#Tim: yeah everyone knows we ‘would have been’ brothers if you hadn’t died so they just randomly talk about how fondly they remember you | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bigskydreaming · 3 years

Note

Hi, I was reading your post about Jason punching Dick in the face when Dick revealed he fake his death was bullshit ( which it was) and it reminded me of an issue/question that has bothered me for sometime.

Why did people believe Dick was actually dead?

I’m not the most avid comic reader so maybe I missed something but it was always weird to me that everyone just accepted this especially given how Bruce was acting or should I say wasn’t acting.

This is a man when his child died another child had to come along and told him sir you are being too violent and emotional you need supervision. When his other child died he went all over the universe to bring him back to life because he knew it was possible ( which was happening at the same time), so why didn’t anyone think it was weird he wasn’t doing that for Dick. Can you imagine Dick really dying that soon after Damian it would be injustice Batman Version. You are telling me that Tim, Jason or Barbara didn’t think it was weird that Bruce didn’t also bring Dick’s corpse to the bring Damian back to life mission or mention it to themselves. Like what more likely Dick dead and Bruce is handling it well or that he fake his death to do something stupid and Dangerous after his partner/brother/ little bit my son the feelings are complicated died after he was knocked out and woke up to his corpse.

Oh man, this is like, the entire nature of my beef?

(Slight derail just to emphasize the fact real quick that Dick DID actually die, he was just revived quickly, but like, the trauma of his death was very real and its not like anyone was clued into Luthor having a resurrection backdoor built into his literal murder of Dick in the actual moment of it happening. So Dick’s death wasn’t fake, and additionally, he didn’t have anything to do with like, telling people about it, because he was literally comatose in the cave and recovering while Bruce was telling people....by the time Dick woke up in the cave, we already know that Alfred at least had already been convinced by Bruce that Dick was dead, so I have a kneejerk need to pushback against the Dick faked his death narrative by reminding people wherever possible that Dick had no agency in the spreading of that narrative.

It happened without him being involved, and the only actual contribution he ever made to it was just not revealing he was alive before Grayson #12, after Bruce like.....emotionally, mentally and physically badgered him into accepting that doing so would be directly harmful to his family and he didn’t want to be the reason more people died when like, people had just died because he ‘let’ himself be captured and interrogated by Power Woman’s Lasso of Submission, did he?

SORRY TO BE PEDANTIC, just wanted to start this off on a clarification, even though I know the aim of your ask was very much in tune with the rest of my response. A lot of people don’t read the actual comics, so like, I’m never gonna skip over an opportunity to emphasize that the shorthand people use to refer to Dick’s death and the year he was with Spyral, is like, literally just shorthand for describing it. Its not actually an accurate description of how all that went down and who had the most hand in it).

BUT ANYWAY. BACK TO THE MEAT OF THE BEEF.

Okay so like, not only was the entire family and Bruce himself giving Dick shit for his death and Spyral, like, PAINFULLY egregious because it was literal victim blaming in every possible sense of the word....

None of it made a LICK of sense with ANY of their characterizations, and they ONLY all accepted it on face value because the Plot Demanded It, and when you're like, no, as a reader I say The Plot Demanded It is not a good enough reason for me to be like well sure, that makes sense......looking at the characters ACTUAL actions at face value pretty much just makes them all look like assholes?

Like, Tim has never gracefully accepted anyone's death. Ever. This is core characterization for him. He will go to the ends of the earth for his loved ones and to bring them back, prove they're not dead, refuse to let death be the final verdict for them. He was tempted to use the Lazarus Pit to bring his parents back to life. He refused to accept Bruce was dead long before he had any proof whatsoever of that theory. He tried to clone his BFF/future-husband Kon in his fucking basement like, dude was two whole inches away from going Full Dark Side in his quest to bring back a lost loved one no matter WHAT the cost.....and then you've got Dick unmasked onscreen, killed offscreen, and Bruce then reporting to the rest of them with zero inflection 'oh Dick's dead now. Its very sad' and Tim's just like, sure. Sounds legit.

I mean?!?!

And you're SO RIGHT ABOUT THE DAMIAN THING! Bruce LITERALLY LITERALLY LITERALLY went BEYOND the ends of the Earth, like, he full on chartered a fucking space ship to fly his whole family out to APOKOLIPS to bring Damian back from the dead by going to EXTREME lengths.....WHILE everyone else thought Dick was dead....

And not a single person looked at Bruce and was like, okay, not that we're not down to do this for Damian because we miss Stabby Smurf something fierce ourselves, but.....what the fuck is UP with you dude? Why aren't you displaying ANY hint of this same kind of energy in regards to your eldest son that you said you watched die right in front of you?

Like....I don't know that we were actually ever told that Dick's coffin was empty or had a fake in it, but like....this family of detectives who refuse to accept death, defy death, COME BACK FROM THE DEAD....not a single one of them said like, okay, if I'm gonna like, ACCEPT accept that Dick is dead and gone for good, I need to at least just see him one last time? That's literally all it would have taken for someone to realize hey something's a little wonky here. Where's the dead body, Pops?

Since when has Jason ever missed an opportunity to prove Bruce is a) full of shit, b) acting like an emotionless robot and all his kids deserve better especially when they've just like....died, c) just factually incorrect and wrong and jumped to a conclusion before it was conclusively proved, d) lying like a liar or e) all of the above?

Nobody even ASKED if Dick's body could be put in a Lazarus Pit? Yeah, Jason wouldn't necessarily recommend it himself, given what it put him through, but actually fuck that, I take that back, because I'm NOT actually of the opinion that Jason full on hates his life and actively spends every second of every day wishing he hadn't been resurrected, even if it had come with a huge buffet of additional trauma and pain.

And that's kinda what's implied when people just take it for granted that he would never be on board with any scenario involving using a Lazarus Pit to bring Dick back, because it suggests that based even just on his own experiences and feelings, he honestly believes Dick would prefer being dead and not have ANY further opportunities to be with his loved ones, his friends, help save the damn world again at some future point.....that Jason, projecting based just off himself, legit feels Dick would rather be dead than have another shot at life even WITH the downsides of Lazarus Pit usage? Nope. Sorry, I don't buy it.

Speaking of not buying it.....you know what was missing from all those soliloquies the others monologued at Dick about how they felt and were hurt and just devastated by his death, to such a point they can't seem to muster a single shred of happiness that he's NOT dead still -

(seriously, Damian was the ONLY person in ALL THE LANDS OF EMOTION-HAVING who expressed ANY kind of positive reaction to having Dick back. We were so fucking cheated of like.....ANY opportunity to have the characters show just how much they valued him by just being fucking HAPPY he was alive, no matter what else was involved....and then most of fandom compounded that by for years being like mmmm, no, Dick didn't get yelled at enough by his family for what HE put THEM through. Needs more yelling. More punching too. Bad Dick. Bad. This is the only way you'll learn not to die and get shipped off on a mission that you don't want but at least is to protect your family after being beaten into it by your dad whilst victim blaming you for dying in the first place. WHEN WILL YOU LEARN TO THINK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE AND THEIR FEELINGS FOR A CHANGE, DICK?!?)

- But like, BUT I DIGRESS aside....you know what was missing from all those monologues about how hard DICK'S death and ensuing year of basically exile from his loved ones was for EVERYONE BUT HIM?

We never got a single line of explanation as to what everyone else officially thinks even happened to him in the first place?

Like, did Bruce straight up just say oh bad news kids, your brother umm. Expired. Spontaneously. There's no one to blame, he just keeled over, its all very sad.

Is that how that went down?

You're telling me that the explanation of Dick's death didn't come with a single pointed finger at someone for this family of blame-happy vigilantes to like, BLAME for the loss of this brother they all mourned oh so much, they just couldn't help but blame him for all the hurt it caused them?

The family that in every other fic is like OBSESSED with avenging and being avenged and all things vengeful and even tangentially vengeance-y....like didn't ask for a single detail on whomst the fuck deprived us of our brother-having?

Where were the attempts on Luthor's life by Jason (who I mean, yeah I know it was in a previous continuity, but erasing that timeline doesn't erase my awareness of the time Dick killed Jason's murderer so like.....mmm, just saying, woulda been nice)....where was the rage directed at the Crime Syndicate and references to how seriously and personally the Batfam took making sure that they were PUNISHED for all this and would never be free to wreak havoc on their world or their family again? What did they tell Damian when he came back to life, and how are you going to tell me that this fraternal little ball of fury didn't aim himself like a cannonball at whomever the fuck had DARED take HIS Batman from him when Damian wasn't around to have his back?

Not only does everyone else's desire to be avenged start falling really flat the second you factor in hey maybe Dick feels "mmm what about MY avenging" sometimes, and why doesn't anyone ever care about doing that for him.....but also, y'know what REALLY sucks about the ONLY person we actually SEE being blamed for Dick's death and ensuing absence being like....Dick himself?

Not only were his family all super keen on making all of this HIS fault and HIM the bad guy because of how it made them all feeeeeeel (and meanwhile fuck his feelings, am I right Batfam hfaklshfklahfkla).....

They somehow found a way to justify prioritizing this OVER ever even getting around to blaming some villain for his death in the FIRST place, in the entire year or so they thought he was still dead!

Like, you couldn't come up with a single target in all that time, but Dick's back two seconds, and you don't even give him a chance to EXPLAIN before you're punching him, shutting him down with 'I expected better from you' and turning away with 'I don't want to hear it, why am I surprised Dick Grayson disappointed me again'?

afshklfhalfhalfhla

Make it make sense!

And like, it won't, cuz it doesn't, and it never will, and like I said at the top, the ONLY reason it all played out this way is because DC doesn't give a fuck about character development and deemed it necessary to go down this way for the sake of the plot (which was totes worth it, I mean, glad we sacrificed characters for this A+ plot which was clearly the greatest plot of all time and definitely justified every story choice made or not made around it loooool).

BUT.

BUT BUT BUT.

The problem isn't JUST that DC is stupid, even though that is an eternal mood and quite the problem.

Its that the SECOND large parts of fandom decided to play along with DC and just accept the story at face value, only add to it and play into it exactly as it happened in canon with no significant deviations, and like, heaping on the LITERAL abuse from Dick's siblings while ignoring the LITERAL abuse from his father....

THAT....is when all of this becomes relevant.

Because the second people decided TO engage with the reasoning DC gave for what Bruce did and how and what Dick did and how and just not mess with any of that and have it all play out exactly like that...

The second people are like, okay we're FINE with not just dismissing this story as OOC writing that doesn't make any sense, and actually VALIDATING it to various degrees by engaging with it as is....

That's when 'OOC writing' stops being an excuse or explanation for alllll of the above gaps in character logic and actions.

Because its like, when you had abundant chance to REJECT this story and say nope, this was bullshit from start to finish and I'm not here for it, when you were just as capable of transforming literally ANY aspect of this story you didn't like into something that made more sense to you....

And you chose not to.

That's.....accepting it as valid writing. You were like, okay, I'm game to just treat this as a thing that happened, just like they said that happened.

For the chance to give Dick shit for it, see. For the angst, see.

And that's when I'm like okay cool, so when engaging with this story as is and accepting it on face value and just delving into the characters as they were SHOWN interacting with and around these events......for the angst or whatever....

You guys just all decided en masse to just hop, skip and jump over allllllllll the opportunities for angst inherent in examining even ANY SINGLE ONE of the above lapses in judgment or hypocrisy on the parts of the characters (who don't get to be excused by OOC writing if you're not going to call the story an example of OOC writing, whoops).

And its just like, uh, what's up with that?

#lol thank you for this ask tho #I havent gone on a good Spyral rant in months #it does wonders for my pores

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 3 years

Text

Canary, Part 6

First

Tim had been watching her out of the corner of his eyes for a long time. It wasn’t that he was trying to be creepy or anything, he just… didn’t know why she was there. It didn’t make sense. She was relatively low on funds according to what he and Oracle had dredged up, and even Tim in all his billionaire-ness recognized that this place was more expensive than average…

So, why had she come? It wasn’t even close to the motel she was staying at.

The vaguely paranoid -- cautious, he was cautious -- part of him worried that she had somehow known he was there, but there was no way she should have been able to know that. Hell, he hadn’t known he was going to this particular cafe until he’d gotten to work and realized that there were now cameras in the breakroom and his office to make sure he didn’t drink too much.

But, really, it seemed like she was just using the free wifi that the cafe provided to write up a resume.

He relaxed and sunk back in his chair with his laptop while he did his work.

… he didn’t get to work for long.

He picked up on the slight gravel of someone putting on a voice with ease. It was high and sweet, a voice he commonly heard from customer service workers. He chanced a look back at the barista and frowned when he saw her on her phone. Not her, then.

He looked around the tiny coffee shop and cringed a little when he realized what was going on. Shady guy approaches a woman who’s drinking coffee alone? Yeah, that’s never a good thing.

He pushed his laptop into his bag quickly, slung it over his shoulders, put the cap back on his coffee cup so the guy wouldn’t be able to tell that Tim had been there for a while, and rushed over.

He rested his hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Hey, bud, she said no.”

Tim watched both of them tense and their gazes were pulled to him in an instant.

Marinette glanced him up and down once. He watched her eyes lock onto his coffee cup for a second and he carefully turned his hand a little so she could see the name.

She smiled. “You’re late, Timmy. Don’t tell me you got caught up in another meeting?”

He shrugged innocently. “You know how it is.” Then, he split into a grin. “Maybe I should be the one that’s upset, though. Can’t believe you didn’t save me a spot.”

“I tried!” She whined. “He insisted!”

The man chuckled awkwardly. “I see. I’m sorry, I thought you were alone.”

She rolled her eyes. “I told you I wasn’t. Can you move, though?”

“Actually,” Tim said, because he didn’t want to sit in the window where Duke might happen to see him while on patrols. “There’s a free table back this way.”

Marinette tipped her head to the side a little before nodding. “Sure.”

She closed her laptop with a snap, gathered her things into her bag, and followed him back to his table.

That should have been the end of it. Unfortunately, the guy was still watching them. It looked like they weren’t going to be able to do work for a while if they wanted to keep up the pretense that they were friends.

She seemed to know it, too, because she sighed and rested her head on her hand with a small frown. “Guess we have to talk.”

He huffed. “Don’t have to sound so upset about it.”

“Alright. Fine.”

“Not sounding much more excited.”

She rolled her eyes and then brought a bright smile to her face. “Sure, Timmy, sounds great! Can’t wait to have a super fun conversation with you!”

“... nevermind. That’s weird. Why did that almost convince me? I knew it was fake.”

She let herself lean back in her chair, her face falling back to a slightly smug grin. “I’m Parisian,” she said simply.

Yeah. That made sense. Every Parisian Tim had had the (dis?)pleasure of meeting had had an almost unnerving amount of control over the way they presented their emotions.

He snickered. “Why the hell would you move here, then?”

She rolled her eyes. “Our psychopath was so boring. Like, dude, we get it, your wife died or whatever, that sounds like a you problem. Now, a guy deciding to become a jewel thief purely for the gimmick? Way more interesting.”

“Moral grayness is so twenty years ago,” Tim joked.

“Exactly! Give me dumbasses who are evil purely to be evil and good to be good!”

He grinned. “I can see why you like Harry Potter.”

She blinked.

He motioned to her cup. Scrawled across it in the barista’s messy handwriting was ‘He Who Must Not Be Named’.

She relaxed a little, grinning. “I just finished the books so I’m a bit obsessed. Also, every time I tell them that my name is Marinette they misspell it.”

“Don’t feel too bad, baristas are just like that. Heck, they’ve misspelled my name before.”

“... your name is Tim.”

“They spelled it with a y.”

“... why?”

“Yes. Exactly. A y.”

She giggled a little. “No, I mean why would they do that?”

“Oh. No clue. I hope they were just messing with me.”

The barista was wiping down the tables. It was nearing closing time and Marinette was feeling more and more sorry for the poor workers the longer they stayed. She knew that, when she had used to work at the bakery, she had always especially hated customers that were there around closing time.

Only two tables remained occupied.

She sighed when she glanced over and saw the guy was still there.

Oh well.

She looked over at Tim. “Care to walk me a few blocks in a random direction to see if we can get rid of him?”

“Certainly,” he said.

“‘Certainly’? I may not be super great with American customs yet but even I know that’s weird,” she teased.

He huffed a little. “Listen.”

“I’m listening.”

His nose scrunched. “No, wait, you weren’t supposed to call me out on the fact that I didn’t have an excuse.”

“Oh. Okay, we can try again.”

“Alright.” He cleared his throat. “Listen,” he said again, this time in a tone that mocked the one he’d said it in the first time.

Convenient. She was intent on mocking him, too: “I’m listening.”

“You’re the worst,” he complained.

She laughed. “I am so not. Joker exists.”

“You’re worse than him,” he said in his most serious voice.

She laughed harder. “No one is worse than him.”

He grinned. “I thought you liked people that were evil purely for being evil.”

“But he’s not,” she argued. “The man just decided one day that he liked the weird guy who dressed like a bat and figured that the best way to get that guy’s attention was to murder people.”

“Gotta admit, it works,” said Tim.

She shrugged, grinning. “Yeah, it does. Makes me wonder what would happen if the Big Bad Bat didn’t come, though.”

He tipped his head to the side slightly and then shrugged. “I don’t know, actually. He usually stops it in time.”

“I think he’d freak out.”

“Absolutely.”

She grinned and stretched lazily, head tipping back.

“He’s still following us, isn’t he?” Asked Tim.

“Yep,” she said, popping the ‘p’.

He groaned a little. “Great. Looks like we’re heading to the library.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You go to libraries? You could probably buy every ebook in existence and have a few billion left over.”

“One of my sisters works there, I can ask her to get rid of the guy,” he explained. “But I like libraries. There’s something quaint about them.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, it’s nice to see how the common folk live sometimes.”

He returned her eye roll. “Not like that. I spend a lot of time staring at screens, I have a special appreciation for regular old books.”

“That’s nice. I wish I had time to sit down with a physical copy like that.”

“You see, I have this genius strategy for making time: not taking care of myself.”

“Go on, this is intriguing.”

“Well, eating and sleeping, right? Everyone thinks they’re totally necessary things otherwise you’d die or whatever. But, listen, that’s just a hoax made up by the government to perpetuate capitalism.”

She nodded eagerly. “Totally totally totally. What’s your solution?”

“Coffee communism.”

“Yes, you should use your rich boy money to lobby Congress.”

He grinned. “I totally should. But I can’t run it by my family.”

“No way! You never know who's capitalist anymore, they could be plants placed by the sleep industry to ensure that you don’t go through with it.”

He gasped. “No! You think? My own family?!”

She nodded grimly. “It’s always the ones closest to you that betray you.”

And then he broke character, snickering behind his hand. She beamed.

They reached the library and he smiled as he held the door open for her. He asked her to wait while he talked to his sister and she waved him off casually, telling him to take his time.

She pulled out her phone and pressed her lips together thinly as she made a note to head over later that night to give the man -- Henry -- his money. She’d give him a little tip because, for a moment there, she’d almost forgotten that they were just acting. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to purposely trigger herself for the sake of believability but, hey, if she was going to try and dupe one of the smartest businessmen alive into talking to her, she needed to go all out.

Speaking of Tim, she updated the file of Tim’s favorite cafes plus the probabilities of him visiting each one. It was for his oldest brother, Richie Wayne. She didn’t know why Richie was the one to ask for it seeing as he spent most of his time in Bludhaven and therefore likely wouldn’t find much use in it, but no one ever really knew why Richie Wayne did anything. The man famously had almost as much cotton between his ears as his father.

But, Richie Wayne was also just as rich as his father, so… she’d give him his file later that night after checking her math with her favorite graphing calculator.

A redhead in a wheelchair rolled past Marinette and she absently held the door open for her, only to be surprised when she cursed out Henry.

She watched as Henry held his hands up and started backing away from the woman in the wheelchair, and then he ran down the nearest alley.

(… she’d give Henry a bigger tip. The man had just wanted a tiny side job to help pay for his wife and kids that wasn’t being a henchman, he didn’t deserve this.)

She opened the door for the woman on her way back inside and mumbled her thanks. The woman nodded once and continued on her way.

Marinette leaned back against the wall again and scrolled through Twitter as she waited for Tim to reappear. Apparently, Poison Ivy was already back in Arkham. Something about an intern at the botanical gardens watering plants wrong. Wild.

Marinette felt someone sidle up beside her and, after a quick glance confirmed that it was Tim, pocketed her phone.

He smiled at her, a tote bag over his shoulder.

“Did you go grocery shopping while I wasn’t looking, somehow?”

He hesitated before holding it out to her. “It’s the French dubs of the Harry Potter movies.”

She blinked as the bag was thrust into her hands and looked down at it. Yep, that was Harry Potter in French. She also, vaguely, noted the tiny slip of paper his phone number scrawled across it.

She slung the bag over her shoulder.

