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crystalangelluna · 3 years

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Wish It Didn't End Like This.

(Part 1/2)

Daminette angst story. I did not proof read and edit deeply so there might be mistakes. My first shot at an angst story. Comments are highly appreciated. Hope you enjoy (///=time skip)

(Mari's POV)

Damian Wayne...

It has so many definitions...

Stubborn…

Talented…

Smart…

A hero…

Brave…

A brat at first…

But underneath all the barriers he has an amazing heart, that very few get to see…

And I mean VERY few.

Only the super closest people to him had the luxury to see.

I am very glad to have met this amazing person.

If only we had spent more time together…

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

The first time I had ever met him, it was as if I was some kind of supervillain. He had this glare that seemed to scare everyone else.

But I wasn’t like everybody else.

(HA try fighting a supervillain since you were 13 and finally beating him at 17, and finding out why the person you trusted the most in your life betrayed you.)

So of course the glare was a simple child’s play.

We didn’t have a simple conversation till a few weeks later.

I went to the park near my apartment and sat at a bench where I sketched design ideas based on the scenery. I brought plagg with me, but he wasn’t a kwami, he was a real black cat. Kwamies could transform into the animal they represent. As I designed, Plagg was curled up near me softly purring.

As I was about to finish the last sketch, Plagg woke up and left. I didn’t mind it, since Plagg tended to do that. But then a dog’s bark followed by a frantic call were heard across the park.

”TITUS!!”

I looked up to see plagg being chased by a Great Dane, followed by Damian.

I ended up leaving everything besides my purse(it has Tikki inside duh) on the bench and joined in the chase.

Once we finally caught them, I picked Plagg off the ground and hugged him, he started purring and acted as if nothing happened.

Sneaky little chaotic cat

I quickly apologized profoundly for the accident, I could tell I was blushing madly

I didn’t like him (Yet), I was just embarrassed …

He did something that surprised me, something that didn’t seem like his persona.

He chuckled, sure it wasn’t like he smiled or anything like that…

But, it made me feel warm inside.

Realizing his mistake he quickly covered it up with,

”Tt, next time be careful, imbecile!”

If I hadn’t been the Famous Superhero, Ladybug/Guardian of the Miraculous, I would have been rather insulted and hurt.

But over the years I have learned to judge people by their eyes.

You see, the eyes aren’t just a useful body part to see,

They are the door to the soul, sure words might be harsh and hurtful, but they might say what they don’t mean.

And clearly, he didn’t mean to call me an imbecile, he hid it so well that I probably couldn’t have noticed it, but of course, I did.

(Damian Wayne, I will break those barriers and I will see who you truly are, and not pretend to be.)

This mission was similar to another one I had, but it was harder.

I loved a good challenge.

Wherever Marinette goes, Ladybug follows.

The bats were relatively surprised that I appeared in their territory, after some explaining and convincing I was finally allowed to work with them.

Before I left, Robin was scowling at me before leaving with the rest, which somehow was familiar…

Wait, Familiar…

Suddenly a flash appeared in my mind of a black-haired boy, with dark emerald eyes, glaring at me the same way.

How did I manage to get this Lucky, oh yeah…

I mentally face palmed this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

Conjuring up a portal to my apartment, and de-transformed I just sighed…

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

A couple of months later, we grew a little closer, a little.

But hey, at least it is progress am I right.

I didn’t get him to chuckle or anything but I could see a small smile on his face when he thought no one was looking. He was wrong, very wrong.

Knowing he was Robin didn’t make it any easier, especially when he treats both Marinette and Ladybug in different ways. He still doesn’t agree with Ladybug, but he was still wary of me.

I mean who wouldn’t be wary of someone when you are rich, famous, and vigilant. Anyone could use you because of your status.

Bye, now Damian must know that I don’t care about his last name, nor status.

He is just Damian to me, not a Wayne, nor Robin, and not “the Ice prince”

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////Ever since I met him he made my life better, sure it took a year for him to warm up to me.

And eventually, I became his best friend besides Jon. When no one was around he let his guard down, every barrier ever built crashed when he was alone with me.

I was so proud of myself, I had won the bet that I made with myself a year ago.

I guess the only reason why Damian is the way he is with others, and the same when I had met him was because he was neglected of the love he needed...

And Damian told me one time when we were alone that ever since he came to live with his father and even now that his father showed his other sons more love than he showed him. It broke my heart even more, but then I developed another mission.

It was to show that I care very much for my best friend and show him that is very much loved.

Everyone in school believed we were dating because of our interactions, of course, we were only best friends. But I had hopes that we would be more than best friends.

I never really planned on telling him how I feel, because I felt that it was more important to just be there for him as his best friend instead of getting a 50% chance rejected and destroying a perfectly good friendship and a 50% chance of getting accepted.

I didn’t want to risk it at all, so I never told him.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Just like how Damian opened up to me about his life (besides his vigilant life and assassin life), I did the same( besides the part about being Ladybug and Guardian) I told him about my life in Paris, the betrayals, the losses, how my life changed when a certain sausage haired liar came to school with her “shiny” life.

Being the best friend he was, he threatened to kill them. I had to chase Damian across my apartment to take the kitchen knife from his hand.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

1 month later…

He tried to keep me hidden from his family, no surprise there. No matter how much he wanted to keep me hidden it would still have happened.

When someone from Gotham Academy took a picture of me and Damian ya know doing secret best friend stuff when we thought no one was looking and posted it on Instagram, word spread out.

Later that day, not having any clue, I was “kidnapped” by 3 strangers. I was just having a simple conversation when someone tossed me over their shoulder and ran away.

I quickly kicked him in the ribs and flipped him.

I looked up to see Damian glaring, and yelling profanities at them. I turned around and saw 3 older men. I recognized who it was immediately, these were the people that complained about.

His brothers, Richard Grayson, Jason Todd, and Timothy Drake.

And I had flipped the oldest. Serves him right for trying to kidnap me.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Everything was great…

Until it wasn’t…

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

I invited Damian over to hang out. We were in my room, I was sketching something while he was reading a book.

He suddenly placed his book on the table and left the room to get some food for us. He came back, only without food.

“Why do you have this!!!”

I stopped sketching and looked at what he was talking about. That was when I saw the file that contained the contact information to the leader of the league of assassins, on a paper that is written in Arabic. And information on Damian.

I froze, he wasn’t supposed to see that.

“Marinette answer me, WHY DO YOU HAVE THIS!?!?!?!”

“Damian it isn’t what it lo-” he cut me off before I could finish.

“You work for my mother, don’t you?!?! He looked at me, his eyes were tearing up. I tried to explain the misunderstanding but couldn’t. He beat me to it.

“So everything that happened between us isn’t real, they were all lies.?!?!

“Your one of mother’s spies aren’t you, she ordered you to get close to me to kill me?!?!?!

“Damian I-”

“JUST SHUT UP, I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT. I- I HATE YOU!!!” He ran away, ran away from my life. Leaving me in tears.

Alone.

Just like many of the other times in my life. Only this was the worst experience out of all of them.

I tried, I tried to live my life. Away from Paris, Away from my duties as Supreme Guardian in the Tibetan temple. Guess the universe doesn’t want that for me. I looked through the contacts on my phone. And called the person would’ve called sooner or later.

“تاليا الغول ، أقبل اقتراحك. سأقابلك غدا في قاعدة الدوري.” (Talia Al Ghul, I accept your proposal. I'll meet you tomorrow at the league base.)

I packed my bookbag with clothes, shoes, food, and the miracle box. I grabbed the photo that was on the shelf. It was one photo of me and Damian when we were hanging out at the fair. Tears were filling my eyes and I looked up to see Tikki and Plagg looking at me sadly.

I put the picture back where it was and walked to the door. I had so many memories here and I had to ruin it again.

As of tonight, Marinette is no more. I told myself

For in her place the titles, Ladybug and Guardian stick with her permanently.

No one would miss Marinette anyways.

I put the hood over my head, and left Gotham…

Forever.

Taglist:

@galla02006 @toodaloo-kangaroo

#damian x marinette #maribat #maridami #mlb x dc #ml x dc #marinette x damian #angst

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

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Survey #466

“she is the butcher, she wants the air / she hides the scars under her hair”

Who do you think cares the most about you? My mom. What do you do when you’re pissed off? Isolate and cry. Have you ever had unprotected sex? Good luck catchin' me do that. What did your mother study at university? Social work. What was the last thing you took a video of? I have zero idea. What is your least favorite kind of weather? Hot and humid weather can actually fuck off. What was the last housework you did? Does changing my cat's litter count? Have you ever had famous neighbors? Not to my knowledge. Have you ever lived in a small community where everyone knew each other? Nope. Have you ever actually drank warm milk? NO EW EW EW EW EW Do you talk to your pets? If you don't, are you REALLY a pet parent??????? Who is a famous person you could see yourself reading a biography about? He's always said he doesn't want to but I really hope Mark writes an autobiography one day alskdjklafjw;ejr Are there any numbers you dislike for any reason? No. What skill that you have do you make most use of? idk man Have you ever done something sexual that you regret? Nah. Have you ever said anything to the last person you kissed that you regret? No. Have you ever ate so much you puked? No. Do you care about what others think of your physical appearance? Sometimes/some places yes, other times/places, no. Would you rather eat cookies or brownies? It would probably change with what I'm feeling, but I lean towards a nice center piece brownie. :^) If you’re out late, where are you likely to be? This literally never happens. Do you ever visit your mall’s arcade (if it has one)? Our mall is lame as fuck. It definitely doesn't have one. What’s your absolute favorite topic to discuss? Mark, lmao. What is your least favorite topic to discuss? Politics. Have you ever been confined to a wheelchair? "Confined" seems like a strong word, but a nurse did give me one at the doctor's office when I massively tore a ligament in my foot and could barely walk at all. If you have a job, who’s your closest friend at work? Don't remind me that I don't have a job. Have you told anyone you love them today? Not yet, but I'm sure I will later. Have you ever worked in an office? No, but I guess that's what I'm going to wind up going for once I'm ready to job-hunt again... It feels sad that I'm actually aiming for the cubicle life now just because my interaction with people would be much more limited than with most other jobs. Who does the grocery shopping in your house? My mom. Do you prefer margarine or butter, and why? I don't even know if I'd recognize the taste difference. Have you ever been in serious trouble at work or school? No. Do you have any strange fears or phobias that you’re embarrassed of? That I'm embarrassed of, no. Can you smell anything right now? No. Have you ever tried coconut water? No. Which Asian country would you like to visit the most? Idk. Maybe Japan? How old were your parents when they got engaged? I have no idea. Have you ever done a first aid course? No. If so, would you be prepared to perform CPR if necessary? No. Have you ever ‘done it’ in a hotel room? No. Just the idea grosses me out. Where is your next vacation? Couldn't tell ya, buddy. Which are better black or green olives? I'm not a fan of black olives, and I won't even TRY green ones. They just look so fucking disgusting to me. Does your car have a backup camera? Mom's doesn't. Have either of your parents ever been in trouble with the law? No. Do you have a preferred brand of bottled water? Essentia. Is your skin more oily, dry, or combination? It's a combination depending on the location. Where did you meet your current significant other? High school band. What kind of house do you wish you lived in? One that's in the woods. What was the last compliment you received from an old lady? I don't have a clue. Do you know how to cut hair? Properly, no. Have you ever had a classmate die? I believe maybe once? If you have a song stuck in your head, what is it? I recently discovered "Foxy, Foxy" by Rob Zombie and it's Good Stuff. Do you tend to space out a lot? Very much so. What people have changed your life for the better? My parents, my psychiatrist, a PHP therapist, Sara, debatably Jason... Have you ever had any kind of dangerous addiction? What’s this addiction? Caffeine, I guess. Are your parents still married, divorced, or split up? Like this decision? They're divorced, and while it sucks for your parents to split up, it's a decision that I definitely approve of given all they ever did was fight when I was growing up. Them staying together would've been very destructive. Have you ever heard of Hollywood Undead? Do you like them? Well yeah, and I like a large number of songs to where I'd consider myself a fan. I actually had a shirt in high school. Has anyone ever called you a coward before? Who called you that? I don't believe so. Are you a Jeffree Star fan? Or no? Do you think he’s awesome/dumb? Honestly, yes. Like he's done dumb shit, but has more than sufficiently apologized for it in my opinion and changed his behavior for the better. I also - astonishingly - like his music quite a bit. As well, his work ethic is fucking INCREDIBLE, like extremely admirable. Has your grandmother ever made you anything? Not including cookies. I don't think so. I don't even think she ever liked me. Do you disgust anyone? Did they tell you that? Why is this, anyways? Not that I know of. When was the last time you cried, and why (if you want to share)? I don't remember, actually. Probably just about life. Who was the last person who was rude to you? *shrug* Do you have a relationship with God? lol no, and even if I believed in him, I wouldn't have a remotely decent opinion of that entity. Is weed legal in your state? No. Have you ever thrown up in class? In kindergarten, yes. What is something that you used to be ashamed of, but now you’re not? As a kid, being a girl, I was so embarrassed by liking Pokemon. Now, I am literally wearing an Eeveelutions shirt and went out in public lmao. I couldn't care less about loving them cuties. Have you ever walked outside in below zero weather? No; I've never experienced those temperatures. Have you ever held a newborn baby? Yes, but I was sitting down. I would be WAY too scared of dropping a baby otherwise. Are a ton of your Facebook friends getting married and having kids now? I legitimately think most of my friends on there already have kids and/or are married/engaged. It's triggering sometimes and was a massive motivator for me taking a break from there. What’s something you believe in that most people don’t? So uh, I hope this doesn't sound insensitive given how it just passed, but I 100% believe the U.S. government was to some extent involved in 9/11. There is an incredible amount of evidence when you do the research. Is there anyone who’s dear in your heart who’s going down the wrong path? I worry about one of my good friends quite a bit. She is horribly addicted to pot (like, she admits it) in a state where it's not legal, and I'm concerned she'll face legal repercussions eventually. She also dates an absolute lowlife asshole, but they've been together for a very long time, and I just worry about how that might damage her later down the road. Do you get enough sleep? God, it never feels like it. What’s something you wish you would have known sooner? That college wouldn't work for me. Like, I dropped out of three. I do NOT want to know the debt I'm in. What’s the next big project you plan to start? Idk. Possibly something for Girt's birthday because Mom really pissed me off and doesn't want to spend *any*thing to help me get something for him. Is that bad on my end? Like she pointed out he knows I don't work, but like... come on. He's my bf, one of my greatest friends ever, and you can't spare anything? I really don't know if that's selfish or not; it's just that if I get him nothing, I will feel like ACTUAL garbage. So making something may just be my only option. I just dunno what... Do you think you were cute in your baby pictures? omg yes, idk what happened Do you remember pre-school? A lot of it, yes. My long-term memory is pretty damn amazing. Would you allow your children to date prior to 16? Yes. Does your town have a farmer’s market? I think so? Which app on your phone do you tend to get the most notifications from? Pokemon GO, lol. How old were you when you met your current best friend? Around 11. What is something you gave up on after many failed attempts? Photography is coming real fuckin close. I've been trying to go somewhere with that for YEARS. Would you rather read a book, or listen to the audiobook? Physically read. I think my attention would stray listening to an audiobook. Do you think tomorrow will be a better day than today? It's possible, idk. I had a doctor's appointment today that absolutely slaughtered my mood, so I feel fucking horrific, but Girt is also coming over today, and I'm sure he'll cheer me up. I won't see him tomorrow, so that's a bummer. With which friend are you most likely to share a secret? Sara. What is the last thing you complained about? It's hot as shit outside. Is there a show you swear that you will never watch? 13 Reasons Why. What was the last topic that you ranted about? Anti-vax bullshit. Who is the most sensitive person that you know? Bitch, me. Have you ever had a tooth (or teeth) pulled? No. What did you do last Halloween? Literally nothing on the actual holiday. :/ Fire drills: Did you ever wish they were real… just once? ... To get out of school, yes. :x What was the last thing that you felt strongly about? I am still positively livid about Texas' "heartbeat bill." Fuck that place and fuck that law. What is one insecurity you have about your body? Um, everything???? What is one part of your body that you are proud of? Nothing????

#survey #surveys #random questions #lyrics: ''foxy foxy'' by rob zombie

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365days365movies · 3 years

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February 5, 2021: The Notebook (2004)(Part 1)

...Do I have to?

...The year was 2004. I was 13, my Mom was still into romance movies, and we had a Hollywood Video nearby. God, I miss Hollywood Video, you have NO idea. Anyway, I obviously didn’t watch this movie (or I wouldn’t be watching it now), but I do remember kissing in the rain...or was that just the DVD cover? Other than that, I got nothin’. Still, I like both Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling in other works, so I guess we’ll see.

I also can’t start this without acknowledging the fact that this is based upon a Nicholas Sparks book, and...I’m not into that. Sparks sucks, man. Sappy, overemotional, and constantly predictable folderol.

OK, Nicholas Sparks, let’s get this over with. SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

We start with scenic shots of a boat rowing through a marsh, being visited by a flock of snow geese. As they fly off, an elderly woman (Gena Rowlands) looks out of a window over it. The woman is in an old-folks home, and is visited by Duke (James Garner), another resident. He’s here to read from a book, despite it not being a “good day,” according to the woman’s attendant.

The story in the book begins on June 6, 1940, at a carnival in South Carolina. There, Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling) sees Allie Hamilton (Rachel McAdams), and it’s infatuation at first sight. He’s a lumber yard worker, and she’s a rich heiress. He’s also EXTREMELY forward, and she’s EXTREMELY not interested. He approaches her for a dance (at a...carnival), and she says no, having literally never seen this guy before. He responds to this rejection by...butting into her date with another dude of a Ferris Wheel?

And when she once again rejects his offer for a date...he, uh...he threatens to kill himself off of the Ferris Wheel?

Um. Yeah, no. That’s a new level of manipulation. She pants him on the Ferris Wheel and humiliates him, but JESUS CHRIST, this dude is a lot. That’s compounded the next day, when he continues to pursue her, and she continues to be EXTREMELY not interested! DUDE. GET A GODDAMN CLUE HERE, she is NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR SHIT.

Is Noah the first simp? Because he’s really starting to seem like it. Anyway, Noah and his friend Fin (Kevin Connolly) basically set her up to go on a double date with Noah, and he continues to be overly forward. Maybe this is supposed to be romantic, but it definitely doesn’t feel like it to me.

We find out that Allie is a quite well-educated young woman, whose schedule is basically completely controlled by her parents, who want her to go to college as well. Noah questions why her life is so restrictive, nothing that she should be free, which she insists she is. He then lies down in the middle of the road, watching the street...lights…

Holy shit, he’s a manic pixie dream boy. HOLY SHIT HE’S A MANIC PIXIE DREAM SIMP. He does all these quirky things, and breaks the girl in the restrictive lifestyle out of said lifestyle. Even if his dumbass actions nearly get him and Allie killed. See, she lies down in the street with him, and they nearly get run over by a car. And this second near-death experience is apparently SO romantic, that Allie’s won over, and they...just dance in the middle of the street. Because Ryan Gosling has no idea where to dance, apparently.

Billie Holiday sings “I’ll Be Seeing You” in the background (which, yes, I love), and we cut back to Duke reading to the elderly woman, who correctly guesses that they fell in love. And yeah, they go head-over-heels, apparently. Which is symbolized by, just, the most graphic of PDAs over, lord.

Allie meets Noah’s father, Frank (Sam Shepard), a seemingly nice man and poetry fan (he’s a Tennyson man apparently). He asks her if she wants breakfast-for-dinner, and he’s my favorite character so far.

However, as if to set up the conflict to come, we’re reminded that this is a summer romance, and that they come from two different classes and worlds. Because of course they do, but whatever, moving on. That is when the following scene takes place.

youtube

...Look, I’m a bird guy by trade, and even I think that was weird.

We get more glimpses of their romance, including them dancing at a gathering with...a bunch of black peopNOPE. HOLD YOUR TONGUE, 365, WAIT FOR THE REVIEW TO TALK ABOUT THAT SHIT. At the end of this montage, we meet Allie’s father, the uppity and rich John Hamilton (David Thornton), and his GLORIOUS mustache (mustache).

He invites Noah to Sunday brunch, which is being attended by...black servaHOOOOOOLD. NOT NOW 365 NOT NOW. We also meet Allie’s controlling mother, Anne Hamilton (Joan Allen). When Noah tells them how much money he makes, they immediately look down on him and his poor, poor ways. Anne reveals that Allie is headed to Sarah Lawrence, an all-girl’s school in New York. Which is, uh...NOT close.

Anne very much disapproves of her relationship with Noah, seeing him as a low-born of little consequence. Not that it matters, because the two head to a DEFINITELY HAUNTED house in the woods one night, which overlooks the marshlands. The bats from the Scooby-Doo intro fly by as the two walk in to, again, AN ABSOLUTELY HAUNTED HOUSE. This is the 1772 Windsor Plantation, home to...the Swamp Fox? Huh. Didn’t expect a crossover with the Mel Gibson movie The Patriot, but OK then.

The two talk about their house in the future, and somewhere in the house, a painting’s eyes move mysteriously. Allie plays a tune on the piano, which 1) sounds AMAZINGLY creepy, and 2) I’m pretty sure is the opening song, which is a neat touch. Guess that’s the theme for the movie, or possibly Allie’s leitmotif.

Anyway, it seems that the ghostly wails of Old Man Marion have gotten them both all hot and bothered, and they prepare to make love, right there in the old haunted house. The two undress while social distancing, then approach, significantly raising their risks of contracting COVID-19. Allie is CLEARLY very nervous, and as they attempt to begin the dirty deed, Allie can’t stop rambling about the current situation. Which is clearly putting Noah off the mood, but the two still clearly care about each other. It’s weirdly sweet, considering the fact that there’re, like, 50 ghosts watching, and God knows how many of those are slaaaaaaaAAAANYWAY

Fin suddenly bursts in, as it would appear that Allie’s parents have every policeman in town looking for her. Her parents are clearly upset, and her mother demands that Allie stops seeing Noah, whom she literally describes as “trash.” Jesus. And they aren’t exactly quiet about it, as Noah hears the entire conversation. He understandably leaves, and is also clearly disheartened by the whole situation.

When Allie catches up to him, he says he has to think about this whole thing, including the fact that she’s going to Sarah Lawrence, and he’s staying behind. And I’m not gonna lie, he’s actually being realistic about this whole thing, and she’s acting FAR less rational. She actually breaks up with him right then and there, and as she’s literally physically assaulting him, I realize that SHE is actually the psychologically unstable one, HOLY SHIT. Emotionally compromised or not, Allie goes BONKERS here.

The next day, her folks decide that they’re leaving, that very day. Allie doesn’t want to leave without making amends with Noah, and she’s regretting her actions the previous night. She goes to Fin, and tells him to tell Noah that she loves him, and that she’s sorry. Noah shows up a little too late, and goes to return the comments, but Allie’s already gone.

Noah somehow gets her address, and writes her 365 letters, one letter every day. He never gets one in response, so he gives up and moves with Fin to Atlanta. Allie’s mom is seen getting the mail, so we know EXACTLY what happened to those letters. Meanwhile, it’s now 1941, and it’s time for World War II for the USA! Fin and Noah fight with Patton’s troops, and Fin doesn’t make it.

Allie, meanwhile, is in college, and works as a Nurse’s Aide for war veterans. She sees all of them as Noah,,,which is weird because she hasn’t gotten any of his letters, so she wouldn’t know that he went to war, but whatever. One of these injured men is Lon Hammond, Jr. (James Marsden). And...aw...AWWWWWWW. Did I just type James Marsden? GODDAMN IT HE’S GONNA GET CUCKED

James Marsden seems to have only one role in movies, and that’s to be overshadowed by another dude, even though in many instances, he’s a totally fine guy. The X-Men films, Superman Returns, Enchanted, the Westworld series in a way, TELL ME I AM GODDAMN WRONG. Dude’s always in movies where he plays the love interest to a girl, and that girl is pursued by another guy, and he ALWAYS LOSES TO THAT GUY. You could argue that Cyclops in the X-Men escaped that fate, but need I remind that first, Jean died, and then she came back AND KILLED HIM. STOP SCREWING OVER JASON MARSDEN’S LOVE LIFE, MOVIES!!!!

