#wally: hold my hand and follow me i need to traumatize you

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

I just pictured this for the light arts au

Wally: go here.

Frank: into the dark?

Wally: go into the dark.

LMFAO PERFECTION, THAT MEME WAS MADE FOR THIS AU-

#*narrator voice* and he was right- #wally just gently herds him out of the main set and into the seemingly deeper shadows of the rest of the studio #c'mon c'mon he has More Horrors to expose frank to #namely: the nature of their reality and existence! #scribble salad #rambles from the bog #wh lights out au #wally: hold my hand and follow me i need to traumatize you #frank: what was that last part- #wally: dont worry about it! i love you! #GODDDDD BUT THAT MEME IS SO PERFECT #mad at myself for not thinking of it first smh #Kidding Kidding thank you for reminding me of its existence #i cackled a little when i read this ask

[danny-chase]

Do you think that Tim saved Dick in a way? Because we see Dick getting better as he gets closer to Tim and healing and getting back into the family, and ig it’s Tim who initiated that.

I literally don't have a yes or no answer for this... like most things in the Batfam - it's complicated. (Following answer is informed by 90s-00s comics, i can't really speak for new52 because it just... has so many issues one of which being erasing the relationship between Dick and Tim for *checks note* no discernable reason other than possibly *checks note* Didio hates legacy characters and wants only bad things for them so he could have excuses to kill them off or cancel their comics... idk just a guess)

Warnings: for Bruce stans - just look away i'm about to bring up bits of canon you most likely don't like, for Dick stans - Devin Grayson's run is mentioned, for the lovely anon - i wrote an essay, hope you are prepared

Tim coming into the family gave Dick a reason to occasionally hang around Bruce and i'm not sure if this is an exaggeration or not but he did sort of save that relationship - but whether that was a good or bad thing at the time, i can't really say. For sure - it starts off good, Bruce is actually trying to be a good dad (he comes down to Blud to check on Dick, adopts him, trusts him with his own city, calls him for backup, etc.). But we also see throughout Bruce Wayne: Fugitive/Murderer how unhealthy the relationship between the two can be. Dick built his core values around Bruce - if Bruce had actually killed here it would have been devastating for Dick (he was pretty much on the verge of a mental breakdown simply because they couldn't find proof Bruce wasn't guilty). The two literally got in a fist fight during the arc because Bruce was being uncommunicative and Dick couldn't take it anymore, snapped, and punched him when Bruce said "Bruce Wayne is dead only Batman now" - this tied into Dick finally having the relief and validation of being adopted and he couldn't handle Bruce stripping himself (and by extension, his fatherhood of Dick) away. In this era of comics Bruce had gotten physical with Dick before (here's me venting like an annoyed loser), and here's a clip from Bruce Wayne Fugitive that i just, *sigh*, canon Bruce, my detested.

Now on the other hand - getting Dick involved in the batfam more doesn't just mean he was hanging out with Bruce. His relationship with Tim is pretty great and I can definitely see where it was healing for a while - but also - to give credit where credit is due, the healing he goes through during this era of comics can also be attributed to Barbara and the Titans (the fab five specifically). Wally literally joins the Titans to give Dick a "social life" (me - it's because he's gay and wants to spend more time with Dick, actually, screw you DC you know i'm right). Donna plays a major part in keeping Dick's emotional well being in check. So like everything was going fine - Dick was healing, spending more time with friends, spending a lot of time with people he loved, like Tim, except he was neglecting his health and not sleeping - but overall he was in fact, managing, and moving past the deaths of Jason and some of the other Titans. With the current Titans - he was a hardass (which like ~trauma~ so I understand), but like things were going relatively okay.

And then Donna and Lilith died. And hooof Donna dying was like really really bad for his mental health.

Teen Titans/Outsiders Secret Files (2003) #1

[Image ID: Dick sits in a room staring at a photo, the phone rings in the background, and he doesn't even acknowledge it, the voice mail plays: "I'm not here. Leave a message after the beep." The photo is shown closer in the next frame, it's of the five original Teen Titans - Roy kisses Donna on the cheek, tipping his hat his other hand making the okay sign, Donna has an arm around Roy, the other hand on Dick's shoulder, Garth proudly stands beaming with his hands on his hips, and Dick has both his arms around Wally's neck. Everyone is smiling in the photo. A voice plays over the answering machine: "Dick, it's Roy - pick up the phone... c'mon... please... I know you're there... just pick up. Dick, we need to talk... you can't just... please..." End ID]

For context - the previous page noted that this is Dick SIX WEEKS after Donna died. Usually Dick's the one who moves on quickly, but Donna dying broke him in a way nothing else had before - and that could be partly because he was still recovering from everyone else's death.

Up to this point, Dick had been healing and Tim was definitely a part of that, but then DC decided to throw the absolute book, bookshelf, and library at him. Reading Outsiders (2003) it's very clear he's very traumatized, and around the same time, Devin is literally whumping him like it's the whump Olympics, breaking him and Babs up, burning down his childhood home, blowing up his apartment complex (killing all but like two of his neighbors), he's literally sleeping on fire escapes using newspapers as covering because he has nothing, and the bad thing i don't like to think about (i'll let you know if you ask but that one needs lots of tw, but if you know where i'm going you know what it is already), Blockbuster is killed and he blames himself - and loses it over breaking Bruce's one rule, Bludhaven is nuked, and he pretty much tries to kill himself.

So basically, he was on the path to healing (with Tim as part of that) before he got absolutely destroyed (and almost killed off by Didio in one of the crisis). Tim in his own right, was also going through a lot in the meantime, his dad died, Steph died, Kon and Bart died, i don't remember what else happened and i haven't read that era of Robin yet. Things were good until they weren't anymore, and sometimes i think Dick would regret ever exposing Tim to the life they live, and questions whether he should have just sent Tim packing x2. They do get to spend a year together on a mental health cruise, but then Damian comes into the picture, Battle for the Cowl happens, and they have their falling out. But whatever happened on that cruise must have been really healing for Dick because he actually kind of rocks it in this era - he keeps things light with Damian, Alfred notes at one point how he makes things easy because he has lightness in him, and he patches things up with Tim - catching him in that panel of Red Robin - from there they kind of go back to normal, there's a lightness to the way they banter with each other (also here) and Tim returns the favor (from the Red Robin incident) by pulling Dick out of the water.

They've saved each other multiple times over (physically), and in both in the Black Mirror and Gates of Gotham, Tim helps out in a period where Dick is starting to fall apart from the pressure of holding things together for so long (something Tim might feel guilty for, because he did run away from Gotham on a wild goose chase for Bruce). In that period, it's really clear that Dick saves Tim (he reminds him in RR, that someone does actually care for him) and then Tim saves Dick from being torn apart by Gotham.

I should point out - Damian, while starting off as kind of a hinderance, does eventually start helping Dick as well. By the end of their relationship (before the New52 destroys everything i love), Dick has helped Damian grow emotionally, and through that process Dick probably finds meaning and value in their time together, probably a lot like he used to feel with Tim. And of course, physically, they've both saved each other multiple times by the end of the run.

So yeah. I think Dick finds meaning in growth in mentoring his younger brothers, and it's likely a healing process, that healing just has some twists and turns along the way, and sometimes, on bad days, he probably feels like maybe he shouldn't have intervened at all, but i think on most days, he's proud of what Tim's become.

...I hope this is coherent lmao

#the old: blame everything i hate about comics on Didio #thank god he got fired #tw suicide #i am so long winded oop #i'm in too deep #does this count as character meta? #maybe #Dick Grayson meta #Dick Grayson #Tim Drake #i'm kinda sad that Dick and Tim's relationship is misunderstood in a lot of fanon - because it's something that can be so personal #it's not as black and white as people seem to think #as in like... they're usually really good for each other and have a healthy dynamic #even in RR (I haven't read all of it) people take things out of context and just... ignore that Dick reached out to Tim afterwards #and like asked him to go to therapy (not arkham why are y'all obsessed with Dick throwing his brothers in arkham get help) #Tim also straight up throws Dick over his shoulder and starts a physical fight in that series #so... it can be a toxic relationship too but idk i like to highlight the good parts #i see a lot of - Dick begs for Tim's forgiveness for taking Robin away fics out there #but like there relationship isn't that simple #if they ever talked it out in canon - they'd have to address Tim lashing out physically at Dick (Dick would probably not be having it) #and the writers might then be like - hmm maybe we should address all the times we had Bruce hit him too #so like yeah i get why we never saw their reconciliation on panel (they just kinda were like okay we're fine now :D) #but still it's something i'd like to see explored from a more balanced perspective - instead of a - i project on Tim so he's always right #i probably also wouldn't be the best person to write it because i project on Dick too much #not that i would make Tim beg for Dick's forgiveness - Dick would forgive him in like .000001 seconds and def doesn't hold it against him #that's just how Dick is (he'd probably prefer if it wasn't brought up and they just pretend it never happened) #but also knowing Dick he probably feels guilty as fuck for the way RR went - which like *sigh* martyr #batfam #batfamily #batfam meta

[ribcage-rodents]

How Iris first had an inkling that Wally had a crush on Dick. Ok so like, bc Star and Gotham are absolutely horrifying during Halloween, Barry is like “I’ll patrol then Iris will take the babies trick or teating”

Originally Wally is really upset bc he wants to go patrolling w his uncle but once he finds out that he gets to hang out w the other hero’s he’s psyched.

So Wally is like 12-13 and dresses up as the flash naturally. Roy is like 14-15 and he’s totally too old for Halloween and over it bc he’s super angsty, and dresses up as like Jason form Friday the thirteenth or some shit bc Black Canary forces him to. Robin only ever celebrated Halloween during his circus days when everyone would paint their face scary and flying Graysons would do aerial ballet show w black fabric so it was like spiders but after that it was just horrifying.

Anyway so Barry picked up this tiny Batman costume and Iris was like “Barry hon, isn’t he like 10? Shouldn’t you get him a bigger outfit?” (He two years younger than Wally, and four younger than Roy) And Barry is like “no trust me babe he teeny”.

Batman shows up to their house followed by a tinsity winsty baby tiny Batman bc Barry ran it over b/f patrol. And wow is that cute. Tiny baby Batman is basically glued to Batman’s side, his teeny little head coming up to Batman’s lower thigh, last time Iris checked 10-year olds aren’t supposed to be that tiny but wow is it adorable. (I’m sorry I just love teeny baby Dickie& giant looming built-like-a-tank batdaddy)

Barry told her what Batman had already explained. That Robin is foreign and doesn’t really know a lot of holiday stuff and also has been severely traumatized the past couple of years and doesn’t really like strangers and knows better than to take anything from strangers.

So it’s obvious that Robin would rather be tied up and drugged w fear gas than in a family aquatintence’s home about to go trick or treating. And Iris is a little resentful of the other boys, hard as she try to be understanding, bc Wally looks so disappointed bc he just wants to have friends and these guys don’t want to have fun.

Anyway Roy is kinda warming up to the whole trick or treating thing but sometimes he can be really mean to Wally but maybe Iris is just overprotective of her boy. Iris takes several pictures during the entire night despite both Batmans being adamant about no photos.

Robin refuses to go up to any house but Iris doesn’t comment on it. She doesn’t want to alienate him, so she doesn’t say anything. She goes up and grabs him a peice of candy but he disappears into the night. She panics for a good couple of seconds but calms when tiny Batman shows up next to Wally and Roy.

She doesn’t try again after that. He likes to walk at the back of the group and every time Iris tries to keep an eye on him, bc he may be a trained hero but central isn’t as safe as smallsville and her parental instincts are going off. Every couple of blocks Wally will try to walk next to him and talk and it’ll work for a while then Robin will slow down and fall behind and Wally’s angelic little baby face gets so sad.

As their trip comes to an end Iris can see Robin wrapping the cape around him tightly w his eyes screwed shut and it breaks her heart a little bc this poor boy must be so uncomfortable and scared that he’s trying to imitate the feeling of his mentors hug. It’s a jarring to imagine Batman hugging anything but she supposes that a baby as cute as that must make even the dark knight just wanna squeeze his sweet rosy, chubby cheeks. She reaches out to place a hand on his head, bc he’s too short to comfortably put a hand on his shoulder.

