#ai less whumptober day twenty

[th3sp4rr0w]

Day Twenty

A03 Link <- Starts at Chapter/Day One for those just joining us :))

Prompts For Day Twenty Dehumanization/Stockholm Syndrome/Master and Servant 

Alt. Prompt For Day Twenty Mutilation 

Prompts Used for Day Twenty Dehumanization, Stockholm Syndrome, Mutilation

Tw's; Medical Experimentation, Torture, Injury, Blood

Chapter Twenty under the cut :)

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

“Log 67 on subjects F and T. This is Agent A speaking.

“The round of experiments with temperature control, in which I gave the subjects dishes of varying temperatures, was a partial success. Subject F became significantly worse when exposed to heat, and when exposed to cold temperature dramatically improved. Subject T did improve when exposed to hot temperatures, however I believe them to be more intelligent than we initially believed.

“I do not believe they are sentient; I think the ghostly nature of them has taken that away. However, I do believe that the human bodies they inhabit are still somewhat functioning, including the little intelligence they have left. Subject T also brought up some good points.

“The experiments we conducted in which the full ghosts made food disappear without any trace despite not going to the bathroom at all could’ve been due to converting it into ectoplasm. I will propose redoing that experiment with a redirected focus to the department head. Subject T also informed me that, upon realizing how good it felt, they stuck their heads under warm and cold water, respectfully. I suspect that they also drank from the taps, however it did not confirm this.

“I still have not found the journals I gave them previously. I heavily suspect they have been using them; however, I still do not know where they’ve hidden them. I do not know how to ask without looking highly suspicious of them.

“My collaboration with Agent V has been going smoothly. The subjects are fearful of her. I have mentioned her here and there, and each time the subjects have shown themselves to be weary of her. Her role in the emotion experiments has been undoubtedly helpful.

“Agent J has been our control. I am unaware if they have been informed of this or not. They are not unnecessarily cruel to the subjects; they are not kind, either. The subjects do not show any sort of strong emotion when I’ve mentioned Agent J, so I am confident that their role has been fulfilled nicely.

“Today, we will begin setting up the conclusions for both experiments. I will be giving them cold treats before the bulk of it today, mostly to see how subject T will react since I was not able to test its tolerance to the cold the other day. I will find a reason to ‘accidentally’ hurt them and see how they react. Once I am done with that, I will be setting up more temperature experiments with Agent V, where she will force feed them their opposite temperature preferences. I will update the log once we are finished.

"Once again, this is Agent A speaking. This is the end of log 67.”

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

She walked down the hall with a purpose, pulling out her keys as she did. She held the treats in her hand by their wrappers. The bored expression on her face morphed into a smile as she began to unlock the door to the room.

Subjects F and T. It was considered an honor to even be considered for being allowed to be a part of their experiments; to even be allowed to witness one. To be a keyholder for their door was a huge responsibility.

She walked into the room. The door shut with a final click.

The things looked up at her from their cot. One was pressed protectively against the other’s chest. She made sure to look perfectly pleasant as she greeted them; “Hi, Robin! Hi Phantom! How are you boys doing today?”

Subject T looked up at her. It had its mask on again; it had taken it off for a while when it was sick. She hated it when that thing put it on; it was harder to gage its emotions. “We’re doing pretty good,” it said. “How are you doing, Agent A?”

She smiled conspiratorially. “We were right,” she said in lieu of an answer, “The department head wants you to eat something cold just to prove the results,” she rolled her eyes to feign annoyance, “As if we didn’t give them enough evidence. But I’ve tried to make it fun!”

She held up some Batman-themed popsicles. She had to take them from her own freezer; for some reason, the stores ran out of them. She didn’t care about the attention to detail, but the Agent A they knew would. When these experiments were over, she swore she was never going to do this again.

She’d do it next time anyways. It was just in her nature.

Subject T snorted and Subject F perked up. “I used to love those when I was little!”

Subject T laughed a bit. “Batman only gets those when we’re on patrol. He thinks it’s his civic duty to thank them for making them to begin with,” he laughed.

She quirked her lip, landing a small giggle. “I could not imagine him eating one of these.”

“Believe it,” he said, amusement coloring his tone. “It’s so funny watching him bend down to take one of these from the clerk. We go to a local stand, she’s maybe 4’11? And she’s one of the only places that sells ice cream at the end of patrol time. Sometimes she stays open late for us.” He looked down at the cot, picking at the fabric. “She’s one of my favorite people ever. She called him a miserable furry once.”

Subject F made a loud, amused noise. She’d have to jot that down.

“She did what? She’s my third favorite hero now,” he said.

“Third? Who are the other two?”

“You and the psychologist.”

Agent A raised an eyebrow. “Psychologist?” She asked, handing the boys the treats.

“One of my teammates in Amity,” he explained. “The only other known hero is Red Huntress, but we each have teams. I don’t know who’s on Red’s, but I have three people; Psychologist, Black Dahlia, and Pharaoh.”

“Your names are so cool,” Subject T complained, tearing the wrapper off the treat, “We have Batman, Batgirl, Robin, and Nightwing. Two of those are just variations of the same thing!”

“How’d Nightwing get his name anyways?” Subject F asked as he also started tearing the wrapper off.

“He’s always been obsessed with Superman and one time eons ago Big Blue made the mistake of telling him some story about Nightwing and Flamebird. He got into a fight with the Bat when he was like 17 and went awol, moved to Bludhaven, started going by Nightwing and bang! There he is, terrorizing the bat where he can’t reach him.”

“Eons,” Subject F wheezed, “Nightwing is not that old, he’s only four years older than us!” he said. He started nibbling on a bat-ear, humming in surprise. “Wow! This is really good!”

“Really?” Subject T said, inspecting it. “I tried it once and I don’t remember it being that great.”

“It’s really good,” he insisted.

Subject T put his tongue to it. He winced, pulling away. “Ow!” he exclaimed.

“That hurt?” She asked.

“Yeah,” it said, sticking out his tongue a bit. “It’s like I drank my tea too fast and burnt it,” it explained.

She made sure to act as though she winced in sympathy. “I’m sorry, honey,” she said, doing the motions she might if it was her son in pain. She reminded herself that these things were not actual children.

If she got emotionally confused, she might end up without a job. At the Ghost Investigation Ward, they took emotionally compromised agents extremely seriously. She had kids; she had a husband. She needed to be level-headed here. She cursed these ghosts for taking this form; they knew what they were doing. She was certain of that.

She watched as it put its mouth on it again. It couldn’t hurt that bad if it was going for seconds.

“Are you alright?” She asked instead.

It winced again. “It burns. How much of this do I need to eat? In order for them to be satisfied?”

She made an apologetic face. “The whole thing,” she said.

Half would probably suffice. It was for other ghosts. She just wanted this thing to suffer for what it had done.

She watched it as it struggled through the popsicle. She tried not to let the vindictive grin she was sporting internally become external. She kept her face politely concerned, occasionally chiming in.

The other thing was reveling in the cold treat. When it was done it slung itself over the other’s shoulder. It looked at her when the other was about halfway done.

“Agent A? Could I finish his portion for him? We already have the results; would it really hurt if we just fudge the report a bit?”

She took a deep breath. She had to comply. That was what the Agent A they knew would do. She hated that thing for thinking of this; she could’ve quietly enjoyed this for another 15 minutes if it had just kept its mouth shut.

“Yes! What a good idea, honey!” She smiled. “I’m sorry I didn’t think of that sooner, Robin.”

It waved her off. “It’s okay, Agent A. They probably wanted pictures anyways I bet,” it said, looking at her.

