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albatmobile · 1 year

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The Art of Rehabilitating Snowbirds Chapter 10

𓅪 After not hearing from Roy or Jason for five years, you suddenly find yourself taking in extra income as a babysitter for Roy and Jason's child.

𓅪 Rated: M | TW: Joker, violence | 6.3k includes: Wayne gala, slow dancing with the batboys (u know we got height difference w dami), wet adventures w jay ;p, finally the backstory about the scar

fem!Reader x Jason Todd x Roy Harper [masterlist]

Chapter Ten: Your Protector | ao3 - wattpad

THEN

True to his word, Jason got you an invite to the annual Wayne Gala.

Your mom only had one nice dress that she’d stolen while in Europe (X) , but it was a perfect outfit for the event, so you stole it from her closet. It wasn’t like she'd notice on the off chance she did stop by the apartment.

You’d pinned your hair in a few places to give your locks some dramatic volume to match the elegance of the night. Your light, smokey makeup accentuated the color of the vibrant blue dress and, somehow, ended up matching Damian’s navy suit.

Roy hadn’t been invited, though you already knew his rambunctious behavior would not bode well with an uptight, stuffy environment like this, but you?

You loved this.

Even though you were too shy to mingle and your mother’s dress was definitely made for someone her age and not yours, you were just as glad to follow Damian around as he forced himself to socialize under Bruce's watchful, read: warning, gaze.

He only really stopped to talk to a few people who eyed up your scantily clad body with a certain snobbish glare that only Gotham elitists could manage. You, on the other hand, were just happy to have found any sort of formal outfit. After the fourth grandma gawked at your tits, you asked Damian if he wanted you to leave, but he assured you made the event ‘much more tolerable.’ That was Damian speak for: he’s really glad you came.

It wasn’t until half an hour later that you managed to find the table of Waynes and were truly able to enjoy the gala. Tim and Dick waved you over eagerly, leaving Damian to trudge petulantly behind the slight train of your dress. Dick donned a dark gray, plaid suit complete with his usual messy-on-purpose locks, while Tim wore a plain, burgundy three-piece with an oddly patterned, colorful tie.

“Where’s Jason?” You searched around the sea of well-dressed socialites, but his signature gray streak was nowhere to be found.

“Well, hello to you too,” Dick was already standing when you approached and Tim was quick to do the same. “Nightwing Blue?” He raised a brow at the color of your mother’s dress.

You glanced down at the silky fabric and began to smooth out the nonexistent wrinkles as you inspected the color. “I’d say it’s more of a darker Celtic blue than anything he’s had, but I definitely appreciate that that’s the first thing that came to mind.” You fist-bumped, noticing the glares from an older couple at the table next to you at such informal contact with, god forbid , a Wayne.

You pulled back sheepishly, allowing your hands to return to fiddle with the skirt of your dress.

“Don’t be that blood-orange bitch (X) ,” Damian snorted as he swatted at your unceasing nervous hands. “It’s fucking blue.”

“You wouldn’t even know that meme if it weren’t for me!” You admonished him.

He tutted lightly and checked out of your conversation with his brothers to focus instead on the dancing couples behind you. Your eyes flickered from Dick and Tim to Damian’s, following his line of sight as a new song took over.

“Why do you keep acting like you want to dance?” You questioned, “You wouldn’t even dance with me at the party.”

“That god-awful seizure you and Roy had together wasn’t dancing. This, ” He gestured to the graceful movements of the socialites right next to you, “is dancing.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that was Damian’s way of asking you to dance. Right, little wing?” You both turned to Dick’s crinkle-eyed smile, startled.

You turned back to Damian and took in his embarrassed state with slight amusement, “You want to dance?” You asked.

He looked at you warily, “You’re asking me?”

You raised a brow at him, “Would you have asked me?”

“No.”

You snorted and held out your hand as an open invitation, “Then, that’s why I asked you, twerp.”

“I resent that,” But he took your hand, nonetheless and guided you away from his analytical brothers, who still seemed baffled, if not slightly intrigued, by the entire interaction.

When you arrived on the floor, he came face to face with you before allowing his guiding hand to drop from your grasp. You’d never had any ballroom dancing experience and felt completely lost. Damian didn't seem to care as he confidently took your hand in his own and firmly placed the other on the small of your waist and drew you closer to him.

“Resent what?” You unwittingly let out a giggle as he immediately drew you into a spin that had you grasping for his shoulders. You caught your breath as your mirthful eyes peered down into his intense gaze. “The nickname or the fact that I asked you?”

He huffed, looking away from you, “Both.”

You let out a laugh in his arms, but it was cut off when he suddenly tightened his hold around your waist, steadily dipping your taller form languidly toward the polished wood below. His hazel eyes trailed down the exposed curves of your body shamelessly and you let him, relishing in his attention.

The band changed the tempo, starting a slower, sensual rhythm. You watched as the couples around you quickly shifted to an intimate embrace. Damian followed suit and raised you up to nestle you against his chest, adjusting his grip slightly lower on your waist.

With your already standing height difference and no help from your heels, the close position left him face-to-face with your over-spilling corset. You could practically feel the emanating heat of his cheeks against your chest. You startled slightly when his head slowly came to rest against it, but you quickly found your bearings and drew him closer. You laughed lightly as his eyes innocently met yours, knowing that, while he was far from the innocent boy he was portraying, he was still somewhat vulnerable like this.

Hell, if you hadn’t known any better, you’d probably thought he was going to kiss you or something.

A twinkle of hope rang out like ripples across his dark eyes. You couldn’t help the low gasp you produced at the sight.

Was your first kiss going to be with the Wayne heir at the Wayne Gala?

What the fuck?!

His poised lips parted and your eyes darted to follow as his tongue peeked out and glided self-consciously across them. A ringing note settled lowly across the crowd, drawing your eyes to his with a silent question. His hands dragging up to rest at the back of your neck was the only response you needed to bend slightly to meet him on an even level. You allowed your eyelids to flutter shut as you leaned into his constipated thinking face that you’d come to love. You noticed, with a hint of amusement, how he seemed to wait for you to lead with bated breath.

“Damian.”

You stepped away from him so fast you nearly tripped over your heels and fell into the couple beside you. When you regained your balance, you hesitantly met Bruce’s all-knowing gaze. With one look, he seemed to take in whatever information he hadn’t already deduced simply based on your shared eye contact. It was slightly invasive and incredibly creepy. Damian, on the other hand, seemed largely unaffected aside from his lingering blush.

Bruce gave Damian an unreadable look that Damian somehow understood in an instant. He then excused himself to follow behind Bruce’s retreating form without a glance your way. You shook your head, still spinning from the whirlwind of events that occurred in such a short amount of time and made your way over to Tim, who was busy petting an older woman’s crusty white dog. You greeted them both.

“Ah, I’m afraid I’m being stolen away,” Tim said once you arrived, petting the dog a final time before smiling at the woman. “Please continue to enjoy the evening, though! I think there’s an ice luge somewhere you should see.” The woman beamed with a jovial wave to your retreating forms as you made off toward Dick and Barbara at the aforementioned luge.

“Are you sure you don’t want to finish your conversation back there?” You looked back only to see the woman had already moved on to squeeze some poor kid’s cheeks.

He followed your line of sight with a chuckle, “Trust me, you’re doing me a favor.”

You shrugged, “Alright.”

The four of you messed around with the ice luge until Alfred caught wind of what was happening and came to usher you away. The last thing he needed was for you to get drunk at another manor party or worse- Dick got drunk enough to break out the karaoke machine. Alfred did, however, grant Tim the pleasure of taking a group photo in front of the ice sculpture.

Slightly buzzed and incredibly enraptured with your conversation with Tim, you hadn’t noticed the intensity of the pair of green eyes that rested on you from across the party until Tim’s eyes repeatedly shifted over your shoulder. Finally, you turned around to see just what the fuck he was looking at-

Oh.

There he was, across the room.

You watched, hypnotized, as Jason’s half-lidded emeralds shocked yours through the throng of people between you. He smirked once he realized he had your attention and made a slow show of tugging at his tie until it was sufficiently loosened.

He wasn’t wearing a jacket, you noted as your eyes trailed up his exposed forearms to his rolled-up sleeves.

You cleared your throat, forcing yourself to tear your eyes from the steamy show Jason was putting on to nod vacantly at Tim’s hypothesis. You vaguely heard something in his explanation for why the unstable particles were able to comprehend continuous observation, but you could barely contain yourself from looking back at Jason.

“Oh, I never thought about it like that!” You said cheerily after half-paying attention, which only suited to spur on Tim’s enthusiastic babbling, much of which resembled your own.

The fuel you threw his way allowed you to turn around again and you bit your lip at the sight that met you. It was as if Jason hadn’t even noticed you’d ever looked away because he was still taking each step with a tantalizing carefulness that left you desperately gulping for air.

He reached off a nearby tray and downed a champagne flute before seamlessly placing it on another tray, never faltering in the process. You were left to wonder how could you be so turned on just by the way he walked.

“Do you think?” Tim asked suddenly, effectively stopping you from drooling any further.

“Hmm?” You turned back toward Tim only to see him glaring. “What?!”

“Hey,” Jason’s low voice rumbled your name against the roar of the party deliciously. “Wanna dance?”

Tim took in your awed form and huffed to himself, “Of course.”

“What was that, Timbo?”

“We were just debating Quantum Physics relating to the Zeno Effect and how it could be linked to dark matter,” He said, looking to you for backup, but you were too entranced by Jason’s raw, sexual prowess to respond.

Jason easily noticed your hypnotized state and smirked, “No one cares what dark, kinky shit you’re into, Timmy. Let the woman dance.”

He didn’t wait for a response, though and you put up no protest when he guided your transfixed form away from Tim. You tried to shoot an apologetic glance back at him but were ultimately too enraptured with the weight of Jason’s steady hand resting at the small of your back to do so.

You were surprised he’d even suggested this in the first place, considering how reluctant he’d been to even dance at his own party. You thought back to Damian’s random desire to dance tonight and chalked it up to the most likely cause: dancing plague-causing fungi.

While Jason easily lost himself in the crowd ahead, you still felt Tim’s watchful gaze on you until you disappeared into the hallway just outside of the ballroom. A quick movement you'd caught out of the corner of your eyes had you slightly jogging to catch up with Jason’s suited form. You watched as he flitted around the caterers that lingered in the area before finally disappearing behind a corner with a beckoning finger.

A giggle escaped from your lips at the realization he wanted you to chase him.

You couldn’t help but find the entire situation highly amusing. Well, you chasing Jason around a mansion in an evening gown like some princess movie was amusing; you nearly falling face-first to the ground from the overwhelming length of your mom’s dress- not so much.

You flipped him off when he stopped some ways ahead of you to mock your plight. You quickly righted yourself and bunched the length of the satin fabric in your fists.

And, so, the chase continued.

“You’re never gonna catch up to me in those heels, babe,” He was jogging backwards now, complete with a tipsy, shit-eating grin. You wanted to rip it right off of his dumb, attractive face. “I could do this for hours .” You, on the other hand, were already panting lightly, with your ankles ringing out angrily in tandem with each stomp you took. You were sprinting at that point and yet were somehow further away from Jason than you’d ever been. “All that training, what? Three times a week?” His eyes wrinkled with mirth at your over-exerted form. “Damian’s bullshit about finding your anchor or something.”

“Fuck off ,” You whined, coming to a stop to lean against the wall of the empty corridor, attempting to catch your breath.

The sounds of the party had long faded. Not even the caterers had a reason to be this deep into the manor; yet, there you were with Jason.

You rubbed lightly at each ankle, rolling them one after the other. It was your second time wearing heels and these were a lot higher than the ones you’d worn to the party by a long shot, so your feet were definitely feeling it.

When you finally looked up, you noticed the hallway was empty. The glass doors at the end of the hall, however, were wide open, beckoning you closer. You limped down the hall before noticing Jason in the garden through one of the windows, waiting with his back turned to you.

“You like the chase or something, freak?” You nudged his shoulder with your own when you finally sidled up beside him.

“You don’t?” He raised a brow at you.

It felt like a question you would only truly understand enough to answer if you'd been older, but, for now, you merely shrugged. You were still figuring, well, everything out.

“Why’d we come all the way out here to dance?” You asked instead.

The gardens were done the Wayne way: over the top and absolutely magical. Everything was placed with precise intention that left you feeling like you were right smack in the middle of a fairytale.

You could somewhat hear the music, but it was more like a muted warble that carried throughout the courtyard with a quiet hum. Still, definitely nothing loud enough to truly dance to.

His gaze returned back to the fountain in front of you, “You may be enjoying that shitshow, but this is more my speed.” You looked around at the quiet that surrounded the two of you, noticing as he shifted beside you to face you.

The water from the extravagant fountain trickled in the silence while the symphonious sounds of the night chirped around you.

“I’m cool with whatever.”

He laughed, genuinely laughed, before extending his pale hand out toward you, “Cool.”

Your eyes crinkled, easily meeting his cold grip with your own, “Cool.”

A brassy tune settled across the garden as Jason walked forward to close the remaining distance between the two of you. His hold was relaxed, more tender than Damian’s rigid form had been. You allowed yourself to melt into his arms.

His feet moved with intention as he managed to avoid every misstep you made and changed direction with ease each time, dragging you lazily with him into a new rhythm. You giggled when he spun you once and roared when he continued to spin you, all while using his free hand to help your skirt lavishly fan out.

“Now I see why Roy calls you what he does.”

You snorted. “Can’t even say the nickname now, even when I’m quite literally a princess at a ball?”

Jason rolled his eyes and finished spinning you before drawing you flush against his sturdy chest. You gulped, allowing your eyes to travel up the careless, wrinkled remains of his suit all the way up to his emerald eyes.

Why was he looking at you like that? You hadn’t actually kissed that one night in the library as far as you knew, but damn, did this seem familiar.

Unlike with Damian, you rested your head on Jason’s chest. Your eyelashes accidentally tickled against his bare skin when they fluttered open to stare at the protruding veins and scattered moles that lay across the expanse of his pale neck.

“You are a princess.” You smiled, lips lightly brushing against the delicate skin of his neck in the process before you shifted to meet his gaze once again.

As if to prove him wrong, your weakened ankles collapsed from under you. Jason caught you with ease, bending his knees as he helped right you on your feet. It was a wonder you could look as beautiful as the socialites inside and still be as clumsy as you were.

“Maybe just to you and Roy,” You insisted with a gorgeous smile that left Jason visibly affected.

“Maybe,” He said weakly, drawing his face closer to yours with a delicate finger placed under your chin. He dragged you lazily up until your wet lips were practically against his. You waited for him to take charge and just fucking kiss you already , but his mouth merely twisted into a smirk. “You know, babe, I really didn’t think you’d actually go through with all of this.”

What?

You sighed, wishing he would shut up and stop stalling, “Coming to the gala? I mean, you did invite me, Jason.”

“No, not that,” He snorted. “I knew you’d come-”

You cut him off, “If you knew I’d come, then why did you ditch me until just now?” You were still centimeters away from locking lips, but the growing frustration between you was threatening to kill the mood with every passing word he spoke.

“I might’ve had a few,” Jason removed his finger from your chin, quickly sensing the shift. “Didn’t help to see you with the replacement. Maybe I just wanted to see where your loyalty really lies.”

“My loyalty?” You struggled from his grip and stepped away from him, feeling your guard go up immediately. “What do you mean?”

He sighed, rubbing at his temple, “I just didn’t expect you to follow me ’sall.”

“You…” You couldn’t possibly be hearing him right. Right? Clearly, he’d had too many and lost whatever weak filter he usually had. “Jason, you mean to tell me you invited me out here as a joke?”

“Not a joke,” He reassured you like that was somehow any better.

"A test then?" You rephrased.

“I suppose more like a test than anything, yes.”

“Jason…” You trailed off, not even recognizing your friend in front of you. “I don’t need to be fucking tested , you cunt.” The Jason you’d come to know would never have the nerve to say something so casual yet cruel.

He laughed humorlessly as he walked away from you and closer to the fountain, “You did.”

“Fuck you. No, I didn’t. What would even make you say something like that?” You followed after him, coming to a stop right next to him.

“Maybe because you’re so god damned annoying and never shut the fuck up,” He uncharacteristically snapped. “Ever thought about that?”

You gasped, feeling your patience slip further and further away with each passing second, “Says the stuck-up, angsty, woe-is-me fucker who has mood swings every two fucking seconds.” You shot him a venomous glare, “And that’s being generous.”

It was then that he got up in your face. You couldn’t help but be startled by his sudden anger.

“Oh yeah?”

You pulled yourself together, steeling yourself for whatever Jason threw your way.

“Yeah, buddy. Two can play this game,” You said indignantly. “And, you know what?”

“I have a feeling you’re gonna tell me anyway, babe,” He drawled tonelessly.

Your face instantly scrunched up in anger, “I am!”

He gestured for you to continue, “Go on then.”

“My loyalty is with myself and only that. Don’t get it fucking twisted.” His breath caught in his throat unexpectedly at your statement. You used this to your advantage, stomping forward to take his face into your hands with a confidence you weren’t used to having. “Where does your loyalty lie, Jason?” His eyes flashed passionately with an intensity you easily met.

Did it still sound like the two of you were about to kiss?

If it had been a movie or one of those steamy romance novels he claimed weren’t his, maybe.

But this?

This was you and Jason Todd.

You pushed first, knowing it wouldn’t move him at all, but it was the thought that counted, “Back the fuck up, Todd .”

“Or what?” His eyes were pure electricity, crackling like heat lightening in the sweetness of the intimate night.

“Or find out what I’m about,” You insisted sharply.

"What you’re about?" He firmly poked you in the forehead with a mocking laugh. Your jaw clenched. “Find out what I’m actually about, babe. I taught you everything you know, dumbass, so go ahead. Try it again and see what happens,” He threatened your last name like a curse.

You smiled widely and humorlessly at the challenge, replicating exactly what Damian had told his family. Any time you would argue or spar, without fail, you’d have a creepy smile adorning your face. It was unnerving and you knew this, but you didn’t care if Jason thought you were psycho when you were already .0005 seconds away from pushing his smug ass into the fountain.

“This is so rich,” You gestured between the two of you. “For once, just once !” You reiterated, “I think I finally understand how you actually feel about me, then we go back to this dumb shit.”

You pushed him harder this time, which he replicated easily with a swift shove back.

Then, you were falling.

You felt the concrete ledge of the fountain hit your calf before you felt the shocking cold of the water as you plunged down into the fountain’s shallow basin. You thought, no knew , that he let you pull him in after you, probably after some guilty conscious thing, or whatever. Probably to protect you from hitting the bruising, stone bottom.

Whatever.

The running water from the fountain, along with the guests out front, were the only noises that stirred across the courtyard when you and Jason resurfaced.

You were both soaked to the bone in the middle of the Wayne Manor Gardens, arguing, poking and pushing at each other while Joker’s goons closed. A low, ominous chuckle reverberated throughout the gardens, though the chilling echo didn’t quite reach either of your ears yet through all the hormonal ruckus and splashing.

Jason pushed you back down into the algae-ridden water each time you tried to get back up, so you returned the favor by kicking the shit out of his ankles in order to get him low enough for you to tackle him back into the water too.

“You wanna fucking play,” He spat out your name in a low rumble. The noise tickled the tips of your ears as he pulled you into a loose headlock, which… felt good?

You stopped kicking up water, trying to place your confused thoughts while an intense blush steadily crept across your damp cheeks.

Jason, sensing your lack of movement, quickly let go, effectively dropping you on your ass in the fountain one final time. You both cursed at the same time and guiltily glanced at each other. It wasn't long before you were both laughing at the stupidity of the whole fight. Hell, the entire situation.

Jason waded closer to your shaking, wet form with a shit-eating grin and put his arm around your neck again, this time lighter.

“I bet you liked that shit.” He chuckled darkly and secured a slightly tighter grip. Feeling his muscled body flush against yours with his heat seeping through the cold wet of your own body, you couldn’t help the choked moan that escaped your rosy lips. “Oh,” He released you in an instant.

You turned around with your finger pointed, ready to start yelling again out of embarrassment when you heard it. A sound shook you to your core.

Goosebumps subconsciously trailed up your body like splintering ice.

You strained to make sense of the maniacal laughter that appeared seemingly out of nowhere, but Jason seemed to sober up fast enough for the both of you. He slipped out of the fountain at a lightning speed that you’d only ever seen him use during training. Before you could process anything, he grabbed you from around your midsection and hoisted you out of the freezing water.

Your dress was long and now extremely heavy as you tried to maneuver around its incapacitating weight to give you the ability to attack if need be, but it seemed to be in vain. He pulled you into as fast of a run as you could manage with your already strained ankles and added weight.

If earlier in the halls was any indication of how this chase would go, you and Jason both knew it would be over quickly.

Your breath came out in strained pants, unable to focus on the twists and turns as Jason guided you through hall after hall. You were definitely slowing him down and the goons were hot on your trail. You could practically hear their high-pitched, hyena-like cackling as if they were directly next to you.

Their presence was like an overbearing shadow that was threatening to envelop you whole.

At the last moment, Jason doubled back to a dumbwaiter shaft to shove you into the opening. He piled the remaining damp fabric of your dress in with you just as a group of burly men came into sight.

Under your weight, the mechanism dropped out from under you, sending you sprawling down until it smacked the ground hard. Upon impact, the cart jostled, sending shockwaves of pain reverberating across every bone in your body. You heard what sounded like struggles from above the shaft where you’d just come from and quickly realized that if they opened the hatch, they'd be able to aim their guns down and shoot at you.

Based on the howling laughing and gaudy face makeup, you deduced that these were most likely Joker’s men and you knew they wouldn’t mess around. Anyone who came into contact with them would most likely be injured and robbed, if not killed.

You gathered your bearings and heavy dress as you gracelessly fell into what you realized instantly to be the manor kitchen. While you’d only been in here a few times, you felt comfortable enough to know you could probably fit in the ground-level cabinets. After seeing how many cabinets there were in the expansive kitchen, you felt pretty secure in your hiding place.

You evened out your breathing, thinking back to what had just happened.

You now had the burden of time, left to wonder if everyone was okay. It was almost a curse to be here and safe while everyone else was still out there in the chaos. Your pitying, however, only lasted minutes before you heard a barrage of footsteps trampling around the marble tile of the kitchen.

