Tactical Retreat
Fictober fic for “What are you doing?”
Fandom: The Hobbit
Warnings: None
Length: <1k
"What are you doing?"
There’s sunlight spilling through his large front window, and beams of it catch in the silver of Thorin's hair. There is more of it now than there was when they met, mithril running along his temples and shot through his beard. Even after years and years, the sight has a way of stopping him in his tracks.
Of course, normally his royal-raised husband isn't hunched below the windowsill, glancing at the peaceful Shire like a warg was about to charge through the opening.
"Making a tactical retreat."
That's when he catches sight of Lobelia stomping down the path. She has a letter in her hand, and Bilbo would bet his brass buttons that it was the letter he'd sent some weeks ago.
"Uncle is hiding from Auntie Lobelia."
That’s when Bilbo notices Frodo hunched in front of Thorin, little hand covering his mouth to muffle his tiny giggles.
Thorin sends his nephew a look of mock-betrayal, giving up his hiding spot to scoop the tiny hobbit up into the air, tossing the laughing child above his head.
"We were allies in this endeavor. I see how it is."
"Down! Down!" Frodo yells, squirming like a puppy, but he's laughing the whole time. Thorin lets him fall only enough so that he is caught safely in his arms, and Frodo giggles ring bright as bells.
Something bright and light and warm breaks open in Bilbo’s chest watching them together.
“I’ve known you to face down fiercer enemies than my cousins, dearheart.”
“I never had to take tea with my enemies.” Thorin sets Frodo down, who wastes no time in plowing directly into Bilbo’s waist. “Besides, after trading barbs with hobbit society I understand how you played Thranduil like a golden fiddle.”
He can’t quite keep the grin off his face, despite himself. He’s known for a lot of things, but that particular piece of peacemaking is something he is very, very proud of.
It is, of course, how they all managed to live and live happily, after all.
“Uncle isn’t as good at pretending to like people as you are.” Frodo says, all big blue eyes staring up at him.
He barely holds in a snort, and has to bite his lip when he catches the pinched expression on Thorin’s face.
“Thus the tactical retreat, my dear boy,” he says, smiling down at his nephew.
He meets Thorin’s eyes over Frodo’s curls, blue eyes soft and warm as wool as he looks at the little bit of peace they’ve carved out. He winks as he ruffles Frodo’s hair.
“You’ll just have to show him how it’s done, next time.”
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DP x DC Writing Prompt #5
Damian does not glance back at Bruce when he knocks on the door. Instead they both wait in silence.
After a moment, the door opens.
"Hello," Jasmine, Jazz, Fenton greets politely, unsurprised to find the Waynes on her doorstep. Damian's expression grows ever darker at this revelation.
"Hello Ms. Fenton, are your parents home?" Bruce asks, placing a firm hand on Damian's shoulder, to ground as much as to restrain. To his credit he does not shake it off.
"No, they're out of town for a conference," the eighteen year-old says, opening the door wider. "But I think you'd better come in."
Bruce would normally decline, but Ms. Fenton is a legal adult and he has already, even unknowingly, waited 16 years. Damian makes the choice for him, striding past the threshold.
"Please take a seat," Jazz says as she leads them to the living room. She ignores Damian's swinging head as he takes in the home. It is deceptively large, a 90s style house filled with modern furniture. The walls are bright, with purple and green accents that would normally feel garish but somehow work. The stairs leading to the second floor are lined with family photos that Bruce yearns to take a closer look at. "Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?"
"No, that's alright, thank you," Bruce says, taking a seat on the long plush couch. A men's windbreaker lies haphazardly thrown across one of the arms. A closed container of Oreo cookies sit on the coffee table next to a physics textbook open to chapter 16, half covered in highlighter and filled with sticky notes. There's a child's painting framed next to the tv, a handprint made to look like a thanksgiving turkey in bright blue.
For the home of experimental scientists, it is cozy and well lived-in.
Damian repeatedly glances at the stairs through the doorway.
Bruce clears his throat. "We were hoping to--"
"I've texted--oh, I'm sorry," Jazz says, having spoken at the same time. Bruce gestures for her to go on.
"I've contacted Danny, he should be here soon. He was out with some friends." Jazz explains. As she hadn't pulled out a phone in their presence, Bruce can only deduce they have some sort of camera at their front door. This also explains Ms. Fenton's complete lack of surprise at their appearance.
"So you know who we are." Damian says, the first words he's spoken since they arrived at the house and the longest sentence he's spoken since they arrived in Amity Park.
"I do," Jazz says, calm in the face of Damian's clearly simmering anger. Bruce trusts him not to attack Ms. Fenton, but he still watches him carefully.
"He told you about me," Damian says. It is the same question, but it is also not.
"He did," Jazz says.
Damian swallows. "I see," he grits out.