She nodded and pulled out a camera. “They did,” she said. “You boys really are too smart for your own good,” she said.

She watched as Subject T handed Subject F the unfinished popsicle. It took it eagerly, tearing into it. Subject T scooted off the cot, going to stand by her. It opened its mouth.

She took pictures of the painful looking mouth. It was still stained from the popsicle, but you could tell the flesh itself was red and swollen. She took delight in it; knowing that, if this thing could feel discomfort and pain at least, that it was. This certainly couldn’t be comfortable at least.

She finished taking the pictures and looked over to the other thing. “And how do you feel, Phantom?”

“’s a bummer Rob’s in pain,” it said, licking some of the melted part that dripped down his hand, “But this is like. Wow. It’s like it’s fixing something in my chest,” it continued.

She made sure to laugh a bit.

“It’s a ‘bummer’ I’m in pain?” Subject T repeated, mock offended. “Wow. I know how you feel about me now. Thanks, man.”

They laughed. She made sure to laugh, too. It’d be bad if she suddenly stopped.

“I’ve got to go,” she said, getting up, “Be good! I think they want to do further testing,” she said. “I’m going to try to lead the experiment, but I’m not sure if they’re going to let me or not.”

They nodded. She left.

She made sure the locks were in place. She pressed her ear to the door.

“... don’t know how you could like these things,” Subject T said.

“They’re good? They’re cherry flavored!”

She heard a bright laugh.

“Dude, exactly. It’s cherry, not even grape or blue raspberry-”

She rolled her eyes and went away. She huffed. They rarely actually had conversations of value. If she hadn’t personally witnessed some of their rare moments of intelligent thought, she wouldn’t believe them capable.

She went to the medical area where agents J and V were preparing for the next bout of experiment on the creatures. She looked around at the various things they had dragged in; Bunsen burners and freezers, fridges and kettles. She smiled a bit. “You two have been busy,” she said.

Agent J looked at her. “You could’ve helped,” they muttered.

“I’ve conducting an experiment on the subjects,” she said, looking at her. “Besides, Bryce just lost his first tooth and Suzy’s sick. I’ve been busy with my family.”

Agent J huffed. “I’m well aware you have children,” they said. “That doesn’t mean you get to skip out on work.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Wait, back up,” Agent V interrupted. “Did you say Bryce lost his first tooth?”

She smiled fondly. It was softer than any of the smiles she’d ever given the things parading around as children. “Yes!”

She squealed, a smile on her face. “He’s getting so big!” She exclaimed, going around to hug her from the side. Agent J tried to hide a small smile of their own.

“I remember when you had the baby shower,” they said quietly.

She gave a smile of her own. “Yeah,” she said, tearing up. “I do too.”

“That was when the hubby tried to bake the reveal cake, right?”

She groaned, “Yes,” she said.

Agent J perked up. “Oh! That was the one that turned out-”

“Green!” They all said in unison, devolving into laughter.

Agent V looked at her. “How are you holding up, anyways? I know it must be hard interacting with those things day in and day out.”

She sighed. “It is hard, but it’s worth it. If we can find a way to recreate whatever it was that made them like that without harming any children? It’ll be worth it.”

“I think we need to start looking into ways to neutralize them if they go rogue,” Agent J stated. “Especially if we end up recreating them. Could you imagine the damage they could do if they got loose?”

Agent A shuddered. “I know,” she started messing with various cords, beginning to tidy them. “I think the blood blossom experiment was promising, but I want to study these two a bit more. I haven’t been able to plant the bug yet,” she said.

Agent V looked at her. “You mean you haven’t-”

“No! They check every time I leave, still!”

Agent J whistled. “You’re doing the emotional attachment experiment again?”

“Yes, otherwise I’d take myself off of this case,” she said.

“Ah,” Agent J hummed, “And here I was thinking you’d gone soft."

“Oh, please,” Agent A scoffed. “Me? Soft? When have you ever-”

“I know! That’s why I was confused! I was going to go to the board soon if you didn’t get your priorities straight! I’ve never known one of your emotional experiments to go on for this long.”

She rolled her eyes. “They’re so suspicious! All the time!” She exclaimed.

“Yeah, I’ve barely been able to get a glimpse of them since I cut off that one’s hand,” Agent V rolled her eyes. “It’s not like it didn’t grow back.”

“Speaking of, have we tested how good of a hand it is? Does it function?”

“I suspect it has some sort of severe nerve damage,” Agent A stated, “But I haven’t been able to test the motor functions just yet. It keeps it close to its chest.”

Agent J scoffed. “Cute. Want to see if we can do that today?”

She hummed. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

Agent V snorted. “Maybe I should cut it off again if it’s defective and see if it grows a better one,” she joked.

Agent J huffed out a laugh. “No. We might’ve gone a bit too far with that one,” they admitted.

She let out an ugly laugh. “Didn’t you force the other one to watch?!”

Agent A laughed along with her. “You did what! And I thought you were the neutral party!”

Agent J adjusted their goggles. “Yeah, I uh, was not in the best mood. Betty and I got in an argument that morning,” they said.

“Um... excuse me?” A timid voice from the hall asked.

They turned to find one of the newer agents standing in the hall. They looked at each other. Agent J raised an eyebrow. “Can we help you?”

The agent squeaked. “Um, well, I was trying to text an update to my partner, but my phone isn’t working? I was wondering-”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t be bringing that to work,” Agent V said, moving towards him. “The ectoplasm around here renders most electronics useless within a couple of weeks, especially cellphones. Plus, we’ve had issues with ghost trackers and such in the past, so we developed tech that renders them more or less useless. Your phone will be fine a few hours after you get home,” she said, tapping it. “But from now on, don’t bring it, unless you really want the new model.”

She bent down and looked him in the eye. “Don’t they cover that during orientation?”

He shook his head. “They said something about blank spots and not using your phones around the ghosts, but they never said they shouldn’t be brought to work,” he said.

She hummed. “Yeah. Maybe leave it in the car next time? I’m sorry about the miscommunication, I’ll talk to my wife about giving the right information.”

He squeaked again. “I-I’m sure-”

“Shut it,” she said, looking down at him. “Don’t lie to my face next time. Scram.”

He did.

Agent A snorted. “V, you don’t have a wife,” she said.

Agent V looked at her, grinning. “He didn’t know that.”

Agent J huffed. “Stop traumatizing the interns. I think we’re ready to bring in the subjects, which one of you wants to get them?"

Agent A started making her way towards the door. “I’m going to take a break. Agent V, do you-”

“Yes!” She said, already walking out of the room.

Agent J sighed. “I suppose you’ll come in halfway through to play the ‘oh poor pitiful baby’ routine?”

She snorted. “Yeah. I can’t wait until I can be done with this. Those things are driving me nuts.

Agent J hummed. “You’d better go then. Have a nice break."

She smiled back. “Thanks. Have fun experimenting.”  

They smirked. “Oh, you bet your ass I will.”

She laughed and left the room.

As she approached the break room, she caught some conversation. “... They were real skinny, too. Just a couple of kids, man. One tripped, and the agent walkin’ with them yelled at them, accused them of tryin’ something,” she heard. She slowed down, stopping by the door.

“Dude, I’ve seen them before. Once I saw them bringing them back to their room; they cut off one of their hands to see if it’d grow back.”

“Oh my god,” she heard another voice. “Should we report this?”

She rolled her eyes. She walked into the break room. “You three know that they’re ghosts, right?”

They looked up at her like deer caught in headlights. She sighed.