It sure didn’t sound like scared party guests.

“How quaint,” You froze at the chilling voice that scratched at your ears. Joker . “I’m absolutely starving someone fetch me something.”

You heard Joker’s goons ripping apart everything in the kitchen and were startled by the banging of cabinets being opened on either side of you. It was only a matter of seconds before you’d be discovered. Your brain was completely shutting down.

“Well, well. What do we have here?” It was a big, bald man who ripped you from your hiding spot, leaving you no time to duck your head. You ended up smacking it against the top of the cabinet as you were aggressively pulled out.

You winced, trying to resort back to your self-defense training, but it was all eluding you as you were pulled tightly against his chest. The man secured both your arms with his own in an unescapable grasp. You were completely immobile, no matter how much you struggled.

“My dear,” Joker’s scarred smile slithered across his grotesque face, leaving you to uselessly pull away from his sudden close proximity. You could only escape so far back, however, before the back of your head hit your captor’s chest, “You’re completely missing the party upstairs! Shall we escort you back? You are, after all, the main event.” You didn’t say anything, attempting to avoid eye contact, but he grabbed your face, squishing your cheeks as he did so to force your eyes to peer into his grizzly, yellowed ones. “It’s so rude to ignore someone. You’re amongst civilized people; best to act like a lady ,” He emphasized it with a swift crack of his jester-looking cane against your calf.

You cried out in agony as he replicated the violent movement with a bout of creepy giggles on your other leg. You quickly lost your balance, completely relying on the man restraining you to keep you standing. You uselessly dangled in his arms as your legs were too weak to support themselves anymore.

“What do we do with her boss?” You felt his chest vibrate with every word.

The goons around you eyed you up animalistcally. How you wished you could pull up your slipping bodice to regain some sense of modesty in front of these heathens, but it wasn't in the cards.

“Were you not listening, idiot?! Take her to the ballroom. Batman should surely be on his way at this point.” He skipped in place. “I love it when a plan comes together!” He glared at the man behind you and hissed. “Why are you not moving, you pillock? TAKE HER- NOW !” He erupted into an abrupt anger that easily silenced all the chuckles in the room.

A heaviness fell across the room as everyone moved in sinister tandem to grapple your injured, sopping form back up to the ballroom. You’d lost sight of the Joker on the way up but quickly found yourself face-to-face with Batman and Robin.

You wanted to laugh.

It'd been your dream to meet the crime-fighting duo for as long as you could remember, but not like this. Not while you were being pushed and pulled around like meat by these goons.

The heroes took you in, ruined makeup and hair, a dress that was barely covering your nipples and your legs that were doing more wobbling than holding you up after Joker's barrage of attacks.

“Let her go.” Batman’s voice was like velvet as it fell unsettlingly across the frenzied room of rich socialites.

Robin, on the other hand, looked absolutely rabid. It was as if he were barely holding himself back from killing the men behind you who stopped pushing you around at the commanding tone. Without their support, you quickly crumpled to the floor like a doll with a gasp of pain that emanated throughout the wooden walls of the ballroom.

Looking deeper into the audience, you saw Jason’s dripping form standing with fists held at his side next to a highly concerned Tim. They noticed your gaze and held it in what was supposed to be comforting, but it only made your stomach churn.

You were in trouble.

Big trouble.

The men snicked at your pathetic form as you scrambled to pull up your bodice over your exposed chest. You hoped Batman’s arrival meant that Joker was going to leave you alone, but you doubted it. You were only safe for the time being, though it was merely borrowed time.

You stared up at Batman’s form fearfully. From this angle, he was just as frightening to you as he was to the men behind you. You tore your eyes from his daunting form, searching around the room for some way to escape, but with your busted legs, you knew you wouldn’t be able to get far.

You were helpless.

“This is between me and Joker.” It was a ruthless growl that had you shrinking back along with the goons behind you.

At the resounding silence, Robin let out a frustrated cry.

“COME OUT AND FACE US, YOU COWARD,” Robin snarled, drawing his sword in an instant. You gazed at it in amazement as he unsheathed the impressive weapon and held it with a certain elegance that couldn’t be portrayed in any of the comic books you’d read.

“Haven’t you ever heard of the little old saying, ‘ be careful what you wish for ?’” Joker drawled as he theatrically circled your form, skipping and hopping once every few steps or so in a jerky, disturbing manner that had you shrinking away. “Oh, no, no, no . That won’t do. You’re the main event, sweetheart!” You shook your head, closing your eyes as he leaned in close enough for you to feel the warmth radiating from his face. You could smell the rancid sourness and gunpowder that emanated from his cackling form. Before you could blink, he battered you with the front, then the back of his hand, forcing your eyes open as he gripped your cheeks in a way that caused your mouth to pout outward comically. “Look at me, look at me ,” He whined in an eerie, childlike voice. “ LOOK AT ME.” Your eyes shot open at the intensity of his voice against his gritted, yellowed teeth, “Good. Good, girl.”

He giggled hauntingly at your terrified form before socking you squarely in the eye. You cried out at the intense blow that had you falling to the floor from sheer force. Once he was satisfied with your pained state, he turned his attention back to Batman.

You knew you probably had a black eye and bruised cheeks already from the hits, but if the vigilante didn't intervene soon, you knew it was about to get so much worse. And fast.

“See, this is good. We’re all here,” He knelt next to you before grabbing your face to haul you back into a kneeling position. You felt like a doll as you allowed him to lead your body where he saw fit. You hated it.

You hated him.

Mostly, you hated yourself for not having the energy to fight back.

He shook your face once more before releasing his clenched grip to stand and walk around whimsically again like he hadn’t just beat the shit out of you. “Celebrating, drinking expensive wine.” He motioned one of the waiters with a tray filled with champagne flutes forward.

They slowly walked toward him as he continued to beckon them obnoxiously. He smirked as worried murmurs settled across the room before grabbing the one closest to the waiter's body with a slow intensity.

You knew Joker was unpredictable, but this? This was just psychotic.

He held up the glass toward Batman in a calm, silent cheer before taking a sip.

You turned your attention back to Robin, who was busy sneaking toward you at the Joker’s brief lapse in attention, but it wasn't enough time. Joker opened his eyes just in time to see Robin nearly reaching you. The psychotic man didn’t hesitate to throw the filled glass of champagne directly at you. Robin was quick to take the hit as he pulled you into his arms and let his back take the brunt of the assault.

He hadn’t spoken since drawing his sword, but you didn’t have time to wonder why.

"You see," Joker’s henchmen were on you in seconds, savagely swinging haymakers Robin’s way to distract him from you. Meanwhile, Batman had also been swarmed as he tried to advance on Joker, only to be clubbed over the head by multiple henchmen wielding baseball bats. “It’s best I get what I want, Batsy . Or do you really just want to see her struggle as much as I do?��

As soon as he finished speaking, he rushed to your struggling form, producing a wicked-looking knife. You immediately stilled in the sea of your captor’s grasps. Multiple men tugged you back and forth, brushing the sockets of your arms as they caused the Joker’s intentional grip on the blade to slide back and forth against the delicate skin on your neck.

Blood steadily seeped from the stinging wound like a curtain of red. You hoped that, if this light cut into your skin had shed this much blood, that he wouldn’t go any deeper.

“Drop her,” Joker said suddenly and the goons obliged. You wailed in pain as you were dropped into the small pool of your blood that had collected onto the floor below you. He pulled you back up by your hair, causing you to wince at the stinging that spread across your scalp as he brought the knife to its point just below the stinging cut you felt on your throat. “That’s better, now. Isn’t it, sweetie?” You gulped and instantly regretted it as the blade sunk into the new spot he'd picked on your neck.

“ANSWER ME,” He tugged your hair again, forcing your head upward to look at him. You winced as you met his crazed eyes through your exhausted, half-lidded ones. His hits had really taken it out of you. That, coupled with the steady blood loss, you could hardly keep your eyes focused. “Pathetic,” He ran the blade up your throat in a swift, searing act of violence, leaving more blood in its path.

You struggled to take in air, though you knew he’d only grazed your skin. If he cut any deeper, you’d be toast.

He yanked your hair backward harshly, startling you from your brief thoughts, as he used the momentum of the motion to send you sprawling to the hardwood floor. Your body landed with a resounding thump as the back of your head made contact with the brutal surface below.

“Inject her,” Joker said monotonously, waving his henchmen on as if he'd become bored with the whole ordeal. You were swooped up again before you could regain your bearings, watching Robin desperately clawing in your direction, but he had too many men on him to allow him to come to your rescue. You were held in a similar fashion you’d been in the kitchen as a goon stepped forward and held out a briefcase. Joker’s giddy form, who danced at the sight. “Oh, goody! I do love a good concoction!” He unlocked the case to produce a bulky syringe filled with toxic-looking green liquid. “Number one outta mean something good, eh, Bats?”

You struggled at your human restraints while simultaneously looking for Jason and Tim in the crowd, but they’d moved from where you’d last seen them. Your stomach sank. Regardless of the gala guests, you felt completely alone in the crowded ballroom.

Your whole chest and bodice were slick and stained from the waterfall of crimson that steadily gushed from your gashes. You tried not to panic and to stay alert, but your head grew fuzzier with each passing moment.

All your injuries were mounting as your original adrenaline from the kitchen had worn thin, if not vanishing entirely. You braced yourself for what was to come next.

A/N: aint no party like a wayne party, right? oof

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#reader x jason todd #damian wayne x reader #reader x roy harper #reader x jason todd x roy harper #my fic: the art of rehabilitating snowbirds #my fic:ars

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thealmostgoodartist · 10 months

Text

How Not To Help Your Favorite Hero— a Guide by Tim Drake

Since AO3 is still down, here are three more chapters.

Chapters 1-3:

Rating: T (for language, blood, and themes.)

warnings for major character death (aka. This is based on that one interactive movie in which Bruce dies instead of Jason).

Relationship: Tim & Jason, and Dick & Clark

Summary: The one in which Dick tries to hold his family together, Tim hates cardio, and Jason kidnaps a “whole child”

Enjoy,

Chapter 4

It was most definitely not training.

Jason would insist it was— he would catch Tim whenever he would stumble over a branch or slow down to keep pace with him and then point out in his I’m-speaking-to-a-child voice how “necessary this kind of training is.” And yes, Tim did acknowledge running was not his forte (as demonstrated by the growing number of bruises on his legs), but he knew that there had to be more to the training than running through unstable terrains.

He told Jason as such, but the only response he got was the same… “you are not ready, kid.”

And so the training would continue.

Their “training” took place every other day after “school”. Tim would meet Jason at the park just outside of The Bowery, and then they would make their way into the trail. They would run on until Tim would say so, which usually occurred around their fourth mile and Tim’s third tumble to the ground (though at the beginning it had been much worse.) It was slightly humiliating each time, but the terrain would be muddy and slippery after Gotham’s usual morning fog and he had to keep up with Jason who ran with such ease even with the weighted backpack he would carry… Tim liked to believe he was doing ok.

Around the third week of their routine, Tim noticed Jason was leaning slightly to one side as he ran. He hadn’t noticed it before, but now that they were crossing a particular area, it was clear that Jason was propping his weight on his right leg more than his left. Was he injured? Tim couldn’t be sure— especially due to part of their agreement being “Tim is not allowed to go out at night and stalk people”— but it sent alarms blaring in his brain. How had he not noticed before? He usually noticed that kind of stuff— and how bad was it? Had Jason received any other injuries he had been able to hide from Tim? How—

Tim found himself on the ground for the third time that day.

“Didn’t you hear me tell you the floor was slippery?” Jason said, stopping and turning around with his hands on his hips looking at Tim like a disappointed parent.

Tim, in fact, did not remember Jason telling him that the floor was slippery.

Jason took his silence as an answer, and with a sigh, he approached him.

“Ok, that’s it for today,” he said, “We are leaving.”

“What? No.”

“That’s the third time today, that means we are done.”

Tim glared at Jason.

“How am I supposed to get any better if you don’t allow me to try to prove myself? This is not even training! I could be doing so much more— ”

“That’s not my problem.”

“What do you—“

Jason glared back at him and in one fluid movement he scooped Tim up into a fireman carry.

Tim was too shocked to react.

“You think this is not training?” Jason said his voice sounding cold, “Well then, here is your first lesson: if you don’t listen and follow introductions, people get killed.”

Jason carried Tim through the trail back into the park and Tim didn’t argue and he didn’t fight. The older boy barely tolerated him as it was— after all, he was the nuisance who had put a stop to three of his latest plots— and so Tim had been careful about it all. He had watched his words making sure not to reveal anything he could keep to himself (which had proved to be hard due to Jason’s insistence on questioning him), and he had prepared contingencies for anything that could go wrong.

But maybe he has been too careful— he had thought he would have more time, and that Jason would be more cautious about his mission, but alas, Tim had been wrong.

By the time the canopy of trees above their head finally opened, Tim had come to a decision: it was time for plan J.

—

The kid looked blankly up at him, and Jason couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being judged.

“Ok look, Kid,” Jason said suddenly feeling that he had messed up, “that sounded harsher than I intended, but you have to listen to me if you want to keep doing this. Do you understand?”

The kid nodded from where he was sitting on the bench but didn’t say anything. He still had the blank look on his face, and Jason couldn’t be sure he had actually listened to him.

Jason sighed and crouched down taking his backpack off to rummage inside for the first aid kit.

“Your knee is bleeding,” he told Tim, who just looked down at his knee as if he had just noticed the fact, “Do you want help with that?”

“I can do it myself.”

“Debatable.”

“I managed the last time—“

“Barely.”

Tim rolled his eyes but nodded toward the kit. In truth, he knew the kid could do it himself, but it was funny to see him try to argue about such petty matters.

The kid frowned at him during the whole process.

“I could have done that by myself,” he said once Jason was finished.

“You would have managed to mess it up somehow.”

Tim stood up and gave him a look, which Jason managed not to laugh at.

With a quick goodbye, the kid walked away, back to his home, and Jason watched after him to make sure no weirdos approached him until he arrived at the bus.

And then it was time to go back to the real world.

He hasn’t expected when they got started— he hadn’t even expected it after the first three training sessions in which neither of them had talked more than necessary— but he continued to look forward to those days even though a part of him was telling him to stop. It was just… it was so easy to not think about how shitty the rest of his life was when he was focusing his attention elsewhere. Tim was like another mission, but it was a mission that wasn’t based on revenge like the other one. It was nice, but he was sure it wouldn’t last long. Soon enough, the kid would give up and they would go their separate ways. It was for the best, but the stupid part of his brain wished it wouldn’t happen too soon.

Chapter 5

Honestly, the kid had already lasted longer than Jason had thought he would. Jason hadn’t expected him to come back after their first run in which he had fallen a total of five times, but alas, the kid was at their agreed meeting stop two days later. For what he knew about him (which wasn’t much) Timothy Jackson Drake proved to be a contradiction. He was from a rich family, but he dressed in hand-me-downs; he lived in a relatively safe neighborhood, but he knew how to take a hit; and he spoke like any other rich brat, but didn’t act like one.

All of it was enough to pique Jason’s curiosity and if he had been anyone else, he might have looked into it. But as it stood, there had been no need to look into Timothy Jackson Drake. (Yes the kid was a bit too skinny for Jason’s liking, and he was way too quiet for an almost thirteen-year-old, but that was a problem for the Kid’s parents, not him.)

Jason wouldn’t waste any unnecessary time on the kid— there were so many other things he had to take charge of like the shipment of weapons that was set to arrive at any moment.

He was perched on top of some rusty containers as he watched the men walk down the dock. He couldn’t hear what they said from far away, but that was ok. He already had all the information that he needed from his informants.

Some lower gangs had seen Red Robin’s entrance as an ample opportunity to take power now that Black Mask had lost most of his resources.

It shouldn’t be a hard takeout once the other gang members showed up.

It was just a matter of waiting.

A car pulled out slowly, Jason readied himself, the door opened, and out began to step someone—

A sudden sharp, searing pain in his left arm caused him to drop his gun. He turned around to see a pale figure staring down at him just a few containers away.

Zsasz aimed his weapon at him, just as Jason raised his gun. He angled himself, and with his other arm, he reached into his utility belt. The pain was immense, but he was used to dealing with much worse.

“How long can the little bird last without the Big Bat?” Came the chilling voice of the serial killer, “I already have a mark ready for you— but we shall see how much of a fight you can put.”

Victor pulled his trigger just as the smoke bombs went off.

—

Plan J was named as such not because it had to do with Jason (though Tim admitted it was a funny coincidence), but because it was Tim’s 10th plan.

His original idea had been to just follow them around and hope that things would go back to normal. It had been a stupid and naive plan, and when he saw that wouldn’t happen, he made multiple plans to intercept his heroes. He had intercepted Nightwing three times (with one of those interceptions having been when he had broken into his house in Bludhaven), Jason two times (preventing two of his plans to come to fruition), and Mr. Pennyworth once (when the man had been grocery shopping). None of these had yielded any positive results (with Mr. Pennyworth ignoring Mr. Grayson having had gotten angry at him for “breaking and entering”) but they had at least been more successful than his eighth plan which had been to find and intercept Batgirl. That one had yielded no results. The most successful by far had been becoming Jason’s sidekick, but as he had found out, Jason tended to hide stuff and so Tim couldn’t count that one as a win.

He really hoped Plan J would count as a win. He was running out of plans, and there was not much time left.

And that’s how Tim found himself breaking into one of Jason’s safe houses as step two of the J plan (which relied heavily on sheer luck and his 3 am ventures.)

He hoped Jason wouldn’t mind— it was for the greater good after all.

Finding out which safe house Jason was most likely to be in had been relatively easy, and so had been the “breaking and entering.” Jason’s security measures were horrible and it was something Tim would talk to him about the next time they saw each other.

Jason’s safe house was a simple two-bedroom apartment that lacked any substantial furniture, being occupied instead by speckles of dust.

The place was so inconspicuous that, if Tim hadn’t known any better, he would have thought it was just a vacant apartment.

Tim moved silently through the empty apartment until he reached the main bedroom. He opened the door to reveal a sad-looking double-sized bed. He was hoping for a bit more in terms of setup, but he guessed Jason would at least see the files if he placed them on the bed.

He crouched down and opened up his backpack to pull out the manila envelope when he heard the sound of the door opening.

Shoot.

Tim was sure he hadn't been followed— he had been so careful! But there was always the chance, and if that was the case— how had he managed to mess up so badly?

His heart raced and his vision blurred as panic surged inside his body.

No, no. It couldn’t be. He had been so careful. Why now? Why here? Why—

There was a heavy grunt in the hallway followed by the sound of movement.

Tim’s blood froze and all his brain functions seemed to seize for a few seconds before it— thankfully— rebooted.

He needed to do something.

If not for his own sake, then for Jason’s safe house. He owed him that.

He reached once again into his backpack, and this time he grabbed the old, rusty kitchen knife he kept for emergencies. It wasn’t the best weapon (he had lost that one a few months ago during an annoying rouge’s attack) but it had the advantage of several bacterial colonies.

He grabbed it as tightly as he could with his shaking hands and slowly began to make his way to the door.

He could hear the steps and grunts approaching it.

The intruder was near.

Just a bit more and he would be close enough.

Tim waited, and then—

He pounced forward, knife in hand, and swung the door open ready to attack—

And he was swiftly disarmed by the intruder in a single maneuver.

Tim stared at his attacker and winced.

Jason cursed under his breath.

“What the fuck are you doing here, kid?” Jason said.

Tim was about to sputter some excuse when Jason slumped sideways.

He rushed to help him grabbing his arm. Jason made an uncharacteristic sound, and Tim immediately stepped back letting go of him. It had sounded like—

Tim looked down at his hand.

It shined with red blood.

There was so much blood.

Chapter 6

Black dots pranced around his vision as he slowly came back into the moment. He knew he had been extremely lucky in his encounter with Zasz (he was still alive after all) but he was losing blood fast.

He pushed himself away from the wall and towards the bathroom located between the two bedrooms. He felt the air leave his lungs unsteadily and his vision swam as he struggled to complete the simple task.

He hadn’t thought that his injuries were that bad but he hadn’t had time to examine them properly. It wasn’t often that he had been hurt in the field— he had every skill to take care of himself when the situation did occur, but it had always been Bruce doing all the fretting. Dick has always pointed out how annoying that action could be— “he is too controlling,” he would say— and Jason had always been quick to agree. After every injury, training would be harder, Bruce’s mask more expressionless, and his words harsher. Early on, it had irritated Jason to no end— he would give it his all on the training sessions, and still, Bruce would endlessly correct him and pick at every action— but it had quickly become clear that the worried look and remarks were not mere aggravations— they had been how Bruce (in his permanent emotionally-stunted state) showed he cared, and Jason…

He crashed through the bathroom door and onto the floor, pain running wild through every inch of his body. He slammed the door closed behind him and reached into the bathroom cabinet, pulling out the first aid kit. He hadn’t used that safe house in a while, but he was glad to notice that his kit was still well stocked. He pulled out bandages, a suture kit, and the disinfectant, and lined them up neatly on the floor in front of him.

Jason took a deep breath and got to work slowly removing the top part of his suit, wincing when the blood-soaked undershirt pulled gingerly at his injury.

Based on the location and the amount of bleeding, Jason assumed that the gunshot wound on his shoulder had not perforated any arteries.

It wouldn’t be so bad— he knew what to do— he just had to—

He grabbed the gauze and the disinfectant and got to work.

To be fair, Bruce had always insisted on doing the stitching. No one could expect him to be an expert at it if his whatever-Bruce-had-been-to-him never allowed him the chance to try it for real, but still…. He hadn’t expected his hands to shake so badly.

If it turned out to be a nasty scar, he would blame it on Bruce.

Jason sighed inspecting the bandages across his chest, before turning towards the door. Now that the adrenaline was beginning to wear off, he felt exhausted. He really needed to rest.

He opened up the door, and—

“Do you need some water?” A tiny voice asked as the glass was pushed up to him.

Shit.

“You look very pale… should I call someone?”

No no no—

“Google was extremely unhelpful, but…think you need some water.”

Jason closed his eyes hard, hoping the kid was just a blood-loss-induced hallucination.

This could not be happening— there was no way—

He opened them again, and the kid remained.

Okay, great.