He jerks back immediately and death glares her, his anger showing full force through the white eyelets. She sent him an apologetic smile and he seemed to unbistle a smidgen.

Once they were finally home Iris watched them from behind the kitchen counter. Wally and Roy were digging into the candy while Robin perched on top of the couch. He kept scratching at his arm, Barry said that it was fine as long as it was controlled. Apparently the poor baby had a pretty serious anxiety disorder and tended to scratch to make himself feel better, it was ok as long as he didn’t have an attack.

She tossed him the single candy across the room, he caught it swiftly in his tiny baby hand. (So cute) Wally shot up to his feet. “That’s not one of my candies right?” Iris smiled, her prefect gluttonous boy. “Nope it’s from your uncles,” it was lie but it didn’t harm anyone. “That’s my backup candy!” Wally cried racing towards the door and snatching up handfuls of candy from the trick or treater bowl. Iris pretend to scold him for being stingy.

Robin slowly unwrapped the candy then examined it breaking off a piece and finally eating the snickers. His eyelets widened comically and he chewed slowly staring down at the candy before shoving the entire (not that fun size is really that big) thing in his mouth. It was absolutely adorable! She wished she had take a video and wondered if this was his first ever candy. (Dick usually just ate cotton candy as a kid, he hadn’t discover cereal yet. But since his parents died he hasn’t had real sugar, Alfred has strict hold on anything sweet in the house and Robin was deemed too energetic already.)

Apparently Wally agreed bc his mouth was wide open and his face was a blotchy-red color. His eyes were filled w what Iris could only discribe as adoration.

Wally swallowed then stood up again. His arms filled w sweets. “Here you can have my candy!” Wally all but shouted at the other boy, he paused for a second looking at his arms, “or we could share,” he suggested instead.

That’s what got Iris, even before his flash experiment Wally has never shared food, not even w his uncle. But here he was offering up some to a boy he hardly knows bc he thinks it’s cute when he eats candy. God she might cry.

Robin smiled at Wally. A real smile, the first one she’s seen all night. “You could still have it all if you wanted!” Wally said again his face turning a couple shades darker and thrusting the candy at robin, who artfully avoided his touch.

“We can share, don’t speedsters need extra calories?” Wally nodded and then proceeded to gather up the rest of the candy scattered on the floor. It was then that Iris noticed that Roy and dipped.

She was slightly panicked. Roy could probably fight for himself but he’s still a baby, a baby that Iris was in charge of. She hurriedly pulled out some blankets and turned on the tv for the boys while she dialed Barry who called Ollie. In a strange turn of events Ollie actually apologized to Iris, saying quote, “Roy’s a little jack-ass of course he snuck off. Don’t worry I’ll find him, probably screwed off to get drunk at some highschool party. Thanks for watching him while you could, I honestly expected him to scurry off a lot sooner.”

It didn’t exactly ease the tension in Iris’ chest but watching those two babies sitting on the couch pass candy back forth watching Charlie Brown specials made her feel a lot better. They were on opposite sides of the couch and Iris could see Wally’s little fingers twitching by his legs, he got up to go to the bathroom and came back only to really casually sit right next to Robin, like basically on his lap.

Robin wiggled up onto the arm of the couch.

“Ok so this ones a Milky Way,” Wally said passing the treat up to Robin.

He popped it in his mouth and chewed. “What’s the difference between this one and the snickers?” He asked, Iris was a little surprised by how good Robins accent was, he spoke like a natural English speaker, which he wasn’t. Every once in a while he’d use a word wrong or mispronounce something, a lit of something would catch on what he was saying but his American accent was pretty flawless.

“Snickers have peanuts, milky ways don’t,” Wally supplied in a duh voice. Robin smiled, “golly, you sure know a bunch about candies. You must be really smart!” And isn’t that so cute! Everyone treats the speedsters like idiots just bc they’re dense but here Robin is picking up on the hidden intelligence like a Batman should. Wally puffed his chest out all proud his face was still all red like a patchy strawberry.

A couple hours passed when Batman showed up. Wearing a different not soaked in fear gas costume, both Iris and Wally were sad to see robin go, well Wally was more devastated. The minute Batman stepped through the front door Robin was disappearing underneath his cape, according to Barry Robin doesn’t like to be more than 3cm from Batman at all times.

“Maybe we can hang out more!” Wally called his blush finally fading. A chipper ok sounded from somewhere in Batman’s cape, (Wally’s face turned scarlet in an instant) at the same time Batman gruffed out a no. Wally’s perfect baby face fell, Batman and Robin left. “Hey don’t worry kiddo I’ll talk to him!” Wally gave a half-hearted smile then went back to his candy eating.

Later he was engrossed in a discussion of patrol w his uncle while they both ate most of central’s candy supply.

As Barry and Iris got ready for bed an hour or so later she turned to him w a mischievous smile. “So it’s seems like Wally’s got his first real crush!” She sing-songed. Barry looked at her confused a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. “Who?” “Robin” she responded. “That’s doesn’t make any sense!” She signed, somethings speedsters really were dense.

#dick grayson #birdflash #wally west #babydickie #roy harper #batdaddy

[mischiefandspirits]

Colony of Gotham (6/7)

The Colony of Gotham is an urban legend that is whispered about in the dangerous city. It’s said the Colony is a family of demons and spirits that stalk the night, hunting for the souls of the guilty.

When Bruce became Batman, he’d never intended to be mistaken for a demon. He was happy to lean into it, though, and as he gained his partners – as his family grew – they all followed suit.

First Part ~ Previous Part ~ Next Part

Vampires’ animal forms

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

When they woke up, Young Justice was lying inside a small recess in the wall of a large cavern. Thick bars separated them from the main cavern while an innocent-looking blue rock hung over them.

“Shouldn’t we call Batman and Catwoman now?” a deep voice asked from somewhere out of sight.

“We don’t know where they are,” a staticky voice answered.

“Didn’t they go to the Maldives?”

“I thought they were in Lapland,” a third voice, high and echoey, said before continuing with, “No, Father clearly said they would be in Antarctica.”

“They told me they were going on an African safari,” a fourth added, and the group all turned to a pale Cassie since the voice sounded exactly like her.

“Yeah, apparently they lied so we couldn’t mess with them during their trip. Corvid figured it out, but Pythia’s been keeping him from tracking down where they actually went,” the staticky voice explained.

“You demons don’t need to be bothering them. We’ve got this under control,” the team heard Pythia say.

There were some bird sounds, followed by an animal growling.

“Corvid’s got a point. Someone’s eventually going to notice the team’s missing,” the deep voice pointed out.

“Who asked you, Day Shift?” the staticky voice huffed.

“Leave him alone. You don’t even live here,” the high voice snapped, then added, “Neither do you. You are only here until Father and Catwoman return.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Did no one tell Robin that Catwoman and Robin were moving in?” the staticky voice snickered.

“Can we please focus?” Pythia asked as the high voice started stammering and multiple laughs rang out.

“I don’t know why I thought you’d all be more collected while on the job,” a familiar voice said and the team perked up.

“No clue. You really should have known better,” Spirit-Nightwing answered.

“Wally!” Bart shouted before he could stop himself and the team all glared at him.

The cave went silent, then Nightwing walked into view, followed by a younger man in a feathered cape and a small child covered in blood. Nightwing smiled at them while the other man seemed to study them and the child bared his fangs.

“Morning, Young Justice,” Nightwing chirped. “You already know who I am. This is Corvid and Robin.”

“Let us out of here,” Kon growled, punching the bars. He hissed and yanked his hand back when the punch actually hurt.

Corvid pointed up at the ceiling and trilled.

“Blue kryptonite,” Robin translated. “It takes away your powers without the pain and exhaustion of the green variant.” He crossed his arms and glared at Corvid. “I still say we should have just used green.”

The feathered spirit smacked the back of his head and the demon child drew his sword.

“We’re not torturing them. We might not be human, but that doesn’t mean we have to be inhumane,” the staticky voice said and a cloaked figure appeared next to Corvid in a shimmer. A growl came from somewhere else and the figure said, “Yes, I’m sure. Don’t mind Robin and Red Hood. One was raised to be an assassin and we’re still teaching him that killing is wrong while the other’s a thug with anger issues. I’m Batgirl, by the way.”

“She’s lying about the assassin thing, right?” Kon heard Wally whisper and someone shushed him. “No, seriously. I need to know if he’s meant all those threats he’s been giving me the past couple of years.”

“Super hearing, dork! Shut up!” Kon’s voice hissed at Wally and Kon frowned.

“Years?” he asked and Red Hood growled again.

Nightwing and Corvid gave confused frowns that the team might have believed if Batgirl didn’t smack her forehead and Robin didn’t shoot a glare off to the side.

“Oops,” Wally muttered.

“Nice,” the deep voice sighed as someone snickered.

“I’m going to kill him,” Robin said and Nightwing grabbed him with one hand and disarmed him with the other.

“See! Does he mean that?” Wally whispered.

“No, you’re not. He’s mine,” Nightwing said firmly.

Robin looked about to argue before a beep came from him and he growled. “One moment.”

As he slipped away, Jinny asked Kon, “What happened? What’s going on?”

“I can hear Wally. He said something about Robin threatening him for years.”

“So this is why they used to call you Kid Mouth.”

The team froze as they recognized Tim’s voice. Bart darted to the bars and tried to look around the wall. “Tim?”

“What did you do to him?” Kon growled.

“Calm down, your boyfriend’s fine,” Robin said as she walked back up. She climbed up Nightwing to sit on his shoulders with a wide smile that flashed her fangs. Corvid trilled and she turned to him. “Really? Then is he dating Kid Flash or Wonder Girl this time?”

“He isn’t dating any of them right now,” Nightwing answered.

“How do you keep track?” Batgirl asked, causing Robin and a few of those out of sight to snicker.

Kon, Bart, and Cassie all glared at her, then turned the glares on Jinny and Keli when they snickered too.

“Anyways, Timmy isn’t here,” Batgirl said. “That was just Hawkfire. She only speaks with other people’s voices.”

“Hi there!” came Bart’s voice.

“Now where were we?” Nightwing asked just as a dark shape dropped down next to him. He turned to it with a frown. “Black Bat? What are you doing down here?”

She made a few signs with her hands.

“What? Hood, go -”

“I better be wrong or I swear I’ll send you all to hell the hard way!”

The team perked up at the sound of Tigress’s shout and Nightwing groaned.

“Well, we’re dead,” Robin said, sliding down Nightwing so she was clinging to his back.

“It’s been nice knowing you.” Batgirl saluted them then disappeared the same way she’d come.

“Where are you demons?”

“Hey there demons, it's me, ya boy,” Kon heard Wally mutter.

“West!”

“Oh, hey Stripes. So -”

“Where are they?”

“We can exp-”

“You!”

Suddenly Tigress marched into view and grabbed Nightwing by the front of his suit, earning a yelp from Robin.

He gave her a nervous -- yet somehow still flirty -- smile. “Hey.”

“Tigress!” Cassie called.

The older heroine glanced at the team and her glare grew. She shoved Nightwing away and rubbed her forehead. “What happened?”

“They came to bother Tim and Hood overreacted. We were just going to give them a scare and send them off.”

“We did warn them to stay out of Gotham,” Pythia said.

Corvid trilled and Hawkfire translated in Tim’s voice, “They were getting on Tim’s nerves too, so we were doing him a favor.”

Tigress glanced over her shoulder with a frown. “Okay, that’s freaky.”

“Thanks,” her own voice answered.

“Don’t ever do that again.” She turned back to Nightwing. “I’m taking them back to the tower.”

He nodded. “Yeah, alright.”

“You’re letting us go. Just like that?” Keli asked skeptically as Corvid unlocked their cell.

“We respect Tigress,” Nightwing said with a shrug.

“She minds her own business,” Robin added.

“We can’t leave. They have Wally,” Bart pointed out.

“I’m taking him too,” Tigress said.

“But he’s my -”

“No," she cut over Nightwing. "This stupid game is over. Congratulations, the whole League is thoroughly traumatized. Mission accomplished.”

“You know what, I’ll take it,” Hawkfire said in Bart’s voice.

“Me too,” Batgirl agreed. “Want to go watch Gotham Girls?”