“I’m never going to return these. You’re going to rack up so much debt.”

~~~

NightwingsAss9384: does anyone know why nightwing and canary hate each other?

ScareCrane: She stabbed Batman once on accident and somehow got away with blaming it on him

Daylightwing: She refuses to let B adopt her.

RiddleMeThis: They think it’s funny when their stans fight.

SignalOfficial: They said ‘I’m the only flippy bitch allowed in New Jersey’ and have been fighting ever since

Yummmmmm: He has to or else Robin will get jealous because he’s the only stabby sibling allowed

Oracle: They’re fighting over who gets to change their name to ‘The Dodo’ first.

DeadHood: Nightwing is jealous that Canary was the first one of us to think to have a full-on bird mask.

TheBetterCanary: every time i go into the batfam tag to try and avoid them all i see is his fancams

SpoilerAlert: they’re both convinced that they’re the hottest bachelor/bachelorette in gotham

NightwingsAss9384: im beginning to think no ones going to tell me.

BlackBat: :)

~~~~~

Perma taglist: @nathleigh @peachmuses

Canary taglist: @jayjayspixiepop @unoriginalmess @miraculousfanfic127 @probably-a-hologram @iloontjeboontje

#if i did a kofi would anyone donate #probably not #canary #maribat #timmari #timari #timinette #shutterbug #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #tim drake #red robin

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imonthinice · 3 years

Text

The Criminal Psychology Majors, Jason Todd x Fem!Reader Part 8/?

Word Count: 1.6k

Author’s Note: Y/N - Your Name, A/N - Any Name (Your Best Friend’s Name)

This one is shorter because of the last one’s length.

Hi everyone! By the time you see this, I will probably be out and therefore cannot update the other parts with this one’s link, so don’t worry about that if you notice it.

Warnings: Swearing, Mentions of Jason’s Trauma and his Death, Lightning, no beta bitch we die like Jason Todd

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7) (Part 8) (Part 9) (Part 10) (Part 11) (Part 12) (Part 13) (Part 14) (Part 15) (Part 16) (Part 17) (Part 18) (Part 19) (Part 20)

Going on day 5 of knowing each other, Jason and Y/N would spend the day apart. Why? Because they gave each other the chance to have family time, Jason got it by playing around with his baby siblings, playing Assassin.

Fluff Head canon came from frownyalfred on Tumblr, who wrote about Jason playing Assassin with his brothers

He would go running through the halls playing the game that he and Dick knew all too well, it had been the only ‘no contact’ game they were allowed to play at a summer camp Bruce had sent them to all those years ago when they weren’t adults with a bunch of other siblings, and girlfriends. But here they were, explaining the game to their younger siblings while Alfred and Bruce hung out with Barbara, who wished she could play, but was paralyzed.

Everyone missed playing games with her like they used to, but with the video game consoles in the house they did transfer a lot of their gaming to online so they could relive memories with Barbs. It was bittersweet, and everyone remembered when she became paralyzed like it was yesterday, but she always wanted them to play games like they used to, with or without her.

Jason admired his, hopefully, one day older sister for how she treated her disability, like it was a gift, not something that impacted her everyday life and made her have to hang up the cloak of Batgirl.

But running around chasing after Dick, because of course, he got Dick, the universe wanted them to play again, was something he missed so much. They hadn’t had so much of this time, family time, ever since they all became vigilantes, and they never realized how much they missed the thrill of running around with each other.

Jason ended up getting Dick and throwing him out of the game, calling it a ‘selfless act of brotherhood so you can hang out with your girl’ and they both laughed at it. Titus, Damien’s dog, ended up barking up a storm at Jason when he killed Dick, like the big dog was rooting for Dick to win the tournament.

“Down boy! It’s a game!” Jason would whisper-yell at his dog.

“Yeah! Good boy, Titus! Get him!”

“No!” Jason would yell while running throughout the house, Titus on his heels. Passing by Alfred, Bruce and Barbara, where Titus would stop and go lay at Bruce’s feet, but Jason didn’t know that.

Jason would end up coming in just 10 minutes later, with a green slash on his neck. Tim, who had pulled Cass but killed her, Cass, who had pulled Jason. Tim now had two kills in the game and both were to people who could have easily overpowered him.

“Jase! Welcome to the land of the dead,” Dick greeted him.

“God dammnit I’ve already been here,” Jason whined in a joke.

“You and your ‘I died pity me’ jokes,” Barbara said.

“It’s called a coping mechanism, Barbs. And hi dad, Alfred,” Jason said as he waved slightly at both of them, Alfred waved back and Bruce nodded at him.

“You could just to go therapy, Jase,” Barbara said, seeming concerned for someone who she considered her baby brother. She remember when he came into the Manor, she was older than him, sure . But he had nightmares and she and Dick would switch between who would sleep at his door at night, they both had terrible backs until the nightmares calmed down. Jason never knew they did this.

It also happened when he was resurrected, but the nightmares were worse and he’d wake all sweaty and upset. There were too many nights where batkids would be in Jason’s bed with him from 12am to when Alfred would greet them in the morning. The nightmares had slowed down a lot in the past few years with the introduction of his Goddaughter into his life, but they still came by to remind him of what happened.

He didn’t talk about it much. They would always try to edge him on about about really happened, but he was stubborn. It made sense, sure, trauma is trauma. But they all wanted to help him get better. It hurt them all that he was hurting and they didn’t know how to help him get through it.

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

Y/N would sit on her bed that morning and finally finished organizing her criminal psychology and regular psychology notes when she came across her printed copy of Dr. Barry Allen’s dissertation she had studied so hard. She found it so weird that she was so close to someone who she looked up to in the field while also being so far in the same breath.

She didn't dote on it for long, she stocked it away with her forensics notes in their place. This, the relationship she had with Jason that intertwined her with so many people, was something she was getting used to by the minute, but it was never something she’d get fully used to as time goes on.

She would put on a JCS - Criminal Psychology video in the background as she worked and tried to make her journal look nicer when Jason texted her,

Good morning. He said.

Good morning :) She said back.

I just lost a game against a 16 year old.

Huh?

My brothers and 2 of my sisters were playing Assassins with me right? Well my 16 year old brother, Tim, he ended up getting the better of me and beat me.

Oh! So you suck!

What!? No, I’m literally so cool what do you mean? He said, it clearly had sarcasm undertones to it, so Y/N wasn’t worried if she offended him with saying he sucked.

Oh yeah? Then why’d you lose?

Well, I killed Dick.

Okay so you didn’t lose, Dick lost.

It started raining a little bit, the sounds of it hitting lightly against her window, and she felt at peace. It was never hard for her to feel peace when she was by herself. She only had one roommate because she liked the silence, to be alone to collect her own thoughts in her head.

Her parents said it was because she probably had underlying mental illness that they never had the money to diagnose. She agreed. But she still didn’t have the chance to do it.

Jason and her deserved so much more than what the world have given them up to this point, so when they found each other it was, in a way, the universe saying ‘I’m sorry, you deserve this’ and with each passing day it made the pain they had both felt in their lives just a little bit more tolerable.

No, I guess Dick sucks at the game more than me.

Where’d you even get the concept for that game?

Dick and I used to play it at a Summer Camp before we got kicked out.

For playing the game?

No, for being unruly children.

You seem like you were a handful back in the day.

I was, I was the worst kid to raise, my dad has a shirt that says ‘Proud parent of a kid who is sometimes an asshole but that’s OK’ and he wears it all the time.

What a dad moment. Don’t tell my father that shirt exists, he’ll get one for my mum and himself to represent my sister and I.

Were you an unruly child as well?

I was a troublemaker. Getting into arguments with my authoritative figures about dress codes, rules, why girls couldn’t carry chairs, literally anything that was unequal, I was at their throats about it.

I mean, as you should. My older sister, Barbara, and my younger sisters, Stephanie and Cassie, they would like that about you.

I feel like in someway I’ve won over every part of your family.

The rain would get more violent as time went on. Strikes and hits of lightning would strike all around the city, hitting those gargoyles on every building, she always figured they were decorative, but A/N explained that their horns were made out of copper so people wouldn’t get struck by lightning. Bruce Wayne actually made that a thing, A/N said.

Y/N got a message from the dance competition that she signed up to, turns out, California was hit with a hurricane and most people evacuated. No one was allowed in or out. She guessed weather was being funky everywhere. It sucked, but she already was wishing she could spend time at home instead of out in the world.

A feeling she hated.

She would spend the rest of the day on and off the phone with Jason while it stormed. She would go to bed early that night.

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

Jason slipped on his vigilante uniform, the Red Hood was going to be on patrol over this night, stormy or not, it was his duty and he knew that. Did he want to go? Yes. He was killing for some action and he was going with Dick. They would probably have some ‘Bro Time’ which Jason wanted.

Even if it was silence, having Dick nearby him meant enough and gave him peace of mind.

He grabbed his guns and loaded them while packing a few extra magazines in his belt, when Dick placed a hand on his shoulder, “You have to be careful tonight, Jase,” Dick said as he gulped down tears, “Just come back to me alive if you break off from me, okay?”

“Alive but bruised,” Jason joked.

“I’m serious. I can’t lose you again and tonight is going to be massively dangerous.”

“You won’t.”

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animebookworm16 · 3 years

Text

Who Are You? - Angst

For @j3ssisam3ss

This is my angst piece for @maribat-angst-fluff-april, prompt 25 Childhood Friends

It was the middle of winter in Gotham when she showed up. A tiny girl everyone guessed to be about three. She never spoke or made a sound, but she often smiled, even on the coldest nights. The little girl would just curl up to whoever had taken her that day and smile. At first the other homeless believed she'd never make it to spring. But the little girl was full of surprises. Not only did she survive the worst of the winter, she thrived once spring arrived.

Everyone knew she had a name, no one knew what it was, but they knew she had one. They also knew she was old enough to know it. Surprisingly, no one ever tried to give her a new name. Sure she got nicknames. More nicknames than a toddler could ever hope to keep track of, but somehow she did.

The little girl grew. As all children must. And the older children and adults always made sure to enunciate whenever she was in the area, hoping to teach her how to speak. They all banded together, like they always do for the especially young kids, and kept her away from the worst of the drugs, gangs, rogues, and the overall darkest parts of Gotham. She grew, and most people started calling her Pixie. Their little fairy caused laughter and mischief wherever she went. Even still she rarely spoke, her words as few and far between as they were, were always impactful to whoever she spoke to.

When Jason Todd started living on the street, everything changed. Pixie stuck to his side like glue. She laughed, she started talking, Pixie acted like the entire five years she had been living around Gotham she had been solely waiting for Jason to show up. The ones who raised her would have felt jilted if it hadn't been for how happy the little girl looked. Two years passed and the two ten-year-olds rarely left each other's sides.

Then Jason stole the hubcaps off the Batmobile and Pixie was finally picked up by CPS.

Pixie had to be strapped down by CPS so that she wouldn't hurt anyone. Luckily for her, a young French couple had been passing by when they saw what they were doing, and demanded to adopt the young girl. CPS didn't want to deal with the girl for much longer and agreed. When Tom and Sabine found out she didn't have a name, they quickly named her Marinette Dupain-Cheng and decided her birthday would be the same day they adopted her.

The newly named Marinette was quickly taken out of Gotham and out of the country as the couple returned to Paris.

She never knew that Jason had been adopted by Bruce Wayne.

Jason was picked up by Batman and quickly adopted by Bruce Wayne. Before long he had taken up the mantle of Robin and was fighting crime. He looked everywhere for his friend but no matter who or where he asked, no one had any idea. As the months passed, Jason lost hope for ever finding Pixie again.

He would never know that she had been picked up by CPS and adopted by a Parisian couple and taken back to Paris.

In Paris, Marinette always appeared happy, and her new parents were always busy but tried to make time for her. Marinette had taken to wandering Paris. She wanted to be familiar with her new city, even if Tom and Sabine didn't always agree with her new habit.

When she started school, Marinette stayed quiet. Friendly, but quiet. This made her a prime target for the mayor's spoiled daughter Chloe. Marinette allowed it to happen and did nothing to change the status quo. three years passed in this way until suddenly Marinette was seated next to an extremely outspoken girl named Alya, who would absolutely not stand for the status quo, so Marinette filled that space, doing what she'd always done since she'd come to Paris molded herself into what everyone around her wanted. The same day she met her new deskmate, and self-proclaimed bestie, Marinette also became one of the two heroes of Paris, fighting an emotional terrorist who thrived on negative emotions (and just being from Gotham made her a prime target). Marinette became Dame Nuit, with her partner Mister Bug.

She listened to everything Plagg told her, especially the warnings and consequences of using the Black Cat Miraculous.

For the next four years, Marinette would fill every mold she was placed in. The hero, the Guardian, the class president, the perfect baker's daughter, everything.

Then the consequences started showing up. Marinette knew she had to wrap up Hawk Moth and Mayura quickly. She started pushing it so much that Mister Bug called her out one night and in a single moment of weakness she told him what was happening. What her Miraculous was doing to her.

Mister Bug immediately wanted her to stop and let him give the Miraculous to someone else, but Dame Nuit shut it down saying that even if she stopped now, the damage was done and nothing would change that. In fact, using the Miraculous, while it had started the process, was actually slowing it down. Mister Bug cried when she told him that.

Together they redoubled their efforts to bring Hawk Moth and Mayura down. Of course, Mister Bug insisted on bringing in more permanent heroes, under the guise of keeping one of the two things Hawk Moth was after out of the fight. Dame Nuit then argued that it should be the Ladybug because it's the one that can fix everything which just left them going in circles. But even still she conceded to his request for more backup.

Within six months, Gabriel Agreste and Nathalie Sancoeur had been stripped of their Miraculous and Paris was free to feel their emotions once more. All the Miraculous were returned and Marinette and Adrien revealed their identities to each other.

Adrien stuck to Marinette's side and became an unofficial brother. He helped her as the build-up of chaos in her soul took a physical manifestation, and began to destroy her

A year after Hawk Moth's defeat Marinette's entire class was granted a trip to Gotham City.

Marinette would have laughed at the irony if she didn't know it would probably be the last place she saw. It was strangely comforting to know that the city that held her most precious memories would also be the place that would hold her last.

In Gotham, Jason grew into a young man. He discovered the woman he thought was his mother wasn't. He tracked down his real mother, then got beaten half to death by the Joker only to be blown up by one of Joker's bombs.

Jason died.

Then Jason was revived by the Lazarus Pits and trained by the League of Shadows. He grew to hate Batman and wanted nothing more than to see the end of the Joker.

Years later, Jason would return to Gotham only to find he had been replaced and that the Joker was still running free, and alive. Jason tried to kill the new Robin, a kid named Tim Drake, Batman, and the Joker. He managed to end none of them.

Bruce convinced Jason to stick around and one thing led to another and Redhood became part of the Batfamily patrol rotation. He doesn't stay in the manor but he does drop in at least once a month for family dinners at Alfred's request. On the weekends, Jason would take Tim out and teach him how to spot a sniper, an assassin, what different guns look like when someone is trying to hide them, and most importantly, how to defuse a bomb. It becomes a bonding time for the two, but Jason still calls Tim 'Replacement' but now as a term of endearment.

He never forgets Pixie and she is one of the few things that kept him sane during the worst of the Pit Madness.

Then Damian shows up and Jason has no idea how to deal with the tiny Demon Spawn. It's rough going for a while but they all found their ways of bonding and before long they are one large dysfunctional family.

When Jason turned eighteen, he, Dick, Tim, and Damian welcomed a French class to Wayne Industries for a week-long tour. And that is where he thought he saw someone he would never see again.

Without his permission, Jason called out to her, "Pixie?" It was barely a whisper, but she heard it.

Her head whipped around and she stared at him, "Jason?"

He wanted to say it was a happy reunion. And it kind of was. They hugged. Her class and his brothers stared. Then the tears started. Pixie was smiling but tears were streaming down her face.

One of the other students came over and asked her in French if she was okay. Pixie shook her head and the blond boy asked if there was somewhere she could rest. Jason offered to show them a room. The three of them sat in a quiet room as Pixie cried. She kept leaning into Jason and he wasn't about to stop her. After who knows how long, Pixie dried her eyes and haltingly told Jason what was going on. She told him, how she'd been adopted and went by Marinette now. How she was dying and no one besides Adrien, the blond, knew. How she probably wouldn't make it out of Gotham.

Jason's first reaction was to want to hurt something. His second was to hold Pixie as close as he could and never let her go. Jason cried.

For the rest of the week everywhere that Pixie went, Jason was close behind. The other Waynes noticed and on the fourth day of their stay, invited Pixie and Adrien to join them for dinner.

There, a not-so-subtle interrogation went down, asking Pixie how she knew Jason. At which point, even Pixie's failing health allowed her to spill so many childhood stories about Jason that even they couldn't resist her knowledge. In return, Jason told Adrien stories he had collected about her as a toddler and little kid. It was the brightest smile Adrien had ever seen on Marinette, and the first real smile Pixie had given Jason all week. He could almost pretend that she wasn't dying.

After dinner Pixie said, "Jason, did I ever tell you about the dream I've had ever since I was a little girl?"

"What dream Pix?"

"I've always wanted to stand at the very top of the Wayne Industries building at dawn, and feel the wind at the top of the world."

"Really?"

Pixie smiled a soft sad smile, "Yeah. Do you think we could do that tomorrow?"

Jason suddenly realized what Pixie was talking about, and had to fight a lump in his throat to answer, "Yeah. Pix. Yeah, we can do that."

Adrien and Pixie stayed the night that night. That morning at about three, Jason woke them up and took them to the top of Wayne Industries. Pixie stood as high up as she possibly could. Adrien and Jason watched her with tears in their eyes. Before long, they were joined by Batman, Nightwing, Red Robin, and Robin, who all wanted to make sure she wouldn't fall. Jason didn't have the heart to tell them they couldn't stop what was about to happen.

As dawn started to creep up on them, Adrien broke down sobbing, begging Marinette to fight a little longer. When the light hit her head, Marinette closed her eyes and smiled. They all saw her start to fade.

Her hands went first. Like dust. As the light increased so did her fading. Before she faded completely, Pixie walked towards them a peaceful smile on her face. Jason was crying now too. His Pixie looked like a ghost.

And as she faded completely, everyone on that roof heard her say, "My name is Jeanette. It's so nice to meet you!"

#Maribat #Maribat Fluff and Angst April #Platonic jasonette #Angst

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mrspanky · 3 years

Text

The Time We Lost: pt 1.

Jason Todd x Reader (female pov).

Content: Angst and language.

Readers note: Hi love, I hope you enjoy this! I had so much fun coming up with this story. Can’t wait to put out part two, because that’s when it really gets good. For the best experience listen some sad music while reading, I wrote this to the songs “Last Cigarette” by Ruby Waters, “What Are You So Afraid Of” by Videoclub, “All My Friends” by the Revivalists, “Ghost of Mine” by Kailee Morgue, and “I Didn’t See You Coming” by Fefe Dobson.

𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫𓅫

It was freezing outside.

You hated asking for help but you broke a little when you stubbed your toe on the pavement and didn’t feel anything through your boot, only to take it off on a nearby doorstep and realize that your toe was broken.

Should’ve worn sturdier boots.

You pondered what to do, stranded on the step, fuming. You knew where you’d end up going you just hoped he wouldn’t be there.

You were in the heart of the city but you remembered the way to his apartment like the back of your hand.

It had been so long, but it felt just like yesterday as you looked around remembering the landmarks that would lead you to your destination.

“Fuck”, you muttered.

There was the coffee shop you two used to go to. Overwhelmed by emotional memories of bad days, and days that hadn’t been so bad, you started to panic. You looked in your wallet. $7.00 looked back at you pitifully.

“That’s enough for a coffee, and if I get a coffee it’ll keep me warm, AND give me enough mental power to think of a solution other than going back to his place”.

Your mind was made up. You walked in the direction of the coffee shop with stubborn resolve. As you entered the door, you bumped into a man.

“Sorry”. You mumbled.

You weren’t really sorry, you were actually quite annoyed, but you were too tired to get into an argument.

“No, my bad”, said the man. Your jaw tightened.

“Tim”, you thought.

You’d recognize his and all his brother’s voices anywhere.

“Well what the fuck do I do? Do I say something? No, I don’t want to talk. Wait, but he might.. know if.. he’s home”. You sighed, and turned around.

“Wait, Tim?” Tim turned around, looked at you, and raised his eyebrows in realization.

“...Y/n?”

••••

“Y/n not to be rude, but you look like shit”.

Tim slid a coffee across the table to you.

“What happened?” He looked concerned. You sighed.

“I’m fine. I was just in the area and I was taking a walk and forgot how cold it was. I left my jacket at home”.

“Which is where..?”

“...Not too far”.

He furrowed his brow.

“You have cement on your shoe and there’s only one street in Gotham getting redone right now. It’s in the middle of the city. Not close”.

He paused and glanced down.

“Also you were limping on your way over to the table just now”.