“Did you break into my fucking safe house?”

Tim looked at him as if he had grown a second head.

“It wouldn’t be the first time—“

Jason glared at him.

“But this time it was for a good cause!”

“I thought we had agreed—“

“You said stalking,” Tim interjected, “this is breaking and entering. Two completely different things.”

Suddenly Jason felt even more exhausted.

“It is not better, kid.”

The kid looked at him and shrugged. Jason would have tried to dissuade the kid from pursuing such endeavors, but— as he had previously demonstrated— it wasn’t easy to do so— Jason didn’t have the energy to even try.

Tim pushed the glass of water even more toward him with a wide-eyed innocent expression plastered upon his face.

It was truly an unfair expression.

Jason took the glass and downed the liquid only to be presented with a simple manila envelope as soon he looked down.

—-

So plan J was going better than expected—

“So are you going to tell me what you are doing here?” Jason asked from where he sat on his bed, carefully examining the folder in his hands.

Honestly, Tim had expected Jason to kick him out immediately, so the fact that he hadn’t and that he was now looking at what Tim had given him—

“I believe that folder contains some information you will find useful,” Tim said, to which Jason responded with a sigh.

Jason opened the folder and took out one of the pictures. His eyes widened comically at the image.

“Kid—what?” Jason said as he rummaged through the folder.

Jason took out the contents and placed them in a row next to him on the bed.

The first picture on the row was the first one Tim had taken that night. It showed the abandoned Schott’s Toys factory located outside of the warehouse district. The picture was taken from far away, and though it was evident some people were lounging around outside the building, the resolution was not good enough to pick out any distinguishing features. It was truly not Tim’s finest work, but he had managed to fix that problem in the next set of pictures by getting considerably closer.

“Who took these pictures?” Jason asked, looking back at Tim.

“I did,” Tim said after a bit of hesitation. He had considered lying but then trying to explain how he had gotten his hands on the pictures if he hadn’t taken them— it was just too much work.

“How did you get so close?” Jason said, quietly, almost to himself.

“It does not matter! Just look—“ Tim grabbed one of the other pictures and handed it to Jason— “You see?”

Jason looked at the picture— that of a man in a black and white suit holding a rifle— and then looked back at Tim with a horrified expression on his face.

“Tim, this is one of Two-Face’s men— what were you—“

“Yes! But you are not seeing—“ Tim grabbed two more pictures— one of a man wearing a leather mask, and one of a man in a suit holding an umbrella— and handed them to Jason, who just looked increasingly worried.

“Tim—“

“Don’t you see?”

“Tim, how did you even find this?”

“The Nurse at the hospital— she said that her brother had begun working again, and she had previously mentioned that he worked with Two-Face.”

“What wherever you doing at the hospital?”

“It doesn’t matter! Jason don’t you see!” It said, “People who would have never worked together in the past— Two-Face, Penguin, Black Mask— have now united forces and it is because of you. This is bigger than you are! You need help!”

“And what?” Jason said sounding annoyed, “You are gonna help me?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “I’m already training you, I don’t know what else you want.”

“Well, the ‘training’ is taking too long—“

“I can’t do anything about that.”

“There is no time, Jason! I’m not asking to be out in the field, but you need someone to help you.”

Jason took a deep breath, and massaged the bridge of his nose. “How do you propose you can help then?”

“As you can see, I am good at gathering intel. Let me help you with that— and coms. I want to help with coms.”

“No.”

“But—“

“I said no, Tim,” Jason said, trying to sound intimidating.

Tim looked at him intently. Jason seemed to have reached a verdict, which meant it was time for the final part of the plan—

“I will tell Nightwing the location of your safe houses if you don’t let me do this.”

Jason looked at him shocked, and Tim couldn’t help but smile a little. It had worked!

“Are you blackmailing me?” Jason asked.

“Yes,” Tim answered.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/44748827/chapters/119066449

#batfam #batfam fanfic #tim drake fanfiction #jason todd fanfiction #dick grayson fanfiction #kid tim drake #ao3 fanfic #ao3 #angst and comfort #long post #batman

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mangoisms · 6 months

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Im just soso obsessed with figuring out tim as a character rn i cant stop thinking abt it (ive always been a jason todd girlie but i read ur fic and that angsty twink latched onto me and refuses to let go)

I think u have a pretty good hold of him, especially bc in present comics writers are so intent on elevating tim in spite of other characters (barbara and her hacking skills for example, or any comparison made btw him and any robin, really) that most portrayals of him are so boring it makes me cry, while you on the other hand took the approach to write about his flaws (which are MANY) while still making him charming and handsome (he is so... !!!!)

To me flaws are also tied to not only the good traits of characters but also their core beliefs and ideals so what can you say abt tim?

I know he can be stupidly arrogant and patronizing at times, that he's always idolized the position and legacy of robin and constantly fights his insecurities with this role and his abilities for the job, that he can also be incredibly selfish or outright mean when it comes to being mindful of other people's feelings for the sake of logic (re when he didnt tell tam abt his dad not being actually dead), but at the same time i cant figure out exactly what he wants to do with his role as robin (or red robin) or why he would want to keep going when his main goals first were just making sure bruce wouldnt go down a dark path, im pretty sure he mentioned not being a vigilante forever but his actual goals remain unclear to me

(Im in the midst of reading his solo robin run but ive read red robin so give me a little room for this, you are definitely free to talk abt more of his comics bc i havent read everything yet and everything im saying should be taken with a grain of salt, video essays and the issues ive read can only get me so far)

He could have gained an inherent desire to help people after all his time as robin and the so fucked up shit that happened to him, maybe as a ways to channel his grief (much like dick and jason and bruce, im thinking abt identity crisis here) after he isnt "needed" as robin anymore, but at the same time that would be so tragic because he was supposed to be different to them, he was supposed to remark the importance of robin's role in helping be "batman's light" and not becoming like batman himself, its just so interesting and im still trying to really understand the extent of his character so id just. Love to get ur thoughts and musings on what fuels tim as a character and how you see him

(I dont have this problem with jason bc his moral conflict is very crystal clear to me and also so freaking juicy, his actions are logical and so understable, granted he also hasnt had as much screentime as tim and i can see when writers just Dont Get Him, misunderstanding the original intent of his character coming back etc etc etc, tim has grown and evolved throughout his tim as robin so this might factor in too)

Anyways sorry for the long post i hope this is alright !!! Loved ur fic to bits and ur writing is a blessing mwah

okay HI i am not exaggerating when i say that i have been thinking about this ask since you sent it HAHA tim is just a parasite in my brain he won't let go...

that's the funny thing about portrayals of him today... i feel like people want to elevate him as a potential batman or a character closest to bruce in terms of intelligence and detective skills, which isn't true at all, i think (because, exactly, you have babs Right There), and of course, narratively, this is all a good thing (this post covers it well, i think). it's in the same vein of people making tim out as the most dangerous person in the batfam, should he ever chose to go down the path, which i can partially blame red robin (2009) for with this panel....

(and i don't think that's true either. he has the potential to be dangerous just like any of the others but i think the ones to really be scared of are babs, dick, and cass but ANYWAY)

in general, red robin 2009 was a bumpy time for tim with bruce's death and his spiraling, but it seemed to really inform what they were going to do with his character. no more time for the civilian life, committing himself much more thoroughly to The Mission like bruce. which is, if you ask me, a negative progression of his character, which isn't bad, exactly, in terms of storytelling, but it feels like all we get are the 'good parts' now -- the intelligence, the status, the resources, and then we don't get to grapple with the consequences.

there were some in red robin 2009 but it was more tim accepting them and making no move to change his actions, which is fine, but now... idk. but i also don't touch modern comics with a ten foot pole so this could just be. Wrong. but that seems like what's going on. so i feel like that's where people get the idea of him being... idk not the Perfect Robin exactly but. you know?

no no yeah i totally agree!

re (because i want to break this down i'm telling you i have Been Thinking About This): at the same time i cant figure out exactly what he wants to do with his role as robin (or red robin) or why he would want to keep going when his main goals first were just making sure bruce wouldnt go down a dark path, im pretty sure he mentioned not being a vigilante forever but his actual goals remain unclear to me

exactly this. he did say that and i've reblogged this at some point i think, showing a panel from robin 1993 where he mentioned he wouldn't be a vigilante forever, then paralleled with that panel i put in earlier from red robin 2009. (there's this post, which touches on another thing about tim trying to set himself apart as having friends and thus not being bruce LOL which is another topic entirely)

i think that was what red robin 2009 was - a negative progression of his character, one that, again, we never really grapple with, especially as dc shoves robin back onto him now.

his motivations are an interesting thing to me, because he did start out coincidentally, saying batman needed a robin but he didn't assume he'd be that robin, it just kind of happened because he was there (well much more went into it but you know?).

but aside from that, i've never gotten the impression tim really does it for people. i mean batman in general has been about the detective work but i think towards the 80s/90s/00s there was a shift to focusing on the people but tim has never really struck me as a hero of the people. he's more about fighting crime than he is about helping people. i think it is partially informed by the genre - re detective comics, etc - but still. he's not like, say, peter parker/spider-man, who is a hero of the people, of the working class. the people are inherent to him as spider-man. tim does it out of duty and responsibility i think, being the light to batman's dark, of course, but he's also very much a teenage boy about being robin - the cool factor, pointedly mentioning he wants to let off steam by knocking around 'criminals' that kind of thing

which doesn't mean he's unfit for it but he operates in an odd grey area as far as his motivation goes, which i think is where we get red robin? he was defined by being robin and he did his job, then he got the boot. so it is very much an identity crisis but we're seeing that negative change as he changes for the worse, for something darker. i mean, yes, red robin 2009 was again bumpy because he was at a very low point in his life but in general, that run was dark for him.

editorial wise, we'd never get to see what they made of it because they did the reboot and started new-52 a few years after. but whether he'd continue being red robin/going down this path, or if he'd shed the identity and go for something lighter... it's hard to say.

i kind of like the thought that he'd change his identity and try to take a lighter approach, try to pull himself from bruce's influence, though with how it's all set it up, it seems fated that he'd end up there. there was red robin 2009, but then there was his sixteenth birthday incident (which sounds bad here and i'd read this before reading it myself but god when i read it it pissed me off so bad... really what turned me off bruce as a 'good' father figure, i can't lie). he ultimately ends up going back and becoming robin and this is the turning point for him where he agrees to enter this mindset that bruce wants him to be in. (this post talks mainly about timsteph but it is also a point to the end about the shift in his character and how that affected his relationships as well)

i mean i know red robin 2009 is marked by the grief of bruce's 'death' and a bunch of other Very Bad Shit but even when we got past that and he had his little 'Let me let in the people who love me because i am Not batman' he then proceeded to go a little surveillance crazy and make a hit list (something like that, it's been a while..) but. yeah.

ultimately, at the core of his character, i think he is good and compassionate and kind, so, even aside from all that (like the birthday incident), i think he would've made his way there eventually. it could maybe be why we see him returning to robin, if we wanted to try and pretend dc making him be robin is a completely normal and logical decision that they actually thought through. like a way to return to the bases and feel it out from there. though i still think they could've just. idk. given him a BREAK from vigilantism to figure it out. i'm a big proponent of civilians and their place amongst vigilantes and superheroes and i feel like tim's due a break, which is why i put that stuff in my fics. i do want to see him step back and try to figure out his life, because at one point, though robin 1993 was arguably defined by the balance between robin and tim drake and had plenty of civilian friends to keep things interesting, we don't see much as far as what he wants to do. which i suppose could be part of his relatability factor that tim drake, the character, was conceived with

but idk at this point they have to give us something 😭 anyway. this got VERY long i am very sorry.. i don't mind long asks either but i might've overshot my response... alas. i also hope i more or less answered your question??? if not feel free to slide back in here and talk to me! i rambled a bit here and it's like. 3am rn i'm scheduling this to post because i wanted to get it all written Now and. yeah.

thank you SO much very happy to hear you're enjoying everything <333 hope you continue to enjoy :**

#also thank YOU for all your thoughts?? like i said i was Thinkign About This #and i had posts in mind for it and yeah. yeah. i was thinking about it all week HAHA #but also like twin brain moment because you get him <3 he is charming and handsome but he also has SOOOO many flaws and is actually rlly #annoying and puts his foot in his mouth TOO MUCH #so. YEAH. sorry this is long don't feel obligated to respond to All Of This <3 but if you have any q's feel free to ask <3 #inbox #long post

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sturchling · 3 years

Note

A maribat no pairing needed but if you want one you can write it in. But basically Marinette goes to Gotham and stays with the bat family. Bruce is leaving hits he is Batman so he can help Marinette with being ladybug

Sorry for the wait! Hope you like it! I decided to make this one a little more funny with a completely oblivious Marinette. Sorry if you don't like her being this oblivious, just wanted to have some fun with this one. I really liked that idea and thought it was funny. I hope you like it too, I had a lot of fun writing it!

Marinette was so excited she was shaking. She had just gotten word that she had been accepted into an exchange student program with Gotham Academy. Not only would she be able to get away from Lila and the drama with the class, but she may also be able to find Batman and get some help with tracking down Hawkmoth. Marinette would be hosted by the Wayne family, who was sponsoring this whole program. Marinette was impressed by Mr. Wayne's generousity. It is really generous of Mr. Wayne to set up and fund this whole program. He must be a really nice man. Marinette wasn't going waste this opportunity. She would enjoy her time in America, and she would definitely find Batman before the program was over!

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

Bruce really hoped this crazy plan worked. He had learned several weeks ago about a blog based out of Paris called the Ladyblog. It mainly posted a bunch of nonsense about a girl named Lila who was clearly a liar. But that wasn't what caught his attention. What caught his attention was a few stories posted between the interviews with the liar. These posts were about something called 'akuma attacks' and a supervillain named Hawkmoth who had been terrorizing Paris for years now. At first, Bruce just thought it was more nonsense, like the posts about the liar. But to be safe, he looked into it more, and was astonished to find out it was the truth. He learned everything Hawkmoth had done, all the different akumas, and about the local heroes: Ladybug and Chat Noir.

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

He was shocked to see that the heroes defending Paris were just kids. And while they have done great on their own, Bruce could tell they haven't had any kind of combat training. If they go up against an akuma with real training, they would be at a significant disadvantage. Plus, they would likely not have any good strategy to discover Hawkmoth's identity. Even if they keep winning against the akumas, they have to find and beat Hawkmoth or this madness will never end. He resolved in that moment to find these kids and help them. He focused on Ladybug and started to figure out her civilian ID. It took a few weeks, but he eventually found out she was Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She always disappeared once Ladybug appeared, and there were a few times that a security camera would see her duck into an alley, and then a few moments later, Ladybug would emerge. Once he knew her identity, he began to plan.

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

He decided the easiest way to get her to Gotham would likely be something regarding school. At first he thought of a class trip for her whole class, but decided against it. That idea wouldn't work with the rest of his plan. Instead, he set up a student exchange program with Gotham Academy. He would host the student that was selected at his manor for the duration of the program and fund the entire thing. The academy didn't think anything of it, used to Mr. Wayne's charitable acts for the school. His one condition was that he got to choose the student. The academy agreed, it only made sense since Mr. Wayne was funding the program and would host the student as well.

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

Mr. Wayne made sure that the news of the program made it to Paris and was heavily advertised. He even sent the information to Ms. Dupain-Cheng's school. He was sure that she would learn about it and apply quickly. Ms. Dupain-Cheng had seemed like an ambitious student from what he had found so far, so the offer of studying in America would be tempting. Plus if she was as clever as she seemed, based off her actions as Ladybug, then he was sure she would want to come and try to meet with Batman. It didn't take long for Marinette's application to cross his desk. As he approved her application and typed up her acceptance email, he smiled and began the next phase of his plan.

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

Bruce knew that Marinette would be very concerned if he approached her about being Ladybug outright. It would be best if she approached him. And here was the problem. She wouldn't approach him, she would only approach Batman. So he needed to have her figure out that he was Batman. He didn't want her to transform into Ladybug and look around Gotham for him. That could cause people back in Paris to figure out her identity, if Ladybug appeared in Gotham at the same time as Marinette. And if Hawkmoth figured it out, that would be horrible. And if Marinette went looking for Batman in her civilian form, it could be really dangerous. Instead, Bruce and his sons were going to make it painfully obvious who they were. They would leave all their equipment out in plain view, all their case files out, he was even going to park the Batmobile outside in the driveway (out of sight of the gates of course, he doesn't want anyone but Marinette to find out his identity). Short of walking around in their costumes, they would do everything they could.

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

Bruce's sons were excited. They didn't have to be careful about their identities around her which was a plus, and after learning that Marinette fighting Hawkmoth with only Chat Noir for consistent help, they were more than ready to help them with the Hawkmoth problem. They had also made bets on how long it would take her to figure it out, and which member of the family would be the one to give it away. They were ready for Marinette to arrive.

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

Marinette had arrived about a week ago, and Bruce's plan was in full effect. But, surprisingly, Marinette hadn't figured it out. She spent most of her time out, walking around Gotham. She had told the Waynes that she was familiarizing her self with the city and also gathering inspiration for her designs. In reality, she was focused on finding Batman. So focused in fact, that she missed all the clues that the Waynes were leaving her. She had walked right past the Batmobile, hardly giving it a second glance. She had picked up some casefiles sitting at the dining table, and instead of reading, or even just looking at them, she just handed them to Bruce and finished setting the table. She had walked in on Jason cleaning his guns in the living room, and instead of commenting on that, just sat down and turned on the TV. At one point, she even came into the gym and found Dick doing an acrobatic routine that only Nightwing would be able to do, all while Tim and Jason were sparing, and Damian was sharpening his sword. They were sure this would get her attention. But Marinette didn't even notice. She just got on a treadmill, put in her headphones and started running. They boys just stared at her. They were shocked that she could be so oblivious.

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

While Marinette was out walking around Gotham, looking for Batman again, the Batfam was having a meeting at the manor. They couldn't believe that Marinette hadn't figured it out yet. At least Bruce could definitely prove that his secret ID was better than Clark's. Marinette's been living with him for months now, with them actively trying to reveal their secret to her, and she still couldn't figure it out. They were running out of ideas and time. The program ended in a few weeks and they had done everything they could think of. Except for one thing. They hadn't thought they would have to be so obvious, but it was clear that Marinette would figure it out any other way.

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

So, that is how they found themselves coming up from the Batcave, in full costume, making a lot of noise to draw Marinette's attention as she sat watching TV in the living room. Marinette came around the corner and looked at them. Marinette's eyes grew wide, and she just stared. The Waynes were sure she finally figured it out. Finally, she broke the silence, saying "Nice costumes guys! You look just like the real Batfam. Nice attention to detail!" Then she just went back into the living room, leaving the Batfam frozen in disbelief.

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

Bruce decided enough was enough, and the family went into the living room, still in costume, and told Marinette their secret directly. She was pretty surprised. She had been so consumed with looking for Batman around Gotham, she never even thought she might be living with him. The night continued for a long time after that. Marinette revealed her secret and the Waynes revealed they had known all along. They told her that they had seen her using the horse miraculous to go back to Paris for an akuma battle, which that may not have been how they figured her out, but they had seen that too. After all the reveals were done, the group spent the rest of the night focused on Hawkmoth and how to track him. Tim got to work immediately and was sure he would have an answer soon, though it may be after she went back to Paris. The rest of Marinette's time in Gotham was spent training how to fight properly, and how to find better places to transform. Marinette soon went back to Paris, armed with better fighting skills, and the knowledge that she now had Batman as an ally in the fight against Hawkmoth.

#ml #ml fic #ml fanfic #miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #miraculous fic #miraculous fanfic #maribat #ml x dc #miraculous x dc #dc x mlb #mlb x dc #oblivious marinette #maribat fic #maribat fanfic

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dilfwaynes · 3 years

Note

hi!! can i request a hc of the batfam reaction of their eastasian!reader gf experiencing racism? thank you <33

just a reminder if you took place in any involvement of asian hate block me rn bitch :)

a/n: i hope you enjoyed this anon, i tried to make it accurate without stepping over any boundaries since im not asian myself. if anyone finds any sort of this offensive pls dm me !!

warning ; racism, batfam beating hoes, mention of blood

parings : bruce wayne x asian!reader, jason tood x asian!reader, dick grayson x asian!reader, stephanie brown x asian!reader, tim drake x asian!reader, damian wayne x asian!reader

BRUCE WAYNE:

it’ll honestly take a minute for bruce to realize what happened

when first entering the store he took notice of the man glaring but brushed it off thinking it was directed towards him as bruce wayne

you however didnt really pay attention to the dirty looks being thrown at you

with bruce excusing himself to the restroom and makes a promise of a quick return, you wander around the area by yourself

it was all fine until a man approaches you, giving a fast glance at him before turning away. there was definitely something up with him

“you don’t belong here”

your head shot up at his words, looking around you to make sure he was talking to you

“excuse me?” you lift an eyebrow at him, knowing what he was hinting at

“you fucking heard me, you don’t belong here. go back to your country.”

you inch away as he steps closer,”you better back the fuck away..”

he simply gives a smug face only coming closer,”or what?” you tighten your jaw when he loosely lets out a slur, your fists clenched.

“or i dislocate your arm.”bruce’s voice rings out, deep in anger as his eyes flicker to you and scanning to see if you were ok physically.

the ugly bitch’s face pales when he realizes who’s your boyfriend. without hesitation bruce yanks him away from you, slamming him to the wall

demanding for a first and last name, squeezing his neck when the guy stays quiet

shaking he gives in and tells, flinching when bruce slams him against the wall one last time before dropping him

“i guaranteed whatever poor status you do contain i’ll tear it completely, say goodbye to your job.” he grabs for your hand and brings you into him as you both walk away.

