur, @sarcasmismyfirstlove, @damned-queen-of-gotham, @idkmanicantenglish, @wunderstell, @birdy-bat-writes, @get-loki, @everyday-imfangirling, @comic-nerd-dc, @multifandomgirl-us, @icequeen208, @offendedfishnoises, @egdolan, @xemiefx, @arkhamtoddler, @elsenthal, @mythicbitchx, @lucy-roo, @roseangel013bf, @loxbbg, @reclusive-chicken-nugget, @l-inkage, @http-cherries, @river9noble, @zphilophobiaz, @annoylinglyaries, @knightfall05x, @hyp-oh-critical, @satan-s-ass, @1-800-starmora, @flowersgirl02, @nahcho, @thatonecroc, @trixie-bb, @daddyissuesmademe, jasonsbitch, @shadowsndaisies @jaybirdbooty @writing2sirvive

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ellana-ravenwood · 4 years

Text

“It’s Alfred dayyyy” - Batfam x Fem!Reader

Synopsis : Every year, every single year, your family reunites to celebrate the marvel that Alfred Pennyworth is.

Because Alfred does deserve his own “holiday” really. This has been sitting in my draft for almost two years, someone send me an ask that reminded me of it and I just suddenly really wanted to write it. I hope you’ll like it :

my master list : @ella-ravenwood-archives

__________________________________________________

Midnight, a new day :

“And we will be waiting for you at 8 am, your mom and I forced him to sleep in, but we all know he will be awake by that time anyway.”

“Ok, I’ll pick Jaybird on my way there.”

“Jason is coming ?”

“He said he would.”

“Oh. Good.”

Dick did his hardest not to roll his eyes. “Oh. Good.” he says, as if the news didn’t make him wanna jump in joy. But of course, the Batman has a reputation to keep, if he showed too much emotions in one sitting, he’d probably explode.

The truth was that if Jason was coming...Well if Jason was coming, it meant they were finally on the road to forgiveness. And Dick knew that Bruce had been waiting a long time for this. Bruce...and everyone else really.

Especially you and Alfred.

“In any case, be there by 8. We’ll do the usual. Now that I think of it, could you maybe pick up his cake at West Side’s bakery ? Your mother was going to do it, but if you pick up Jason...I think he lives in the area ?”

Of course, Bruce knew exactly that Jason indeed lived not far from Alfred’s favorite bakery. Because he was keeping an eye on him. Not out of mistrust, or thinking he would kill again (he promised his mom, you, he would stop, but the promise was still recent, so was his return), but because...Well, it was his boy.

Ever since Bruce adopted Dick, he never stopped worrying about his kids. He never stopped trying to keep an eye on them. It got even worst after Jason’s death...He was actually overbearing many times, which lead Dick away more than once.

But he’d always be back.

Just like Jason, eventually, would be fully back.

For the moment, it was enough that he’d come by tomorrow.

For tomorrow was the one and only...”Alfred day”.

“Yeah sure, we can pick the cake up.”

“Alright. Well. I’m going home, and you lot should too. We promised Alfred, after all. An entire day without any vigilante’s business. Unless there’s an emergency of course. Good night.”

“’Night dad.”

Bruce turns to his youngest kids, expecting them to follow him, but Damian says :

“We’re right behind you, we’re just gonna hang out with Grayson a little more. Since he moved to Blüdhaven, we almost never see him...”

“Guiltripping me will not work little brother.”

“Are you sure ?”

Silence. And then Dick turns to his father :

“I’ll get them home soon, we’re gonna go get some ice cream.”

Bruce smiles, of this small genuine smile he only has when around his children. He nods, tell them not to stay out too late, and leaves, on his way back to you.

12:30 pm, Batcave.

“You are late, Master Bruce.”

“Only by half an hour. I had to see Dick before coming back. Logistic talk.”

As he speaks, Bruce takes his armor off, stretching a little after this short night full of not much happening. As if every villain in Gotham knew this day was happening, and they too would give a break to the butler (because if Bruce was resting, then Alfred could rest too).

“Well it means you’ll have to start half an hour late tomorrow, this is the deal. Where are the children ?”

“Alright. I will. And they’re getting ice cream with Dick. Now please, go to bed before she catches you up.”

“Lady (Y/N) will understand that I was making sure you are home on time.”

“She does understand yes, and she’s also telling you to go rest this instant ! You have slept even less than Bruce this past few days for god’s sake !”

Both Bruce and Alfred jumps a bit as you enter the bat cave, smiling at them. Alfred raises his hands in a sign of peace, smiles at you, gives you a kiss goodnight on your forehead (a nightly tradition, by now...you never had a dad, and Alfred took it upon him to catch up lost time), and leaves.

You turn to Bruce, and gives him your hand.

He takes it gladly, a smile on his lips. The kind he only shows when around those he loves...

A “glad you’re here” kiss, and a few words :

“You know, my favorite thing about this day is that you’re home all day long, and I don’t have to miss you...”

As usual, your words grip his heart, and his arms tighten around you. Even after years of being together, you could always make his pulse race with only a few words. Sometimes just a look...

He doesn’t resist or look back, when you give his hand a pull and leave the bat cave.

Rare were the occasions Bruce would forget about his vigilante work. In fact, only one day a year, would he completely forget about it. Because he promised. And because it was a special day.

A day to celebrate the man he came to view as his father.

Alfred day.

1 am, in “Giovanni’s 24/7 gelato” shop.

The waiter of the place didn't even blink, as he served ice creams to a bunch of kids at 1 am, in the heart of Gotham. Used to it really. Nothing in this city was like any other place. Most people were night dwellers, even children.

Probably because, thanks to a certain group of vigilante, they all felt safer when the sun was down.

“So, how did it start exactly, this Alfred day ?”

Duke asks, after taking a full scoop of his favorite ice cream, curtesy of a certain Dick grayson.

You had told Duke, about a week prior to it, that he had to clear his schedule for this particular day but didn’t really explain what it was exactly. Just that it was to celebrate Alfred. Not giving much more context.

Dick smiles, and say :

“How did it start ? Haha, oh man, it’s quite the story.”