Jazz's neutrality slips and her face softens in sympathy. "Damian," she starts hesitantly, but before she can say anything else the front door opens.
A moment later Bruce's son walks through the doorway, and Damian is on him.
This is what Bruce hoped to prevent, but despite his numerous checks of Damian's luggage his son has still managed to smuggle a small dagger, which he now produces and swings in a calculated arc at Daniel Fenton's jugular.
Danny dodges cleanly, and dodges every swipe thereafter in a manner that speaks to continued practice long after his time at the League. Damian is a perfect product of his training, but it is up against Danny his flaws come to light. He is just as good as he always was, but Danny is better.
In a matter of seconds Damian grows frustrated and sloppy in his attacks, completely atypical for him. Danny takes Damian out at the knees and pins him down with one arm, pressing his face into the carpet.
"Calm down," he orders. His voice is deeper than Damian's at sixteen to his twelve, the accent that still traces Damian's words completely gone from his speech. Damian growls and thrusts his head back into Danny's face, meeting it with a sharp thunk. He rolls up as Danny recoils, putting distance between them. Danny glares at him from several steps away, hand to his forehead. Damian tosses the dagger into his other hand as he charges, and to Bruce's surprise Danny does nothing more than turn his face to the side, allowing Damian to draw a sharp line down his cheek.
Damian stops dead in his tracks.
"Are you done?" Danny asks, blood beginning to pool at the seam of the cut.
Damian's expression is stricken, eyes stuck on the blood starting to drip down his brother's face.
"I said, are you done, Damian?" Danny asks. His voice is cold.
Damian hears him this time, and he flushes red. "I--you--"
Danny sighs. He looks at Jazz, whose expression is back to carefully controlled.
"Are you alright?" he asks her. She nods.
"You left me," Damian accuses, standing there holding his bloody dagger limply.
Danny turns back to him, raising an eyebrow.
"You left me," Damian repeats louder, rapidly blinking.
"Yes. I did." Danny provides no excuse nor any explanation. His stance is unyielding.
Damian's eyes bounce wildly, shifting to Jazz and Danny slides smoothly in front of her, protectively. He looks at Damian warily, not as if he is his brother, but as if he is a danger. Damian flinches.
Hope is the last to die, Bruce thinks, watching as that last bit of hope Damian had is extinguished, the knowledge working its way through every inch of his body like ice in his veins. His eyes darken. He turns and runs from the room, the front door slamming shut not a moment later.
Jazz stands up, pulling a few tissues from the box on the coffee table. She presses them to Danny's face, cupping his cheek until he holds it himself. "I'm going to go get the first aid kit," she says gently. It is a thinly veiled excuse to leave them alone, and Bruce is grateful for it as she heads for the stairs.
They both wait until her footsteps have faded, taking each other in. Bruce looks at his mother's eyes and the sharp turn of Talia's nose. Damian's everything, four years older.
"You shouldn't have come here," Danny says, throwing himself on the armchair Jazz has just vacated.
"You know who I am," Bruce says carefully.
Danny glares. "I've kept your secret. She nor my parents know."
"I know," Bruce says. "That's not what I meant. You know who I am. And who I pretend to be. So you know I am familiar with masks."
"And?" Danny asks, looking vaguely bored.
"And so I can recognize when someone is wearing one. Damian will too, once he's calmed down."
Danny's expression sharpens. "No, he won't. Because you are going to go to back to whatever bed and breakfast you're staying in, pack up, hop in your private jet and fly him back to Gotham immediately before the League realizes you've gone. If they haven't already," he mutters.
"This is about the League then," Bruce says. "Do you not believe I can protect you?"
"I don't need your protection," Danny snaps, and watches Bruce actively extrapolate with a dawning resignation. "So this is the World's Greatest Detective at work," he says, slumping bonelessly into his chair, the first teenager-y thing he's done.
"Damian's in danger from the League," Bruce says. Danny glares from his slump. It's almost cute. "And as long as the League doesn't know about you, he's safe."
"Draw your own conclusions," Danny says, baring his teeth. Damian often makes the same face. "As long as you leave."
"I can protect him. I can protect you both," Bruce says. "Let me help you."
Danny closes his eyes. He centers his breathing in an exercise someone has clearly walked him through in the past. Bruce would bet money on the adoptive sister waiting patiently upstairs.
"Mr. Wayne. You are not my father," he says. "My trust in you extends to the point that I left Damian in your care, but that is where it ends. And that was when it was sanctioned by the League. By coming here you have endangered those sanctions."
Bruce disregards the sting, doubling down on his analysis. Talia had left Damian with Bruce well after Danny had left the League. But Danny speaks as if the decision had been his.
Or perhaps, Bruce realizes, it is not that Danny decided upon it, but that Danny allowed it to continue.