“Heck yeah,” Cassie’s voice answered. “Coming Black Bat?”

The shadow nodded and skipped off as the deep voice said, “No way I’m letting you guys leave me alone with them. You coming, Robin?”

“You know it.” She dropped off Nightwing’s back in a flip and ran off.

Robin and most everyone else who must have been in the cave had disappeared by the time Corvid opened the door to let the team out because the only ones with them in the cave were Tigress, Nightwing, Corvid, Flash, and a tall man in red and black.

Bart raced over to his uncle, who wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

“Are you okay?”

“Me? You got kidnapped!”

“So did you.”

“You got kidnapped first!”

“He never got kidnapped. He and the rest of these idiots just wanted to screw with the League,” Tigress said and Flash and Nightwing both pouted.

“We were warning them to leave us alone,” the spirit argued.

“You were trolling them because you and your siblings are all chaotic little brats who can’t help yourselves.”

Red Hood growled with a nod and Corvid trilled with a shrug.

“Would the two of you just talk like normal people?”

Red Hood flipped her off while Corvid gave an offended face, setting his hand on his chest.

“That’s some discrimination right there,” Flash said and Nightwing nodded.

“Shut up. We all know they’re just doing it to be extra,” Tigress said, running a hand over her face. She pointed at the team and Wally. “Alright, we’re leaving now.”

“Hold on, what’s going on?” Keli asked.

“What do you mean Flash wasn’t kidnapped? How do you know them?” Kon asked, looking them over. Flash had seemed terrified of the Colony before, now he seemed relaxed. Had they done something to him? Or maybe… Hawkfire had copied voices, so maybe they could copy more?

Kon closed his eyes and listened for heartbeats. He could hear Jinny’s, Keli’s, and Tigress’s steady human beat; Bart’s and Flash’s (thankfully) rapid-fire thumps; Cassie’s gong-like pounding; and the sloshing pulses of Red Hood, Nightwing, and -

Kon’s eyes sprung open and he turned to Corvid. The spirit went stiff as their eyes met, before slumping and giving a sharp whistle that had Red Hood and Nightwing looking at him in confusion.

“Tim?”

Everyone’s heads snapped to Kon, then Red Hood smacked Nightwing’s arm and snarled.

“What? How is this all my fault?” Nightwing whined.

“You just had to tease Flash,” Corvid -- Tim! -- sighed.

“TIM!”

Tim pulled down his cowl and his brothers revealed themselves shortly after. They explained that they weren’t demons, they just leaned into the rumors because fear made people sloppy. When questioned, Tim told them that yes, that had just been a jacket and no, he hadn’t tricked them on purpose. They really were just being paranoid idiots.

He really didn’t appreciate how stunned they all seemed by the idea of him being a vigilante.

“I told you I could handle myself!”

“You drink coffee like its water.”

“I have to ban you from working so you'll take a break.”

“You never sleep!”

“You never EAT!”

“Okay, but like he also pulls the stupidest shit so why are we surprised again?”

Tim threw his hands in the air and marched off when the team and his brothers all nodded at that. Dick and Jason followed, Dick ruffling his hair and Jason bumping their shoulders together. Once the brothers had changed back into civilian clothes, the group headed upstairs where Stephanie, Duke, Cass, and Bette were watching tv.

“You guys dropped the ball already?” Stephanie asked, not looking away from the tv.

“Figures,” Bette tutted, holding out her bowl of popcorn for Cass.

The younger girl nodded as she grabbed a handful.

“Copycat cheated,” Dick said.

“Copycat? You’re the one who stole my name.”

“Kid, he’s been Nightwing longer than you’ve been alive,” Jason pointed out.

“He’s not even Kryptonian,” Kon huffed. “And you’re only three years older than me.”

“Technically I’m seventeen years older than you.”

“No clone jokes,” Tim said, slapping Jason’s arm.

“Yeah, it’s like Dick jokes. Low hanging fruit. You can do better than that,” Stephanie said, throwing a piece of popcorn at Jason.

He caught it in his mouth.

“How’d Kon cheat?” Duke asked, actually turning to face the group, unlike the girls.

“He heard Timmy’s heartbeat.”

“I’m already making plans to implement some sort of white noise generator or something into the suit to keep that from happening again,” Tim said.

“Why? Are you planning on getting comfy with someone else with super hearing?” Stephanie asked, finally turning away from the tv so she could wiggle her eyebrows at Tim. “How did he become familiar enough with your heartbeat to be able to identify it, hm?”

“And I’m gone,” Jason growled and marched out of the room.

“I’m just looking out for you, Timmy. Wouldn’t want another accident like our twins.”

Wally and Bart choked as the rest of Young Justice gaped and Artemis raised an eyebrow.

“You have kids?” Kon breathed.

“No. No! We do not have any kids!” Tim said quickly before trilling at Stephanie, “They don’t know we’re vampires! And quit saying your fangs are our kids!”

“How was I supposed to know?” she trilled back and threw her hands up in the air before turning to the tv. “And never.”

“It’s an inside joke from when they were dating,” Duke explained. “Kind of a you had to be there thing. They don’t have kids.”

“Do you guys just always make bird noises at each other?” Jinny asked, gesturing between the two.

“It’s a code Tim made up years ago. We use it on the job when we don’t want to risk people eavesdropping on us so it’s basically a second language for all of us by this point,” Dick said.

“What’d you guys do to Jason?”

The team jumped as Robin’s voice came from above them and looked up to see Carrie hanging from a light fixture.

“No voice filters in the manor,” Dick reprimanded and Carrie pouted at him.

“Should she be up there?” Keli asked.

“Bruce reinforced anything that hangs from the ceiling after Dick brought down his third chandelier. It’s fine,” Tim said before looking up at Carrie. “Steph was talking about relationship stuff.”

“Ew.”

“You know, Timmy, you didn’t answer my question,” Stephanie hummed.

“I’m not hooking up with anyone else,” Tim sighed. “I just want to be prepared. I mean, you’re friends with Kara and Damian’s friends with Jon. Either one of them could figure it out.”

“It might be too late for Jon,” Bette said.

“What do you mean?” Kon asked.

She gestured towards the door to the parlor. When the others peeked inside, it was to see Damian and Jon curled up on the couch, each holding a Switch. “They were already there when we came up.”

“Yes, flee you sniveling boy! Fear the power of Anser caerulescens!” Damian shouted at the game.

“You’re so weird,” Jon teased, bumping against him. “Hey look, I’m on tv! Watch me dance! Honk honk!”

“And you claim I’m weird.”

Kon stepped into the room and crossed his arms. “You were playing video games while I was being kidnapped?”

Jon looked up at him, confused.

The boy had texted his friend after he heard his mom and dad talking about how Kon had disappeared right after Flash had been kidnapped in Gotham. Damian texted back saying, “Your brother and his friends are down in the basement, as is West. If any more people come here, yourself included, I will end them.”

So Jon had immediately flown over.

“What part of stay away didn’t you get?” Damian huffed, opening the window to his room.

“The part where everyone else is already over here. You have something on your neck.”

“It’s fake blood. My brothers and I are playing a prank on your brother and his friends.”

“Sounds fun. Do you need to get back?”

“Carrie is covering for me. I assumed you would not heed my warning.”

“Cool. I brought my Switch. Wanna play?”

“I suppose,” Damian shrugged. “I left mine in the parlor. We can grab some snacks on our way.”

“Yes!”

“Did you tell your parents you were coming here?” Damian asked once they were sitting on the couch with their games.

“Mom knows. She’ll probably tell dad.”

“Good. Did you have a plan for how you were going to explain how you’d gotten here?”

“Everyone here knows I’m Superboy.”

“I meant if someone were to show up who doesn’t know.”

“Oh, I figured I’d just say I’d come with Kon.”

“Acceptable. Shall we play the game with the misleading title?”

“It’s not misleading.”

“Its title claims it to be untitled. That is an oxymoron.”

The two bickered as they settled in, but quickly got drawn into their game. They ignored it when the others passed through until Kon interrupted them.

“You were playing video games while I was being kidnapped?”

Jon looked up at him, confused. “Kidnapped?”

Damian rolled his eyes with a snort. “You call that a kidnapping? Your heart didn't even stop.”

“See, when he says things like that, it makes me wonder about the whole assassin thing,” Wally whispered to Dick.

“I’ll explain later.”

“And by later he means after we’ve reassured everyone that you lot haven’t been kidnapped by demons,” Tigress said.

“Demons?”

“The prank. They didn’t tell anyone they were coming here so your dad’s going crazy, remember?”

“Oh, alright.”

“Come on, Jon,” Kon called as Tigress started herding them all out.

The boy stuck his tongue out at him. “Unlike you, I told Mom I was coming here. She already okayed the sleepover.”

“I never said you could stay the night,” Damian huffed half-heartedly before snapping, “Get back you harlot! The leek is mine now!”

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

Before anyone can say anything about how "That's not how blue kryptonite works!" I know. I do. The problem is that I wrote that scene using what I remembered from Smallville. It was only when I looked up BK during edits to make sure I'd gotten the right color that I realized the show took some liberties with how the other colors of kryptonite worked. I decided to just go with it since the others don't actually want to hurt Kon. I'm sure there's probably another way out there (probably something to do with red sunlight), but I don't actually know that much Superman lore outside of Smallville and even that's been quite a few years so...

#batman #batfam #colony of gotham #fanfiction

[runnfromtheak]

fanfic author’s tagging game (yay!)

Thank ya darling for tagging me!!!! @boyblunder-thedarkheir!!!!!

AO3 Name(s): LostandLonelyBirds aka RUNNFROMTHEAK

Fandom(s): Primarily Batfamily (so, Dick Grayson) and Young Justice (along with DCU obviously, but I also dabble into Miralculous Ladybug, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter, and MCU (none of which I will ever seriously write for? Idk man).

Number of fics: 22 I will admit to (how do you have so many, my dear @boyblunder-thedarkheir​? What is your secret?)

1. Fic you spent the most time on: Are we talking writing or thinking about writing, cause those are two very different answers. I spent the most time writing this bitch of a fic I’m working on right now, and the most time thinking about the two latest installments of my main series, Death is But An Illusion (aka How Could He and How Could It Be). I agonize over every goddamn detail with Dick’s anger, Jason’s Jason-ness, and every person’s every move and word. I am a mess, and I’m going to be murdered if I don’t update them soon. I am not sorry about that XD

2. Fic you spent the least time on:  You Came Behind Me Secretly and Shattered Every Piece of Me (There's Blood On My Hands) aka my pick-your-own-canon clusterfuck of Dark!Dick Grayson and Dick Grayson being traumatized and tortured with no comfort (Some of them are so fucked up I question my own mind). I take less than an hour to write 80% of them, cause they’re short, and they very rarely take any time to plan. Fun and easy!

3. Longest Fic: At present, he had a chest full of heart and a body full of scars (pain became the only way that he could ever learn)  is my longest, but the fic I’ve been hinting at on my other tumblr, @lostandlonelybirds​ is easily double the length (why do I do this to myself? Why am I like this?) the long boi (named one, not the one I won’t shut up about) is easily my best fic at the moment, and I’m so excited to write a sequel whenever I get the chance.

4. Shortest Fic: With Bated Breath and Pain You See (We're Nothing More Than Memories) technically, I have one shorter than that, but it’s a collab that wasn’t my original idea so I’m not counting it :)

5. Most Hits: You Came Behind Me Secretly and Shattered Every Piece of Me (There's Blood On My Hands) why do you people like this trash-fire so much? I don’t understand

6. Most Kudos:  How Could He which does not surprise me.

7. Most Comment Threads: Technically, How Could He followed by the trash-fire AU title thing I’m too lazy to type again, but I’m gonna love on this one: Just Close Your Eyes (No One Can Hurt You Now) because it’s my baby, and it deserves it okay?