She hated having to explain things like this to the new guys, but having them still believe that ghosts, no matter what shape they took, could be sentient was dangerous. It left them vulnerable.

She pulled up a chair. Why was it always up to her to do other people’s jobs?

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

The things huddled together as they walked down the halls. “Move, dogs,” she barked. They flinched.

She loved seeing these things squirm.

Ghosts took just about everything from her. Her eye. Her chance at love. Her career. The least she could do was return the favor, right?

She pushed one forwards, tripping it. The chain she’d put around its throat pulled on the collar, shocking it. She laughed a bit. “Can’t keep your balance, F? You really are fucking pathetic,’ she sneered.

She grabs them both by the hair and starts dragging them. It’s not like they could feel pain, right?

She didn’t let their tired eyes with the bags underneath fool her. She knew they were faking it. She saw it in the way they carried themselves; they weren’t afraid of anything. That was where she and Agent A disagreed.

Sure, they probably dread getting hurt because it means healing times. They probably do, to some degree, feel discomfort from the beatings. But they don’t feel beyond that. She knows they can’t; they’re ghosts. Ghosts don’t have feelings. They don’t feel pain. They can’t have intelligence or anything of the sort.

When they get to the room, she flings Subject F to the left and Subject T to the right. “On the cots, dogs,” she said.

Agent J raised an eyebrow at her. “Thank you for bringing them in, Agent V,” they said simply. “I trust you did not harm them?”

She rolled her eyes. “As much as these things can’t be harmed, yes,” she replied.

“Excellent. Grab the ice, please,” they said.

She grabbed the ice and brought it over to Subject T. “Eat,” she said, thrusting it into its hand.

It hissed a bit before doing as it was told. She grabbed it by the hair, “What was that?”

It looked up at her. The ice stuck to the inside of its cheek, making small ripping noises as it tried to move its mouth. “It hurts.”

She rolled her eyes. “How stupid do you think we are? We know you can’t feel pain,” she said.

Agent J added, “And if you could, it’s just ice. No need to be dramatic.

It looked down. “Yes, Agent J.”

She felt a jolt of anger run through her. She grabbed its hair again, yanking hard. “And?”

It swallowed frantically, “Yes-yes ma’am,” it choked out.

Agent J handed subject F a cup of hot but cooled to normal drinking level tea. “Drink,” they demanded. It followed the instruction.

She watched as Agent J took notes. The temperature experiments were never one of her favorites; this was the bulk of it right here, giving them something of a certain temperature and seeing how they reacted. She decided to make it more... interesting.

She grabbed the kettle, hauling it over to the sink and filling it up. She ignored the look that Agent J gave her as she brought it back to sit on its platform, waiting for it to begin to boil. She mostly watched as Agent J gave them things; Warm bread, cold puddings, seeing where the limits lay. She rolled her eyes.

Once it began to boil, she grinned. She picked it up and moved towards Subject T.

“Open your mouth,” she demanded.

It turned to her, eyes wide. “But-”

“Now,” she said, holding his jaw. He opened it and she forced his head back, pouring the boiling water directly into his throat.

Nothing happpened. It remained undamaged. Agent J stared at them.

“Interesting,” they mumbled. “Subject T. How do you feel?”

He looked at them. “... Fine?” he squeaked out. “Like I drank a cup of tea a little too fast?”

They hummed, marking it down. She looked at Subject F.

It tried to back up but she was quicker. She could tell the other one wanted to step in as she grabbed this one by the hair, forcing its head back. It opened its mouth, probably to scream as she poured the water down its throat.

It screamed. Blisters formed nearly immediately. She took out a camera and put down the kettle to take pictures of the things.

It cried as she did so. She rolled her eyes; when will these things learn?

The other one stared in shock. “Why would you do that?” It whispered.

“We needed to see how you two would react to boiling water,” she said simply. Agent J maintained their composure, but she could see they were slightly amused.

It got angry. “This isn’t an experiment! This is cruel! You have the data you need-”

“You don’t know what we have,” she said, turning to face it. It was starting to annoy her.

“I know you have enough! What more do you want from us? We’ve given you everything you’ve ever asked for and yet-”

“You hush!” She snapped. “Before I make you-”

“Agent V,” Agent J reprimanded. “Just punish it and be done.”

She smirked. They didn’t have any suture kits; they didn’t need them today, unfortunately; but she did have her knife on her. “With pleasure,” she said, stalking towards it.

It also tried to back up but she caught it by the hair, “What? You want to scream at me when you think you can get away with it but the moment you face repercussions for your actions, you try to run?” she sneered. Who did this thing think it was?

“I’m not sorry,” it grit out. “You’re all evil, you’re not scientists-”

She slapped it. “You shut up, before you make this worse for yourself,” she hissed. The other thing was still crying in pain. She smiled.

“You know what? How about I split your punishment for that,” she said.

Its eyes widened. “No,” it said softly.

“Oh, yes,” she said as it protested more, “Shut up before I do something much worse,” she said as she yanked its shirt up. “You’re lucky I haven’t already decided on a much worse punishment,” she said.

“You belong to me,” she continued, pressing her knife into its back. “You both do. Don’t forget it again,” she said, drawing her blade down its back. She picked it up, going to the other side.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t try that now,” she hissed. “You’ve already made your position clear,” she drew the blade down again, connecting the points at the bottom. “This is your reminder that things could be much, much worse. You’re lucky I’m not getting the blood blossoms out to dress your wounds,” she said, leaning in close. “And you’d better watch every second of me doing this to the other one,” she said, getting in its face.

“Please, he didn’t do anything-”

“That’s the point, dog,” she said. “You did. This is all you. This entire punishment is your fault,” she said, waving the knife in front of its face. “This is called ‘consequences’. Don’t fucking forget it again,” she said, grabbing the other one and flipping it over.

She dragged it out more than she had the first time, watching the blood curl and pool around the knife as she dragged it down. She admired her work.

Marking them with the ‘V’ might be overkill, but what else was she supposed to do?

It’s not like these things were anything more than a bag of ectoplasm. They weren’t real; they pretty much amounted to objects. Not even pets.

They were just things that only knew destruction. They didn’t know what it was like to truly fear something, to love. She didn’t feel bad for it.

These things were willing to take any sign of weakness and exploit it. It saw sympathy as something to leverage. It didn’t know that a human being, a real human being was fragile.

She felt bad for the children that had to die so it could play its sick game. Maybe she could make the body a non-viable option and save the kid trapped in it.

She sighed. No. Agent A already determined the kids were gone; only the ghosts were left. She could mourn for them on her own time. Right now, she had to deal with the things parading around their corpses.

She grabbed some gloves, putting them securely on her hands. Agent J watched her as she picked up the tongs, using them to pick up the dry ice they had laid out for the subjects.

She pressed it against subject T’s chest. It screamed, trying to squirm. “Stop,” she hissed, digging her nails in it. “If you don’t, I’ll get more boiling water for Subject F,” she threatened.

It still whimpered and cried, but it stopped squirming as harshly. It’d have to do. She was already getting bored again watching it happen.

For the sake of the experiment, she grabbed another piece of dry ice and placed it on the other twin, who looked at it curiously. It tried to speak but nothing except garbled sounds came out. She knew what it was trying to ask; she did not care for it. She turned away.

“I’m going to the vending machine,” she called over her shoulder. “Want anything?”

“No,” Agent J called back.

She strolled out of the room. As she walked down the halls, she passed Agent A. She raised an eyebrow.

Well, guess she didn’t need to go back. She rerouted.

Might as well take her break now, right? She wasn’t going to be needed again anytime soon.