“i’m sorry i shouldn’t have left you alone, my fault,”he presses a kiss to your temple.”and please don’t think any worth of that garbage’s words.”

you shake your head,”he was just some lowlife, not worth thinking about.” you reply leaning into him.

he looked at you and could tell no matter what those words still hurt somewhat and it angered him to no end

no one deserved to hear that disgusting shit, especially not his girlfriend.

his eyes hardens but doesn’t push further to make you anymore uncomfortable than you probably already are

giving another kiss to the side of your head he makes a quiet promise to himself not to leave you alone anymore in public with disgusting people like that around

jason todd:

as soon as the slur leaves the guy’s lips jason’s fist collides to his jaw, no doubt shattering it

you and jason were grabbing lunch at some restaurant slash bar since it was the first time in a few days jason was free

everything was okay until you got up to go to the bathroom and some guy bumped into you

jason watched with hardening eyes as you apologize instead of the guy who slammed into you

“watch where the fuck you’re going at.”

you fall shock at the word, staying in place

while jason is on his feet in no time, swinging to the asshole’s face

screams were heard as well as the sound of bones breaking from his fist impact, the guy stumbling to the floor

“you racist fucking prick that’s my girlfriend you ugly fuck,”lifting him by his shirt he grabs his face and turns him to you.”apologize to her before i break your fucking face.”

he quickly rambles apologizes, crying in fear or pain. most likely a mix of both

jaaon lets him go and gives him another punch, this time to the nose. finding satisfaction at the pool of blood now seeping out

jason grabs your hand and starts to lead you outside,”let’s go eat somewhere else and forget about this shithole.”

you barely had time to give a reaction to anything as everything happened so fast

“hey look at me, don’t listen to that worthless fuck and his fucked up mindset. i dont know what to say to comfort you since i never experienced anything like this.” he stops at the car, placing his hands onto your shoulders

you nod sighing lightly, you only wanted a simple lunch with your boyfriend but instead got hate crime for simply breathing.

“it’s nothing i haven’t gone through before,”he shakes his head blue eyes filling up with rage.

“no one’s gonna be doing that anymore, or at least getting away with it while i’m around

DICK GRAYSON:

he was completely taken by surmise at the slur being thrown at you, as well as the fault of you being the root of the covid 19

but before he had any time to react you were already on your feet glaring,”the fuck you just called me you piece shit.”

before he could reply you already kneed him and punched him between the eyes, dick laughing at the cries of pain

“you want me to take over or you wanna handle it babe?”

even how badly he wanted to beat the shit out of the pos the choice was yours

you denied and wanted to handle this on your own

but everytime the guy tried to get up dick would just shake his head and tell him to stay down, or simply push him back down

eventually if you start going too far richards would pull you away and tell you hes not worth it

he understands your anger but he doesn’t want you to past a line you won’t recover from bc of some worthless grime

“c’mon, he’s not worth anymore of our time. lets go eat pizza.”

DAMIAN WAYNE:

swing first talk later

he’ll just look at guy for a few seconds with a blank face

then he’s literally knocking them out

will probably kick him into the wall or ground

u dont know if you wanna pull him away because you already the tabloids, or if you wanna let him continue to beating the guy

damian probably wouldn’t realize how much he beat the guy to a pulp until you’re tugging him away

nudging his neck with to your nose to try and calm him down

he’ll end the fight with spitting on him tbh

your face reddens with anger when your eyes met the racist bitch, enjoying the view of his blood on the floor

“racist piece of shit,” he hisses before finally turning his back brow still frowning with anger

unlike the others (mentioned) he also knows and experienced racism and understands your point view way more

and know bow to comfort you better tbh

afterwards he’ll talk to you and comfort you, as well as opening up about his racist encounters, as well as his mothers.

if you’re still upset about what happened some hours later he 100% offers to beat up the guy again

you laugh it off cos hes serious about doing detective work, finding the guy and beating him to a pulp

you thank him but deny his offer and settle to confiding into him and just telling him how your feelings

STEPHANIE BROWN:

“are you fucking serious right now bitch?”

steph deadpans staring at the girl who called you the slur with ease, going on about how you were the cause of corona and to go back to your country

shocked at the words, hearing all of this before but it still doesn’t fail everytime you hear them

turning to you and seeing the hurt on your face from the word, she quickly turns to seeing red

without a second thought she grabs the collar of the woman’s shirt

“you’re gonna fucking apologize to my girlfriend right now or i’m gonna slam your face into the floor and break it

you stay still, pleased at watching the girl shake in fear under steph as she chokes out a mesh of a shit rushed apologizes

stephanie throws her down to the ground after her third apologize

“are you okay?” she knew you weren’t but asking the question would lead into the stage of comforting you

you nod but go on to tell her that this isn’t the first or last time this will happen, but it still never fails to shock you

she frowns at your experiences and doesn’t quite know what to do to help since she never went thru anything like that

she offers to take you to your favorite restaurant and end the day in wayne manor watching whatever you wanted

smiling when you accept, pulling you in her and pressing a kiss on-top of your head

“dont worry i’ll beat any jackass that pulls any racist shit.”

TIM DRAKE:

i think he’ll be the less violent one out of everyone

he would honestly be so disgusted and gross out at humanity and how the woman thinks shes superior just because she’s white

if it was a guy saying what was said, then he would probably hit them ngl

but he takes the higher road with the woman, belittling and ending her with his vocabulary

and you’re pretty sure that his words hurt her more than an actual punch would

you laugh when he compares her built to a buffalo

he then goes on to a more education lean, explaining how skin tone has nothing to do with a person, and she should adapt to modern times and stop being a racist cunt

after he ends it he goes on to find out who she is and email/call her workplace to inform what kind of employee they have

probably also goes on to make sure she wont be hired anywhere else

comforts you alot and and will get you anything you want

prob gets you both milkshakes as you vent to him about today and other racist things said to you

hates how you have to go thru any of this for simply existing

the incident opens his eyes and he starts talking to bruce about opening a charity for ‘stop asian hate’

would shy away from the press and say you both came up with the fund

u’ll dismiss that rq and tell everyone it was all tim’s idea

all the money goes people got assaulted and paying for any hospital bills or anything needed

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redhoodssweetheart · 3 years

Text

Moonlight II

Genre: DC/Marvel Crossover

Relationship: Older!Damian Wayne x Adopted Stark!Fem!Reader

Requested: No (Only a few requests are open, please see pinned post for details)

Word Count: 1.7K

Warnings: Fluff, Angst, swearing, canon typical violence

Description: You are the adopted daughter of Tony Stark, Damian is the son of Bruce Wayne. Your two fathers hate each other which by extension should mean that you and Damian are on less than friendly terms. The issue? You’ve been dating for little over a year and have been keeping it a secret. What will happen if your fathers figure it out?

A/N: I actually hadn’t planned on this ending the way it did, but as I was writing it this is just how it happened. Enjoy!

Morning light shown through your window the next morning a few minutes before your alarm went off. Your mind drifted back to the night before with Damian sneaking into your room and inviting you out for an afternoon with his brothers. Excitement coursed through you at the thought of finally meeting them. You quickly got up and began preparing for your day, you were almost done when there was a knock on your door.

When you opened it you discovered Pepper standing there with a bright smile on her face, “Good morning honey, Tony and I were just about to have breakfast, did you want to join us?”

You glanced back at your clock and saw that it was only eight thirty, you had plenty of time to eat before going to meet Damian, “Sure Mom.”

You grabbed the rest of your things before joining Pepper. It had taken you awhile before you had started calling Pepper “mom”. When Tony had first adopted you, you weren’t sure what he and Pepper wanted. It had been some time since you had had a family and you weren’t sure what Tony’s motivations were. Did he just want to look good to the press? Did he want to ease a guilty conscience? Did he just actually want a kid?

Then Morgan had come along. You thought for sure that that would be it for you, they had their own kid now, they wouldn’t want you. But that they hadn’t treated you any differently and you came to think of Morgan as your own sister. You were fiercely protective of her and she loved you to death. She was currently staying with Peter while you and your parents were in Gotham.

Tony greeted you with a hug and a kiss to your temple and began blabbing on and on about the gala the night before. Your mind drifted to Damian and how good he had looked in his suit. Then it went to the stairwell and the night before in your room, you only broke out of it when Tony cleared his throat, “Earth to Y/N, you still with us kid?”

You chuckled nervously, “Sorry just got a little lost in thought is all.”

“Care to share with the group?”

You shook your head, “Oh I was just thinkin’ about all the things I want to get done today. We leave in two days so that’s not a lot of time to see the city.”

“You could always come back later with your friends,” Pepper suggested. “I’m sure a vacation would be good for you.”

You smiled at her, “Yeah, you’re right, it would be nice.” You glanced at the clock on your phone and saw that it was creeping closer to nine thirty, you had to be at the park by ten to meet Damian. You stood and said, “Thanks for breakfast, but I want to go ahead and get a headstart on today. I’ll see you at dinner.” You kissed Pepper on the cheek and gave Tony a hug before dashing out of the hotel room.

Tony looked at the door you had just exited from and said, “I don’t think she wants to be around us any more.” Pepper merely patted his arm and went back to her breakfast.

You on the other hand were rushing to the park that Damian had mentioned. You were a little worried that someone may see the two of you together, but you honestly also couldn’t care less. Sometimes you were tired of hiding the truth from everyone. You loved Damian and you wanted the world to know that fact, but you worried about what Tony would think or do when he found out. You also wondered if Bruce would be understanding or if he would forbid his son from seeing you as well.

You shoved those thoughts from your mind, you didn’t want them affecting your mood any. Today was going to be a good day. And when you made it into the park you immediately saw Damian, he had a baseball cap and sunglasses on trying to hide who he was, but you knew. You could spot him anywhere. He had spotted you as well and you noticed a smile growing on his face as you raced over toward him. Your arms wrapped around him and he gently lifted you off the ground a few inches.

“Hello beloved,” he whispered in your ear before placing a gentle kiss to your cheek.

“Hi,” you said, a grin stretching across your face.

Someone cleared their throat and you could have sworn your heart stopped. You had been caught. It was too good to be true. “Aren’t you going to introduce us, Dami?”

You looked over his shoulder and saw his three brothers standing there all three of them with amused expressions on their faces. Damian practically growled at their words. Knowing that his brothers knew about the two of you made things a little easier. It was like Peter knowing that you and Damian were dating. The two of you needed someone to turn to when things were tough.

You had almost told Pepper one day when you and Damian had had a fight. You needed a motherly figure to go to, but you weren’t sure how she would feel about the two of you together. She wasn’t like Tony, but would she lie to Tony? You weren’t sure, so you decided to keep it a secret.

You had gone to Natasha despite never really talking to her.

She was in the training room at the Avengers' Compound and you approached her nervously. “Nat, could I talk to you for a moment?”

She had paused what she was doing and turned to you, giving you her full undivided attention, “What can I do for you Y/N?”

You rubbed your arm and said, “If I share a secret will you promise not to tell Dad?”

Natasha’s interest was piqued, “I mean as long as you aren’t in any danger then yeah I can promise not to tell him.”

“I’m dating Damian Wayne,” you said and you watched as her eyes lit up. “Oh God, please tell me you’re not going to use this against me?”

She chuckled, “I promise not to tell him or anyone else. How did this even happen?”

You launched into the tale of how you and Damian had been sworn enemies, always competing against one another and how it had turned to friendship and then to what it was now. You told her about the fight that you couldn’t even remember now, and she gave you her opinions.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you all,” you told them with a bright smile. “Damian talks about you a lot and I’ve been begging him to let me meet you all since you found out about our little affair.”

“They were supposed to give us a few moments alone before ambushing you,” Damian said, his tone clearly stating how unamused he was with his brothers. “But clearly they didn’t take my feelings into account.”

“You’ve been keeping her to yourself for over a year now,” Dick said, his easy going smile never slipping from his face. “We just wanted to meet her.”

Tim nodded his head in agreement, “Don’t get mad, Dami. She’s only here for a few more days and then she’s on her way back to New York.”

You poked Damian on the side, “They have a point, Damian. I don’t mind meeting them now, we have plenty of time to be alone together.”

He still looked disgruntled but you let the boys show you around Gotham. They had an SUV with tinted windows to hide who was inside. The boys were recognizable and so were you. The five of you would be on the front page of all the gossip magazines by tomorrow and everyone and their mother would know that maybe you didn’t play into the whole feud your fathers had going on.

You could see the headlines now:

Real-life Romeo and Juliet with Children of Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark

Y/N Stark and Damian Wayne Making Headlines as Secret Affair

How Long Have These Star-Crossed Lovers Been Together?

You wondered how long it would take Tony to kick you out of the house and never speak to you again. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to tell Tony, he deserved to know. It was just that you didn’t know what he would do when he found out the truth. You knew how much he hated Bruce Wayne, and to be fair Tony didn’t think straight on a lot of things when emotions ran high. He would definitely say something that would hurt and he might regret later.

But knowing your father he would be too proud to admit that he was wrong.

Damian noticed the look on your face and nudged you, “You okay?”

You smiled and took his hand in yours, “Yeah just thinking.”

“About your dad?” He furrowed his brow, the two of you had had many talks about your fathers and their reaction to the two of you coming clean about how you weren’t really enemies.

You leaned your head back and blew out a breath, “I’m just… worried.”

Damian squeezed your hand and said, “Whenever you want to tell him, I’ll be there to support you. And if you want to tell Father first we could while you’re still here. He may put on a show of hating Stark, but I don’t think he’d begrudge you.”

“Damian’s right,” Dick said from the driver’s side. “Bruce looks like he would be the type to throw a fit and tell Damian to get out, but he’s actually not that big of an asshole.”

You laughed, “You saying Stark is an asshole, Grayson?”

“If he doesn’t I will,” Jason turned and grinned at you making you laugh. “No offense.”

“None taken, I know my father can be less than welcoming and let his mouth get him into trouble.” You didn’t have enough fingers to count the times your father had gotten into trouble because his mouth had gotten the better of him. “I just wish I knew if he would be okay with us. That he wouldn’t let the feud get in the way of realizing how happy I am.”

Leaning over Damian kissed your cheek. “So should I set a course for the manor?” Dick asked.

“It’s up to you,” Damian said. “Father will be discreet.”

Taking a steadying breath you said, “Let’s do it.” The boys cheered and Damian once again squeezed your hand to let you know that he would be with you every step of the way.

#Damian Wayne x Reader #Damian Wayne x Fem!Reader #Damian Wayne x Stark!Reader #Damian Wayne x Reader fluff #Damian Wayne x Reader angst #Damian Wayne #Damian Wayne fanfic #Damian Wayne fanfiction #Damian Wayne fluff #Damian Wayne angst

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justcourttee · 3 years

Note

New idea!!! Could you write a story where Mari and Tim are full-blooded siblings except Mari was taken away from the Drakes. Mari would be Dick's age in this. The Drake's finally pass away so Bruce goes to adopt Tim but he's having trouble because Marinette is doing the same. It's a custody battle. Tim is confused because he doesn't know Mari (she was taken away before she was born and CPS wasn't dealing with that family again) but Mari knows about him. Maybe Dick/Mari?

I have a feeling I took this in a different direction than you meant for it to be, but I hope you still like it :) @elements1999

Tim’s Decision

There were two things that Timothy Jackson Drake was sure of.

One, that he had never seen Dick so flustered before in his life. The poor guy was tripping over his own feet, stumbling into the court hallway as if he had been drinking all morning, his face resembling something close to the apple Bruce forced him to eat for breakfast.

And the second, well, he was sure he had never met someone as persistently, annoyingly, upbeat as Dick Grayson until seconds ago when she reached out her hand to introduce herself.

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I’m sorry we have to meet under these circumstances, Timothy. This isn’t my first time reaching out, but it certainly is my first time getting through. Maybe after this, we can grab a bite to eat, get to know each other?”

Tim slightly withdrew his hand, reaching out to steady a swaying Dick. He wanted to ask him what could’ve warranted this behavior from him, but he wasn’t sure he was prepared to hear the answer.

“Miss Dupain-Cheng-”

“Please, call me Marinette! I’m not married, nor am I a middle-aged woman. I’m only 21 after all. You’re 14, right Timothy?”

“If I call you by your name, call me Tim. Timothy sounds like a rich brat.”

Marinette’s giggle earned a small smile from the boy. He had no idea who she was, but her presence was soothing and he didn’t feel any immediate danger. Besides, she wasn’t the first person to approach him in the past week. News of his parent’s death traveled very quickly and many people attempted to adopt him in hopes that his fortune would be theirs.

Bruce was quick to wave them off, offering to adopt Tim himself, but before Tim could even think about accepting, CPS contacted Bruce with the proposal from one Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

“I hadn’t realized that Bruce Wayne had caught your attention. I really want to make sure that you are able to have a regular childhood or at least some resemblance of a few normal years. If you think Bruce is a better option for you, I promise I’ll pull out right now, but if you have any doubts at all, I want to let you know that I want to fight for you, Tim.”

“I haven’t made any decisions yet and considering Bruce let me meet with you, I have to assume you’re not after my parent’s fortune.”

Marinette’s smile tightened at the mention of the fortune or was it his parents? He couldn’t tell. She was definitely holding something back, but they had just met and he wasn’t in any position to be pressuring her for some answers. What he was in the position to do was knock some sense into a now drooling Dick Grayson.

“Knock it off will you, you’re heavy and gross. You’re making a fool of the Wayne name and aren’t you supposed to be my guardian today?”

Dick muttered out something that sounded like an okay, but if Tim was honest, he wasn’t sure it was anything more than a few syllables to lower his guard.

“This is what Bruce considers a capable guardian? I’m not sure I trust him as far as I could throw him. What can it do?”

Marinette reached forward, poking Dick’s cheek, enough force to snap him out of whatever daze he had been in the past hour.

“Dick Grayson-Wayne ma’am, a pleasure to meet you.” Instantly he bowed, his hand extended as if he were waiting for something that wouldn’t come.

“Mhmm, so you are Bruce’s ward? You look like you could be his blood child. Does he have a thing for dark hair and light eyes? Creepy.”

Dick’s hand clutched his chest as if he had been struck directly in his core. Marinette turned her attention from him and back to where Tim stood.

“Anyways, I believe we mentioned lunch earlier. I’ve already submitted my application to CPS and after this formal meeting, you’re free to meet up with me whenever you would like as long as a third party comes with us. Can you think of anyone you want to come with us?”

Tim glanced to the side where he could feel Dick’s puppy eyes boring into him. He wouldn’t be his first choice but if it came down to him of Jaime, he was pretty sure he had a better chance of reigning in Dick.

“Do you mind if Dick comes with us?”

Marinette’s smile was shaken with uncertainty as if she was thinking of protesting but didn’t want to overstep any boundaries. Tim felt terrible putting her in the position but he was sure that Dick was her best chance given his options. “Of course not, where would you like to go?”

The lunch moved smoothly with Tim learning so much about her. She was originally from the Gotham foster system herself, but a young couple who couldn’t have kids adopted her at a younger age, moving her to Paris with them. She attended the equivalent of middle and high school over there where she met many lifelong friends. Starting late in her middle school years, she upstarted a fashion business where she had several big-name clients months into her start-up. Now she made personal designs, but many were taken care of by her team. She only stitched a very few commissions for close personal friends.

She was remarkable, someone who truly started from nothing. His parents did something similar as did Bruce’s. It was something he wanted for himself, something he wasn’t sure he could ever achieve with either his or Bruce’s fortune.

The custody battle was put on hold at Tim’s request. He was really intrigued by Marinette and Bruce pressuring him to take his time and really think over his choices finally led him to that decision. However, no matter how much Bruce tried to be a neutral party in the matter, Tim could feel the strain it put on their work relationship.

The more he saw Marinette, the more mess-ups occurred on patrol. Bruce would constantly tread into Tim’s area, always dropping in on his battles. It was as if he lost all trust in Tim as if he was trying to rely less on him, trying to go back to doing things on his own.

It was so frustrating. No matter how many times he told Bruce that he could still be Robin no matter who he chose, it seemed to mean nothing to him. He continually waved him off, claiming to have no idea what he was talking about.

A month after he met Marinette, Tim snuck out for the first time, begging her to meet him at a coffee shop near her hotel.

“Tim, this is dangerous. If CPS finds out we meet behind Bruce’s back, it could nullify my application.”

“I know, I know.” His head dropped to the table, buried in his arms trying to suffocate his frustration. “I just needed to get away from all of them. I think the fact that I consider you a serious option really upsets Bruce. It’s not that I don’t consider him a serious option as well, it’s just-he’s just-”

Tim let out a sigh, slowly sitting back up unsure where his thoughts were taking him.

“Tim,” Marinette reached across the table, laying her hand on his arm. “if this is too stressful for you, I can pull out of this.”

Her touch was so gentle, so soothing. It felt like the mother he never had, the kind of mother he yearned for but never realized. He really didn’t want her to leave his life just because he couldn’t give up being Robin.

“I just feel so selfish,” his vision started to blur, Marinette’s figure coming in and out of focus. “I want to keep the life I’ve made for myself here, but I also don’t feel like I can grow the way I want to under Bruce’s supervision.”

Marinette didn’t say anything for a moment, she just allowed him to cry, her thumb moving in small circles on his arm. Tim reveled in the feeling, reveled in the silence. He hadn’t had this in a while, he hadn’t had comfort for as long as he could remember. Even at his parent’s funeral, people just commented on how strong he was and how smart he was and told him he would be just fine. Not once did anyone try to hug him or ask if he was okay. They just assumed.

Everyone always just assumed.

“Tim, I haven’t been 100% honest with you since I met you. I didn’t want it to mess with your decision, but I think it’s time you knew.”

“I already know.” Tim moved his arms from her touch, his heart throbbing from the loss of touch. “I did my research on you, especially considering how Bruce let me meet you so quickly. You’ve done a lot of work to bury it, but the Will mentioned you, or at least your old name.”

Marinette’s smile was tight, her eyes as watery as his.

“Is that what’s holding you back from making the decision you want to make?”

Tim wanted to deny that he had no clear choice, but that was a lie he had been feeding himself. He wanted to stay with Bruce, in Gotham. His life was here, his friends were here, his passions were here. The only thing that wasn’t, was her.

“I want Bruce to be my official guardian. I want to be Tim Drake-Wayne.” Marinette nodded, understanding pouring from her and crashing into him. He felt like all the stress from the past month had been pushed out and replaced with relief. “But I really did want to get to know you, I didn’t want to make a decision because you would be out of my life for good. I’ve already lost you once, CPS took you didn’t they?”

“Right before mom became pregnant with you. I’m sure it happened to you too, but I was only six. They left me alone, not even a butler or maid to watch after me. They tried to argue with CPS that I was a competent child who could handle groceries and looking after myself but they didn’t buy it. My existence hadn’t even been released to the public so they didn’t take it too hard, losing me that is. But you, they immediately brought you into the limelight, almost like a challenge to CPS, I’m assuming that’s why they didn’t get involved for you no matter how many times my parent’s called and reported them.”