8. Fave Fic You Wrote: Ooo we are doing a top five.

             5. How Could It Be (Jason is precious and sad and Dick is oblivious, and I love one-sided pining wayyyy too much)

             4.  How Could He (I put my life force into this stupid fic, so ofc it’s here)

             3. I'm Scared to Live But I'm Scared to Die (I'm Numb Inside) (the suicidal boy, major trigger warning)

             2. I See Things That Nobody Else Sees (And It's Slowly Killing Me)  (the only fic I’ve ever written from Cass’s perspective, and definitely one of the creepiest and most fucked up. Bruce does not look good here)

             1. he had a chest full of heart and a body full of scars (pain became the only way that he could ever learn) (so ummm Bruce doesn’t look good here either? RHATO #25 if DC wasn’t cowardly and let Dick react how he actually would, aka fuck Batman is the new motto)

9. Rewrites?: Fuck. All my older ones? Everything? Who knows.

10. Share a bit of your WIP or share a story idea that you’re planning:

Let’s do two. I’m nice.

First comes from How Could It Be:

“You loved him,” Donna says, ignoring his barb. “You loved him, and no one’s seen you or heard from you and I’m concerned, damnit.”

 She punches his shoulder roughly, and he’s reminded of her strength, no matter how small she seems in her dead best friend’s sweater.

 “I’m fine. Peachy-keen. Couldn’t be fuckin’ better. Honestly, you should be more concerned with Replacement, don’t think he’s slept in—”

 “Jason.” Her voice is firm, even as her eyes swim with tears and she holds her arms tight to herself, breathing in the well-loved item’s scent. Jason wonders when Dick wore it last, if Donna had taken it from his abandoned Gotham Penthouse or his Chicago Apartment. He wonders if he’d left it draped over the couch, like the natural disaster he was, or if it had been folded neatly in a drawer.

For someone who prides himself on not being sentimental, Jason suddenly wishes he had something of Dick’s too.

 “I’m here because I care, and because if Dick was here, he’d be doing the same thing I am.”

 “But he ain’t here,” Jason snaps, “Is he?”

 Donna’s head falls, and he feels like a giant jerk. He just… reacts poorly to that name, hasn’t heard it spoken since the transmission and subsequent funeral, since the guy he’d had the hots for since wearing the scaly panties had his mask ripped away and his life taken in front of Bruce’s eyes (who, to absolutely no one’s surprise, failed to save his son).

In the aftermath, no one said Dick Grayson’s name, always Nightwing, or some inane nickname the superhero community had for him. Last time he said it was to Damian, a failed attempt at comfort. But even Jason’s form of mutual grieving had been better than any of Bruce’s shit ideas. Bastard immortalized the ripped costume from his own son’s corpse (not that it had been the first time) and hadn’t even had the decency to give it a plaque (No ‘Good Soldier’ or ‘Good Son’, just a bare glass case with a bloody suit). Which… was weird. Jason was far from B’s best friend, but even he noticed something seemed strange, off, just not quite right. Like the funeral he didn’t speak at, like the breakdown none of them had witnessed beyond a one-off rage fit

“B, what the fuck happened down here?”

The Batcave was a disaster, dents glaringly obvious in several vehicles and a large spiderweb crack across the Batcomputer. Bruce closes the screen down, but Jason manages to catch a spiraling eye.

“Nothing, just…”

Bruce looks at the spare Nightwing costume none of them had taken down yet, still clean and ready for use (too bad its owner died and would never wear it again).

“Dick?” Jason questions, and the way Bruce’s eyes snap to his face is almost suspicious, almost enough to arouse concern.

“Yes. I—”

Jason sits next to Bruce on the desk, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I miss him too, Old Man. Don’t mean you need to be an ass about it.”

 A memorial next to Jason’s own, but Dickhead’s is empty and broken from Damian’s fists and grief, and Jason’s is just gone. No one told him why, it was just gone.

Kind of like Dick.

He wonders if Bruce would have told him if the video hadn’t been broadcast, if he would’ve told anyone. B did love his fuckin’ secrets.

 “No,” she whispers, and he can hear the tears in her voice, can feel her grief as keenly as his own. It’s palpable, tangible, “He’s dead, and I’m alive, and I don’t know how to handle it.”

 And then, to Jason’s mounting horror, she starts crying openly.

…..

Second comes from my one I’m working on rn with Stray!Dick called I See Sunset In Your Eyes (I Hate This Part Right Here)

“Come on,” Wally says with a pout, dragging an overly amused Jason and Dick with him through the karaoke bar doors. “Donna and Roy are waiting for us, and Dick had to take forever to primp.”

 Dick shrugs with a grin.

 “Beauty takes time, time I can tell you did not take.”

 Jason snorts, and Wally glares at him.

 “At least I don’t take five hours to finish getting ready.”

 “At least I can last longer than five minutes.”

 “Ouch!” Roy butts in, throwing an arm around Jason and Dick’s shoulders. “Claws are out tonight!”

 “Speaking from experience?” Jason asks, eyebrow raised.

 Dick smirks without comment, sauntering past the group towards the table Donna’s lounging at.

 “Hey gorgeous twin of mine,” He greets with a kiss to her eyes. She smirks, rolling her eyes at him.

 “You’re just stroking your own ego with the twin tacked on, Wonder Boy.”

 Dick bumps his shoulder against hers.

 “Can’t I stroke both our egos?”

 “You can stroke mine,” Wally mutters, turning red when Stray winks at his phrasing. Jason and Roy both facepalm, groaning. “Not what I meant guys!”

 “Why Kid Idiot,” Dick replies, hand on his heart, “I had no idea you could be so forward~!”

 Wally glares, waving over the waitress.

 “Round of shots, on this dick,” he jerks his thumb at Stray, offering up his fake ID. She doesn’t bother checking it, probably because this is Gotham, and they were all in uniform. “Whisky, please.”

 “Trying to get me drunk?” Jason jokes. It is, after all, his first big outing with the Titans for non-mission reasons. Stray had practically dragged him out of the Manor with a wink at Alfred and a middle finger for Bruce, saying that Jason needed to have fun outside of books.

Jason knows better than arguing with Dick Grayson-Kyle when he wants something, Stray trained him well.

 “Of course, Batboy,” Roy replies, “It’s not a Titans outing if Stray is fully dressed and everyone’s sober.”

 Dick shrugs.

 “You’ll have to get some real liquor in me if you want me to do anything like last time.”

 “Last time?” Jason asks, looking to Donna for an answer. Dick snorts. You get near naked one time…

 “Boy Blunder ended up in just his boxers in a dancing cage drunk of his ass. Everyone thought he was one of the strippers, and he made, what, three-hundred dollars in bills?”

 “Five-hundred,” Dick replies proudly, offering the waitress a twenty as she came back with their drinks. “Keep the change, darlin’!” He adds with a wink.

 She flushes, making Jason frown.

 Stray, of course, notices this and elbows Jason.

 “Don’t get jealous, Blue Jay, it’s not becoming.”

 Jason does not blush. He doesn’t, and that’s the hill he will die on.

 “I’m not. On an unrelated note, pass me a shot.”

Jason is the master of changing the subject, Stray thinks sarcastically, passing him a shot and downing one of his own.

 “Five bucks says alley cat blacks out,” Roy says smugly as Dick makes a face, the way he always did with heavier liquors. He glares at the redhead, who shrugs unapologetically.

 Donna eyes them both speculatively, taking a sip of her own drink.

 “Twenty says he gives a lap dance before he blacks out.”

 Roy snorts.

 “I’ll take it,” and to Dick, “Don’t do it, for me.”

 Dick bats his eyes innocently.

 “Lil’ old me? I would never do something so…” He trails a finger down Roy’s chest, making him swallow roughly. “Scandalous.”

 Donna grins victoriously as Roy groans, trying and failing to hide his excitement.

 “I hate you. I hate you both.”

 Tagging whoever sees this, I suppose? 

#dcu #dick grayson #my writing #stray!dick

[killervibe]

Cisco happy with the decision to eliminate his powers regresses his character arc...An Essay.

 Note: This essay isn’t perfect, and it is riddled with some speculative theory, just trying to wrap my head around season 5 and what exactly was it that they’ve done. I’m emotional. There may be some mistakes. I wrote this kinda all in one sitting. I didn’t edit. We may agree or disagree on some things. That’s fine. But this is my take. 

I need to to just to talk about something.

Cisco happy with the decision to eliminate his powers regresses his character arc.

Now, if he took a break from being Vibe, that, I could potentially understand. He had gone through a traumatic experience. He wants to date, wants to try and start a family. Okay. Maybe superhero-ing on the side can cause some difficulty with that. Then hang up the suit. Use your powers instead of your car instead of pew pew machines for a few months. But he’d come back to it. Or at least…In a crisis. They’d be there. That’s his decision. But to completely eliminate that? That’s drastic. It’s never something he had said he wanted to do. Should Cisco want to maintain close ties to Team Flash, which he claims he does “You’re not the problem. You guys are my family” (5x17), he’d be at a bigger risk to threats. In order to properly keep his safety, he’d have to separate from all of them and start somewhere fresh. He’d have to do what Ronnie wanted to do with Caitlin in season 1. To move away completely. It makes no sense! No sense at all! And @nintendo-sixtyvore has pointed out so correctly that every time Cisco has been in serious danger, specifically kidnapped, it had nothing to do with his powers. It had to do with his intelligence!!!!!!! This isn’t going to go away by removing his powers! Read their post here. 

Besides, superhero-ing, and being part of Team Flash, although stressful, weird, sometimes crazy is something Cisco LOVES. It’s what holds him together.

He has said so many times, not only this season (“You’re my friend, my family (5x06)” and 5x05, 5x07 5x10) to Caitlin, and to everyone on Team Flash throughout the series.

In fact, after the particle accelerator explosion, having Barry be a coma patient, and later find out a meta-human Is what jump started Cisco’s excitement, his career, and his life again after such a terrible event. Cisco was the one on board with Barry from the very start.

We learn in 3x19, in the 2024 that was dissolved, that Cisco was the only one who remained in Team Flash. Barry was depressed. Iris was dead. Wally was paralyzed. HR skipped town. Julian became Killer Frost’s glorified zoo keeper. Caitlin as Cisco knew it was dead. He had lost his family, his purpose, his passion. He was depressed. He stopped taking care of his hair.

And he had lost his hands. He had lost his powers. “No hands. No Vibe,” he says brokenly.

I mean, first of all, that shouldn’t make all that much sense. His sensory vibes aren’t linked to his hands. He’s had vibes without touching anything, and he has stated that he sometimes gets them randomly (2x11,1x23) but apparently here they’re all gone the moment his hands are lost? Well. Okay. So lets take that for how he said it. No more hands means no more vibe blasts. It means no more breaches. No more Vibe. He can’t be the same hero, he can’t use his hands, he can’t make things the way he used to. He can’t feel any longer. He can’t thrust power from his hands, can’t open the world to the multiverse. But he can still have Vibes because he told Barry “I had a feeling” he’d be there. What does this mean? It means his Vibes are still there. He’s heartbroken over the other half of his powers being gone. 

Killer Frost did that purposely. She could have killed him. She could have frosted his feet, his hair, his head…Anything else. But no. Cisco was the link to her humanity, and she wanted to squash it. She knew what would do that, what would officially make Cisco turn her away. Doing the unthinkable. Hurting him the most. Taking away what he loves. His powers.

So she did. And it worked. He understandably withdrew from her, grew sad, despondent, but even then even then he wanted to still work with Team Flash. Even when everything was up in flames, he was the last man standing.

Because he’s strong. He’s strong and he’s a hero. He loves to be a hero.

And Team Flash is his family. Its what he loves to do. Its where he belongs.

Team Flash being his family starts to disintegrate around 5x10. I have another theory that this is elevated by a continued resentment against Frost (explicitly Frost. Not Caitlin. Never Caitlin—which makes things complicated) that has never went away. You can find that here. 

His vocabulary about “us” and “we” and “our” has changed to “me” and “my”. When he talks to Frost, he says: “Barry, Iris, Nora, they have a family. Even you and Caitlin have your weird little family. But what about my family?”

He automatically blames his powers as preventing him from having a family (which two episodes before he repetitively said with joy was Team Flash). Preventing him from being safe.

Cisco doesn’t know that. That assumption isn’t quite logical. Doesn’t it make more sense to discuss this with a potential partner. He didn’t make it about his powers there. He never said that “I hate opening breaches.” He never said “I find dimensional hopping repulsive.”  He has said he was scared, that he was nervous, that he didn’t understand his powers in season 2 when they were developing, especially his vibes, because they were confusing. But the thing that was the most confusing to him were the visions he saw. The fact he could see other timelines, the fact he could see the future. It didn’t have to do with his hands.