She laughed to herself. She couldn’t wait to get the green light to destabilize those things.

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

They were always stuck with the cleanup.

When Agent A stormed in to make a big stink, they had to remind themselves that it was just part of their experiment. They weren’t exactly sure why they had decided to do it again, but they had. Everyone else was paying for it, though.

They mopped up the blood first. Sticky and red and so unsanitary. If Agent V had ever come back from the ‘vending machine’, they’d be making her do this. Unbelievable. They didn’t even make this mess!

They rolled their eyes. They mopped the floor, finding water from the boiling water. They cleaned up the discarded medical supplies Agent A used to dress the wounds left behind on the subjects.

Why had they gone into this position again? It’s not like they needed the money. They had plenty; they could retire now and be set for life, even with inflation. Hell, they could move to another country and still not have to work another day in their natural-born life.

They sighed. They really should consider a career switch. It’s not like they hadn’t before, but these new subjects were just...

They weren’t kids. That’s what they kept telling themselves; even with all the things they hear them reference when they think they aren’t listening, and the slang they use, and their tiny faces still full of baby fat, they aren’t kids. They’re things parading around in a kid’s corpse; they tried to find it somewhere in them to be angry about it. To get upset and rage.

They couldn’t. It was like everything had been sapped out of them when it came to those two. They had caught themselves almost referring to them by their names before.

Daniel James Fenton and Jason Peter Todd. They’d found the first one fairly easily, and the second only shortly after. They figured Bruce Wayne did something to make him this way, but they still couldn’t figure out what or how to reverse it. They were fairly sure that Jason hadn’t actually been Robin, so they didn’t consider magic or anything of the sort just yet.

Whatever it was, they were angry. Billionaires thought they could do just anything they wanted and get away with it. That child was dead because of his negligence; he had something parading around his body. They felt for him.

But the thing was not Jason Peter Todd. It was Subject T. It was something to be disdained and hated, not pitied. They could mourn for Jason at a later date. Right now, they had to deal with the thing wearing his face.

They sat down heavily. They looked at the room, still messy and unkempt. They shook their head.

They still couldn’t believe the ‘queen’ insisted on them seeing if they could recreate this. As if seeing the children that were affected by these things wasn’t enough to shut down the project. It would be one thing if they were studying them to prevent it from happening again; it shouldn’t happen again; but specifically, to replicate this? This was wrong. This shouldn’t be happening.

But, then again, it could be nice to have half-human hybrids to send into the zone to destroy it. The Fenton's already had prototypes of portable portals; they were just putting on the finishing touches. If they could have someone that was safe in the zone go in and do what they need to, and come out unscathed? They’d have to destabilize them afterwards, of course, but it could be revolutionary for the cause.

That didn’t mean they didn’t think this was heinous. This was still massively messed up and they wished it didn’t have to happen at all.

Children shouldn’t have to die because of the adults around them. The negligence involved was incredibly heartbreaking. They hoped the ward could see that. They wanted better for the children involved here.

They sighed, looking over their notes. They added some. They looked over the pictures, of the way the dry ice had bonded to Subject T’s skin and the boils involved with Subject F’s experience. Though, they had to admit, Agent A had a brilliant idea when they suggested they put the dry ice on Subject F’s boiling wounds and boiling water on Subject T’s dry ice situation. It had shown some promising results; they had almost been healed when they walked out today. It truly was remarkable.

They still hadn’t figured out what made some subjects so sensitive to certain temperatures. They’d been trying for years but couldn’t figure it out. They paused.

Different ghosts had different powers, right? They knew they also didn’t have organs like humans did, but the hybrids had to be different. So, what made the powers come into play?

They rushed over to the various machines. They wondered if they could scan these ones, because of the human nature of them. MRI’s, CAT’s, PET’s. Everything. They might even do an echo exam just to see how the heart worked; they would have to have one if they still had the human body, right?

They furiously wrote. If they could figure out what produced the ectoplasm, what caused the ghost to take form, they could prevent it from happening and potentially stop the epidemic at the source. If they could do that, they could get rid of the monsters as a whole.

They grinned. This was brilliant. If they could do this, then they could prevent more people from having to become hybrids with the monsters! If they could do that, then they could euthanize the ones they currently had and finally put the children to rest. They smiled softly.

They wondered who they were in life. What their passions were. What they’d been like. Did they play sports? Did they read? Were they into video games? This was the sort of thing they’d wondered about all the ghosts that came in. They hated seeing people become monsters, tied to obsessions they couldn’t control. It was painfully familiar to watching their mom in her final days. She’d been beautiful; now, she was in the ground too soon. They pushed the thought out of their heads.

They just had to finish this. They had to finish this, then they could focus on other endeavors.

The head was a busy woman and didn’t have time to waste going over experiment requests that were half formed.

If they could do the scans and tests, then they could see how the hybrids worked compared to humans. Any abnormalities they saw, they could attribute to the ghosts. Since they couldn’t scan ghosts, this would be the way to get the information they previously could not receive.

From there, they could figure out what made the ghost a ghost. Brain activity, heart rates, even the way the organs were positioned and functioned. From there, they could see what made the ghosts destabilize to begin with!

They’d already determined that eating blood blossoms didn’t prevent a ghost from forming, but if they knew how they worked when they were already formed, they could prevent that in regular people, and they’d never form. They could add ingredients to food and in the water supply, or force people to take medications. This could work!

Any ethical concerns that cropped up could be easily quelled. This was more important. Once the public learned that ghosts were willing to kill your kids to get access to human bodies, they’d understand. Ghosts would do anything to mess with humanity and they’d gone unchecked for far too long. They knew there’d be pushbacks, but they were the heroes here! They could even go to the Justice League one day if this got big enough, get them on their side! A ghost would never be able to do this again. They’d be able to save any future kids from this fate. They smiled as they finished writing the proposal, running towards the head’s office. This couldn’t wait; it was too important.

Children’s lives were on the line.

#dp x dc #ailesswhumptober2023 #jason todd #danny fenton #danny phantom #dc robin #robin #batman #ai less whumptober day twenty #kite flies over the nightingale nest

[foap-enjoyer]

AI-Less whumptober, Call of duty Soap edition. Starting off fluffy!

Overworked | Insomnia | Exhaustion

Exhaustion. Soap x either Ghost or Gaz, your choice! Soap is too tired to tell who he's talking to anyway.

~

He was exhausted.

One whole fucking week. Twenty-four fucking seven. That’s how long higher-ups had had him working for. Running surveillance- a solo mission, of course, because why wouldn’t it be?

Soap knew for a fact he wasn’t the best candidate for something as delicate as surveillance, especially something that required him to lay low. Soap Mactavish didn’t do laying low, but apparently, he was the best candidate for this his commanders had on the roster at the time. Which, now that he had time to think about it, was almost insulting. Not to him, of course, but to the whole British military. He himself had been flattered, at the time.

Now, however? 

Now, these ‘commanders’ could shove a few hundred guns up their asses collectively and fire them to the sound of a Queen song. The mission sucked. He’d been shot at, he hadn’t slept, and he never, never wanted to ever see their dumb smiling faces ever again. Stupid old men who should’ve retired years ago instead of sending him on a one-way trip to hell. 

He’s still not even sure how he got out alive. Not that he wanted to think about any of that right now. His time of ‘usefulness’ was over, the mission was done, he was back on base, and most importantly he was fucking tired.

“I’m going to need a debrief, sergeant.” 

Of course. Of course he couldn’t have a moment to breathe come seven days later. None other than Captain John Price meeting him on the tarmac at two in the fucking morning asking for a debrief. If he wasn’t his higher up, Soap might’ve considered throttling him out of pure spite. 