Seems like we’re once again headed down that path, though, as the very injured Lon asks Allie out on a date while in recovery, then takes her out once he’s healed. And, since he’s about as forward as Noah was, but less crazy when asking her out, she falls in love with him quickly. And it’s Duke that makes that assessment, not me. And, OF COURSE, he’s a rich Southern boy, meaning that her parents are going to approve.

At a dance club in the city with...black performDEAR GOD IT’S GETTING HARD TO HOLD ON BUT I GOTTA DO IT MOVING ON

He proposes to her, with her parents’ full permission (of course, because he’s rich and southern, gross), and she gladly accepts. He jumps on stage and announces to the entire club that they’re getting married. However, she’s still missing Noah subconsciously.

Speaking of, Noah comes home from war, presumably in 1945, and finds that his father sold him the house in order to buy the Windsor Plantation. Around the same time, Noah finds out that Allie’s moved on, and is with Lon. So, what does he do? The only logical thing: he restores the entire plantation by himself in order to win Allie back FUCKING REALLY?

Dude, you rebuilt an entire house on your own, your father died, and you could EASILY get rich off of selling the house and continuing to restore other derelict properties in the area! Upwards mobility, my man! You don’t even need to stay in town anymore! Hell, THAT’S a better plan to win both Allie’s AND her parents’ approval! STOP SIMPIN’, AND IF YOU’RE GONNA SIMP, DO IT RIGHT!!!

He’s also sleeping with a war widow, Martha Shaw (Jamie Brown), and STILL thinks only of Allie, and her sweet, sweeeeeeet bathwater, probably. Speaking of, Allie’s trying on a wedding dress, when she sees a photo of Noah in the paper in front of the plantation, which certainly shocks her. Confused, she goes to see Lon at his job as a stockbroker, and laments to him her lost romantic whimsy, brought up by seeing Ryan Gosling (AKA a natural response). She tells him that she’s going to Seabrook to “clear her head.” Lon asks if he should be worried. She says no. SHE LIIIIIIIIIIES.

Halfway mark, and this is a good place to cut! See you in Part 2!

#the notebook #nick cassavetes #ryan gosling #noah calhoun #rachel mcadams #allie hamilton #james garner #gena rowlands #james marsden #kevin connolly #romance february #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #supernovass #sincerelygabby

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heartless-error · 4 years

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Broken, not perfect, but together. - Chapter 4

Fandom: DC comics, Batman

Pairings: Jonathan Kent x Damian Wayne (JonDami) & Jason Todd x Timothy Drake (JayTim)

Rating: General, family feels, hurt/comfort, mental health issues, running away

Other(s) links: AO3

Broken.

The Batfamily was broken.

It was six years ago, and they had barely stood together since then, trying to stand up despite guilt and regret.

Damian was sure there was nothing to save, not after losing something that he didn’t know he cared about. But when a new opportunity to get back what they had lost appeared, he cannot help to doubt as his past decisions haunt him again.

If you love somebody, set them free. But you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.

Chapter 4

6 years ago

“Damian?” Jon asked quietly. “Are you there?”

No answer.

He didn’t expect it either, but the vague concern and suspicion that had led him fly away on a Tuesday evening to go to Gotham and see his partner increased in the back of his mind, along with his patience beginning to wear thin.

He held on the window frame and peered silently into the room. The place seemed tidy and same as ever, Damian’s things were in their right place as he liked, and drawings materials with his current notebook were placed on the table, but as if they had not been used recently. That was weird, along with the fact that everything was where it had to be except the owner of the room, who was the person he had come looking for and could not see anywhere.

This made Jon snort in exasperation. He knew Damian was here, he heard him, he felt him. He couldn’t see him, but that wasn’t necessary to find him. Robin couldn’t hide from him, not for long, and that was precisely what he had come to tell him. Because Damian had been avoiding him and thinks it’s for good reason.

Yes. These past two days he had been ignoring him, and it might not be anything, but his instincts told him otherwise, so he fly away and now is upset in front of his window, debating whether to enter or not. But he knew that if he didn’t decide quickly Batman would probably catch him and scold him again for sneaking around Gotham without permission, or worse, Alfred would.

Jon didn’t want to confront Alfred and had flown there for a reason, so taking a decision was very easy.

“I’m going in.” He warned as he entered the room and closed the window and the curtains behind him, just in case.

It was when he was inside and looking around that Jon was increasingly aware that he was here because of a very small and insignificant hunch. It had only been two days since Damian didn’t reply any texts, or calls, or give any signs of life in general. It wasn’t that long, it wasn’t even that much, he might be busy or on some mission, who knows?

But Jon was still irritated and worried. To be fair, that’s how he felt most of the time lately, because he was 13, Ktyptonian puberty was weird and he knew that wanting to talk to Damian and hear from him with such intensity wasn’t common. But he was already there, suspected something was wrong, warned before got in, had certain privileges for being his best friend and he only wanted answers. There was no turning back now.

“Damian?” He asked again as he walked into the room, searching for him and being careful not to touch anything.

As he flew there, he had been wondering how to ask him why hadn’t texted him these days, what his reasons might be, and why he cared so much. But now that Jon was there, those questions along with that part of him that had been worried and screaming in the background intensified as he confirmed part of his suspicions, realizing the unusual silence surrounding the manor, the sad atmosphere dominating the room and where Damian might actually be hiding.

Something’s happened.

He doesn’t know what, or if it’s very serious, but it’s enough for Bruce and his father to be on the phone for hours, for Clark being thoughtful and shocked after that, for break the fragile balance of the manor and for Damian to go to his usual hiding place when something went wrong.

And confirming it, makes the need to see him intensify.

Sighing and approaching the bed, he felt how the unease began to dominate him, as well as the curiosity of wanting to know what happened, how could he help and why it had affected his partner so much. It had to be bad, because it meant Damian hadn’t contacted him because of whatever had happened in Gotham.

At least it hadn’t been because of he’d been dreading internally in silence, that thing about Damian meeting a pretty, wealthy girl of his same age and status in Gotham High, more interesting and adequate than Jon and the one who Damian could end up falling in love, going to prom, marrying and running into the sunset with their countless children to live together forever as he completely forget about him and the special and unique bond they share and… Enough.

C’mon Jon, you’re not doing yourself any favor. And now it’s not the right moment, Jonathan, you have to help Damian.

So, crouching down on the side of the mattress, he grabbed the sheet and lifted it up as he peeked under it.

There were two pairs of green eyes in the darkness under the bed, and only one of them looked at him while the other remained fixed on nothing.

“Dami.” He called him softly.

Whatever has happened has to be big or emotionally conflictive, because Damian only chooses to take refuge under his bed when he has big breakdowns. And right now, seeing how the current Robin is lying on his back on the ground, in silence, without any expression, looking at nothing in the dark and holding his cat on his chest without strength, it was clear that he was fighting with himself more than usual.

“I’m going down there with you, okay?” He said kindly as before.

If he didn’t want it that way, didn’t show any of it. He just stayed just quiet and still as Jon slid under the mattress and lay down, enough close to him so their shoulders brushed.

He wondered if his lack of reaction was because he was too deep in his own head to deny him the entry or because his best friend privileges allowed him to be there. Whatever, he knew Damian was well aware of his presence no matter how much he didn’t show it.

The floor was clean, not cozy but this particular hideaway was always kept pretty decent. Damian never told him in detail, but he knew the reason he tended to hide here or in other tight places when was sad is because made him feel safe in a certain way. During his time in the league, he might have been treated like a prince, but should always be on guard, watching for his surroundings and ready to fight. But if he locked himself in a small place where no one could reach him, he had a moment of solitude and peace, because nobody could attack behind his back nor take him by surprise, he had the control and the security of being vulnerable for a single moment.

It’s also because once, after arguing with Tim over any nonsense that would affect him too much, he hid there. When the third Robin went looking for him he pretended not to find him, and Damian ended up sleeping. When he woke up a while later, he was in bed, tucked up and Tim sleeping next to him. They didn’t speak about it or apologize later, but they didn’t need to.

However, unlike them, Jon need to speak with him now. To know what happened and why of his reaction. As much as the silent support he was used to give him was there, he feared that this time it wouldn’t be enough.

He always feared not to be enough for Damian.

After a few minutes of silence between them, Jon slowly raised his hand to caress Alfred the cat, who had not moved from his place or taken his eyes off him since he joined them, as if wondering what he was doing there, despite being used to his presence.

However, while he was debating how to start the conversation -or whether to start it-, like a good cat he was, Alfred sniffed his hand, allowed him to pet him twice and then got tired, meowed in protest and quickly get off from Damian’s chest to ran away.

Jon didn’t know if apologize to the cat for bothering him or to apologize to Damian for taking away the comfort his pet gave him. But instead he said nothing and lowered his hand again in disappointment, still unsure what to do.

Damian still didn’t react, didn’t even seem sad for the cat’s disappearance, and his concern increased. But when he lowered his hand Jon could feel the touch of his, warm and close, so close, and easy to grab for comfort and to show him that he was still by his side. Would it be okay? How far he could press his luck today?

He was doubting again, almost panicking, when Damian’s voice finally broke the silence, revealing the cause of the entire disaster.

“Todd and Drake are dating.”

He said it in a monotonous and indifferent tone, which was clearly feigned. And at the revelation of that information, Jon tilted his head to stare at him, frowning but not saying anything now that Damian had begun to speak.

“We found out two nights ago, nobody liked it.” He continued, still in that cold and analytical tone. “Grayson and Father argued with them in the cave. Drake ended up crying.”

Jon frowned further and felt Damian’s hand shake lightly, as if he was holding back to clench his fist. He couldn’t blame him, Tim tends a lot to hold back his emotional responses and hide them carefully, everyone knows he has to be very affected and shaken to break like that. He doesn’t want to know what kinds of things could have been said in that fight to make Tim reach that limit, but the expectation causes him an agonizing and alarming discomfort.

“They want them to break up.” Damian said. “Because it’s dangerous, risky and irresponsible.”

This time was Jon who clenched his fist, not wanting to believe what he was hearing.

It was common knowledge that bats were very competent as detectives, they could catch rapist, drug dealers or killers with four clues or less. But when it comes to feelings, emotions, or relationships… Well, they had too many secrets, too many risks, and they are too compromised to the crusade to risk anything. They could even saw close friendships as dangerous in punctual moments.

However, Tim and Jason were an even bigger complication, and now he was starting to understand Damian’s conflicts and why he was like this. Because not only was Tim’s civil identity as CEO of WE added to the above, if not also the fact that both had strayed too far from the family -or at least from Bruce- in recent years. The relationship was tense and although he didn’t know the details, resentment was palpable in their interactions, you could tell Batman didn’t like the “Red team” and even Jon was aware that the only reason they put a feet on the manor were Damian, Alfred and Batcow.

Damian, who knew everything now, who had heard the fight and the same cruel words as them, who loved Tim and Jason as brothers more than ever since he started growing up by their side.

Damian, who couldn’t be agreed with those statements because, with him, he knew how happy Tim and Jason could be together.

“They can’t do that.” Jon answered, sighing uneasily. “They’ve been dating for three years already.”

Finally, that was what made Damian look away from the mattress to him, their faces too close, but his eyes sparkling with curiosity and reproach. Silently asking how he knew such detail.

Jon hesitated, not knowing how to answer properly. It had been obvious to him, with the flirting, the looks, the stolen sweatshirts, the shared safe houses, and the close and angry surveillance Kon kept on Hood sometimes. But he chose to say the more obvious and important reason to him.

“I know how a heart in love sounds like.” He replied, looking at the other intently.

Yes, he knew it. Learning to control his super-hearing had helped him to identify those kinds of things over time. And he learned to say what was behind the hearts that skipped a beat when seeing that person, behind those that beat fast when being too close or those who rumbled with strength and vigor just by being together.

He knew it because it was how his and Damian’s had always sounded.

And for a moment they said nothing, they were quiet again, looking at each other in the dim darkness, in their hiding place. Too much to say, too much to feel, too much to talk about. Jon swallowed hard and Damian shuddered in his position.

“They said it’s dangerous… Because Todd tried to kill Drake.” Damian ended up saying, lowering his voice and showing more uncertainty in his tone this time. “Because he was a killer, he was a criminal. And they can’t trust him.”

And there, there, there was the real problem.

The real reason Damian was in that state, hiding under his bed and not wanting to see anyone, not wanting to see him.

Because Jason was a killer, he was a criminal and he tried to kill Tim, just like Damian. And Tim was the youngest prodigy son, estranged, but good at what he does and seen as vulnerable by the other, just like him.

And if Bruce, Dick, and even his own father comforting Bruce on the phone, all those who Damian admired and believed couldn’t trust Jason, couldn’t give him a chance despite knowing he had reformed, he had changed, he had grown up and he loved Tim…

What will they say about them?

Jon immediately moved his hand to grab Damian’s tightly, forgetting his previous doubts and fears, even those of weeks ago, and feeling the discomfort sink his chest.

None of that indicated that they were going to react in the same way to them, it’s different but at the same time there were similarities, the words that were spoken in the cave had to be harsh and the thought of Clark talking to Bruce on the phone as if someone had dead instead Tim and Jason dating made him want to throw up.

“They think he’s going to hurt him.” Damian didn’t grab his hand back, he just said that looking at him still unsure and worried. “That he’s not appropriate, that they are better apart.”

Jon wanted to scream. Because he knew Damian wasn’t just talking about Jason, and people thinking that about him, just like Damian believing that about himself, made him angry, it hurts.

“Do you think that too?” He asked with a lump in his throat.

Damian’s hand trembled in his, indecisively. They still hadn’t taken their eyes off each other.

“No.” He answered then, completely sure. As if he didn’t have to ask anyone to find out the answer, and he didn’t. “I know he would rather die again than hurt him, and I know he will fight whatever it takes to be by his side, whether he’s worthy or not.”

The grip on his hand was returned, much stronger and secure than ever. His green eyes shining with determination and courage, saying things that couldn’t yet in words, their hearts beating strongly together again.

“That’s love.” Jon said, almost without breath.

“It is.” Damian replied, lacing their fingers.

Needless to say, they weren’t just talking about Tim and Jason.

#myfic #jaytim #jondami #damijon #timjay #tim drake #jason todd #jon kent #jonathan kent #damian wayne #red hood #red robin #superboy #robin #supersons

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asbcblog · 3 years

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TOP SONGS OF 2020 WRITE UP!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6WDeuRMOV8neAhU2zd193d?si=lZ9gDIp0TsCCEOeCS7_QGw

1. I remember everything - John Prine

I was going to write an incredibly earnest and long review of this song that outlined just how much John Prine meant to me. I can’t really do it and I think this song probably says enough alone. With only a few chords he always manages to express all the little things that make love what it is, all different kinds of love. Long lasting, short moments, love with places, sounds, going places and staying home, endless family ties, and the often fragile but in the end tenable love between all human beings in the face of catastrophe. The pandemic stole a lot of things from a lot of people this year, including John Prine, but he will remain one of the greatest songwriters of all time and his songs will live on forever.

2. Dream Palette - Yves Tumor

I can’t drive but let’s pretend I’m driving, I’m in LA and it’s night time or something, my elbow’s out the window, don’t know why I’m wearing sunglasses, this song comes on the radio, I’m the coolest person alive.

3. Boylife in EU- Yung Lean

Not to repeat my review of Garden but when the chorus comes I feel like I’m on top of a really big hill and its pouring it down with rain and im screaming but this time its because of a no-deal Brexit.

4. Garden- Joseph Futak

My review was already used as part of Joe’s promo campaign and it said: “feel like im on top of a really big hill and its pouring it down with rain and I’m screaming when the drums come in x x”

5. Circle the Drain- Soccer Mommy

I like this song because I too, am often alone in my room, and I have also become obsessed with subtle breakbeats to an extent where people around me have become very bored of the subject.

6. The Brothers William Said- The Innocence Mission

I listened to this song over and over when I was travelling round London in January just after my birthday, it felt like I’d been listening to it for years, like it was in a movie I’d forgotten. It felt at the time like I was saying a lot of goodbyes, recognising that things weren’t really like they used to be.

7. On the Floor- Perfume Genius

Say it with me ladies: I CROSS OUT HIS NAME ON THE PAGE!!!!

8. Shameika- Fiona Apple

She may not believe it but I bet Fiona Apple looked tough with a riding crop.

9. Song for Our Daughter- Laura Marling

Everything about this is fantastic, mellow and bright at the same time. Every part is brought forward individually and no part of this song gets left behind. A stunning vocal from Laura Marling and purposeful lyrics set to a cinematically emotive instrumental. Pure magic as always.

10. Building site outside- Piglet

Not going to lie, I was in a very vulnerable emotional state when I listened to this song for the first time, but I think that makes it no less powerful and just, sad. The lyric ‘she smiled at me so much last time’ is just so simple and devastating that you forget this would’ve been on every indie film soundtrack from 2000-2008 if Piglet was an industry plant.

11. I wonder- Shamir

One word: EPIC

12. Crimson Tide- Destroyer

Listened to this every time I came on my period this year.

13. In the Dining Room - Joe Pera talks with you

Adam showed me Joe Pera when I really felt incredibly sad at the very beginning of this year. It’s a show that’s made me feel good, no matter the circumstances. This moment in the show made me smile, and I love hearing Gene come in a bit too early.

14. Stupid Love- Lady Gaga

Shakin my little booty in the kitchen to this x

15. Might bang, might not- Little Simz

Livid we didn’t all get to go to End of the Road and see all the hot dad’s loving Little Simz.

16. Fire- Waxahatchee

A truly insane vocal. I listened to this song on my way to work almost every day from September to December and fantasised singing back up at some kind of outdoor gig in the summer and it made everything significantly less bleak.

17. Hannah Sun- Lomelda

This song is too nice and genuine for me to say anything other than, “really lovely song :)”.

18. Scroll of Sorrow- Machine Girl, guayaba

Listened to this a lot this year while sitting on my kitchen floor staring into an empty oven, wondering if I was ever going to go to a party again.

19. Build a nest- Jeff and Ruby Parker

Have put this on in the flat because the guitar solo reminds me of everything my dad listens to at home. A really great piece of music that kicks off a really exciting album.

20. Kiss me thru the phone- That Kid

Ned said yesterday that he thought it was funny how much the original of this song is so foundational to hyper pop and I agree. Also I’ve started saying ‘Bitch’ like That Kid does every time I stub my toe.

21. Cuckoo- Sam Amidon

I am punting down a creek, looking in the branches that hang over the water for the bird that shall lead me to my next clue.

22. Places/ Plans- Skullcrusher

Used this song to comfort myself in moments where I also just don’t understand why I’m not famous.

23. Sweetjoy- Jam City

Finally….. HAIM for dudes.

24. Clean Living- Slow Weather

I saw someone listening to this on the side of my Spotify so I decided to give it a go and it was a fantastic decision. It’s mental that half of this song is an outro.

25. Summer All Over- Blake Mills

Along with the music video visuals and the dampened piano tone, this wins the competition for least summer-y song with the actual word summer in the title.

26. Ready Cheeky Pretty- CHAI

All of my joy this year has been brought to me by CHAI. I have nothing negative to say about CHAI. If you have anything negative to say about CHAI you’re gonna have to go through me.

27. Diaphanous- Land of Talk

This band was recommended to me by a guy I was trying to flirt with at rough trade east but everything closed before I could impress him by saying ‘I think they’re really cool’.

28. Anything - Adrianne Lenker

Anyone who has ever attempted to write a song with me knows how much I simply love rhyming. Seriously though, every thing rhymes, brilliant stuff. (It’s also such a brilliantly full and constant song that still manages to move and remain exciting from start to finish. I imagine this is partially due to Adrianne Lenker’s almost nursery rhyme- esque structure and also due to her beautifully colloquial approach to family dynamics.)

29. Blow- Dj Gigola, Kev Koko

This song makes me wish I was Jason Bourne- just wanna jump really far while something explodes behind me.

30. Money Can’t Buy- Yaeji, Nappy Nina

‘Well I’ll buy some Yaeji tickets, they’re for NOVEMBER, there’s NO WAY they’re gonna get cancelled’.

31. Only the Truth- Johanna Warren

When I first listened to this song I felt like I was floating in the ocean looking up at the stars as the drums came in on ‘what more can I do’. An incredibly beautiful and careful song.

32. Gasoline- Haim

2020 could probably be summarised with the phrase ‘WHY AM I NO LONGER IN CALIFORNIA? WHY DID I LEAVE CALIFORNIA?’ And this song is the 3 minutes 13 seconds seconds of escapism I needed to not topple into a full spiral.

33. Mapuu - Ic3peak

No one can convince me that Ic3peak are real people. They are a collective made up of child ghosts.

34. Don’t Worry- Bladee

Whenever I have an anxiety attack in the night I wake up and see Bladee’s ghost of the future over my bed, he says ‘Don’t worry’ and mumbles for a bit as I fall back into a peaceful sleep.

35. The biggest tits in history- The magnetic fields

The most relatable magnetic fields song imo.

36. Sand Castle- nijuu

Yujin is a genius and my answer is yes, I do want to just walk for a while.

37. Curl Up- Darren Hayman

Ned reminded me how much I used to love Darren Hayman, and both of them have been a pretty big part of my year.

38. When Will Death Come- Sarah Mary Chadwick

‘Wow, mental voice’ - Ned, while doing the washing up.

39. Dear Dad - Sylvie Wiley

‘But I didn’t cry, you’d be proud’ Sylvie, I’m weeping forever.

40. 34+35- Ariana Grande

Hehehehehehehehehe

41. Garden Song- Phoebe Bridgers

Phoebe Bridgers is a pretty unparalleled lyricist and this song feels like a disconnected series of thoughts that somehow all make sense together and come to create something that doesn’t build, but all just kind of sits? What I’m trying to say is that I don’t really know what she’s talking about but like, I get it.

42. Ringtone (remix) - 100 gecs, Charli xcx, Kero Kero Bonito, Rico Nasty,

I love the way it sounds like everyone got just one take and had to improvise all the lyrics but it still bangs.

43. Changer- Andy Shauf

Thank you lord for another album about a smaller than average man overthinking all of his social interactions with lots of lovely clarinet parts.

44. What’s your pleasure - Jessie Ware

My pleasure jessie? Probably just sitting by the fire with a tough crossword and a glass of merlot x

45. Slime- Shygirl

Shygirl’s series of singles this year made me even more livid that I had to take out my eyebrow piercing for my new job this year.

46. Sears Tower- Salem

Perfect halloween release.

47. Title track- happyness

Ned turned to me and said: ‘so is their new thing that they sound like Elliot Smith’ and I said: ‘and that’s a bad thing?’

48. Cross-sound ferry (walk on ticket) - Hamilton Leithauser

Have found unbelievable joy in chopping veg and shouting GREEEEEEEN PORT, NEEEEEEWWWW YOOORK alone in my kitchen.

49. Lowswimmer- Hailaker

I’ve loved hearing Jemima’s voice when I haven’t got to see her much this year. I normally take the piss out of the Hambledon line but I haven’t seen that this year really either. I guess we find sentimentality in strange places.

50. XS - Rina Sawayama

This song made me feel very decadent on those days where I didn’t wash.

51. Emily- Clem Snide

Let’s be more kind and brave in the face of it all.

52. Building a fire- Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy

P.O.V you’re doing bushcraft in the garden with your husband Bonnie Prince Billy and he’s here to protect you.