5x22 was Cisco’s first showdown with Thawne since season 1. The Thawne who killed him. The Thawne he knew. But it wasn’t his very first encounter with a Thawne since then. This leads to something that sat badly with me. The conversation between Eobard and Cisco. Yes, Eobard is an ass, so he probably mentioned killing Cisco for shits and giggles because he knew he could, and because he wanted to pull it again with Nora, but…Using this to enhance Cisco’s reasoning for taking away his powers? No.

In fact, in 2x11, called, oh, I don’t remember…Oh yes. THE REVERSE-FLASH RETURNS. 2x11’s B plot was all about Cisco developing his powers, and confronting his fear. Giving himself agency.

At the end of the episode, they have Reverse Flash contained, and Cisco goes up to him and says his killer piece:

“My name is Cisco Ramon. I want you to know that I’m the one who figured out you were back. I helped stop you. Me.”

“And how’d you do that?”

“I have powers. And I helped track you down and I put you in here.”

“That’s quite the ability you have.”

“And here’s what’s so ironic about it. You gave me these powers. Have fun thinking about that while you rot away in this cell that you helped me build. Bye, Felicia.”

Cisco was so proud about that.

Soon after that he had a seizure (the result of Eobard being in their time, not because of anything Cisco did) but even after waking up, asking what was happening, Harry replied “We think you vibed one dimension too many.”

Cisco started to laugh. Not an afraid one or a nervous one. It was genuine, to which Joe joined along, as it was contagious and immediately accurately assessed that “Yeah, I think he’s going to be fine.”

In season 3, Cisco said he was afraid about using his vibrational powers against Caitlin because he was afraid of hurting her. But that was because he loves Caitlin. She’s his best friend. He didn’t want to kill her. And Cisco at the end of season 3 did exactly that. He was able to help Caitlin, fight Caitlin, and do it safely without hurting her. Without killing her. He grew. In season 3, Cynthia told him he could do a lot more with his powers. That she could show him. This was never continued on screen.  

Season 4 reveals Cisco spent 6 months as the meta field leader of Team Flash and worked with Wally (which we only got 1 episode to see…Nice.) He did a good job, and was shown being great at it. He was in a really good place, despite the circumstances. He missed Barry. He missed Caitlin. But he had his powers. He had Star Labs. He had Cynthia. He had his purpose. 

We know that Cisco was knocked out in the crossover in s4 oh so conveniently because his powers would’ve made the Crisis much less of a threat (…). By 4x16, Cisco purposely pointedly avoids shaking Matthew’s hand because 

***“No offence. I like my powers.”***

 At this point, Cisco’s powers were a part of who he was.

When Breacher offered Cisco a job at the collection agency, he refused because he wanted to stay. Stay on Earth One. He wanted to stay with Team Flash. He wanted to be Vibe. Before he got the job offer, he had to explain to Breacher that he wasn’t going to get his powers back because they had gone from old age. He explains why he lied because “I know how special our powers are.” 

That’s the Cisco Ramon progression we’ve had. That’s where he was.

To have Cisco….Revert? To, what? To Pre 2x11??? It retracts all of this.  

Another thing. Cynthia having the same powers as him? He liked that. It added a lot to his attraction. Now, how does that translate after the break-up is curious. It’s possible he’s grown an aversion to them following the split. “If I can’t even make it work with the girl who has the same powers as me, then what’s the point?” But see, even this logic is a relationship issue. Not anything about his ability, exactly. This arguments fits better with why he was so keen to jump ship with Kamilla. “She’s normal!!! No more inter-dimensional long distance!!” Cisco is muddling two separate issues here, pinning them on being a metahuman. Cisco and Cynthia’s relationship didn’t fail because of Cisco’s powers.

By season 5, he was drinking. He was trying to avoid pain. He was feeling down. Caitlin tried to help him. Ralph tried to help him.

Cue 5x03.

He was almost killed in 5x03, and had dark matter sliced into his palms which had remained for several weeks.

Now what other main characters had dark matter wounds? Orlin. Grace. Nora. Cisco. What did they all (except Nora, which I’ll get to in a sec)have in common? The moment they got these wounds, anti-meta sentiments emerged to varying degrees. This degree is in correlation with their wounds.

Remember Grace? The dark matter in her wound was in her head, it was so bad it warped her judgement, her mental state grew dark. Grace's was in her head, so it was the most intense. This was confirmed (By Caitlin’s Doctor-ing/Meta-science-ing) in 5x22 when the cure was in fact being neutralized by the dark matter inside young Grace and it was difficult.

The same thing happened with Cicada I. His dark matter wound in his chest changed his perception as well, going as far as to want to commit suicide once his war on metas was over.

Nora was stabbed in the back, paralyzing her and also taking away her speed. But, she has fast healing, and she eventually returned to normal (debatably. Remember she’s under the influence of negative role models, and later on the negative speed force later on).

Now, Cisco’s hand slices were the most superficial. He was also stabbed in the back but apparently the Flash writers forgot all about that and thought that a stab wound to the back that needed a brace would heal faster than two sliced palms, but alas, I digress.

His hands were sliced with dark matter, and the moment they were…. “The Death of Vibe.”

Cisco wasn’t in 5x04. But he was back in 5x05. And this is when he started to develop a RANDOM CONFUSING dislike towards his powers. Towards being a meta-human. He no longer wanted to be Vibe. 

But here’s my thing. He had dark matter stuck in his hands. He’s had them in him for a long time. They were only taken out by 5x10. Caitlin even said, the reason why they took so long to heal was because of the shards stuck in his skin, infused with dark matter. Enough to let this idea about having a cure grow in his mind. Enough to start hating his HANDS. His HANDS were bleeding. HIS HANDS were the source of his sudden self-hatred. Enough to start making him dislike metas. Not to a “let’s kill them all off!” extent. But a “Let’s make a cure for this thing that I’m responsible for (Me: ?? Caitlin: ??) and I’m not sure I like even anymore!”

It’s almost like, this negative cloud took over. Interesting. Isn’t that arguably the same thing that has happened to Orlin? To Grace?

Everyone is complaining that CIsco would never do this. That this is out of character.

That’s right. This isn’t Cisco.

Cisco in season 5 had very little agency. Remember? Agency. That thing he had in season 2. In season 3? Season 4?

Most of the decisions he’s made were through pressure or suggestion by other people. Caitlin and Cisco never had another conversation about the cure following 5x10 with the exception of 5x15 (but that wasn’t about him. Only Shay) until 5x22. Like at the end of 5x10 she offers to help make the cure with him because he wants it. And doesn’t question his feelings again. But then in between those episodes, everyone else is pressuring him to do things he isn’t comfortable or putting negative thoughts in his head.

Sherloque in 5x21, enhancing his insecurities, trying to convince the viewers Cisco never liked being Vibe. Ralph in 5x12, trying to get him to go out and meet people when he didn’t want to. Barry in Elseworlds, insisting on him using his powers. Cisco is bleeding after his vibes on the Monitor and only Kara asks if he’s okay. He says, very strained “No! No I’m not!!!” Nobody checked up on him after this?!?!??!?!?!!?!? (Also He GOT HIT BY A CAR AND JUST WALKED IT OFF?? —Whoops wrong essay). Ralph in 5x14 trying to get Cisco to use his Book of Ralph to impress Kamilla on his date. And Iris and Caitlin pushing Cisco to try again after he said he felt by the 53rd failed first date he shouldn’t bother trying.

Until 5x22 when Caitlin Injects him because he asked her too.

Also, to quote @manjehaal: What’s with him wanting to work on it alone all the time?

Anyway. All this to say.

Let’s go back to 5x03. They called it the death of vibe. But Cisco ended up getting his powers back in that episode. He lived. He was dampened but he survived. BUt. This isn’t about the death of Vibe. This is about the death of Cisco. The death of the part of him that loved vibe. His passion. His excitement. Him.

There was no reason to do that. WHY DOES THIS SHOW LOVE TO KILL CISCO SO MANY TIMES. 5 TIMES THEY’VE KILLED HIM NOW, BECAUSE YOU BETTER BELIEVE I’M INCLUDING THIS. 

And!!! And!!!! To make Cisco so badass in that final fight. It was hurtful. To see him so confident. So strong. To see him be Vibe. The Vibe we could have seen all along. 

If he doesn’t want to be Vibe. He doesn’t have to be (Also, Cisco was going to lose his powers with age anyway, something we learned through Breacher). It’s painful. But to take a cure. To make it sound like Cisco thinks he’s diseased. There was nothing to warrant that. Nothing. They just destroyed something that so many people love. People love Cisco. They love who he is. They love him as Cisco and they love him as Vibe.  They love him as as a latino hero. Watching them axe Vibe like that. Emphasizing its permanence. It was gutting. 

And I’m pissed.

#the flash #cisco ramon #5x22 #Vibe #the flash season 5 #meta #tkv rambles

[renmorris]

I really wonder a lot about Andy. The way he acts around children, how he tries to care for Little Nicky, his own fawning over Wally...This may be reading in too much, but given Andy's stunted nature and emotional makeup, I kind of head-canon that he had a bad childhood with a potentially abusive parent. I could also explain why he's a cop, despite clearly being at odds with the duties, maybe as a way to prove himself or carry out a parental wish

I mean….maybe? Like if you wanna see him that way it’s cool. 

but personally idk I don’t think Andy NEEDS a tragic backstory to be where he is and how he is? like Twin Peaks is Helltown USA but folks are allowed to be p openly neuroatypical there. I like to think Andy hasn’t had an easier life than anyone else there but is…well loved, you know?

BUT…you are not the first person to have this thought! I’m gonna talk about something very cool that I have not thought about in a while! The Secret World!

(tw for the video: talk of animal abuse/death)

So this is Deputy Andy! You’ll find him in the first area of TSW. He’s soft spoken, traumatized and has a weird resistance to the mind control employed by the lovecraftian monsters rising from the sea. He’s very clearly based on our Andy Brennan. Just located on the other side of the country. If you click that link you can read what he says about being a cop and his dad and it lines up perfectly with your train of thought, anon!

 Anyway he saved a mysterious motorcycle drifter dude (Sandy “Moose” Jansen) from being called into the sea and…

Travelling the open country, you learn to be prepared for whatever the land throws your way. Faced with the elements, you gain a new appreciation and respect for nature, and you come to accept how small and insignificant you truly are. Nature is neither good, or evil. Just is. But there was nothing natural about the storm that rolled in on Solomon Island, or the fog that followed. There was evil in that fog, whispering to everyone in its path. The townsfolk followed the fog back into the sea, as if possessed. It was Deputy Gardener – Andy – saved my life. He grabbed hold of me when the fog got into my head, tied a rope around us both, kept walkin’ the other way. It was like the whispers didn’t get to him. When I finally got my wits back, the fog had rolled back out again to where it is now. We shook hands, and we started lookin’ for survivors and building this fortress. That man saved my life, selflessly, and I love him for it. I’d go to the ends of the world and back for Andy…I don’t think I’ll ever win him over though.

(fuck that! I believe in you, Moose! ;o; )

Fuck I forgot how well written this game is, I really gotta revisit it….the gameplay is something I have a hard time sticking with but it’s…really got some good shit in it. Like the Buzzing! And gay bikers!

#ask a ren #ren rambles #Anonymous #ren has feelings about twin peaks #andy brennan

[elfnerdherder]

Where the Wicked Walk: Ch. 32

[Support my Writing] [Read on Ao3]

A lovely, genuine thanks to my patrons: @jenacar @evertonem @frostyleegraham @starlit-catastrophe @sylarana @frostylicker Duhaunt6, Mendacious Bean, Laura G, Superlurk, and Cecily! <3 You’ve been here for this entire ride and I can’t thank you enough!

Chapter 32: The Masque of the Red Death

           He was allowed to see Abigail after he gave an official statement detailing the events within the house. He was allowed to see Wally, too, but when he asked about Beverly and Molly, even Jack turned him down.