But he didn’t. Instead, he gave a half-assed smile and looked up at the man. Price’s stern eyes instantly softened at the look. “Jesus, Mactavish.”

He was swaying on his feet like a damn flag in the wind. He felt like he could collapse at any given moment, and the tarmac under his feet was the last comfy place he could think of. “Think you’ll find my name is John.” 

Price snorted, waving his arm towards the door, “Fuck off and go sleep, I’ll see you first thing tomorrow-or, uh…” He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking. “I’ll see you whenever you wake up next.”

“I don’t plan to wake up.” He mumbled as he moved past his Captain, the man hot on his heels. He could feel a hand ghost over his shoulder, steadying him as he wobbled. “Ever again.”

Somehow, he was able to make it inside. The hand on his shoulder leaves him reluctantly with a squeeze as the heat of the building encases him, steadying him in its own way. 

It’s beautiful. 

It seeps into his cold, frozen skin. Brings life back into him, and at the same time, reminds him just how tired he is. The heat slows him drastically; his muscles are relieved to not be aching as much as before, and it makes the full weight of his exhaustion very well-known to his brain. 

Not that it wasn’t already. But now, he felt more zombie than he did human.

This zombie-body would not make it to his room. This zombie-brain couldn’t even remember if he had his room key to even get into his room. So he aimed closer, nearer.

His squadron’s common room was only down the corridor.

The common room was about as lush as one could imagine a military, government-issued common room could be. A sad little kitchen, a small chipped dining room table, and most importantly, a sofa. 

Sure it was an old, creaky one, but it was a fucking sofa, and Soap honestly couldn’t give a rat’s ass about spring consistency. Not anymore. His back was already aching, and that sofa would definitely not fuck it up further than it was already.

So, gathering what little energy he had left, he shuffled along. His feet were heavy, and his eyes were closed as he slowly manoeuvred himself through the empty corridors. His hand glided across roughened brick as he guided himself forward purely through tired muscle-memory. When he finally arrived at his desired door, he eagerly let himself in.

The common room looked abandoned when he peered inside with half-lidded eyes; the lights of the kitchen were on, bleeding a soft yellow glow out into the rest of the room. But other than that, it looked undisturbed. The chairs were empty, the room untouched. It looked perfect.

He soon comes to realise, after he’s collapsed onto the cushions, that he is in fact, not alone.

“Soap?”

Soap forced his eyes back open from where they had closed once more, groaning. God, how tired was he that he didn’t realise the sofa was in fact not empty and he had just willingly fell into the lap of a poor random soldier head first?

His eyes blurred with exhaustion as he attempted to push himself back up onto his elbows, sleepy, yet frantic to move out of the way. “Sorry,” He murmured tiredly, yawning, “Sorry, sorry-” 

A hand rested hesitantly on his head, pressing his cheek back onto the warm thigh beneath him. “It’s alright.” They assured him, beginning to gently scratch at his scalp. His eyes fluttered closed at the contact, and a noise left his throat that he could only, embarrassingly, describe as a purr. But he was too tired to honestly care.

If the soldier above him heard it, they didn’t comment. Instead, they moved slightly, getting comfy, before their hand disappeared, something soft and fluffy hitting his back a brief moment later. A blanket. Where the fuck had that blanket come from?

The hand returned, running through his matted mohawk. Talented fingers began working at the knots in his hair, and he sighed into it, relaxing further. “You broken?”

He shook his head slightly into the thigh. A no, which was half-true. He had enough bruises and cuts to make an adventurous toddler jealous. Sure, he’d been shot at, but he was a Sergeant for a reason, and a madman on top of that. He’d jumped off of way too many cliffs and rolled down one too many hills in his time spent in the wilderness of Russia.

The voice huffed fondly, fingers continuing to work their magic against his skull. The other hand reached to rub against his blanket-covered shoulder. “Sure you aren’t.”

~

Also can be found here, on AO3:

Ouch. - Chapter 1 - Tsukuyomi_Ravioli - Call of Duty (Video Games) [Archive of Our Own]

#ailesswhumptober2023 #modern warfare ii #call of duty #mw2 #cod #modern warfare 2 #john soap mactavish #soap mactavish #soap mw2 #simon ghost riley #cod fanfiction #gaz cod #soap cod #cod modern warfare #ghost cod #cod fanfic #gaz x soap #soap x ghost #soap x gaz #ghoap #soapghost #johnny soap mactavish

[gristol-liker]

Aaaannndd I'm calling it. Done!

I'm a tad sad I didn't do all the days, but, overall, I'm happy with what I did get done. Seventy prompts in twenty-two works (three with two chapters) is pretty good for my first writing challenge.

Thanks to @ailesswhumptober for the prompt list!

#fanfic #gristol malik #ailesswhumptober2023 #psychonauts

[lilac-gold]

OMORI AI-less Whumptober 2023

Contents Page:

DAY ONE: Sick Summary: Aubrey falls ill, unable to leave her room. Her mother doesn’t care, and certainly won’t let her friends come visit.

DAY TWO: Overworked Summary: Hero uses studying to cope with Mari's death. Unfortunately, staying up all night studying can lead to passing out at the most inconvenient of times.

DAY THREE: Isolation Summary: Unlike Hero and Sunny, Aubrey didn’t isolate herself. Her friends and family did so for her.

DAY FOUR: Hiding an injury Summary: Mari’s supposed to be perfect, not go running for help. Hero’s got enough of her worries on his plate without her bad knee too.

DAY FIVE: Held at gunpoint Summary: Someone’s got a gun at Hero and Kel’s school. Kel should be concerned for himself, but all he can think about is his brother.

DAY SIX: Mind control Summary: Under Bossman, Hero is a puppet. He has no say in what his body does, and no way to resist when it starts to hurt his little siblings.

DAY SEVEN: Flatline Summary: Basil hears his grandmother die. The sound of her flatlining sticks with him for hours afterwards.

DAY EIGHT: Panic Attacks Summary: Aubrey deals with things using anger. She can control that, but the panic rushing through her is a different matter entirely.

DAY NINE: Presumed dead Summary: In Black Space, he gets constantly ripped apart, and Omori doesn't seem to care. When he returns to Headspace, Basil learns that his friends ended up giving up on him completely.

DAY TEN: Collar Summary: Molly always treats him like he's less than human. Still, Omori really could've done without the constant reminder around his neck.

DAY ELEVEN: Paralysed Summary: Upon a mountain, freezing to death, Spaceboy can't move a muscle. He's beginning to dislike the numbness.

DAY TWELVE: Sacrifice Summary: The Recycultists have never been a threat, not really. Things change when Basil ends up in one of their rituals.

DAY THIRTEEN: Drowning (ALT Prompt) Summary: He's not a strong swimmer, and hasn't been since he was little. Still, Sunny jumps in after Basil, and wonders if he meant for this to happen.

DAY FOURTEEN: Grief (ALT Prompt) Summary: Unlike Mari, Hero leaves a note. Kel finds it just minutes too late.

DAY FIFTEEN: Transformation Summary: Spaceboy tries to fight the anger that threatens to overcome him every single time. It never works, and hearing that tape again is the last straw.

DAY SIXTEEN: Hospital Summary: Mari is familiar with hospitals, especially this one. One place she's never visited before, however, is its roof.

DAY SEVENTEEN: Hypothermia Summary: Maybe climbing a huge, snowy mountain in only her too-large nightgown and with no shoes wasn't the best idea. Aubrey's certainly starting to feel the chill.