53. Asexual Wellbeing- Okay Kaya

This song absolutely bangs but I am truly bewildered by the way they singled out the line ‘if they could put a pulse into a spinach leaf, can they turn the two of us into a tree?’ in the production as if that was a true piece of genius. As I say great tune tho.

54. Anthems- Charli xcx

The soundtrack to couch to 5k

55. Never Better- Kitty Fitz

A SE London queen bringing us huge pop tunes in 2020. So so excited to see what 2021 brings us from Kitty, she’s gonna be a real force!

56. Deep in Love- Bonny Light Horsemen

This is such a delightful song which (mainly due to the time I actually got around to listening to the whole record) for me really rang in the spring. A beautifully recorded testament to the feeling of love getting stronger meaning you have a lot more to lose.

57. Malibu- Kim Petras

My song of the summer, made me feel like I was at the beach when really I was in Lewisham.

58. Like I’m Winning it- Girlpool

I’m so delighted that the turn girlpool have made this year is towards dramatic goth music with breakbeats. Their voices both sound amazing and they look simply incredible.

59. Azad- Frazey Ford

I have no idea what she’s saying as always but I love it.

60. Helio- Charlotte Dos Santos

I’m literally so excited for what Charlotte Dos Santos is gonna put out next. The production is fantastic and her aesthetics are flawless.

61. Lost in the Country- Trace Mountains

‘I checked my email twice as I cried’. Safe to say we’ve all been there this year amirite girlies x

62. Unfold You- Rostam

I hated this at first, I thought, what’s this lo-fi beats to study to shit, but it’s now my classic ‘I’m just gonna pop to the shops, anyone want anything? x’ song. Huge.

63. Oh Yeah- A.G cook

One of 2020s realisations is that me and A.G Cook kind of look like we could be cousins.

64. Can’t cool me down- Car Seat Headrest

I would like to personally thank will Toledo for giving me a tune that got me off my ass when I was too warm to do exercise this summer.

65. Take back the radio- Katy J Paerson

In love with Katy J Pearson’s voice and the way this song builds. Just pretty flawless and feel good in my opinion. I think she’s such an exciting new artist who’s gonna be around for a very very long time.

66. Good Woman- The Staves

‘I’m a good woman’… speak for yourselves.

67. A Little Love- Jack Francis

Feel like I’ve been singing this song for about 5 years! It’s amazing and I’m so excited about what Jack’s going to bring out in 2021, he’s a genius and also the nicest man on the planet.

68. Lullaby No.4 - Snailbeach

This song makes me feel like I’m being hypnotised on a haunted carousel in a very relaxing way.

69. Boyfriend in every city- Roma Radz

Sucks that she can’t see any of her boyfriends cos of covid :(

70. Jaja ding dong- Will Ferrell

Get back in there and play Jaja Ding Dong !!!!

71. Highway- Jonatan leandoer96

Man, would be pretty sick to have 20 boys outside the club but alas the clubs are dead and I’ve only regularly texted about 4 people this year.

72. De nadie- Kali Uchis

Felt v sexy listening to this for the first time in a Morley’s in Honor Oak.

73. Weird Fishes- Lianne La Havas

This album was a pretty triumphant return for Lianna La Havas and me teenage self simply couldn’t be happier.

74. Micro Creature- Aya Gloomy

Love that despite everything about this song telling me otherwise, that the artwork for this single looks like Aya Gloomy is just chilling in the fields by my family home in Hampshire.

75. Si Ella Sale- Bad Bunny

Better get on the duolingo now if I’m gonna know what this guy’s saying at Porto next year.

76. Through my sails- Mountain Man

Truly gentle reimagining of an already incredibly beautiful song, mountain man make every word seem new!

77.Christmas Day (get me outta this funk) - Baggio and Blue 5 Years- Bath days

In joint 77th place are two banging Christmas songs that have soundtracked a pretty bleak Christmas period and have made me feel pretty joyous in their ways, despite one literally being called Blue Five Years.

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violetsmoak · 4 years

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Philtatos [13/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20101543/chapters/47690671

Blanket Disclaimer

Summary: During a patrol where Red Hood and Red Robin cross paths, Jason is infected with the blood of the Eros, the ancient God of Love, who informs them that they must track down his missing bow and arrows, or Jason will go slowly mad with an obsessive desire–for Tim. Though overwhelmed by the sudden attention being paid to him, Tim sets to work trying to solve the case, before Jason succumbs to madness. In the meantime, Jason discovers that there’s more than godlike powers at work here, as well as a legacy that reaches back through the sands of time.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

Beta Reader: None at the moment.

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: #fatal flaw #secrets #riddle #fate #revenge #oracle #betrayal #prophecy #jealousy

First Chapter

________________________________________________________________

Tim feels a little bad about using Jason’s skin hunger against him but only for a moment. Any concern about that vanishes when he peeks back at Jason as they walk, and observes the color returning to the other man’s cheeks. The hand clasped in his own stops shaking the longer they touch.

Tim has never been one to enjoy holding hands—often he’s felt uncomfortable or self-conscious, worrying about sweaty fingers or whether the other person might consider it lame—but this doesn’t feel like that.

This feels right.

It’s actually concerning how right it feels, especially in light of his recent discussion with Steph.

Stop it. This isn’t about you. It’s about putting Jason at ease.

They return to the containment unit to find Barbara facing down Eros—an impressive feat considering she’s in a wheelchair and he’s the one looking down on her. Her face is drawn in irritation, and he’s gratified to see that Eros seems put-out about something.

“Took you long enough. Cherry here says she’s got a bonafide prophecy from the Oracle of Delphi and wouldn’t share it until you got back.” He eyes their entwined hands and leers. “I take it the domestics are going well?”

“Get bent,” Tim snaps in irritation as Jason tugs his hand back so fast he might as well have been burned.

“Only if you do the honors, pretty boy.”

Jason growls and makes a move for his gun, but Tim reaches out to stop him.

“Can you not tease him?” he demands of Eros. “Especially when the only reason he’s like this is because of you.”

“Oh, if only you knew…”

Before Tim can comment on that, Jason interrupts.

“What’s the feathered freak talkin’ about?” he snaps, radiating tension. “What prophecy?”

“The one Signal was able to recover from the girl that was killed,” Barbara says coolly. “He transcribed it and sent it along. Do you want to hear it, or do you want to keep acting like a child?”

This she directs at Eros, who actually does look chastised a beat, before gracing her with a cool smile.

“I guess it is apropos if you do the honors, darlin’,” Eros says with a cool smile. “Is it ironic or coincidental if someone who stole the title of oracle interprets a prophecy from the actual Oracle of Delphi?”

“Who cares? This whole situation is making me hate both irony and coincidence,” Tim says.

“It’s making me wonder if there are any coincidences,” Jason mutters, eyes fixed on Eros in intense dislike.

Barbara offers him an identical look, before thumbing the screen of her phone and opening her incoming messages.

Then she begins to read:

“The Unseen darkness cannot keep its captive thrice for mortal masks the divine that seeks its reward in the city where dark nights conceal the greatest of secrets.

“Crossed beneath the stars when the Rager’s Moon is full, eternal freedom is neigh upon the eleventh moment of the small hour.The sacrifice of the virgin gifts triumph to the prisoner and that which drowned in Lethe’s tears is reborn.

“But take heed, for the winged scion of Cythera, willingly blinded by the veil of vengeance revealed by Discord’s most cursed boon, awakens the warrior guided by the Physicians heir.

“Fury dooms the fair, heralding the return of magnificent Alexandros and one whose name is painted in blood and stone.

“Greatest of loves, damned by the gleam of a golden barb, torn asunder by jealousy and parted by cruel death, they will stand against Strife.

“Titans will rise and one who Death names hero, betrayed yet shielded by love, will sunder the chains of Aidoneus and avenge the victim of grievance. One will be born anew, the other bound eternally to Stygian Darkness.”

There is silence as she puts the phone down, eyebrows drawn together in thought.

“What?” Tim says.

“I see your ‘what’ and raise you a ‘the fuck’,” Jason adds. “Does any of that make sense to anyone else? Because it don't make sense to me.”

“Blame my uncle,” Eros says, apparently annoyed.

“What? Why?” Tim wants to know. “Which one’s he?”

“Apollo,” Barbara says, still considering the puzzling words on the screen. “Aside from being a sun god, he was also the god of prophecy.”

“Talking in riddles is his favorite pastime,” Eros agrees. “It’s a pain in the ass.”

“I’ll bet,” Tim agrees. “We’ve got someone like that here in Gotham.”

“Yeah, and he’s a frequent guest of Arkham, so what’s that tell you?” Jason grumbles.

“That people who come up with riddles have too much time on their hands.”

“There’s a reason the Oracles of Delphi didn’t put their predictions into simple words,” Barbara points out. ”If you give people information about what’s coming, how do you know you’re not ensuring it will or won’t come to pass? It was important for them to be seen as the medium of the message and not an agent.

“By keeping information vague, it would seem like they were allowing a querant the chance to defy fate, while at the same time allowing fate to take its natural course, whatever that might be,” Eros agrees. “Ans it was good insurance. Even Oracles needed to cover their asses. You were less likely to get your head lopped off by a visiting king that received news he didn’t want to hear. And whatever the outcome, they could still say, ‘we told you so’.” He considers Barbara. “You know, I don’t usually find brainy sexy, but you might just turn me.”

“I’m thrilled,” she deadpans.

“So what’s all this supposed to mean, anyway?” Tim asks, trying to bring the discussion back to the matter at hand.

“It could mean anything. Though to start with, that bit about ‘unseen darkness’, that’s an epithet for the Underworld in old Hellenic documents.”

“We called it that in the old days,” Eros confirms.

“And then there’s the part about someone captive in Hades.”

“I thought Hades was a person?” Tim says.

“It is. But it’s also a place.” Jason tells him.

“It depends on what story and what source you’re drawing from,” Barbara elaborates. “And what translation.”

“What about the next bit? About mortal maskin' the divine?”

“Could that mean whoever’s possessing Carrie Cutter?” Tim suggests. “We’ve already established she’s got help from a god, and if they’re inhabiting her body even for short amounts of time, it’s a pretty effective mask.”

“No doubt,” Eros agrees. “Not so sure about that part with dark nights, but I guess it’s referring to this cesspool you people call a city.”

Tim, Jason and Barbara exchange glances, knowing exactly how dark nights and secrets relate to their city.

Maybe Duke misheard. It might not be dark ‘nights’ so much as dark ‘knights’. Which makes sense, considering Bruce and Dick both have that title depending on the day.

“Safe to say it’s Gotham,” Tim confirms. “So all that begs the question, do you have any idea who’s locked in the Underworld trying to get out?”

Eros snorts. “The better question is who isn’t locked in the Underworld.”

Jason is glaring furiously at Eros, clearly growing tired of his evasive and snarky answers. The way his fists clench, Tim suspects he’s close to throwing a punch at the glass in frustration. Not something Tim wants to see, especially given Jason’s injuries from their altercation with Carrie Cutter and Dick haven’t even been seen to yet.

God, it feels like it was days ago but it was only hours. He probably came right here to confront Eros without even looking after himself.

He has to put that out of his mind for now. Deciphering any clues in the prophecy takes momentary precedence.

“…. A lot of myths end with someone displeasing a god and getting sent to Tartarus, so he has a point,” Barbara is saying, her thumbs busily texting something on her phone.

“So that’s not going to tell us anything,” Tim decides. “What about the ‘crossed beneath the stars’ part?”

“More of the same in terms of pinpointing when everything is supposed to happen,” Eros says.

“Which is when?”

“November twenty-third,” Barbara says, frowning at the small screen in her hand.

Jason looks askance. “How d’you know?”

“'Moon’ equates to month, and another name for Zeus was the Rager,” she replies. “So, Zeus’s month. According to the Athenian calendars we still have access to, Zeus’s month was Maimakterion—which in modern times would fall somewhere between November and December. And the next full moon—” She holds up her phone, showing a lunar calendar for the month, “—falls on November twenty-third. It’s the only full moon that falls during Maimakterion.”

Eros nods along in approval. “What she said.”

“And the small hour?”

“Midnight.”

“So, whatever’s supposed to happen is going to happen eleven minutes after midnight…assuming that’s what moment means,” Tim muses, glancing at his own phone calendar. “That’s this Friday.”

“Five days from now,” Jason agrees, and side-eyes Tim. “We’ve all had shorter deadlines.”

“That’s not necessarily referring to your deadline, sweet cheeks,” Eros reminds him. “I figure you have about half that.”

“No thanks to you.”

“You know, the last Jason I knew wasn’t this whiny.”

“Children,” Barbara says sharply. “Let’s stay focused, shall we? I’m concerned about this virgin sacrifice part—specifically the part where it ensures success for someone we probably don’t want to succeed.”

“Cutter did kill that girl,” Tim reminds them. “Maybe it was some kind of offering, so she’d be successful at whatever she’s trying to do.”

“It’s a good an explanation as anything else,” Eros agrees, examining his nails. “We always did love our human sacrifices. And a virgin does increase the likelihood of something working out to your advantage.”

“You’re a piece of shit,” Jason growls. “That’s a kid you’re talking about!”

“And as an Oracle of Delphi she’s entitled to an eternity of bliss once she enters the Underworld,” Eros dismisses. “It’s a better end than some people are entitled to.”

Jason’s eyes blaze as if that’s a personal insult. Tim can certainly empathize.

“What about the second part?” he prompts. “What’s Lethe?”

“The Lethe was the river the souls drank from to forget their previous lives before being reincarnated,” Barbara explains.

“The Ancient Greeks believed in reincarnation? But I thought that was something from the Far East?”

“Many ancient cultures had a concept of reincarnation beyond the Hindu and Buddhist mythos,” Barbara explains. “Just look at the belief systems of the indigenous peoples of North America and you’ll see countless examples. And they didn’t have any contact with the civilizations of Asia during the time when those faiths were evolving.”

Beside Tim, Jason is as stiff as a board and appears to be having trouble breathing. Automatically, Tim edges closer to him, and though he doesn’t outright take his hand—he leans into him, nudging him with his shoulder.

Jason’s eyes dart to him for a moment, and he relaxes incrementally.

“How does that relate here though?” Barbara wants to know.

“Maybe the prisoner forgot something,” Eros suggests, not sounding very interested.

“Or maybe whoever’s tryin' to escape Hades as made to forget something,” Jason counters darkly.

“Only mortals can be made to forget by drinking from the Lethe,” Barbara says. “The prisoner could have been human. Salmoneus or Tantalus or one of the Dainads.”

Tim doesn’t even get a chance to question who they are before Eros interrupts. “Actually, it’s a little broader than just mortals. More like mortals, demigods that haven’t consumed ambrosia, giants, hybrids—”

“So again, we’re back to a broad spectrum of people it could be talkin' about,” Jason complains. “Great. Is there anyone or anything in this stupid prophecy that isn’t doublespeak?”

“Well, the next verse is pretty self-explanatory. Obviously, we’re talking about yours truly,” Eros says, pointing at himself. “What other 'winged son' do you know from mythology?”

“A case could be made for Pegasus.”

“No, it’s Eros,” Tim says. “Cythera’s another name for Aphrodite.” Everyone looks at him in surprise.

“How do you know that?” Jason asks, but where the emphasis ought to suggest incredulity, he sounds impressed.

Tim tries not to bask in that.

“My parents used to visit the island of Cythera a lot when they weren’t on business trips, especially before I was born. It was their favorite vacation destination. Full of history, not touristy—they didn’t like having to socialize with people when they were on vacation.”

Tim falls silent then, remembering sitting in his living room with his parents, pouring over their vacation photos of the Mediterranean island while they told stories. They’d always promised to take him one day…

He glances up and notices the others are watching him now—Eros with a sharp, calculating gaze while Jason appears concerned. As for Barbara, she seems to sense his discomfort, because she navigates them past the lull. “Okay, so if it’s Eros, what are you wanting revenge for? It’s not exactly your M-O.”

“I can think of a few people who have it coming,” Eros answers. “Starting with my mother.”

“What’d she do?” Tim asks.

“Do you have a few centuries worth of couch time?”

“Isn’t she the reason your wife died?” Barbara wants to know. “In the myth, she survived, but Tim told me that's not what happened in reality.”

Eros expression goes cold.

“That’s right,” Tim remembers; he and Eros had this conversation a few days ago, didn’t they? “Aphrodite is the one who sent Psyche to the underworld.”

Eros bares his teeth. “One of her many sins, but not the only one.”

“Then couldn’t the prophecy maybe be referring to her? Psyche, I mean? Maybe she’s the prisoner.”

“Are you implying my wife is the one behind your Cupid’s actions?” Eros growls. “Because that’s impossible.”

“How would you know? It could be—”

“Because she died a mortal! Her soul is mortal and wouldn’t have the power to escape the Underworld in any capacity! Furthermore, Psyche would never kill or arrange the death of anyone! She was good and pure of soul and that’s why I fell in love with her.”

“That’s not what I read,” Barbra says. “Didn’t you prick yourself on one of your golden arrows while watching her?”

“I pricked myself because I fell in love with her,” he snaps. “I’ve already told Jason here that the arrows only work to magnify emotions that are already there.”

“That makes no sense. You liked her before you made yourself fall in love with her?”

“Look, you know the story: Psyche was beautiful. So much so, that the idiots in her kingdom started treating her like a living goddess, bringing the gifts meant for my mother to this human princess. You can guess how well that went over.”

“Right. She sent you to make her fall in love with a horrible beast.”

“Yeah, one of Diomedes mares. Gorgeous animals—people would stop and stare at them for hours. Also, vicious, flesh-eating beasts. Just getting to close to one of those and it would have ripped her to shreds—and she would have stood there and let it.” Eros’ expression becomes soft, eyes faraway at the memory. “If she had been some arrogant, selfish royal I would have let it happen. But I watched her for days while I tried to put her in the path of that thing. And everything she did was just good and kind. I had never seen as pure a soul like hers.” He shakes his head. “The idea of a girl like that being sent to her death just because a bunch of idiot humans had the audacity to praise her alongside my mother didn’t seem fair.”

“And you’re all about fair, aren’t you?” Jason sneers.

Tim has to agree; if Eros cared about fair, he would have been a lot more helpful about curing Jason and wouldn’t have demanded they find his diviners beforehand.

“I was young and stupid, and I didn’t realize the world didn’t work that way,” Eros dismisses. “Even for gods. I thought my mother would never want to harm me—and so if I put Psyche under my protection, she couldn’t hurt her. And if I could show my mother what a good wife Psyche was, even if she was unable to see me, it would prove the point.” He snorts. “It didn’t exactly go my way.”

“And there’s no way her soul could have somehow been corrupted when she died?”

“The Underworld is stagnant. There’s no such thing as change or time there. Everything occurs both in one moment and in all moments there.”

“So you’re saying a soul going in would remain in the same state as it was when it died,” Barbara posits.

“Exactly. How else do you expect the judges to judge souls if they kept changing after death? It’d be a headache.

“Then if it’s not Psyche, who else can you think of that it might be?”

“It might be more than one person,” Tim suggests. “That line about 'greatest of loves'—what if that’s why Carrie’s been targeting couples? She hears the prophecy—or whoever’s riding along inside her hears the prophecy—and thinks there’s a couple out there that’s going to stand against her. She could be trying to eliminate potential threats to her end goal.”

“If so, we need to decipher her criteria for choosing her victims. You already said it didn’t seem like they had anything in common.”

“We’ll have to check again. Maybe now that we’ve got this prophecy, something new will jump out.”

“We skipped a whole verse,” Jason points out. “The ‘warrior guided by the physician’s heir’. Any ideas?”

Eros shrugs. “Since the rest of the prophecy involves me, I’d say it’s me.”

“How do you figure?”

“The Physician is another name for Apollo.”

“So?”

“So, who do you think taught me archery? Next to him, I’m the greatest archer among the Olympians.”

“Or it could be Jason,” Tim ponders.

Jason seems to go pale, almost panicked. “What?”

“I mean, assuming you’re interpreting ‘awaken’ by activating the way you do with a sleeper agent. You infected him with your blood however accidentally and then pressed him into doing your dirty work.”

“I resent your tone, boy,” Eros grumbles, but Jason interjects, “And the other bit?”

“The other bit is just really literal,” Barbara catches on. “Jason, you were trained by Batman. Who was the heir to an actual physician. The M.D. kind.”

Thomas Wayne.

Jason looks like he doesn’t know what to do with that information. “Shit.”

Eros watches Jason, inscrutable eyes considering; Jason glares back at him as if waiting for him to make a comment.

“But if it’s Jason, the next bit wouldn’t make sense,” Barbara says after a moment. “‘Magnificent Alexandros’. The only Alexandros I can think of off the top of my head if Alexander of Macedon. But that doesn’t really track with the rest of the verse. He was a historical figure, not mythological.”

“That’s offensive, you know,” Eros drawls. “All those stories you call mythology actually happened.”

“Then why don’t we have an archaeological record for them?”

“Because screw you, that’s why.”

“If it is talking about Alexander the Great, Robin will be happy,” Tim says with a rueful smirk.

Jason is perplexed. “Why?”

“Apparently he was on the list of the kid’s League-approved childhood heroes. Mother-son bonding time seems to have included traveling in his footsteps as preparation for world domination.”

Jason looks surprised and amused. “Really?”

“Is it that surprising?”

“No, it’s just…” Jason shakes his head. “Never mind.” He clears his throat. “So, back to the prophecy. It talks about the Titans—are we talkin' the creatures the Olympian gods overthrew?”

“Well, whenever one of us mention the Titans, it is usually those bottom feeders rotting in Tartarus, yes,” Eros says dryly, inscrutable focussed on Jason. “Them going free is never a good thing. Don’t believe me, read the Titanomachy. Hesiod got it pretty close to right.”

“Could be the goal, could be the result,” Tim suggests.

“Which brings us back to possibly being on the lookout for more than one prisoner escaping Hades,” Barbara says.

“And all of that leads us to the typical ‘one shall live and one shall die’ device,” Eros concludes.

“Only we don’t know who either of those is.”

“I can tell you now if it’s a prophecy involving me, I have no intention of dying."

“If it’s even about you. It’s not really an exact science, interpreting this sort of thing,” Barbara warns. “Even an Olympian like you can misunderstand—there’s evidence of that in the myths. In fact, I’m sure we’re missing more than is good for us. It will take some time to decipher it and we need more information.”

“At least we have something,” Tim maintains. “The exact date when it’s going to happen and where. We can begin preparing for that.”

“It’s a whole hell of a lot to think about,” Jason agrees.

“Which you can do back at the Cave. We only came here to see if Eros could shed some light on the prophecy or see the arrows.”

“What arrows?”

“Wonder Girl told us that to reverse what’s been done to Nightwing is to remove the arrow that Carrie stabbed him with.”

“Uh, there is no arrow,” Jason says. “Cupid took it with her, remember?”

“I guess that answers that question,” Barbara sighs. “You can’t see them.”

“Of course he can’t,” Eros says. “I’m the only one that can see the wounds caused by my arrows. Even this pseudo-Cupid wouldn’t be able to see them.”

“After she stabbed Jason she seemed to be looking for something, so I’m not sure about that,” Tim argues.

“She can’t see them. Though it may be possible her divine passenger might. I don't know. Never had another god take my diviners before."

“Speaking of being stabbed,” Tim goes on, nodding at the bruises coming out on his face. There are likely more hidden by the leather jacket and gear. “You should get those looked at.”

“I didn’t physically get stabbed, you know. Magic wounds don’t need to be looked at.”

“You went toe-to-toe with an enhanced fighter and Batman. You could have internal bleeding for all we know.”

“If you think a little tussle with that dick is going to do lastin' damage—”

Tim cuts off his indignation. “I don’t, but you haven’t been eating or sleeping properly, and your system is already compromised, so how do you know what damage was or wasn’t done? You didn’t stay to get treated at the Cave.”