“Damn”. You thought.

You’d forgotten that it was annoyingly difficult to lie to Tim.

“You’re not ok, are you”. He leaned in.

“Y/n, why are you really going to see Jason?”

You stayed silent.

He looked at you closely, seeming to make up his mind.

He sighed, and got up out of his chair, grabbing your coffee cup.

“Come on”, he gently took your hand.

“Tim..I don’t-“

“-He’s not home right now.” Tim cut in.

He helped you up, and started for the door, then paused.

“Look, I get it. But me and a couple of the other’s are just crashing there right now for a mission. You probably won’t even see him, and you really look like shit. Let’s at least get you a bed for a couple nights”.

You tried to consider his offer.

You didn’t really have any other options.

“Let’s face it y/n”. You thought.

“Todd manor is probably at least a little warmer than the streets”.

Even thinking that name hurt you deeply, but you pushed it down.

“Alright”, you solemnly nodded your head and let him lead you out the door, a wave of anxiety washing over you about the impending painful memory rush you knew was coming.

•••••

The red front door.

You hadn’t seen this door in ages.

He had been so excited to walk through it the first time. You remembered it so well.

He had called you on a Friday afternoon as you were getting ready to suit up.

You had thought he would be calling about the mission you two were working on, but that hadn’t been the case, and you had been so glad for it.

You teased him mercilessly and he teased you right back: But you really enjoyed his company, and you got excited whenever he called, as much as you would deny it back then.

“Hey. I’ve got news”, his voice had solemnly announced over the phone.

“I’m king of my own castle now. I’m gonna call it Todd manor”.

“You got the apartment! Wow. Your very own manor. Time for you to adopt a million kids”. You could practically hear him smirking on the other end.

“Well do you want to see it or not? I’m at the front door right now. I sent you my new address.”

Images of you grabbing your motorcycle and riding over as fast as you could, rushed through your mind. You had pulled up to see him standing there, right where you stood now. You had sauntered up to him, teasingly.

“Ok bird boy, let’s see the new cardboard box”.

He’d looked so happy.

You gasped quietly.

“Tim I don’t know if I want to do this”.

He looked at you quietly.

“He’s not the same, but if you see him, he’s still…Jason. You of all people know how stubborn he is. Not even death could kill that...personality of his”.

He smiled with a twinge of sadness.

“He’s not gone anymore”.

You looked at him, with panic in your eyes.

“Come on. The others miss you.” He opened the door, and you both walked inside.

It was just like you remembered. So much so that it felt like a dream you’d had over the past years countless times, of life before Jason had died.

Tim ushered you forward into the kitchen space. You looked up hesitantly, steeling yourself for whatever your eyes would be greeted with.

Positioned around the kitchen were Dick, Wally, Damian, and Jaime.

You tried to hold down your emotions. You hadn’t let yourself feel how much you’d missed them fully until now.

“Hey guys”. You smiled a little.

“Y/n?”

Dick’s eyes widened in surprise.

Wally was characteristically swift to reach you. He raced over and stood at your side, putting his hand on your shoulder.

“How are you?”

A tear fell from your tired eyes.

“I’m ok”, you smiled softly.

“I missed you guys”.

Wally’s brows were furrowed with worry.

You realized that none of them had ever really seen you cry.

You tended to be too embarrassed and see it as a sign of weakness, but you were too exhausted to hold back right now.

“We missed you too”, Dick said as he walked over.

“Yeah”, said Jaime. “We haven’t been able to find you all this time, we’ve all been worried”.

“I’m fine,” you shrugged. “Just needed to be on my own after...after... you know. And I have been, and I’ve been ok I just got caught up a little I guess. No big deal.”

Tim met Dick’s eyes in silent communication.

The older brother pursed his lips together with recognition and resolve.

“Let’s get you some food”.

After you finished eating you trudged upstairs to shower. When you got the water going, you let the steaming water run down your hair. It felt so good after the freezing gotham streets you’d been experiencing the past week. You sighed. You couldn’t stay here long. Everything was a reminder of what your life had been like before Jason was murdered and you went off the deep end. You didn’t want to remember all the hope that you had had, and how naïve you’d been. For a while after he died, you had broken away from everyone for this exact reason.

You wrapped a towel around you, and examined yourself in the mirror, wiping away the steam so you could see your reflection clearly. Over the time that Jason had been gone, you felt like you’d changed completely. Your naturally y/h/c hair was now a shade of y/c/c, and your previously youthful face looked hardened. Not necessarily in a bad way, you just felt sharper. “Amazing”. You thought. Stress had given you a jawline. You laughed to yourself bitterly. You needed a vacation. Badly. This past year of fighting crime on your own and making somewhat questionable decisions had taken its toll on you. You slipped into the large white t-shirt Tim had lent you, dried your hair with the towel as best as you could, and walked to the room he’d told you that you could stay in.

The room was Jason’s, but he wasn’t home so it was empty right now. It was going to be extremely painful to be around his things for the first time again and you were a bit overwhelmed already, but like everything else today, you didn’t really have a better option. You felt like you were invading his privacy somehow even though you knew it was technically fine. “This is so fucked up”, you thought. You hadn’t even ever been brave enough to not mask your feelings for him with banter, and now you were staying in his room while he was away because you had been homeless for the past week. And you had been homeless all because you couldn’t pull your life together after he fucking died and you couldn’t save him. “I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t fucking save him”, you whispered to yourself, holding back more tears as you reached the door. You took a deep breath, wiped your eyes and opened it.

Cautiously, you looked down as you closed the door behind you, not ready to face everything yet. As you began to turn your eyes upwards, you heard a noise in the direction of where you remembered the window to be, from the tour Jason had given you so long ago. Your fighting reflexes kicked in on instinct and you raised your fists. A red helmeted man entered your line of vision as you stared at where the noise had come from. Your arms fell limp to your sides as you registered what you were seeing. Who you were seeing. “...Jason”, you whispered.

To be continued...

#my writing #jason todd x reader #red hood x reader #jason todd #red hood #the time we lost fic #batfam fic #young justice #dc fic #the time we lost pt.1 #jason todd angst #red hood angst

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fishfingersandjellybabies · 3 years

Text

Bedrest Company - fic

Characters: Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne, bits of Jason, Tim and Alfred Summary: Sometimes Damian forgot just how much his father(s?) loved him. A/N: An unasked-for companion piece to my years old story Bedside Manner. Why? I don’t know. Y’all know why Dick is in here too.

It was an understanding Damian had come to early in life, thanks to his mother and his training.

When you fail, it’s your own fault, and you deal with the consequences on your own.

He knew that. He understood that. He expected no more or less.

Not even in Gotham.

So, he was confused, that first time he woke up in the cave under the manor. He was in the medbay, and it felt like his chest was on fire.

Grayson was slumped at his bedside, still clad in half of the Batman uniform that didn’t quite fit him, fast asleep.

Waiting for him, Damian realized with dread. Waiting for him to wake back up so they could continue the patrol route Damian had so selfishly took them from with his mistake in the field.

He pushed himself up on shaky arms, tried to drag himself from the bed. Collapsed off the side of the mattress instead when his elbow gave out from under him.

There was a clatter of equipment. Damian’s groan of pain, Alfred’s quick footsteps and exclamation of surprise. Grayson’s curse as he jumped out of sleep.

“…Sorry.” Damian found himself growling as Alfred tried to help him sit up, and Dick came careening around the cot. “S-sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for, my boy.” Alfred promised, ghosting a hand over Damian’s hair. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” Damian lied. “I-I…just give me a moment and I’ll be suited back up and ready to go…”

“Go?” Dick barked almost harshly. Alfred sent a glare towards him as he loomed. “Go where?”

“B-back out.” Damian grunted out. His chest was killing him, he could hardly breathe. And now that he had moved, he could feel a tug along his thigh, like a deep cut. “We didn’t finish the route…”

“The route…” Dick scoffed, and suddenly he was in Damian’s space, lifting him carefully off the floor. “Fuck the route, kid.”

“Master Richard!” Alfred scolded. “You are in rare form tonight, aren’t you!”

“Sorry, Alf, I’m just…” He trailed off in a sigh, and Damian felt him squeeze his arm. Disappointment, surely. How could Damian be his Robin if he was already failing on such a simple patrol? “…I need to know Damian’s going to be okay.”

…Huh?

And despite the years between the moments, the first failure with his father was no less confounding. Because, surely, a warrior as fierce as his father would be disgusted by such actions, such inadequacy. The Batman had no time for that. Bruce Wayne expected, and deserved, more.

So it was odd, to say the least, when his eyes slowly fluttered open, and found his father where Alfred normally was, checking the medical machines he was hooked up to. Prepping tools for stitches, pulling on the latex gloves.

Suddenly, he dropped the needle, and it clanged loudly in the otherwise silent cave. Bruce let out a quiet curse, fumbling with the other tools, trying to return to that previous sense of order.

“Bruce?” Someone called out in concern. Drake, if Damian had to guess, but his mind wasn’t clear enough to distinguish the voices of his less favorite brothers right now. Damian saw the shape of someone - Drake’s height, he thought – walked behind the curtain and Bruce instantly spun around, furiously shushing them. The other held their hands up in surrender. “…Let me help?”

“I can take care of him.” Bruce said almost desperately. “I don’t need any help.”

“You…sure?” Maybe-Tim asked. “…Have you been checked out yet?”

“I’m fine.” Bruce countered. “He comes first.”

There was a pause, the silence saying that Maybe-Tim absolutely did not believe him.

Bruce was undeterred. “He. Comes. First.”

“…At least lay down before you fall down, B.” Probably-Tim said. Damian tried to squint to confirm, but his vision just was not working. He heard a noise from his father, the beginning of an argument, but the Most-Likely-Tim cut him off. “I’ll finish Damian up first if you’re that damn adamant about it.”

Damian drifted back off before the solution presented itself, but he could have sworn he felt his father’s fingers run gently through his hair.

Once, he awoke in his room, curled into his favorite pillow, the scent of lavender drifting from a candle he knew sat on the mantle of his fireplace. Titus had his head resting on Damian’s stomach, his nose shoved under Damian’s hand.

“This…you did this so many times when you were a kid.” Bruce huffed softly. He sounded like he was across the room, over by that fireplace maybe.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” A closer voice, Grayson, and it made Damian twitch in surprise. Damian turned his head just slightly, let his eyes creak open. Grayson was in a chair next to his bed, looking away, most likely at Bruce.

“That means that you taught this to him.” Bruce accused. “You made him this reckless. He wouldn’t have run off on his own and try to take that bastard down alone if he hadn’t seen you do it.”

“…That’s not fair.” Dick snapped back. Damian watched his hand curl into a fist on the chair’s arm. “You…I get that you’re worried about him, so you’re lashing out, but that’s not fair, Bruce. I never let him go off alone like this. I went after him every time, I- we had screaming matches about this every other day. I would rather die than ever let this kid get hurt on my watch. Since day one.” Dick inhaled slowly, crossed his arms. “But I know you have.”

“You’re blaming me?” Bruce asked angrily.

“Immediately? Yes.” Dick decided. “Because he was with Batman before he ran off. And, as you’re so fond of reminding me, I’m not his Batman anymore.” Dick leaned back in his chair. “Besides, do I really need to give you a list? You haven’t even been working with him that long and I would need more than ten fingers to name all the instances that I know about.”

Bruce didn’t answer that. That didn’t stop Dick.

“But you know what? Why don’t we just give that Morgan Ducard fella a call, huh?” Dick hissed. “Maybe he could name a time or two when you let Damian disappear on his own and it almost got him killed.”

Even if Damian wasn’t fully conscious, he could feel the fury rolling off Bruce in waves. Even sensed his father was about to speak, about to fall into that old, familiar routine of fighting with Dick for the sake of an injured loved one, when suddenly, Titus gave a soft warning growl.

Both men stopped and looked over. Titus gave a quiet, disappointed woof.

“…Sorry, B.” Dick whispered, dropping his face into his hands. “I just…sorry. That was low.”

“I…apologize as well.” Bruce sighed. “I just…don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to get him to see how worried we get when he does that. How unnecessary it is.” A moment. “How much we love him, and don’t want him to...”

Damian’s heart thudded in his chest, and it hurt. Hurt so much it grabbed onto his consciousness and began pulling him back under. He was able to keep his eyes open just long enough to see Dick look down at him with sad, guilty blue eyes.

“Me neither.”

Then, he died.

Like he deserved. He understood that consequence. He was weak, he failed. This was how it was supposed to be.

Then, for some reason, they brought him back. For some reason, they missed him. For some reason, they wanted him.

And he’d never gotten used to their affection before, their worry when his injuries were warranted, but now it was different. So different.

It was a simple fall from a building, one Jonathan Kent had caught him from in the nick of time. So, no worries. No splatter on the sidewalk. Injuries and unconsciousness from the rest of the event, sure, but. Whatever.

But when he woke up this time, he was in his room, and could feel pressure on his hand.

His first thought was that he’d broken it. He didn’t throw his weapon right, and the enemy was able to counter the move. He remembered yelping in pain, clutching his hand, but jumping back into battle anyway, and forgetting about it.

But then he looked over, and found that there was no bandage on his hand at all. At least, not that he could see. Because he couldn’t see his hand. Because it was clutched in both of Dick’s.

Dick himself was asleep, cheek resting on their combined hands, and that’s what the pressure was, his head. His face was turned towards Damian’s, and even in his waking haze, Damian recognized the moisture on his face, the redness around his eyes.

He’d been crying.

“You worried him to tears, brat.” Damian heard from the door. Glanced up and saw Jason sauntering in. “Cried himself to sleep.”

“I’m fine.” Damian whispered hoarsely. “He…none of you should be that upset about it.”

“You fell off a fucking skyscraper.” Jason scolded. “And fell off said skyscaper because you’d been beat to hell before that. Why shouldn’t we be upset about that?”

Damian shrugged. He felt his shoulder blades pulse at the action. “If I failed, it’s what I deserved. I can deal with the consequences.”

“You ever think about how those consequences don’t just affect you?” Jason asked. Damian just now noticed he was carrying a tray of food, and put it on the table next to Dick. “Your friend, the little Super who caught you, he’s been half traumatized since. Lois called and said he’s been having nightmares of not catching you in time. Alfred won’t sleep because he’s afraid you’ll have an emergency and will wake up to you dead…again. Your dad’s sunk down into his emo-boy stage and I don’t even know where the fuck he is.”

Damian blinked slowly, glanced away. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well. I know you’re not apologizing for the right thing, but whatever.” Jason said grumpily. “You’re apologizing for worrying everyone, not for not caring about yourself and what happens to you, and believing yourself deserving of this pain and suffering, which is the root of this problem.”

Damian paused, furrowed his brows. “…But I do.”

“Debatable. In my opinion, and knowing what I know about the world you lived in before, probably not.” Jason hummed. “To them? You absolutely do not. And by letting yourself get hurt, you’re hurting them, because they love you, and absolutely cannot lose you again.”

Damian still didn’t look at him. “…They shouldn’t.”

“Not your call. So stop feeling guilty because they do.” Suddenly, there was a hand in Damian’s hair, ruffling his locks. “Now rest up, kiddo, so I can kick your ass on the mats again soon.”

Jason left without waiting for a response, softly closing the door behind him. Damian waited a second, before slowly rolling to his side, and carefully shifting to curl around his eldest brother’s head. He stared at Dick’s wet face for a moment before squeezing the hand cupped in his palm and closing his eyes once more.

Another time, he doesn’t even recall what happened. A fight in Gotham, perhaps? Maybe against his mother? Maybe against Lex Luthor? Was it in California? He wasn’t sure.

He doesn’t even remember losing consciousness, or waking up. He remembers, vaguely, the feeling of being scooped into someone’s arms, of going through a boom tube, of hearing voices he recognized as Justice Leaguers.

Everything became clear, though, when he felt himself being lowered onto a cot. Suddenly everything was too loud, too bright, too painful. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t feel his legs.

“…fix this.” He heard someone saying. J’onn J’onzz? Red Tornado? The Flash? “I…I really don’t know, Bruce.”

“He’ll need surgery.” Diana Prince. “I’ll take him to the operating room.”

Suddenly, something squeezing his hand. “No.” His father. “I’ll take him.”

“Bruce, you’re hurt too.” Diana tried. “We’ll do what we can for him while we also take care of yo-”

“I’m not leaving him.” Bruce shouted over her. Furiously, desperately, he said, “You want to take him from me? You’ll have to kill me first.”

Diana sighed. “Bruce…”

“I…” Instantly, Bruce sounded weak. Small. Petrified. “I won’t try to help. I won’t get in the way. I…” A pause, and a hand on his head. “Please don’t make me leave him, Diana.”

There was a moment, then: “Fine. But if an emergency arises in surgery and we ask you to move, you have to promise me you will. For his best interests.”

“If it will help fix him, I will. I swear.” Bruce said eagerly.

Damian didn’t recall being lifted again. Didn’t recall movement. Just woke again to a mask being strapped over his nose and mouth. He must have jerked, showed signs of life, fought a little, because suddenly that hand was back on his head, pushing his hair.

“Shh, it’s okay, son.” His father came into view. Not Batman, there was no mask. Just his father. Just Bruce Wayne, face gray and dirty, five o’clock shadow leaning towards a small beard. A tired, scared smile. “I’m here. I’m not leaving you. You’ll…” Hesitation, and Damian’s stomach dropped. “You’ll be okay.”

“F-father…” Damian tried. He saw J’onn J’onzz come into view. Diana. Barry Allen. Simon Baz.

“Just go to sleep, Damian.” Bruce whispered. Damian heard the word anesthesia somewhere in the room. “I’ll still be here when you wake up. I’m not leaving. You’ll be okay.”

The last thing he saw was his father’s terrified smile.

The first thing he saw when he woke up in a small room in the Watchtower was his father in ugly sweatpants and a sweatshirt that he was pretty sure he didn’t own. His beard was longer now, and looked itchy. He was fast asleep in the chair next to his bed, and snoring.

His grip around Damian’s hand was still tight.

Then, Damian got hit with fear gas.

And it was awful. One of the most awful things he’d ever experienced. He saw so much. Saw so many people. The people he’d killed, the people he’d hurt. The people he loved, telling him how much they hated him.

He couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t stop trembling. Couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t stop the tears pouring down his face.

Logically, he knew it wasn’t real, kept trying to remind himself of that. That the voices when he closed his eyes weren’t real. The scenes when he opened them weren’t either. All that seemed to be real was touch. Feeling.

He felt someone carry him to the Batmobile. He felt someone holding him as the car sped through the streets.

He felt someone lowering him onto a mattress, someone strapping his ankles down as he kicked furiously at them. He felt himself begging for them to not hurt them. That he’d be good. He’d be a good boy. He’d be a good solider. He’d do what they asked, no matter what it was.

He felt a warm hand take his. He felt another, larger one take the other.

He couldn’t stop sobbing.

A kiss was pressed to his knuckles. His palm held against a warm jaw.

“We’ve got you, sweetheart.” Someone said. Grayson, maybe? Or his father? He didn’t know. He could see their shapes, even amongst the visions. He recognized they were the ones sitting with him, as other, blurry shapes moved around them. Ghosts? The family? Demons? Assassins? He…he couldn’t tell.

“You’re safe.” A second voice said. His father, no doubt. It was deep and gravely. Bordering the Batman voice, and Damian would never dare forget the sound of that. “Deep breaths, son. You’re safe.”

“I’m sorry.” He shouted. Felt someone press a cloth to his face, wiping the tears. “I’ll do better. I’ll do better, I promise.”

“Damian-”

“I’m sorry!” He screamed, tried to yank his hands back to hide his face. To maybe dig his nails into his skin and pull it away. Disappear from reality. “I’ll take the punishment. I deserve it. I deserve all of it…”

But the hands holding his both just squeezed their grips, as he felt a needle dig into his neck.

He was grateful for the darkness. The silence.

And when he awoke, his hands were still held. His father and his brother were still at his side. Both still awake, but clearly in desperate need of sleep.

“…you believed us, kiddo.” Dick was saying mournfully as he played with Damian’s hand. Held it tenderly in the palm of one while he slowly moved and bent Damian’s fingers with the other. “I just wish you believed us when we say how much we love you.”

“Sometimes,” Bruce hummed under a yawn. “…Sometimes I hate Talia the most for this.” Even without opening his eyes, he could feel his father’s stare. “How much she made him doubt himself. Doubt what love is.”

“Normally, I’d happily agree with you, blaming Talia. But this isn’t just her fault.” Dick reminded. Damian felt a kiss pressed to his fingers again. “We’re just as bad as she is, in this aspect.”

His body suddenly acted on his own, fingers twitching in their holds as his mouth quietly gasped, “No.”

The men both quieted, and watched as Damian slowly opened his eyes. Bruce watched in silent excitement as Dick stood, wrapping an arm around Damian’s head and pulling him into his chest.

“…You’re not.” Damian whispered. “As bad. As she was.”