Bruce takes a second to review what Oracle had gone over with him before they left for Amity. Daniel Fenton had by all accounts, since leaving the League, lived a fairly normal life. His adoptive parents were eccentric scientists dabbling in the occult but their findings that bordered pseudoscience circulated a very niche community of like-minded eccentrics. The bulk of their income came from alternative energy, a more viable source of study that they'd veered harder into in the past year or so, a government contract with the EPA currently in the works. This had in part funded a vacation to an all-inclusive resort the family had taken that past summer.
Danny received average grades in school, above average in science and mathematics, declining sharply in his freshman year and sophomore year before evening out around the second semester. He had gotten into fights repeatedly with one student in particular, suspended for two weeks following an incident that resulted in a the student receiving a black eye. Teachers reported him to be highly intelligent but distracted and removed. They had recommended he be evaluated for an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. He had no social media. He had missed multiple picture days. The ones he had attended he was sneezing, or a blur of movement, even going so far as to fall off his stool, legs flailing. Bruce had drank up every last one as Barbara had waited patiently.
A normal life. A family vacation to Bermuda. Average grades.
His freshman year, distracted and removed. The same year Damian had arrived at Bruce's home. Masks upon masks.
"You have informants within the League," Bruce says. Danny, to his credit, has no discernible tell. But there is no other explanation. "What will you do, if they find out you are alive?"
"That is none of your concern," Danny says, but he might as well be saying whatever I have to.
He never stopped practicing, after all.
"If they go after Damian, it is my concern."
"And that is why you need to take Damian back to Gotham before they do." Danny says. "I will take care of it."
Damian had barely spoken since he had realized Danyal was alive. But Bruce had seen the reverence in his eyes as he looked at the file.
"الوريث الصحيح" he had murmured. The rightful heir.
"You are proposing going after the entirety of the League with no backup," Bruce says. "Even if you think they won't kill you, you won't win either."
"Maybe they will," Danny says lightly. "Kill me. That would also work."
Bruce inhales sharply. "Danny," he starts.
"Go home, Mr. Wayne," Danny says, pushing himself up with one hand. The other still clutches the wad of tissue to his cheek, partially soaked with blood. "Go take care of your son."
"I'll go," Bruce says, "I'll take him to the Watchtower. And then I'll come back."
"Mr. Wayne-"
"I should've come for you," Bruce interrupts. "Sixteen years ago. I should've come for you."
Danny's brow furrows. "You had no idea I existed."
"But if I had. I would've come. I never would've left you there. And now that I know, I am not leaving you now."
For the first time Bruce watches Danny be completely caught off guard. He openly gapes at Bruce.
"You would've died," Danny lands on, voice thin. "They would've killed you."
"Unlike you, I would've brought backup." Bruce says, mimicking Danny's lightness.
He's lying. Sixteen years ago he would've thrown himself at the League to save his newborn son without a plan, without a thought beyond rescuing his baby.
Danny barks out a laugh. "You would've laid siege to Nanda Parbat with The Big Blue Boy Scout?" he looks wistful. "That would've been rad."
Bruce sees his opening. "Danny," he stands, eye to eye with his son. "Let me help you."
Danny evaluates him. "The Batman," he says softly. "I didn't want you to come, then. I didn't need one more person I had to prove myself to. All I wanted was to live amongst the stars, in the quiet of the cosmos."
"You want to be an astronaut," Bruce says. At Danny's cocked head, he says without shame, "I read your essay on personal heroes. You wrote about Edward White. Ad Astra Per Aspera."
Danny smiles slightly, sadly. "It is a rough road."
"You can be whatever you want to be," Bruce says. "I won't stand in your way."
"Even if I want to be Danny Fenton?" he asks.
"Even then."
Danny sighs. "I don't need your help Bruce," he says. "No," he says as Bruce opens his mouth. He pulls the wad of tissues away from his cheek. Underneath the splotches of dried blood the gash in his face has cleanly knit itself together, a faint white line now all that remains.
"I don't need your help," he says clearly. He holds a palm forward, and a green fire grows from its center, until the flames are licking delicately up his fingers.
"I know The Batman does not kill. But I am not a Robin. I am something else entirely," Danny says, his eyes reflecting the green of the flames. Or not, as he looks up at Bruce, his eyes green all on their own. They are sad. This is why he stayed away, Bruce realizes. Not out of fear. Danny is not afraid. Danny is tired.
But for his brother, Danny will wake up.
"And If the League takes one step towards Damian, I will raze them to the ground."
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Fictober23 Prompt: 3 - "Okay, show me."
Fandom: DPxDC
Rating: G
Warnings: -
"So… first time getting kidnapped?"
Tim blinked at the teen that was tied to a wall right across from him. He marveled for a a moment at how similar the two looked and even thought that he could see how the other teen could have gotten mistakenly kidnapped in his place. Though if they had already kidnapped him then why did they end up kidnapping him again?