Their eyes meet, remembering exactly why that is, and Tim’s cheeks darken. Jason is the first to look away, though.

“It’s nothin'. I can patch myself up whenever.”

“I can help—”

“I’m good.”

“Jason—”

“I’m an adult and I’ve been treatin' myself without help for years now,” Jason interrupts tensely. When Tim can’t stop himself from flinching, Jason’s eyes flash with dismay. “I mean…” He flounders like he’s trying to take it back, and instead changes the subject. “Didn’t you say somethin' about a list? Maybe get started on that and I’ll do an injury check myself.”

It’s a clear cop-out, and if they were alone, Tim would be calling him on it.

“I’ll ask for help if I need any,” he adds, awkwardly, like it’s been a long time since anyone actually cared about his injuries being treated.

Barbara glances between the two of them, obviously sensing the undertone, but not commenting on it. Instead, she says, “I don’t mind helping Jason. Besides, Red Robin needs to contact the Family and let them know what we know.”

“And I need food,” Eros says. “I haven’t eaten since before you went on your little reconnaissance mission. Can’t you see? I’m wasting away.”

“If only,” Jason mutters.

Tim is torn, wanting to argue that he can help Jason, but at the same time trying to respect the other man’s obvious need for distance.

At last, he nods.

“Okay,” he says, feeling a little defeated. “Let’s take a break. I’ll make a food run…you get yourself fixed up.”

“Whatever you say, babybird.”

⁂

Once Tim vanishes, Barbie indicates with a jerk of her head that Jason should follow her upstairs to the Nest medbay. He knows better than to think it’s just her wanting to take a look at his injuries—like him, she’s probably looking for some privacy.

They take the elevator up in silence, and Jason wonders vaguely when the last time was, he was this close to Barbara Gordon.

I don’t think I have been, actually. We both avoid the manor unless there’s no choice. And we both have good reasons for it. And when we are there together, there’s usually about six to ten feet of distance between us.

They were never what he would call close before she was paralyzed and he died. Barbie was Dick’s girl and Jason’s occasional babysitter until the Joker ruined her life. And then she wasn’t around at all. Jason wasn’t alive to watch her painstakingly drag herself up and pull it together again, so he never got the chance to interact with the Barbara Gordon that became Oracle.

Since returning to Gotham he’s kept her at a distance as much as he did the rest of the Family, so it’s somewhat surprising to him that she’s here now and working to help him.

Probably it’s on account of Tim.

Still silent, they enter the surgically pristine room of the Nest’s medical wing—and Jason is a little jealous of the supplies here. It makes the kits he has in his safehouses about as sophisticated as a needle and threat.

Barbie watches him, framed in the doorway.

“Well? Spit it out,” he grunts, deciding to get whatever reprimands are forthcoming out of the way.

Her look turns sharp before she reaches into her jacket pocket for something; Jason can’t help tensing up, even though she knows the likelihood of her pulling a weapon on him are slim to none.

That suspicion is confirmed when she instead draws out a device and turns it on; there’s a high-pitched background whir that Jason recognizes as a listening device scrambler.

Clearly we’re both aware of what a paranoid freak Timbers can be.

“Okay, Jason, what’s going on?” she asks without preamble. “You know Tim only wants to help you.”

“Yeah, at his own expense,” he retorts sourly.

Barbies raises an eyebrow as if waiting for him to continue, and when he doesn’t, she presses, “You’re being cagey. And it’s more than just worrying about losing control around Tim, I can tell.”

“Oh you can, can you?” he challenges.

“I’ve known you since you were still desperately trying to live up to Dick while pretending like you didn’t care. I know when you’re hiding something,” she folds her arms. “Believe it or not, Jason, you’re a terrible liar when it comes to things that matter.”

It’s reflex to want to say something caustic to that, but he stops himself in time. He needs Barbara’s help and pissing her off isn’t going to make his life any easier.

“I need a favor,” he admits after a beat.

“Another one?” she repeats, sounding like she doesn’t believe him. “You’re going to owe me a lot.”

“Yeah, well, now would be the time to collect on those debts while I still can.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means everyone else is tiptoein' around the subject, but at some point, I’m gonna need to be put under,” he says, erring on the side of just enough truth to keep her from questioning him further. “We both know what I’m talkin' about here.”

As expected, Barbara only just keeps herself from visibly recoiling; she’s already ready with an argument. “You don’t know we won’t find something before that happens.”

“I’m already feelin' like I’m livin' in someone else’s skin—” Literally, in a way. “—I’m not gonna get any better than I am right now. We’ve already seen what it looks like when I dip toward worse. So while I’m still lucid, let me make my decisions. And my decision is, I’d rather go under while I’m still me instead of violent, mindless…reaver.”

Barbara does a minor double-take. “Did you just make a Firefly reference?”

“It’s the last series I was watching before I died,” Jason says, a little defensive.

“I’m not judging, just surprised. Dick and Tim are usually the ones making pop-culture references to deflect. I’m not used to it from you.”

“And I’m not used to you stallin',” he counters. “You’re different from the other Bats, O. You know how to cut your losses, and you know how to make decisions when no one else wants to think about it. You get makin' the hard calls. So, I’m gonna ask you: when it comes down to a choice between me and Tim—and I mean when, not if—who do you save?”

Something like pain passes over her face, and then resolve hardens her face. “Tim.”

“Exactly,” he approves. “Because unlike me, he’s good. And smart.”

“You’re both of those things, even if you pretend like you’re not,” she protests.

“And he hasn’t committed multiple murders,” Jason continues, acting like he didn’t hear her. “Not that what I’ve done wasn’t justified. It wasn’t good, but I don’t regret it because I will go to my grave believin' sometimes that line needs to be crossed. Again. But it’s still a line Tim’s been lucky enough not to have to cross.”

She doesn’t argue with him, instead inclines her head.

“More people will miss him if he were gone then they would me,” Jason concludes. “I’m not supposed to be here anyway.”

There’s a long beat of measuring silence. Then, Barbara sighs. “What is it you need, Jason?”

He tilts his chin in gratitude.

“I didn’t just come here to yell at Eros,” he admits. “If Wonder Woman doesn’t show up, he’s the only one I know who has access to the stuff I need.”

“The Stygian Sleep.”

“Yeah. But it’s probably in GCPD lock-up.” He gives her a quick run-down of events, minus anything about Eros’ intentional plan to infect him. Babs listens, jaw set and eyes narrowed; given what she just said about him, she likely knows he’s not being completely truthful, but his explanation clearly holds enough water that she doesn’t call him on it.

“I’ll get someone to look into it,” she decides at last.

Which, even though he’s relieved about, he’s also suspicious.

“And by ‘look into’ you mean grab hold of and perform a million tests on it before handin' it over,” he posits.

“Just because you’re hellbent on using something that’s effectively going to kill you doesn’t mean I don’t want to know everything about it first,” she says, unapologetic. “Like the prophecy, it might have clues about how to circumvent it.”

“Yeah, because we’re having so much luck with that.”

“Also, when Bruce comes to me later in a righteous fury for letting his son die a second time, I’ll be able to assure him we knew everything we did about it before making an informed decision.”

Jason doesn’t pretend to believe that’s the end of it. Barbara might be willing to humor Jason a little more than Bruce, or even Dick when he’s not compromised—she might even be a little more objective in considering things, but she’s not going to trust Jason’s plan to be the only plan. She’ll have her own contingencies, the same as any Bat.

The only difference with Babs is that once it’s over and done with, and it becomes clear there’s no saving him, she’ll have an easier time getting over it than Bruce will. And she won’t let it compromise her work.

Tim’s told Jason what Bruce and Dick were like after he died the first time, and if it happens again, Gotham needs someone competent in keeping things in check.

And Tim…

Jason’s heart thuds with guilt.

This time, Tim won’t just be sweeping in to pick up the broken pieces of Batman and Nightwing as he did as a kid. He won’t be watching it from the sidelines.

The memory hits him then. To his surprise, it’s not from Achilleus or Alexandros.

Jason hates Wayne Charity galas.

People are always staring at him, murmuring through pasted-on smiles that even if he couldn’t read lips, he would be able to hear the judgment dripping from their words. These people are so achingly dry and genteel, their teeth don’t even unclench around their vowels.

Bruce doesn’t make him come to all that many of these shindigs, thankfully; only the ones involving children’s advocacy and the like. Jason doesn’t mind those too much, considering their purpose. He just hates that even at those—like the one tonight—he’s the only kid that has to parade around in the straitjacket Alfred calls a tux.

He gets it, of course; he’s the poster-boy, the success story, a means of showing the rich snobs how well a dirty Crime Alley orphan can clean up so that they’ll open their checkbooks.

It doesn’t mean he has to like it.

Except for tonight, for the first time, he noticed another kid that’s been dragged along. A tiny boy whose meticulously fitted tux still manages to look too big for him.

A man and woman who must be his parents are chatting with another couple, seemingly oblivious to the way their son is staring into the distance, a neutrally polite expression fixed on his face. He might as well be sleeping standing up, and Jason has the odd suspicion that’s by design.

That makes his mouth twitch; maybe rich kids get bored with this kind of thing too.

Jason keeps staring across the manor ballroom until the strange kid senses his gaze and looks up. He grins when the boy’s eyes widen—their color is startling, even from across the room, and they take up practically his whole face—and wonders at the sudden flood of color in his cheeks.

He’s about to motion the boy over to the edge of the reception area—hanging out with another kid, even a little one, will definitely break up the monotony of the evening—when Bruce’s hand falls hard on his shoulder.

“Time to make an exit, son,” he says, voice quiet and intense and incongruent with the false smile he’s still beaming at everyone within a ten-foot radius. From the distracted note in his words, Jason doesn’t even need to look out the window to see the signal lighting up the sky.

They meet Felipe Garzonas that night, and he doesn’t think of the boy again.

Jason shudders as the technicolor recollection fades out, his stomach twisting angrily.

He’s never made the connection between Tim and the boy at the fundraiser before. It occurs to him how stupid that was—at the same time it occurs to him that if not for that case that night, he might not have been on the outs with Bruce. He might have endured more Wayne event galas instead of limiting whatever time he was with Bruce to being Robin by night. He might have gotten to know Tim in this life, instead of dying.

He might not be in this damned predicament right now.

“Jason?”

He looks up, realizes that Barbie is watching him with concern. He is quick to revisit their conversation and mutters, “Yeah, fine. Just make sure the stuff actually makes it to me before my brain dribbles out of my head, okay?”

“Stop being so dramatic,” she replies, reaching out to turn off the scrambler device, though she continues to exude suspicion.

“All Bats are dramatic, or have you forgotten?” he quips back, offering an irreverent smirk to cover up.

“Hard to forget something you live with every day,” she returns dryly. “Now get over here and let me check you over.”

“You don’t need to,” he points out. “I’ve had worse than this, you know.”

“Yes, yes, we’re all aware you’ve died and come back, who hasn’t these days?” she returns. “Now, shirt off, or I’m telling Tim you didn’t do what you said you would.”

Jason glares. “This is going to become a thing, isn’t it? You people using Tim to make me do things.”

“Things that are for your own good, yes. Now strip, Todd.”

“Yes, mother…”

“You wish your mother was as cool as me.”

Which Jason can’t argue with, because she’s right; he’s had a total of three mother figures in his life (two of which he’s not sure even qualify because of how messed up they were), and none of them have been as capable or decent as Barbara Gordon.

Once he’s shrugged his top half out of the body armor and leather, she reaches for him.

Jason experiences a nauseous swoop in his stomach at the idea of anyone but Tim putting hands on him. Instantly, his hand snaps up and knocks hers back.

“Don’t touch me!” he snarls.

Barbara pulls away, watching him with a raised eyebrow and instantly Jason is overwhelmed with shame.

“Sorry,” he bites out. “I didn’t mean…”

“We can wait for Tim to get back,” she suggests, instantly understanding.

Alarms blare in his head at the thought; he shakes his head. “No. No, I’m…I’m good. Now that I’m expectin' it.”

She considers him several beats longer and then makes the next attempt to check his injuries. This time he concentrates on forcing the sick feeling away and tries to ignore how it feels like someone is rubbing sandpaper across his skin.

That’s a new symptom. Great. Because it wasn’t enough that I’ve been trying to claw my skin of myself, now other people get to do it too…

Barbara checks him over with quiet efficiency, evaluating the shallow slash between his arm and shoulder which his armor didn’t cover, as well the bruising along his hips, elbows and lower back.

“It could be worse,” she decides eventually, considering the mottled purpling across his chest. “Ribs are bruised, not broken.”

“I could've told you that…”

“And were you going to tell me about that?” she points at his shoulder and the spiderweb of gold leeching out around the long-healed-over bullet wound. From the way he’s been itching at it this past day, he doesn’t need a mirror to know it’s beginning to creep up his neck as well. “How long has it been growing like that?”

“Pretty much since I got it,” he replies.

She reaches up, brow furrowed and reaches toward one of the raised lines winding toward his chest. Again, he braces himself for the pain of the touch his body doesn’t want.

Thankfully, she barely grazes that. “You haven’t been keeping better track, have you? It might give us a more specific idea of how much time you have.”

“How so?”

“The same as any poison, I would guess. The closer it gets to your heart, the less time you have.”

He frowns. “At this point, I don’t think it even matters.”

Movement outside of the med bay window draws his attention, and he across the floor to see Tim climbing the stairs from the ground floor.

Jason is quick to grab his shirt and tug it on; it’s not something he wants to discuss with Tim just yet.

Barbara watches him, lips pursed in worry and disapproval, but he could care less about the latter. She knows his thoughts on this, and she’ll respect them.

Tim strides in and then slows like he’s wondering if he’s supposed to knock or not.

“How are you doing?” he asks, hesitant like he’s afraid expressing concern will set Jason off like a bomb.

Guilt hits him at that, but he forces himself to remain calm and blank-faced. “Fine.”

“I have to go,” Barbie announces, maneuvering her chair toward the door. “I need to go back to the Cave and check on Dick’s condition. I don’t know how long it will be before he tries to escape or pull something to keep from going nuts.”

“Also, it’d be nice if this month was one of the ones where Alfred doesn’t get knocked out,” Tim suggests with false levity.

“Or lose a hand,” Jason mutters darkly.

“Exactly. And whether he knows it or not, Feathers downstairs gave me some ideas about how to remove the arrow,” Barbie says as they leave the med bay.

“I should come with you.”

“No.” Both Barbara and Tim speak at the same time, but she’s the one that keeps talking. “You should stay here.”

“Not sure that’s the best idea.”

“I think it is,” Tim counters. “It will keep us out of everyone’s hair and they’ll know where we are.” His tone is reasonable—too reasonable; clearly Timmy has some ulterior motives.

Whether those motives are to circumvent Bruce or Jason’s plans, he doesn’t care. But one thing is for sure. “They can know where we are if we’re at the manor.”

And isn’t that a reversal—Jason being the one to insist on that?

I need to have people around because I don’t trust myself right now.

The mutinous expression is back on Tim’s face, before he visibly switches tactics.

“Okay, how about this,” he suggests, tone only a shade off exasperated. “Why don’t you go lie down somewhere and try to catch a few hours' sleep? If you’re sleeping, you’re not doing anything else, right? And then we’ll either go back to the Cave or see if anyone can be spared to chaperone here.”

“There’s no need for that,” a voice says, and they all look up to see Damian stride in still in full Robin-gear.

Tim scowls. “How did you get in here?”

“It was fairly simple,” the kid snorts. “A fish tank, Drake? Really?”

Tim looks like he wants to protest, but Jason chuckles. “It was kind of obvious, babybird.”

“You can barely take care of yourself, and you expect someone with a brain to believe you have the patience to care for fish?” the boy continues. “Exactly who do you think has been feeding them when you forget?”

Tim gapes. “You…break into my apartment…to feed my fish?”

Jason can’t help the loud guffaw that escapes at that, earning two equally unimpressed glares in return. He doesn’t care—that might be the funniest thing he’s heard in days.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” Barbara says and wheels out of the room. “Try not to kill each other, boys. Alfred would be unhappy about it.”

“Luckily, we are standing in a well-stocked room with several methods for resuscitating a dead body,” Damian replies easily.

“Don’t you have school?” Tim grumbles.

“It’s Sunday, Drake.”

“Still doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

“I have been sent to babysit you two and put Todd down with extreme prejudice should he try anything.

Which Tim gapes and, while Jason is…kind of relieved about.

“Aw, Dami, I knew you cared,” he teases.

“Don’t address me with that infantile drivel!”

Tim sighs.

“Just don’t set anything on fire while you’re here…”

⁂⁂⁂

I want to know what you think of my story! Leave kudos, a comment or if writing comments isn’t something you’re comfortable with, as many of these (or other emojis) as you want and let me know how you feel!

❤️️ = I love this story! 😳 = this was hot! 💐 = thank you for sharing this 🍵 = tea spilled 🍬 = so sweet and fluffy! 🚔 = you’re under arrest! the writing’s too good! 😲 = I NEED THE NEXT CHAPTER 😢 = you got me right in the feels 🤯mind blown 🤬god damn cliffhanger 😫 whyyyyyyy?!?!?

Next Chapter

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axlselfinsert · 5 years

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Biohazards Lore

This is a summary of the first arc of my S/i lore. I hope you all enjoy.

Reynolds Arc

Warning: Violence, Child abuse, Suicide, Political corruption, Nazism

Robert Reynolds, Head of Spring Hill Medical, as well as the top contender of all health insurances, wants to be prepared for the next generation when he dies. So he decides to have his child carry on his goals and family name. His first child, Phil, Didn’t meet his standards and tries again. His next, Wendy, was pushed aside as he tried one more time. His last child, Jason, Was perfect. He looked exactly like him. Throughout the years, His children were given strict rules and given harsh punishments if they disobeyed. Dogma sank into their minds to think Robert was the greatest father they could ever ask for despite being abused.

Phil was given a role to enforce the family if they so broke any rules. Having a lot of respect for his father, he obeyed the order. He was often told many times that he will never amount to much as his younger brother, Jason. Jealousy and rage overtook him, causing him to abuse and bully Jason. Wendy was heavily neglected.

Robert didn’t care much for her. Self-hatred embarked her because she came to terms that her father will never love her. The only thing she can do to please her father was nurture Jason and make sure he followed her father's wishes.

Jason was given strict terms and ambitions that he had to follow. Robert wanted Jason to take over the business of Spring Hill and carry on the goals of Daniel Bachmann. He was forced to study medicine, economics, and business. Something that Jason could never understand. In fact, the more he learned about The business practices of Spring Hill, the more he hated it. He sometimes wishes there was a way it could be destroyed. But he could never tell his father, or there will be hell to pay. He used to read superhero comic books and wants to be just like them. Saving people from oppression, not for fame or money, but because it’s the right thing to do. Robert confiscated his comics and tells him to start focusing on the real world.

Sasha lived in Russia with her grandfather. She is in a religion that could predict apocalypses called the Beckoning. Many of the members say the world will end millions of years from now. But Sasha gets a vision that the world will end in couple years, she calls the timer the reckoning clock. People didn’t believe her and tell she is too young to have the ability fully developed. She then prepares for the reckoning. She prays and gets a vision. “THERE ARE FOUR BRINGERS OF THE END OF THE WORLD. THE FALSE PROPHET, THE WARBRINGER, THE DECEIVER AND THE ANGEL OF DEATH”

Jason is now 13. Robert feels like Wendy’s care and compassion is making Jason weak. He decides to plan an assassination for her. Wendy hears about this and ends up hanging herself in her room. Jason later finds her hanging corpse and is absolutely distraught by it. At that moment, he realizes that she didn’t commit suicide. His father forced her to kill herself. He’s a murderer and he needs to be stopped. Robert is a monster, he can never find the good in him again.

Robert sends Jason on a field to cheer him up. He sends him to Guido Sharp’s Air Force base in Palm Springs. He also sends his wife to be the tour guide since Sharp had business with Bachmann. During the tour, Jason finds an atomic bomb, filled with “Maroon Elixir”. Jason knows about his father’s friend’s plan for world power. He thinks back at the comics he used to read. At that moment, he knew what to do. He had to sacrifice himself to decline Bachmann’s chance for domination. Jason goes to bomb to detonate it. Everyone in the vicinity tries to stop him, but it’s too late. The bomb explodes, killing everyone and destroying the entire base.

Sasha (also 13) suddenly gets a vision. The reckoning clock changed from one week to five years. She prays to find the meaning of the change. “DESTINY HAS BEEN DESTROYED AND A NEW ONE TOOK ITS PLACE. THIS DISTURBANCE IS THE FAULT BY A MAN WHO IS A DESCENDANT OF THE ANGEL OF DEATH.” Given a clue, Sasha decides that this man is the answer to change the clock to infinity. Sasha travels to California to search for this descendant.

The next day, Jason wakes up. He finds out he’s the only one alive. Maroon vapors were flowing from his hands. He then learns he can manipulate poison, form into poison. The poison is lethal when he accidentally shot a ball of poison at a scout’s face. The scout vomited maroon liquid and died instantly. Axl escapes the ruined base, fleeing from the scouts.

Jason takes a breather at a nearby underpass. He takes a moment to think about his future. He finalizes his goals by dropping “Jason Reynolds” to “Axl Crash” and strive to stop Bachmann and Robert’s plans. He spends half a year living on the streets and training with his newfound powers. He hides his face to avoid being noticed by Reynold’s men.

Robert and Guido receive information about the explosion and the deaths of Hollie and Jason. They also receive news of scouts finding a hooded figure attacking his men and fleeing the scene. They both decide to place a hit on this man, believing he is the cause of the explosion.

A protest on the streets of Orange turned into a riot. Sharp’s men broke out and started attacked anyone that catches their eye, believing they are part of the riot. This included Sasha who ran into an alley. He is saved by a man wielding a revolver. They flee and hid in an abandoned apartment building. The man introduces himself, calling him Miles King. Miles gets a phone call despite his phone plan being canceled. The caller calls himself “4NR-KEY” and tells them to go to the rooftops, the FMC (Freedom Military Corps) is heading to their position. They comply and head to the rooftops and are picked up by a helicopter.

The pilot says his name is Zack Anarchy and he needs Miles’ help to take down the Freedom Military Corps. Miles agrees to join but says he is focused on Gregory Clowe for spreading causing the death of his parents. Sasha hears this and names them THE BRINGER OF WAR, AND THE DECEIVER and asks to join. They form a team right before the helicopter get struck with a missile.

All three survive the crash but are surrounded by the FMC. The commander of the fleet meets them and commands his men to shoot them. But before they pull the trigger, Axl appears and kills all of them, including the commander. The 3 have never seen powers like Axl’s before, Zack asks Axl to join his ranks and his war against Sharp. Axl agrees, but only because he has affiliations with Reynolds.

Zack takes them to a mall called “Prodigy Mall”. A mall that has been abandoned for years, and where Zack has been residing. The four talk about their lives and why they are against these people they mentioned.

Sharp has been known to have a domestic military to keep strict order on the citizens. Zachary was an escaped prisoner. He was locked up because he tried to expose Sharp’s future goals by breaking into their base and hacking their servers. He got the information but was eventually captured. How they treated their prisoners was torturous and humiliating. They even killed prisoners in front of them to show order. He compared it to prison camps of the Holocaust, which makes sense when Zachary told them Sharp used to be a Nazi-apologist.

Miles shares how Clowe is in charge of all media news outlets and has been sharing false news and yellow journalism. Miles’ Father used to work for Clowe. His father refused to publish an article demeaning foreign Americans and instead published a work exposing Clowes practices. He was instantly fired and the news outlets demonized him and his family. The hate of the people grew and he was eventually run out of town and hunted down my guerrilla assassins. His family was taken away, but he escaped. He assumed they were dead. The last words he heard from his father was “I don’t want you to worry about me anymore. I want you to worry about Gregory Clowe.” That is why he wants revenge on Clowe.