           “As of right now, everyone is being detained here in respective cells or rooms until further notice,” he’d explained. “Your statement correlates with what Abigail Hobbs said, as well as what we were able to get out of Wally, but even I have to draw the line somewhere, Will.”

           “I’m going to work more with Wally and see what I can do, but I’m going to urge you, Jack, to remember that he is a traumatized child. We don’t know what he went through in that house,” Alana said. The look she gave Jack said quite clearly how many times she’s repeated that same sentiment in one way or another.

           Jack looked as though he had a profound thought to that, but Will clearing his throat took the wind from his sails.

           “They’re victims,” Will had said, staring out of the room he was to be contained within. So long as he behaved and his deadened connection didn’t cause anything ‘untoward’ to happen, the door would remain unlocked for him to come and go as he chose. “I had to get them out.”

           “You’re a victim, too, Will,” Alana had reminded him, standing beside Jack.

           “No I’m not,” Will retorted, and he’d turned to look at them sharply. “I overcame.”

           That was how, much later that afternoon, he found himself seated within the garden that the FBI had dedicated for those battling the all-consuming agony of what soulmate-severance truly was, alongside Abigail Hobbs while Wally tracked a few arachnids trundling through the winter flora and fauna.

           “It’s December,” Abigail said when he sat down. “I thought you’d want to know.”

           Will watched Wally poke at a particularly terrified spider. “I wonder how regulated this garden is. Spiders shouldn’t be out and about like that if it’s December.”

           She looked at him for a long time, then followed his gaze and watched Wally, too. “I heard heaters kick on. You can see the openings up top to even cover this whole place, need be.”

           “That’s a lot of money for an FBI headquarters to use.”

           “Soulmate severance is no joke,” Abigail replied, then immediately caught herself. Will noted her quick movements out of the corner of his eye, how she fumbled for something else to say.

           He still felt hollow, carved out like spaghetti squash. Something was missing, and along his skin there was the burn like the aftermath of shading done on a particularly large and vicious tattoo. A cat scratch that kept getting fussed over, only it was all over his skin and even his eyes hurt sometimes. Blinking hurt. He wondered if it was the fire that finally took Hannibal, or if Dolarhyde had gone back to finish the job after all.

           “What happened at that house?” Will asked raggedly, when words finally came.

           “Agent Crawford asked me not to tell you.”

           “I told him that I killed Garrett Jacob Hobbs because he attacked you.”

           “I said the same thing.”

           Silence again. Wally lost the spider within the cracks of the walls, and he began his next search intently.

           “I only know what happened because I was informed about certain things that were to occur once Jack Crawford managed to find the house,” Abigail said at last. Her voice shook, and Will nudged around the particular use of the word ‘once’ Jack found the house, not ‘if’. “Most of the house…they thought that Dr. Lecter was going to free them. Through embracing death, they conquered it.”

           “I read The Masque of the Red Death,” said Will, and his plucking hands found some grass below their bench. Fingers twitched and fussed over the crunchy and dry texture. “Death is disguised and finds his way to Prince Prospero in the end. He takes him from the palace where he’d locked himself away because in the end, the red death reaches all.”

           “Yes.”

           “Jack Crawford is still alive, though.”

           He looked at Abigail, and her hands fussed with the buttons on her mittens, her eyes trained fixedly on Wally. He tasted the smoke from that night, and he coughed to lessen the pressure in his chest.

           “Unless Jack Crawford was representative of death, not Prince Prospero,” he realized after a moment.

           “Dr. Lecter’s words were poetry,” she whispered, “and he promised all of those fools safety within that castle, knowing full well that one day death would come to tear it down. That was the plan.”

           “What’d he do, Abigail?” Will asked, and even though he could feel the emptiness that told him yes, yes, Hannibal Lecter was dead, he felt his presence then, looming over them with his wicked and careful planning.

           “If the perimeter alarms were to sound, then everyone was to reach into their pocket and withdraw a small capsule with a pill,” she said slowly. “That pill gave them approximately ten to twenty minutes to destroy any evidence within the house that hadn’t already been burned in the fire, then if they were captured they’d already be dead. Secrets couldn’t be pried from them. He wanted Jack Crawford to have to live with that.”

           Will let those words sit in the air between them, heavy with its realities. That didn’t entirely sound like Hannibal, although it did sound like a contingency plan concocted by Dolarhyde. Hannibal wanted a show, and Dolarhyde didn’t want witnesses.

           “Did they find Agent Dolarhyde?” he rasped.

           Abigail didn’t answer, and that was enough of an answer for him.

           “They didn’t find Hannibal’s body, or they wouldn’t have needed my confirmation,” he added slowly.

           “They’re waiting for the place to be stable enough post-fire so that they can round up any bodies missed. I think Jack said agents had the place under control to keep reporters out. The entire house had been installed with an additional pipeline holding gasoline, so when it went—”

           “It went quick,” Will agreed. “I was there.”

           The center of his chest was hollow and ached when his arm brushed it to adjust the hat on his head. He wondered if someone cracked his ribs open, if they’d find dust and cobwebs inside, or if he’d spill out the secrets of the house onto the garden walk for them to collect.

           “I never thanked you for killing my dad,” Abigail said as Wally triumphantly held a bug aloft, the sunlight glinting off of its exoskeleton.

           “He would have died anyway the moment Jack arrived,” said Will bitterly. “Maybe I shouldn’t have notched my belt.”

           A lie, in truth. Garrett Jacob Hobbs would have never let Abigail leave that house alive.

           There was a hesitance to her silence that made him look over at her, her face in profile sharper and far more the manipulative predator that he knew she could be, the same as he knew himself to be. His ribs ached when he breathed. He needed to go see Hannibal.

           Only there was no Hannibal to see.

           “Tell me, Abigail,” he prompted when she didn’t speak.

           “A small selection of us,” she said after a prolonged hesitation, “were to exit through the basement to a rendezvous point in the woods. There was transport waiting, as well as papers that would have gotten us anywhere around the world that Hannibal wanted us to go.”

           “Who?”

           “Dr. Lecter, Francis, Chiyoh, Beverly, Saul, me, and you.”

           Will thought of Beverly and Saul, and suddenly he didn’t feel like talking anymore. Spit turned to rust in his mouth.

           “Then I heard what Beverly did to Saul after she helped us escape, and I wasn’t sure what the plan was anymore,” she continued.

           Will stood, and his hands shook. He stuffed them into the pockets of the standard-edition FBI coat that he’d been loaned, and the breaths that huffed from his mouth curled about his head like the smoke of a great, red dragon.

           “I killed your dad because I wanted to kill your dad,” he said, staring at Wally releasing one bug to go and stalk another. “I think, given the chance, I’d do it all over again.”

           He left her with that, and he headed back to his room with a hand pressed to his chest as though he could find the place where bone and sinew ended and that wretched emptiness began.

-

           Jack was working on paperwork.

           Cases like these were like that, this he knew. The paperwork is what finally let it all sink beneath his suitcoat. He blinked, and he saw firelight. He blinked again, and he saw that he’d scribbled out the words suspect first began in a scrawling, messy script. He’d have to redo it. Maybe not. Maybe he just needed a damn nap.

           Hannibal Lecter was dead.

           Jack wasn’t sure how to express the feelings in regards to that thought, coupled with the hair-raising noise of Will screaming. When he first saw Will emerge from the dark, grasping claws of the forest trees, his heart had stopped. Surely these men were holding him hostage, waiting to pull the trigger in the final moment to show Jack once and for all who was in charge?

           But then Will shouted his name, and everything else wasn’t important anymore.

           He wasn’t sure which noise pervaded his mind more: the gasping sounds he’d made as he tried to staunch the blood flow from Jack’s stab wound, or the sound of his screaming as he dropped to the ground and began to writhe. That scream made his blood cold, made him want to turn tail and run and run and run until he could see that Bella was safe because he knew that noise better than anything else in the entire god damn world.

           Soulmate severance.

           “God dammit,” he murmured, and he grabbed the next file to update. Suspects were being questioned. Suspects were being identified. Bodies were being confirmed.

           Most of the fucking suspects had committed suicide on the lawn of their burning horror house.

           One had survived, though. At the sight of his accomplices dropping, one boy had turned whiter than a sheet and started backing away until he’d backed right into an agent that frisked him and dumped him into the first car that they could have en route to HQ. Don’t fucking lose that one, Jack had said to the agent. You hear me? He dies, your job is mine.

           And Will Graham had become a soulmate to Hannibal-fucking-Lecter.

           A noise just outside of his door made his stomach lurch. The lack of a body was an itch he couldn’t reach, but he just had to be patient. When the place was a little more stable, they’d run DNA scans on anything they could get their god damn hands on. Will’s pain, his screaming, was the best of indications, but at hearing that Will had been the one to kill him?

           There was no wonder to the trauma he’d subject himself to just to save people.

           There was no body yet, though. No body meant no rest for Jack Crawford, no respite from ragged moments of sleep where he woke to Hannibal gutting him again and again and again.

           Will Graham had gutted him too, though. It felt good knowing that Lecter would know just what that felt like.

           He wanted you to lose, Will had said, staring out of the window in his room. That was the trap, Jack. He wanted you to find him, and he wanted to ensure that all of the many ways in which you could find closure would be destroyed, too. Dead witnesses, dead house, dead end. Only now, he’s dead, too.

           Another noise, this time a creak of a shoe on a faulty floor. Jack was standing and striding across his office sooner than he’d have liked to admit, hand tapping at his holster where his gun was. Hannibal Lecter was dead. Will Graham’s agony confirmed it.

           They hadn’t found Dolarhyde, though.

           They hadn’t yet found Molly Foster, either.

           He wasn’t sure what Will would do when he found out that information, but he was tabling it for the time being. Will Graham’s opinion be damned, he was a victim in the circumstances they were dealing with –whether of ‘sound mind’ or not meant nothing in regards to dumping information on him that could potentially impede investigation. He’d been in that house for a couple of months, not a day.

           Who knew what all had happened? What all he’d endured but couldn’t say?

           Enough that his eyes had changed. Enough that Jack hadn’t made it in time.

           The details of the investigation were, therefore, not Will Graham’s concern at this time.

           The hallway was empty, though, bright lights burning on weary eyes. Jack stared at the walls in a muted taupe color, something just off enough from white that it didn’t feel as oppressive –according to studies. Jack didn’t much give a damn about white walls or taupe walls, but maybe this was an indication he should get some sleep, put his head down long enough to quiet the wicked thoughts of –

           “Getting paranoid, Jack?”

           Jack turned around and stared into the eyes of Lloyd Bowman.

           He’d have immediately supposed it was a dream, if Lloyd didn’t look like utter shit. His skin was sallow, and there were lines along his neck that suggested he’d had to sleep at an odd angle for some time. Days, in fact. Weeks. A couple of months.

           With a wound like his, Jack could figure he’d had to sleep at just the sort of angle to keep pressure off of his abdominal walls, away from the muscle and tissue that’d been torn apart by one of Lecter’s followers.

           Lloyd’s smile was wan, and he leaned heavily on a cane. “You didn’t send my wife flowers.”

           “I did,” Jack replied.

           “No, Price did. I asked, and he said he put your name on them, too, but he was the one to pick them out. A nice assortment of lilies ranging from Callas to Stargazers.” After a thought, “Those are her favorite.”

           “She mad at you?”

           “Mostly crying,” Lloyd assured him. “Then relief. A nice, home cooked meal.”

           Silence in the hall. Jack considered Lloyd, and he tried to reassure himself that his heart pounding was because he was angry that this meant that Lloyd had faked his death, disappeared rather than died.

           After everything else, though, Jack wasn’t quite so sure that he could fake anger. Not now. Maybe he was something like his wife, where the anger could set in after he had time to feel relief.

           “You look like shit,” Jack said at last. The words weren’t right; they turned sour in his mouth and made his tongue curl. They weren’t what he wanted to say, but they were all he could say.

           Maybe he could bring himself to be angry, after all.

           Lloyd, bless him, laughed. “You too, if you don’t mind me saying.”

           “I don’t mind.”

           “It was a safe house,” he said when Jack didn’t press for anything. Jack figured he needed to take his time rather than bulldoze into a barrage of questions. It was tempting to, especially since Zeller’s health was touch and go. He couldn’t bully Zeller into living, but he could damn sure talk Lloyd in circles around himself as he all but interrogated him. The lack of a body made him aggressive, fidgety. They needed to get into that house soon.