DAY EIGHTEEN: Warm soup Summary: Sunny hasn't eaten Hero's food in years. Now, starving as he is, it tastes even better than ever.

DAY NINETEEN: "Why wasn't I enough?" Summary: Locked in the walls, Rococo's starting to go insane. He still doesn't understand what he did wrong.

DAY TWENTY: Stockholm syndrome Summary: Hero, touch-starved and grieving, craves even the tiniest scrap of love. Finding it in Sweetheart was inevitable, really.

DAY TWENTY-ONE: Near-death experience Summary: After Humphrey, his friends seem fine. Omori knows better.

DAY TWENTY-TWO: Punishment Summary: The guilty must be punished. Sunny can tell no-one, so the only one left to inflict punishment is him.

DAY TWENTY-THREE: Forced to watch Summary: When Kel is about to be strapped down to the dissection table, Hero begs to switch places. Kel hears every broken cry that follows as his older brother watches him get cut open.

DAY TWENTY-FOUR: Failed escape Summary: Hero tries to escape the basement. The man who took him films his punishment. (Inspired by @charismabee's 'found footage' one-shot in our Hero-centric Febuwhump earlier this year)

DAY TWENTY-FIVE: "Why didn't you save me?" Summary:  If Basil had been there even a minute earlier, he could have helped. Instead, he made everything infinitely worse.

DAY TWENTY-SIX: Curse Summary: Biscuit used to be able to talk. Now, the only person who understands him is his sister.

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN: Immortal whumpee Summary: Mari was supposed to be dead. However, looking at herself in the mirror, she sure didn’t look like it.

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT: Oxygen deprivation Summary: On a mission through the stars, something goes horribly wrong. Before he knows it, Spaceboy is struggling to navigate the way back as his lungs run out of air.

DAY TWENTY-NINE: "The easy way or the hard way?" Summary: Mikhael’s cocky attitude and overall lameness lands him in a bit of trouble when he gets on the wrong side of a group of delinquents at Closeby High. He only hopes the Hooligans come to his assistance soon.

DAY THIRTY: Mind games Summary: Rococo owes Sweetheart his everything, and he knows she loves him… Even if what she says sometimes doesn’t completely align with that.

DAY THIRTY-ONE: Crying Summary: Kel hasn’t let himself cry in years. After seeing Basil’s body in the bathroom, it’s all he seems able to do.

And so, the time arrives! I will be posting each of the above one-shots to AO3 under "Whumptober 2023", as well as here on Tumblr in a series of posts. I will add links to each day once completed, as well as a 'previous' and 'next' to each day on Tumblr. I hope that you stick around and enjoy this month, because it's going to get whumpy!

(In addition to this, I will be doing a collaborative work with @charismabee centred around every alternative prompt for this event. Each day will be set in a different Omori AU that we've created. She is also doing her own version of Whumptober alone, so check her out if you'd like to see more! <3)

#ailesswhumptober2023 #whumptober prompts #omori whump #whump #contents #omori #omori game #omori hero #omori kel #omori sunny #omori mari #omori sweetheart #omori rococo #omori captain spaceboy #omori aubrey #omori basil #omori mikhael #omori biscuit #omori bossman hero #omori spoilers #tw school shooting #tw death #tw self harm #tw suicide #tw depression #tw abuse #omori headspace #omori real world #the kids are all a found family #hs and rw

[aprocessionofthoughts]

Sound of silence

ai-less whumptober 2023 day 3- overstimulation fantom- batman TW- none summary- Clark's heightened senses come in handy most of the time. But on days like today, he just wants it all to be quiet.

ao3 masterlist

Clark just needed to last until this meeting was over. It had already gone twenty minutes over the projected meeting time, but that was expected with Batman. Clark didn’t really blame him. He knew the man was paranoid and that he was always trying to instill more paranoia into the rest of them. And usually Clark was fine with it. But not today. Today he just wanted to get to his Fortress of Solitude.

He had known it was going to be a bad day as soon as he had woken up. His senses had felt dialed up to a seven and had steadily gotten worse. He had been able to go through his shift on monitor duty with little problem since the watchtower was in space and there wasn’t as much noise as there was on Earth, but now they were an hour and a half into another security meeting and he just wanted to lay down somewhere quiet. 

He thought he had been doing a pretty good job of hiding how he was feeling, which looking back was kind of stupid-nothing got past Batman, but he still flinched when someone cleared their throat next to him. 

Clark glanced up from where he had been pretending to scan over the meeting notes and was surprised to see that the room had emptied out. The only person left was Bruce, who was standing next to him.

“Superman.”  Bruce said in a flat tone which Clark would normally be able to at least kind of decipher but not today.

“Batman.” he responded as he tried to focus on his friend's face through his slightly blurry vision. Well, not blurry exactly. It was more like his eyes couldn’t decide if they wanted to take in the broad picture or if they wanted to focus in on each of Batman’s pores which gave him a nausea inducing sort of double vision.

Bruce just stared at him before motioning with his head that he wanted Clark to follow. 

He got up, suppressing a sigh yet was grateful that Bruce hadn’t talked.

He followed his friend down several corridors to a room that Clark was unfamiliar with.

Bruce opened the door and stepped through waiting for Clark to come through as well before the door shut behind them.

As soon as the door shut the tension Clark hadn’t even realized he was holding in his shoulders released.

It was silent.

So silent, that even the usual noises that one’s body makes were barely a murmur.

The room was an unobtrusive blue with walls so smooth that even with his enhanced vision Clark could hardly see any imperfections.

He turned to look at Bruce.

The man quirked his lip, which for him was the equivalent of a gentle smile. He signed one word, rest, before he opened the door and left.

Clark let himself sink down onto the cot that was in a corner–the sheets so smooth that they barely irritated his sensitive skin.

Clark closed his eyes and let himself smile.

#ailesswhumptober2023 #ailesswhumptober #day 3 #overstimulation #bruce wayne #clark kent #superman #batman #hurt/comfort #batman fanfiction #dc universe #superman fanfiction

[loki-thorbrother]

This is a submission, written by a friend who does not have a tumblr. This is not written by me!

—

Whumptober #5- Gunpoint

Takes place between the events of Homecoming and Infinity War.

The objective had been simple enough: find the rest of Edwin Cord’s guys, steal the assets back, and blow the place to hell. 

Tony had beaten Cord himself; it’d made for a pretty wild Friday night, even for his standards, but once Rhodey disabled Cord’s power system, the guy had been helpless against Tony’s tech. There seemed to be more and more of those jealous moguls who thought Tony had cheated them out of something, but at least they weren’t hard to knock out of the park. It was ridiculous how those guys all seemed to repeat the same mistakes: overconfidence, fallible technology, and dependence on rookie guards. 

The first two were expected, but that last point was an insult to his intelligence. If he had to deal with one more sleeping guy guarding the power system, he’d leave the next mission entirely in Rhodey’s hands. 

And then there was this. He’d thought he was done with Cord, then he’d gotten an assignment from Ross; turns out they wanted him to root out the rest of Cord’s guys, rather than a low-level hero or even the police, who could’ve done it just as well. That was even worse of an insult. He was Tony Stark; he’d taken out terrorists, invented new elements, (destroyed a city, don’t think about that one), fought Captain America and the Winter Soldier at the same time; and for god’s sake, he’d thrown a nuke into freaking outer space. 

But Ross was barely tolerating him now, so he’d better go out and at least pretend he was obeying the Accords. 

According to the intel reports he’d received that morning, Cord’s main back-up guy--or something--was Ethan Rooker, who was holed up with some of the other boys at a place in South Manhattan, allegedly an old Irish bar. After drinking a full pot of coffee, Tony suited up and took off for the bar. 