Axl then tells his side of the story.

Sasha mentions that all the people mention are 3 of the 4 men that would bring upon the reckoning. She also explains the Reckoning Clock. She asks her new friends to help. They all agree and form an organization called “The Biohazards”. Everyone voted Miles to be the leader. Sasha was given the title “Sage” because of her power to predict the reckoning clock. She also became the team interior designer for the mall. Zack became the techie of the group. With the ability to hack and tinker. Axl became the mercenary due to the fact he has supernatural powers.

They decided to renovate the mall since Sasha has experience in architect. They completely transformed a department store to make it a training gym. Refurbished the food court so it was a clean place to eat. Every member had their own stand-alone store to live in and do whatever they want with it, even installing a bathroom in each one. Since only 4 stores were taken the rest of the stand alone became vacant.

Throughout the years, they began training and doing vigilante jobs like stopping break-ins, drug dealers and petty thievery. Through the training, Axl learns more about the power he obtains, He can change from Maroon to brown vapors, which makes a non-lethal poison with his hands. It causes the victim to become weak or numb, depending on their built stature. He even found out he can grind on rails, run on walls and bounce on objects. Axl used this inhuman flowmotion to escape or go to a place quickly.

The Biohazards usually stole from criminals to pay for supplies and food. Since Prodigy mall was abandoned, they don’t need to pay for the building or taxes. (I don’t know shit about real estate so bear with me) Zack built a generator to bring electricity to the mall.

After a year, The crew believed they were ready to set their sight on the “real criminals”. They began attacking the corruption of the 4 men. Blocking their shipments, hacking into their personal databases and expose their corruptions, Crashing dinner parties, sabotaging their sales, and “Took care” of higher ups that preyed on the weak.

This act of rebellion was definitely noticed by the four men. They named the Biohazards as domestic terrorists, Sharps men were told to shoot on sight if Axl approached, Clowe’s news outlets labeled them as dangerous to the public. They even promised exceedingly high cash rewards for any information that leads to the arrest for Biohazard members. They wanted them dead or alive. But the more Bachmann tried to contain the situation, the more the biohazards pushed back.

Zack set up a pirate radio station to spread news of the Biohazards good doings and exposing the corruption of the government. As well as share his personal taste of music. The radio station was called R4dio-4ctive with Zack Attack as the host. Listeners tuned in mostly to support the group, Obtain news about the Biohazards or the Government, or simply to listen to some good music. Despite being called R4dio-4ctive, Zack never played the song “Radioactive” saying that “You'll catch him playing country before playing the Imagine Dragons.”

People became fearful of The Biohazard’s action. But, some were inspired. There were even more protests against Bachmann’s men. Riots, muckrakers, and people who turned themselves in to derail their investigation to capture the Biohazards.

There were miscellaneous groups who wanted to put an end to the Biohazards. Most of them Hate groups, which the Biohazards took care of on the side. The U.N. even has its sights on Axl. Naming him “The most dangerous man in the world”. Axl became the poster boy of the Biohazards.

-Time Skip-

(Axl and the crew are 17 at this point) It’s 2012, The election is coming up and Bachmann is running. The reckoning clock ends election day. The Biohazards needed to do something before he gets elected. Axl sneaks into a news office building owned by Clowe. He is then attacked by a humanoid mech. Weaponry Axl never saw before. Axl manages to destroy the machine despite his poison powers having no effect on the mech. The user was an FMC soldier, saying that “this was just a prototype” before Axl kills him. While scrounging the office Axl finds a letter saying “we have a prototype of a machine that can transport people to different worlds.” Axl takes the Address (an underground base) and begins to attack the date (a couple days) the letter noted.

#Biohazards #S/i lore #Self insert #please read the warnings

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basshouse · 5 years

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Kids and FAQs

And now for my best Terry Gross Impression: If you're just joining me, my guest is Ashley Bass. Ashley moved with her husband and two children from Seattle to New Zealand in May of 2018. In early 2019 she started blogging about her experiences as an expatriate, parent, and regular person living life in a different part of the world. The blog started as the best way she could think of to tell lots of people at one time how the family is doing and what the move had been like, but it turns out it’s also serving as a way to consider and learn from her personal experiences. In this segment, she’ll try to answer some of the Questions she is Frequently Asked by her friends and family.

Welcome back to the program! I started this set of blog posts a few weeks back with “how we got here” and moved on to “where we are.” Now we’re in the “what we are are doing” part of the blog, and to be honest, I have struggled with how to approach it because I have so much to tell you about. At least, so much to tell you about if I work under the assumption that you’re interested in fairly mundane details of a day-to-day life that sounds pretty standard...school, work. travel. sport. exploration. drinks. food. Although, it seems like a fair assumption that you want to hear about it all since you’re reading this blog and anyway isn't that what facebook and Instagram are all about -- constant insight into nothing and everything all the time?!? Well, blogs may be old school but they give me lots of room for detail.

Or maybe you just read this blog for the pictures...? You could just follow me on Instagram (_ashley_bass_), but we live in a world of instant gratification and high expectations, so here!

That’s Jason and James playing header ping pong on a cement table with a soccer ball. Didn't expect that, did you? Me either. And yet it makes so much sense.

As part of my effort to tell you what we are doing, I was drafting a summary of the places we have been and the things we have done/seen since we’ve been in NZ. It was pages long...we’ve done a lot. When I think about writing it all in a blog post I can only think of a phrase James uses all the time: “oosh.” Or maybe it’s “ush”? I guess it’s more of a sound than a phrase; it’s a kind of a take on the traditional “oof” but slightly less physically pained and a little more overwhelmed. I like it, and it works in this case, and is one of the only terms I could steal from James and use in a blog. Another option for using a James phrase would have been “butt cheek,” because he's a 17 year old boy with a vocabulary that has been stripped down to the modern version of caveman. His catch phrases are “butt cheek” (usually used confrontation with Anily); “bot” (used in confrontation with Anily but also safe enough to apply to me and Jason when we do something he thinks is stupid, which is most things); and a wide variety of aggressive sounds that spill from his room during an especially frustrating moment of playing Fortnite or FIFA -- he has headphones on and is playing online with other people so he’s especially loud and shockingly vocal and foul mouthed. Apparently he plays with a guy named “Monkey” on the regular and seems to be either super annoyed by or excited about Monkey at any given time. Lots of yelling. Ooosh.

So I guess he’s a pretty regular teenage boy. For example, I suspect it’s regular that he SUCKS at doing dishes but THINKS he is convincing when he argues about the relative fairness of his doing dishes versus Anily’s job of taking out the trash bins but UNABLE to comprehend the fact that we actually don't care at all about fairness. But listen, he’s still sweet and he’s overall a really good kid. And he got great results on his first round of NZ High School exams!

So one way I can think to report on the goings-on is to try to report on the Qs people ask me pretty F(requently) when I have the chance to catch up on the phone, or the Qs I imagine you’d ask me if you had extra time to wonder about my life, the Qs I would ask you and sometimes ask myself about moving so far away to a brand new place. For example, here’s one I have been asked more than once: Do you have an accent? Well, yeah, duh -- an American one! Seriously, I sometimes realize that when I think people are listening intently to what I have to say they are literally just trying to figure out what I am saying. I haven't yet adopted a new way of delivering sentences but small common Kiwi expressions are starting to creep in to my vocabulary. James is the most Kiwi of us all when it comes to speaking, probably because he has the most consistent exposure to it from school and from online gaming. E.g. “Oy, Monkey, what the fuck?!” Or “Good one, mate, go Monkey go!”

One of the most Frequently Asked Questions I get (both from US friends and people I meet here who find out that we moved across the world in the middle of the kids’ most formative school years) is “how are the kids doing?” The short answer is that I think they are doing really well. I can't say whether they like it better here than Seattle, but they do like it, and they don’t hate us (at least not too much or too often, and this would likely have been the case in Seattle too). They miss their friends in Seattle, of course. They miss American Ketchup. They miss American Netflix. But they have friends here and they're doing well in school and playing soccer and futsal and indoor soccer, so in a lot of ways it’s business as usual (but less likely they’ll get shot).

A few things are different: For one, Anily and James will go to school together for the next two years. IN UNIFORMS. Including a kilt for Anily which is just heinous. if I’m honest. Although having uniforms is great -- no need to think about what to wear, no pressure to buy certain clothes or shoes; it’s actually super weird that the US doesn't do uniforms, when the rest of the world pretty much does. But anyway, they would never have gone to school together again in Seattle, but because the school year is January - December and high school is 5 years, James is about to start the equivalent of junior year and Anily will start high school at the same school next week. She says she’s too small to go to high school but as far as I can see, she's gotten pretty big!

Since we have been in NZ, James turned 17 and Anily turned 13. Yeah, Jason and I had birthdays too. So not only are we OLD, we are re living in a house with two teenagers. And even though they are quite teenager-y, one of the best things about moving to NZ is how much time we spend together and how much we have shared in this journey.

Here’s a fun story, and one of those times I wish I’d been recording the world around me: On Anily’s 13th birthday we went paddle boarding down the Avon River. For those of you from San Antonio, the Avon is kind of like the San Antonio Rover -- it winds through town, creates some nice views, and is probably 2 feet deep and 15 wide in it’s largest parts. It’s lovely, but it’s leaning pretty heavily on the creek side of “river.” But it’s water and we have paddle boards and it was a super nice day out and I had decided on the previous Friday while I was having beers at the Craft Embassy and looking out over the river that it must be floatable. I was pretty sure we could handle any rapids we might encounter and I might have felt a slide need to redeem myself after our recent canoe trip down the Whanganui River (more later). So I was pretty intent on making it happen. According to the city, the Avon is a “great source of recreation for walkers and boaters.” But the only official information I could find ANYWHERE about how to recreate in it was a suggestion to go punting, aka have a guy in formal clothes and broad brim hat push you with a pole though a section of the river that goes through the botanic gardens. Which I think probably is nice but can you see me on this flat thing when I could be controlling my own destiny with some light paddling on a just-slightly-underinflated paddle board with James on the front of it and Anily and Jason beside me on another, slightly-better-inflated one?

No! We parked a car at one end of town, drove to the other, put the boards in the water without a clue as to whether it was legal, and floated past the punters (take that punters!), through the traffic jam in the botanic gardens (learn how to paddle forward, people!), got out with the eels at the Craft Embassy, drank some beers and ate some snacks, got back in and kept floating. It was only when we made another stop at the park that things took a dramatic turn. Anily slipped on the way off the board onto the landing. Jason held out the paddle for her to catch her balance, she slipped, the paddle knocked her tooth out. Like, into pieces. There was a Japanese tourist looking at the eels (yes, more of them!) and I heard him say “ooh shattered!” as pieces of enamel flew through the air. Oh, and I lost my keys. Is this why we were the only people on the entire river -- is it cursed?! I’d do it again, we did not get to finish and we only had to walk once or twice. So when you visit, let me know if you’re up for it and I’ll put some air in the paddlboards and buy you a mouth guard.

We did get to file our first ACC claim as a result -- ACC covers everyone in New Zealand with a no-fault scheme if they've been injured in an accident. A little more Kiwi by the day.

Eels in the river:

Anily’s tooth:

Oosh (Ush?) is right! Real, truly, though, we’ve had a lot of family fun here and the kids are both pretty awesome. At least they go along with my crazy ideas some of the time (Jason almost always does, which I really appreciate, because he’s much better at execution on these things. Like, with the river, he's the one who suggested wearing shoes, which turned out to be very useful). I’m happy to be able to spend so much time with the kids, more than I was able to figure out how to do in Seattle, and I think this has been a great learning and growth experience for Team Bass. One thing we learned? Don’t be too close to a paddle if you’re on a slippery boat landing in a river full of eels :-)

Oh also! Anily got a cat for her birthday:

#sendmeyourFAQs!

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transboygenius · 5 years

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SE4SON: Chapter 13

[*Behind the closed doors of a domestic castle*]

A large man, in a large room, sat on his comfy throne, accompanied by his two royal guards. He was 220 pounds, hair was bleached blond, and his skin was pasty fair. This man wore a crown, and long drapes, decorated in expensive gems. The room was ornamented with fancy pottery, huge fantasy paintings, pelts made from wild animals, and a red carpet.

"Your greatness?"

The royal cook entered the room. She was pushing a cart, holding a silver serving dish, with a lid. The guards were a bit surprised by her sudden appearance, so they raised their spears a bit. The king then called off their weapons. As the dish was pushed right in front of the king, the cook removed the lid to reveal his supper.

"Today's menu, dear lord: Stuffed roasted peacock, butter poached parsnips, umble pie, and a selection of your kingdom's finest brandy. Bon appétit."

The king chuckled in delight, for he was vanished. He took the napkin and wrapped it around his neck. Just as he was about to dig his fork and knife into the fowl, a deep voice entered the room, much to the king's annoyance. It was the king's chancellor, Richard.

"What might be for you to waltz in here AND DISTURB ME DURING MY MEALTIME?!" Shouted the king. "Uh, my apologies for the sudden disturbance, sire. Just thought I'd let you know... *Ahem* I thee bring a report to file!" Said Richard. "Hmmm? A report, eh? Well, it better be worth letting my dinner get cold!!" "You see, it appears a protest has broke out among the middle class citizens in the village!" "A protest?!" "Yes, indeed! They are demanding that we lower the estimates on certain needed essentials such as food, healthcare, and home mortgage, and they refuse to negotiate peace or silence until they get it!" "Any clue who started the protest?" "Yes, sire! It was a couple, in their early thirties, by the names Joseph and Sadie Philip!" "Hmmmm...."

The king walked off his throne.

"Send in some of my most skilled, noble knights to break up the crowds! They sure as hell won't try to pull a stunt like that ever again! Not as long as they take my word for it!" "And the Phillips, sire?" "Gather as much citizens you can rally! We will be arranging a ceremony for their hanging!" "I think that's a little far fetched. Can't we simply just, throw them into the dungeon? We never used-" "I AM THE RULER OF THIS ESTABLISHMENT, AND WHAT I SAY, GOES! Okay? Unless you wanna arrange for a triple hanging!" "No, no sire! That was just an opinion! An unpopular opinion! My opinion is not important, oh superior monarch!"

Suddenly, a collapse sound was heard. The king turned around, and saw that one of his royal guards had passed out over his food.

"What is the meaning of this tomfoolery?!" Barked the king. "You see, your greatness, he had just fallen after a small bite from your meal. But, uh, he was just trying to taste test it in your honor! ...your greatness." Replied one of the guards.

Richard then decided to examine the unconscious body.

"He's dead, sire."

That one guard began to cry. That other guard was more than just a friend, but a brother. This could only mean one thing.

"Sooooooooooooooooooooooo... An attempt to poison the king!" Said the king. "I don't know what you're talking about, your greatness! He just... Maybe he was just allergic to the herbs I seasoned the bird with!" The cook tried to defend herself. "Looks like there will be a triple hanging after all. Take her away!"

The one guard carried the chef away, dragging her off her feet. She started kicking and screaming, trying to break free of the man's grip. She wanted to be the hero, and now she is facing the agony of defeat. All that work she planned to overthrow the king, gaining his trust, now left in vain. Having no reason to act anymore, she cursed at the king, criticizing him, and even called him a tyrant, which was the last thing he heard from her.

"No peasant tries to outsmart King Jason Tremp under his nose."

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

[*Back at the hut*]

Jimmy, Nick, and Rodent Girl had the time of their lives. They played tag, hide 'n seek, and are now currently rat racing. All of them are pretty much too old for such juvenile games, but it's the only fun available if you're stuck in a period without technology. They don't even have any board games. Nick felt so relaxed. Games, how he used to play them, were all competitive. In sports, if a man were to lose to his rival, they'd give the him a pat on a back and call it a good game. The sports Nick gets himself into are where roles are divided between the winner or the loser. If you lose a game, people make fun of you for it, and they want you to feel bad about your defeat.

Whereas RG's games, there are no winners or losers. It's all about having fun. The first time Nick lost a game, Jimmy or RG didn't mock or ridicule him. They just congratulated him for a good game. This is what playing for fun feels like? Even when you lose, you still feel like a winner. There's no pressure in the way to push you towards that main goal, and instead it's about enjoying yourself. This all seems so new to Nick. It's satisfying because he's just letting himself run free. If he were to make up his mind about crossing over to Jimmy's three amigops, he'd probably feel this happy everyday.

For the time being, they were racing rats, with tracks drawn in the dirt. Jimmy won five games in a row, RG won two, while Nick won none, but that's okay. He doesn't really care. He's not upset at all. With all the fun he's having, why cry over spilled milk? During the game, Jimmy asked Rodent Girl what he's been meaning to ask the Faithful Five for a long time.

"So... Pardon me for being a little, inquisitive, but I'm curious about why does Diana go out of her way to steal things? Isn't stealing... You know... ...lawfully wrong?" Asked Jimmy. "And they say you're the smart one. For your information, fudgy hair, she only steals from bad guys, and the greedy, wealthy bastards who just about have enough money to make ends meet but never have enough heart to insist a starving man!" Replied Rodent Girl. "I already know that, but I'm asking why she's doing it. Are there no open positions seeking for employment?" "*Sigh* There are. We could have any job we wanted. The trouble is we don't have the privilege to get them." "What do you mean by 'privilege?'" "Oh, for Pete's sake, genius! In this village, where these four walls hold us, classes are arranged based on your image, religion, and background. In this system, majorities outweigh the minorities." "Minorities?" "Yeah. The ones that aren't conceived as 'perfect' by the king himself. The higher classes, dukes and duchess as we call them, are blessed with the easier jobs with good pay. The middle classes are stuck with the more laborious jobs for 8 shillings an hour, with no paid vacations or bonuses. Then there's us: The lower class. We get nothing, but our own pity. We are freaks to the likes of them. Diana can't get a job cuz she's not "lady-like," Benson can't get a job cuz he's been denied his manly rights, and me, you probably have the idea. Who I am is also the reason why I don't have any friends. Human friends. Di, Mitzi, and Benson don't count. They're more like my family. You can't be friends with your family. Mitzi's the quote-on-quote decent one out of all of us, which means she's the only one who has a career. Unfortunately, the pay is not enough to feed all of us together, and our economy is all up in inflation. Meat cost 5 shillings a pound. Doctors charge 4 pence a hour. Entertainment is worth gold." "Is that why Diana resorts to stealing?" "You keep asking so many questions, jeez! I thought smart people were meant to answer them!" "I'm sorry. I just wanted to get as much answers out as possible. Like, we can probably help you overcome this financial struggle if we learn the basis of the premise. Then you wouldn't have to go out stealing anymore." "I doubt you can be a big help. King Jason won't listen to anyone if it has nothing to do with his interests. Refuse to resist, and--"

Diana appeared over Rodent Girl's head, and interrupted.

"--You'll get hanged!" "HeeeeeEEEYYYY! Why is it that YOU get to say it all the time?! It's not fair!" "Sorry, Rodent. It's in my character arc!"

Jimmy and Nick noticed Diana was carrying a huge sack with her.

"What's..." Asked Jimmy. "...that?" Asked Nick. "Why, it's our dinner, of course!" Replied Diana.

The bulky woman opened the sack to reveal a big, fat, dead moose, which she killed herself. While Rodent Girl was bubbling in joy, Jimmy and Nick were dumbfounded. Moose is a least likely food any of them would think of eating. They think of them as just commonly woodland creatures. Are they ready to eat moose meat? Diana looked at the shunned Nick, and gave him a little poke. He didn't react at all.

"Looking rather squeamish there. Don't worry, I'll handle the butchering! Getting quenched in the blood of an animal is the closest thing I'll ever have to fighting in a gladiator war!"

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

That night, everyone feasted on moose. Nick prepared moose steaks, moose roast, moose kebabs, moose stew, cheesy minced moose pies, moose franks, deep fried moose entrails, and white rice, which he requested the other day. Despite Jimmy's disgust earlier, he found that the animal tasted good, to his surprise. Or maybe that's just Nick's culinary magic. Rodent Girl made a glutton of herself. Benson took time to savor his dinner. Mitzi ate hers in a simple, mild-manner, again not showing appreciation for Nick's hard work. Butterscotch, who was left with his oats, watched them in envy. While everyone ate, Diana told her stories at the table. Because of how much moose they had, there will practically be leftovers tomorrow, and the day after that.

After dinner was done, it was time to wash up and call it a night. Nick was so exhausted from all that cooking, he made Butterscotch carry him on his back as they headed to their barn suite. Nick is ready to pass out the second he lays down on that hay bed. The three entered the barn. As Nick began to climb off of Butterscotch, he sloppily fell due to how tired he was.

"Are you okay?" Asked Jimmy, helping his friend up. "Yeah, I'm fine." Nick replied, dusting himself off.

The boys crawled under their blankets, and then rested their heads on their pillows. Before they were ready to go beddy-bye, they shared a short convo among each other.

"How do you suppose we're gonna talk the king into getting our new friends jobs? ...and ending his own capitalism? This Jason guy sure sounds like a tough nut to crack. Look at all the consequences to list that will get us all..." Said Nick, and then imitated a victim getting hanged. "Like some dumb king is gonna scare me. Judging from what I've heard so far from Diana, he may be all power, but he certainly doesn't sound so smart." Replied Jimmy. "He may be really ugly, too." "Simple-minded folks can be easily outwitted by the charm of psychology. A long chat with him could buy us the time to figure out what makes him tick, and when we have reached his standards, that's how we will be able to compromise with him. As the old saying goes, 'you can't catch some fish without a few good worms.'"

When Jimmy turned to face Nick, he found he was already deep asleep. The boy genius just shrugged, made himself more comfy, and then blew out the candle to his left. As the room was now left in darkness, Jimmy passed on a "Goodnight" to Nick.

Meanwhile, peeking from out the window, Mitzi stared at the barn across. Earlier, when she just arrived from work, she recalled Jimmy asking Rodent Girl some questions, followed by a "I just wanted to get as much answers out as possible." To her, that sounded like a big red flag there. What are these two trying to plan? Whatever they're planning, she's not gonna wait to find out what it is. She must put a stop to it, and protect the family before her. Mitzi then ran outside to the shed, where she then fetched herself a weapon.

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

During that hour, where the sun was beginning to rise, Nick shook Jimmy awake from his much needed slumber.

"Jimmy! Jimmy! There's something you ought to look at!" "Nnnnick... Do you know what time it is?" "Well, no, considering that I don't have a watch, but it's urgent, I swear! When I went outside to... ...pass some water... ...that's when I encountered it! C'mon!" "I'd be more happier if you just told me. The real surprise can wait, once I'm fully recharged. And I don't need to know about your bodily functions." "Dammit, our time machine is busted!" "WHAT?!"

Jimmy's loud "WHAT" woke up every animal in the barn. The boy genius shot himself out of bed, and let Nick lead him to the disaster he's been trying to point out. There they found their time machine, now nothing but a pile of debris. But, how could this happen? The damage was too brutal to be caused by an accident. A wreck like this could only happen on purpose.

Suddenly, Diana and Rodent Girl just happened to step outside of the hut in their nightgowns. The animals weren't the only thing Jimmy's shouting woken up. Diana immediately gained back her energy when she saw the wreckage. Rodent Girl was still feeling drowsy.

"Holly Hannah! What happened?" Ask Diana. "Time Machine broke." Jimmy replied immaturely. "And what we know by far is that this was no accident!" Said Nick. "Hmmmmmmmmmm."

Diana observed the debris further.

"Any strange weather occur?" Asked Diana. "No." "Spot any ferocious animals lately?" "Just some rats, but I doubt little creatures could do damage that bad." "Any... Any... Welp, I'm out of questions. Looks like one of us is... ....a suspect!" "Don't worry, no you're not. I think I may know who did it." "You do? Who? It isn't me, right? It can't be me, because I have morals, I'm sweet, I'm lovable, and... I've been a very good friend to you two! *sob* Where has that friendship gone?" "Calm down. Of course it's not you." "*Deep yawn* Then is it me? How dare you accuse me. Did what we had yesterday mean nothing to you?" Rodent Girl said in a tired, monotone voice. "No. Not you either."