Tim couldn’t help the chuckle that bubbled out. It seemed to have shocked Marinette too as she gave way to her own giggle threatening to spill.

“Marinette, can I ask you something selfish?”

“Of course, mon frère.” Her hand reached back across the table, gripping his tightly as if pressing him to ask the question he dreaded most.

“Will you still be apart of my life? I’m not asking you to move to Gotham, but maybe a monthly trip? A weekly dinner? Something? I just don’t want to lose you again.”

The tears that had been pooling in her eyes finally slipped free, her smile blinding.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Bruce, Marinette is coming over for game night tonight!”

“Marinette?” Dick’s head popped around the corner, the red plastered by the mere mention of her name. It sickened Tim. “But I have patrol tonight! Bruce can’t the police do their jobs for one night!”

Bruce chuckled as he set up the table, a stack of every board game imaginable piled in the middle.

“I suppose you can push it back from 11 to 5 to 2 to 5. After all, I’m not heartless.”

Tim let out an involuntary groan as he slipped into the couch, wishing it would swallow him whole.

“Whose side are you on here Bruce? She’s already your honorable daughter. Do you really need her to be part of your legal family that bad?”

“I haven’t the slightest clue what you mean.” His smirk only made Tim want to fold in on himself even more.

“Bruce, if you’re gonna set me up, can it at least be with Tim’s more attractive siblings? Like what about that Jason guy? Or Barbara Gordan?” Tim popped up in his seat, a smile beaming from ear to ear.

“Marinette’s here!” He waved her over to the seat beside him before a certain older lovebird could intervene.

“I am attractive! Why won’t you accept me Marinette?” Dick wiped away fake tears as he fell dramatically to the floor by her feet.

Tim could feel his heart overflowing for the first time in years. His life felt so fulfilled, like all of the missing pieces finally found a place. As the night continued on, only one thought stayed prominent in his mind.

He couldn’t be happier with his decision.

Permanent Tag List:

@ash-amg @rebecarojas07 @heaven428 @long-lost-peace @thequeenofpotatoeunicornss @moongoddesskiana @nach0ava @iamablinkmarvelarmy @seraphkitty @clumsy-owl-4178 @pawsitivelymiraculous @mialuvscats @leagrey @smolplantmum @animegirlweeb @glitterflowercat @ladybug-182 @maskedpainter @remy-289 @redbullgivescaswings @icerosecrystal

#maribat #timinette siblings #dickinette

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boldlyanxious · 3 years

Text

Meeting again

Jasonette July SC 5: continuation from design

I stole the idea from a comment

Sorry. I meant it was inspired by a comment

Teen rated for kissing. Some suggestive comments

Jasonette July

All fic masterlist

Jason entered the ballroom and looked around. It felt as if nothing had changed in the years since he had last been to one of these events, but he sure had. He used to try to make everyone happy because it made Bruce happy but now he didn’t even know. He knew Dick used to have women all over him whether they were actually interested in him or just interested in the money he never knew, but with this being his engagement party he would likely have far fewer women making the attempt.

Jason didn’t think he would end up with the overflow even with only the most desperate women falling all over Dick. He didn't care anyway. He knew he had too many rough edges and he wasn't willing to change for someone. His break with Bruce had been too well known for him to get gold diggers. They may not have known all the reasons but it was pretty obvious when they never were seen together and Jason’s life was completely separate. This would be the first public family event Jason had been to in a couple years. He planned on behaving himself though. Babs had come by to deliver the invitation herself. He had always been friendly with her and she said that Dick really wanted to leave the past in the past. He wanted his brother back and with him when he celebrated the engagement.

There was a crowd around Dick when Jason arrived and he wasn’t quite ready to face that. He would wait until the crowd thinned or just nod from across the room. He headed for the drinks first. He wasn’t sure if he needed to take the edge off or if he just liked having something in his hand as a buffer. He smiled and offered polite greetings to those he saw. He remembered a few of the names but not all. By the looks of confusion he got, he didn’t think many of them connected him to the grinning child he once was.

He saw his opening and made his way over to Dick and Babs. Babs saw him first and turned to Dick to get his attention but just as their eyes met Jason saw something that took all of his attention in an instant. Marinette was across the room. He assumed that she was wearing the dress she mentioned with his handiwork down her side and disappearing into the lace. It's was pink and lacy with the side open showing his marks across her ribs. It was mesmerizing. He didn't even plan to alter course until he was walking towards her. Even realizing that she was dancing with Bruce didn't stall him.

This must have been the event that she had mentioned and the client she had been working with. He respected that she hadn’t mentioned the name. Name dropping was probably common in her business but she had chosen to respect the client over possible name recognition. He walked right over to the couple as they danced and spoke to Bruce when he looked up at him.

“That definitely looks like too much for you to handle. I would love to help you out.”

He winked down at Marinette when she looked at him. Bruce scowled.

“Jason, that really isn’t appropriate. Do try to maintain some decorum, for Dick and Babs’ sake.” Bruce said.

“Jason. I didn’t know you would be here.” Marinette was smiling at him.

They had stopped at the edge of the dance floor.

“I didn’t realize you had met my other son, Ms Dupain Cheng.” Bruce said.

“I’ve had my hands all over her.”

“Really Jason.” Marinette scolded before turning back to Bruce “I didn't know he was your son. Jason was my tattoo artist. I think it turned out great.”

She turned to show off her side but Jason couldn’t pull his eyes away from the color that filled her cheeks when he talked about having his hands on her. Bruce still looked skeptical.

“So you should definitely be out there dancing to show off your work, and mine. Should we show him how it is done?”

Marinette responded by taking his hand and pulling him to the dance floor. This was so much better than having her in the shop. He may have dropped a couple flirty lines there but he still had to make sure she was comfortable with him as an artist.

“So I called the number you left with me and you never returned my call.”

“I know. I’ve been so busy and I didn’t want it to come off like I was blowing you off when I called back. I was waiting until I didn’t feel so tired.”

“That ended up coming off like you were blowing me off.”

“I know. I hope you didn’t lose all interest.”

“I think I could be persuaded to be interested again.”

He pulled her tight against him and dipped her low. Then slowly brought her back up to him. He could feel her shiver as he trailed his fingers down her back until her reached her exposed side. It was his turn to shiver when she responded by digging her fingers into his back. They didn’t scratch through his suit jacket but he could feel her meaning behind the action. It suddenly looked like it would be a long night if he had to stick around here. He leaned down and talked against her hair.

“You make me want to drag you out of here and find some place quiet. But I have to go wish the happy couple well.”

Dick eyed them as they approached. He smirked at Jason and winked. He definitely looked like he didn’t mind being passed over for a pretty girl. He was surprised at how well Dick and Babs actually seemed to know Marinette. He quickly found out that she had designed their outfits for the engagement party but was also already making the wedding dress. Babs had met her at the library. She was lost in her research in the back room studying old fashion volumes while Babs was doing some IT work there. Marinette had heard Babs complain about needing a coffee and brought her one when she stopped for a research break. They had become friends after that.

He stayed and caught up with Dick for a while but his eyes followed Marinette when she stopped talking to Babs and the other ladies who were desperate for details about the wedding dress. She ended up passing out a lot of business cards. He wasn’t sure if she really had limited availability to make something before the wedding or if she said that to make herself seem more exclusive. The wedding was almost a year away, but he also didn’t know how long it took to do any of that. He knew well enough that people often didn’t expect as much time and money to go into art as it would actually take.

Eventually he wandered away from Dick. He even stopped and talked to Bruce for a few tense minutes. Maybe things would get better with time, but for now they just continually butted heads so they tried to stick to neutral topics. He did not stick around when Tim showed up. He started to say something but nothing he could say here and now would be enough for the history between them. He excused himself and wandered off. He wanted to dance with Marinette again. There was no one else he wanted to dance with but she was dancing with someone else so he stepped out of the ballroom for a bit.

It was a few minutes later when he heard a click of heels in the hallway behind him. He turned and there she was walking toward him. He prepared himself to say something clever and smooth when she reached him but she didn’t give him the chance. He took a step toward her but she grabbed him by his lapels and shoved him against the wall. The back of his legs hit a bench and he sat, unsure of what she was doing until she pressed herself against him. She moved her hands up to his face and slid them into his hair as she put her lips against his. He settled back against the bench and pulled her close as he returned the kiss. It was fierce and pressing. He could barely keep up with her.

He pushed his hands against her back to get her to move closer. She complied by adjusting her dress and climbing onto his lap without pulling their lips apart. He slid his hands up her sides and she moaned into his mouth. Her hands came out of his hair and scratched down his back again. He had never hated a suit jacket as much as he did right now, he may burn it later if he didn’t have other things to do after. He pulled away from her slightly and kissed along her jaw until he could whisper into her ear.

“I wish I could just take you out of here now.”

“I need to go back in there or I probably would,” she responded.

“I do too. I can’t leave without saying something. I hadn’t planned on this little interlude.”

“You shouldn’t have come dressed like that.” she said. “Especially after all your flirting last time.”

"If it is having this effect on you I will never take it off."

"Can I?" she asked.

She had far too innocent a look on her face and he was struggling to respond. He was tempted to forget everything and drag her away to continue what they started. But she just smirked at him and walked away. He found a mirror and fixed his hair and tie. It was clear when he saw her that she had stopped to fix herself before returning to the ballroom. Pity, he loved how her lips had looked after kissing him.

It was the best of expectations for him. Most of the people didn’t really remember him well and those who did expected a scene and he spent most of the night keeping his eyes out for his greatest reason not to cause a scene. He also had a chance to catch up with Alfred. He had missed the man who had always been like a grandfather. Alfred seemed like he had much more understanding and empathy for the choices Jason had made even if he didn’t like all the things he had done. Alfred would always be loyal to the family and he took the opportunity to make sure Jason knew that family included him.

He pulled the man into a hug, overcome with emotion at the acceptance. He hadn’t much felt like he was accepted recently. Now with Dick reaching out and Alfred telling him how much he still cared, he felt that he was getting his family back. All his life it felt like his family was constantly falling apart. It was one thing after another until the brief time he was living with Bruce. Marinette approached the two of them and he wondered now if he could find that feeling again, with her. He introduced Alfred to her as his grandfather and the man had a twinkle in his eye.

“Lovely to meet you Ms. Dupain Cheng. I do hope Jason is asking you to dance. With him he may just like to sneak off to a deserted hallway.”

Jason eyed the man certain that he had spied them earlier. He chose to ignore what he said and follow his recommendation. He held out his hand to her and she went with him to the dance floor. It was a nice slow song and he pulled her close and swayed with her and she laid her head on his shoulder. It was the most perfect feeling in the world. The song ended and he started to pull back but she pulled him closer and they stayed that way through the next song. It was also slow so they just stayed together and kept the same pace. The music stopped as the song ended and he could tell the celebrated couple were getting ready to make a speech.

Marinette pulled him down for a quick kiss before turning to hear the couple talk about their lives and thank everyone for coming out to celebrate with them. Jason stood right behind Marinette and slid his arms around her. She looked up at him and smiled as she leaned back against him. He rubbed his thumbs against her ribs and leaned down and kissed her head. A waiter offered champagne for them to toast with the couple. Everyone clinked glasses and cheered. Marinette took his hand from her and turned to him.

“So did I manage to persuade you into having interest in me again,” she asked.

“You might have.”

“I wish you knew because it is time for me to leave.”

“How about I go with you and we can find out together?"

He pulled her in for a kiss. When they pulled away she took his hand and they walked out together.

Taglist

#jasonette july 2021 #maribat #jasonette #now kiss #boldlyanxious

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wordsfromthesol · 3 years

Text

The Break-Up

Author: @wordsfromthesol Taglist: @zphilophobiaz Pairing: Wally West x Batsis!Reader Word Count: 1.4k

Dick was supposed to be on a mission all week in South America. You and Wally were elated, as now you had the whole house to roam free. You could even go on a proper date in Gotham, without worrying that Nightwing might see you while he was on patrol. On day 3, the two of you opted for a movie at home. Cuddled up on the couch, you were completely oblivious that Dick had entered the room. Even Wally wasn't fast enough to break free of your grasp.

"Dick…you're back early." The words stumbled out of his mouth as he meets him on the other side of the living room, trying to put as much distance between the two of you as possible.

"Apparently not early enough. Something you guys need to tell me?" Dick eyed his best friend before turning his glare towards you.

"Nope!" Wally screamed before speeding out of the house. There was no point in trying to hide it. Dick was one of the best detectives and the evidence had been plastered in front of his face.

"We're dating. Have been for a while now." Your lackadaisical demeanor made his reaction worse.

"YOU’RE WHAT?!" He yelled out before adding, "You can't date WALLY!"

"Wait wait wait. So let me get this straight. It's okay for Wally to be your best friend. And it's okay that he knows all about our family secrets. But it's not okay for me to date him? In what world does that make sense Dick?!" You threw your hands up in frustration.

"In the world where you're my baby sister!" Dick knew his argument didn't make sense, but he made it anyway.

"You're being impossible!" You screamed after him as he stormed away.

Wally wouldn't answer your calls for the next week. You couldn't even see him if you wanted to and Dick was making sure of that. Hell, the whole family probably was. I mean, why should you get to be happy. Once Wally had decided to stop ignoring your calls, he started making them. Constantly. And now it was your turn to ignore his, it was only fair. That and you had no idea what to say or even how you felt anymore. As soon as your family found out it seemed like Wally crumpled and gave in. He should know better than that, right? Then again, maybe you just weren't worth it. Maybe you loved him more than he loved you.

Finally, you had enough. After all, you could only wallow in self-pity for so long and you definitely didn't want to be around your family any longer. Their constant check-ins and asking if you were going to go on patrol was getting redundant. So you made a decision; first thing in the morning, as everyone was sleeping, you gathered your stuff and left. With your emergency cash and passport in tow, you borrowed one of Bruce's cars and started driving. You had absolutely no idea where you were going, but anywhere was better than here.

"Wally?" Dick mumbled out. He hadn't called his best friend in almost a week.

"She's gone. I know. I've already searched the entire city for her." Wally's disheartened tone melted into sorrow. "I really messed up, didn't I?" He heard a long sigh from the other end.

"I think we both did." Silence fell between the old friends as both of them realized their mistakes. Finally, Wally's voice echoed through the speaker.

"Do you think we can find her?"

"I don't know. Tim's looking…but she was trained by Bruce. If she doesn't want to be found…" Dick's voice trailed off, trying not to think of the potential outcomes. "Do you have any ideas?"

"I can…uh…check a few places. But she ran away from me too," Wally's voice grew almost inaudible, "rightfully so."

"She took the blue Nissan sedan. License plate 6J11AN." Neither of them bothered exchanging pleasantries before hanging up the phone. The relationship was still on edge, it didn't feel right.

You had absolutely no plans. All the covert training had gone out the window as you mindlessly drove down the winding back roads. Did you have any idea where you were going? Absolutely not. Did you end up following a dirt road to a small, abandoned, and partially dilapidated cabin? Absolutely.

The cabin turned out to be a great project to keep your mind off of the turmoil in your life. It had been a few days and you were working on fixing the fence outside when you felt an unexpected gust of air. Shit. You had become all too accustomed to what followed and there he stood in front of you, mouth agape.

"What do you want Wally?" Your apathetic tone gave him pause, but he soon returned to his normal demeanor.

"Are you kidding?! It's been days Y/N! You haven't made contact with anyone!" You had gotten used to deciphering his slurred speech, but these words were clear as day and filled with trepidation.

"Well, my supposed boyfriend ran as soon as my brother found out, then ignored me for a week. And my brother was a douchebag you said I couldn't date you. I had no one. And torturing myself in that house…I couldn't do it anymore." Wally was speechless, a feat not easily achieved, so you turned back to the fence in dire need of replacement. Before you could pull off another board, Wally grabbed your wrist.

"I fucked up. I know. But I was scared. Dick and I…we've been there for each other since the beginning --" You cut him off, it was an explanation you didn't need.

"Wally. I am his sister. I know that. I watched you two grow up, even though you didn’t always see me. I looked up to him, to you, that's why I became a vigilante. But you had to have known this," you gestured between the two of you, "couldn't have continued without Dick knowing."

"It has been nearly 8 months…" Wally mumbled. He honestly didn't know what he was expecting to do about Dick. He just knew that he had been in love with you for years and he couldn’t take it anymore.

You turned back to the fence with his comment, but as soon as you blinked it had been completely redone. "REALLY WALLY?!" You grew more agitated with every passing moment.

"You're using it as a distraction!" He argued back.

"Of course I am! This whole trip is supposed to be one big distraction! A distraction from the two most important people in my life not caring about me. A distraction from the revelation that I'm completely alone." The words resonated through the air as you began to break down. As you felt your legs grow weak, you became pressed against Wally's chest. You didn't have the time or energy to protest. Somehow hours must have passed, as you heard the engine of Dick's motorcycle make its way down the winding road. Your eyes peered up at Wally, "I think this is the longest you've ever stood still." He didn't say anything but simply pressed a kiss to the top of your head as his friend rounded the corner.

You pulled yourself from Wally's arms as Dick approached you. Dick's expression softened as he realized the misery he was putting you through.

"Y/N. I'm sorry." In your 22 years of existence, you could count the number of times Dick Grayson had sincerely apologized on one hand. There was no blame thrown at you or vindication of his actions. Just a simple apology, an effort of recompense. "In actuality, I should've known. The way the two of you look at each other, talk about each other," He chuckled to himself. "I'm supposed to be a detective."

"So the two of you are done being jackasses then?" Your head bobbed from one to the other. The two looked at each other before nodding. "And you were stupid idiots who won't ever put me through something like this again?" Your actions, as well as there's, were repeated. "Fine. Let's go home."

Wally raced in front of you. "Wait. What does that mean for us?"

You shrugged, "I don't know. Guess I'm just hoping for someone who will actually stand up for me." Wally took your hands in his before pressing them to his lips.

"I always want to be there for you. I promise I'll never make that mistake again."

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

Text

Doing some writing today off and on between errands and work, and jumping around various Kings of the Sky installments, specifically Dick, Jason and Cass stuff, so probably gonna post snippets from a bunch of them as I go.

(Kings of the Sky is an AU that goes canon divergent from the point of Jason calling Dick for advice for dealing with Bruce after the Garzonas case and where things end up going dramatically different from that point on. Including Jason not dying, being part of his own lineup of Titans between Dick and Tim’s, Dick being adopted not long after the Church of Blood incident, Cass being the third Wayne kid to be taken in and adopted and with Tim and Duke being next and then Damian coming along later once they find out about him. This is basically my ‘the family’s alright’ AU with largely ‘Good Dad Bruce’ except for Dick and then Jason yelling some sense into him about the other, respectively, in the first two installments, just FYI).

Anyway, this bit is from a story called “In Their Shadows Grow Trees Of Good and Evil,” set about a year after Cass has been adopted, when she and Jason are both sixteen and Dick’s twenty-one. Also just FYI, because canon has never been specific about what ways Cass is neurodivergent due to the comic-book style ‘rewiring’ of her brain so that she could learn to speak later in life, I tend to go with her being dyslexic and having aphasia. She sticks exclusively to sign language and being a silent presence in her costumed personas, so that there’s no chance of people connecting the dots between Black Bat and Cassandra Wayne, as she mostly speaks verbally in her civilian persona and doesn’t hide her aphasia. The reason there’s not likely to be any obvious signs of aphasia in the snippets of her I post is because I wait until I complete something to choose words at random to replace with aphasia-born mixups, so its more realistic and I’m not gearing her dialogue towards deliberately placed moments. Just in case you were wondering.

In Their Shadows Grow Trees of Good and Evil

“Hey Todd,” sneered an exquisitely obnoxious voice. “Why’s your sister so fucking weird?”

Jason sighed the sigh of a soul a mere century into its eternity of damnation as he rose from the lunch table he’d been studying at and crammed the rest of his books into his backpack. Then he pasted a cheerfully bland smile on his face and turned around, geared for academia warfare (teenage prep school edition).

“Hey Craig,” he said brightly. “Why’d you come out of the womb so ugly your parents had to tie a piece of steak around your neck just to get the family dog to go near you? Mysteries abound.”

The advancing junior slowed a step, momentarily rocked by his truly impressive return volley. The grimace Craig’s already gargoyle-esque features twisted into made his face even more unpleasant to look at than usual, which was quite the feat. Jason would have applauded if just looking at it hadn’t already turned him to stone.

But the bargain basement basilisk kept on towards him rather than turn tail and skulk off to pop his emotional blisters, so Jason sighed a sequel to his first one. Looked like it was one of those days where Craig felt up to powering through. Guess someone had eaten their self-esteem Wheaties that morning. Joy.

“You think you’re pretty hot shit, don’t you, Todd?”

Jason shrugged. “I mean, to be honest I kinda have a one track mind, so right now I’m mostly just thinking about punching you in your mistake.”

“My what?”

“Your face,” Jason elaborated with exaggerated patience.

“Huh?”

“Oh my god, I’m saying your face is a mistake. See, its not as fun when I have to stop and explain it to you. Ugh, you ruin everything.”

He neatly sidestepped the older boy as R2-Dumbass stayed frozen, smoke coming off of his internal CPU while trying to catch up. For a second Jason thought he was home free, but then he remembered the universe fucking hated him so haha, sucks to suck. Also, a small crowd had gathered to witness the verbal jousting match, and nothing invigorated an asshole like Craig more than an audience of like-minded peers. So there was that too.

“Whatever. Laugh it up all you want, you little shit,” the junior rallied. “But just remember, mocking your betters will never change the fact that you were born street trash and you’ll be street trash until the day you die.”

Honestly? Not his best effort. Jason almost felt bad using any of his good material. Seemed like overkill at this point. But he did have a strict Scorched Earth policy to maintain, so.....

“Yeah but my dad could buy out and ruin your dad so that means I still win, right?”

He smirked as the barb landed and Craig’s face set into a sunset vista of strangled purple and furious red. Bam. Direct hit.

“Listen, you - “

“Oh for fuck’s sake, it was rhetorical,” Jason interrupted. “I don’t actually care what you think even a little bit. Nobody does. You don’t matter. Please go be irrelevant elsewhere, you’re fucking dismissed, you loser.”