With an annoyed sigh, Damian says :

“Just out with it already Grayson, we know, you were the only one that knew them by then blahblahblah.”

“Do I sense a hint of jealousy, little bird ?”

Damian doesn’t answer, but plants his spoon a little bit more aggressively in his gelato. Ah yes, maybe he was a tiny bit jealous that Dick had the luck to have their parents all for himself, once upon a time...Maybe.

“Well anyway, legend has it that mom chose the date.”

Dick takes a dramatic pause, making the siblings who already heard the story (so everyone but Duke) roll their eyes. Their oldest brother had a flair for dramatic retelling of past events.

“A long long time ago, on this day, when I was only 8 and just came into the family, they got into a bad fight. When I was little, before Jason came in, they got on the verge of breaking up a few times. Even did really broke up once, worst fucking time of my life, feeling like I was losing another family (A/N : referencing this story : The break-up)...”

A shot pause, this time, not for dramatics, but because the memory was genuinely painful and Dick had to take a short break. He continues :

“So anyway, on this day, a long time ago, Mom discovered how vital Alfred was to this family. She said it’d been a day where she wanted to literally kill our father because he was so damn annoying, and overly brooding, and stupid – her words not mine- and that Alfred calmed her in just a few words. I don’t quite know what he told her, or what he told dad. All I know is that he told me that he wouldn’t let them break-up again over a stupid fight, and um, next thing I know, I’m avoiding the East wing for a few hours.”

“Oh...Oh no Dick gross !”

Dick chuckles, enjoying a bit too much messing with his little siblings.

“Anyway, mom decided that Alfred deserved a day, in the year, where we would do everything HE wants because without him, our family would crumble. It just sort of became a tradition. So from midnight right now, to midnight of next day, no vigilante business. And we spend the day all together with him.”

“That’s actually...a really sweet story ?”

“It really is Dukie, it really is.”

“Dukie ?”

“Ah sorry, you’re part of the family now, which earns you a nickname from me. Jaybird. Timbo. Dami. Cass or Cassie if I feel like being a particularly doting older brother. So...had to find one for you. It was between Dukie and Dukester so-”

“Dukie is fine.”

Everyone snickers as Duke rolls his eyes, and then he asks :

“So...What exactly are we gonna do ?”

“Oh, well it’s simple. It starts at 8 am when we arrive, and we kick off with...”

4 am, Alfred’s bedroom.

You open the door to Alfred’s room quietly, as you would sometimes to make sure your children sleep.

This time, you were checking to see if the butler did really go to bed. One of the point of Alfred day, was that he had to feel perfectly fine, and he never had a full night rest !

So if you had to make sure he did during that time, then you would.

Your children had came home a few hours ago, happy they had some time with their oldest brother. Dick had been away often lately, and they missed him...You knew they were gonna guilt trip him into buying them a snack.

You and Bruce had had some alone time before they came home, that you definitely took advantage of...But for now, you escaped your husbands grip to come and check on Alfred, making sure he was sound asleep.

And he was. Good. Perfect. He’d have a good night sleep. A full night of sleep.

Quietly, you left the room again, unaware that a smile slowly rose on the Butler’s face...

8:02 am, Alfred Day :

Bruce is the one that opens the front door for them. They have their own keys, of course...but they both forgot them, as usual.

They’d normally just climb through a window, or sneak into the backyard, knowing where all the security devices were (the back door was never closed because of this), but decided that for this day, they’d just ring the bell and come in the right way.

Without much surprise, Bruce answers the door. It’d either be him or you, during Alfred’s day. Or anyone that wasn’t Alfred really.

Dick and Jason move to remove their shoes (house rules, NO SHOES inside) and coats, while Bruce looks at them, waiting for them so they can all walk back to the kitchen.

Jason is the fastest, and there’s this embarrassed silence between the three of them. Bruce smiles awkwardly at Jason, who looks away as soon as their eyes meet. With a “tt” very typical of his little brother, Jason says :

“Don’t misunderstand this, I’m here for Alfred. And...For mom.”

“I know.”

“Good.”

“Yes.”

Silence. Awkward, as Dick takes way too long to untie his shoes, and pretend he’s not hearing anything.

Bruce knows what he’s doing. He knows his oldest son is trying to give him some more time “alone” with Jason. But he’s not really sure what to say...

“I’m um...I’m glad you came.”

Good. That was good. Keep going on that path Bruce, that’s actually-

“Yeah, whatever. I’m going ahead, you know the way Dick.”

Damn. Almost there. Almost there with an actual moment between them two. Dick sighs, and puts a hand on his father’s shoulder.

“He’ll come around.”

Bruce doesn’t answer, he exhales slowly and nods, not very convinced...But today was not a day to dwell on the bad. Jason and him would make this work, if only for today.

Because today was Alfred’s day.

8h30 am, the Kitchen.

The butler came down in the kitchen, well rested and pleased to be greeted by his entire family. Your smiles already made his day perfect, and if “Alfred Day” was done in this instant, he’d still be happy.

“Sit down Pennyworth, we have made breakfast for you ! Well...Mom and father did...but we helped ! I was in charge of making tea ! And I think you will appreciate the way I brewed it. I followed an ancient Japanese recipe, and I reckon an aficionado like yourself will appreciate it.”

Damian bloomed when he was with his family. To people who didn’t know him as well as his siblings and parents, he could seem like a petulant and arrogant child, but he was the opposite of that.

He was insecure, and unsure. Scared of being left alone. And so to overcompensate all the fear instilled in him by years of abuse from his “grandfather”, the infamous Ras Al’Ghul, Damian could be quite a little jerk sometimes.

But when he was with his family...He opened up. He smiled. And he spend hours trying to brew the perfect cup of tea for the grandfather he actually chose to have.

“Bruce made your favorite Alf’, didn’t do half a bad job either -you smile at your husband, and give him a quick peck, which have the famous result of making your children make their best “ew” face-. You taught him well.”

You say, smiling widely at the butler.

It’s true, Alfred did teach Bruce how to cook really well. People often had the misconception the billionaire was bad at housework, which was wrong of course.