           “I’m not sorry,” Lloyd continued. “I heard about Zeller, and my only regret is –”

           Jack knew not to hug him, seeing how he leaned on the cane. Instead, he reached over and grasped him by his shoulders tightly, squeezing. He wasn’t sure if he could convey the relief that doused him with a quick bucket of water overhead, but he was trying. Things had become far too emotional, far too muddled for Jack, a person who knew how to categorize and make boxes for people rather than let their lives and his bleed together.

           Something had changed, though, that moment that Will Graham had saved his life. Then later, when –rather than Jack save him –Will had had to save himself the only way that he knew how.

           Lloyd’s secretive smile warmed, and he grabbed Jack by the shoulder and squeezed just as tightly.

           “You’re so sly, but so am I,” he said, and despite everything, Jack had it in himself to laugh, rasping and ugly.

           “Get your ass in here,” he replied, and it wasn’t quite a demand.

           It wasn’t quite a request, either.

           Lloyd followed him into his office, and maybe things were going to turn out alright after all.

-

           Nick Bowman sat across one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen.

           Alright, potentially not.

           It was pretty damn close, though.

           “You play on Roll 20, too?”

           “Yeah, logged maybe a couple thousand hours. It’s one of my passions,” Emma gushed, and she stirred sugar into her tea. They were at a quiet coffee shop near the edge of town, everything draped in taupe and coffee bean décor. They showed migrant workers on canvas paintings sorting beans and carrying large, wicker-baskets of blatant consumerism, but the music overhead was nice and their dark roast really was exceptional.

           It was a good first date, in reality.

           “Awesome,” said Nick sincerely. “That’s just…wow. We’ll have to play together some time.”

           “That’d be fun. I warn you, though: I play rogues, and my sneak attacks are almost always on a nat. 20.”

           “That’s why your character is on my side, not fighting me,” he laughed.

           “Fair enough.”

           Her smile was just on the edge of coy, and her pixie cut framed apple cheeks and a button nose. He wasn’t one to think about details like that, but if this was going to actually be his soulmate, Nick figured that he owed it to her to try and see her as maybe the love of her life would see her. Slight yet sturdy. Capable yet quiet. She seemed, to Nick, a mix of paradox and that American-girl aesthetic that companies looked for in their models for advertising.

           “So, why did you sign up for that site?” she asked curiously. She tilted her head just-so, in order to better analyze his words, and Nick couldn’t help but admit that the scrutiny was kind of alluring. Maybe there was something to Uncle Lloyd’s words, that he didn’t get out of the house enough. Now that there was someone interesting staring across the table at him, he’d have to reconsider the advantages of socializing with people that didn’t live in their own decrepit apartments while they shouted intermittently in their mics about whether or not they were using homebrew, 3.5 rules, or 5e.

           Rules lawyers, the lot of them.

           “I was curious at first, since they claimed they’d find a soulmate for me in a week,” he confessed. “I like to poke holes in things like that. Dunno why.”

           “Sounds like you like to be right about most things.”

           “Maybe.” She laughed, and it bolstered him to continue, “I don’t regret being wrong right now, though.”

           “You think they got your number?”

           “Dunno about them, but I’d like to give you mine, if you’re alright with that. It’s faster than e-mail.”

           “We’re not soulmates yet.”

           Yet. He considered the use of its word and her confidence in saying it. He wondered if Lloyd had gone back to the FBI yet, or if he was still laying low. According to the reports on the news and the interwebs, there was no body accounted for, but it looked like that poor abductee had made a soulmate connection while a prisoner there.

           Then Nick’s own digging revealed that it was Hannibal Lecter of all people he’d connected to.

           It made soulmates sound sticky in his ears, but he understood her feelings on the matter. She’d signed up for a dating site, after all.

           He wrote his number on a napkin for her, since he was feeling rather cliché and that’s what some people did in coffee shops on dates. She accepted it with a smile, and they walked out of the small coffee shop boasting half off specials for soulmates on Sundays. Maybe, just maybe if this worked out, they’d come back on Sundays and bask in the slowly-laid foundation of memories.

           Maybe she’d game with him, and his group would finally have that assassin they were looking for.

           She walked him to his car, oddly enough. It was a piece of shit Camry from the 90’s that, on a good day, turned over the first time. After getting booted from training in Quantico, Nick hadn’t had the best of luck, but at least that car had stuck through his ups and downs, his work and lack thereof. It was a thankless job being someone like Nick, but as he turned around and looked into Emma’s eyes, one hand poised on the roof of the car and the other on the door, he wondered if maybe he wouldn’t have to be alone anymore.

           She leaned up and pressed a kiss to the spot just at the edge of his lips, gentle.

           Then drove a knife into his gut and twisted, hard.

           “Francis Dolarhyde wanted me to inform you that, while your skills are exemplary, he is not currently in the market for a hacker that couldn’t exhibit enough self-control to make it out of FBI training and into the real world,” she whispered into his ear. “But for what it’s worth, I thought you were doing rather well up until this moment.”

           Nick opened his mouth to expel the rush of sound that filled his head with screaming, but nothing came. He felt suddenly cold, then hot, then numb; something wet was gathering along his stomach, his legs, his shoes, but he couldn’t quite reconcile his shock with what that meant.

           Dying, you fucking idiot. You’re dying.

           She pulled the knife from him and wiped it on a clean rag before depositing it into a large envelope. He saw her put the envelope into her purse, but the rest was dizzying to track, his blinks slow and lethargic. A voice, rough and panicked in the back of his mind warned him that by pulling the knife out, she was dooming him to die, but that wasn’t quite grasped onto either. Everything was sliding, sliding, sliding away, and he was eased into the driver’s seat of his car gently, he feet tucked up by the pedals.

           He blinked again, and his vision swam. It was difficult to describe it as pain, seeing as how everything was muted and distorted to the touch, too far away to really grasp onto. His head lolled and bobbed, and somehow he found it pressed against the window, staring at the back of Emma’s head as she strode across the parking lot and climbed into a waiting car.

           As it peeled away, Nick closed his eyes and fell into deep, fading sleep. He kept time with his death based off of the wheezing from his weakening breath.

-

           Zeller’s first words upon waking at the hospital were, “Where’s Jack,” followed closely by, “Where’s Hannibal?”

           Within twenty minutes –twenty only because of traffic –Jack was there, closely accompanied by a harried Price and a Bowman that the nurse insisted on helping into a wheelchair.

           Jack wasn’t sure how to take looking at him, bruised and battered and missing fingers. The head surgeon had informed them that the fresh surgery wound had been to remove his kidney, but it had been done with utmost skill and precision. He was alive, but only just. He was awake, but only just. When Jack saw his blue eyes flickering lazily along the lights and tiles of the ceiling, he crossed the room in two strides and took care to miss the tubes and wires as he put a hand on his shoulder.

           “Hey, Jack,” Zeller managed hoarsely. “Sorry I missed work.”

           “Son-of-a-bitch,” Price muttered, and he circled to the other side. “You’re chipper.”

           “Takes…more to kill me than that,” Zeller managed, and he coughed roughly. It sounded like sand on glass, that noise, but Jack bore it well. He stared at Zeller, committing to memory every nick and scratch that’d occurred at the hands of Lecter and Dolarhyde.

           God, how sometimes he wished Lecter had lived so that he could have killed him himself.

           “How are you feeling?” Bowman asked. “Do you need medication?”

           Zeller shook his head, and he looked back to Jack. “I didn’t…I didn’t tell them, Jack. Bella’s okay, right? I didn’t –I didn’t –tell them where she was.”

           “Hell, I know,” Jack assured him, and god dammit his eyes were stinging and hot. “I know you didn’t, Zeller. Know how I know?”

           “How?”

           “Since we didn’t move her, and nothing happened. She stayed right where you knew she was, and nothing happened.”

           Zeller’s eyes fluttered closed, and his exhale took the weight of his fears with it. “Where’s…Lecter?”

           “Dead,” Price replied savagely. “Graham took him out.”

           “Graham?” Bowman asked, surprised.

           “Heard them talkin’…downstairs. Graham didn’t take shit, there.” Zeller fell into a coughing fit, eyes crushed tight with the pain of it. “Killed the Shrike, killed the guy pretending to be a sheriff…killed Randall Tier. Made others think he was gonna kill them, too.”

           “He’d have done it, given the chance,” Jack agreed.

           “Did you see him?” Price asked.

           “They kept three locked doors between me and the rest of the house. I only saw Dolarhyde and…and Lecter.”

           Thinking of Lecter seemed to take the wind out of his sails. Zeller’s ashen face paled, and he sunk into the pillows as a tremor worked its way over his skin.

           “That sick son-of-a-bitch,” he murmured, and his heartrate spiked. “That s-sick, sadistic, son-of-a –”

           “We got him in the end,” Jack cut in, and he pulled up a chair to get comfortable. “You hear me, Zeller? We got him in the end, dental records pulled from the ashes of what appeared to be an office. That sick son-of-a-bitch is gone.”

           His heartrate calmed, but only just. As lungs battered and bruised from breathing smoke and fire struggled to give oxygen, Bowman wheeled up close to his leg and Price took his other side. The investigation could wait a damn second, Jack figured.

           “I didn’t tell him anything,” Zeller managed, and he closed his eyes tightly. “I didn’t say a word.”

           “I know,” Jack replied, and he clasped what little was left of Zeller’s right hand. “I know.”

-

           Beverly Katz found Will in the same garden that he’d sat in with Abigail Hobbs. It wasn’t necessarily that Will liked the garden, nor was it something particular in the way the evergreen shrubs were trimmed with utmost care; he supposed it was because it was outside, enough of an outside that it wasn’t that room that he was both locked in and yet not locked in.

           He stared at her as she made her way along the narrow gravel path. She looked like he felt.

           “You have something to tell me,” he said.

           Winston lay at his feet, nose snuffing lazily towards Beverly. He’d recognize her scent, although Will didn’t feel as though he should. Too much had changed, and surely her actions had changed her scent, left her a new person altogether that was unrecognizable?

           “Do you want me to say it, or do you already know?”

           She was dressed in a sensible pantsuit with a one-inch heel and a low bun at the nape of her neck. He studied the delicate crease where someone had ironed the perfect, crisp line for her slacks, and he shrugged.

           “You’re not FBI.”

           “CIA.”

           “They sanctioned the shit you did?” he asked, and despite everything he could almost claim the tone incredulous.

           “Some of it.” At his nod, she sat down beside him, a polite distance away. “I’m on a leave of absence while paperwork gets sorted out. May have to be suspended, too.”

           “You’re on national television.”

           “You, too.”

           They stared off at the distance, seeing but not quite seeing.

           “How pissed was Jack when he realized that the woman he’d been dragging through the mud was actually an undercover agent working to take down a slew of serial killers in one fell swoop?” Will asked wryly.

           “Probably about as pissed as my boss was when I debriefed him on removing Wally and Abigail from the premises without also acquiring you,” she replied.

           “I wouldn’t let you.”

           “Our friendship wouldn’t let me,” she corrected. “I could have easily subdued you, but I let you go back. That wasn’t the order.”

           “Orders,” Will scoffed. “Just how many people have been giving you orders, Beverly? Hannibal, Francis, your boss at the CIA –must have gotten confusing to keep it all together.”

           Silence broken only by a crackling loudspeaker just within the door of HQ. Then, “My name is actually Laura.”

           Beverly’s name was Laura. Will chewed a few curse words around in his mouth, but there was a struggle in bringing weight to them. He’d woken empty again, a vessel that sat unfilled.

           “Do you wake up with his name in your mouth?” he asked weakly. “Or do you just wake up hating yourself for what you’ve done?”

           “Will, I set him up,” she said, and she trembled as though a great gust of wind had chilled her. “I put belladonna in his tea so that he’d fall asleep at the perimeter so that we had a clean getaway. That’s how I knew that it was safe to leave in the direction that I took you. That’s why he was so confused when he was accused.”