"No, getting kidnapped kinda comes with the name and status." Tim finally answered and the other kid nodded sagely as if he understood. "Usually they are a little more incompetent."
He moved his wrists a little causing the strange silver bracelets they had slapped on his wired before chaining him to the wall so that they would cause a rattling noise, making the other teen look at them with a raised eyebrow.
"So first time getting kidnapped by the GIW then."
"GIW?"
"Guys in White, or well Ghost Investigation Ward, a government organization." The other teen explained with a shrug. "Usually they are incompetent. Aside from a couple of burns from getting shot, this is the first time they actually managed to chain me in a while. Normally they would have messed up by now but it's interesting that they even manage to nap you too."
Now Tim raised an eyebrow. That was news to him. To think there was a governmental organization that was actively abducting civilians for who knows what. Damn, he could see how B would not be happy once he told them about that.
"Sorry btw." Tim blinked up at the other teen in confusion, who chuckled in return. "They probably kidnapped you thinking you were my double or something. We look similar enough for them to think that."
"Wait…" Tim's eyes widened in realization. "They kidnapped me because I look like you? Not the other way around?"
"Uh yeah, why would I be kidnapped because of you?"
"Tim Drake-Wayne. Does that ring a bell?" Tim huffed only to watch how the other teen furrowed his eyebrows as if deep in thoughts before shrugging.
"In fact no it doesn't. But I don't keep up with high society, it helps pissing of the fruitloop whenever he drags me to 'meet important people' and I actively call them false names no matter how often he introduces them."
Tim's eye twitched. While that is fun, this was also the first time he met someone who hadn't heard of his name before in some way or form. In the end just let out a sigh.
"So what now? We wait to get rescued or will they release us after some time?" Well he had already tipped off his family, so it was probably only a matter of time until one of his siblings burst in to play knight in shining armor. He just hoped it wasn't Jason again, or he wouldn't shut up about having saved him for another month.
"Oh we can wait, but they won't release us. It's probably better if we get out on our own."
"Really? And how do you plan for us to get out of the handcuffs?" Well Tim did have a lock pin hidden in his jacket and some small sized tools stuffed into the sole of his shoes but with his hands chained above his head it was a little difficult to get them. But his feet were not chained so with just a bit of body twisting he could-
"Oh the handcuffs are no problem. They can be easily removed by overloading them."
"Overloading?" Tim arched an eyebrow, now the cuffs did not look like your normal brand he can admit that but how was the other going to do that unless he had some secret electric tool stored on him.
"Yea, overloading. It's pretty simple. These look like the same Brant they tried to cuff me with a year ago. It's funny how they look like they haven't learned a single thing in all these years."
"Really now?" Tim stared at the other teen unimpressed. "Okay, show me. How are you going to overload them with no tools around?"
"Easy." The other teen smirked at him and Tim's eyes widen as he saw the others hands emitting a green light before the cuffs on his wrist sparked and then fell off. Okay, noted the other teen was a Meta.
"My name is Danny by the way." Danny grinned as he rubbed his wrists before getting up and walking over to Tim to do the same to his cuffs. Tim rubbed his his own wirsts, carefully examining them for any time of injury only to look up just in time to watch Danny reach into his own chest. With wide eyes he watched Danny sticking out his tongue while one of his hands was going through his body as if he was looking for something.
"Aha! I knew I stuck them in my body somewhere for a situation like this!" Okay there was so much to unpack from this sentence alone but before Tim could even ask a single question Danny pulled out a lockpick set from his chest and proceeded to pick at their cell door.
"I have so many questions." Tim muttered, still watching the other teen.
"Well I can probably answer some of them once we are out of here. It's the least I can do after you get kidnapped because of me." Danny grinned as the lock he was working on clicked and he swung the door open. "Wanna talk over some coffee? You look like you need some."
"This is definitely not what I expected when I said 'show me'." Tim muttered once more walking passed Danny out of their cell, eager to leave this place.
"Yea well that the more civilian friendly things I can do." Danny followed with a grin. "Though I do have some other tricks I could have used too."
"You talk like a hero." Tim thought aloud, eyeing the teen and how they were holding themselves. Nothing about this teen screamed innocent civilian anymore, well aside from the obvious Meta abilities. He also marbled about the fact that they basically just walked out of the warehouse they had been holding. Huh looked like these GIW guys were really as incompetent as Danny had mentioned earlier.
"Yea, well I am a retired Hero." Great now Tim got more to look into in regards to Danny. Oh that reminded him, he probably should tell his family that he was no longer kidnapped… but that could probably wait until after he got his coffee with Danny. What was the worst that could happen? Red Hood storming an empty building. Oh well, it would be a good exercise for his brother then.
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