When his parents were alive, they’d insist he still had chores to do, so he wouldn’t be too spoiled. And when Alfred raised him, he taught him as much as he could so that the boy could hold his own.

Bruce was a great cook (you could definitely attest to that, what with him cooking your favorite meals on date nights and all). And he always made Alfred’s perfect breakfast for his special day.

“Jason and I just arrived so we didn’t really participate, but we picked up your favorite cake so it counts right ?”

Dick says, a wide smile on his face. Oh master Dick, Alfred blessed the day this little boy walked in their lives.

He wasn’t so little anymore, but he was always such a joy to have over. Even when he had his tantrum as a youngster (and now sometimes too, although he became better in controlling his burst of anger), Alfred couldn't help but love that child.

The butler turned to Jason, who shyly smiled at him and...Alfred’s heart was full.

“I am very happy to see you in this house, Master Jason.”

He said, as he sits around the kitchen table. Jason’s cheek tints slightly of red, as they always do when he’s a bit embarrassed and overwhelmed.

Jason was such a kind and sensitive child. He never quite got used to compliments, having been used to abuse and hate, and he would always blush under them. Alfred was glad to see that, even after the horror Jason went through, small things could still make his cheek turn rosy...

Jason sat down at the table, looking happier than he had in ages.

“For you.”

Cassandra said, settling in front of him a plate full of food, while Damian put the the cup of tea down.

Sweet little Cassandra. It was always a pleasure to hear her talk. Poor little thing was never taught love, or even how to talk...Having you in her life greatly helped. Having a family, greatly helped.

She still didn’t talk very often, but when she did, all of her words truly counted. She laid a small kiss on Alfred’s forehead, to bid him good morning, and went to sit in her usual spot, right between you and Damian.

“You will be happy to know, Alfred, that all of our electronic devices have been off since midnight last night ! Yes, even mine. Promise !”

Tim exclaims, smiling at him.

Tim was the only one out of all of Bruce’s children to have entered this life willingly. The only one that came knocking at their door, just really wanting to help.

Unfortunately, him too lost his parents over time (although they weren’t particularly great ones)...But the first impulse the boy had, was that he just loved Batman and wanted to give a hand !

Tim was selfless, maybe a little too much, and often worried you to death. He would get wrapped up in his projects even more than his father, and needed a constant reminder to take care of himself...task that you, Bruce, Alfred and his siblings would share gladly. He would give back anyway, working his ass off and putting his own life on the line for them any hour of the day...

At the furthest side of the table from him, sat Duke.

This was his first “Alfred Day”, and he was looking at things curiously, nonetheless happy to be here.

Young Duke’s situation was a little special. His parents were still alive, and he still hoped they’d find a cure for their madness. Because of this, the boy would often distance himself on purpose from some family events, finding it hard to find his own place.

This was one reason he didn’t wear the Robin mantel for long, and almost immediately went to be The Signal. It didn’t help either, that he was the only metahuman.

And yet...Yet as the days went by, Duke felt more and more at home at the Manor, and would more and more hang out with everyone. More and more felt like he was truly part of the family, now.

Of course, him moving to Wayne Manor was all very recent, and he needed time. Time that everyone was giving him willingly and gladly. Time to adjust and find his place.

But here, sitting around the kitchen table bustling with activity and laughter, Duke felt like...he felt like this Alfred Day brought him one step closer to truly be a part of it all. After all, to him too, the butler had been nothing but great.

Alfred had that talent, to congregate everyone around him...

You felt happy, there, sitting amongst your children, your love, and the man you came to consider your father.

Alfred had a good feeling, when he first met you. He knew. He knew you’d be the one to “tame” the bat, to not take his shit when he was being a jerk, and to give him unconditional love.

“Unconditional”.

It was important, to be in a relationship with a man like Bruce Wayne.

But oh. Oh he was giving you back every bits of love you ever gave him, times a hundred. He let you in in his world, and had no intention of ever letting you go.

Breakfast went by fast, as everyone talked away, and enjoyed each others company.

It was very rare, nowadays, that everyone could be in the same place. At least one of them would be busy normally. But on this day...on this day they surely made sure they would be free.

And so here they were, having breakfast altogether, happy.

If only people from the outside could see this scene; If only.

Then they’d know, just like Alfred knew, that this family was the strongest, tightest that ever existed, and that there was nothing but love between all of them.

************

11 am, the theater.

Before the first “Alfred Day” happened, Wayne Manor did not have a “theater”.

It had a “Ballroom number 3″.

It was your idea, to turn it into a small theater, so that Alfred could perform for everyone.

Over the years, you had realized that Alfred was actually a very talented actor. After all, he filled in Batman’s shoes many times, to pretend that Bruce couldn’t possibly be him. And he might’ve use his dramatic talent to convince you and the rest of your family to do what he wanted you to do...

Clever man.

On Alfred Day, the first activity, after breakfast, would be to take part in a monologue of his. Usually shakespearian. But sometimes he’d come up with small surprises. He once recited the “heaven” part of the Divine Comedy by Dante, because he knew you loved that poem.

It was absolutely brilliant, and you almost wished he had pursued an acting career instead of becoming the Wayne’s butler...but then, you would’ve never met him.

By 11 am, breakfast would usually be done and it was time for a performance of a year. By that time, Barbara and Stephanie would’ve join.

They didn’t live in the Manor, but they were close friend of the family. Friends that definitely knew how precious Alfred was to everyone.

This year, Alfred decided to entertain you with a series of short monologues taken from a wide array of material, from Shakespeare to movies. It was fascinating. They all had their snacks as if they were at the movie theater, and were captivated by his performance.

For Alfred, it was a way to relive his youth, working in London’s east end’s theaters. And to perform his hobby in front of a live audience.

So sure, maybe said live audience might’ve been a bit biased towards him, but he knew their applause and praises were genuine.

************

1 pm, East Wing living room.

Lunch was always skipped, as you snacked too much during Alfred’s performance, and he was never hungry after he acted.

You’d directly skipped to Alfred’s compliment session.