“Speak for yourself, charity case.” Oh goodie, Craig’s backup singers had finally arrived. Now if only he could remember to care enough to learn their names in the first place. Seriously, who told the extras they could have lines? “All the jokes in the world can’t change who and what you are.”

Jason shrugged and continued nonchalantly up the hill to where his sister was standing with arms crossed, staring down at something on the other side.

“True genius is never appreciated in its own time,” he tossed back over his shoulder. “I’m sure I’ll be immortalized in song eventually.”

The mob of morons deigned to let him go without further incident. Though he suspected that had less to do with his scathing wit and more to do with him being headed towards Cass. She was immaculately presented as always, wearing the Gotham Academy uniform like she was born to it despite hating its uncomfortable stiffness every bit as much as he did. But that was just Cass for you.

For all that she still struggled at times to engage verbally or speak up in social settings, her mastery of body language remained without peer. She could chameleon-camouflage her way into matching poise and posture with anyone - a skill that had allowed her to walk into school on her very first day with her head held high as though she owned everything in her sight. Exuding so much Queen Bee Intimidation Factor even the other hive queens were afraid to approach her themselves. Sending forth their drones to try and woo her into an alliance, only to see her remain oh-so-casually above it all, a slightly contemptuous smile adorning her lips.

Basically, she scared the shit out of their classmates without them having anywhere close to a true understanding of why, and Jason was outrageously jealous. Rude. Unfair. Why did his siblings always get all the cool toys when all he had was his rakish charm, scintillating intellect and debonair.....nah, who was he kidding. He was fucking awesome.

“Sup, sis,” he said, cresting the hill to stand beside Cass. “Just FYI, I just took a popularity bullet for you, which means you owe me your dessert tonight. Its a family rule that’s totally a real thing and definitely not something I just made up right now because Alf is making chocolate soufflé.”

She made no acknowledgment and remained stock still, a Colossus at Rhodes peering down into the shifting shadows of the parking lot below.

He peered down as well, though with absolutely no idea what they were looking at. Solidarity, yo.

“So are we staring fixedly at anything in particular, or should I just pick my own spot and commit?”

His humor was totally wasted on her as always. Instead of laughing and telling him what a lovable goof he was, she just inclined her head in the direction of a blonde girl where she was standing next to the driver’s side door of a Mercedes-Benz, dictating final commandments to her peons before departing. Well, probably. Jason was just guessing, based on his own body language reads, and like, general disdain for literally everyone at this school that wasn’t related to him.

He made a face. An extra special one reserved just for this classmate in particular. “Ugh, Madison Dunleavy? She’s the worst.”

Cass raised a cool eyebrow. “I thought Craig Hendricks was the worst.”

“He is. They’re both the worst. Its a hotly contested position here at Gotham Academy.”

She rolled her eyes and nodded back down at the Queen of Air and Darkness. “So. You know her?”

“Nope,” Jason said. “Come to think of it, I’ve actually never seen her in my life. No idea who that is. Can’t help you, sorry. Shall we go home?”

The Eyebrow of Inquisition speared him with clear intent. Who the fuck needed words when you could pack the Encyclopedia Britannica into a single facial expression?

Jason sighed gustily.

“I had a slight altercation with her freshman year that led to her declaring her undying enmity for me until the end of time. The word nemesis may or may not have been thrown around once or twice. I can’t recall.”

The Eyebrow of Inquisition lowered nary an inch. Ugh, she wanted more? Why did everyone in his family hate privacy, with the obvious exclusion of himself when snooping through Cass and Dick’s rooms for blackmail material, which was actually intel-gathering and thus another matter entirely.

“Okay so basically what happened was my first week here I overheard her talking shit about me and not even twenty minutes later she was pretending to kiss my ass in homeroom, like probably because of Bruce, y’know? So I just busted out laughing and told her to fuck off and die and she has inexplicably loathed me ever since.”

Avoiding further Eyebrow Inquisition-ing, he made a show of peering around aimlessly. When the silence extended and it was clear Cass was absolutely not going to break first, Jason waved a hand in dismissal and took to peering oh so casually at his fingernails. "I suppose I was less tactful back in those days.”

He chanced a look up, finally, and saw his sister’s eyebrow had somehow managed to mighty morphin power ranger its way into a configuration evoking both judgment and disbelief, with the latter perhaps aimed at the idea he was significantly differing in the tact department these days either.

“I don’t love the implications your face is making right now,” he told her.

She ignored him, because of course she did.

“Does she know Dick?” She asked instead. Jason shrugged.

“I mean, maybe? She’s probably seen him around at one of those stupid galas we have to go to, and actually I think maybe she has an older brother who was either in Dick’s grade or like, one above or below it? I don’t know.”

Now both eyebrows were doing the dance of disbelief. Okay, so maybe that was poor situational awareness on his part, since it wasn’t like Gotham Academy was a big school with a ton of other kids and also he’d only been in the same class as Madison for like over two whole years, but whatever. There were extingent circumstances.

“Look, she’s a total snob who’s always looked down on me and in return I willfully ignore both her existence and that of everyone and everything even tangentially related to her. Its called equality, Cass.”

She pursed her lips and went back to the peering, because of course in the mind of Cass it made total sense that the Grand Inquisition didn’t need to be followed up by any explanation on her part, what the hell. Like was he supposed to have inferred it?

“What’s this all about anyway?”

“I heard her talking about Dick earlier,” she said without peeling her eyes away from her personal recon mission. “I don’t know what she said though, I just heard her say Grayson, and then I was busy looking at what her body was saying. I know it was about Dick because she shut down when she saw me. And I didn’t like the way she....looked....before that happened. The way she was talking. It was.....”

Jason frowned but held back any follow-up questions while he waited - with total patience because he wasn’t an absolute cad, thank you very much - for his sister to find the word she was hunting for. It was a major source of frustration for her, that whatever neural map her brain followed put body language and spoken language in totally different regions of her brain, separated by a fairly great divide. Meaning she usually had to make a conscious choice to focus on body language or conventional languages - whether verbal or sign. But it tended to be one or the other; she’d yet to master taking in and comprehending both forms of ‘language’ at the same time. And none of them had quite figured out how to convince her that she wasn’t actually missing anything when she chose to focus on one specific form of communication - that she was still observing far more than most people ever would.

“Proprietary,” Cass settled on at last. She nodded her satisfaction with her choice of word, and Jason waited a whole two point five seconds before sticking his whole foot in his mouth.

“Proprietary?” He asked with a scrunched nose as he weighed that for possible context and implications. “You sure?”

She glared. He winced. It was a whole thing.

“Yeah, I know, sorry, sorry, I heard it the second it was out of my mouth. We don’t actually have to experiment with the legitimacy of if looks could kill.”

Cass rolled her eyes, but eh. That could’ve gone worse.

Jason swiftly redirected attention anyway. Discretion is the better part of valor, after all.

“So. The Queen of Air and Darkness was talking about our big bro, and her mood was.....proprietary, huh?” He recapped while digesting the info like a boss. “Well. Definitely not loving that, I gotta say. Hold please.”

Pulling out his phone and pulling up his most recent texts, he began typing furiously.

“What are you doing?” Cass asked.

“Texting Tom,” he replied, because duh. Hah, now it was his chance to have the answers that should be patently obvious and thus make with the ‘are you kidding me’ when she asked obvious questions she should know the answer to! How do you like them apples, sis?

“Why are you texting your boyfriend right now?”

Jason rolled his eyes, because fair is fair, but never ceased texting for a moment. Time was of the essence here, probably. Well, maybe. Okay probably not. But it’d still been like half an hour since he and Tom had last texted and that’s a very fucking long time in teenage years.

“To be our getaway driver tonight, obviously.”

She stared at him. He didn’t look up, but he could feel it anyway. He was very intuitive like that.

“What?”

Jason heaved another sigh, one keyed to tones of ‘oh my god, do I really have to spell this out,” exasperation. He was just racking up the bonus points here. It was really too bad this wasn’t an actual competition he could actually win and this was all just pettiness taking place wholly in his own head. Lame.

“Well, clearly we now have to go snoop in Madison’s house aka lair to see if its actually a house or a full on lair. Because she’s either a creeper or like, legit evil, and its important to know which one before we proceed, because obviously we can only bust her for being a weird creeper about our brother as Jason and Cass, whereas if she’s legit evil, that’s gotta go down as Robin and Black Bat. I’ll handle the snooping, you’ll take look-out, but we still need a wheelman and that’s why I’m texting Tom. This is all very mission-oriented, okay. I’m a professional.”

“Right,” she affirmed, while sounding anything but convinced. “Why don’t we just tell Bruce?”

Without looking up or breaking stride, he said: “I’m going to give you til I finish typing this sentence to figure out what was wrong with what you just said. Remember that we are talking about hypothetical danger to our brother, and also Bruce’s idea of a proportionate response to any of his children being in even hypothetical danger. And also our brother’s idea of a proportionate response to Bruce’s idea of a proportionate response. Look, you’re still new so I’m gonna need you to just trust me on this one. Its gonna be a no on telling Bruce without further intel.”

Cass said nothing in response to that, which meant that she was conceding the point and recognized the wisdom of his words. Or maybe that she was just gonna go ahead and do what she wanted anyway and just wasn’t bothering to fight about it, but it was probably that first thing.

“Well you better not just make out with your boyfriend all night,” is what she said at last, and that got his attention reeeeeal quick like.

“Umm. Wow. Okay. So, first off, you’re not the boss of me and who I make out with and when, so jot that down. And second, now I’m definitely going to make out with my boyfriend extra hard, with the exception of when we are actually on our recon mission because as previously established, I am a professional. And also, again, you’re not the boss of me.”

Jason ignored her Eye Roll With Extra Emphasis, and instead just held up his phone to Text With Extra Emphasis, as he read along with what he was typing.

“By the way babe, we have to make out extra hard tonight,” he said, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth while he dragged out his dictation with the kind of focus that usually led to Bruce asking why he couldn’t apply as much intensity to training as he did to pettiness. “Cass has suddenly decided she can dictate terms to me and I need to shut that shit down ASAP, so thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter. Smoochies and other gay stuff to the best boyfriend ever.”

Jason frowned as a response pinged back seconds later.

TheCatsMeow: ....the things I put up with for the sake of your weird family dynamics.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: Yeah, yeah. You’re a saint among were-panthers. Must you mock? Why can’t you just tell me I’m pretty instead?

TheCatsMeow: Sorry. Let me try again. OMG you’re so pretty Jase how did I get so lucky xoxo.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: No. Its too late. It feels forced and unbelievable now. You’ve ruined it forever.

TheCatsMeow: Got it. From now on I will only tell you that you’re repulsive and hideous.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: I’m breaking up with you.

TheCatsMeow: But after I help you with your mission tonight.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: Obvsly. I’m a professional. Why do people keep forgetting this?

TheCatsMeow: And also the making out to spite your sister.

TheOnlyRobinThatRocks: Yeah we should do that first too. I mean we already penciled it in.

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mochegato · 3 years

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Nannyette

Chapter 1 - New Year’s Surprise

Tim rubbed his throbbing head as he made his way to Dick’s apartment. It had been a ridiculously long night. He left the Justice League party at the Watchtower early to patrol pretty much by himself. Jason and Stephanie were on duty too but they were enjoying the night with the random revelers they found instead of actually patrolling. And that wouldn’t have been so bad except they had missed an attack which hit the Wayne Enterprises building. The culprits hadn’t gotten anything too valuable, just a few computers at the front desk, but Tim had to go in early to assess the damage, talk to the police, implement temporary protection, and start planning repairs.

All of which meant Tim hadn’t slept in quite a while, which wasn’t unusual, but this time it wasn’t for something he had fixated on. It was outside influences preventing him from sleep, which was entirely different, and caused significantly worse effects. Still, Tim didn’t regret it. He would rather be patrolling by himself and running on no sleep than in a crowd of people kissing their significant others and giving him sympathetic looks. He didn’t need the looks. He wasn’t dating right now because he didn’t want to be. He certainly wasn’t going to start dating someone just to not be alone. He was already so busy he hardly got any sleep and he hadn’t found anyone worth giving up what little sleep he got.

But right now, he just needed to drop off a few things for Dick and crash in the spare room so he could finally sleep. He made it to the door and started fishing in his pocket for the spare key. After a few seconds of searching, his entire body froze. It was hard to make out the voices but he could hear the words. “What do you think you are doing, young lady? You get back here right now and take your punishment.”

Tim dropped the bag he was carrying and focused on getting the keys as quickly as possible. He flipped through the keys, finally locating the right one with a relieved breath. He slid the key into the lock as quietly as he could and slowly turned the key to unlock the door without notifying whoever was on the other side threatening his niece.

As soon as the lock was flipped, Tim took a deep breath to prepare. He slowly turned the knob and taking a beat to prepare, he rammed into the door, flinging it open, ready to protect Mar’i. Now inside, he saw an adult figure crouched low and ready to pounce. A bit further he saw just the ends of his niece’s hair sticking up above the arm chair she was hiding behind. The figure whirled around to face him. He stifled the gasp he wanted to let out seeing her face. She was absolutely beautiful. But, that didn’t mean she wasn’t evil and trying to hurt his family, he reminded himself.

“Who the hell are you?” He demanded storming toward her.

She moved between him and the arm chair. “You’re the one who broke in here. Who are you? What do you want?” She demanded, her eyes narrowing and turning steely.

“Uncle Tim!” Mar’i called, jumping up from behind the chair. “Marinette, it’s Uncle Tim.”

“Uncle Tim?” Marinette asked with a gentle tone, keeping her steely eyes laser focused on him.

“Yeah, he’s Daddy’s brother.” Mar’i nodded bounding to give him a hug.

“Just a second, Sweetie.” Marinette caught her before she could reach him. “You know we haven’t called Daddy in a few minutes. Can you run and grab the picture you made for him so we can show him on our call?”

“Yay!” Mar’i called out running to her room.

“You never said who you were.” Tim growled out.

Marinette held up a finger, already pulling up Dick’s contact information to video call him. She hit Call and looked back up at him. “I’m Mar’i’s babysitter.”

“Hey, what’s up Marinette? Anything wrong?” Dick’s face showing up on the screen.

“For the most part. Hey, is this your brother?” She turned the screen to face Tim. “And more importantly, is it okay for him to be here?”

“Yeah, that’s Tim. He’s okay. What’s going on, Tim?” He asked a bit confused. “Why is my front door open?”

“I heard her threatening Mar’i.” Tim said coldly.

“Here it is! Is that Daddy? Daddy look! I made a picture for you.” Mar’i called running in the room with a drawing of her with her Mommy and Daddy, with Mar’i and her Mommy flying and her Daddy doing a flip with a smile on his face.

“That is beautiful, sweetie. I can’t wait to come home and put it on the wall.” Dick encouraged her proudly. His face quickly shifted to more serious expression. “Now, Mar’i, sweetie, Uncle Tim mentioned he heard Marinette threatening you. This is very important… did you do something to deserve getting threatened?”

Tim’s jaw dropped. What the hell did he just hear? Mar’i looked up at the phone with wide eyes. “Oh, she definitely did.” Marinette said with an amused tone.

“Then go get her.” Dick said, mirth filling his command.

Marinette lunged for Mar’i, who squealed in excitement and ran away laughing. Marinette laughed too and turned the phone screen back to herself. “Thanks Dick. We’ll see you in a little bit. The plan still to be here around 1?”

“Yep. That is the plan. I’ll let you know if anything changes. Thanks Marinette. And Tim?” Marinette turned the phone so it was facing him. “Close my door, please. I’ll be home in a bit if you want to talk. If you want to crash, you know where the spare room is, but good luck getting any quiet. Bye guys.”

Once Dick hung up, Tim walked slowly over to the door and closed it. He turned back to Marinette. “What just happened? What was the punishment you were supposed to administer?”

Marinette laughed disarmingly. “Tickles. I was going to tickle her.”

“Tickles, huh? That’s the punishment you use?” Tim raised an eyebrow at her, moving back closer to her again, this time approaching with considerably less hostility and more contrition.

“That’s the punishment for her transgression. There are levels. Tickles are the first.” She smiled wider at him.

“What’s next?” he asked curiously.

“Cuddles and maybe tickles.” She shrugged.

“Next?” The amusement was coming through in his voice now.

“Snuggles.”

“And then?”

“Ahh, the atomic option, num nums,” she answered playfully.

“I have no idea what that is, but that sounds terrible. People must be terrified of that punishment.” He grinned at her.

Marinette chuckled looking down. She looked back up at him through her lashes. “Oh, you know, Mar’i is a pretty good kid so I’ve only had to pull that one out a few times.”

He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck again. “I’m sorry for bursting in and being threatening and for thinking you were going to hurt Mar’i. You seem really good with her and really sweet.” He looked down quickly, cheeks reddening as he realized what he just said.

Marinette waved him off and smiled nervously. “No, don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m glad Mar’i has people willing to defend her like that. It must have sounded scary for you hearing me and not knowing the context or being able to hear my tone. I’m sorry for scaring you. I think it’s really admirable you were so protective and jumped into action right away.”

“Um, you already heard but, I’m Tim.” He gave her a charming smile and held out his hand for her.

She shook his hand giving him a brilliant smile. “I’m Marinette. It’s nice to officially meet you. Would you…” Before she could finish her sentence, she felt a weight slam into her back, thrusting her forward before the weight slid to the floor. Tim reached out immediately to grab her. He managed to get his hand behind her head and the other around her waist. Marinette wrapped her arms around his shoulders as she fell. He braced himself for the momentum, twisting as he grabbed her to relieve the force. He managed to stop them without falling, but the resulting position looked like a deep dip, his face only a few inches from hers.

Marinette looked up at him with wide eyes and red cheeks. “Thank… thank you… for that. I’m sorry.” She stuttered out, scrambling to stand up.

Tim waved her off, his cheeks turning pink as well. “It’s not your fault. If I recall correctly, there was some interference involved.” He said the last part in an exaggerated conspiratorial tone as he looked around the room. Mar’i giggled loudly from her hiding spot and poked her head up to look at them.

Marinette narrowed her eyes at her playfully. “I see you’ve chosen num nums.” Mar’i squealed again and took off running to her room. Marinette gave Tim an apologetic smile and started following her. “It was nice to meet you, Tim. I’ll try to play quietly with Mar’i so you can take that nap. I hope to see you again.”

“No, that’s… I haven’t gotten to play with Mar’i this whole year. I’d like to join you too, if you don’t mind.” He said sheepishly. “Plus, I can’t wait to find out what num nums are.”

Marinette smiled brightly at him, chuckling shyly. “I’d love it if you did.”

Chapter 2

#Timari January #timari #timinette #maribat #prompt - New Years

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ive-tumbled-down-a-rabbit-hole · 3 years

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Troublemaker

Another song inspired fic. This time a slight different approach. Troublemaker by Picture This.

@boldlyanxious ... I failed at one fic at a time!!!

Masterlist

.................................

Marinette was missing. Well not missing, but not at their apartment and Jason had just returned from a messy mission. All he wanted to do was chill out eating cookies with his ' best f riend /roommate/maybe something more' (they were slowly edged towards something more just before he left but hadn't really defined it yet…), watch trash TV and cuddle. It was the perfect plan to improve his mood and relax .

But he was in the apartment and she wasn't. On top of it all he couldn't find any cookies either. C hecking the shared calendar in case he had forgotten 'an event' his partner in non - crime had b ut still found nothing other than “Jason Home” . Ok, Jason could deal with this, he can be calm, no need to worry or get angry that his perfect plan has gone awry. There was a quick way to solve the mystery, though he didn't want to come across as desperate . He has evidence she knew he would be back today so would be back in the moment.

After pacing the apartment for a "long" while (moments) Jason finally bites the bullet to call Marinette , he was getting angsty waiting.

"Sorry Jay, can't talk now, I'll catch ya later"

The call ended. She h u ng up on him!! What the…. She never did that . He’d been away for a week and she can’t talk to him ! ? Ok breathe! He was used to her causing him headaches, with her occasional disappearing acts and getting caught up too near rogue attacks. She was a little trouble magnet. His little troublemaker. Not being able to talk made him worry.

Why couldn't Marinette talk him?

Was she in danger?

Was it code for something?

She was good at putting on a facade of 'I'm ok' even if she wasn't. Ok wait! Let's not overreact to his missing partner… roommate. Ok screw that! Jason stormed into his room and grabbed his laptop to track her phone. He really needed to get Tim to put the bat track app on his phone to make this quicker . Finding her location was easy. He was bat after all and with her frequent near mishaps that Jason felt it was reason enough to bug her phone. It was for her own protection, not his insecurities and worries about her . Jason grabbed his keys to check where she is and to make sure she was ok.

He wasn't overreacting at all. This was a perfectly acceptable level of worry for his friend. He had tracked her location down to a diner the near the harbour. THEIR diner to be precise. He parked his bike where he could see into the diner but was obscured enough from view to scout out what the issue was. Phone ready to call for back up if needed . From his bike he could see Marinette through the window and she was with some other guy. Wait! What? Jason clenched his fist. She wasn’t in trouble from obvious causes. But.... What was she doing with that guy? Why didn't she tell Jason about him ? Was this guy blackmailing his Troublemaker?

While the blonde Marinette was with paid for the food, his little troublemaker stared out the window. Jason caught a glimpse of earrings he'd never seen her wear before. Did the guy give them to her?! Looking down briefly at phone to turn the photo app on to take a photo of the guy to ‘investigate’ before looking at his girl… friend ? Y es girl , who is a friend , have tears running down her face. Shit!! Wait!! What did Blondie do to her. He is so going to punch this dick!!!

The pair left the diner. Marinette , his troublemaker extraordinaire, gave the guy a side hug and her normal kiss on the check goodbye. Jason could feel the anger growing . Maybe he was a tad jealous of Blondie, he wanted that kiss, especially as Blondie made his best friend cry so didn’t deserve it . Marinette gave the guy a final wave as she went to her car and drove off. How was she ok to say goodbye to this loser? He made her cry!! She still had the odd tear running down her face when she was leaving .

It was acts like this, her forgiving kind nature, that made Jason fall for Marinette . With her going, it did give Jason a perfect opportunity to talk to this random wannabe boyfriend. Virtual investigation can wait , it’s easier now he can do it in person, knuckles cracking .