Jimmy turned to Nick besides him. It is easy to make sense of who's behind the wreckage. There's only one member of the Faithful Five who doesn't like Jimmy and Nick very much since they first met. Who else other than that deceptive Mitzi dame? The boys were so careless as to not look after her, even though they knew something like this would happen eventually. Nick won't tell Diana who did it, for obvious reasons; If she gets mad at Mitzi, then there goes their friendship. If she gets mad at Nick, she'll crush him flatter than a crepe. Maybe when Mitzi gets home, Nick oughta give her a cozy little chat.

"Who do you think did it?" Asked Diana? "Sorry, I'm not one to give out spoilers." Replied Nick. "Huh?"

Jimmy and Nick began to pick up the bits of debris, when Diana suddenly stopped them. And she was already dressed in her morning clothes.

"HOLD IT! You gentlemen have been very nice to us. Not just me, but to us. You two even kept us well fed. In return, I will assist you in repairing your wooden thing-a-ma-gigy that's suppose to take you back home!" "No, we can't possibly have you--" Said Jimmy, before being cut off. "But I insist! Friends must help each other in need! And I'm not doing this just because I don't want to be the branded suspect in this caper!" "I'll lend a hand as well. Just let me go fetch my coffee." Said Rodent Girl, heading back inside the house. "Hmmm, a little extra hands might finish the job more faster." "I'll help too! As always." Said Nick. "No, Nick. I think you should relax for a bit and save your strength. You've done so much." "But I--" "Please, you helped enough already. Take a break. You need to slow down on all these good deeds."

Nick figured, he wants to help Jimmy, but the boy genius sounds like he'd be happier if he just stopped for now. To avoid turning this conversation into an argument, Nick decided to follow the doctor's orders. The purpose why Nick is smothering his crush with so many good deeds is because he wants to prove he is worthy to be by his side. In the old times, Nick stayed out of Jimmy's way for too long, and let that Vortex girl get to him. Back then, Nick always had a chance, but he always ended up blowing it.

Rodent Girl reappeared, all dressed and fully energized.

"READY!"

Diana was thinking of waking up Benson and letting him join in on the party, but he can be in a naggy mood whenever he's awakened before his "wakey-wakey schedule." Mitzi was nowhere to be found. She must have already left for work. The bulky woman headed into the shed to fetch some tools. When she got there, she noticed that a sledgehammer was misplaced. How odd. After she organized the sledgehammer back in its proper position, she grabbed some tools, tacks, and a bucket of super paste. She refused to use anymore of her wooden planks. Diana then brought the supplies to Jimmy. Butterscotch arrived to the scene, holding a hammer in his mouth.

"Sorry, Butterscotch, but this line of work requires posable digits!"

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

Nick sat inside the barn, thinking. Jimmy told him that enough is enough, but it just makes the handsome boy feel guilty for not having to help the boy genius. Nick doesn't just shower Jimmy with these good deeds because he loves him so much, but he's also trying to make up for the times he wasn't there for him. He didn't offer him a helping hand even if it were an easy task. All he's ever done was watch the disastrous events occur before his eyes, not to mention stay out of any trouble Jimmy would get himself into. And, Nick wasn't there when the boy genius felt lonely at least.

Refusing to swallow his pride, Nick won't allow himself to let Jimmy down. He will do whatever he can to make that boy genius proud. He will continue to show his loyalty, and let Jimmy know he can always depend on him whenever the going gets tough. Nick looked over to Jimmy's sketch designs, which then gave the skateboard boy an idea.

He exited the barn and went over to Diana.

"Yo Di, could you step inside the hut with me for a moment? There's this ugly, big cockroach under the kitchen table!" "A roach? IN MY HOME?!"

Diana stormed into the hut with her sword, only to find no roach under the table.

"You can run from me, you little nuisance, but there's nowhere on Earth you can hide!" "Relax, there is no roach." "Ther- What kind of game are you trying to play-" "Shhh, shhhh shhhhh! Keep your voice down." "Why are we talking softly? This really is a game, is it?" "Listen, long story short; I want to help my friend, but my friend doesn't want me to. However, I deciding to do it anyways. This time I plan to surprise him, which means you can't mum a word of this to him, or anyone you can't trust secrets with." "*Gasp* Disobeying a direct order, all for the sake of helping someone you care so much about?! I swear, you're like the son I could've had!" "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" "Sorry. I tend to get a little loud whenever I'm filled with joy. I just like to let myself out." "Can we get back on the topic? I need to get into that mine." "Getting in there isn't gonna be easy, my boy. Unless you're an authority of the king or carry any legal documents, you'll get hang-" "Jimmy already told me, I know. That's why I turned to you, since you seem like an expert at getting away with breaking the law. The way you scared off those hooded men... I think I know how I'll be able to sneak into the mine without being suspected." "You want me to distract the Keeper of the Mine?" "No, I was wondering if you can make me a disguise of my own, along with a copy of one of those fabricated badges." "I can do that! Luckily I still hold this old Halloween costume Rodent Girl used to wear when she was your age."

Diana pulled out a miniature suit of knight's armor from behind her back. Nick, without removing any of his clothes, slipped into the armor one piece at a time. The suit wasn't made from plastic, but legit, real, steel metal. It was fairly uncomfortable from the inside, and a horrible order pierced through his nostrils. He also had some trouble keeping balance in the suit. It took Nick at least two minutes to stand up straight again.

"As for the badges, I don't have enough time to make a copy, so you can borrow mine for now." "Thanks." "Oh!"

Diana left the hut for a moment. Nick tripped in his armor once more, before bringing himself back to his feet. When Diana returned, she had brought along Butterscotch.

"We don't exactly own a map of the outside world, so Butterscotch knows where the mine is located."

The white stallion happily nodded his head. Butterscotch wasn't the only thing Diana brought back, though. She began handing Nick a few things she thought he'd need.

"Here's a small box to hold your quartz in. Here's a tiny sack to hold the box where you'll be holding your quartz in. Here's an apple for energy. Here's a lantern, since it's gonna be dark in there. Here's a dagger for self-defense. It's pretty dull, but you can keep poking someone until they run away. Here's some extra fuel for the lantern. Here's a few carrots in case Butterscotch gets hungry. Here's a checkerboard set if Butterscotch ever gets bored. And here's a satchel to carry all your stuff in, since the suit doesn't include any pockets."

With all that gear he was holding, combined with the weight of the armor, Nick toppled backwards.

"Again; Thanks."

After Nick placed everything into the satchel, Diana helped him out by picking him up, and placing him on top of Butterscotch's back. Giving a salute to the young boy, who's about to journey off on his own for the first time, Diana then opened the hatch in the kitchen and let the two out. Nick saluted back, before Diana closed it again.

"Godspeed to you, Nick Dean."

#Jimmy Neutron #Boy Genius #Nick Dean #Cindy Vortex #Libby Folfax #Carl Wheezer #Sheen Estevez #Season 4 #fanfic #romance #adventure #TVverse #TVEE

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letthesleepingdoglie · 5 years

Text

From Whence He Sprang - 09

Title: Never Left or Right

Part: 09 of 18

Rated: M

The Batcave

Gotham City

January 17th, 2012

17:24 EST

Team Year One

“You look like crap.” Artemis noted as she stepped off the open elevator platform that had brought her down into the Batcave.

Dick tore his gaze from the screen in front of him and turned to look over his shoulder at his friend. At least, he tried to. The movement was stiff and sluggish on account of the many bandages and stitches covering his exposed torso. It had taken Alfred the better part of an hour to patch up all the wounds that Dick had received from the fight last night, and the last thing that he wanted to do was tear all the meticulously stitched cuts open.

Now that the adrenaline from the events of last night had worn off, each and every one of the wounds he’d received ached and throbbed as he moved. The fight with the mysterious assassins had been so intense that he didn’t remember receiving half of them.

“You should see Bruce.” Dick grunted as he finally managed to complete his turn.

“Seriously?” Artemis asked, an expression of surprise on her face. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen the dark knight seriously injured. “What happened to you guys?”

Dick shrugged. “Assassins, sword fights, explosions. The usual.”

A cursory glance told him that she must have come straight from school; she was still wearing her hated Gotham Academy uniform.

“What brings you all the way out here?” He asked her, which was a valid question. Batman didn’t have a Zeta Tube installed in the cave, and Wayne Manor was a relatively long trip from her home in the East End.

It was Artemis’ turn to shrug. “You missed class. I was worried.”

Dick suppressed a small smirk, though he tried to hide it. Artemis always put on a tough front so that people wouldn’t see how vulnerable she truly was, but it was always endearing to see that she cared.

“Plus,” she continued, pulling a handful of papers from her backpack, “Barb wanted me to make sure you got your homework.”

Dick groaned, but took the papers from Artemis and flipped through them. It wouldn't take more than an hour to get through, but it would be tedious, and he had bigger fish to fry at the moment.

Artemis took advantage of Dick’s momentary distraction to glance at the screen that he'd been working on. A meaningless scroll of names, numbers and code flashed across the screen. “What’re you working on?”

“A difficult case.” He put his homework to one side and hit a few keys on the bat-computer’s keyboard, bringing up the relevant files and images for Artemis to skim through.

“About two weeks ago, Batman and I met a kid named Jason Todd and sent him over to the Catherine Hershey school. Yesterday, we got word from Commissioner Gordon that he’d gone missing. We went to the school to see if we could find any leads on what happened to him and ended up being ambushed by a group of assassins working for something called the Court of Owls.”

He pointed up at the corner of the screen, where the image of a man with inverted eyes was displayed. “He was their leader. Called himself Shrike.”

Artemis frowned as she looked at the picture. “What’s the Court of Owls?”

“We have no clue.” Dick sighed in frustration. “The assassins blew themselves up when they realized that they were going to lose. We’ve been looking since the attack and haven’t found anything. Batman’s never heard of it, and I can’t find any references to it in anywhere.”

Artemis’ frown deepened. It was rare for Batman to have never heard of something. “Do you have any leads?”

“Not many.” Dick admitted. He gestured over to the side, where several items sat arranged on top of a high-tech scanning bed. The mask that Robin had removed from Shrike. The swords and throwing knives the assassins had dropped in their fight. Charred pieces of limbs and barely identifiable chunks of tissue.

“Most of the physical evidence was obliterated in the explosions. We’ve run their DNA through all the databases we could and come up with nothing. Their gear is also untraceable. We’re analyzing what’s left, but nothing yet. Batman’s back at the school, looking for anything we missed.” Dick sighed. “All we really know for certain is that the Court of Owls is good.”

He tapped at the keyboard again, bringing up a series of case files bearing the GCPD’s logo. “Look at this.”

Artemis moved so that she was standing next to Dick’s chair and peered at the display. Dozens of names and faces populated the screen, each identifying a child between the ages of 10 to 13. “What am I looking at?”

“GCPD missing persons reports. Specifically, children listed as missing from the Catherine Hershey School. Notice anything?”

Artemis frowned. Some of the kidnappings stretched back decades, with some going all the way back to the 70s, when the GCPD had started keeping track of missing kids. She realized what she was supposed to be looking for as she read the dates listed on the files.

“Like clockwork… One kid disappears every four years. Jason was just the latest.”

“Right.” Dick confirmed. “And those are just the disappearances that we have official records for. Unofficially, I managed to dig up reports of similar disappearances stretching all the way back to the school’s founding.”

“Why?” Artemis asked, incredulous. For a school to have this many missing kids… Granted, this was Gotham City, but still, even accounting for the fact that a boarding school oriented towards strays and orphans would probably have more runaways and disappearances, how had someone not noticed?

“I don’t know.” Dick said. He was clearly frustrated, which was understandable. He’d been trying to come up with the answer to that question for the last few hours. The problem was, he didn’t know if that was the right question to ask.

At first, both he and Batman had based their theories on the assumption that Jason had been kidnapped because someone was trying to bait them; after all, it was a common enough strategy amongst their regular rogue’s gallery. But now that he’d dug deeper and found the reports of serial disappearances, he was forced to come up with new theories to work around.

It was like trying to put together a puzzle, except he didn’t have all the pieces, he didn’t know which pieces he had were useful, and he had no idea what the final image would look like.

Knowing that a child’s life was likely on the line, his inability to figure the situation out was maddening.

“Any ideas?” Dick asked her. “I could use a fresh pair of eyes on this.”

Artemis hesitated, considering how she could best contribute. It wasn’t that Artemis thought she wasn’t smart enough to help, or that she was intimidated by the fact that her mentor wasn’t a world renowned detective. The simple truth was that most of the things that she could think of right then and there would have already occurred to him. If she wanted to help, she needed to draw on the resources and skills that she had exclusive access to.

“How good were the assassins who attacked you?” She asked.

“Very.”

“League of Shadows good?” She pressed.

“No. Better. Much better.”

Artemis considered that for a moment before pulling out her phone. “I’ll ask my mom if she heard of anyone like them when she was part of the League. They try to keep tabs on anyone that has skills like that.”

“Thanks.”

As Artemis took a few steps away so that she could call her mom without disturbing Dick, an automated notification popped up on the Bat-computer’s screen to tell him that the detailed scan he’d been running on the assassin’s bodies was done.

“Whoa…” Dick breathed as he read through the results.

Almost every biological sample that he and Batman managed to collect displayed some evidence of either chemical or genetic manipulation. For example, the assassin’s blood contained cells that looked like normal platelets, but upon closer inspection, appeared to function much more effectively, clotting in a matter of seconds rather than minutes. Fragments of bone revealed that their skeletons had been coated in a porous material that allowed biological materials to pass through, but was as strong and as light as titanium. There were even remnants of organs that the bat-computer didn’t recognize as human.

No wonder he hadn’t been able to find a match in any of the databases he’d looked at. Even something as fundamental as their DNA had been re-written to include what looked like distinct strands of animal genes. This was almost Cadmus level gene-manipulation; there were parts that barely looked human anymore.

It wasn’t just the sheer scale of the enhancements that Dick found overwhelming, but also the amount of time it must have taken to implement them. He’d seen full body augmentation and reconstruction before, of course, but it wasn’t something you could do all at once. Even with advanced tech from STAR Labs, someone undergoing this much surgery and gene therapy would need, at best, several years to adjust to all the changes being wrought on his or her body.

Years… Dick realized with a start, as a disturbing thought crossed his mind.

Working quickly, he minimized everything on the computer screen except for the picture of Shrike’s face that the cameras built into his mask had captured, then opened up a program that had been designed for forensic investigators so that they could “age” pictures of young children to find out what they might look like several years after their respective disappearances.

Dick ran the process in reverse, taking a scan of Shrike’s face and reversing the aging process so that it displayed an approximation of what Shrike might have looked like at the age of 12. Granted, the image was very, very, very rough, but at least it gave him something to work with. He ran the image through every database concerning missing children that he had access to, both within the US and internationally.

Even with a super computer as powerful as the one that was built into the Batcave, the search still took a few minutes.

That gave Dick a moment to ponder. And to hope he was wrong. He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice Artemis was done with her phone call until she was standing next to him.

“Nothing.” She told him, tucking her phone away. “My mom says she’ll ask around though.”

He looked over at her. “Are you sure? I don’t want her to get into any trouble.”

Artemis waved his concerns away. “It’s fine. She knows how to take care of herself. Besides, I think she likes being able to help with hero stuff. It gives her something to do besides sit around the house all day, you know?”

“Mmm.” Dick conceded. He could empathize with that.

He sighed, rubbing his face, giving his eyes a rest. He’d been working non-stop on this since the ambush last night. Just because he was used to long hours of work didn’t mean that it never caught up with him. It was just hard to focus on things that seemed as trivial as food and sleep when someone’s life was on the line.

“Are you alright?” Artemis asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah.” Dick said, pushing himself upright in his chair. “It’s just been a rough day.“

“You should get some rest.” She said. Dick glanced at her. He recognized that tone. Despite phrasing it as a suggestion, Artemis’ voice made clear that she was prepared to frog march him upstairs if she thought it would be necessary.

Oh, to have an big sister like Artemis.

“I’m just gonna finish this search, then I’ll grab a quick nap.” Dick promised.

Artemis crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at him. It wouldn’t have been the first time that he’d made a similar promise to her, only for her to return hours later to find him slumped over the keyboard, fast asleep.

“I will.” He insisted when she didn’t budge.

She continued to stare at him for a few moments longer before she uncrossed her arms. Inwardly, Dick breathed a sigh of relief.

“Fine.” Artemis said as she made her way back towards the elevator leading up to the manor. “But if you don’t give Zatanna a call by the time I get back from the Cave, I will beat the crap out of you.”

“Fair enough.” He conceded.

Artemis rolled her eyes, but gave a quick wave goodbye as the elevator doors slid shut.

The computer chimed in with a notification, letting him know that the search was done. Facial recognition had found a relatively close match for a child that had gone missing in Oregon.

“Matthew Board.” Dick said to himself, reading the name at the top of the report. Born to David and Serena Board, September 1975. The youngest of four children. Reported as missing January 16th, 1988. The official notes listed it as likely the child had run away from home.Interestingly, it hadn’t been his parents who had reported Matthew as missing, but a teacher at the school he had gone to. He ran a quick check and found that both the mother and father had criminal records, mostly for drug related offenses, though there were more than a few citations from Child Protection Services as well.

Dick’s discomfort was starting to grow. It felt like the picture on the puzzle was starting to become clearer. Matthew matched Jason’s profile almost exactly. A child from a rough background, around the age of 12, whose disappearance wouldn’t raise any eyebrows.

This being the United States, which maintained a national database of missing children, there were DNA records for Matthew on file that Dick could access. He pulled these up and compared them to the samples that he had recovered from Shrike.

After Dick edited the sequences of animal DNA and removed them from the analysis, they were almost a perfect match.

Shrike was, or had been, Matthew Board.

Dick’s blood ran cold at the realization. Whatever the Court of Owls was, it had been kidnapping children in order to turn them into super-powered sociopathic killers. They’d been doing it in Gotham for years, decades even, right under their noses.

And he and Batman had put Jason right in their path.

——————————————————————————————————————————

The Labyrinth

Location Unknown

Time Unknown

Jason knew he was going to die.

That was his only rational thought as he stumbled forward through the dark, displaying none of the learned caution or stealth that he normally would have used. In truth, he was so consumed by the realization of his impending demise that he was scarcely aware of his surroundings, moving forward out of stubbornness rather than any real hope of going anywhere.

He was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The way he would die was irrelevant. Cut apart by another booby trap. Bludgeoned to death by the fists of ferals and torn apart to be eaten. Finally succumbing to the gnawing pit of hunger and thirst that was welling up inside of him. It would all mean the same thing in the end: dying, alone, down in the dark.

Strange, to think of his death in such dispassionate terms. In a way, the only thing that surprised him was the fact that he was still alive.

He hadn’t seen any signs of life for…

He didn’t know.

He didn’t remember.

He didn’t care.

Lorena. Joseph. Chris. Sean. They all probably thought he was dead.

Maybe they were right. It certainly felt like he was in hell right now.

For all he knew, they were the ones who were dead. The tunnels reeked of so much decay and abandonment that he couldn’t really believe that there was anyone friendly left in the world. Moving through the darkness, still covered with clotting blood and other visceral filth, he felt so cut off and isolated from everything that nothing felt real.

One of the few reassuring things he still felt was the weight of the knife in his hand. He vaguely recalled prying it, his own hands still sticky with blood, from the grasp of a fragmented skeleton that he’d tripped over as he’d stumbled through the dark. Judging from the size of the remains, it had probably belonged to a past aspirant. One who had fallen into the blood pool, just as he had, and somehow died, just as he would.

The knowledge had scared him at first. He had stared at the knife for a long time, knowing that he could have turned the weapon on himself, ended all of the pain that he had endured and the pain sure to come by slitting his own throat.

The prospect had, admittedly, been tempting.

But Jason hadn’t done it. Instead, he thought back to when he’d found James’ body.

His friend had known he was going to die the moment he realized he’d been caught in the floor trap that had dumped both of them down here. Even with everything that had happened to him, he’d gone down fighting, quite literally tearing the guts out of his feral killer.

Even in death, James would have avenged himself had Jason not intervened.

That seemed like a good example to follow.

If Jason was going to die no matter what he did, he wanted to die doing something, die fighting his fate. As much as he wanted the suffering to end, he wouldn’t take the easy way out. As much pain as it would bring, he would keep moving, resist, even if brought him to the bitterest of ends.

Jason clutched his looted knife tighter and kept moving forwards.

It was as good a direction as any other.

#young justice #young justice fanfic #young justice fanfiction #batman #robin #dick grayson #jason todd #the court of owls

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violetsmoak · 4 years

Text

Pieces of April [12/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21099044/chapters/50202530

Summary: On the anniversary of his death, Jason’s second life takes an abrupt new turn and he’s faced with a challenge that neither Batman nor the All-Caste prepared him for.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

Warning(s): Past Jason/Isabel, kidfic, minor canon character death (pretty sure you can guess who), I’ll add more warnings/tags as I think of them.

Canon-Compliance: Takes place in between the two RHATO series, so after Roy and Kori and before Artemis and Bizarro. Jason and Isabel Ardila were in a brief relationship.

First Chapter

________________________________________________________________

Isabel’s place has a lived-in feel that Jason is not very familiar with.

Willis and Catherine’s tiny apartment is a distant memory for him, and the handful of foster homes that followed don’t even rate. Wayne Manor, while once home, was never exactly what one might call “homey”; and the less said about his time in the League, the better.

As for his network of safe-houses, these are meant more for function and convenience than to encourage long-term comfortable living.

Very different from the room illuminated when Jason flicks on the lights.

Warm, inviting colors grace the walls, somehow blending well with living room furniture meant more for comfort than to match. In the kitchen, dishes dry on the rack because there’s no dishwasher, while a vacuum cleaner lies forgotten in the hallway. There’s no evidence of a maid or English butler the way Tim’s place has; like Jason, Isabel was uncomfortable with being waited on.

Half of her kitchen table is buried beneath a sea of papers, piles of junk mail, receipts and a newspaper or two.

It’s second nature for Jason to go through the detritus, though he’s not entirely sure what he’s looking for. When he doesn’t find it, he slips into the kitchen, rifling through cupboards and drawers. Lots of people will stash small, important property in their kitchen, banking on would-be-intruders focusing on the obvious takes like televisions and computers. Since Jason isn’t in a hurry, he has the luxury of searching through everything himself.

Apparently Isabel wasn’t worried about theft since he finds nothing; frowning, he glances over to the fridge for potential clues. Magnets from what appears to be every country she’s ever visited hold up notes against the chrome façade, along with pictures and business cards and—

Jason reaches out before he’s aware of it, tracing his finger across the edge of the black and white printout that holds the prominent place of center. The sonogram picture is different from the one’s he saw on cases before he died, or even the kind he sees on television. It’s not simply a grainy outline of a vaguely baby shape, but a 3D image that details the features of the infant he held in his arms just last night.

He reaches out to take it off the fridge, then thinks better of it and backs away.

Not like I need to keep anything like that, I’ve seen the actual baby already.

He wanders over to the kitchen counter, sifts through more paper. There’s an actual physical day planner there that’s seen better days, pages ripped and bent and some stuck together. He pockets that, intending to go through it later; it might hold information about her friends and contacts.

Speaking of…

He studies the walls and surfaces of the unit, noting the sea of personal trinkets and photos of Isabel. Most of them are of her and a bunch of other, usually against the backdrop of a beach or bar lounge. Some of them include herself and Safiya—he recognizes one of the photos as having been taken on the edge of Robinson Park, in the area that’s still safe and Poison Ivy free.