He both loved and hated this time. Loved it because it was a treat to see he positively impacted his family. Hated it because it was never comfortable to just hear people compliment you The moment they gave him a cherished memory they shared with him...

Each year, one by one, they would tell him something he did for them that really was important to them.

It was custom that the youngest would start. So Damian stood up, and said :

“My memory this year, is one that happened not long after I came to live in Wayne Manor. I had just gotten into a fight with Tim, and been mean to mom as she tried to talk to me about it...I felt terrible. I felt like I would never be someone good. Pennyworth came in my room, ignoring me when I told him to get away from me. He settled some cookies for me, and told me a story of my father when he was young. Of how stubborn he used to be, and how sometimes, he’d say very hurtful things he didn’t mean...Alfred explained to me that it was normal to feel angry, when we’re hurt. That it was ok to not always be on our best behavior. That the people who love us will understand, and do understand. That they’ll still be there if they really care. Then he left, and I went to apologize to my mom. And she was there. I also apologized to Tim, and him too, was there...”

Damian sat back down, avoiding everyone’s eyes, as he felt too overwhelmed with feelings. You threw an arm around his shoulder, and he instantly hid his face in your own shoulder, acting like a little scared kitten who’d hide under his mom.

It melted everyone’s heart, but nobody would say anything of course. This was between Damian and Alfred.

It was Duke’s turn, and he was a little nervous, as it was his first time :

“Mine is...Well...It’s going to sound so silly, after Damian’s heartfelt story, but one of my best memory with you Alfred, is when I first put The Signal mantel, and immediately hurt myself that night. I came back to the bat cave early, feeling shameful I couldn’t finish my patrol. You took care of my wound, and simply reassured me. It was just...soothing. I didn’t feel bad, as you stitched me up and calmed me down. I felt at peace, for the first time since my parents went mad...I can’t quite remember what you told me, as you just talked about random things, to calm me down. And it worked. As silly as it can sound, it worked. And that’s um...That’s when I started to feel good, here. Ok. That’s all.”

Duke sat back down too, hoping Tim would start speaking soon. Thankfully, he did.

“The memory I chose to share today, is one that is rather recent. I was struggling with some...self-worth issues. I felt like I could never fill dad’s shoes. Or Dick’s. Or Jason’s. Or anyone’s. I felt like I was trash. Like I was wasting away. I felt anxiety eating me up, and I was too scared to talk to anyone about it. Even to you, mom. I knew you’d find the right words, but I was just too scared you’d be worried about me. I know you worry a lot. So I didn’t say anything. Alfred walked in on me having a panic attack...and he helped me fight it. Then he scolded me because I didn’t tell anyone anything, and that it was a bad habit to always take all the burden on my shoulders. He then brewed me some tea, and talked about my favorite TV show with me to take my mind off of things...”

Tim smiled at Alfred, and sat down. You reached for him, and squeezed his hand, making him understand you too, were there. And you worried about all of them all the time anyway so, ya know.

It was Cass’ turn now. Cass always had some interactive things, because she never spoke too long. She held up some drawings she had made (with the help of Damian). It represented her at a ballet recital (to which you all went by the way, and which was amazing. Cass was a talented little star). She gave the small comics to Alfred, took a deep breath, and said :

“Thank you for helping me work on my dance, even when you were busy. You are a good teacher. For everything, from dance to how to make a perfect loaf of bread. I love your bread. I love your dance lesson. I love eating bread after our lessons. I love you more than bread. Even the sandwiches mom make with your bread and my favorite homemade jam.”

She then did a few ballet dance move, and sat down again, holding her knees with her arms, and breathing deeply. It was still a difficult exercice for her, to speak. And to convey her feelings through words. It was always difficult, and quite an exploit that she said that much.

Alfred smiled at her, before turning to Jason.

“I’ll never forget the day you yelled at Bruce because he tied me up after I stole the batmobile’s tires. How livid you were, and how you threatened him to tell everything to mom. How he instantly looked scared at the idea of her being angry, and how you made him realize he went too far. How you were there, every step of my way adapting to life in a mansion, after living in the streets. But yes, above all, I’ll never forget the day someone stood for me for the first time, when you yelled at da-Bruce. When you yelled at Bruce for me.”

He almost said “dad”. And that alone, was making Alfred’s heart happy. It was proof there still was some hope to salvage their relationship...

“Ok, well I’ll be quicker than everyone else. And just say : you’re the best grandfather I could ever ask for.”

With Dick, there was only two solutions. He would either go into a lengthy reenactment of a very specific event, or throw affirmations like that that would make Alfred feel tears coming to his eyes.

Today, Dick decided on a short and sweet version, and it fitted perfectly.

It was now your turn :

“Every year, I’m reminded how vital you are to this family. And every year, it is tough to chose just one memory I love about you. I always have to think, because there’s so many. But I think this year, I will choose that time I said “yes” to Bruce after refusing his marriage proposal three times, and you screamed in happiness, through your broom across the room, and ran to hug me. It was so out of character for you, it makes me happy just to think about it. But I mean, I can understand the excitement...I was pretty content myself.”

You smile, looking at your love, and he rolls his eyes at you, before smiling too. Of this pure smile he only shows you. And then he turns to Alfred, and tells him :

“You made the loss of my parents bearable. Without you, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I’d probably turn...very dark.”

There was a small silence.

Bruce’s speech was always short and to the point.

And every time they were all done talking, Alfred would find himself with tears in his eyes. With those last few words from his son, this time didn’t escape the rule, and he found himself dabbing at the corner of his eyes.

Damian’s next word released the emotional atmosphere as he looked at his father and said :

“Tt, show off.”

Everyone bursted in laughter, and this great day continued on...

************

4 pm, interlude.

This was Alfred’s few hours of utter peace. Everyone would leave him alone, and he could relax doing something he liked to do (usually reading or something of the sort) while not worrying about anyone.

You’d give him space. It was very rare, for Alfred to be all alone with his thoughts, thoughts that he was forced to NOT have about his family.

It was even rarer that he wouldn’t think about Bruce or you, or his “grandkids”. So in this day, when he knew none of them were doing anything dangerous, he took full advantage of it to relax his mind.