Dick let out a soft chuckle as he kissed Damian’s head. He hadn’t let go of Damian’s hand, and gave it a squeeze.

Bruce smiled too. “Perhaps not.” He shrugged. “But we are nowhere near as good as you, Damian.”

“How you feeling?” Dick asked into his hair.

“The visions stopped.” Damian said weakly. “So…good, I guess.”

“Great.” Dick hummed. Bruce, also not letting go of his hand, leaned down and began pulling at the knots of the restraints on his ankles. “Perfect.”

Damian pushed into his embrace, hoping Dick could feel his gratitude. But when he glanced up, he saw Dick was frowning. “…Grayson?”

“Just…some of the things you said. From what you were seeing.” Dick mumbled. “They…they were awful.”

“…And our fault.” Bruce added. He gently began running his thumb over the back of Damian’s hand. “I’m sorry, Damian. That we haven’t…been listening.”

Damian gave them a sleepy smile, pressing further into Dick’s embrace.

“You’re here, now.” He decided, flipped his hands to be the one holding Dick’s and Bruce’s instead. “And I…I didn’t wake up from those nightmares alone.”

“And you never will.” Dick promised. “We will always be here for you.”

“Always.” Bruce echoed.

“You…you will?” He let hope ebb into his voice, just slightly, because for once, he believed it. Let himself believe it. “Really?”

“No matter what.” Bruce reiterated with an eager nod.

“…Okay.” Damian whispered. Let his body slump back against the pillow, back against Dick’s arm. “Okay.”

He was comfortable, that was his first conscious thought. Comfortable and warm, and it’d been a while since he’d felt that way. Months, maybe. Years? He wouldn’t put it past himself.

So he shifted to turn, and a jolt of pain went up his body.

He involuntarily twitched and suddenly, his comfort shifted. He realized instantly – he wasn’t lying in his bed. He was laying on someone.

He let his eyes crack open to look up at who it was, conclude if they were a threat or not. The person was rubbing his shoulder now, smiling.

Grayson.

“Hey, kiddo.” Dick whispered. There was a noise across the room and Damian spun his head around, seeing his father standing from a desk, all but jogging towards them at the sound of Dick’s voice. That’s when the setting became clear. They were in his father’s home office. “How are you feeling?”

“Wha…?” Damian looked back up to his brother, whose lap he was using as a bed, the crook of his elbow acting as a pillow. “What’s going on?”

“Are you in pain?” Bruce asked, kneeling beside them. They were on the small couch Bruce kept in the office, for visitors or meetings. It was rarely used. Damian surely never sat on it before. “Does anything hurt?”

“Yes.” Damian admitted, and for once, his stomach didn’t flip in guilt, in disappointment, as he said it. He didn’t fear retribution or punishment. “What happened?”

“Bad fight. You came across the gang before we did. There were more lieutenants there than we thought. You got outnumbered, and they…” Dick frowned, and Damian felt him squeeze his shoulder. “They weren’t. Nice.”

“Well.” Damian sighed wistfully. “I imagine neither were you.”

Because over the years, he’d learned Grayson’s bleeding heart. He’d learned what made that man tick. He also learned that if you hurt someone Dick Grayson loved, you paid the price, no matter what that price was. He would destroy you, slowly and painfully, if you touched someone in his family, and, as much as Damian still felt he didn’t deserve that attention, that care, he recognized he fit in that category. He somehow gained that protection.

Dick blinked down at him, then gave him a sly grin. “You should have seen your dad.”

Damian let his head lull to the side, to look towards Bruce. His smile was, surprisingly, a little shyer. “Do you need any pain meds?”

“No.” Damian hummed, feeling the pulse of dull pain flow through his veins. Nothing he hadn’t dealt with before. “How bad is it?”

Bruce snorted. “Do you want a detailed list or a general one?”

Damian raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Concussion.” Bruce tapped his forehead gently. “Broken nose.” He poked the tip of his nose. “Various bruises and gashes that we could clean up pretty well on our own. Sprained knee.” He gently touched Damian’s right knee, wrapped in a bandage. “Broken ankle and a few broken bones in your foot.” He wrapped his hand around Damian’s toes, the only thing visible outside the sturdy booted cast. Then, more slowly, he raised his hand back to Damian’s chest, pressed his hand over Damian’s heart. “…Broken ribs and a punctured lung.”

He left his hand there, pressing slightly every time Damian’s heart beat. He had a feeling those injuries were the ones Bruce was most worried about. The ones that dealt with his air, his ability to get oxygen. The one that could, potentially, kill him.

Again.

“I think I’ll be okay.” Damian tried softly. “Can’t keep a good Robin down, after all.”

Bruce stared solemnly at him for a moment, then let his face relax, lips twitch up for just a moment, then leaned down and kissed Damian’s forehead.

“You still need your rest.” Bruce chuckled. “And a few weeks off.”

“A few days maybe.” Damian scoffed. “Really, I don’t feel too bad.” He glanced around the room, the family photos on the wall. “Why are we in here?”

The men both glanced at each other, then Bruce stood, turning back towards his desk.

“We…wanted to keep an eye on you.” Dick admitted sheepishly. “But we still had some work to do for the company.”

Damian glanced at the desk his father was returning to. Folders and papers and a calculator littered it. He looked up at Dick. “…You don’t work for Wayne Enterprises anymore.”

Dick smiled again, soft and embarrassed. “…I just…wanted to keep you company. And had nothing else really going on.” I was so worried I couldn’t function, he didn’t say. “But so did your dad and he was busy.” Bruce was so beside himself our identities were in jeopardy because his work wasn’t getting done. “So…it seemed the only logical thing was to all come in here.”

“Logical.” Damian repeated. Smirked a little. “You used logic once in your life?”

“Shut it, squirt.” Dick laughed. “Did you wake up because you were uncomfortable? Alfred would scold me for holding you like this. You probably really should be in a bed. I can…”

Dick shifted to stand, but Damian immediately reached up, tugging at Dick’s shirt.

“No. I.” Dick stopped, looked curiously down at him. Damian allowed himself to smile. “I’m…good. Right here.”

Dick’s eyebrows shot up, but then he smiled too, let himself melt back into the couch, and repositioned his arms around Damian’s torso, brushed Damian’s hair off his forehead.

Damian looked over to find Bruce watching them, a gentle grin on his otherwise stoic features. Damian smiled back to him, leaning his cheek against Dick’s chest.

“Thank you.” Damian whispered. Stared at his father as he clung to one of Dick’s arms. “Thank you for staying with me.”

Bruce shook his head. “No.” He mumbled. “Thank you for staying with us, son.”

He stared for another moment, like he was committing the scene to memory, then returned to his paperwork, his shoulders relaxing. Damian watched for his own second, then curled into childishly into Dick’s embrace and closed his eyes once more, Dick’s shirt still in his fist. Dick chuckled in what sounded like relief, then began stroking at his hair, softly humming a lullaby.

Damian fell back asleep feeling content. Happy. Safe. Loved.

And feeling, for once, like he deserved it.

#Damian Wayne #dick grayson #bruce wayne

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writer-room · 3 years

Text

Siblings: Chapter Three

AO3

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 4

Summary: The Bats reflect on how their thoughts about siblings have changed over the years. Some opinions stayed, others didn't.

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Jason was glad he didn’t have any siblings.

There was a point in his life where he longed for an older brother or sister, when he was younger and fluctuating in and out of his mom's apartment that smelled like a different drug every week. Someone to teach him the ropes and beat up the bigger kids when they stole the food he’d found or the pocket money he’d snatched up.

Nowadays he was grateful he didn’t have anyone to share resources with.

Sure, he didn’t have anyone looking out for him, but that was for the best. He couldn’t learn how to survive on his own if he didn’t get hit a few times, right?

And a younger sibling was out of the question. He couldn’t look after some toddler while he was barely functioning himself. Hell, if he had an older sibling, he wouldn’t have blamed them if this hypothetical sibling ditched him after a month tops.

Attachments in Crime Alley were for people who made gangs, who had followers or brothers-in-arms. That was the best you could get, but don’t expect any of them to risk their lives for you.

A sibling would’ve been seen as a weakness. Someone others could torment to get what they wanted out of him.

He really didn’t want to think about another kid being stuck in this dump with him, either.

It was one of the small mercies of life, that he didn’t have any kin to drag him down.

“Why are you here, again?”

“Because unlike you, Father prefers someone do their job efficiently.”

Jason snorted, side-stepping the henchman who charged him, kicking his leg out and letting him slam his face right into an alley wall.

“I think blasting heads is pretty efficient,” Jason said, twirling one of said guns in his hand as Damian kicked in the face of a second henchman. “But, alas, I’ll have to settle for horrible maiming.” He said, pausing to shoot two fleeing men in the backs of their legs, sending them toppling to the ground.

“Change of heart?” Damian grunted, kicking a goon in the back and using the motion to body-slam into another. “I didn’t think you were capable of such a thing.”

“You wish,” Jason snorted. “Unfortunately, Nightwing would break his no-murder rule just for me if he knew I dared kill in the presence of his majesty with nobody else to be a buffer.” He said with a remorseful sigh.

“Tt,” Damian rolled his eyes, he always made an exaggerated head motion when he did like he was making sure people could tell through the whites of his mask.

“He’s foolish to think that would do anything.” He said, picking up the unconscious body of one of the goons he’d knocked out and tossing it to the side of the alley. “I’ve killed far more than you could dream of.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Jason said, his tone bordering on babying. “But, yeah, ol’ Wing’s got his priorities weird.” He shrugged, letting off another shot when he saw one of the men try to grab what looked like a knife from their scattered supplies.

“Maybe he’s just afraid of us bonding.” He continued, watching as Damian stood before four men splayed on the ground by broken wooden boxes, only two of them barely conscious and cowering away.

“And what, pray tell,” Damian said, psyching out the men by jerking towards them, startling them back against the wall, before turning to Jason with an unamused look. “Would you think to bond over?”

“Let’s see,” Jason hummed, leaning back against the opposite alley wall, gun resting on his shoulder as he counted off his fingers. “History with the League of Assassins, died at one point, killed people, fairly badass if I do say so myself, mothers with horrible morals, should I go on?” He said with a grin.

Damian paused for a moment, eyes narrowed. He thought for a moment before raising his head again to meet Jason’s gaze, a surprising lack of unbridled fury in them.

“Does that not also apply to Orphan?”

Jason paused, caught off-guard. He frowned, recounting off the points he made before staring at Damian, glad that his helmet hid his disturbed expression.

“Damn,” Jason whistled. “Guess the three of us need to bond sometime.”

“I’m sure she will enjoy being included,” Damian hummed, looking over his gloves as one of the seemingly unconscious men behind him opened his eyes. “Though I imagine Father would have some complaints about--”

Now, in Jason’s defense, he hadn’t been paying attention to Bane’s goons. As far as he was concerned, the fight was over. Which was why his attention was on Damian, and not anything around Damian.

Which meant that when one of the men who had been playing possum behind Damian jumped to his feet, gripping one of the wooden boards from the broken boxes in his hand, he barely flinched. In one movement, the man swung the plank of wood like a one-armed batter, connecting with Damian’s head.

Jason jerked the moment the wood hit, immediately sending Damian right to the pavement. He was firing off a shot before he even registered aiming it. The man yelped, falling back and clutching his side as he screamed out swears.

Jason ignored him in favor of crouching down while cursing under his breath, shaking Damian. The kid was blanked for a good few seconds before he jerked and stirred. Not too bad of a hit, not even out for more than a minute. He blinked his eyes rapidly, grumbling incoherently as Jason wrapped an arm around his front, drawing Damian up to his chest.

“B’s gonna kill me,” Jason grumbled, tightening his hold on the boy as he weakly felt around, gripping onto Jason’s arm.

The man wasn’t screaming as much as before, but he was still shouting as he gripped the wooden plank again, yelling about how he was gonna kill Jason or something. He wasn’t really in the mood to care.

Instead, he turned around, still holding Damian upright as he tried to regain consciousness. The man, with one hand still clutching his side, was raising the plank of wood again and waving it wildly around.

“Oh would you shut up?” Jason snapped, aiming his gun.

He fired off two more shots. He didn't pay attention nor particularly worry about where the bullets hit. The man finally slumped against the alley wall, weakly holding himself together and finally shutting his mouth.

Jason holstered his gun, freeing his other hand to wrap around Damian’s chest and hoist him up. Damian was shaking his head, eyes still blinking rapidly.

“The hell?” Damian mumbled.

“B talk to you with that mouth?” Jason lightly teased, shaking Damian slightly.

Despite that, he still scooped up Damian, letting his head lay on his shoulder as he supported him.

“If you bite me for this, I’m dropping you off the first roof I see.” Jason threatened, stepping over one of the other men strewn out on the ground. “I know you haven’t gotten rabies shots, and I’m not taking that chance.”

There were balconies and window sills along the building to the left of the alley, so he used that. One arm kept a muttering and waking up Damian situated while he jumped between the balconies and used his free hand to grab onto the windowsills. It was a slower going than he normally liked, but he figured carrying Damian like a football wouldn’t go over too well.

The second his head popped up over the roof, he was greeted with the sight of black boots with thick blue stripes. One of the feet was softly tapping with slight impatience.

“Goddamnit,” Jason cursed, thunking his head on the edge of the roof, which was pretty uncomfortable considering his helmet was in the way and he was currently dangling by one arm about four stories up.

“I should’ve figured the sounds of murderous screaming were caused by you.” Dick said, crouching in front of Jason with a cheeky grin that crinkled his domino mask. “Having fun?”

“Right now? Worst time I’ve had in weeks,” Jason huffed, pulling himself up higher to reveal Damian hanging off his shoulder.

Dick’s smile dropped instantly. He reached out as Jason offered Damian to him, quickly taking the kid in the gentlest way that only Dick could pull off. Jason almost teased him for it, treating someone like Damian of all kids as fragile. He could be hit by a semi-truck and walk it off like it was an inconvenience.

But Dick was clearly on the brink of having a panic attack, and it wasn’t any fun teasing him when that was happening. All it did was rile him up in the ‘I’m going to curl in a corner and try not to cry’ way and not the superiorly funnier ‘I’m going to punch your teeth in’ way like Damian or Tim.

“He’s fine,” Jason assured him, rolling onto the roof as Dick pushed Damian somewhat upright. At least the kid could properly hold his head up now. “Just took a blow to the head, was barely out for a second. More stunned than anything, I think.”

“Being knocked out is not fine.” Dick stressed, holding onto Damian tighter as he started growling and weakly trying to push Dick away.

“He’s getting better!” Jason huffed, gesturing towards him. “The brat’ll live. Honestly, you didn’t treat the rest of us like glass this after we died.”

“You lost all pity for it when you tried to kill everyone and bring up your death every five minutes,” Dick deadpanned, his worry breaking the moment his gaze left Damian. “And for the record, I do worry about you the same way, it’s just that Dam--Robin here is still a child.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Damian grumbled, still trying to peel Dick’s hands off him.

“He speaks!” Jason gave a sarcastic cheer. “Think you’ll live to see another day?”

“What even happened?” Dick demanded, ignoring Jason’s comments as he stood, helping Damian to his feet.

“Took out some of Bane’s lackeys down there,” Jason said, pointing where he came from with his thumb. “Kid presumably ran off from the old man again and decided to grace me with his presence and help out. Just got a little distracted, he’s fine.”

“Please don’t tell me you killed the guy who did this,” Dick begged, giving Jason an apprehensive look.

“First of all, if I did, he’d deserve it.” Jason said, crossing his arms. “Second of all, no, I didn’t...I think,” He frowned, looking back towards the direction of the alley. “I didn’t actually check. Shot him a few times, though.”

“Okay, okay, stop,” Dick said, raising a hand up. “Every word out of your mouth is making me more anxious by the minute. I’d rather not know.”

“Oh, so when I kill people, it’s a heinous act,” Jason scoffed. “But when a certain ex-assassin lady and demon child kill someone, suddenly you can make excuses.”

“I do not make excuses--”

Damian, with one of his arms freed, batted at Dick with increasing violence until his brother finally released him with obvious hesitation.

“If you two are done bickering like schoolgirls over makeup,” Damian gruffed, pushing himself away. “I believe we are finished here.”

“You could’ve changed ‘schoolgirls’ to ‘Dick and anyone with eyes’ and your statement would’ve stayed the same.” Jason muttered.

“The only thing you know about makeup is how to cover bruises.” Dick retorted, hands on his hips.

“And you only know how to look like a drag queen with excessive glitter.”

“I’ll have you know I look amazing in drag.”

“Obviously, but that is literally the only makeup you know--”

Jason only cut himself off when Damian attempted to roll his eyes and leave without them, instead swaying and stumbling into his steps. He shot out a hand and grabbed Damian by the back of his cloak like the scruff of a cat, holding him up.

“You wanna do this the easy way or the hard way?” Jason said, pulling him back. “Because I’m not against harming a child if it means I can get you back to the Manor in three pieces at worst.”

Damian growled and looked like he was contemplating spitting on him. Jason held his gaze, knowing that if he took off his helmet to give a proper glare that Damian would take the moment of broken eye contact to bolt or something equally stupid.

Dick’s eyes shifted between the two of them with a mix of nervousness and confusion.

“...you will be the one to inform Orphan of the bonding meeting, and will be the one to keep her from doing anything abnormally ridiculous, and whatever other messes she causes during and after.” Damian negotiated slowly.

“Deal,” Jason released Damian, pushing him towards Dick. “Can we go now? I’m getting bored of this already.”

“You’re so impatient,” Dick tutted, looking like he was about to pick up Damian before thinking better of it and deciding to just wrap an arm around his side. “And what did he mean by bonding? Are you two actually getting along?” He gasped in a melodramatic fashion.

“We’re bonding over dying, the League of Assassins, and terrible mothers.” Jason said calmly as Dick pulled out his grappling gun, pausing at Jason’s words.

“And killing people,” Damian added.

“And killing people,” Jason nodded wisely. “We’re getting Cass in on it, too.” He said, sidestepping away from Damian’s attempt to kick him and muttering about using names.

“...as the responsible one, I cannot, in good faith, recommend having an amatuer group therapy session.” Dick said after a moment. “As your brother, however, I commend you getting a hobby that doesn’t involve maiming someone.”

“It’s not group therapy,” Jason scoffed, patting his belt down, wondering if he’d remembered to grab a grappling hook of his own. “We’re not softies who talk about our feelings to professionals like some commoners. We bad-mouth traumatic events like the well-adjusted people we are.” He said matter-of-factly.

“You can’t bully me about going to therapy but then get pissy when I so much as joke about leaving.”

“I can and we will.” Jason said, to which Damian nodded in agreement. “Someone in this family has to convince the little ones to find a non-murderous psychiatrist.”

“You realize that you count as one of the ‘little ones,’ right?” Dick raised a brow. “You’re younger than me.”

“I’m an adult.”

“You count as a little one in my heart.”

Jason and Damian made over exaggerated gagging noises, to which Dick rolled his eyes at, despite his smile, as he withdrew his grappling gun.

“Oh hush, both of you. We’ve got a certain someone to check for a concussion.” He chastised.

“I do not have a concussion.” Damian insisted.

“We’re checking, anyway.”

Damian groaned dramatically, Jason snickering as he shook his head, Dick giving his--their--little brother a light scolding.

They were all going to be the second death of him, he swears.

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bluejayblueskies · 3 years

Text

philautia

n. a love based on deep connection to one’s well-being and built upon a love for one’s self; a centered wholeness

Words: 2.3k

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Relationship: Sasha James & Tim Stoker & Martin Blackwood & Jonathan Sims, Past Tim Stoker/Sasha James, Minor Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood

Characters: Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood, Jonathan Sims, Sasha James

Additional Tags: AU - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fluff and Humor, Statement Fic (but not in the way you expect!), Aromantic and Asexual Characters, Implied/Referenced Homophobia (very minor), Implied/Referenced Arophobia (also very minor)

Summary:

SASHA

So, according to Tim, I’m supposed to be recording a statement on, quote, my “most swashbucklingest experience as an esteemed member of the LGBT community.” He left this recorder on my desk and stole my scone. Timothy Stoker, I will not forget that.

---

Statements of members of the archival staff at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding certain facets of their aspec identities. Statements compiled by Timothy Stoker on 10th June, 2016. For personal use only.

Ao3 link in reblogs

Or read below:

[CLICK]

MARTIN

—really don’t think this is necessary—

TIM

Aaaaand we’re recording!

MARTIN

(exasperated) Tim.

TIM

Oh, come on Martin, it’s more fun this way!

[MARTIN MAKES A NOISE OF DISAGREEMENT]

TIM

You cannot look me in the eye and tell me that this doesn’t appeal to your, and I quote, “retro aesthetic.”

MARTIN

(reluctantly) It… might.

TIM

See! So it’s perfect!