In all of them, she looks happy, which calms that lingering part of him that’s worried his presence in her life had any kind of lasting trauma. Either she is—was—the most well-adjusted person ever, or she had a Wayne level of ability to pretend.

Studying the rest of her belongings along the bookshelves and coffee tables, something strikes him; in addition to the usual paperback bestsellers and gossip rags he would expect from someone of Isabel’s age and interests, there are baby books tucked everywhere.

From parenting How-To guides, to early readers that are still in pristine, sometimes packaged condition. There are fairy tales and Spanish alphabet books and board books with various textures cut in the pages.

Like someone was gearing up to become Supermom.

Which she was, wasn’t she?

Numbly, he wanders down the hall, glancing briefly into the master bedroom before his eyes are drawn to the second room. It feels like the bottom of his stomach has dropped out as he looks at the door, and the pretty, swirling pink script stenciled across it. Letters set between colorful flowers and balloons.

Luisa.

Tentative, he nudges the door fully open and wanders into what is clearly a nursery. There’s a crib set up, with a mobile of stars and planets, a changing table, rocking chair—quite a few of the mysterious objects he spied sitting in a pile on Tim’s living room floor.

All of which speaks of a woman who very much wanted the baby currently residing in the Gotham General neonatal wing.

Jason sits down heavily on the rocking chair, barely hearing it creak beneath him as his thoughts play on repeat.

She wanted this.

But she didn’t tell him.

Obviously she didn’t want him involved.

But then why list him as the father?

Why make him her emergency contact, instead of her friend? It seems like an awfully calculated, purposeful move for someone that didn’t want him in her child’s life.

He gazes blearily around the nursery, eyes flitting past the typical soft and fuzzy and mostly pink stuffed animals and blankets. Everything in here was chosen with care as if picked directly from a catalog, and with intent.

Except for one thing.

Jason stands, reaches for something on top of a chest of drawers just beside a baby monitor.

The Red Hood plush toy is a ridiculous caricature, with a bulbous head and stubby arms. Toy companies have been making merchandise off the world’s heroes since time immemorial, but he didn’t realize that plushies were a thing.

Let alone that there’d be a version of me included in the line.

His thumbs slide across the tiny stylized red bat on its chest; there are fabric holsters but no guns, of course.

It’s the only item that seems out of place in the entire room.

Obviously placed here on purpose.

But wouldn’t that mean…?

Mind reeling, Jason returns to the living room, more determined now to figure out Isabel’s frame of mind. To know the thoughts behind her decisions. There’s a folder among the medical stuff, with information relevant to her pregnancy—medical history, prescriptions—but nothing written in her hand.

Which isn’t surprising. Who keeps a journal these days when everything’s online?

That has him searching out her computer, which is set up in the corner of the living room on a tiny desk. He boots it up and studies the keyboard to see which keys are more faded than others.

Before he can make much headway guessing her lock-password, there’s a bang that has Jason whirling around. His instinct is to reach for his gun, but being mindful of his location thinks better of it.

Just as well, considering who the intruder is.

“What do you think you’re doing here?!” Safiya demands from the doorway of the apartment. She’s holding an aluminum baseball bat and wearing a fierce expression. “This is not your apartment! I will call the police if you don’t—” She cuts off when she recognizes Jason. “You.”

“Hi,” he says, somewhat bemused.

She doesn’t relax, narrowing her eyes at him; they are puffy and bloodshot, and he suspects she’s been crying since leaving him and Tim at the hospital.

“How did you get in here?” she demands at last, suspicious but somehow bypassing the usual questions he'd expect. “I have only set of keys.”

She brandishes the keychain in hand as though to make a point.

The utter lack of surprise or fear catches him off-guard; Jason falters for a minute thinking of a plausible lie to tell. And then he decides he doesn’t have the energy.

“I picked the lock on the window,” he tells her.

Safiya’s eyes narrow. “They teach you that sort of thing in bodyguard school?”

Nice lie, Drake. Obviously she didn’t buy it.

“Can’t all be taking bullets for the president.”

“Right…” Safiya lowers the bat, but only incrementally. “What are you doing here?”

“I needed to…see for myself,” he finishes lamely, still not entirely sure how to answer the question.

“I understand.” This time the fight goes completely out of her. She steps into the apartment, glancing around furtively, and then closes the door behind her as she comes inside. “You might have mentioned earlier you wanted to come. I could have given you the keys.”

“Wasn’t really thinking about it back then,” he tells her, watching her set down the bat. “You’re pretty intimidating for someone so small.”

“This is Gotham,” she retorts. “It would be stupid to be anything less than vigilant whether you have cause to fear or not.”

“And you don’t have cause to fear?”

“When one has a guaranteed death hanging over one’s head, there is very little to fear.”

Jason thinks of his time as Robin, of the danger and the close calls, and of his life now; the certainty of it ending in blood and fire and another goddamn plaque in the Cave.

He gets it. More than she knows.

“Fair,” he acknowledges. He pauses, a bit awkward, and asks, “How are you holding up?”

“As well as can be expected,” she sighs, looking around the room. “It does not seem real.”

“You’re telling me,” Jason says, though it comes out as more of a sigh. He feels the tension in his shoulders, which have been pulled tight since Safiya first made her appearance, ease. “Have you had a chance to reach out to anyone?”

“Not yet. I’ve been…processing.”

“If you need help…” he begins, uncertain about what exactly he’s offering to do here.

“You have other things to worry about,” she replies with a shake of her head.

No kidding.

He recalls his conversation with Tim about the fate of the baby, and before he can think better of it, blurts out, “Do you know anything about her last boyfriend?”

Safiya gives him a sharp look. “Why? Are you going to try to convince him the baby is his?”

There’s judgment there, not entirely unwarranted maybe.

“No. But maybe he and Isabel have—had mutual friends. People who might…”

Take the baby.

He doesn’t need to say it out loud, she clearly follows his thought process. This time there’s no judgment, surprisingly.

“His name was Jonathan,” she recalls. “Sutter, I think.” Jason makes a note of that. “He’s an accountant for one of the big firms downtown.”

“Accountant, huh?”

Guess she wanted someone the exact opposite of me the next time around…

“Yes. They met at the hospital the last time the Joker escaped,” Safiya explains. “He was being treated for that horrible gas, and Isabel was…”

She trails off, considering him carefully.

“Recovering from the bastard shooting her up with heroin,” Jason says darkly. “Yeah, I was caught up in that myself. Not a night I want to revisit.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Safiya says dryly. “Anyhow, they went on a few casual lunch dates and she said it might be getting serious, and then I didn’t hear from her for a week. I’m guessing that’s when she was with you. And then two weeks after that, they were together.”

“How serious was it?”

“Serious enough, I think. She was happy.” She pauses here, lower lip trembling and inhales deeply through her nose. Jason recognizes the look of someone trying to stave off tears. “Then it was over and she was alone. Shortly after she told me about the baby, and…well, you. Sort of.”

Jason swallows, not even able to imagine what Isabel might have said about him. There’s a long silence between them, both of their thoughts clearly on the woman whose presence is so pervasive in this room.

Safiya sniffs.

“Listen,” she says at last. “I can see you want to do right by Luisa. I don’t know what Isabel’s reasons were for not telling you. But I don’t think it’s because you would harm a child. As long as you’re acting as guardian to Luisa, I will make you the same offer I made her mother: I will help you as much as I am able. Just call me and I’ll do my best to be there.” She offers Jason a wan smile. “You are not alone in this.”

“So I’ve been hearing,” he replies heavily. “Still working on the believing.”

There’s a trilling noise and Safiya reaches for her pocket for her phone, sliding her thumb across the screen to silence it.

“Speaking of believing,” she says. “I have to leave for prayers now. If you were anyone else, I’d worry you intended to steal and sell her belongings but given who your partner is…I doubt you’re hurting for money.”

Jason snorts. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“I’m also assuming you can let yourself out of here the same way you got in,” she continues. “So I won’t offer you my keys. Unless you intend to take over plant-watering duties?”

“Uh, no. I’m the opposite of a green thumb.”

He doesn’t mention that he’s never taken care of a plant on his own, let alone a child. Probably she won’t appreciate that kind of gallows humor.

“Alright then. I will see you around, I guess.” She pauses in the doorway. “Although, the next time you come by, at least send a text message or something so I don’t accidentally knock you out.”

And with that, she’s gone.

Jason shakes his head, mouth quirked upward in grim amusement. Knowing his luck, and his frame of mind, she’d actually manage it.

He doesn’t move immediately upon finding himself alone again, feeling rather like the interlude with Safiya has broken through some of the mounting, breathless panic he had been feeling before.

His eyes catch upon the fridge again, and the sonogram picture there, and he physically shakes himself.

Get back to work.

The computer in the corner is open on the login screen, and he goes to sit down, setting to work decrypting her password.

It doesn’t take very long—she’s not the kind of person to use something obvious like ‘password’, but a lot of civilians don’t bother with the randomly generated string of numbers, letters and symbols. It takes about fifteen minutes for him to happen upon the word based on faded keys—a mashup of her parent’s names and some numbers he supposes holds significance to her—and he’s into her system.

It’s a job he’s had to do uncountable times in his life, scanning through private files and documents of murder victims or suspects. It’s always had a kind of morbid quality to it before, but he’s feeling that even more now.

He knew this person.

He knows if she was here—if she was still alive—she would not be happy with such an invasion of her privacy.

But she’s not here, is she. That’s the whole problem.

He swallows, flipping through the digital folders; when nothing jumps out at him immediately, he decides to come back to it and instead opens her email program.

It’s mostly a list of weekly work schedules and the requisite spam from subscriber lists, but then he notices there’s a single file in the Drafts folder that curiosity has him clicking a moment later.

[Draft] [email protected] (no subject)

The last date it was modified is the day she died. He clicks on it, eyes immediately flying to the first word—Jason—before stopping, breath catching. Because while this is exactly what he’s been trying to find since he got here, it’s also exactly what he didn’t want to find.

Dreading what he’s about to discover, he takes a breath and braces himself to read the whole thing.

Jason—

I don’t know if you even use email or not, but I saw this on that ridiculous Rent-a-Bat sign the last time I was in California and figured I’d try. I’d call your cell, but I might screw up saying what I need to over the phone. Assuming you even pick up for me.

At least this way, I might work up the nerve to press send.

I’m pregnant. About seven months now—

He pauses, glancing again at the time of the email, because Isabel had been nine months pregnant when she died, which means she started this email months ago but never got around to sending it.

Never got around to, or never worked up the courage.

Just like Safiya said.

He goes back to reading.

—About seven months now.

It’s a girl, and she’s yours based on the dates the doctors gave me. I wasn’t with anyone but you, unless Kori’s people can get a person pregnant by just touching them.

(The baby’s perfectly human by the way, according to the tests.)

I didn’t find out until weeks after we ended things, or I would have told you when we last spoke on the phone. After that, I didn’t know how to tell you. About the baby or the fact, I’ve decided to keep her.

I was scared. For a lot of reasons that I’m sure you understand. I was worried you’d try to talk me out of this, and then I worried if anyone were to find out, they might try to use us against you. It’s already happened once; it can happen again.

There are rumors all over Gotham that the Joker’s dead, but they’ve said that before. It’s dangerous here, so much so that I’ve thought about leaving the city with her and starting over. Except, it’s hard enough to do this Mom thing by yourself in the only place that’s ever been home, let alone up and move somewhere you’ve got absolutely nothing.

And to be honest, I’ve never been the type to run away from something.

Which is why I’m embarrassed it’s taken me so long to get in touch with you.

I’m not sure if I’ve been more worried that you’d want nothing to do with me or her, or the opposite. That you’ll do the decent thing and give up everything you do—all the important stuff, saving innocent people and fighting aliens and taking out the worst criminals—just to be here. Because that’s the type of person you are. You’re hard because you have to be but inside, you’re a good man and you’ve got a code. On that front, I can’t think of a better man to have a child with.

But I also get that you might not want to or be able to be that person. And I understand all of that. I would never ask you to change your entire life because of this. You have a purpose and resources and plans I can barely imagine, but I think in some ways I’m a lot freer than you are.

I’m lucky here, I have a friend to help me out in the first weeks, and my job has an excellent daycare program for when I’m off maternity leave. I have a support system and we will be alright on our own if you decide you can’t or don’t want to be a part of this.

But I hope you’ll want to.

I want her to meet you, whether it’s now or years from now. A kid has a right to know her family. I lost mine too young, and you said you did too. I don’t want that for our daughter.

I’ve decided to call her Luisa, after my mother. I haven’t chosen a middle name yet, in case you want some input on that, but otherwise I’ll

The email cuts off abruptly there, and he finds himself wondering what interrupted her, even though he can guess the reason. His brain is still struggling to compute her final words to him.

There’s a lot to unpack, but the most startling thing is that Isabel wanted him to know.

She not only wanted this baby, but she wanted Jason to be in her life.

In their lives, more to the point.

Stunned, he leans back in the chair and stares unseeing at the computer screen as he tries to sort out how he feels about all this.

He doesn’t notice that hours have passed until the hospital contacts him hours later.

⁂⁂⁂

Your feedback matters! I want to know what you think of my story, so feel free to leave kudos, a comment or as many of these emojis as you want and let me know how you feel!

________________________________________________________________

Next Chapter

#jaytim #fanfiction #jaytim fanfiction #babyfic #jason todd #original character #original character: safiya amin #accidental baby acquisition #slow build #slow burn #coping with big news #having to adult

3 notes · View notes

violetsmoak · 5 years

Text

Philtatos [7/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20101543/chapters/47630773

Blanket Disclaimer

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

Beta Reader: None at the moment.

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: #fate #fatal flaw #oracle #reincarnation #secrets #undying love

First Chapter

Author's Note(s): Sorry for the delay guys. Between trying to find a place to live, and dealing with a family member with Alzheimers, the past day or so has kind of sucked. But I did finally get some time to myself to finish this chapter, so I hope you enjoy!

Much of the dialog and imagery of Jason’s flashback is based on actual lines from The Iliad and Madeline Miller's novel The Song of Achilles. If you're looking to cry, read the latter to the end.

________________________________________________________________

Tim stares at the screen of his tablet, reading the information but none of it registering. He’s been at this too long.

Crime scene photos from the GCPD’s system and coroners reports from half a dozen murder-suicides that took place throughout the city in the past week, each one more brutal than the last. One guy took a meat pounder to his girlfriend’s head; another a fire poker to his husband’s face.

I wish I could get out there and investigate the scenes myself.

He’s been effectively benched and it’s starting to give him cabin fever, even though he knows it’s important to stay with Jason right now.

Bruce took off to Amsterdam about an hour again; like Tim, he prefers to retrace crimes from their origin. It’s how they find clues the cops miss. Dick’s doing the same right now in Gotham, revisiting all the crime scenes with Duke by his side in case his retrocognition can help them any. He has no idea where Steph is tonight, but if Barbara’s radio silence is any indicator, they’re probably working something big together.

Jason’s been sitting beside him on the couch in the study, three separate books open on his lap and a notepad where he’s jotting down various comparisons of the information.

(Because “I’m not defacing a first edition version of Les Métamorphoses, especially not one with etchings by Picasso, Tim. It’s just not done.”)

The first hour he managed to keep absorbed in his task, but Tim’s noticed him stopping more often between annotations, rubbing at a spot on his neck or over the spot in his shoulder where he was shot.

Whenever he notices Tim looking, they both immediately look away and go back to work; but after another period of research—getting shorter and shorter after each pause—Jason’s back to twitching and looking guilty.

He’s going to have his neck rubbed raw in another hour.

Despite the fact the whole thing was Tim’s idea, it’s harder to remain unaffected about the need for physical contact than he thought. And Jason notices pretty fast that Tim isn’t as at ease with the ‘treatment’ plan as he’s been insinuating.

He thought Jason putting his arm around his shoulders earlier was mostly to bother Dick, whose attempts at protectiveness had just made the situation more awkward. But when Jason does it again later, unthinkingly draping himself around Tim’s shoulder, Tim can’t help going stiff as a board.

Jason pulls away immediately, as if he’s been burned. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s…fine.”

“Stop lying, obviously you’re not,” Jason answers, shifting to the other edge of the couch to put at least three feet between them. “You don’t have to force yourself to do this. I can get through it without you.”

Tim sets aside his tablet. “Because that worked out so well the first time you tried it.”

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter. I’m more than capable of figuring out how to get through this without using your skin as a security blanket.” He pauses. “That came out so much disturbing than I intended.”

“How was it ever not going to sound disturbing?” Tim wonders, and then sighs. “Look, I don’t mind. The longer you stay in a healthy headspace, the more time we have to find a cure.”

“Yeah, but if you’re so friggen uncomfortable with it—”

“I’m not!”

“Bullshit.”

“No, really, it’s fine. It’s my choice.”

“Yeah, say that without flinching and maybe I’ll believe you,” Jason mutters, shoulders slumping. “If you’re going to freeze up every time I go near your personal bubble, screw it. Like I don’t feel like enough of a creep…”

Tim can see how much he hates this, the fact that he’s making Tim uncomfortable—the fact that making Tim uncomfortable upsets him at all. He’s never cared before; it’s always been a kind of unofficial hobby.

But now that his brain and hormones are becoming compromised, it’s more important to him than ever not to cross boundaries. Or at least what he perceives as boundaries.

Tim bows his head.

He’s been managing his feelings about all this by remaining clinical, dividing him from the particulars of the situation the way he’s always done. It’s the sort of thing that works on hard cases, the kind involving little kids or serial murders. He forgot that it doesn’t work so well when dealing with people.

Communication, he remembers Steph chiding him during one argument. Honesty.

Nodding to himself, Tim forces himself to appear relaxed.

“It’s not like that. I just—I’ve never been really good at all the…” He waves his hand, searching for the words, “…physical intimacy stuff.”

Jason blinks, not having expected that. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Tim shifts. “I know it’s hard to tell when I’m next to Dick or Steph or someone who…”

“Who has personal space issues?”

“Yeah. But with them I’ve gotten used to it. But with you, you’ve never exactly…”

“Put hands on you except to lay you out flat on the floor?” Jason suggests, and then turns red. “I mean beating the crap out of you! Not the other thing that…! Fuck, he wasn’t kidding about the innuendo thing, was he?”

“Oh, I don’t know. If not for everything going on, I’m pretty sure you’d still be making jokes to make everyone uncomfortable,” Tim muses, his own ears warm at the accidental image Jason’s words provided.

Jason tilts his head to one side, and then nods. “Fair.”

They smirk at each other for a moment. Then something thoughtful passes across Jason’s face.

“What?”

“When you say physical intimacy,” Jason starts slowly, “d’you mean just occupying someone else’s personal space, or…?”

He trails off, and it takes a few seconds before Tim interprets the meaning. His cheeks may actually be on fire right now. “Uh…”

“You’re kidding.”

“Well, the first one’s always kind of an issue,” Tim mumbles, looking away, “so I don’t really—like I said, I’m not used to anyone wanting to get close to me, let alone actually trying it. Which always made everything kind of awkward.”

“And the second thing?”

“…that made it awkward, too.”

“So, you haven’t—? Like, not even with Blondie?”

There’s incredulity there, but no judgment, which is somewhat of a relief; he’s too used to other guys looking like he should have his man card revoked for not pouncing on a gorgeous girl like Steph.

As if anyone would ever get away with pouncing without getting a brick to the face.

But Jason seems genuinely curious, which makes Tim want to try to answer.

“No?” Tim winces at the uncertainty in the word and glances up to make sure there’s still no judgment on Jason’s face. “Not because—not because I didn’t—or she wasn’t—we fooled around, but never—she’d already done the whole unwanted pregnancy thing. We wanted to be careful and wait until we were both sure we wanted to. And then she died, then came back because she wasn’t really dead, and we broke up. But it was a long time ago, and then we never got another opportunity because—well, there was Bruce dying and not dying, and other people dying, and then losing Robin, and just…” He lets his words trail as he realizes he’s been babbling. “Sorry. Babbling.”

Jason makes a dismissive gesture. “Nah, it’s cute.”

There’s a moment where they both process his words, and then Jason’s rubbing at his neck and Tim’s coughing because he thinks he might have choked on his tongue.

“I’m going to…” Jason stands, starts rummaging through his pockets, and then jerks his head toward the balcony, “Smoke break.”

“Right,” Tim answers, carefully neutral.

Tim doesn’t complain about the smoking, even though he hates it. Jason’s under enough stress right now, if the nicotine helps calm him even a little a bit, Tim can put up with it for the short-term.

Not like he’s going to be around once we fix all this.

He lets Jason make his escape and for the first time since the conversation began, takes a full breath.

It’s just Eros’ blood. He doesn’t actually think that.

The truth doesn’t make his heart stop fluttering.

“Fuck,” he mutters, letting his face fall into his hand; he rubs at his face in frustration.

“Wallowing in your failure as usual, Drake?”

He jumps and then shoots a glare across the room at the pint-sized bane of his existence.

“Why aren’t you out terrorizing the streets of Gotham?”

“I’m here to ensure the present status quo endures and neither you nor Todd end up compromised,” Damian retorts. Then Tim blinks, the kid smirks at him. “I’m babysitting you two morons.”

“Well my life just hit another low…”

“I have also been doing research of my own to pass the time, since my talents are being ignored in favor of mundane surveillance tasks,” the boy continues. “I was intrigued at Todd’s apparent symptoms of xenoglossia and decided to peruse the security footage to see what might have precipitated it.”

“…And?”

“It wasn’t until you arrived that it started. He called you philtatos. It means ‘most beloved’.”

Tim tries not to choke. “How do you know that?”

“Anyone who has read the Iliad in the original Greek could tell you that,” Damian drawls.

“Well, excuse me, I had an education meant for this millennium.” Tim tries not to croak, running his hands through his hair in frustrations. The strands are stringy today and he tries to remember when he washed it last was; probably before Jason was brought to the manor.

“Odd that he’d call you that, though,” Damian continues. “He has that habit of assigning the most absurd monikers to anyone within a ten-foot radius. It’s not exactly the type of thing he would say. And to you of all people.”

Tim frowns, ignoring the insult. “You think it’s a symptom of the infection?”

“Perhaps. The term itself, or the tongue in question. In case you were curious, which I doubt since unless it involves a computer your interest becomes depressingly cursory, the language Todd was mumbling in while drooling on your shoulder was Archaia Makedonike.”

“English, brat.”

“Ancient Macedonian, you classless twit. The language itself was prevalent in the Hellenistic period before giving way to its superior successor, Koine, when it was brought by the military forces of Alexander the Great.”

“Conqueror of the known world at the time—why am I not surprised you’re so well-versed.”

“Tt. Of course I am. As a child, Mother brought me on a journey to follow in his footsteps along what was once his Empire.”

You’re still a child, Tim doesn’t say, because he just doesn’t have the energy for the inevitable resulting fight. “Sounds like quality family bonding time.”

“It was meant to show me all that could be achieved in a short lifetime,” Damian sniffs. “And what could be lost just as easily.”

“Because he died young?”

“Not only that, but because of his rather questionable decisions. Like pouring a considerable amount of his treasury into a funeral monument for one of his generals. He was so besotted with the man he died less than a year later. It’s disgraceful.”

“Right, because caring about someone is a bad thing.”

“It is possible to care without being ruled by one’s emotions.”

“Yeah, you’re such an excellent example of that,” Tim deadpans. At Damian’s glare, he makes a defensive gesture with his hand. “What do you want me to say? People do weird stuff for the people they care about.”

Damian narrows his eyes. “Evidently.”

He continues to watch Tim in a way he’s not entirely sure he likes. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“It sounds like you’ve got something to say.”

Jason chooses that moment to return, although he halts in the door when he notices the way Tim and Damian are glaring at one another. “Am I walking in on something here?”

“I was simply demonstrating Drake’s continued ignorance in several arenas,” Damian replies, and pushes past Jason. “I’ve wasted enough of my day pandering to your nonsense. Shout if you need help.” His gaze lingers on Jason with disgust. “Or possibly a firehose.”