In the meantime, you’d watch a film or two.

Damian and Tim were in the process of choosing when Duke turned to Bruce, and a smirk on his face asked :

“Soooo…I heard Alfred Day exists because you annoyed (Y/N) ? »

Bruce glares at Duke, ah he never quite likes to remember why Alfred Day exists…But before he can answer, you enter the room (you went to get some snacks for the movies) and exclaim :

“Don’t let Dick downplay how truly unsufferable he was that day ! Dick always manages to forgive his dad, and make things less worst than they are. It’s a talent really. Annoying doesn’t even cover how awful he was. He had one of those « dark days », decided he should break up with me for my own safety out of literally nowhere, yelled at baby Dick, was mean to Alfred saying he could fire him…I swear I could’ve slapped him.”

“You tried.”

“And if Alfred hadn’t stopped me, I would’ve succeeded. Anyway. Yes. You see, Bruce and I almost broke up that day because he was being really stupid, and Alfred...salvaged everything.”

“I was being stupid indeed...I almost lost...I...”

Sometimes, when he would remind himself of that day he almost went too far and truly drove you away, Bruce would feel almost like an anxiety attack coming over him. Because if he had lost you, and had continue on the path he was taking with Dick...Well he wouldn’t have had that second shot at having a family.

And it was enough of a frightening thought to be overwhelmed with anxiety.

“To be honest, I also was quite stupid. I can be stubborn too, sometimes. And there were time, at the beginning, where I wouldn’t try to be in your place...”

You say, letting soothing fingers run through his hair, a motion you knew always relaxed him. Bruce instantly calmed down, as your kids made some disgusted faces at your closeness, and the incident was over.

It was good, though, that Duke asked. First because it was actually pretty funny to think of the fearless Batman getting his ass kicked by his wife...but also because it was a good reminder to him of what he almost lost, and who he used to be.

Alfred saved him.

You saved him.

His children saved him.

And now, he could appreciate a relaxing movie time with all of you (minus Alfred, who was in his room, probably devouring the cake you got him (because yes, that cake was for him and him only), finally relaxed).

The movie chosen, everyone took their usual spot on the massive couch, that Bruce had ordered specifically so that his big family could all fit on.

At one point, both you and Bruce drifted off to sleep, in each others’ arms, and barely noticed your kids placing a blanket on you, rolling their eyes at how teeth rotting sweet you two were.

6 pm, a walk through the park.

Alfred loved Wayne Manor’s gardens.

And he loved even more peacefully walk through them with his family.

This was the time you were always reminded how massive the “backyard” was, when you’d go through acres of it.

The kids would play soccer, baseball, football, or anything really. Alfred would often join. He was actually very athletic, and the kids would fight to have him on their team.

You and Bruce would take part in it too, and your children would always make sure you’d be in the same team. Sure, sometimes you’d stop playing to smooch each others, like two damn teenagers...BUT, having you both on the same team would avoid triggering your crazy competitive minds.

For some reason, whenever you had to play against each others, you’d both get very ruthless and petty, and it would often time get annoying (for real, you were forbidden to play UNO since a long time by then).

You’d all spend some times outside, no matter the weather, enjoying a normal family outing.

Alfred loved this time of the day.

Because he loved the gardens, but most of all, he loved seeing his family being happy and together...

9:30 pm, the dinner.

Dinner was entirely prepared by you, and Alfred only had to come at the table and wait.

By then, you had a perfect system that made it so the meal was prepped efficiently. It was Alfred’s favorite, of course.

The table would be filled with all his favorite meals, prepared mainly by Bruce with you guys’ help.

Your kids would pretend to be waiter in a fancy restaurant, and exaggerate everything, which was very funny.

And you’d all share a meal, something that was quite rare, in this day and age.

In fact, you were pretty sure that your entire family being reunited for a dinner happened max three times a year. For the holiday season, for Alfred Day, and for Batman day (you just thought it was funny to celebrate it).

This was just a time to catch up, and to be together.

Alfred would ask countless questions to everyone, and everyone would be polite and listen. It’d just be so nice, and relaxing...

11:30 pm, almost the end.

The day would end in the batcave, with everyone enjoying each others’ presence for a few more minute before you’d go back to a “normal” life.

You’d talk about your favorite moment of the day, and how you always really liked “Alfred day”.

And then it’d be over. Alfred would retake his butler position, and the Batman would prowl the streets of Gotham once more.

You’d be their home support again, working the computer often, and you-

Ah. Yes. But not yet.

There were still a few minutes. And it sounded like the perfect time for you to finally talk about a certain news...

You see, Alfred was the one you went to to vent. You loved your family with all your heart... But anyone knowing them just à little bit knew they could be à handful. And Alfred, he was always there.

So it just seemed fitted for you, that you’d announce this news on that day. While everyone was around, and celebrating Alfred’s existence.

Because what you were about to say, was one of Alfred’s dearest hope...

12:28 pm, 2 minutes before the end.

You waited the very last minute, because you thought the effect would be even better.

And as your husband and kids were ready to leave, you said :

“Oh wait, I have one last thing to say on this very special day !”

They all stopped, and turned around, looking at you. You smiled. Nervous, but happy. You knew that you and Bruce wanted this anyway, so it would be fine. And you knew your kids...your kids would be happy. For sure.

But Alfred. Alfred would be over the moon. And so, without further ado, you said :

“I’m pregnant !”

Bruce’s eyes went wide, and his mouth opened dumbly. He froze on the spot, before smiling widely and starting to laugh stupidly. His first reaction was to go to Alfred, which you were expecting.

Your children all reacted at the same time, rushing you like a wave of noise and excited screams and...pfiouh they could be overwhelming.

Alfred was indeed over the moon.

And he was the one calming your children, tearing them off of you so he could hug you, and give you some space, too.

Because that’s what Alfred did. Take care of you. Of his family.

And Alfred day, this year, ended with him looking at you and Bruce hugging tightly, overjoyed by the news of a future new little addition to the family.