…

[HE SIGHS]

Obviously you don’t have to if you don’t want to, Martin. I just thought it might be nice—to have something to look back on when we’re all old and sick of each other, you know? Here, I can go first.

MARTIN

Tim, you don’t have to—

TIM

(overlapping, adopting the ‘Archivist’ voice) Statement of Timothy Stoker, regarding the first time he went to Pride with his brother, Danny. June 10th, 2016.

(cheekily) Statement begins.

TIM (STATEMENT)

(in his normal voice) I realized I was into blokes too when I was 15, you know. Think it took me a while because of the whole ace thing, though that took me until I was in uni to really figure out. I was still fine with sex, you know, always enjoyed it when it came up, just… never really wanted it with anyone in particular. So I suppose I’d assumed for a while that the things I was feeling toward other guys weren’t romantic because I never had the sexual parts to go along with them. (with wry humor) Almost ruined a few relationships that way, actually.

But I’m getting a bit off-topic. Can’t be one of those rambling statement givers Jon hates. God, I can see his face now, that thing he does with his nose—Martin, you know the one, the- the way it looks like he’s just smelled something really, really rank.

MARTIN

I thought you said you weren’t going to ramble.

TIM

Cheeky, cheeky. Okay, where was I. Right.

TIM (STATEMENT)

Mom and Dad weren’t real big on the whole bi thing, so the first time I got the chance to go to Pride was in uni. The first time I got the chance to go with Danny was after he turned 18 and got his first modeling gig. At least, I think he was already modeling back then. Point is, we were both out of the house, and Danny had been dying to go to Pride with me ever since I sent him pictures of me and Sasha eating an entire box of rainbow-colored donuts that first year. I’d figured out I was ace by then, but it had been pretty recent, so when we got there, I found one of the vendors selling those big flags you drape over your shoulders and got an ace one. Felt a bit weird having the ace flag instead of the bi one like the other years, but I had worn that pink, blue, and purple button-down Sasha got me for Christmas once, so overall, it felt all right.

And Danny—god, he loved it. Pretty sure he ate his weight in fried food that day.

[HE LAUGHS]

Almost got the aro flag he’d borrowed from Sasha dirty, actually, when he—

(quickly changes course) Ah, nothing! Sasha, if you’re listening to this, absolutely nothing happened to your flag, and I definitely did not have it laundered before I returned it to you.

TIM

Aaaaand that’s it! Statement ends, I guess.

See—easy! (a bit more seriously) But really—you don’t have to record one if you don’t want to, Martin.

MARTIN

…

No, I- I want to.

TIM

Are you sure? I don’t want you to do that thing where you just do something because you think someone else wants you to.

MARTIN

I do not—!

…

Okay, okay, fine. Point taken. But yeah, I- I’m sure.

[RUSTLING AS THE TAPE RECORDER IS PASSED FROM TIM TO MARTIN]

MARTIN

(with an audible smile) Statement of, er, Martin Blackwood. Regarding… a crush. No, no, wait—god, that sounds so juvenile. Regarding himself, and a person who- er, someone whom he—

[HE SIGHS]

Fine. Regarding a crush. Statement given June 10th, 2016.

Statement begins.

MARTIN (STATEMENT)

I’m always a little embarrassed to tell people that I’ve never dated anyone before? Okay, a- a lot embarrassed, actually. I try not to bring it up, but people will say things like, oh, you know how it is to shop for a partner or meeting her parents is definitely nerve-wracking—which is wrong on, er, two accounts, actually—and then I feel more awkward not telling them that I don’t know, actually, because I’ve never been in a relationship longer than a week or so. Then, they’ll get all sympathetic, like it’s some- some tragedy that I’m not involved with someone, and that’s worse, because then they’ll offer to set me up with people, or say that they don’t understand why I’m single because I’m a catch or whatever, and I have to give them some excuse about not interested at the moment.

It’s not that, not really. Dates with strangers, they- they just never work out for me.

I think I fall somewhere on the aromantic spectrum? I didn’t think about it much until Sasha mentioned it once over drinks—I think you were there, Tim, although you were (laughs) very drunk by that point. I told her I hadn’t had a crush on anyone since sixth form, and she threw around a bunch of terms. I- I honestly don’t really remember, it was kind of overwhelming and (laughs) I was also pretty drunk as well. But yeah, it… it sounds about right.

(hesitantly, as if bracing himself for impact) So… this person. Who I, er. Recently, that is, who I…

[HE CLEARS HIS THROAT]

It’s really strange, that’s all. And a- a lot. I—heh—I don’t really know what to do about it.

MARTIN

…

Uh, statement ends? I guess? I, uh, don’t really have anything else to say. (jokingly) It’s not like there’s any, er, follow-up or whatever. (to Tim) Was- was that okay?

TIM

(audibly smiling) Yup! Most excellent, Marto. (more seriously) You felt okay, right?

MARTIN

(huh) Yeah. Yeah, I- I did. A bit nice, actually. (quickly) As- as long as this stays in the archives, though. It… it is staying in the archives, right?

TIM

Oh, definitely. Right next to the section on love potions, I think.

MARTIN

Tim!

TIM

(laughs) Yes, Martin, it’s staying in the archives. Pinkie promise. Just you, me, Sasha, and Jon. (in the tone of a man who knows a great secret and wants nothing more than to share it) Speaking of Jon—

MARTIN

(quickly) Uh, recording ends!

TIM

(undeterred) —is he the—?

[CLICK]

SASHA

Right. So, according to Tim, I’m supposed to be recording a statement on, quote, my “most swashbucklingest experience as an esteemed member of the LGBT community.” He left this recorder on my desk and stole my scone. Timothy Stoker, I will not forget that. It was white chocolate raspberry, and I’m stealing the money it cost out of your wallet.

…

Anyway.

[SHE CLEARS HER THROAT]

Statement of Sasha James, given 10th June 2016. Subject of statement is… hmm. Let’s say… (laughs) A brief relationship with one Timothy Stoker.

Statement begins.

SASHA (STATEMENT)

Tim, I know you’re listening to this, and I just want to preface this by saying that yes, it was Italian that we had for dinner that night, not Greek. You’re thinking of a different friendship-turned-hookup-turned-awkward-aftermath-turned-friendship.

[SHE LAUGHS QUIETLY]

Anyway, I guess the best place to begin with this whole thing is by saying that I’ve known I was aro since I was 16 and that I’ve never been very good at talking about it. I’ve ended plenty of tried and failed relationships with the it’s-not-you-it’s-me talk because I didn’t know how to explain that I just… wasn’t interested in romance.

I wanted to explain it to you beforehand, Tim, I really, really did. We’ve had this conversation, I know I know—I won’t rehash it over tape.

[SHE SIGHS]

But the important thing is that I like you so, so much, and—god, this is stupid—I guess maybe I thought that it wouldn’t matter with you? That you could like me romantically and I could like you platonically and it would be fine. Like I said, stupid, but you asked me out to that Italian place—yes, Italian, for god’s sake, I had the chicken parm and you had some sort of lasagna abomination—and I just… couldn’t say no. And it was nice, really. I had a lot of fun.

And then we slept together. And… that was really nice. But then, the next morning, the… the guilt set in. Because I felt the same as I always had about you—which is to say that I loved you, just not in the same way you loved me—and I became convinced that I’d gone and ruined the whole thing.

Ignoring you for a week was probably not the correct response. (quieter) Yeah, definitely not my finest moment. But I’d gotten it in my head that the moment I told you that I didn’t feel that way about you and that I would never feel that way about you—or about anyone—you’d hate me. And you don’t have to say that you’d never hate me—I know you wouldn’t. I think I knew it then, too. But fear is a powerful thing.

…

Anyway, you know how it all turned out. You finally dragged me out to coffee and I finally told you why I’d been avoiding you and it was really, really awkward for about a month after that and then it just… wasn’t anymore. (audibly smiling) And you’re still my best friend, Tim. Even if you did steal my scone.

[THE SOUND OF PAPERS RUSTLING AND A CHAIR ROLLING BACKWARD]

Recording ends.

[CLICK]

ARCHIVIST

Statement of Kyle Henning, regarding a strange mushroom he found growing in his garden. Original statement given April 15th, 2011. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begi—

[DOOR OPENS]

TIM

Hey boss! Got a moment?

ARCHIVIST

(irritated) Tim, please at least knock when the door to my office is closed. I was just about to record a statement.

TIM

(unbothered) So if you were about to, that means you’re not recording one right now, which means you do have a moment.

ARCHIVIST

(flatly) Shut the door on your way out, Tim.

TIM

(brightly) Right you are, boss! Juuuust going to leave this here on your desk. Bring it back whenever you’re done!

[PAPERS RUSTLE AS SOMETHING IS PLACED ON THE DESK]

ARCHIVIST

(dryly) I’m fairly certain that I’m the one who assigns you tasks to complete, Tim.

TIM

That you do! I guess I better get back to them then. Have fun!

ARCHIVIST

(firmly) Tim—

[DOOR CLOSES]

[HE SIGHS]

ARCHIVIST

Right. Well, given that this recording is essentially useless now and I hadn’t even gotten to the statement, I may as well start over. (mutters under his breath) Bloody waste of tape and my time—

[CLICK]

[PAPERS RUSTLE. FOR A MOMENT, THERE IS ONLY THE SOUND OF BREATHING. THEN, JON SIGHS.]

ARCHIVIST

Before I begin, I would like to make it very clear that this is not an appropriate use of working hours or the tape recorders, which should be used for statements that won’t record digitally as per Elias’s request.

…

That being said, I am… not entirely opposed to this project. So, I suppose…

[HE CLEARS HIS THROAT]

Statement of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London, regarding… regarding a black ring worn on the middle finger of his right hand. Statement recorded by subject, June 10th, 2016.

Statement begins.

ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)

I’ve often been told that I am not a very open person. I don’t necessarily intend to be closed-off, but I’ve also never found the need to disclose every aspect of my personal life to everyone I come into contact with. And yes, Tim—because I trust that you and you alone will be listening to this tape—that is a perfectly respectable way to live one’s life. Not everyone needs to know what I ate for breakfast that morning or who my favorite primary school teacher was.

…

I… will admit, though, that in certain circumstances, I… could probably stand to be more transparent regarding aspects of my personal life. Perhaps that’s why Georgie bought me the ring.

It wasn’t a special occasion. She just brought it back from the shop one day, a few weeks after a… particularly illuminating conversation about certain sexual identities, and dropped it atop my copy of Wuthering Heights. Honestly, I had no idea what it was at first. I- (heh) I tried to make a joke about unorthodox proposals, but I- I don’t really think it landed. Georgie just looked at me and said that she’d seen it on one of the online forums, that it was called an ace ring, and that she thought I might like it. I think I was more surprised about the fact that the ring fit perfectly than at the fact that she’d bought me the ring in the first place.

So I wore it. And it felt… nice. Understand, I don’t keep quiet about my romantic and sexual identities out of shame or embarrassment or indecision; I simply don’t feel the need to announce them at any given moment. So I’ve always been fond of small things—pins and stickers and such—that I can incorporate into my life, insignificant enough that they aren’t readily apparent to anyone but me, as they’re for me more than for anyone else. My ring is one such thing.

[THERE IS A MOMENT OF SILENCE. MORE WORDS SIT IN THE AIR, WAITING. EVENTUALLY, HOWEVER, HE SIGHS, AND THE WORDS REMAIN UNSAID.]

ARCHIVIST

Statement ends.

…

Right.

(with something that might be a smile) As for your other request, I do have a prior engagement with Georgie and Melanie this weekend. Though if you’re willing to accommodate two more, I’m sure they wouldn’t be opposed to coming along. Georgie’s always telling me that Pride is more fun when you’re with a group, after all.

End recording.

[CLICK]

#tma #the magnus archives #tma fic #the magnus archives fic #AspecArchives #asexual jonathan sims #gray-aro martin blackwood #aromantic sasha james #asexual tim stoker #sex-favorable tim stoker #biphobia //#arophobia //#(minorly for both)#my fic #my writing

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ectonurites · 3 years

Note

do u have any thoughts on the whole “tim is zapped to time prison” storyline? bc i feel like it could have been pretty interesting and a good way to bring back young justice/tim’s memories more immediately if it hadn’t been such a blatant attempt to just get tim out of storylines bc they had no ideas for his character

sorry lol u don’t have to respond i just kind of wish people talked about this storyline more? and the fact that tim lowkey became one of the only people in dc with knowledge of the other timelines (i think so at least) and nobody really addressed it?? like going into the next phase where people learn about other timelines after death metal.... tim should already know some of this stuff right?

YES YES YES OKAY LETS TALK ABOUT THIS this got incredibly long because I just have a lot to say (and i included screenshots) and i prob got a little off topic but. but lets get started anyways:

i haven’t read that particular storyline in a few months so i might be missing/misremembering some details here, but that whole ‘time prison + future tim’ thing was like. a really really interesting concept and the implications/impacts it has are a big part of why i liked tynion’s detective comics run as much as i did even with it’s flaws in characterization (such as treating tim like he was jimmy neutron boy genius and making steph..... be all ready to quit/breakaway from the team like that. the steph quitting characterization really started i think in batgirl convergence and unfortunately has haunted her since, even though pre reboot never giving up was like...... one of her defining traits. dc i hate you sometimes)

i think that one of the biggest things that bothers me about the situation is how little we saw most of the other characters in the batfamily grieve (aside from steph and some with bruce, but again the way steph was portrayed just... hhhhhh. it very much reduced her to ‘tims girlfriend’ more than i’d have preferred) but otherwise like...as far as I can remember there was maybe one line in that monsters crossover thing where dick mentioned tim was gone, jason had a single line about avoiding the funeral in rhato, i dont think they showed any reaction from babs at all until after he was back, and the most for damian I recall is at the end of the 2014 teen titans run (#24) where he looks at... a case with the old red robin uniform Tim wasn’t even wearing anymore when he died? and that just bugs me. Instead of getting to see the actual funeral we get one flashback to it way after the fact once Bruce already knows Tim’s not actually dead

But at the time when they all DID think he was dead? the closest thing we see was in that same teen titans issue (#24) there’s a memorial-type ‘sharing stories’ thing after the funeral with tim’s titans friends but.... we don’t see something like that with his family. tim is a major presence in these peoples’ lives, they are his family, when he gets sent into time prison its even SAID how loved he apparently is

its just... idk. they all thought he was dead, and if they had put more emphasis on showing not just telling how that effected EVERYONE (not just steph) in the batfam, it might have felt a lot less like they were just putting tim away until there was a story idea for him. (like obviously I know they can’t make everyone’s stories revolve around Tim, but I’d have way preferred a detective comics issue of the funeral/memorial with the family than having there only be a teen titans one, I think it would have... held more relevance & meaning... but instead they just went right into that monster crossover story instead of lingering on this)

but then the Tim story itself once it does pick up way later, with titans tomorrow/future tim coming along having that whole “tell conner you’re sorry” “who’s conner?” exchange with current tim... that opens up A LOT of things to think about, and I think was pretty interestingly done if i’m remembering correctly. future tim recognizes the timelines are different, and ya know goes off to try to change things further ("whaddaya got there?” “a gun to kill batwoman” “NO!!!!”), theres lots of fighting etc etc the good guys win as we expect, but once that’s all settled tim’s left there with this whole. thought process

which ya know is the big indicator there’s weird timeline/reality fuckery going on (or also the read here can be that tim and kon are so connected across all space and time that their bond can transcend anything even timelines and realities and reboots... “and they were soulmates” “oh my god they were soulmates”)

ANYWAYS lets not forget that tim isnt the only one who learns about this other timeline stuff during this whole situation!

Brother Eye has records of future tim’s timeline, and cass & steph see who they used to be! and as soon as steph finds out ‘holy shit i was ROBIN and BATGIRL?’ she also desperately wants to know more! which then a bit later leads into young justice 2019 where instead of going off to college like they told Bruce they were gonna, Steph and Tim go get the help of Zatanna to see what might be going on in their brains with these timelines and weird feelings (as we see in flashback form in yj 2019 #5)

and HOO BOY DOES SHE FIND THINGS! she gets in there and finds out that oh yeah, their brains had very much so been tampered with, and with her magic she undoes some of it, by unlocking memories, and Tim finally remembers Conner! (also in case u were wondering, that panel is specifically a callback to this one from yj 1998 #17 when Cissie quit the team)

one thing that I think is weird/interesting/idk if it gets... properly addressed even, was that Zatanna also poked around Steph’s brain too and she didn’t remember everything? Might have something to do even with how Tim had been in time prison, might have taken less work from Z to open things up because of that? Who knows

additionally i wanna call attention to how he said “That entire chapter of my life” which... leading into my next point a bit... strongly leads me to believe even though he’s remembering some things he definitely does not have ALL of his memories back (because theres a lot more than just the young justice ‘chapter’ of tim’s life that was drastically changed by the new 52 & rebirth)

BUT moving on, i wanna bring up this part from later on (after they figured out that there was a crisis that caused things in the world to change, which is why their memories/brains were messed with) in issue #16

so yeah, I think it’s indicated even though Zatanna brought back some memories and opened up his brain a bit, there’s still many holes, and some things seem more like dreams rather than memories and he’s probably unable to tell which are which on his own to some extent. (also for reference the real thing that Tim thought was just a dream is... likely yj 1998 issue #1)

So based on the things i’ve brought up here (which are the things I remember off the top of my head, I could easily be accidentally leaving shit out LMAO i haven’t fully read through any of these books in at least 3 or more months now) I think it’s safe to assume that Tim definitely has a head start on getting back his memories before Death Metal happens, but that it was by no means a complete thing. So the after effects of Death Metal are probably just gonna... be a little less drastic for him vs most other people because it was already happening, but it’ll be kinda filling in the remaining gaps?

And like you said he is absolutely one of the few people that already knew about about the timelines/the fact that these crises have happened and changed things, but pretty much all the other young justice characters are also aware that there was meddling in the timeline/that multiple timelines and alternate universes like this exist since they were all together as a group when it got explained (in like. yj 2019 #15 i believe is where most of the explaining happens) (and cass as well is aware of things to some extent because of her and steph’s interaction with Brother Eye) but the difference is that Zatanna didn’t go into everyone’s brains, so they aren’t dealing with the same memory things as Tim (and possibly Steph? because again Z DID go in her brain, she just wasn’t able to unlock all the same things as she did with Tim)

but yeah in general i SO wish this was explored more, both in canon and in fanworks (fanworks tho... that can still happen >:3c). Memories hazily coming in for Tim while Kon and Bart are able to confirm or deny things, him dealing with conflicting memories and feelings about his past as they trickle in... like I think we’ll start to see these types of things moving forward across a lot of titles with Infinite Frontier (i BELIEVE dont quote me on this but I BELIEVE the person writing Damian’s upcoming solo had mentioned in an interview that the memories coming back of the other timeline aren’t going to be an all at once thing but will be more gradual for most characters) but the fact that it theoretically had already been happening for Tim for MONTHS and we only got that one crumb indicating it in #16 of it instead of any actual exploration makes me SAAAAAAD

#Anonymous #tim drake #dc comics #meta #sam talks about tim too much #if anyone has diff thoughts interpretations im always down to discuss!#this sent me down a rabbit hole thats why i didnt answer last night it was Suddenly 1am djsjsjs #also sorry no issue numbers on the detective comics stuff but those r screenshots i already had #from my readthrough a while back or google images. so i didnt go check

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misterewrites · 3 years

Text

Threads of Fate 2: Electric Boogaloo (Jason Todd X reader)

Hello everyone, E here with another story! this time it’s part 2 for the story i wrote for my good friend @hains-mae last year for her birthday! so naturally it’s her birthday again cuz that’s how they work! Red Hoodie X reader. I hope you all have an amazing week. I will be trying to write my original story and post it sometime this/next week but we’ll see what happens. Stay safe, take care of yourself, for the love of all that is holy stay inside! wear masks! PLEASE! GET THE FLIPPING VACCINE IF YOU CAN!

E out, byeeeeeee! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAE!

Here’s both parts conveniently in one place for you (cuz tumblr hates me and my tags)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29955270/chapters/73737858

“Romeo and Juliet? You’re so cliché that troupes are rolling their eyes at you.”

I shoot him a dirty glare “Says the guy that has Pride and Prejudice in his jacket pocket. Yeah yeah” I cut him off before he begins to throw out excuses “I know you say it’s thick enough to stop bullets but you’re not fooling me. You love some classic romance.”

“You’re no Lizzy Bennet” he grumbles behind his mask.

“And you no Mr. Darcy yet I tolerate you all the same.”

“It’s for my charming personality.”

“Certainly not for your face.” I playfully throw back “Smooth, featureless and red isn’t exactly my type.”

“I’m surprise you have a type given your lack of taste in books.”

I roll my eyes “Oh great now the former crime lord is giving me crap about my tastes in book.”

He rose his hands in surrender “Hey, that was my edgy phase.”

“Was? You’re still dressing like a goon from indie action film.”