“Hey, FRIDAY,” he said with a yawn, “you up and running?”

“More than you are, Mr. Stark,” came the reply. 

Tony blinked. His AI was getting more sarcastic by the day. 

“Great. Fine. Can you get me anything on one Ethan Rooker?”

“One moment, Mr. Stark.” There was a brief silence, in whichTony thought about how much he hated awkward pauses. “Rooker is American-born, but was raised in Afghanistan; he emigrated at the age of seventeen. No record of personal life. He was a brilliant child, but was refused admittance to MIT.” 

Tony snorted. “And here I thought Cord was the one who was jealous. Already we’re racking up some serious envy points: he can’t go to MIT, I graduate at seventeen and become a billionaire--”

“In all fairness, you did inherit that position.”

“Thank you for your honesty. I guess someone needs to keep me in check. So, no MIT, no family connections; and then I blew up an entire terrorist organization, which, since he’s technically American, he’d probably wanted to do his whole life anyway. So I stole his thunder, became a superhero, and put his first-rate felon boss in jail.” Tony rolled his eyes. “Some people find the most ridiculous reasons to hate me, don’t you--”

“Boss!”

FRIDAY’s sudden warning brought Tony’s attention back to the mission, and he lowered the rocket boosters enough to bring him out of the clouds. The skyline of east Manhattan appeared below him, and he grinned. Even with years of experience and a hell-mix of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and just a touch of alcoholism, that sight never failed to be amazing. 

A few seconds later, and the bar was right under him, like magic. 

“All right, FRIDAY,” he said. “We’re going in.”

                                                       ~

The bar was empty. 

That was the first sign that something was really wrong. 

Tony had crashed down, straight through the ceiling--just like they were on live TV--but when the dust cleared, there was nothing. No security guards, no Rooker, no back-up...not even a few terrified bartenders. It was empty. Of course, there was the possibility that someone could have seen him coming and run away, but that was unlikely. His timing had been too perfect(thanks to FRIDAY, he had to admit). No one would’ve had time to run without him seeing them…

So that meant this was a trap. 

“Come on, Rooker,” he said loudly. “I’m here, and I know you are, too. Show yourself now, and you’ll just go straight to prison. But if you keep playing games like this, I swear I’ll--” 

Tony stopped mid-sentence. The back door was opened. 

The metal of his suit clanking as he walked, Tony hurried to the back of the bar, past tables and chairs and expensive wine glasses--why he had to waste his time on this, he had no idea--seized the back door, ripped it off…

And there, in the alley behind the bar, was Ethan Rooker.

But he wasn’t alone. There were four guys behind him, and to his left...oh, god. To his left, kneeling in the dirt, hands bound behind his back, with a gun held to his forehead, was Peter Parker.

Peter turned at the sound, his eyes widening. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark,” he stammered quickly, “I-I didn’t think this was something Iron Man was gonna have to take care of, just a little neighborhood problem, I could figure it out. I-I mean, he was terrorizing a bunch of kids! I didn’t think--”

The words tumbled out one after another in that too-fast, overly earnest way of Peter’s that was usually so irritating. Usually. But not today. 

“Oh, shut up,” Rooker snapped, pressing the gun tighter against Peter’s forehead. “You see, Stark, you can’t lock me away.”

“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?” Tony knew he probably shouldn’t sound so rude, but he couldn’t help it. The kid was right there--one twitch of Rooker’s finger, and he’d be...no. No, don’t think about that. Stop it. Fix it. “Want me to add threatening a sixteen-year-old kid with murder to your list of charges? Wouldn’t look good in court, I can tell you that.”

Rooker laughed. “You think I’m going to court? It’d be pointless. You’re here, and you’re pissed, which is why I’m willing to bet that this is an Accords-sanctioned assignment. They wouldn’t have put Barnes through the legal system, they won’t do the same for me.”

Tony laughed bitterly. “You’re comparing yourself to the Winter Soldier? He’d have killed you by now, and without breaking a sweat.”

“I’m doing no such thing. But my trial isn’t going to be fair...which is why I’ve got insurance.” His finger tightened on the trigger; Peter flinched. Tony’s hands clenched at his side. “One step forward, and he’s…” Rooker shrugged. “Well, you know.”

That callous shrug almost got Rooker killed then and there. Before he knew it, Tony was keying up his guns. “So you think I can’t take you in and save him?”

“Not a chance.” Rooker laughed. “You need me alive, Stark. Those precious world leaders don’t want you killing somebody else, or they’ll lock you up in the Raft, just like half the Avengers. You can’t afford to kill me.”

Tony glared at him through the mask. “Wanna bet?”

“Actually, I do. And I have a better alternative for you. You leave now, I’ll let the kid go in...well. Let’s say twenty minutes. Only once I’m sure you’re away, and that I’m safe.”

“And how do I know he’ll be safe?” Tony demanded. Peter looked up in surprise, as if he hadn’t expected Tony to say something quite so...protective? No, that wasn’t the right word. Not nearly. “If I’m back in my penthouse, how do I know you haven’t killed him?”

Rooker smiled. “You’ll have to trust me.”

“Careful, boss,” said FRIDAY in his ear. “There’s a forty percent chance he’s lying. There is also a chance that he hates all of the Avengers, not just you--”

Which includes the kid, was the unspoken rest of the sentence. And I can’t take those odds.

Tony clenched his fists again, the metal creaking; he had no idea what to do. He looked at Rooker, so smugly confident in himself, at the four bodyguards, ready for an attack...and then at the kid. For some stupid reason, he knew with an absolute certainty that he did not want Peter Parker to die. The desperate look on Peter’s face was enough to tell him that.

Sure, the world needed Iron Man. But how could it count on him, when he only had a solid moral compass four out of seven days of the week? 

The friendly neighborhood Spider-Man was just as important. If not more.

“Stark,” Rooker said again, looking unsure that Tony had heard him; he was anxious, even if he didn’t show it. “I said, you’ll have to trust me. Is that clear?”

Tony looked up, staring down Rooker; and then, thinking back to Afghanistan, he turned off his hand blasters...and instead selected five out of six targets he wanted dead. 

“Nope,” he said. “Definitely not clear.”

The most Rooker could do was gasp in shock as Tony’s shoulder guns shot him and his goons dead. 

Peter, no doubt surprised beyond anything he’d ever seen, began gasping for breath; adrenaline, Tony diagnosed. He’d had a rush of adrenaline, preparing himself to die, and now he wasn’t dead--and someone else was--so, boom. Loss of adrenaline, leads to exhaustion. 

In an instant, Tony lifted his face mask and hurried to Peter’s side. 

“Hey,” he said, and Peter’s head snapped toward him, eyes still wide. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay.” The gauntlets vanished at his command, and then he was able to free the kid’s hands. 

Peter immediately started rubbing his wrists, which were chafed red. Second diagnosis--Rooker had died too quickly. “Wow. Uh--uh, wow, Mr. Stark. Uh, uh, thanks?”

“Don’t have to thank me. Heroes save people, and you know that. From experience.” Tony finished looking Peter’s body over, and then turned the kid’s head to face him. “Tell me honestly, you okay? Don’t you dare lie to me, I’m gonna know.”

“I...I think so, yeah.” Peter’s rapid breaths were becoming less and less frequent, slowing down; that was a good sign. Great sign. “Just, maybe…” He touched a spot on his cheek that Tony realized, belatedly, was a pretty dark bruise. “Hit me here. When I woke up, I--I had a gun to my--” 

Peter’s face went white suddenly, and he stopped talking. Tony knew immediately what was happening; Peter was realizing exactly how close he’d come to dying. 