Up until next year, and this future baby’s first Alfred day...

_________________________________________________

Annnnd it’s 9:12 am, kept my promise to post something “today” haha. Probably not the best time to post. Buuuut...well, another sleepless night (or early morning, all about perspective really haha) of writing. I’m definitely back :). I hope you liked this story, I’m a little nervous after being gone for so long, I feel like I don’t know how to write anymore, and this is all very...mmmmbadhgezhe. I still do hope you liked it a little bit.

Reblogs and comments are always appreciated <3.

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thenamesblurrito · 2 years

Text

give it up for ask dump six

desperately trying to keep my inbox under 30 so i don’t feel so overwhelmed that i end up answering none of them at all. there’s a few food asks i’m working on too but the art isn’t done so have some pure text answers instead.

this is a loooong one folks, buckle in! answered asks include hovering/parkour, heroes working out combo moves, everyday uses for powers, heroes and junkers, marketing and merch featuring heroes, banishment, Cybertronian workers’ rights, secret tunnels, funerary practices, poison immunity, and repair nanites

it depends on a person’s frame. usually, flightframes can only hover a little bit, depending on the strength of their thrusters, placement, and how much lift they can add with their wings and kibble. really powerful frames can get maybe half their height above ground? and hovering won’t stop a fall, but it’ll certainly slow it to a safer degree. (this is not applicable to hovering quintoid frames, who’s entire ambulation depends on hovering a bit off the ground. they can’t get very high, but they can sustain it for ages.) and then there are the rarer “exotic” rotor winged frames, like Windblade, who are actually capable of real, if ungainly, flight in root mode! the combination of thruster and rotor generates enough lift to fly a bit even when poorly balanced and unaerodynamic in root mode. it’s more difficult and dangerous than in alt mode, but still! flight!

parkour really just depends on an individual’s strength, flexibility, and derring-do, just as with human parkour. Cybertronian cities have much taller, wider, and more strangely shaped buildings than human cities, so there’s a much different playground to wander through. partial transformations and taking advantage of kibble are probably staples of mech parkour. i don’t think i know enough about it to expound further

yes! it’s hard for me to verbally describe, but i don’t have time or energy to draw any of it right now so this will have to do. there’s more than these ofc but they’re just quick examples

the Elite Guard are, of course, the best at these, since literally part of their relic-given powers is teamwork. Elitas 1 and 4 always swoop in to give an extra boost with wind or gravity, Elita 2 is really good at spraying explosive energon crystal spears right where they’ll intersect with Elita 5′s flames and blow up, Elita 3 provides just the right metallic terrain for Elita 4 to bounce around and hit enemies, and Elitas 1 and 5 can create fiery tornadoes with ease

the rest of the factions aren’t quite as good, but there’s some! Rodimus and the Mistress of Flame have gotten good at using his fire and her skill to reforge their environment on the fly, and Cheetor will use both Ultra Magnus and Optimus as convenient springboards. Thunderblast often takes advantage of Cyclonus’s teleporting to send a blast of energy exactly where she wants it to go, Triptych creates ice boulders for Scourge to hit like golfballs at targets, and, while unintentional, hearing both Hellscream and Galvatron yell at the same time is pretty incapacitating. Sixshot is pretty adept at working with Airachnid to tangle up an enemy in her cabling, and Abominus is immune to Soundwave’s sonic blasts and can actually be used to ricochet the sound

PFPFFGHTHT somebody pops over to Six Lasers Over Cybertron to ride a rollercoaster as a full on magical vigilante i’m wheezing

so, just casually hanging out in hero form is difficult, because they are very much publicly branded as violent insurgent gang members in the middle of a turf war to take over Iacon and spread anarchy. whether or not the average citizen believes this varies, but if a hero is spotted, Enforcers are usually called. either because the heroes themselves are dangerous, or they only turn up when something else even more dangerous is going on. they’re hounded by the media too, so just hanging around is kind of impossible unless they want to be crowded/and or constantly flee crowds, and going incognito is pretty difficult since they’re so visually different from normal folks. the Autobots usually end up escaping to Simfur to experiment with their hero forms, and the Decepticons have found a big broken space in the undergrid of the city that they haunt. the Elite Guard don’t need a secret base, and the Predacons have mostly eschewed this too.

that said, many of them do take time to do small random acts of kindness when they’re around. the aforementioned fetching cats out of trees, for example. but since powering up is usually a big to-do and being in hero form attracts a Lot of attention, it’s actually easier to find everyday uses for powers when not powered up! power levels in kid form vary, and it also takes them awhile to figure out some of them can summon their physical relic, but there are definitely uses. perhaps the most dramatic use is Minimus casually manipulating the weather. it’s a little impractical, and has almost no practical use by defending the school or something, but... the feeling of a vast storm swirling around outside, while he sits in the middle of it and feels each lightning bolt strike exactly where he knew it would, and each gust whipping between buildings as if it were his own breath? it’s just. appealing. (Orion and Windblade are happy he’s starting to think of this power as his, instead of some great burden to carefully bear only when he must. but, maybe keep the thundering down on nights before big tests?)

heroes and junkers actually have a very interesting relationship where they both kind of pretend not to see the other group, because the other could get them in major trouble. related to the above answer, junkers are some of the few people who won’t chase or report the heroes on sight out of fear and/or admiration. they know very well not to bother another person trying to hide and won’t harass them. and heroes, even though they’re sort of Iacon’s most wanted, could still do a lot of damage to junker communities by reporting where they are and what they’re doing. there’s an element of silent mutually agreed “look the other way”

that said, they don’t literally ignore each other! the Decepticons spend a lot of time in their “territory” as it were and are on pretty good terms with the junkers that live in their general vicinity, like Terminus. in fact, Thunderblast seems to think of him as a pretty valuable ally for some reason, even entrusting him with parts of plots. the Autobots have found an effective way to get the school into lockdown to protect the students is to first go to Wreck-Gar, and he often has some Interesting news off the street with which to warn them. Elita 2 realized she can quickly and easily prevent them from starving by finding energon for them, and will often make time to seek out a junker or two to dump a haul of stolen crystal in their arms, and the rest of the Elite Guard follow her lead