Though Jason thought they has something special growing, if the week about changed Marinette’s mind that’s fine. At least Jason can tell this waste of space why he wasn't good enough for Mari especially as he has already made her cry. At least showing the guy why he isn’t good enough might help subside some of the anger. Jason climbed off his bike as Blondie pulled out some sunglasses and turned to walk off in the opposite direction to where Marinette had driven off in. Who wears sunglasses in Gotham at night?!?! What was this guy thinking? He is seriously suspicious!!

As Jason approached his got a better look at Blondie. Though he was “dressed down” you could tell the clothes were expensi ve. Was he an ex-client? Was he pressuring his friend into do something! Anger was definitely storming through him as Jason catastrophised. Damn his troublemaker , how does she draw so much danger to herself?

The guy ducked into an alley. Jason smirked and took the chance to trap the sle a zebag. Only to find the alley empty. No sign of him at all. No route to escape either. What the …..

Ok, yeah, tonight Jason was getting Tim to help track this scumbag down! Catching up with Mari and patrol stuff can wait!

………..

About a week later Jason came home from WE to find Marinette getting ready to go out. Not out out , nor date out but nicer than her usual look.

"Hi Jay, there's some leftovers in the fridge. I'm going out to meet a friend, not sure when I'll be back later. You don't need to stay up or worry about me though"

She quickly grabbed her coat and bag. Though before she left, she gave him a peck on the cheek before waltzing out.

Damn, that kiss distracted him before he could ask questions. Wait! The girls were patrolling early tonight so who was she meeting?

Marinette though very kind/friendly, didn't trust or make friends easily. Her friends here, that she met up with outside work were only the Wayne clan and that’s only because Steph forced herself into being Mari’s friend . Not that he is going to complain it meant he met her!!

Where was he going with this.... Oh yeah, t he rest were mainly in France or England, he thinks, but she rarely brings them up in conversation, something about the past should remain there. He got that.

So where was she going?!

Using the tracking software Jason chases after her on his bike. Is he being a little paranoid ? Yes, maybe, but he was worried about her. The last week she has been off. Stressed and worried , he wasn't sure precisely why , and she was certainly more spacey and in her own head. To suddenly decide she's going out with an unknown entity was worrying. Sue him for being concerned for his favourite person.

Jason followed her back to the same diner as last week. Jason being the suspicious bat he was watched again from outside this time a little closer in case he needed to step in. He watched as Marinette entered the diner and greet Blondie again . Agreste! Son of the Parisian Terrorist that’s just come to light! The guy who should be in Paris not in Gotham! This time she gave Agreste a le bise and again s at opposite him. The Agreste handed his sunglasses over to her and a ring. A ring?!?!! What was going on. Jason couldn't see Agreste’s face but Marinettes was upset and held tears in her eyes. Jason couldn't take it. Whatever Blondie was doing was upsetting his Troublemaker. And bribing or blackmailing her wasn't cool!! Upsetting her! Unforgivable!!

Storming into the diner, he marched up to the table picked the guy up by his collar and punched him sending him flying.

"JASON!!!!" Marinette exclaimed grabbing his fist from doing any further damage. "What on earth! Why the hell did you punch my brother!!!! !"

Oh shit!!

#maribat #maribat au #jasonette #marinette x jason #ml x dc #dc x ml #mlb x dc #song fic

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ellana-ravenwood · 4 years

Text

The day he understood what Death means - Batfam x Fem!Reader

Synopsis : The youngest Wayne makes a shocking discovery...And will need his parents, siblings, and the one and only Alfred, to recover from it. /Drabble.

I don’t know. I was thinking about this. How when you’re a kid, realizing that one day you’ll die, but worst, that the people you love will die, is sort of traumatic...And wanted to write about it. So. Here we are, with little Thomas eh. I hope you will like it :) :

My masterlists blog : @ella-ravenwood-archives

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If you have no idea who Thomas is, he appears in those stories (long story short he’s the youngest kiddo, biological of Batmom and Bruce) : The Great Mall adventure, Master of Diaper Shaky steps and bad teaching, Polichinelle, “Go away, you’re confusing my baby”, Wild Child 2, “We want them back”, How do you make babies ?“ and Mom got lost again”

******

Realizing your loved ones are not immortal for the first time can be traumatic.

Especially if they’re amazing, if they’re your heroes, if you admire them beyond all measure, if they love you unconditionally just like you love them so damn much, and if you can’t even imagine your life without seeing them every day.

If you can’t even fathom the fact that maybe, one day, they won’t be there when you wake up and go look for them. And that they will never be there again.

And so it was particularly quite the shocking discovery for little Thomas Clark Wayne, 5 and a half years old, to find out about that certain thing called...”Death”.

It happened on a moody, rainy Summer day. The weather outside was awful, even for Gotham City. And it meant that Thomas was calmly playing inside, rather than getting up to some shenanigans in the garden.

His parents were home, it was one of those rare day they both had off.

Which always filled little Tommy with joy. It wasn’t often he could get them both with him !! In the end, the fact it was rainy outside was good. It meant they’d probably all snuggle up later in the day, and watch a film, a mug of hot cocoa in their hands.

You would probably throw a blanket over him, and keep him close, sandwiched between you and his dad. His father would fall asleep half-way through the film, which would annoy you and Damian.

Damian would join for sure. Sitting next to you. Yes. He would. Maybe Tim too, if he wasn’t too busy with college ? Oh he would surely make the time to come. And Cass ? Yes. Yes Cass would be there, sitting in her usual spot, on the floor right in front of you (or maybe Tommy). Because she knew you’d gently run your hand through her hair, and your youngest son slowly took the habit to do the same. Which was so soothing to Cass...Duke would certainly be there, he never said no to a good movie.

Maybe, because it was a rainy day, Dick and Jason would come too ? Unlikely, but Thomas could hope. He loved having his entire family in one spot.

They’d ask him to do his “puppy eyes” and convince Alfred to join them too, and not work.

Alfred had an armchair reserved just for him. Right next to the couch where Bruce would sit, leaving enough space for Ace to lay down (Damian’s dog, Titus, always preferred to be near his master, who would more often than not be sitting next to you, laying his head on your shoulder, even as he was not a child anymore...Yes, Titus sat next to Cass, at Damian’s feet, letting his head fall down in Cass’ laps).

Ace...Ace didn’t feel well yesterday, and this morning, the “dog doctor” came.

Thomas heard him say they needed to give him a...an “indection” or something ? (An injection, really) So he’d probably get better. Shots were supposed to get you better or to avoid you getting sick, that’s what you told him.

His dad looked upset, but it didn’t alarm Thomas much. Because his dad was always upset when him or his siblings would get a shot, he hated going, so it was probably the same thing.

Come to think of it, Thomas hadn’t seen Ace since the “vekerinarianan” (or whatever it was pronounced) came earlier in the day.

He suddenly wanted some “doggle” (dog cuddles), and so he put down the toys he was playing with, and went to look for him.

Maybe, he could also round up the rest of his family so they’d start movie time earlier ?

Hyped to have some family time, as he considered his dogs family for sure, he went on the hunt to find Ace, and gather everyone else.

If only. If only he had known...

************

“Aaaace !! Aaace ? Ace boy, where are you ?”

This was odd. Usually, Ace would come running if he heard the little one’s voice. That dog loved children, and he made it his mission to protect all of them (bonus point if he had some snuggle, and a few treats, while doing it).

Bruce told him long ago to protect his kids...So Ace was always there.

Maybe he wanted to play hide and seek ? Thomas would play that game with Titus and Damian, Ace never seemed very interested, but maybe he changed his mind ?

“Ace ? Aaaacceeee ?”

The boy roamed the manor, but every room Ace would usually hang in were empty.

Finally, he decided he’d ask his parents, who would usually hang out in...oh, they weren’t in their usual spot either. In their bedroom, maybe ?

Thomas ran as fast as his little legs could carry him, sure that he would find Ace, and his parents, asleep in the master’s bedroom. When they had their day off, his mama and daddy would often take long naps together.

Thomas immediately knew something was wrong when the door to the room was wide open. Slowly, he approached the place and...surely his parents were there.

But something was off.

His dad was laying in the bed, back to the door, his head laid in your lap. One of your hand was caressing his head soothingly, while the other was drawing calming circles on his back.

Definitely something was not normal. You’d do that to your kids when they were sad, or sick...Was daddy sick ?! This gave Thomas a little fright.

You whisper something into Bruce’s ears, and he doesn’t answer, just shaking his head to say “yes”. And so you stand up, after giving him a kiss on the cheek, and...You spot your youngest son.

You smiled at him reassuringly, and go to him.

“Hey little buddy. You should give a big hug to Daddy, he’s very sad today.”

You say, walking past him and ruffling his hair.

From the direction you were taking, you were going to the kitchen, and Thomas just instantly assumed you were going to brew some tea for his dad. When Bruce was sad, you’d always brew some tea for him, from his mother’s garden (which was kept up nice and clean by you and Alfred, now).

Worried about his dad, Thomas slowly walked to him and climbed on the big bed. Bruce turned around to see what this new weight was, as he knew you had just left and...He smiled.

Of this wide pure genuine smile he gave his family only.

But there was a hint of sadness behind his eyes, and Thomas didn’t like that one bit. So the little boy crawled to his dad, and nestled next to him, wrapping his little arms around his dad’s neck and holding tightly.

Bruce engulfed his son in his own arms, holding onto the little one, burrying his face in his hair. There was always something comforting, in the smell his kiddo had. It was a mix of your smell, which was always soothing to him, but also something more...Something soft and sweet.

Just like his son.

Little Thomas was the epitome of a sweet child. It was a miracle, a man like him made a child this cute and happy. Ah, but he wasn’t raising him alone of course. There was you, and his siblings, and Alfred...

After a pause of the little boy holding his dad, he whispered slowly :

“Daddy, why are you sad Daddy ? Please don’t be sad, it makes me sad too.”

Thomas unwrapped his arms from around his dad’s neck, and squished his little hands on Bruce’s cheeks. Which made Bruce sigh fondly, chuckling a little as he said, honestly (he shouldn’t hide this sort of things) :

“Because Ace is gone.”

There’s another silence, during which Thomas tries to understand why is the fact Ace went somewhere so sad. He cannot figure it out, so he asks :

“But, he’ll come back daddy. Like always. Yes ? Ace is a good boy.”

“Was.”

Bruce is clumsy in his grief. He always been. He’s not sure how to broach the subject to his son, how to explain to him their dog was just too old and sick to make it...He doesn’t know how to explain death to him.

“Was ?”

“Ace is gone for good.”

“What do you mean Daddy ? Where did he go ? Why couldn’t we see him again ? Did he move out, like Dick ?”

Oh. Oh the sweet innocence of a child that is maybe a little too sheltered by his family (he’s the youngest, the one they’re trying to keep away from the horror they see every day as much as they can...Although he’s still trained, all of them hope he will never become a Robin, or worst, a Batman).

“Did he move out, like Dick ?”

Sweet, sweet Thomas. Not able to even fathom that Ace is never coming back...and why would he ? How could he know what his father meant ?

“No, no he didn't move out. He left us, to a place we can’t follow him to.”

Another short pause. And you could see the gears in little Thomas’ head turning. After a little bit, he asks :

“...The toilets ?”

This makes his father chuckle, even in this sad times. But he continues :

“No. Not the toilets. He...He went really far away, where we can’t ever see him again.”

This idea is so foreign to your son, that he raises himself on one of his elbow and exclaims :

“Why would he do that ? Does he not love us anymore ?”

Obviously, the thought is distressing to the little bird. So Bruce says :

“No no no, of course he still loves us...loved, us. But he had to go.”

“But why ?”

“Because he was getting very old, and sick.”

“But we don't mind daddy, right ? We don’t mind ? He doesn't have to go away for that, I don’t care if he doesn’t play like he used to, I want him to stay ! Tell him daddy, call him on the phone to tell him to come back.”

Bruce is lost. How ? How can he explains what death means ? He thought about this moment coming many times, but never told him anything as he thought that he had time to know what it meant. He had time...

How do you tell a child that one of his favorite “person” in the world is dead ?

“Unfortunately buddy, we have some sad news.”

His savior. You, as usual. With two cups of tea, and a cup of hot cocoa on a tray. As you went downstairs to get some “pick me up” for Bruce, you knew your son was gonna need it too.

“What news mama ?”

“Ace. He died today.”

You actually thought about it as you were preparing everything for them. How to talk about this ? You decided to go with “honesty”. Not brutal honesty though. You weren’t about to traumatize your son.

But you thought it was important he knew what happened to Ace. As a child, you hated how your brothers tried to make you think your ferret ran away to Las Vegas or something of the like.

You understood this sentiment, of course. But you also remembered how betrayed you felt when you finally understood “death” and realized your beloved Mister Will Ferret was NOT in Sin City having fun, but just died...

The truth was important.

Especially about such subjects.

Children weren’t dumb. And they had every right to know certain truth.

Did you wish your son could stay innocent for longer ? Of course. But he still had a right to know what happened to his dog. To be treated like a person and be explained things.

People, too often, treats children as some kind of idiots who wouldn’t comprehend complex things anyway, and who have to be protected at all cost from anything...

Kids were clever. You had a bunch of them to prove it so. But above that, although you agreed kids had to be protected...You weren't one of those person who thought you should lie to your children in order to do so.

Because one day, he’ll know what death is. He’ll know what happened to Ace. And what if the fact you lied that day, settles a slight distrust in him towards anything you’ll ever tell him ? Just like it did with you and your brothers ?

No. You thought at first it was a good idea to delay such a conversation. But why ? Because it would make you more comfortable ? That didn’t sound very fair in regard of your boy.

Everyone always talked about “the birds and the bees” talk, but never about something that was even more inescapable than that...

Death.

You give him a few seconds to take in your words. “Ace died today.” You wait for his reaction. He seems to think about it, having vaguely heard of “death” before...finally he asks :

“What does it mean ?”

He’s sitting up in the bed now. Bruce did the same, encircling his arms around his boy protectively (old habits die hard). But he’s determined to explain things to him too. You and Bruce were always rather in sync, about how you should raise your children.

“It means he will no longer be with us. He passed away to something else.”

“To what ?”

“No one really knows.”

“Will we see him again ?”

“No.”

“Why ?”

“Because he’s dead.”

“And being dead means you can’t see anyone anymore ?”

“Being dead means you are not living on this Earth anymore, so yes, you cannot see them anymore.”

“It means we can’t see him ? And what do you mean not on Earth ? Is he in Space ? Can we see him if we go to the watchtower ?”

“I mean in our life, we will not see Ace again. He won’t be with us ever again. He’s not in space, he’s just gone.”

“Because he’s dead ?”

“Because he’s dead.”

“So, being dead means we don’t get to see someone ever again ?”

“Yes.”

“Ever ever ?”

You decide to leave any conversations about a possible after-life aside, as it’s clear this, he’s not quite old enough to comprehend. So you keep on talking about the truth, with the support of Bruce.

“Yes. Ever ever.”

It takes Thomas a few minutes to take in all those new informations. Bruce is sitting on the bed, legs crossed, behind the boy. And your son is clearly lost in deep thoughts...Up until finally, finally tears are starting to well up in his eyes.

“But I didn’t even say goodbye !”

“Unfortunately, we don’t always get to say goodbye...”

“But mama, how will he know I loved him so much if I didn’t even say goodbye before he left ? How could you let him go before I did ?”

“I’m sorry, if I could chose I would’ve-...He knew you loved him and-”

“Are you going to die too ?!”

The dreaded question. Dreadest of them all, really. But you can’t lie to him. Not now that you started to explain things.

“Yes. Everyone dies one day.”

“But but but...but I don’t want you to die ! And Daddy ?”

Bruce nods, and...and that’s when it finally happens.

The awful moments your sweet innocent boy realizes what death sort-of means. That one day, none of his parents will be in his life anymore. Than one day, he’ll lose his siblings, and Alfred.

Just like he lost Ace. Because he was “old and sick”. But...Thomas knew a lot of sick people ! And a lot of old people ! Were they going to die too, without him being able to say goodbye ?!

And so the tears started to fall. And oh, oh did they fall.

Bruce held his son against his heart, drawing soothing circles on his back, just like you usually do. And you came to sit next to them, encircling them in your arms as well.

Thomas was trying to talk, but nothing came out very clearly as he cried, cried, cried and cried some more.

When he finally calmed down, he was slowly falling asleep, crying drained him of all his energy. That night, there was no “movie time”, but comforting snuggles with his parents...

Thomas had finally discover what “Death” meant.

************

“Oh my God Thomas !”

Bruce’s heart drops.

The entire scene goes in slow motion, and the fearless Batman can see his entire life flash in front of his eyes, as his tiny son is running towards him, while a few thugs were about to shoot automatic weapons at him...

“There’s a kid ! There’s a kid !”

“Who cares, we have the bat right at our mercy, just shoot !”

“I can’t shoot a kid...”

“Should we shoot ?”

The few seconds of surprise after Thomas bursted in allow Damian to swoop down, and to get rid of everyone. Slowly, a serious face on, your son walks to his dad and, solemnly, he says :

“This was too close, father. And...Thomas...”

“I know Damian, I know.”

Your little boy was inconsolable, clinging to his dad.

They didn’t even have to ask him how he got there. It was obvious he somehow snuck into the Batmobile (which wasn’t that much of a surprise, although it was already quite a feat...Thomas was small, but also very stealthy, as he was taught to be).

He was only five, and it wasn’t really clear to him yet his dad was that “Batman” everyone talked about, that his siblings were also vigilantes...But he knew that when they went out at night, they were often in danger.

And that night. That night right after the one Thomas learned what Death was...He snuck in the car, so he would make sure “she” would not take her dad away ! Or her brothers and sister !

Only Damian and Bruce were in the car, on patrol together. The rest of the kids were scattered across the city, and you were taking care of the bat computer (nowadays you were the one doing so to give some relief to Alfred).

Thomas took the habit to fall asleep in the cave, in a bed there just for him...and he must’ve snuck into the car.

It was nobody’s fault. It was very unlike the boy, to do such a thing.

He got into the car. When Damian and his father got out of it to apprehend a few of Two-Face’s thug, he stayed behind, looking at what they did...but when he saw those men about to shoot his dad (a proper ambush), he jumped out, punching every buttons (which was quite dangerous itself) to find which one opened the door, and then he ran to his dad...

The surprised probably saved Bruce. But it also almost killed him with a heart attack.

What if those men didn’t hesitate long enough for Damian to take care of them ? What if they shot anyway, ignoring the surprising appearance of a small child ? What if they had recognize who that kid was, too ? (Unlikely, this was a time where Thomas was still quite sheltered from media, as you tried to give him a childhood as normal as you all possibly could).

What if they shot anyway...

Bruce doesn’t think he would’ve survived the death of his youngest son. He was sure, actually, that he would’ve killed those men.

That is, if Damian didn’t do it first.

But it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen, but it was so close. So close.

Later, when everything calmed down, Thomas would explain he jumped in the car to “keep death away”, to protect his daddy and brother. To make sure Death wouldn’t take them.

And that's when you all understood Ace’s death, and the discovery that everyone dies one day, one way or another, truly was “traumatic” for your baby.

From that point on, you made sure that Thomas would be in the cave...but this event. This event really unfolded a problem you knew you’d have to tackle truly one day.

You just had no idea yet how to help your son.

************

Damian had told Jason the debacle that was yesterday. About his parents explaining to their little brother what it meant to be dead. And about how it lead to Thomas sneaking into the Batmobile and running in front of danger to “protect” his dad.

Because of where he grew up, Damian always knew what death meant. And he never cared much (or convinced himself he never cared much). He understood from a very young age what all this shenanigans was...

Jason did too. He found his mother, dead, when he was three years old. He grew up surrounded by death, in the gutter of Gotham. He knew. He did.

But Thomas.

Thomas was a “normal” 5 years old boy, as normal you can be in such a family. He trained a little, and sort of knew about his dad being “Batman” (but it seemed he didn’t understand he was ACTUALLY the Batman people talked about in the city).

He spend most of his nights in a little area made just for him, with a bed and such, in the batcave (he hated sleeping upstairs alone, so he would sleep in the batcave and you’d pick him up to bring him in his bed once you’d go to bed, and/or once the rest of your family would get home).

So for a little one like Thomas, who was pure and sweet and nice...It was a shock, to know one day he’d lose the people he loved.

He was inconsolable, at Ace’s funerals (thrown at the back of the Manor).

He couldn’t get over the fact he didn’t get to say goodbye, and that he would never play with his dog anymore.

It made it worst, that Ace’s death made everyone else sad. That dog truly was a member of the family...

“I know you're feeling very sad. I'm sad, too. We all loved Ace so much, and he oved us, too.”

You told him a few times, tryin to put words on his emotions and helping him understand...God, to Damian, you truly were the most amazing mother. Always knew what to say, how to say it, when to say it.

But Thomas was still blue, and it was so unlike his usual bubbly personality.

And so, both Damian and Jason made it their mission to distract their little brother, and...it worked. For the most part. It really worked.

Amongst all his siblings, Damian and Jason were the ones that loved having a little brother the most. Not that the others didn’t, of course ! They just were a little less willing to play for hours on end with a little kid.

They were rather busy. Jason and Damian always found ways...They were an unlikely pairs at first glance. Most people would think Damian was the closest to Dick, and Jason too. But no. They were equally as close to all their siblings, in different ways.

But Damian and Jason, they had an extra connection. Jason was there, when Damian was a baby. He didn’t remember his own name, and was used by the Al’Ghuls after they resurrected him...But he was still one of the only person in Damian’s life that truly valued him.

Fate, right ? A funny thing. After all, how small did the world have to be for two of Bruce’s sons to meet in such a way ? A hidden son, and one he thought dead, at that ?!

In any case. They were closer than most would think. And they also were linked not only by the Al’Ghuls, but by how they were both ripped off of an actual childhood, and therefor wanted to make sure their little brother had one too (Cass was the same, but more subtle, and discreet).

And so...

They played, made art pieces, jigsaw puzzles, watched his favorite movies, cooked...Anything to take his mind off of “Death”.

That little boy would overthink too much, for such a young age.

But overall, Damian and Jason did a good job distracting him from the pain.