“You kidding? Goons wish they looked this good.”

“I don’t think any respectable goon would shop at the thrift store.”

“Low blow. Low blow.”

I give the costumed vigilante a sideways smile as we settle into a comfortable silence.

It’s been about two years since Red Hood decided to intrude my quiet life (well as quiet as life could be in Gotham) and we have developed this strange friendship.

Every moment he wasn’t on patrol or at a briefing (coughfamilymeetingcough) he spent here. At first, I thought it was just him checking up on me like some overburdening mother worried their child couldn’t handle a minute in the backyard but I soon realized this became some sort of haven for him, a place for him to just exist. Not quite relax and let his guard down but just to be. No appearances of brutality to keep up, no disappointed glances from his estranged father figure. Just him picking on me because he’s a jerk.

But then again so am I.

I nervously glance at the red string tied snugly around my finger. It pulled off to the side though not too much further from me as its other end was wrapped around Red’s finger.

Strings of fate mom used to call it. My power to see the threads of destiny tying two people deeply together. At first I thought it was love or something junk like that but now I’m thinking maybe it just leads you to someone you need and someone that needs you back.

Or maybe it is love, what do I know? All I know about my power is it makes walking the streets harder than it needs to be. Ever see those old pictures of cities with powerlines just in every freaking direction? The strings are at least ten times worse than that! Luckily they’re not real? Well more an abstract concept that I see and not physical and you know what don’t worry about it.

“So” Red spoke up after a moment “Hungry?”

“After you insulting my taste in books?” I gave a fake pout “Starving. Oh shoot, I forgot to go to the store.”

Red chuckled “You didn’t forget, Penguin decided to try to extort it for protection money.”

“Oh” I blush in embarrassment “Right.”

“And you fell back asleep.”

I waved him off “Sometimes you just wake up, see the news and decide it’s not worth it.”

“I never get to sleep in.” Red rose to his feet “but honestly I’ve always had trouble sleeping.”

The nightmares. He mentioned it once in an off hand comment when he asked me why I toss and turn at loud noises. Gotham just does that too you. Eventually you learn to get ready to bolt at any loud noises over 190 decibels. Fun fact, that’s the noise level of a shotgun fired by your ear or a rocket taking off.

Or Joker laughing on the roof of your apartment building. Let me tell you, nothing’s louder than that madman. Thunder sounds like cats and dogs once you hear the Joker’s manic chuckle just a few feet away from you. One time years ago and I can still feel the chills run down my back whenever I think of it.

“So are you going to order pizza or what?” I asked quizzically “Since you’re aware I don’t have any in the fridge.”

I could practically hear the sarcasm dripping in every word out of his mouth as he held a bag of groceries aloft “I was trained by Batman. I’m always prepared.”

Batman. Whatever his relationship with the dark knight currently is, he always spoke of him with a soft, gentle voice. A quiet pride that out of everyone in the world, the Bat chose him. But with that pride was a hint of shame. Everyone knew Red Hood hadn’t exactly made it easy on the old bat and while Hoodie was changing his ways, there was still some friction between them.

I didn’t say anything though. No point. He knew where he stood with his father figure and bringing it up would just make him sully. Besides I was way too curious to know how good of a cook he was.

I marveled in an awe silence as he expertly placed the various ingredients across my messy counter. He chuckled to himself as he cleared it to make space for dinner. I could feel my cheeks burn.

Watching him was oddly mesmerizing: His movements were precise yet graceful for someone with his build. He glided across the floor effortlessly, smoothly dicing whatever he brought one moment then by the time I blinked, he was warming up the frying pan by the stove.

Soon an incredible smell filled the air while the sizzling of meat practically had me drooling.

“Your chin.” Red motioned to my lip with a spatula. I brought up my hand and flinched at how moist it was. Okay so it was drool. Sue me! You’d be drooling too if you had to deal with waiting for whatever heavenly meal he was cooking, okay?

Desperate to change the subject, I piped up “Should be I concern how well you handle that knife?”

He gave a casual wave with said instrument “I hold the power of destruction and creation in my hand.”

I raised an eyebrow at him.

Red coughed loudly “I’ve trained with various weapons knives included. You’d be surprised how much overlap happens between cooking and weapons handling.”

“Right. Sure. That’s a totally normal statement.”

“What about me” He gestured to himself “Is normal?”

“Fair point.” I conceded.

-----

“Am I forgiven?”

I grumbled a half answer as I tried not to let on how delicious this meal was. I don’t make the best money and let me tell you before this the fanciest thing I ever ate was some overpriced pasta from some restaurant chain. This easily beat anything I have ever tasted except mom’s cooking but I hadn’t had that in years.

Red snorted, his voice smooth and melodic not filtered through some robotic alternation. I didn’t really had a dining room or a dinner table so we sat comfortably on my couch, tv playing some nonsense in the background as we both took in the sight of the city beyond my modest window. The lower part of his mask retracted backwards via some kind of high tech witchcraft and allowed him to eat his food without needing to show the rest of his handsome face.

I mean I think it was handsome. I assumed it was handsome given I accidentally figured out who was under the whole persona he set up for himself. I never told him that I knew though I suspect he knew that I figured it out. He was smart even if he acted like an idiot and it really was for the best. Plausible deniability. If I never asked, he never needed to answer.

“You know if you want me to cook again, you need to forgive me. Otherwise I’m not gonna waste my time anymore.” Red threatened with a tease.

I let out an exasperated groan “Fine, fine! It’s good. It’s the best food I’ve ever had! Is that what you want to hear?”

“Naturally. Though I could never compete with Alfred. He has no equal in the kitchen. Better than my brothers though. They can’t cook to save their lives. Tim practically lives on fast food.”

I stopped shoving food into my maw as an icy chill ran through my body. The comfy silence that filled my humble apartment turned tense.

One of those names I could pretend away: Tim? Alfred? Every day common names. But together? Tim AND Alfred. Everyone knew every member of the Wayne family because they were the only rich family in Gotham who didn’t want to screw everyone else over. And he brought up his brothers. That was the final nail in the coffin.

I put down my fork slowly. I could feel myself breath heavily but I refused to see him. I refused to meet his mask with nothing but my own shocked reflection to look back at me.

“I know you know who I am.” He said simply.

I could feel the syrupy urge to look at him ebbing at my resolve.

I swallowed uneasily “What now? What happens to me?”

‘Us’ I left unasked.

Silence.

“I don’t know”

I tried to calm my breathing but I could feel panic grip at me: Does this mean he’s not going to come anymore? Does this mean I have to go into witness protection? Is Batman going to scold me?!

“But I want to.”

I couldn’t help myself. I turned to him and for one of the few times in my life I was left speechless.

I was not staring at Red Hood. I found myself not looking at the smooth, featureless mask I had grown accustom to these last two years but Jason Todd.

Out of all of Bruce Wayne’s children, Jason was the one who seemed to just fall off the face of the Earth. There was a rumor he had died a few years back but those were debunked when he appeared without warning, just walking the streets of Gotham like he went on an extended vacation.

There wasn’t too many pictures of the enigmatic Mister Todd but that quick glance I had gotten forever ago did not do him justice: He was my age. His eyes were a piercing blue that I did not know could be that shade. I know it’s cliché but I felt like he was staring directly into my soul. His face was rugged, rough but still handsome. His hair was a messy jet black but there was few streaks of white that looked too natural to be dyed.

“I….didn’t see anything?” I offered helpfully, giving him a chance to put the mask on and pretend this none of this ever happened.

His nose wrinkled as he gave me a playful scoff. I could feel my heartbeat roaring in my ears.

“I’m not that ugly. Better looking than Dick.” he joked playfully.

“I dunno. Dick’s got the better ass.” I mumbled out, still too caught guard from the whole reveal.

“But I got the muscles.”

“Yes you do.” I eyed his body carefully then flushed a bright pink.

That knocked me out of my stupor.

“Are you sure you want me to know?” I whispered, unable to keep the fear out of my voice “I mean I didn’t mind pretending I didn’t know.”

“I do.”

His face soften and for a moment he didn’t look like Jason Todd, wayward son of Bruce Wayne or the Red Hood, moral gray compress of the batfam.

He just look like a regular guy who needed someone.

Evidently me it seemed.

I took a calming breath and offered my hand. He stared at me like I’m crazy but I kept it outstretched.

He took it gingerly and shook carefully, still unsure what was going on.

“Hello Jason Todd.” I beamed cheerfully “It’s nice to meet you!”

He said nothing, instead opting to smile softly.

“Nice to meet you too.”

I stared at the metaphysical string that tied us so neatly together.

I have never seen it that red before. And has it always been that thick?

I wonder what that means.

Eh, it’s probably nothing. I had other things to worry about.

#My story #Red Hood #Reader #Red Hood x Reader #Birthday!

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ultimatetornshipper · 3 years

Text

Daminette December Day 5

@daminette-december2019-2020

I can’t believe I’m doing this oms, Sweaters didn’t exist okay? I had no choice!! lmaooo no regrets tho, I’m loving where this fic is going.

Anyway thank you for everyone who left such lovely comments on the previous chapter I literally almost cried thank you!!

Princes and Pedestals

Chapter 5 – Sweater

“Oh I can’t wait to show you the stables, we each have our own horse. I named mine Lavender, since my favorite color is purple. Cass's is named Rose, Dick's is Robin, Damian’s is Ace, Tim named his Cloud and Jason...,” Stephanie stopped walking and released Marinette’s hand, turning around, she sighed, “Well, you should know, Jason was ten when he got his and the horse had been sick and well... it resulted in him naming the poor animal Sweater. He refuses to change it,”

Marinette laughed at Stephanie’s clear annoyance with this fact. She’d come to her room this morning and simply insisted that she show her the stables before negotiations regarding their alliance took place. Marinette had agreed, she was coming to quite like this girl and her energetic nature.

Stephanie kept walking, this time at a slower pace, she lead Marinette out of the castle and greeted the gardeners. The servants they passed greeted her back and smiled widely, everyone was clearly fond of her. Marinette couldn’t blame them, Stephanie’s energy was contagious.

“You’ll probably get your own one-,” she started, before interrupting herself, eyes widening, she laughed nervously, “I mean if you stay long enough you’ll practically be family so I wouldn’t be surprised, if you got one, that is,”

Marinette thought her behavior was strange but she’d found that questioning Stephanie’s actions only led to more questions.

“Hey Steph, wait up!” someone yelled. Marinette turned towards the voice, seeing Prince Richard approaching them. He was the only brother at the summer castle she hadn’t informally met yet.

When he caught up to them, he nodded his head to her, “Your Majesty,”

She returned the gesture, smiling, “Your Highness, feel free to call me Marinette,”

She saw approval flicker across his eyes, he smiled back, “As long as you agree to call me Dick. Where are you two ladies going this fine morning?”

Stephanie rolled her eyes at him and started walking again, “Calm down, worry wart, I’m just taking her to the stables. Wanna join us?”

“I’d love to,” Dick replied, walking along with her and Stephanie. He looked towards Marinette, “She tell you about their names yet?”

She nodded slowly, “Yeah, she did. Do you mind me asking why you named yours Robin?”

“Robin was my mother’s nickname,” he said, a sad smile on his face, he shrugged, “I guess when I first got here I just wanted something to remind me of her, naming my horse after her... it helped ease my grief,”

Marinette felt as though a knife was being twisted in her heart, the black dress she wore suddenly heavier than usual. It was then that she realized that she only had two days left before her mourning period was officially over. Two days before a year was over since it had happened.

She realized they were both looking at her, she needed to respond. She looked up and smiled at him, nodding, “I can understand that,”

Stephanie touched her shoulder and looked her in the eye, “I-,”

Marinette gave her a meaningful look and shook her head. Stephanie searched her gaze for a few seconds before she nodded solemnly and opened the door they’d stopped in front of. She walked through and started pointing out which horse was which.

The atmosphere was heavier than it had been, but as they progressed it seemed to lift. Marinette zoned them out slightly, making all the right faces and noises. She wouldn’t be surprised if they knew she was faking it, given their demonstrated ability to read people, but she couldn’t bring herself to care in the moment.

She thought back. There really only was two days left. A year ago today they’d been laughing, playing card games and pretending that everything was alright. They'd known the end was near and wanted the last few days of his life to be happy.

Outside his room the atmosphere had been sad, Rose was crying while Juleka softly scratched her back. Nino had been torn apart, clutching on to Alya's hand for dear life, the red head trying to console him. And Marinette... Marinette had held herself together. She held all of them together.

And when he finally faded, she’d made herself go numb, but people looked at her like she was seconds away from falling apart anyway. And maybe she was.

She hadn’t been able to take it, though. She’d disappeared for a week under the guise of going on a mission. She went to their base near the north western shore and there she cried more than she thought anyone should be able to. Chloe and Luka had kept everyone away at her request and she’d screamed and mourned and grieved. But after that week she didn’t shed a single tear again.

She returned and refused to speak about what she’d done during her week or where she’d gone. She’d comforted everyone else and after a few days they stopped asking questions. She’d organized his funeral and worn her black dresses.

And she’d been wearing them ever since, they were the only outward sign that anything was possibly wrong.

She never spoke of it. But she only had two days left. Tomorrow a year ago he died. And she had no idea how she was going to make it out alive.

After half an hour in the stables listening to Stephanie and Dick's stories they made their way inside and had breakfast before she met up with Master Fu to finalize their thoughts and preparations for the negotiations of the alliance.

She sat next to him on one of the many benches in the castle hall. After a few seconds, she broke the silence, “He’s my match,”

Master Fu nodded slowly, “I sensed it too, you have the ring then?”

She nodded and removed said object from one of the many pockets in her gown. She curled her fist tightly around it.

“I assume you wish to offer him the position?” he said, still only staring straight ahead.

“Yes,” she replied, her heart heavy, responsibility weighing her down.

“I trust you, Guardian,” he said, pausing, he looked at her, “I am proud of who you’ve become Marinette,”

The words meant more to her than she wanted them to, she didn’t want to care what he thought. It was because of him that the ring had been given to the wrong person in the first place. He hadn’t even told them when he’d realized and it lead to the boy she’d loved’s death.

They reviewed the terms of the alliance and headed over to the room where negotiations would take place.

When she entered everyone inside stood, proper greetings were exchanged and everyone sat. The king and all the children she’d met were sitting on one side of the table, she and Master Fu sat down on the other side.

The atmosphere was different here. Stephanie smiled at her but it didn’t really reach her eyes. They had something on the line, Marinette was itching to know what.

Had she been wrong in thinking they didn’t need this alliance as much as she and her court did?

They discussed the terms and though a few compromises were made, it all went over rather smoothly. She and King Bruce did most of the talking while the others rarely spoke.

“Right, now that we have most of the details sorted out, we have a proposal for the type of alliance we wish to establish,” King Bruce said, she noticed all the siblings tense, Damian's destruction and chaos spiked. That was strange, did they know something of this proposal?

“Yes?” she replied warily, all eyes were on her, but she kept her gaze locked on the King.

“I propose we strengthen this alliance with a marriage, between you and my son,” he said simply.

The room held its breath. She saw Fu move, about to reply but she held her hand up to stop him. She was intrigued by his offer, and if could easily work out in her favor if she played her cards right.

She held the King’s gaze, she had a feeling she already knew the answer but she asked anyway, “Which one?”

“Damian, my youngest,” he replied immediately. She’d been right, this would make her life much easier. It also showed her that, for some reason, they needed this alliance too.

She looked at where the siblings were sitting, they were all staring at her, clearly trying to gouge her reaction. But she kept her face perfectly blank.

Then she made the mistake of meeting his gaze. The green eyes flung her back in time and for a second she felt the façade slip.

Live for both of us, m’lady. The words rung through her ears. The words had been haunting her for almost a year. One of the last things he had said to her, a different kind of desperation in his eyes, he wanted her to move on, to be happy, to live.

She quickly snapped back to reality and put back her mask, but they’d seen it, the dent in her armor. Their reactions were varying levels of confusion, curiosity and understanding.

She turned to the King, “I have one condition,”

The entire room tensed again, even Fu didn’t know what she was going to say, but she didn’t let it stop her.

“Which would be?” he replied, he was intrigued, but wary of what she’d said. That was good, she had his attention. She just needed to phrase her words right, she needed to give Damian a choice in this too, somehow.

“Anyone I marry needs to be able to rule alongside me. In order to do that, he needs to wield a miraculous, but it can’t be just any miraculous. He needs to be able to accept the responsibility of wielding the Black Cat miraculous,” she put it down on the table and their eyes jumped back and forth between her and the ring.

She turned to Damian and fisted her dress in her hand when his eyes met hers, she needed to explain further, she needed to speak, she could freak out later, “I’ll give you a day to consider my condition, in that time I’ll entrust you with the miraculous, you can get to know Plagg, the miraculous’s kwami,” he nodded. She stood and pushed the ring forward so that he could take it.

“Does this mean you accept?” Dick asked, eyes now fully focused on her, the tension still there.

“If Damian accepts my condition, then yes, I accept,” she said simply, hoping that would ease his worry.

It didn’t. He stayed tense, his siblings all in similar conditions as the silence stretched after his words. Marinette looked over them, what could be worrying them so much?

“Um... Marinette, I – we,” Stephanie said hesitantly, gesturing to her and her siblings, “We were wondering if you'd be able to stay in Gotham instead of him moving to – well we know you lead the whole Order and everything but we don’t want to lose him, you know. And I know it’s a lot to ask but...,” she looked at Marinette, and she could see her desperation. So that’s what it was. They didn’t want to loose Damian.

She considered her options. She liked these people, and it wasn’t like she ruled a country, she wasn’t tied down to one place. It wasn’t like them and Gotham where they had to stay in the country.

All she’d have to do is move home base to Gotham and have her court travel and live here, she wanted to be near them. She also wanted to find a place as close to the Castle as possible, but it wouldn’t be hard considering Damian would be her husband.

She pushed the association she’d once had with the word away.

Maybe it would do them all good to move on. To make new memories in a new place. It would certainly do her good not to be somewhere she had made memories with him.

She turned her focus to the siblings. She was pretty sure Cassandra was holding Damian’s arm under the table, Damian was toying with the ring, but his face was resigned. Jason was staring at her as though through willpower alone he could convince her to let Damian stay with them. Dick and Stephanie both looked hopeful and desperate. The King had a blank look on his face but she had no doubt that he, too, was on the edge of his seat.

She met Stephanie’s gaze and gave her a soft smile, “Sure,”

“Sure? What do you mean? Like sure he can – you two- you'll both stay with us like at home?” Jason said, already standing, hands on the table. The others stared at her in varying degrees of surprise and shock. Cass was smiling at her.

She nodded, “I just need to move my Court's home base to Gotham. If he accepts the ring and its responsibilities, I’d be willing to have them move here too,”

Steph stood and ran around the table, grabbing her in a tight hug, “ Thank you,” she said softly.

Marinette felt her heart warm at how much they cared. Damian was staring at her in shock, his mouth slightly hanging open. Dick had a huge smile and Bruce was looking apologetic for Stephanie’s actions.

Marinette looked at this family of people, who she doubted would be related in most situations, and how well they fit.

She watched as Jason squeezed Damian’s shoulder and Dick hugged him from behind. Cass ran a hand softly through his hair and said something to him that made him smile.

She felt her heart long for that kind of familiarity.

Stephanie pulled back from the hug but held on to her arm. The blonde smiled at her fondly, and Marinette suddenly had a feeling that maybe, it was only a matter of time before she’d have it.