however. none of them actually make it their mission to seek out and uplift junkers or regularly provide for their basic needs. junkers aren’t really lacking for housing in Iacon, since so much of the undergrid is dilapidated and unpopulated, making it good shelter for junkers, but they have other needs that go unmet. many of the heroes figure it’s sort of a losing battle, as the system is set up against them and a few factions, however supernaturally powerful, cannot help everyone forever. so the junkers, as well as other institutionally oppressed groups, sort of slip through the cracks of their priorities. even Nightracer falls into the trap of trying to elevate herself above her fellow junkers as Thunderblast to become “better” somehow. and this oversight of marginalized people is a major catalyst for the formation of the Predacons. the few of them can’t do much, ultimately, but they still make a point of helping. Sixshot carves out access tunnels and breaks barriers for them to navigate through. Airachnid actively hunts down Enforcers seeking junkers. Abominus brings fuel and other practical resources. they can’t actually save/provide for every single junker, but they deliberately do their part to shore up the community

HA that’s one way to put it! yes, some of them do, although given the above bit about how they’re, uh, wanted figures, it’s not like they have the time or freedom to sign a contract, star in an ad, or become a spokesperson for a brand. you try to get a hero in a film set with a script, Enforcers will knock your door down to arrest them before you can even set up the cameras. even stickers will burn right off once the hero powers down, so that’s temporary at best. and any payment for this can’t be accepted, because the heroes have no bank accounts, and their physical money is inherently digitally tracked, so even powered down kids can’t use it without giving themselves away

the usual deal works out a bit like use of a public figure’s image. a manufacturer/marketing/merchandise company representative will try to flag down the hero’s attention during one of their random appearances, ask if their image can be used in art/merch/advertising/what have you, and the hero either consents or refuses. the smarter ones make sure a nearby news broadcast is recording the conversation, as a form of accountability in lieu of a legally signed contract. sometimes they can negotiate for payment to be donated to a local charity or victims of the latest supernatural disaster instead of being paid to the hero. manufacturers of merch will often publicly give some pieces to the heroes as a form of advertising, and a few of them really like this

Optimus, Missy, Rodimus, Cheetor, Elitas 1, 4, and 5, Hellscream, Scourge, Thunderblast, Drift, and Sixshot have all consented to their images being used, although only Optimus, the Elitas, Scourge, and Sixshot were smart enough to very clearly specify the limits of this usage. (to be fair to Missy, she was in the middle of stabbing Hellscream, so she was a bit distracted. and Hellscream was of course in the middle of being stabbed) Ultra Magnus said no, full stop, Galvatron declined to answer by railing against the commercialization of social justice movements for half an hour, Cyclonus just stared silently at the ones who ask until they’re intimidated enough to leave, Triptych gives exclusively non-answers, Elita 2 somehow manages to never give anyone opportunity to ask her, Elita 3 refused outright, Abominus turns around and leaves when asked, Airachnid shoos the asker like a pest, and Soundwave makes his own merch. somehow. there is of course stuff made without their consent, but it’s technically bootleg (like how there are official Hasbro Transformers toys, and then the not-actually-Transformers by other manufacturers that are Clearly this character with a fake name)

so the difference between execution and banishment is, you definitely know the status of the person you execute, but not the one you banish. execution isn’t for justice, it’s for spectacle and fear. banishment doesn’t do that, although it does remove undesirables from society in a way. i mention this in these theoretical Junkion ideas, but it’s far too easy to lose track of someone out in the huge expanse of space. what you’re imagining is precisely what the people in power do not want to happen! they already have the unruly colony of Carcer that grew out of a prison planet, they don’t want another one! you might think that shooting someone off into empty space to wander forever without resources or the ability to contact anyone is a death sentence, but mecha are inventive and resilient, and it’s best not to risk it. the closest you’ll get is sentence to indentured servitude out in a satellite or space station, but even then there’s a risk that someone will slip their bonds and catch a ship with some spacers who don’t care for laws

this was a really interesting question to think about. there’s a few levels to this.

Cybertronians are pretty strong and durable in some ways, but in other ways have some hard limitations. it depends on individual frametype and specs, so each person has their own safety rules, as it were. a flightframe doesn’t really need a tether to work on the tip top of a tower, because if they’re blown off they can just transform and fly back. but that same flightframe could never work in or under water. vice versa for an aquatic frame. so instead of OSHA-style standardized safety regulations made universally required across the board, each individual will have medically and practically determined requirements written into their file. their boss cannot ask or command them to do something outside those requirements, as doing so would be violating their function. that’s not to say there aren’t ways to exploit/cajole someone beyond their boundaries, but it’s a legal AND cultural no-no in functionism, because function is just as much about what someone cannot do as what they can do. (this unfortunately doesn’t cover workplace abuse like emotional or physical abuse, as that isn’t part of a function, just interpersonal relationships.) that said, there have absolutely been instances where, especially with government-led projects, something dangerous or ill advised was still greenlit, and they simply put the undesirables on the job, like beastformers. “disposable” in the face of a greater goal

and also, this isn’t a capital-driven society! there are far fewer instances of reckless practices designed exclusively to generate and hoard wealth, instead society is supposed to be a well oiled machine with every part working perfectly together, and cutting corners would not fit. there’s a form of faux-UBI in place, where everyone is assigned energon rations according to their need and function, doled out by the government, and often housing is also assigned. (obviously junkers are excluded from this, because they have failed their function and thus don’t deserve the resources given out to uphold functions.) disposable income can be gained and used, sure, but wealth will not change your class or function. getting a different function requires proving yourself more capable in a different area, which has nothing to do with money. bribery and greed and fraud all exist, but not in the same capital-centric model we have here. this is one of the reasons functionism is so terrible yet pervasive, because in theory it meets a lot of needs and pushes people towards their best selves