           He wasn’t sure what to think of that revelation, if it endeared her to him or condemned her. He thought of their friendship, how she knew his quirks and habits without judging him for it, how she was torn between doing right by him and doing right by her country. Maybe the two of them were more alike than Will had supposed; that they were both willing to take the life of their soulmate in order to protect others was a raw sort of commonality, but there they were.

           There they fucking were.

           “Is it true that Freddie Lounds was the one to find the house?” Will asked. At her pointedly confused stare, he added, “Abigail told me, but Jack won’t talk about it. They’re keeping me in the dark.”

           “The rendezvous was at Freddie Lounds’ car, yes,” she agreed.

           “Lounds,” Will swore, and suddenly Earl asking about a Ms. Lounds at the house made so much more sense.

           “She was a pain in the ass, but I wasn’t going to let her go to waste. Not if it got you guys out of there alright.”

           Silence once more. Will tracked clouds listing across the sky and huddled deeper into his coat. Beside him, Beverly –Laura –swung a leg and made idle designs in the frozen dirt.

           “What now?” he asked. He coughed to release the pressure in his throat. “Are you released, or are you detained while under leave until the pissing contest between the FBI and the CIA cools down?”

           “It’s a paid leave due to Saul,” she said off-handedly. “Despite my finding him while undercover, he was still my soulmate. Not even the FBI can get in the way of soulmate grievance laws.”

           Her voice cracked on the word ‘soulmate’. Will’s spit tasted like rust.

           “I don’t know if they told you, but I murdered Hannibal,” Will said.

           What have you done, Will? What have you done?

           “They told me, yeah.”

           “I feel hollowed inside, Beverly,” Will revealed, and his voice cracked. “Like someone scooped out my organs and there’s nothing left.”

           “We did what we had to do,” Beverly replied, and the fierceness in her voice was iron and steel and all manner of repetition until maybe she could believe it herself. “I won’t apologize for it. Neither should you.”

           Will wouldn’t apologize for it, but as he laid down to sleep that night, he wondered at the feeling of his skin along concrete and pull of his ribs against his skin, as though there were something inside of him strung up and tugging him along from a great distance.

-

           There was a break-in that night in a non-descript hotel where Wally Foster and two agents were staying. The agents couldn’t account for how the woman had gotten into the room, but by the time the chaos ended, Wally was gone and hotel video surveillance showed Molly in a grubby baseball cap, jeans, and a ratty hoodie tucking her son into the passenger seat of a beat-up Bronco and driving away into the night with stolen license plates.

           Footage later recovered from the drive of one of Dolarhyde’s surveillance cameras also showed Molly Foster deliberately tripping one of the perimeter wires as she escaped, setting off the chaos that later ensued and led to the willful death of nineteen of Hannibal Lecter’s followers.

           And Darkness and Decay, and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

#Where the Wicked Walk #LiaS scribbles #hannigram #slowburn hannigram #hannibal au #hannibal fanfic #hannibal soulmate au #someone help will graham #winston #winston also needs some help #poor dog can't catch a break #jack crawford

[barryslightningrod]

Tenderest Touch Leaves the Darkest of Marks (3/4)

Summary: My take on Iris dealing with Barry’s return and his altered mental status. Story is in four parts. Contains bits and tidbits from The Flash Season 4 Extended Promo. 

{Part One}{Part Two}

Her dad sees her the moment she dashes in.

“Why haven’t you been picking up your phone-“

“Where is he?” She doesn’t have time or mental capacity for anything other than Barry right now. She barely notices that Cisco, Caitlin, and Wally are also there, and can’t even wonder how they made it to the station before her or feel offended if they happened to be told about Barry sooner than she was.

“Iris,” Joe starts. “Take a breath.”

“Where is he?” she demands a second time, feeling tears build in her eyes from the sheer monument of emotion overtaking her, from the magnitude of the occasion. She feels like she’s imagined this moment dozens of times and how she might be feeling, but her imagination never came close to the power of her state of mind now. “Did you see him? Is he okay? Is it really him?” More tears well with each inquiry she hurls until they finally spill.

She thinks she doesn’t want the hug he engulfs her with, but it’s comforting to be able to sob into his shoulder, harder than she has in a while, as hard as she did her first week without Barry. It seems poetic to come full circle, but she’s glad she’s crying here for entirely different reasons.

“I haven’t seen him yet. None of us have. We all agreed not to until you got here.” Iris pulls away to see Cisco nod in agreement. Her earlier anger toward him dissipates, and she feels better about her almost-irritation that they all got here before her.

“Cecile is with him now, probably ‘interrogating’ him so that things don’t look suspicious to the other cops. No doubt they’re trying to come up with some story they can feed the press about where he was all these months.”

Iris feels herself relaxing at these words. Barry is behind those doors. He’s a few feet away from her. In just a few moments, she’s going to see him again, to touch him again…

She lets out a small laugh through her tears at the realization, and Joe pulls her close to him one more time.

“It’s going to be okay, Baby Girl,” her father murmurs into her hair. “It’s going to be okay.”

They’re seated in the waiting area for what feels like hours, until Cecile finally appears. Immediately, Iris stands.

“I want to see him,” she declares, figuring it’s better to be insistent instead of ask and risk getting declined. She doesn’t want to give anyone the opportunity to deprive her of seeing Barry. She doesn’t even want to ask if he’s okay or not or if it’s really him anymore like she had before, doesn’t want to open that door of possibility. She’ll decide that for herself, she’s his fiancée after all. She understands police protocols, but it’s been enough time. It’s been six months.  

She doesn’t know why she was bracing herself for a possible no, because it doesn’t come. What does come is a sympathetic look across Cecile’s features and something else completely unexpected, a warning: “You need to prepare yourself.”

What to make of that, Iris has no idea. Slight alarm rises in her but the open door that Cecile leads her into vanquishes all of that.

She races in, not caring or tracking if anyone follows her, or of whatever it was she needed to brace herself for.

The lights are off, but the afternoon sun peeks through the tilted blinds. The room’s temperature resembles a musty warmth. The air is heavy with dust and something else.

A thin, bearded man sits on a rollaway cot in corner of the room. His back is aligned with the wall he leans against, his legs stretched out in front of him, too long for the mattress he sits atop.

“Barry,” she breathes. Her heart races in a familiar way it hasn’t done so in six months, and that’s how she’s certain it’s him, her Bear.

It takes all of less than a minute for that certainty to waver.

And it’s not because of the facial hair.

It’s his eyes. They’re devoid of anything, even color it appears. She’s never seen Barry’s normally vivid green eyes as empty as this. They’ve always looked legibly animated: ardent, awestruck, angry, afraid, affectionate. Now? It’s like they’re glass, and they’re staring straight ahead, not at her.

Someone managed to get him into a T-shirt and sweatpants. Behind her, she hears Cecile mention offhandedly that he cooperated when they instructed him to dress, as though she felt she needed to explain why he wasn’t naked anymore, but Iris doesn’t care that Barry is clothed or bare or bearded or whatever.

Iris cares that Barry hasn’t reacted to her presence yet, or anyone else’s for that matter.

“Barry,” Iris repeats, louder this time.

It’s as if no one else is in the room with him. Barry doesn’t even seem to blink at the sound of his name, only continues his haunted gaze forward.

“What’s wrong with him?” Cisco’s concern mirrors Iris’s and vocalizes what everyone else in the room is likely too afraid to ask.

There’s a hesitation before Cecile responds. “We’re not sure.”

Iris swallows. Nothing is wrong with him, she tells herself. It can’t be. He has to just be slightly shaken up after being away for so long. He’s alive, she reminds herself. That’s what matters.

“Barry,” she tries again, certain that this time he’ll snap out of his daze once she employs the entreaty that's brought him back before. Her voice nearly breaks at the memory, at the grasp that he’ll be okay once he hears it: “Barry, you’re home.”

For the first time since Iris entered the room, Barry’s head turns to acknowledge her. It worked-

He stands so abruptly and moves with such quick force that he’s towering over her before she can process what happened.

“Woah!” Wally moves just as instantaneously to stand protectively at her side.

Once her cognizance is up-to-speed on what’s ensued, Iris exchanges an incredulous look with her brother, as though they both can’t believe he’s reacted to protect Iris from Barry of all people.

Wally shifts his gaze from hers and she sees his eyes widen in shock the moment they settle on Barry.

“What the-“

She follows his gaze to find Barry’s eyes animated at last, only they shine with a red glimmer. He looks menacing, like he’s staring at his greatest enemy, not at the people who love him.

“That…didn’t happen when we tried to interrogate him,” Cecile notes cautiously. “Does this have to do with-the Speed Force?” she questions.

No one has an answer for her. No one knows what to do but watch Barry as his eyes gleam. Suddenly, Barry shakes his head eccentrically and rubs his eyes. When his hands fall, his pupils are lifeless again. He turns back to the cot mutely and sits down, his legs dangling off the edge, as if nothing had just happened.

Finally, Cecile breaks the silence that follows.

“Joe, Iris.” She gestures for them to follow her outside into her office, closing the door behind them.

She pauses, as though she’s thinking of what to say, before taking a deep breath, bringing her palms together.

“I think we should keep him at the precinct for a while,” she states simply.

Iris steps forward to object before her father can agree.

“Barry is coming home with me,” she announces.

“Iris-“

“Look, I know he’s not acting like himself,” she continues. “But he’s been trapped for six months in what had to be hell for him to be so disconnected from all of us. Taking him somewhere familiar could help.”

“I don’t disagree with you,” Joe replies, to her surprise, as well as Cecile’s.

“But,” he adds. “I don’t think you should be alone with him, Iris. We can take him back to STAR Labs, or even our house-“

“Or we can keep him in police custody and have physicians and metal health professionals evaluate him before we release him to the public,” Cecile interrupts.

Rage swells inside Iris at this. “Excuse me,” she objects. “Are you suggesting Barry is some kind of threat? Like he’s a criminal?”

“I wasn’t suggesting that at all-“ Cecile tries to defend herself.

“I’ll remind you that the man sitting on that bed is The Flash,” Iris carries on. “He’s a hero. He saved all of us, including you.”

“Iris,” Joe warns.

Cecile tries again: “I get how you must be feeling-”

“No you don’t!” Iris exclaims, and Cecile actually jolts.

“You don’t get it, Cecile. Hours ago, I thought my fiancé was as good as dead and now he’s back, clearly confused or traumatized. I don’t want to subject him to more stress or to scrutiny from people who don’t know who he really is or where he was. What’s going to happen if he has an episode like he just did now in front of an examiner? How will it change Barry’s life if word gets out that he’s a speedster? If the public suspects he could be The Flash?”

Truth be told, Iris wasn’t even considering those latter points. Her primary concern had been protecting Barry from further burden while he was in such a delicate, and potentially volatile mental state.

She feels guilty at having blown up at Cecile however, who she knows has good intentions.

Iris softens. “I know you just want to help,” she consoles. “But I think keeping him here under constant supervision and inspection will do more harm, not to mention put him at risk of discovery and then possible surveillance for the rest of his life. Please. Let me take him home.”

Cecile exhales, glancing at Joe purposefully. “You’ll be careful? And let us know if there’s any trouble?”

“Promise,” Iris swears.

“Alright then,” Cecile concedes. “I can’t keep him here legally if he’s done nothing wrong. I’ll just need you to sign some papers that he’s going back with you, Iris.”

“Ah,” Joe protests. “Going back with us.” But Iris holds up a hand.

“No, Dad,” she asserts. “I’m taking him to our loft.”

Joe sighs. “Baby-“

“I am going to try to get through to him by myself,” she affirms. “I’ve done it before, and I can do it again. We’ll take him to STAR Labs so that Caitlin and Cisco can run some tests on him just to be safe, but he’s sleeping at our place tonight, and every night after that.”

She can tell her father is still dubious. He fixes her with a look that’s a combination of sorrow and admiration.

“If anything happens-“

“I’ll call you,” Iris finishes.

“Iris, I’m serious,” Joe urges. “He may look like him, but I don’t think the Barry who came out of the Speed Force is the same as the one who went in it six months ago. Just…keep an eye out. Trust your gut, Baby Girl.”

At that, Iris can’t suppress a smile, despite the gravity of the situation. “You taught me how.”

#westallen #westallen fic #barry x iris #the flash fanfiction #my writing #tenderest touch leaves the darkest of marks