Taglist:

@animegirlweeb @loysydark @toodaloo-kangaroo @forgottenfriends @wolf-for-life @heyitsbugette

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 3 years

Text

Satisfied, Part 53

First

~~~

Marinette took in the weird strap on Joker’s hand and raised her eyebrows. Whatever it was, it had to be bad, because Damian wasn’t even trying to struggle out of his grip. It looked like one of those hand buzzers that people sometimes use to shock their friends, but it had to be deadly. Did it electrocute? Was it poisoned? She hoped she wouldn’t find out.

Whatever it was, none of them could do anything before Joker showed them what it did.

“Nice of you to drop in,” said Joker, motioning to the window they’d crashed through. “Now, if I could just glass-k you to drop your weapons and step back.”

She glanced at Jason.

He reluctantly began digging into his pockets and dropping weapon after weapon on the ground. When he got to his guns his hands hovered over his waist for a good few seconds. A confused expression passed over his face, only to quickly be replaced by vague annoyance. He must have dropped one while fighting Dick. He sighed and dropped the one he still had.

Marinette looked at her utility belt and bit the inside of her cheek. She reminded herself that Joker didn’t actually know that the miraculi were in there, so as long as he didn’t go through her pockets it would be fine. She carefully set it on the ground (she didn’t want a smoke bomb to go off and startle Joker when she didn’t know what his weapon did) and then set down her yoyo as well.

They took a few steps back.

Joker smiled, though that wasn’t new.

“So… wanna monologue?” Tried Marinette. Jason sent her a look and all she could do was shrug. They needed time to think out a plan.

Joker paused to think, then nodded. “I’ll have to do something while we wait for Bats to fly on over, I suppose.”

“Batman is coming?” Asked Marinette, raising an eyebrow.

“Yep! Because you’re going to make a distress call! Right now!”

Jason winced and brought a hand to his ear. “Hey, uh, Bats… good news and bad news. Good news is: we found Joker! Bad news is: we found Joker!” He said their location and then let his hand fall to his side.

Marinette tried not to let it show on her face that anything was amiss. Jason hadn’t actually transmitted anything; she hadn’t heard double like she usually did, which meant that he hadn’t actually pressed on his comm. Hopefully Joker wouldn’t kill anyone until Batman showed up, because it would likely be a few hours before he checked up on all their locations and realized something was amiss. That was good, maybe they’d have a plan or something by then.

Joker gave a cold laugh and then launched into his monologue: “I’ll be honest, I would’ve never dreamed that you would have managed to betray me like that.”

What? He’d never met Ladybug before, and why had he said dreamed like that --?

Marinette’s shoulders tensed. “You knew?”

“Oh, yeah. Figured you were bugged the day you came in. You never had that ‘one bad day’ that usually turns criminals, I can always tell, and your appearance in Gotham was too soon after Ladybug’s to be coincidence.”

Her eyebrows furrowed together and she glanced at Jason, who looked just as shocked and confused. “Why didn’t you kill me?”

“I considered it, but where’s the pun in that?”

He pressed his hand closer to Damian’s neck. Damian went completely rigid (save for the rise and fall of his chest, which was getting faster and faster with each breath).

“Besides,” continued Joker, as if he hadn’t just threatened him, “I figured that I could mess with you a bit, break you a little, see how that affected Bats. I really didn’t expect you to kill that clerk, but it was very convenience that you did.”

Everyone in the room frowned confusedly.

“You know, convenience? Like a convenience store? Instead of convenient?”

“Ooooooh,” mumbled Jason.

“Anyways, all I was trying to do was get you to go against your morals. You were already on your last little piece of sanity, I figured that robbing a store would be enough. But then you killed someone! Cut them in half, even!”

“Can we stop talking about it?” Marinette hissed, her voice high. She could feel tears forming in her eyes at the memory and she was not about to cry in front of Joker.

Joker gave a humorless laugh. “Sure, sure, of horse. I was hoping that I could break you down enough to kill Bats like I tried with Red Robin, but this time it was supposed to work.” He gave what he must have thought was a pitiful sigh, but it sounded more like an asthmatic’s wheeze. “Tragic, though. You hardly ever came and it was only four months, not nearly enough to work with. I had to change my plans.”

“To…?” Prompted Jason, who was shifting around anxiously.

She met Jason’s eyes. Where was Cass? The only two allies they could possibly have were her and Dick but, apparently, neither of them were in any position to fight. Dick was barely stirring now, groaning from his place on the floor, and Cass was apparently still incapacitated somewhere.

Joker thrummed his foot on the floor impatiently. “The plan is murdering all of you in front of your father, but where is he?”

“Getting here takes time,” assured Marinette, sweat beading on the back of her neck.

They weren’t going to be getting any help. She couldn’t do anything without Damian getting hurt and letting him die was the last resort… but did she have any other options...?

“Yes, yes, I suppose that’s true…” Joker sighed. “Where’s the rest of you? I heard more people fighting earlier, are they still around? Thanks for wearing each other out, by the way, really makes my job easier.”

Marinette winced. “Why would we tell you anything? You’re going to try and kill us anyways.”

“Because you’re deciding whether everyone dies quickly or slowly,” said Joker, pulling a gun from his pocket and pressing it to the side of Damian’s head. “So, Joker venom or gun? Which one?”

So that’s what that hand thing was. It was even worse than she thought.

Tears finally spilled over her mask and she hugged her jacket around herself. She had no clue what to do. What was right in this type of situation?

She looked at Jason anxiously. He looked just as lost as she was.

Joker’s smile dropped and she felt her skin crawl. He hadn’t made any bad puns or jokes for a while now, and now he had even stopped smiling? They were screwed.

“I’ll give you five seconds before I get to decide! 5…”

Marinette bit her cheek so hard she tasted blood. If he was going after everyone then should they take the longer route so Duke, Cass, and Tim could get away --?

“4…”

Jason was looking at his gun. Would he be fast enough? Not enough to make sure Damian didn’t get hurt but maybe he could get a shot off before Joker could hurt anyone else --.

“3…”

She met Damian’s eyes and he gave her a weak smile and looked at her yoyo. ‘Fix this’. She really wished he wouldn’t rely on her ability so much, she didn’t know if she could win --.

“2…”

No! She needed more time! All she wanted was more --!

“1!”

She opened her mouth to speak and Jason made a mad grab for his gun --.

A gunshot rang out.

Blood splattered over Damian and Joker slumped on top of him. He gave a strangled yelp and pushed the body off of him, quickly scrambling away.

She looked at Jason and frowned. His hands were a good few inches away from his gun, so who…?

Then she realized Jason was looking at something, his face slack with shock.

She followed his gaze to Dick, who was still pointing one of Jason’s guns at where Joker’s head had been.

“You are not taking another brother away from me.”

Dick let the gun clatter to the floor and took a few shaky breaths, burying his head in his hands.

Marinette’s eyes flickered between Dick and Damian. They both were obviously not doing well. Dick had done something against his morals. Damian had almost died again. Really, it was no surprise that they were both freaking out.

Jason ran to Dick’s side. Good, then he would be taken care of.

She pulled off her leather jacket and handed it to Damian. He frowned as he took it.

“Um…?”

“It’ll… cover the blood,” she mumbled, motioning to the red coating his back. “Bats can’t find out.”

He nodded and pulled it on. She pulled the hood over his head and pressed a tiny kiss to his cheek.

“Jason was right, it really is always you two. I’m starting to think that maybe it’s more that you’re both idiots that jump into dumb situations than luck, though.”

He gave her something between a smile and a wince.

“Yeah, you’re the one with all the bad luck,” he said, giving her shoulder a small shove.

“And I throw myself into dumb situations. It’s the worst of both worlds.”

That earned a laugh. Yay!

Their eyes fell onto Joker’s body. Ah. Not yay. She swallowed thickly and looked away.

“Cataclysm,” whispered Damian, leaning down to press his hand to the corpse.

It disintegrated until all that was left of Joker was a red puddle and the memories of his horrors.

She glanced at where Jason was slowly pulling Dick to his feet, an arm over his shoulders. It seemed that Dick had gone into shock. She sighed softly.

“Dami, go help? I’m going to grab everything.”

Damian looked like he wanted to argue, but then he nodded and ducked under Dick’s other arm.

Marinette went to work grabbing her things. She reattached her utility belt and tucked away her yoyo, then she worked at attaching everything she could to her waist. Whatever she couldn’t get to stick she ended up scooping into her arms.

She walked over to the door and held it open for the others.

The four left the warehouse in silence.

A few buildings away she stopped. She took off her miraculi and heard a curse from a nearby rooftop as Duke and Tim’s cage disappeared. After a few seconds she saw two heads hesitantly peek over the edge. Relief washed over their faces when they saw they were okay, only to quickly be replaced by anxiety when Joker was nowhere to be found. The two hopped down and joined their walk.

She pulled her earrings back on and transformed. She didn’t need to get spotted and have Marinette Dupain Cheng to go trending on twitter again.

She felt Tim’s arm wrap around her waist and blinked. She hadn’t even realized she was shaking until he was pulling her close to his side to hold her steady.

About a block later, Damian pointed his finger down an alley. After a few seconds, Cass emerged. She seemed mostly fine, with only a few scratches on her face and clothes and messy hair. She reached behind herself and pulled until a cat let go of her outfit and she dropped the stray. She sent Damian a glare so harsh that Marinette felt a bit intimidated even though it wasn’t aimed at her.

For a while all that could be heard was their footsteps.

“So... is he…?” Began Duke.

Marinette gave him a nod.

“Who did it?” Asked Tim, his grip tightening somewhat on her waist.

The four who had been there tensed up and looked at each other. What were they supposed to say? The truth? Dick was already looking dead inside, she doubted he could deal with everyone looking at him like he was a murderer --.

Jason grinned. “Me. Who else? I’m not letting any of you guys have something like that on your consciences.”

Dick gave his brother a grateful smile, tiny as it was.

Marinette glanced at Cass, who looked somewhat stunned. But she didn’t call anyone out on the lie, just continued walking.

“Can you fix it?” Asked Tim.

“Nope, I used my lucky charm for my fight with you and Duke. Even if it hadn’t disappeared when I took off my earrings it wouldn’t have revived Joker.” She actually didn’t know if she was lying. There was a reason why she hadn’t said miraculous ladybug despite them all being hurt: she hadn’t wanted to test it. Now, though, all the lucky charms she had used that night were all gone. It was definitely irreversible “He can’t come back.”

Silence stretched over them again as it sunk in.

Marinette was the one to break it: “So it’s really over...”

“Not really, there’s still a lot of organized crime for us to go after. It’s Gotham, there’s always something going on,” said Duke.

“Bane’s still out there,” said Tim.

“And Mr. Freeze,” muttered Damian.

Jason sighed. “Don’t forget Two-Face.”

Damian grimaced. “Or Ra’s Al Ghul.”

“Clayface,” said Duke.

“Magpie,” offered Cass.

Even Dick joined in with a whispered: “Man-bat.”

Marinette held up her hands to quiet them. “Okay, okay, now you’re making people up.”

“Nope!” Said Jason, giving a small smile.

“Oh! Forgot one: Red Hood counts as a Rogue, depending on who you ask,” Damian piped up.

Jason’s smile dropped into a scowl. “Shut up,” he complained, leaning around Dick to swat his younger brother in the back of the head.

Damian clicked his tongue and gave him a hit back.

Big mistake.

Everyone came to a stop as Damian and Jason began running around a very annoyed and very tired Dick. The oldest tried, and failed, to bring order by grabbing them and pushing them apart, but he was easily the most drained by the night and just ended up getting a few stray punches thrown at him.

Duke and Cass started placing bets on who would kill who first.

She felt a smile rise to her face despite everything that had just happened.

“It’s okay now. It’s over,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

Tim pulled her closer and rested his chin on top of her head.

“It is.”

~~~

For the person who asked, Damian cheated while fighting Cass and set some stray cats on her. She couldn’t bring herself to hurt them

Epilogue timeeeeee

Taglist

@comet-kun @thatonecroc @trippingovermyfeet @swiftie-miraculer13 @nickristus-dreamer @moongoddesskiana @i-am-ironic @indecisive-mess-named-me @thebooki3h @insane-fangirl-of-everything @deepestobservationwombat @theymakeupfairies @fatimaabbasrizvi @clumsy-owl-4178 @fanofalittletoomuch @iamablinkmarvelarmy @nathleigh @lilkymilky @silvergold-swirl @dino-lovingreen-angel @thestressmademedoit @kissa-chan @ladybug-182 @alysrose-starchild @t1dwarrior-of-earth @spyofthenightcourt @rowanrouge @nik-nak-3 @momothefemur @aestheticnpoetic @labschaos @our-preciousss @mochinek0 @eliza-bich @mythogaychic @severelyenchantedwonderland @sashakoi @smolplantmum @bluesimani @tropestropestropes @kitsunebell @keepingupwiththemalfoys @sassakitty @2confused-2doanything @too0bsessedformyowngood @all-mights-asscheeks @demonicbusiness @meg-an-ace @fantasiame @qualitypeacepainter @multplelifes @kokotaru @spicybelladonna @ultimatetornshipper @cute-angi

#timinette #timari #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #tim drake #red robin #satisfied #maribat

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octalove · 4 years

Text

IV: The Dinner

(Batgirl/Red Hood)

Brief note; per demand, this little trilogy will now be an ongoing series🥺thank u all for the support! i was not expecting it at all. ur comments make my day!! i hope u enjoy this chapter bearing in mind that i wasn’t intending on a full length fic, so i hope u can put up with any missteps in the plot or writing. i’m making it up as i go. kiss kiss

Description: Reader makes an ally, and attends a tense dinner. part one, two, and three.

A mild blue dawn was just beginning to flit through the blinds, and I sighed heavily, stretching a little, and running a hand across my face. My skin was cold to the touch. Rolling over stiffly, I glanced at the clock on my nightstand.

5:26a.m.

Nineteen minutes before my alarm. I was too cold to go back to sleep, I knew, as much as Alfred had requested I try and get more of it. Pulling myself up, the sheets slipped off my bare shoulders and folded onto themselves. Once in a blue moon, I would forego making it up again, usually accompanied by an excuse. Today, I didn’t have one. I put my feet on the floor, mind buzzing.

I was done tossing and turning, and decided to get up and shower. Afterward, I threw on my uniform, and got to work on my face. A little bronzy eyeshadow, some mascara and lip balm. I could’ve turned my face into a work of art, but I was tired from my sleepless night and doing much else seemed like a strain.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in.” I was expecting Bruce or Alfred, but I caught Tim’s reflection in my vanity mirror.

“Hey.” He said.

“Good morning.” I replied tensely. He sat on my bed. Okay. Weird. Tim was a year younger than me- but always ordained himself something of an older brother. His brainpower made learned helplessness and easy state to slip into when he was around- always fixing my PS4, or recovering lost files from my laptop. When we first met, I used to use those things as a crutch to interact with him, as neither of us were particularly forthcoming. These days, we were as close as any pair of siblings.

“What’s up?” I asked, tucking away my mascara wand.

“Oh, I just thought I’d… check up on you. Before school started.”

I was the only one of the Waynes attending Gotham Academy at the moment. Damian was still at Gotham Prep, but by the time he would attend next year, I’d be graduated. I wondered if Tim ever missed it. He garnered his fair share of attention; mostly because of his attractive status and predisposition of agreeability. Before he dropped out, I used the be the subject of mediation for every eligible teenage girl that wanted to get to know my brother- no, the other one. With the soft hair. The chem tutor.

I laughed a little. “Do I seem like I need it?” Tim shrugged. I got up and plopped on the duvet beside him. My window was open a crack, filling the room with a chilly breeze and the scent of moisture and petrichor.

“Did Bruce make you get up for this?” I tried again, keeping my playful tone. He sighed and shook his head.

“Bruce isn’t the only one who’s noticed you lately.” He said, with contrasting seriousness that made my smile fall.

“What’s there to notice? Seriously.” I questioned.

He sighed again and twisted his lip. I knew what that meant. He was about to list everything different I’d been doing for the past three weeks, either alphabetically or by severity. “You look tired. You get home and go straight to your room. You keep fidgeting during briefings. You look distracted. You’re avoiding Damian- which, I get it- but like, more than usual. Dick said you haven’t texted him all week. You usually have something to say about your day at dinner, but-“

“Okay. I get it.”

A brief moment passed, where I watched him pull a looser string from the duvet.

“I know you went somewhere. On the 21st, when we were patrolling in Otisburg. You went somewhere for forty-two minutes.”

I blinked. “Oh.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything-“ He added quickly, looking at me. “Really, I have know idea why you left. I’m sure it was nothing, I just… you’ve been acting weird ever since. Where did you go?”

I swallowed, and my intestines felt like lead. Really, I was relieved. Here I was, in my room I’d decorated with Wayne money, with my brother who evidently cared enough about me to notice my typical word count at dinner, asking me what was wrong. And a lot was wrong.

So, I smoothed my plaid skirt and told him about the night of the 21st- and only that. From Red Hood, to Hoffman, to the warehouse. Every vivid detail I could remember. I decided to leave out my little truancy adventure, along with meeting him in the alley. Lifting up his mask. Having his exposed skin close enough to touch. His gunpowder smell. By the end, Tim was frowning. The following silence could’ve crushed a coke can.

“Shit.” He muttered.

“Yeah.” I echoed. “Shit.”

He didn’t asked why I didn’t tell Bruce. Or Anyone. He didn’t ask why it was so important to me to do this by myself. All he did was take in the information and start putting it together.

“Jesus- you could’ve died. But all that Hoffman stuff. Why you?”

“Exactly!” I breathed.

Another knock on the door, and Alfred’s voice carried through, telling me it was time to go. I got up. Tim nodded and followed suit, no doubt carrying my every last recounting in his piggy-bank memory.

“Please don’t tell Bruce.” I said, some amount of fear slipping into my voice. “I know it was a stupid thing to do and it was stupid not to tell anyone. But he’ll never trust me again.” Tim hesitated at the door.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

I climbed into the backseat of the car, and stared at the cityscape running past the windows. The anxiety had lifted. One of my growing number of secrets revealed. In its wake, the sudden absence left a sense of clarity. I remembered why I had kept it to begin with.

Dick was gifted. The first. The talented boy who could fly. Babs and Tim were brilliant; genius far beyond the confines of academia. Damian was skilled. Trained from birth, the blood son. It nestled here him neatly, right where he belonged. What was I? I wasn’t born with athletic ability beyond my years, or genius intellect. Without that information- without my secrets- I had nothing else to give.

Thursday night was dinner. The whole family. It was Bruce’s excuse to drag Dick out of his apartment in Blüdhaven, and for Alfred to exercise a new recipe, since everyone was on a strict lean-means and superfoods regimen every other waking day. Babs attended occasionally, when work didn’t keep her busy, and Tim was only allowed to pass if he promised to rest instead.

I met his eyes as everyone was rounded into the dining room by Alfred like a herd of sheep; he gave me some imperceptible knowing look that promised to keep my secret.

We sat down and sipped water from crystal glasses as the table was set with food, muttering amongst ourselves about our days. Dick was given a coffee with the wrong name (‘Nick’), Babs met up with her friend from high school (Olivia something or other), and Damian completed a group project with some incompetent classmates (they all were- even the professors). Vigilante talk wasn’t forbidden, but generally skirted around so as to offer a small reprieve of normalcy during the week.

There was an exception to this unspoken rule when there was a particularly exciting case on the table. Unfortunately for me and my anxiety, the case of the Red Hood was a very exciting one.

“Any new breaks with Red Hood?” Dick asked through miso soup. Bruce sighed.

“He made some movements in Robbinsville. Gone before we could get there. He’s got his men on a tight leash- we couldn’t get any of them to talk.”

“Course not. There’s rumors flying all over the department. One of the Ioveanu family branches payed out a huge security detail for their private mansion.”

“He hasn’t hunted anyone in their home, has he?” I asked. I pictured him standing in front of me- maskless, in my academy uniform.

“No, it’s not his MO.” Barbara answered.

“Not yet. It’s only been six months, and he’s progressing rapidly.” Bruce diagnosed grimly.

“Are you scared he’s gonna join us for dinner?” Dick joked, throwing a wink my way.

“Haha.” I muttered. Actually, I hadn’t slept because of the very idea.

“If you’re nervous, you could always stay home next patrol.” Damian suggested pointedly. To him, existing in the realm of crimefighting was a competition, and he was always looking for others to drop out of the race. I resisted the urge to fling a pea at him.

“I’m not nervous.” I said coolly.

“You’ve been practically trembling since we fought his pathetic lackeys.”

“Damian.” Bruce warned, from the head of the table. I flipped the smallest Wayne the middle finger. He resigned, but I swore I saw amusement on his lips.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Red Hood is very skilled and very prolific. It’s a daunting case.” Bruce continued.

“Thanks, but I’m okay. Really.” I said, trying not to sound annoyed, and feeling like a spotlight was over my head, operated by the ghost of Hoffman. I almost laughed as I pictured it.

“That’s good to hear. We’ve been concerned.” Alfred added.

“Wow. I’m the star of the show around here.” I remarked dryly.

“We can’t help it, Miss Independent.” Dick said teasingly. “You’re just a good mystery.”

“Reminds me of Talia.” Tim said casually. The silverware stopped clanging.

It was a shameless subject change. Damian’s mother was an inflammatory topic for all parties. Bruce’s moral contempt didn’t reach the likes of Talia Al Ghul and Selena Kyle, immoral though they were. Beauty makes anything charming- and when paired with an impeccable taste in dress, even murder and thievery can be minimized into something of a quirk. Bruce thought so, anyway.

As for Damian, he had grappled with his dismissal from Talia’s side for what was now a majority of his life, and still possessed this deep-rooted, inextinguishable attachment to his mother. It was the hollow soreness any young boy would have in his position. Tim called him mama’s boy until he finally displayed a frightening amount of disdain for the title and actually begged him to stop. Tim agreed to, and I agreed to pretend I never heard a thing.

Dick disagreed with both of those sentiments and viewed Talia as someone who wasn’t worth the trouble. His dismissal embarrassed Bruce and offended Damian, so I knew the dinner table had been sufficiently turned into a powder keg. Tim and I shared a look as I expressed silent gratefulness, and he resigned to inspecting a dumpling, while I picked around my haka noodles.