They did an amazing job.

You were so proud of how they took care of their baby brother (and it would give yourself more time to go cheer up the “Oldest Wayne”, your dear husband, who definitely had a hard time getting over his dog’s death...).

Only, there was one problem...And that problem was that neither Damian nor Jason, just like everyone else, were immortal.

And this, this, Thomas would realize very soon.

************

“More compresses, Master Tim !”

“On it Al !”

The loud noises woke Thomas up. You knew. You knew you should’ve gone up to bed earlier. Tuck him in, and wait for your family to come back.

Ah. But when they all arrived in the cave, ALL of them, including Dick who did not live at the manor anymore...You knew there was a problem.

And indeed. Jason had been badly hurt. Not something that couldn’t be fixed, but ah, once again, too damn close.

Everyone was on the tail of a high profile serial killer, the newcomer called “Dr Pyg”, and...Collateral damage. It happened, in this line of work.

It wasn’t easy. Especially when it was one of your baby. But you had to keep a leveled head, as you helped Alfred fix your boy.

You had taken medical trainings early in in your relationship with Bruce. For obvious reasons. And there was rarely a day it didn’t come in handy.

In any case, all the noises around woke Thomas up.

Before. Before he knew what death truly meant, he would’ve been worried. He would've cried. He would’ve been distressed. Of course.

And one of his siblings would’ve taken care of him, reassure him, soothe and console him, and little Thomas would be ok again.

Before he knew what death truly meant.

He was so small anyway, most of the time he’d forget things, or just not understand them...but he was five now. Close to the age of reason. And definitely aware of his surroundings enough now to pay attention, and remember things.

And he knew what death truly meant.

He clung to Jason for dear life, even as everyone reassured him he was actually ok. Jason himself was conscious, he had been badly hurt but nothing he hadn’t seen before.

He needed some rest for sure, but it was fine, really.

It wasn’t fine for Thomas. He yelled, threw the biggest tantrum he ever threw, yelled some more that they should stop. That he didn’t want them to die. That whatever they were doing...He begged them to stop.

Never before in your life, had any of you witness Thomas being in such a state. He was inconsolable. You couldn’t calm him down, no matter what...

And once more, it’s only because of exhaustion that he finally relaxed. But yet, still in his sleep, he clung to Jason’s sleeve, as if afraid his brother would be gone when he’d wake up.

It tore yours and Bruce’s heart apart, to see your baby like this. But to be honest...neither of you knew what to do...

************

“Where’s Damian mama ? Where is he ?”

Thomas was truly panicked.

The first day, he thought maybe his brother was busy with school and such. The second day, he started to worry. But now ? Three days in a row with Damian not at the dinner table ? Or in his room ? Or in the batcave ?!

It made Thomas anxious. What happened to his brother ? Was he...was he...DID DEATH TAKE HIM AWAY ?

“Where’s Dami mama ? Where is he ?!” Thomas kept asking, crying. And it took you moment to finally realize what your son must’ve thought. When you did, you picked him up and calmed him down, explaining Damian was simply over at Jon’s for a few days...

And from that day on, you’d make sure to tell him why anyone would be gone for any amount of time.

That night, Bruce and you talked about what you could do to help Thomas get over his consuming fear of losing one of you.

But nothing really came to your minds.

And it was awful, to feel like a failure like that.

Later on, your Damian would tell you you were NOT failing at parents because you were a little lost about this. After all, none of your other kids got into quite a crisis like this one. He said maybe considering a therapist could do ? But oh, oh Thomas was so little.

And if words were out that Thomas Wayne, barely five years old, was seeing a therapist ? The scandals would be unending, and would it really help your son ?

Damian joined in in the search for a way to soothe his baby brother. He never said “no” to cuddles from him, but lately...Lately, Thomas almost became overbearing, as he made sure he’d always sort of have his eyes on everyone.

And it wasn’t healthy, for such a little boy to worry so much.

Damian missed his carefree baby brother. He knew he had to eventually grow up, of course, and that he’d have some hardships but...he was just five and a half ! He wasn’t suppose to be so scared of death !

And so he thought, nights and days, of a way to soothe him. But just like you and Bruce, this matter was quite delicate...

************

It seemed like Cass was the only one able to truly console him, and make him relax. She would sing him songs, just like you did to her when she felt sad.

She would tell him tales of Death as a good thing, inspiring herself from many legends from around the world.

She would try to put perspective on everything, in a way you truly admired.

She never spoke too much, your Cass...But when she did, every words were carefully chosen and crafted into truly beautiful things.

And it would soothe your boy.

But only as long as he was with Cass. And he couldn’t always be with her.

You didn’t have her talent to tell those tales, and your singing was working only for a few moments to put him to sleep but...you couldn’t always have him sleep. You had to think of more viable options.

Nonetheless, when Thomas was really too anxious, Cass would be there.

Relieving everyone of their worry, as she could calm her baby brother in matter of seconds. In those moments, you wished time could stop. You truly did...

************

Thomas would cling to you and his dad the most. His siblings were often out and about, but you two ? Well you took some time off to be with your youngest son, to be there for him in this odd times...

And you weren’t sure it was such a good idea, in the end.

He would often just snuggle up to you or Bruce, listening to your heartbeats, which would calm him...You’d normally never say no to hugs from your children. But this was all starting to become so unhealthy for the little one.

What could you do ? What could you do ?!

************

Duke was panicking.

Thomas was doing fine today, and Duke felt like he royally fucked up.

Thomas was worried about Duke, telling him to be careful and that his heart would break if Duke ever died...Which melted Duke’s heart.

It made him feel so loved and accepted. And he wanted to help little Thomas so much...

That’s when he made a rookie mistake.

After all, he was still quite new at this “big brother” thing.

“There are things worst than death.”

Is what he told him. What was he thinking ? Reflecting on things, Duke realized he didn't think it through. To him, it was a soothing way to say death wasn’t that bad. But...Ah, ah it made Thomas cry.

“What ? What is worst than not seeing you guys ever again ?!”

At that moment, Duke hadn’t realized quite yet how much he fucked up. So he said : “Well, my parents can't remember me, can’t remember who they are...They’re not dead, but they’re not here anymore. They’re physically here, but they don’t know me, they don’t know how to hug me, they can’t be my parents anymore...Yet they’re still alive.”

The horrified look on Thomas’ face is what gave him a hint that this really wasn’t a good thing to say...

“No no no wait Thomas, don’t cry please, I was trying to tell you...Wait Thomas, please, no. Oooh buddy, buddy I’m so sorry.”

It almost made Duke cry too, to witness the one he considered his little brother in such distress. He wasn’t trained for this ! He wasn’t trained for this !!!

This was the first time Duke truly felt like an older brother, truly felt like he understood this important role. He had to think before saying something. He had to protect his baby brother. He had to find ways to soothe him...

“Ok here we are, here we are everything is a-okay, you’re ok, things will be ok...”

Duke picked Thomas up, and started to rock him back and forth slowly, just like his own mom did to him...He mixed the way his mom used to put him to sleep, with your soothing singing. With words he borrowed from you.

“I’m here, I’m here. Don’t worry I’m here, I won’t go anywhere. Things will be ok baby boy, things will be ok. You’re gonna be ok. I’m not going anywhere. I didn’t mean any of it...”

Duke had been living with you for a while now. He came to see all of you as his second family, even as his parents were still alive, and a constant chain holding him back at times...a chain that broke right at this moment.

Thomas was his little brother. He truly was.

And Duke was determined to be there for him. Especially after he made him cry.

“It’s ok Tommy, cry all you want. It’s ok to cry. It’s ok to cry.”

You always told him that. It was ok to cry. To be angry. To want to break everything. To want his mom...

But you were his mom too now. You were. And you had such a way with words. Such a soothing touch. Even as he was grown up now, you always knew what to say. You always did.

“You’re ok, right ? Yeaaaah you’re ok. See, things are fine, we chill, we chill.”

Duke was slowly swaying from left to right, Thomas in his arm, slowly lulling him to sleep, calming him down. His voice seemed to have the same effect than yours...Because he was calm. And because he meant it.

The love.

The love he had for this little boy.

It poured out of him, easily, naturally.

He loved that kid so much. And he wanted him to be ok. And it seemed like Thomas ? Thomas felt it. He felt the love. Just like Duke felt the love of all of you...

That little bean put himself in such a state at the mere thought of Duke dying, of one of his brother leaving...And Duke. Duke realized he felt the same.

Couldn’t imagine any of them dying.

And so he poured love in his every word, and swayed from side to side, calming Thomas, and making sure he knew...He knew that, he was right there.

Right there.

************

“You’re getting old, Alfred.”

You said jokingly, as you beat him at chess. And oh. Oh what a mistake you just did.

“Old ? I don’t want you to die Alfred, I don’t !”

Thomas was playing next to you. You hadn’t thought about his “trauma” for a little while as he seemed to feel a little better lately...But oh, he plunged right back into it there.

Because of you. You felt absolutely awful...

“I’ll fight Death for you Alfred ! I will ! I won’t let her take you !!”

It took a while, as it became usual now, to calm him down. He was ready to throw hands with Death. Fierce that no one would take his “grandpa”. But he was still very scared and sad...

“I’m a terrible mother...”

You told Bruce that night. And he held you against him, consoling you, saying it wasn’t your fault and that it was just friendly banter with Alfred as usual...

“You are the literal opposite of a terrible mother, my love.”

“But Broosh, I made him- I-”

You sniff, unable to control your sobs as you remember your poor little boy holding Alfred and yelling at Death she can’t take him. The poor butler himself didn’t even know how he could do anything to calm him down...

“We’ll find a solution my love, we’ll find a solution...”

This entire night, Bruce stayed up although he was exhausted, so he could soothe you and take care of you. Skipping patrol (knowing though the city was safe with his children out).

At some point during the night, Thomas came to your room.

It was often, lately, that after a nightmare he’d come running to you. His nightmares would often be about losing you...

You had finally fallen asleep, in your husband’s arms, and Bruce gestured to your boy to not make too much noice.

Sweet little Thomas acquiesced, and slowly came to the bed, taking the hand his father gave him.

Bruce was about to fall asleep too, knowing you had finally found sleep...But now, he wasn’t going to. Not until he made sure his son was asleep as well.

All he could do for now, was being there for you two. Try to soothe you as best her could. As best he could...

Sleep was restless and full of nightmares.

************

Dick would try to often visit his parents and siblings. As much as he could, which wasn’t always easy, with his work in Bludhäven. But nothing is more sacred than family...He realized that over the years.

During those moments, it would be rather normal for Thomas to go settle in his oldest brother’s laps. He would make the most of seeing him.

So today, as Dick was in the kitchen trying to make himself a cup of coffee, it was no surprise when little Tommy came to see him.

You had bought a new espresso machine, and Dick had no idea how it worked...Slowly, his littlest brother came in, dragged a chair next to him, and used it to climb on the counter.

He then started to make Dick’s cup of coffee, without much of a word being exchanged. Dick smiled widely, his little bro was so cute and clever. In no time, he had make a great cup of coffee for him.

But...Something seemed to bother him. Tommy was an exuberant child when around his family, but he had been quiet right there. He didn’t jump in his brother’s arms like he usually does, and he wasn’t telling him all about what he missed since last time he came in !

Was it still this all thing about being worried about death ?

“Are you ok little wing ?”

Ever since Jason, “Little Wing” or “Bird” became the common denomination for his younger siblings. A term of endearment that they all (secretly or not) loved.

Tommy seemed to think a little, while raising his arms, signifying he wanted Dick to pick him up.

Dick did, of course, and they went to sit at the kitchen counter, and as usual, Tommy settled down on Dick’s laps. He turned around and, after another short pause (Dick always knew when to stay silent, and wait for the other person to speak first) said :

“Dickie, are mom and dad not your mom and dad ?”

“Mm ?”

“Your real mom and dad, they died ? You can’t see them no more now ?”

There was a lump in Dick’s throat. Not because he thought about his parents no. He actually came to peace with their death long ago now. And though he missed them every day, it didn’t hurt as much as it used to.

He was lucky to find another loving family...From which that little worried kiddo in front of him was an important part of.

“Yes, I can’t see them anymore.”

“It hurts ?”

“It used to. Now less. I miss them, but I wasn’t alone.”

“Because you have our mom and dad ?”

“Yes.”

Dick ruffles his hair fondly.

“Do you wish you’d still have your real mom and dad ?”

“Mom and dad ARE my real parents too. I was lucky enough to find new ones. Not everyone is as lucky, like dad. He was alone for a long time”

“What about Alfred ?”

“It took dad a while to realize that Alfred was a second father to him”

“So...Will you be my second dad if dad goes ?”

Dick feels another lump in his throat. Bigger this time.

He couldn’t even imagine the day he’ll lose this “second dad”, this one he had now called “dad” for longer even than his own biological father...Dick was 8, when he came into yours and Bruce’s life.

He spend more years with you two than with his “real” parents. You never replaced them, no. You just..became his parents too.

He would never forget his biological parents. But he would never diminish the impact his adoptive one had. The love you and Bruce gave him.

Would he be good enough to be Thomas “second dad” ? After all, he currently had about the age Bruce had when he adopted him...

But Dick couldn’t imagine losing Bruce too. Losing another father. No. He couldn’t. He couldn’t.

Thomas was already moving on, asking more questions :

“Will I find another mom and dad too if mom and dad die ? Or will I be alone like dad ? Will I have Alfred forever ?”

“I-I don’t know buddy.”

“What if I lose all of you at the same time ? I will be all alone then.”

“You won’t.”

“But what if I do ?”

“I’ll always be there.”

“You can’t know that, can you ?”

“Maybe, but this will never happen. You will never be alone.”

“You really think so ?”

“I Do. And I promise little wing, I promise...You won’t lose all of us. You won’t.”

Dick held his brother even tighter against him, and missed the unconvinced expression on Thomas’ face.

************

Your youngest son was still utterly terrified of losing any of you. But his terrible fit would pass now, he would calm down more easily, and wouldn’t cry until exhaustion...But it didn’t mean he wasn't afraid anymore.

Unfortunately.

“Death” was still a constant on his mind. One of the biggest question. Without much answers.

His mother and father said no one knew what happened after “death”, but Thomas wasn’t convinced. So he went to the only one he knew would tell him the truth, and was most likely to know...Tim.

His older brother was currently in the garden, studying for his finals. But oh he’d take a break for his little brother, of course.

Especially lately, as said little brother was overly worried and needed constant reassurance.

“Hi Timmy.”

“Hey little one.”

“Bothering you ?”

“You are not bothering me, never.”

“Can I ask you a question then ?”

“Of course.”

“What happens when we die ?”

Oof.

OOOOF.

Not something Tim could say he expected to be asked. Even as he knew Thomas was sort of obsessed with this lately. And ah...Ah he started to get lost into physiological effects of death, into science, into things Thomas could definitely not understand...

And into things he didn’t care about.

Thomas had no interest in knowing what happens to the corporeal side of things. To our bodies. He wanted to know where “we” went. Where the being went. The conscience.

Of course he wouldn’t word it that way, but it was easy to understand that it was what he meant when he said : “where do we go when we die ?”.

After a long time of Tim getting lost in many complex explanations about decomposition (what the Hell Tim ?), he finally stopped as he saw that Thomas was most definitely lost.

“Where do we go after we die ?”

“Yes. What happens ? You must know, you know everything !”

The faith his littlest brother put in him made him feel warm inside but...unfortunately on this subject he had to disappoint him.

“I..I don’t know about this, actually.”

Thomas looked crestfallen. Was nothing sacred anymore ?? Death existed, and the one he thought would always have a solution to everything didn’t know something that important !!

“There’s many theories.”

“What’s a theories ?”

“One theory, multiple theories. A theory is...an idea of how things might work.”

“What are the theory ?”

“Theories, plural.”

“What are the theories ?”

“Well. Some people think that you go into some kind of afterlife. It depends the culture, and the religion, and...many other factors. But there’s usually a few places we can end up.”

“And we’ll see the people who died there ? We’ll see them again ?”

“Supposedly so.”

“Is it sure ?”

“No, it’s just a theory.”

“You said a theory is an idea of how things might work.”

“An idea that might not be proven.”

“What’s the point then ?”

“Theorizing.”

“I don’t understand...”

Of course he didn’t, he was a smart little boy...But still just five. Tim sat down to his level, and looked at him in the eyes :

“Well. You have to understand that um...No one knows what happens after death. So we have to make theories, things that might or might not be. You understand ?”

“No.”

“Well, since we don’t know, we make things up. But maybe those things are right. Maybe they aren’t.”

“So the answer is we don't know ?”

“Yes. But there are theories ?”

“Ok. So aside from the place we see others again, what are the theories ?”

“Well (...)”

Tim was a patient boy. For hours and hours, he tried to explain every single “theory” people might’ve had about what happens after Death. And Thomas listened carefully.

Finally, Tim was done, and his brother said :

“So...No one really knows, and there’s a lot of theory...ies. Theories.”

“Basically.”

Thomas looked so discouraged. Tim was very well aware that none of what he told him really helped his brother, or reassured him...But ah. Tim was known to not lie. Which was a good thing. And he couldn’t possibly have a free conscience if he had told his brother just one theory of the after life, the nicest one, just to reassure him.

Of course, he wanted to reassure him. To distract him. But he would do so another way. Lying to him was not it.

Still, it was so disheartening to see this sweet little boy so crestfallen.

“Um, Well...I guess some people know.”

Thomas looked up at his brother, hopeful, waiting for him to continue.

“Like Constantine. But um, he’s sort of crazy. And dad doesn't want him around the house for...reasons you’ll understand when you’ll grow up. And-”

Ah but Thomas wasn’t listening to Tim anymore, and his monologue as to why maybe John Constantine wasn’t such a reliable source.

“Constantine” huh ? Interesting. Ah. Sometimes, Tim forgot how smart his little brother truly was...for a five years old. And how he took after his father, when it came to memory and attention to details.

************

This constant worry went on for quite just a few days. A few very eventful days, that were so...exhausting. Thomas was constantly scared for your lives, and would cry if anyone got hurt too much.

He would follow you around, and be way too stressed for such a little bean.

Everyone came to hide their injuries from him, tried to distract him from what they were doing when out as the Bats...But it was becoming a real problem.

How ? How could they make a little five years old understand that he couldn’t forever be afraid of death ? It was impossible. None of you, not even you, had the right words. There were no right words anyway.

You could tell him whatever you wanted, it’d never make him stop thinking about Death taking one of you with her, taking one of you far away from him.

“A place he cannot follow you to.”

How ? How could you help ?!

But the change had to come from within him, you would soon realize.

About a week after Ace’s death, and a truly painful few days of everyone being lost and unable to help the baby of the family... he suddenly spoke up, at dinner time :

“Mama, mama, if one day you die, I will bring you back. I promise. Same for daddy, and Dick, and Jason, and Cass, and Tim, and Duke, and Damian, and Alfred. I don’t know if we can bring dogs back, but humans yes ? And worst case scenario, I’ll conjure your spirit so I can say goodbye, and then I’ll know we’ll see each others again !”

“Wh-What ?”

“Stunned” doesn’t quite cover how you felt at your son’s sudden tirade, at dinner that night. Everyone was here, a rare occasion. Your one dinner a months that was mandatory for all your kids ! To make sure you’d all have moments together.

And boom. Came this monologue out of nowhere, from your small little five and a half years old son.

Stunned. Not a strong word enough to describe you, or your other children.

But Bruce. Oh Bruce. Bruce was frowning. Narrowing his eyes in a way you knew perfectly well...It meant he was angry at someone.

“Who told you all this, son ?”

“Mister Constantine.”

A growl. A scary growl. From deep within your husband’s throat. You would NOT want to be John next time he’d see

“How did you talk to him ?”

“I used your phone.”

“I don’t have his number on my...Wait, the bat phone ?!”

“Yes. The one you call uncle Clark on !”

“What the-...how did you-ugh ?!”

There were so many questions. So many.

“I copied what you do, on the phone. And I asked it if it could call the Constantine.”

“The Constantine”, this better not be a stupid way he called himself in front of his son, Bruce thought. Ah, and curse the fact he kept having kids that were too damn smart for their own good !

Kids this days. Growing up with technology. Able to work a batphobe at age 5 and a half !!

“Hope I helped little man - John Constantine”, said the note that came to the manor a few days later. Which made Bruce fume with rage, but Thomas beam happily.

Bruce was already planning to go after John, and force him to say what he told his son. But...But...

To be honest. Whatever he said. You didn’t care. You knew, more than anyone else, that “Death” wasn’t as definitive as it sounded at times. And you knew for certain there was something after you died. What ? You couldn’t be sure. But something. Another place. Or maybe reincarnation ? Who knew.

Deep in your heart though, you knew that no matter what, if you ever were to die...You’d see your family again. You weren’t sure how or where. It was just a certainty in your heart. A gut feeling.

Yes. You didn’t care what John told your son. If it could help him accept that everyone will die one day. Didn’t mean he wasn’t afraid of losing you anymore. Oh no. But at least...At least he knew worrying about it lead nowhere. And to truly enjoy the moments of the present.

Whatever John said, it helped your son. That’s all that mattered. And as Thomas would grow up, you knew he’d understand things more and more.

He already knew he was luckier than many people. He had a loving family. They were all there with him for now (minus Ace, whom he missed every day). A lot of people couldn’t say the same thing.

Death was an odd thing. Especially in the World you lived in.

It wasn’t as definitive as some would say.

Your family knew that more than anyone else.

Death was an odd thing, that wasn’t always the ultimate end...

This, one day, Thomas would truly understand.

The end

__________________________________________________

And here we are :). Just a quick thing again, my bigger story (fake boyfriend trope with Bruce hehe) is coming soon. But in the mean time, felt compelled to write about this. I hope you enjoyed reading it, and liked it ? Not my best work :/, another quick drabble written very late at night eh. But nonetheless, fun to write ? Hope it’s not a disappointment, it’s just a thing to make ya wait for a more elaborate thing that I took a lot of care writing. Anyway it’s 4 am, time for bed :).

If you did, don’t hesitate to leave a little feedback or/and to reblog :). If you didn’t as well really, it’s always good to know what’s not good so I can improve (just stay civil please).

PS : Bonus point if you get where I’m trying to arrive at with those last few words about how definitive death is :p.

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