unions aren’t really a thing? there are function communities, to the point where major functions actually have guilds, political sway, even sitting senators like Pharma. they determine what exactly falls within their function, subfunctions, variations, regulations, etc. but it’s more of a governmental department than a workers’ group. if workers were to strike, they’d simply find people with a frametype to fit this function and bring them in, whether or not they still work in their assigned function. a strike would likely result in a lot of criminals under indentured servitude... or junkers. so it’s happened before, and it might even force some changes if enough people strike, but it’s Much harder and so it isn’t an established thing like it is here

oh there are plenty! they are in fact a natural feature of Cybertron’s geography and extend all the way to the core of the planet! if you look at the cross section here, you can see how every chunk of land is just a huge stack of strata squished together. those blue lines threaded throughout are natural structures like tunnels honeycombed between layers, scaffolding and labyrinthine supports, leylines and crystal seams, organically formed roads or superhighways, enormous cave systems like the Argon Sea, or faults where strata layers have misaligned or buckled. in some places, the layers at the surface of the planet, not compressed by miles of material on top of them, have lifted upwards like the pages of a well-used paperback, creating huge overhangs and caves. civilization on Cybertron has always been subsurface just as much as surface dwelling. Simfur was underground even before it was sundered, Kaon doesn’t just have pits, it’s inside pits, and plenty of other cities are built partially or fully inside natural and/or excavated layer structures. never too deep, as that’s both incredibly dangerous and disrespectful to Vector Sigma, but there are plenty of mecha who don’t regularly see the sun as the majority of their lives are spent underground. even cities built aboveground are often huge and towering enough to have their own literal underworld, like Iacon’s undergrid

so while the existence of planet-wide tunnels and substructures is hardly a secret, there are certainly people who take advantage of them or even make their own to use as hidden paths and secret passages. smugglers and black market dealers like Shadowstriker certainly make regular use of them off the beaten path as it were, despite the danger of sudden shifts, floods, or collapse

it depends on local culture ofc, Cybertron is politically one united whole but culturally a whole mess of different people groups, but disposal of the body is usually the same across the board. there are sinkholes and acidic marshes across Cybertron that function as a sort of “intake” for the living planet, basically the inverse of a hotspot, and these are used as what we might think of as landfills. specific material is sorted out and filtered into designated areas, and usually there will be an area for disposal of living waste. a body will be given back to Cybertron/recycled into Vector Sigma. the same is true for most of the colonies, who have fewer natural landfills like this but use them similarly. junkers, unless they live close to one of these that they can easily sneak into, generally find the deepest/most hidden parts of their cities and entomb their dead there, hoping that the corpse will find its way into the circle of recycling eventually

(some particularly arrogant upper class folks believe they’re important and amazing enough to be preserved after death, formerly-living statues to be memorialized and admired for who they were in life. while this has been a practice on-and-off in various cultures for awhile, it usually shows up as mausoleums lined with dead and honored family members, instead of literally a prettified corpse propped up in a public square or company building. it’s kind of gross and unsettling, but at least not unsanitary. there’s enough of them now that it’s not uncommon to see them in high class sectors, but still weird. it’s been going on since the Stratocracy began, mostly only in northern city-states like Iacon, Altihex, Protihex, and Praxus. Jhiaxus, founder of the Academy, was actually one of these who had his body preserved as a statue, but the corpse is tucked away somewhere so the student body doesn’t have to stare at it)

the actual funerary rites differ by culture. Iaconian tradition dictates waiting until the corpse has greyed completely, then holding a solemn service with friends and family. Tarnish people hold a party in memory, painting themselves with the colors of the deceased, and Kaonic funerals are very similar, strung with lights the color of the dead’s optics and biolights. in the city of Vos there’s often a beautiful flight procession escorting the body down to be buried, and Urayan mourners will donate a meaningful personal object to be put to rest with the dead. Tyger Paxians and Hydraxish, surrounded by the Rust Sea, find it fitting to lay their deceased down in the rusts that always sought to kill them, whereas Crystal City citizens ornament the dead with the gorgeous crystals they were surrounded by in life. junkers vary wildly depending on where they are and how they survive, but they’re famous for their secret, furtive funerals and low mourning songs, often finding it more important to visit where the deceased liked to go in life rather than where they died. Velocitron holds a celebration of life instead of mourning the death, whereas Caminus has ritualized three-to-five day shutdowns for the friends and family to do nothing but grieve. Carcer can’t have a funeral without an awful lot of booze and fifty or so uninvited guests, Devisiun often holds onto the corpse until a sibling, partner, or other family member has died so they can all be laid to rest together, and some places in Eukaris actually break the body into pieces to be recycled in different areas

(the post this is referring to)

FFJGHDF yea it’s possible! that’ll be an amateur attempt at murder, because a truly responsible killer would do their research and/or select a poison universally deadly. i don’t have the brainpower to come up with any right now. venom from mechanimals would be a good bet, as they’re specifically designed to take down other technological prey, instead of gambling on one substance or another just so happening to be toxic to a certain individual. or maybe figure out if they’re allergic to something and expose them to it

(the post this is referring to)

internal nanites are usually locked to one person, yeah. maybe between twins and close trines it’s possible. because repair nanites are hardcoded with the body’s natural frame layout, inserting them into another frame means they’d do the wrong sort of repair work. almost analogous to a cancerous growth, they’d try and “repair” the body they’re inside to become the body they came from. that’s an entirely different horror story than this vampire idea!

now, nanites other than internal repair nanites can be shared. paint nanites are easy to donate, as they can be easily reprogrammed by the frame, and someone with a “skin disorder” can try paint donations from healthy donors to get their own paint in line. the color will shift over to their own natural colors in a few days as the nanites adhere to the armor and are reprogrammed. “digestion” nanites, ie the ones inside a mech’s self repair forges that sort out ingested materials for use, could possibly be transferred, as they aren’t doing the repair, just the sorting that comes before the repair. but transfer of body parts in general is rare, as it’s often SO much easier to use sentio metallico, artificial additives and boosts to the natural repair system, and/or manually tool a part to be inserted and assimilated

#Ask dump #cybertronian biology #autobot #decepticon #predacon #elite guard #junkers #functionism #cybertron #cybertronian culture #worldbuilding #jhiaxus #Energon #this was. so much.

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