“Was that demon-speak for ‘make good choices’?” Tim calls after him and noticing Jason’s bemused expression offers a half shrug. “He will do great things.”

“See, I knew all that getting on his case was just your way of showing you like him,” Jason teases and settles back on the couch. Much closer to Tim this time, body angled toward him; he can smell leather and the acrid smell of cigarettes.

He forces a grin, “Tell no one.”

“Lips are sealed,” Jason replies, abruptly stretching out and tucking a stray strand of hair behind his ear.

The gesture would normally make Tim want to melt, to bend closer to Jason as well; at first it does, but the reason for it remains starkly in his mind, and instead his skin crawls.

The study suddenly seems too small, too close, magnified by Jason’s focus on him.

Need a distraction.

“There’s a lot of CCTV footage to go through,” he says, clearing his throat and standing quickly. He ambles over to the desk to grab Bruce’s laptop, holding up to Jason. “Feel like going through half?”

“Not particularly, but only because that’s the most boring job ever.”

“And reading scholarly articles dissecting the exact syntax of some ancient play isn’t?”

“Don’t act like if it was Klingon or something you wouldn’t have a field day.”

But Jason accepts the computer, putting his books and notes to one side. Tim exhales a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

They sit in silence again for a while, one that’s somehow more tense than earlier. Tim’s stomach keeps leaping, waiting for the next time Jason needs to reach out to him, simultaneously craving and dreading it.

So it’s no surprise that he physically jolts when Jason suddenly announces, “I think I’ve got something.”

“What?” he asks quickly, hoping his reaction wasn’t that noticeable. He moves to peek over Jason’s shoulder, considering a timestamped video of an Upper East Side apartment. There’s a crowd gathered outside as paramedics load two covered stretchers into an ambulance.

“Right there.” Jason points at a grainy image in the upper left corner, almost obscured by the lighting. “See this woman?”

Tim studies the image of the woman in a leather jacket and skin-tight pants. “Yeah?”

“That’s Carrie Cutter.”

“Carrie…” Tim consults his mental rolodex. “Carrie Cutter as in Cupid?”

“Yep.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. I’m pretty familiar with anyone Roy might have had beef with down in his corner of the world. You know, just in case.”

Which is a smart thing to do, really, considering old enemies always have a tendency to return when they’re least expected.

And just…great. Because Carrie Cutter, along with being crazy to the point of earning honorary Arkham status, also happens to be a genetically enhanced special-ops soldier that knows how not to be found. If she’s got her hands on divine weapons somehow, it’s going to make apprehending her much more of a challenge.

Especially those weapons. If any of us get tagged with those, we’re done. I’ve been around when the Family gets turned against each other, and it’s never pretty.

The memory of Joker’s macabre dinner party still makes him gag reflexively.

Tim leans forward, balancing his weight on the desk with his palms, and studies the image again. “Could be a coincidence.”

“Has anything about all this felt coincidental to you?”

“Touché.” Tim shakes his head. “Damn. So, Cupid stole Cupid’s bow and arrows?”

What even is my life anymore?

“And the MO makes sense now, if you think about it,” Jason points out; he absently starts to rub the back of Tim’s hand with his thumb. Tim swallows and fights the conflicting urge to jerk his hand away or lean further into Jason’s space. “She has that whole crazed ‘if-I-can’t-be-happy-no-one-can’ thing going on. If she’s got Eros’ diviners, she could accomplish whatever she wants pretty easily.”

“Does she still have that obsession with Green Arrow?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Maybe we should let Oliver know she’s heading his way.”

“Or not.”

“Jason!”

“No, seriously, hear me out, this isn’t me hating on Queen.”

“Sure…”

“Look at the pattern of robberies and deaths—if she’s headed out west, she’s taking the long way and at a slow stroll. There are tons of direct flights from Amsterdam to Star City. She could be there in like a day if that’s her goal, but she’s moving so slowly—based on the places she’s hit, and how long it takes her to get there, I’d say she’s driving.” He traces a line from Europe to the East Coast. “And possibly taking a boat. Not the Carnival way, either. I know people like to go incognito sometimes, but even that’s Bruce levels of paranoid.”

“And he once rode a goat truck across the border of Qurac…”

“Also, there are more direct routes from here to the West Coast.”

“So why come to Gotham at all,” Tim says, and steeples his fingers. “Either she’s taking her time for a reason, or she was never heading for Star City.”

“Then what does she want?”

“And how has she dropped so completely off the radar since she got here?”

Jason shrugs and leans back, stretching his arms and yawning; his arm brushes against Tim’s shoulder on its way down.

“When’s the last time you slept?” Tim asks quickly, wishing his voice didn’t sound like it was squeaking.

“Like sleep or power naps? Because I’ve had a lot of those.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “If you don’t get some rest we’ll have more to worry about than accidental innuendos. You should get some sleep.”

“The irony of you telling anyone that…”

“I’ve never had to fight off an Olympian bloodborne disease.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly comfortable falling asleep right now. I keep seeing weird shit.”

“Like what?”

“I…can’t even remember. The whole thing just gives me a bad feeling.”

“You want to stay in my room?” This time it’s Jason who jumps and shoots Tim a panicked look. “Not like that! I just figured; it’s got all my stuff there. People sometimes take comfort in objects, and I just figured maybe being surrounded by my stuff would help. And I somehow don’t see you as the teddy bear type.”

Jason barks out a surprised laugh. “Hey, leave Paddington out of this!”

“You didn’t actually have a stuffed toy named Paddington!”

“Not just a stuffed toy, I’ll have you know, it was actually a Paddington Bear,” Jason retorts. “My mother used to read the stories to me, and she found him in a second-hand shop the Christmas before she…” Jason trails off, the levity in his face smoothing into careful blankness. “Anyway. I pretended like I was too old for stuff like that, but I was just happy she was lucid enough to even do Christmas that year.”

Tim can’t help the way his eyes soften at the story. He’s never heard Jason say anything about his life before Bruce, at least nothing personal.

Jason seems to notice the scrutiny, because he looks away. “Anyway. Not important. But we can try that whole…staying in your room thing. It would be nice to catch some Zs.”

They pack up their things and head down the hall to Tim’s room; all the while, Tim is trying to figure out what possessed him to suggest this. It’s true, comfort objects are a thing, but he could just as easily have brought a whole bunch of his stuff to Jason’s room for the same effect.

Except Jason doesn’t go near his room unless he’s unconscious and Bruce puts him there to recover.

He flicks on the light as Jason brushes past. “I haven’t been here in a while, so Alfred’s probably changed the sheets and everything. Good to go if you want to sleep.”

“And, uh…you’ll stay, right?”

“Yeah,” Tim replies softly. “At least until you fall asleep, then I have to take care of a few things. Alfred will probably nag me to eat and shower and changes clothes or something.”

And I need to make a trip home to have a conversation with my unwanted houseguest.

“Oh, the horror,” Jason says neutrally, though he starts rubbing at the back of his neck again, irritating the already red skin there.

Tim reaches over automatically and moves his hand away. A week ago, doing that would have probably gotten him punched; now Jason simply lets him, his body unconsciously leaning toward him.

“Listen, if you wake up and I’m not in here, don’t freak out. I’m probably in the kitchen being force-fed grits or something. And if I’m not, just call me and I’ll find you. We can even FaceTime while you wait.”

“Whatever,” Jason says, trying to sound nonchalant. He plops himself down on Tim’s bed, then frowns down at the bedsheet. “Holy shit this is soft.”

“It should be, it’s got a thread count of a thousand.”

“Spoiled ass rich boy,” Jason mutters, lying back on the bed. A surprised and pleased expression appears on his face. “Okay you know what? Forget obsessing over you, I want your bedroom set.”

This time it’s Tim who gives a surprised laugh.

⁂

“I will not be humiliated before my army.”

The lord marshal’s face resembles a misshapen beat, fury twisting his features; the skin beneath his nose is raw from the scented oils he’s been using to block the acrid scent of the funeral pyres. Jason has mostly become familiar with the odor by now—smoke and burning flesh and blood.

“What humiliation is there in appeasing the gods?” he counters and is surprised his voice remains so calm and measured; Tim is a reassuring presence at his back.

“Returning Chryses’ daughter is tantamount to the theft of my rightly taken trophy,” the king of men snarls. “Find me a replacement and I may consider it, but I will not be the only man among us without a prize.”

The quiet among the men is pointed, saturated with disagreement; even the obstinate man’s brother does not stand with him on the dais where kings and their liegemen have gathered. But Jason knows no one will step forward to say anything.

Only me, as usual.

“Son of Atreus, you know as well as anyone that we take our prizes from lawful combat. There’s ample opportunity to replace the girl, or even her worth in gold, three and four times over. All of us who stand here are kings and the vassals of kings, and we don’t owe you compensation when it was you who angered the gods in the first place.”

By taking the girl whose life I was trying to save just to screw me over, I would add.

A few of the men nod at his words; in the background, the moaning cries of the dying fill the air, a cacophony that has haunted the shore for ten days since the plague hit.

“Show your men that you’re as humble in nature as you are proficient in battle, and make amends.” He doubts the pig will notice the insult there. “End this plague before more die.”

Fury contracts the other man’s pupils to fine dots. “You will learn your place, boy. Just because divine blood runs through your veins and your mother raised you to believe you are special does not mean you might speak to me as an equal.” Jason bristles but is immediately cut off again. “Silence! I have no interest in whatever clever words your puppet master would have you speak.”

The blunt insult instead of flowery political doublespeak is surprising enough to still the words on his lips. He senses when Tim stiffens; they both know that last was directed at him.

“If I hear further suggestions that I give up my property without receiving something of like value in exchange, then I will sacrifice the man who suggests it, along with Chryses’ bitch daughter to appease the gods. Perhaps you might volunteer, Peliades,” the lord marshal concludes.

“I’m not afraid of speaking up when it’s needed,” Jason growls, “and we all know you can’t afford to sacrifice me.”

“Listen to the arrogance! It is the same you have displayed from the moment you arrived here. I believe it to be high time you face consequence for your heedless words.”

“Consequence,” Jason echoes, calm; Tim shifts closer, knowing that his outward composure is a sign of danger. The men around them shift as well, some of them whispering; more than one man’s fingers twitch toward their sword. “It’s you who should think of consequence.”

“Careful,” Tim cautions in his ear, breath hot across his neck as he comes to step beside him. He has to keep from rubbing at the area with his thumb.

“Is that a threat?” the king of men demands.

“An observation. How much longer do you think these men will last, without me to lead them into battle? How many times have I been the one who turned the tides of defeat to victory, while you remained in the back ranks?”

Now the whispering is louder, angrier; voices of dissent and outrage.

“I am High King!” the older lord roars. “Every man here knelt before me when we came to these shores or swore oaths to the gods to follow my command. Even your beloved Menoitiades whom you shield as if he is your wife.” Tim clenches his fists but carefully doesn’t meet Jason’s eyes; acknowledgement of one another now will only prove the argument. “You are the only one that always considered yourself above such things.”

Jason is furious. Green like the cold sea edges around his vision, and it would be so easy to leap across the three-foot gap and snap the bastard’s neck. He could do it before anyone else might react, and he’s fast enough to get away before anyone retaliates.

But Tim isn’t.

Tim who remains tense, shoulders set and whose fingers make a minute twitching motion against his side, silently beseeching Jason to keep his calm.

It doesn’t work.

“I have nothing to prove to you, or any who swore oaths to you,” Jason snarls through gritted teeth. “The horse-tamers have never threatened my home, have never stolen our stock or torched our fields. I chose to be here, to sail to this wretched city and help your half-wit brother regain a woman who likely doesn’t wish to be reclaimed.”

More murmuring; it’s a sentiment no one has wanted to voice.

“Have a care with your words, boy; not all gods who listen are favorable to you.”

“And what would you know of the gods? I’m closer to their ilk than you ever will be, without the scandal that troubles your bloodline. If anyone should have these men’s fealty, it’s not you. Perhaps you should be the one who bends knee in appeasement.”

The crowd is outright clamoring now, supporters and enemies alike shouting over one another. The older man’s eyes widen in triumph. “You think yourself better than me? Or than the men I command?”

“No, they are my equals. You’re the dog-faced son of a bitch that isn’t fit to clean the boots of the men you profess to lead into battle.”

Exclamations of disbelief.

“That’s enough!” Tim hisses, jabbing him with an elbow.

“Yes, listen to your keeper, Peliades. He seeks to save you from being named a traitor to this army, and suffering punishment for it. Though I think we are beyond the point of playing this off as country bumpkin ignorance to custom. Your war prizes are forfeit; I will take them under tutorship until you come to your senses and offer submission to me.”

Jason’s muscles pull taut in incandescent anger. “You have no right to do that!”

“I have every right, especially since you are so keen to take mine. In fact, I demand the first woman you took as spoil at Ilion—fetch me Briseis’ daughter. She will replace the woman the gods wish me to return.”

“If you touch her, you forgo your victory in this war. I will take my ships and return to my land.”

“Flee, then, if your heart urges you! I have no fear of you—of all the kings the son of Kronos nurtures, you are the one I hate the most. Go with your ships, run with your tail between your legs. But I will have the woman before you go.”

Jason’s hand goes to his sword, but Tim’s hand is on his then.

“Leave it,” he whispers, frantic. “There are greater punishments than death. Let’s regroup and find a solution to this away from prying eyes.”

Jason knows he’s right. The men around them are filled with shock and disapproval, but none of the cowards will support him if he strikes down the king of men.

And so instead of slicing the ignorant prick’s kneecaps out from under him, Jason simply spits at his feet.

“You’re a coward with the face of a dog but the heart of a deer. You’ve never had the courage to arm for battle along with the men you boast to lead because you fear death. You’re faithless, taking the property of those who speak contrary to you, preferring to rule over a kingdom of nobodies. Your words today doom you and your men to disgraceful ends.” He glares at all the men gathered there simply watching. “I won’t fight alongside this army any longer, and without me, you’ll all fall, ground beneath the feet of the man-killing prince. The day will come when you send your toadies to me to beg, and you’ll kneel before me crying for forgiveness, but I’ll give you nothing but laughter as you bleed in the dust before me. You will all die in ignominy for what the son of Atreus does today.”

And with that, he turns on his heel and stalks away.

Tim follows, as do the rest of the men sworn to him.

“I’ll kill him,” Jason fumes under his breath when they are far enough away not to be heard. “I would have if you hadn’t stopped me.”

“I know. And then you would have been struck down, which I couldn’t allow,” Tim soothes. “Be patient. I’ll think of a plan, you know I always do.”

“And in the meantime, that sack of pig shit will take Hippodamea and vent his frustrations toward me on her,” Jason growls.

“If he rapes her, he violates the life of one who is under your gods given protection. His men and the gods will turn on him if he does. After that display, he’s not going to court anymore of their disapproval. She will be safe until you bend knee to him.”

“Which won’t happen.”

“There are more important things than your pride,” Tim reminds him, a bit of reprimand in his tone. “Don’t lower yourself to his level, to the level of men, when you are as a god.”

Jason blinks, and turns to Tim. “That’s it.”

“What?”

“I’ll go to my mother.”

Tim’s face pales. “No!”

“Why not? And it better not be because you think she hates you.”

“She does hate me, but that’s besides the point. I just…have a bad feeling. The silver-footed are like the sea—unmerciful and uncaring who they harm in their storm. That path leads to death, I think.”

“Yes. His.”

Tim is silent and continues to look worried.

“I don’t need your permission to do this,” Jason tells him, a little sour that he doesn’t have his support on this matter.

Something like hurt flickers across his face, but then Tim’s expression goes carefully blank. “I would never presume to tell you what to do.”

“That’s not what everyone on this gods forsaken beach thinks!”

“Since when have you ever cared what people think?”

“You can’t stop me doing this,” Jason snaps.

Tim looks sad now. “I know.”

He turns to leave.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to prepare Hippodamea for what’s to come. Somehow I doubt you will be able to feign sympathy long enough to shoulder that burden,” he replies coldly, and stalks away.

Jason watches him go, his righteous anger continuing to simmer, until it occurs to him that Tim is actually quite angry with him. Some of the bite goes out of his rage, and worry creeps through his body.

“No, wait,” he starts, hurrying after him. “Don’t go—”

“—Tim!”

Jason sits upright in bed, arm outstretched as if to make a grab for a hand or arm, only to grasp air.

A maelstrom of different emotions cloud his mind, blocking his awareness of the room around him for several long seconds while he fights for his bearings. Anger and hurt and guilt and fear, all tied up with longing, playing on repeat in his head.

He has the strangest compulsion to make amends for something and he doesn’t remember what.

“Fuck,” he murmurs, pulling his hand back close to his body, elbow to chest, hand pressing against his shoulder. The skin radiates heat through the cotton of his t-shirt, warmer than his normal body temperature; probably from the wound.

He is alone, surrounded by pillows and a comforter that should smell like Tim but don’t (because Alfred washed them, so they’re new), in a room that feels somehow too big (which it shouldn’t, it’s the same size as the other rooms, as his room that he never goes into if he can help it. It’s bigger than the holding cell was).

A glance at the digital clock reads two in the morning. Prime patrol time, and more importantly, four hours since he put his head down. He’s pretty sure that’s the most sleep he’s had in a week, even if it was cut short by another of those maddening dream sequences that vanish from his memory in direct relation to how awake he becomes.

Where’s Tim?

He swings his feet over the edge of the bed, ready to go looking for him in the house, before remembering what he said before he fell asleep.

Don’t freak out.

Right. No problem. Tim’s just off somewhere having a human moment, which is just as well. He probably needs a break from Jason. Jason knows he needs a break from Tim—from everyone really. He can’t remember the last time he was in someone’s constant presence.

This is a good thing, he tells himself as he glances around the room, absently picking at the dry skin on the side of his thumb. He didn’t really look around when he first walked in. His brain was still trying to process the concept of Tim being the one to suggest his room as being the best place for Jason to relax.

And the surprise that he was actually right.

Tim is everywhere in these walls—video game posters and obscure pop culture refences—and furniture. There are candid photographs of him and his friends—Jason scowls at one of him and the Super Clone standing way too close together—and half-finished projects of wire and circuit. Clothes and books are strewn across the floor and—

“Christ, kid, you’re a goddamned slob.”

He never really took note of that quirk of Tim’s before, probably because they never really hung out. His knowledge of the kid’s lifestyle was limited to his own notions of what spoiled rich boys were like, and the general observation that his replacement ran on coffee and energy drinks.

His thumb is bleeding now from his continued picking, and he wipes it angrily on his pants, standing up. He needs a distraction. Otherwise, he’s going to go looking for Tim, or blow up his phone with calls until he picks up. He needs to prove to himself that he still has some control—test how long he can manage on his own, or at least test how long it takes between Tim leaving him alone and the anxious thoughts to set in.

He’s coming back. He wanted me to be here, or he wouldn’t have suggested it.

Jason just has to be patient.

Which…yeah, that was an issue even before this fixation crap.

“Screw this, I’m not just sitting here,” he grumbles, and starts wandering around the room, sorting clothes and tools and whatever other detritus has gathered on the floor. Cleaning is both mindless and immersive, something to do with his hands instead of scratch bloody welts into his skin.

And yet, he still drops everything when his phone vibrates.

“Tim?” he asks in the same breath that he unlocks the phone.

“Sorry.” Barbara actually sounds apologetic. “Just me.”

Disappointment hits him like a punch to the face. “No, yeah, it’s fine.”

“How are you holding up?”

Of course she knows what’s going on, too.

“Spectacular,” he says dryly, running a hand through his hair. “Can we maybe can the sympathy? I’m getting enough of that over here as it is. And you never call just to check in.”

There’s a beat, and then Barbara speaks again, still in her own voice, but more businesslike. “I may have found something.”

He likes that about her. She doesn’t get upset when called out on something, nor does she spend time on bullshit.

How the hell she dated Dick so long will forever be a mystery.

“What?” he asks, studying a strip of picture booth photos of Steph and Tim; the typical assortment of funny faces, pressed close together. Jason frowns, tugging absently at his hair.

“I’m not sure it’s anything, yet,” Barbara cautions, “but it’s almost certainly related to your situation.”

“And how’s that?”

“Because it involves Carrie Cutter.”

Jason straightens up. “What?”

“As soon as you and Tim established that Cupid was involved—both Cupids, I guess—I set up a search algorithm to track her whereabouts for the past month or so.” Of course she’s been monitoring everything from her little command center; this goddamn family and their surveillance… “It’s a bit too neat, someone with her modus operandi just bumping into the real Cupid.”

“And we don’t do coincidence.”

“Exactly.”

“So, she had to be sent there by someone or something. Specifically, to steal from Eros.”

“Yeah. Still working on who, though,” Barbara agrees. “That’s not the most interesting part, though.”

Jason’s scalp is beginning to burn from the distracted tugging, but he doesn’t stop. The pain is punishing, keeps him focussed on Barbara’s voice, and not the urge to hang up on her to call Tim. “Lay it on me.”

“I’ve got newspaper reports from the village of Delphi in Greece with a woman of her description killed a blind twelve-year-old two weeks ago. Sliced her throat with one of her arrowheads and walked away, took out anyone that tried to stop her.”

“Fuck.” Jason almost bites his tongue.

Carrie Cutter’s always been a murderer, but from what he knows of her from Roy, she never hurt a kid. His fingers itch with the need to punch something; he yanks his fingers out of his hair, several strands coming away with it, and slams his fist down on Tim’s desk. It creaks at the force.

“You okay?”

“Better than she’s going to be,” he replies tightly. “What else?”

“You heard me say Delphi, right?”

There’s a pause, like she’s letting him process, which he’s glad for; he did miss that the first time. Jason thinks the news over again, remembering bits and pieces memorized from National Geographic when he was a kid.

“Delphi,” he repeats. “Like the Oracle of Delphi Delphi?”

“Exactly.”

His back goes even more rigid. “Isn’t it common in a lot of myths that people who can see the future tend to be blind?”

“Good memory.”

“So we’re thinking the kid was a seer.”

“I’m thinking the kid was the actual Oracle of Delphi.”

Jason whistles. “But there hasn’t been one of those in hundreds of years, right?”

“Not since Theodosius I closed the temple when the Pythia gave him some bad news. Five years later, he was dead, and the Visigoths had captured Rome, and after that it wasn’t safe to be an oracle. But secret societies have been started over less.”

“Still, how would someone like Carrie Cutter know or even be interested in looking up some secret oracle? Even for Queen, she’s small-time.”

“Still working on that part.”

“And if she did talk to the oracle beforehand, what did the kid tell her that made her kill her?”

“Unfortunately, there was no tech anywhere around to pick up on that. Not even tourists taking cellphone videos.”

“Fuck.”

“But lucky for us, we have someone that can sort of see ghosts.”

Jason’s eyes widen. “Duke.”

“Exactly,” Barbara says, and sounds smug, like she’s just managed a checkmate against fate or circumstance or something. “As soon as he’s done with Dick, I’m sending him on quick trip to Greece. He’ll get a kick out of the plane, I think.”

Jason winces.

It won’t be easy for the newest member of the family to watch a kid being murdered, all for Jason. Worse is the fact he’s a hundred percent sure Duke’s seen worse.

Instead of voicing that thought, however, he says, “Keep me updated.”

“Will do.”

There’s a heavy silence.

“Do you want me to stay on the line?” Barbara asks after a moment. “Until Tim gets back.”

Jason’s first instinct is a snappish retort, a denial that he needs her pity.

But his hand has found its way back into his hair, tearing at the strands as he anxiously waits for the younger man to return and for all he knows, it could be anywhere from ten minutes to ten hours before he sees him again.

He shivers at the thought.

That…would be bad.

And so he clears his throat and tells Barbara in a gruff voice, “Yeah. Okay."

⁂⁂⁂

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