The rest of dinner was quiet. Somehow, somewhere in the silence all had been decidedly forgiven. First by Babs who asked me to pass the pepper. Then by Dick who said the vegetables were good. Thank you, Alfred. Damian still looked pissed, and Bruce kept stealing glances at the clock.

I texted Tim under the table.

Thanks for taking one for the team.

The reply: You owe me one. I think Damian’s gonna poison my food.

We both glanced at the youngest, who was darkly mesmerized by what appeared to be Tim’s soup bowl.

He quickly added, Wait, actually tho? And we both fought laughter like two kids in the back of the class. It felt good to have an ally. Even if he still didn’t know the whole truth.

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batfamgalore · 4 years

Note

hi ! I saw your new Batfam bingo card and i was wondering if you could do “Am I going to die?” With Duke and one of his older brothers ??

Not sure how I felt about the ending, but I liked writing this one so let me know how you like it! :)

Duke had only been working with them for a few months now.

If you could even really say working with them.

It seemed like all the members of the batfamily rarely did team ups. In fact, Duke seemed to be with Bruce more often than any of them.

Today, was an exception. It was an ‘all hands on deck’ sort of mission and Duke had been feeling a little nervous about working with everyone.

Nervous and a little unwelcome.

He knows that no one in the family is great with emotions. He wasn’t expecting them to shower him with hugs and happiness, but he also wasn’t expecting to get nothing.

Sometimes he just felt invisible. The most he got from Batman was a grunt or a sigh, or the occasional ‘good work.’

But, to be fair, Bruce had been stressed lately with a case he had been working on.

Dick was never afraid to hand out compliments to Duke, but Duke hadn’t heard from Dick in months. He hadn’t really heard from anyone in months.

So yeah, to say he felt unwelcome was the least of it.

But that couldn’t stop him from working with everyone on this mission.

It was meant to be a fairly easy mission, but aren’t they all? If it had been an easy mission, Duke wouldn't be buried under a pile of debris in a burning building right now.

“Signal? Oracle to signal, do you copy?”

Duke’s head was ringing and he could feel a sharp pain in his leg. He let out a groan before bringing his free hand up to his comm.

“Yeah. I’m in a bit of a situation here.” Duke said, which led him into a coughing fit.

Shit.

Had it been this hard to breathe before?

“-ear me?”

“Wha?” Duke said, before coughing again.

“I’m pinning your location now. Hang tight.” Oracle’s voice was straight and to the point. Maybe she was worried. Duke couldn’t tell. Maybe they were mad at him for needing saving like this. He let the rest of the voices on the comm wash over him.

“Robin and I are clear, who else is in the building?” Tim’s voice came through and Duke sighed in relief to know that others were safe.

“Me and Spoiler are clear.” Jason and Steph were safe too. So it was just Duke and-

“Where’s Nightwing?” Tim’s voice cut in again and despite Tim’s seemingly calm voice, panic began to flood Duke.

Nightwing. If Nightwing died they might blame Duke.

No. That’s stupid. They wouldn’t do that. It’s just the concussion talking.

“Still inside.” Nightwing said and Duke heard a cough through the comm.

So it was the two of them stuck in the fire? Great. They were both going to die.

“Nightwing, I’m sending you Duke’s location. He needs help.”

“Copy that, Oracle.” Dick’s voice was somehow still calm.

Why was he so calm. They were both going to die.

Duke heard the movement of things falling next to him and then he could make out Nightwing’s silhouette through the smokey haze.

“Duke, you with me? I’m gonna get you out of here, okay?” Duke nodded his head, which led him into another sputtering of coughs.

“Am I going to die?” Duke’s question caught Dick off guard. Sometimes it slipped Dick’s mind that not everyone was used to this. Dick had been in about a million explosions, and he forgot that this wasn’t necessarily ‘normal’ and it was, in fact, a very scary thing.

“What? No. Duke you aren’t gonna die.” Dick took his rebreather out of his mouth and moved to put it into Duke’s mouth.

“Just, take a few breaths for me, okay?” Dick said, his voice still calmer than ever.

Duke heard more talking over the comms.

“Hood, I’m gonna need you to be ready at the south entrance window. Doors blocked.” Nightwing was going to get him out of this.

“On my way.” Jason’s voice cut through.

Duke looked back up at Dick who was looking a little worse for wear.

Dick himself had gotten into a few coughing fits since finding Duke, but he kept moving.

“I’m going to move this off you now Duke. I can probably get it a few inches off the ground, but I’m going to need you to pull yourself out, okay?”

Duke nodded. Nightwing would help him. It would be okay.

Dick bent down and lifted the biggest part of the debris that had been pinning him down as Duke rolled to safety.

Dick dropped the chunk back once he saw Duke was safe and stumbled over to him.

“Where are you hurt?” Dick said, surveying Duke.

Duke pointed to his leg, mostly focused on taking deep breaths through the rebreather.

Dick quickly and efficiently began to address his wound.

“You know when I first became Robin we had this drug bust in a warehouse. Bruce let me go because he figured it would be a good learning experience. It was supposed to be easy.” Dick finished tying a temporary bandage around Duke before hefting him on his feet and wrapping his arm around his shoulder as he continued his story.

“One guy got away. That’s all it took. One guy. Poured gasoline throughout the whole room and lit a match.” Dick began moving at a faster pace towards the south end window.

“Bruce and I were buried for hours. Bruce had been unconscious the whole time. I thought I was going to die alone.” They were almost at the window now.

“But then, Superman came and found us. I still don’t even really know how he knew we were there, or what he was even doing in Gotham. My comm had been down the whole time. He dug us out and carried Bruce bridal style back to the manor. To this day Bruce will deny the whole thing.” Dick looked over at Duke and gave him a small smile and a wink.

“Bruce was pissed for a while. He felt like he didn't need to be saved by Superman. He said he would have gotten out just fine on his own. I think he was just scared.” They were finally at the window. Dick leaned Duke up against the wall for a second as he smashed the window with his elbow.

“Point is doesn’t really matter how long you’ve been doing this, it can be scary as hell. Especially when someone you care about’s life is on the line.” Dick hunched over for a second with his hands on his knees, catching his breath. There was too much smoke. Dick had been exerting himself for Duke. So, he did care?

“But we’ve always got your back.” Dick said, as he went over to Duke and wrapped his arm around him one more time. Duke gave him a small smile.

“I’m gonna drop you down to Jason now.” Dick said as he brought them both closer to the window.

Duke couldn't help but think this wasn’t exactly the safest way out, but it was probably their only way out. Dick grabbed Duke’s arms and lowered him out the window as much as he could before Duke felt his hands let go, as new ones greeted him at the bottom.

“I got you now, Duke.” Jason’s said and Duke felt himself being carried as he made weak attempts to point in Dick’s direction.

Duke had no idea how Dick was supposed to get out if they were so focused on him.

Duke’s energy seemed to run out at this point and his world faded to darkness.

When he finally came to he realized he was in one of the bedrooms in the manor. Dick, Jason, Tim and Damian were all around him playing Mario Kart. Duke took a deep breath and fell back into a peaceful unconsciousness.

When he was finally able to walk around the manor with his crutches, Dick had given him a hug and told him he had done great. And if Dick’s voice sounded raspy for the next few weeks Duke had known it was because his family had his back.

#dick grayson #nightwing #batman #robin #batfamily #jason todd #dc #red hood #bruce wayne #damian wayne #steph brown #duke thomas #signal #tim drake #barbara gordon #oracle

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starkatana · 4 years

Text

All You Need to Know

Jason Todd X Female Reader

WordCount: 2813 (it’s long!~)

Summary: Jason proposes to you and you two have a smaller wedding with the BatFam in attendance at your Vegas wedding.

Author’s note: So, here begins my various one-shots of Jason Todd/Red Hood x Reader//y/n AKA my current obsession. I may compile all of them into chronological order once everything is done. I just really wanted to write and post something. I just have too many WIP’s right now that I need to focus on.

They aren’t exact ages. This is just a world that I made using these characters because I can. In this AU, Jason has died and come back to life. You two broke up and you dated Peter Parker (Spider-Man) for a little bit. At this point, you and Jason are 24-ish?

You are a dancer who works at a dance studio.

Sorry if its a little out of character, this is just based on my knowledge that tumblr has given me.

I used this post from fandomneeds!

Jason’s vows is the song: All You Need to Know by Gryffin

Hope you enjoy!

Jason scratched his head and crumpled up the vows he was working on.

“Ugh.”

Roy peeked into Jay’s room, “Having a hard time?” He cocked a sarcastic smile at his best friend.

“Fuck. Every time I try to write something it seems just so stupid and cookie cutter.”

“Aren’t those what vows are? Just telling the person you want to spend the rest of your life with them sickness and in health blah blah.”

“Yeah.” Jason shrugged, “I have basic vows for the Gotham wedding, but for the wedding this weekend, I just want them to be different and less like everything else.”

“Well, what do you want to say?”

“Exactly.”

Roy laughed. “You’ve read a million books you’re telling me that you can’t string the most romantic scenes and moments together?”

Jason sat back in the chair.

“What does she need to know? What are you confessing in front of the hardest people you need to impress? Me and the rest of your siblings.”

“It's not for you guys. It’s for us.”

“Then what do you want to tell her?”

Jason sat back in his chair with his hand behind his head, remembering the evening he asked you to marry him.

It happened to be a night that you and Jason didn’t have patrol, so you two made a date night out of it. The two of you are sitting in a booth at your favorite local diner. You two managed to keep it a secret from everyone else in the Batfam so they wouldn’t just show up and surprise you two. It’s late at night and you two had been there so often that the wait staff had your orders memorized. He was sitting across from you with his arms outstretched over the back of the booth as he listened to you talk with a half-smirk on his face.

You were sitting back in your booth just going on about your students from the dance studio. He loved how passionate you were about your job and how much you cared for other people. You two had been through so much, even when he had been an ass to you. You somehow took him back after everything he said and put you through. He was grateful for that. Life made sense with you.

“Hello? Earth to Jason.” You were waving your hand in his face snapping him out of his thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“Are you even listening?”

“Yeah! You were saying how you had to help some of your kids with their science and math homework and how you don’t miss science and math homework. Then you told me about the puppies you saw on your way to work today. And no, I still don’t think getting a dog is a good idea.”

“Okay, so you were listening,” you chuckle, “Sorry you just looked zoned out. I thought I was just rambling.”

“No.” Jason sits up leaning forward in the booth putting his hands on the table. “I like listening to you talk.”

You smile and instinctively lean into him as he takes on of your hands and with the other, you stir your milkshake. He gently rubs over your thumb. Basking in the comfortable silence and the background noise of the diner. Still holding his hand you sit back in the booth and close your eyes. If only every night could be this comfortable.

“Y/n.”

“Hm?” You respond without opening your eyes. He squeezes your hand.

“Will you marry me?”

You open an eye and take a peek at him. He was still sitting across the table from you. He hadn’t moved and was looking right at you.

He couldn’t possibly be serious. You chuckle. “Shut up.” You respond closing your eyes again.

“No, I’m serious.”

You take your hand back and sit up in the booth and stare at him half confused and half suspicious. You narrowed your eyes trying to gauge his reaction. Almost expecting him to go “Haha. Gotcha.” Or “I’m kidding.” You don’t know why he’d joke like that but you don’t know why he’d be asking you to marry him.

Marriage was something you two talked about but it was also something you two would just let happen when it felt most comfortable. You knew you wanted to be with him and he with you. So, you weren’t sure why you thought he was kidding.

“I know I don’t have a ring and I know I’m not down on one knee but I want to spend the rest of my life with you and after everything that happened I know you’re the one I want to spend my life with. I’m planning to get you a ring but I wanted to get you something with my money, not Bruce’s. I couldn’t wait to ask you.”

“Jay....”

“Do you want me to get on one knee? I will if you want.” he begins to stand up.

“No.” You grab his hand and set him back down, “No it’s okay. I’d love to marry you. I’ll happily marry you. No ring needed. No need to get on one knee.”

He squeezes your hand.

“Should we just run away?” He teased.

“And have Roy be our witness and third wheel forever?”

“And always.”

You two share a kiss across the table.

“I got it.”

You two decided to elope to Vegas. You two were going to have a real wedding soon where paparazzi would be “invited” your mom would be there and all your business colleagues, Wayne enterprises, socialites, and other Gotham elite it would be a wedding for everyone. But you and Jason wanted a smaller ceremony for the two of you first. What started small as in you, Jay, and Roy. Turned into a Batkid affair. So you, Jason, Roy, Dick, Duke, Tim, Damian, Cas, Steph, and Babs all flew out to Vegas. Your first day in Vegas while everyone was out walking around together around the Vegas strip. You and Jason decided on a small stage space close to the end of the “Venetian” river.

It was Vegas wedding day. Roy stood beside Jason. They weren’t wearing tuxes but they were dressed nicer. Jason had on black pinstriped pants, a red button-up with the sleeves rolled up with a black-tie done loosely with a black vest on. Roy had on black dress pants with a yellow dress shirt rolled up like Jason’s and unbuttoned near the top with suspenders on.

The two of them were making small talk, to help calm Jason’s nerves. The plan was for him and Roy to be there with the photographer before the impromptu wedding. Then the rest of the family would appear shortly after. Jason had his hands in his pant’s pockets and laughed at Roy’s joke.

“You’re in a good mood.”

“It’s not every day, I get to marry my best friend.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t let you cheat on y/n with me.”

Jason rolled his eyes at Roy. When Roy gave him a big smile and pointed behind Jay.

Jason turned around and Dick was leading the train of the Batfam. Jason tried to look past them all to get a glimpse of you, but they had you perfectly hidden behind them.

At this point, the passersby that were minding their own business began to stop and hang around, some kept minding their own business, while others were interested in the show. Dick greeted Jason first, he patted his shoulder, “Congrats, Little Wing.” Jason gave his brother a light punch in the arm and Dick moved aside. Following Dick was Tim who also gave him congratulations. Then there is Duke, where the two shared a hug. Cass was after and gave him a fake one-two punch in the gut followed by a hug. Next was Steph and then Babs, who he shared a hug with both of them.

“You’re in for a treat.” Steph teased.

Babs blew Jason a kiss and the two stood next to Cas.

Jason looked over at his family to the side of him. A lot has happened and they stood by him through it all. To have them all here, he was grateful. Then everyone looked over to where they came in. Little Damien, who is now 13 much more mature than the 8-year-old you had originally met. Damien loved you and thought of you as a big sister.

You planned to walk down the aisle yourself, but when Damien asked if he could give you away to Jason who were you to deny him.

You always knew Damien thought highly of you but one day after you and Jason had gotten back together after your hiatus apart. Damien lectured you left and right about how if Todd is ever a dick to you again he’d take care of Todd himself.

“Not if I handled him myself first.” You joked with Damien.

“Good.”

Then one day, you’ll never forget you were looking for Damien, but couldn’t find him in the manor. You walked outside onto the manor’s patio where Dick and Jason were sitting.

“Hey, do you know where Damian is?” you ask taking a seat next to Jason, “I can’t find him.”

“Yeah,” Dick nods, “Hold on, I got this.” He clears his throat. “DAMIAN! JASON IS BULLYING Y/N!!!”

Jason shook his head and looked at Dick, “Wait, what?!”

“Goddammit!”

You and Jason looked around and then up as Dick nodded proudly. Damien opened the window from the second floor in the manor and jumped out of it with a fighting stick. “TODD!”

Jason gets up from where he’s sitting and quickly runs out of the way, “GAAHH!!!”

You look over at Dick who nods and is giving you two thumbs up.

Back to the wedding:

Jason’s jaw dropped and he couldn’t believe that he was so lucky to have you. You were in a short spaghetti strap lacy white dress it hugged your body and your curves it had a slight v neck to it but wasn’t revealing. You wore your hair down nothing too fancy, just some soft waves and a baby’s breath crown on your head with your hair resting on your left shoulder.

You had a small light pink and black bouquet. Your shoes were a metallic white pearl shoe with skinny heel with a buckle around the ankle. It took everything in Jason not to just run over to you, sweep you off your feet and shower you in kisses. He was the happiest and luckiest man alive. The photographer was snapping pictures like crazy. When you left Alfred just asked for some pictures of the wedding, if Alfred wanted photos he was going to get them. No questions asked.

Roy nudged Jason. Jason nudged him back and couldn’t take his eyes off of you.

Damien walked you up to Jason.

“Thanks, Dami.” And you two shared a hug.

Damien turned around and glared at Jason. “Todd.”

“Demon spawn.” He cracks Damian a half-smile.

“Don’t mess this up, again.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t.”

Damian nods and steps aside letting Jason know that he’s approved of you two together again. You give Damien your bouquet. He walks over next to Babs and Steph. Jason offered you his hand. You take it and he leans into you as he helps you up, “You look absolutely gorgeous.” He stands up straight as you two take each other’s hands.

“Everyone is staring at us.”

“Everyone is staring at you.” Jason gestured, down to what you were wearing, giving you an ‘it’s definitely not me, it’s you’ kind of look. You smiled at him as you moved your hair out of your face and then take his hands again. He couldn’t stop smiling as much as he couldn’t take his eyes off of you. Looking at you like this was like falling in love all over again. This was happening.

“Hello, friends and family.” Roy began, “We are gathered here for the marriage of our beloved Y/f/n/ y/m/n y/l/n and our shit-eating boy, Jason Peter Todd.”

Everyone chuckles at Roy and Jay playfully flips him off.

“Now, the couple would like to say their vows.”

“Jason Peter Todd.” You began, “Where do I even begin with you. With us? Since my first day at Gotham Academy when you kept spilling coffee on me. We’ve unfortunately been best friends since. You’ve been my first choice always since we’ve met and since I’ve been with you I’ve never safer. From the highs and the lows you’ve been with me through it all.” You wipe one of your eyes, “I couldn’t imagine going through life with anyone else except for you. So, take me as I am because I have already taken you. I promise to always be by your side through anything the world may throw at us. I’ll protect you through it all.”

He brings your hands to his lips and kisses them.

“I guess it’s my turn.” He rolls his shoulders back while he stands up straight with your hands still in his. “Y/n.”

He looks around him, his brothers, and his sisters. The crowd that had gathered during your ceremony. The perfect weather and the beautiful bride he has. You were breathtaking. Looking at you, his heart skipped a beat.

Every. Single. Time.

He takes a deep breath before beginning.

“I’ll keep it as simple as I can.” He bites his lip, “Shit.” He wipes his eye. “How’d you do this without balling?” he joked.

You chuckle, “It was hard.”

“Ok,” he gives your hands another squeeze, “Y/n, you don't have to listen carefully, because I will tell you a thousand times. With your hands in mine, look at this thing we found. I have everything I need and I promise to give you everything you will ever need because you make me not want to die.”

You let out a chuckle and Roy rolled his eyes. Before you and Jason would say ‘I love you’ that’s what you’d say to each other, when you first started dating and when you guys got back together.

You’d be leaving the safe house for dance practice and Jason called after you, “Y/n!”

“What?”

He’d tilt his head and give you a soft smile, “you make me not want to die.”

You crack a smile and flip him off as he flips you off in return. You continue walking away and Jason can’t help but keep his eyes glued on you as you left.

“You two have the weirdest relationship.” Roy pretended to be disgusted.

“When you get sad like you do sometimes. Anything you feel. Put it all on me. All of your thoughts, I want everything. I’m letting you know, I’m going to be around.”

It had been months since you and Peter broke up and since you have decided not to take Jason back. You opened your eyes and started to cry. He was standing in front of you. “What happened to us?” You ask wiping away your tears.

He goes to step towards you and you back away making yourself smaller.

“Y/n.” He hesitates and puts his arms back to his side.

You don’t look at him.

“I’m sorry.” You look at him. Now he was crying, “I was wrong. You were right and I shouldn’t have done the things that I did but I did and I hurt you and I’m sorry. I don’t want to be apart from you anymore. I’m better with you than I am without you.”

“Jason...” you feel your chest tighten as more tears begin to fall.

“All I want to do is love you and if you don’t want to be with me. At least let me be around...again. I miss my best friend.”

You get on your tiptoes and wrap your arms around his neck. Where he wraps his arms around your body in a tight embrace.

“I never stopped loving you.” You cried. “I’m so scared and lost I don’t know what I want.” You begin to hiccup and Jason rubs your back.

“I’m so sorry, y/n. Sincerely. I promise I won’t ever be the reason you cry again.”

“I'll lift you when you're feeling low. I'll hold you when the night gets cold. Your fears and your thoughts, give me all of it. You'll never have to be alone and that's all you need to know.”

You wipe away your tears.

“I’m sorry.” Jason apologized.

You shook your head no, “Good tears.” He smiles at you and you both look over at Roy who smiling at them softly. He nods and breaks the silence: “Jason Peter Todd, you may kiss your bride.”

Jason cups your face as he pulls you in for a passionate kiss on the lips as the audience that has since gathered clapped and cheered but not louder than his and your family only a few steps away.

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