“You’re okay,” Tony said again, then amended himself; that excuse never worked. “No, sorry. You’re not okay, that’s me lying to you, that’s on me. But here’s the thing, kid.” Peter’s eyes had lost focus; Tony had to turn his head back to him again, or else he knew Peter was going to pass out, or something. And that, he didn’t want to deal with. “Here’s the thing. You’re going to be okay, because it’s over now.”

Peter looked at Rooker’s body, and a tremble shook his frame. “But--”

“Nope. No buts. It’s over.”

Peter sighed. “But you killed him. Doesn’t--doesn’t that--”

“Violate the Accords? One hundred percent. Absolutely. That’s also on me--hey, look! Seems like we’ve found a common theme here: Everything Is Tony’s Fault. Perfect. But…” Tony raised a finger. “I think I’ll be able to get a little leeway here.”

Peter frowned. “Uh, I don’t think it works like that, Mr. Stark.”

“Uh, actually, it does. For me, at least...and for you, ‘cause you’re protected under the Accords, too. So if I saved you, they just might not send me to the Raft.” Tony let himself smile, just briefly. “Oh, and also because I can pay a fine of two hundred or three hundred or even two billion dollars if they want.”

Peter grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, I guess you could do that, Mr. Stark.”

“I definitely can. Hand?” 

Tony held out his hand for Peter to stand, and the kid took it. “Yeah, definitely.”

They stood up; quickly, Tony dusted off Peter’s clothes and took one last look at him. “Yeah, you’re good, kid. Just go ice that bruise, and lie down. Rest.”

“Rest?” Peter exclaimed; Tony rolled his eyes. Here we go again. “Are you kidding me? Do you know how many problems I skipped on my way over here? Kids in trouble, cars locked, bank robberies, hostage situations--”

“None of which you will be fixing. Not today, Spiderboy. You need a rest. No more...no superheroing, not today. Tomorrow, maybe. But today you need a rest.”

“But, Mr. Stark--”

“What’d I tell you? No buts.” Tony threw an arm around Peter’s shoulder, helping him walk. “And if I find you sneaking out, I’ll call your aunt.”

“Okay, fine. No superheroing, and that’s not a word.”

“Sure it is. I can make up any word I want. I’m Tony Stark.”

Peter laughed. “Maybe.” They walked in silence for a few seconds, and then-- “Mr. Stark?”

Tony sighed. “Yeah, kid?”

“You were wrong, you know. About before.”

Tony frowned. “Before? Before, what?”

“When you said everything was your fault. It’s not.” Before Tony could say anything, Peter looked up at him with those bright, too-honest expression that somehow had come to mean the world to him. “You tell me not to lie to you, but you’re lying to yourself. You tell yourself everything is your fault, and it isn’t.”

Well. What the hell could he say to that? Not everything is your fault. Weren’t those the words he needed to hear, every hour of every day, after every nightmare and mission and before every breakdown and...and all the time? Yes. Absolutely. 

But he couldn’t say it to the kid, so he settled for slapping Peter’s shoulder.

“First rule of Avenging, kid--only complain up the chain of command. So, nothing I do or think or say to you is wrong. But you can tell the guard at my front door he thinks everything is his fault all day long. Sure he’d love that.” 

“But Avenging isn’t a word either.”

Tony couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Whenever he was around the kid, it was like a miracle; he stopped thinking about New York, Sokovia, Germany, and every other thing he’d ever done that would haunt him forever.

And that meant he could never let him get as close to dying as he had today. 

But instead of say that aloud either, Tony laughed. “God, Pete, I don’t know where you get these lines from, it’s like you’re a constant snark machine.” The physical contact was helping him somehow, he realized. He moved his hand up to Peter’s hair and ruffled it.

“Learned it from you.”

Tony glanced at Peter in surprise. “Now that’s witty. There’s no way I could’ve taught you that.” Taking Peter’s arm, he guided him around the bar and back into the city of Manhattan. “Come on, Spider-Man, let’s get you home.”

#submission #other people's fanfiction #whumptober2019 #tony stark #iron man #peter parker #spider man #mcu #marvel

[th3sp4rr0w]

Day Twenty-Two

A03 Link <- Starts at Chapter/Day One for those just joining us :))

Prompts For Day Twenty-Two Whipping/Punishment/Stress Position

Alt. Prompt For Day Twenty-Two Nerve Damage

Prompts Used for Day Twenty-Two Whipping, Punishment, Nerve Damage

Tw's; Dubious Medical Accuracy, Blood, Injury, General Child Death (I still have no idea how to tag that)

IMPORTANT; Tomorrow's chapter may be late. I'll try to keep you guys updated on this account :))

Chapter Twenty-Two under the cut :)

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

When he woke up, his wrist throbbed. He winced as he tried to sit up, looking at the new scars decorating his skin.

Robin was never supposed to be scared. Robin was supposed to be strong all the time. Laugh in the face of death and still come out the other side, kicking and screaming. That was easy to do when you’d always come out the other side.

As Jason Peter Todd-Wayne, he knew what it felt like to not be able to come out the other side. He’d been scared, but it was okay. He had the bat. Batman had already been too late once, but he couldn’t be late if he was right there, right? He’d had Nightwing and Alf. He had people in his corner, willing to back him up.

Cardinal was born because of their failings. Robin wasn’t supposed to be scared, but he was terrified; Jason was allowed to be paralyzed with fear if he wanted to be because he’d had everyone right there; all he had was another kid in his exact position.

If anything, this had reminded him of something he should’ve already had beaten into his skull; don’t trust anyone. Especially when they’re suspicious.

He failed that. He failed Phantom, and he failed himself. He felt like he failed Catherine.

He pulled his knees to his chest. His hand twitched and pulsated with pain.

He’d wanted to believe that Agent A was a victim. Looking back, it was obvious that it had been by design. The food, the water, the kindness; it had all been a ploy. He supposed he could understand it. Nobody wanted to think a kind person who said pretty words and talked about how mean the others were with you was going to betray you like that.

He’d invented this whole story in his head; that she’d been down on her luck, she had kids, never spoken about a partner. He figured she was a single mother. Needed a nice, cushy government job to raise them comfortably and ended up working with ghosts because it sounded ridiculous; wanted out, now, but couldn’t go knowing there were more people willing to take her spot as soon as she left. Stayed because she wanted to help.

Batman, what felt like years ago now, had taught him that interrogation technique. People are wired to fill in the blanks of an incomplete picture; if you drop little puzzle pieces, they don’t notice the big ones you're holding close. They fill in those parts of the picture on their own. It’s remarkable, really. They don’t even realize they’re being fed bullshit until the after taste hits their tongue. It tasted like defeat and regret.

A particularly stabbing pain made itself known from his elbow all the way down his thumb. It got intense around his joints. He hissed and clutched the offending arm close.

He should’ve died. A shock like that should’ve left him little more than a vegetable. He’d already figured his ghost part protected him from the bulk of it, but the rest should’ve been healed by now. He considered asking Phantom about it.

The other boy lay on the floor. He didn’t know what he was doing and didn’t ask. Living in the same small room together, you started craving privacy; he figured this was his way of asking for space. He’d contemplated crawling into the cupboard before but decided against it in case he was caught by an agent and decided he’d interacted with his surroundings wrong or something and punished him.

What was taking so long? He may not be a damsel in distress, but he was a bat that needed back up. The longest it had ever taken Nightwing to get rescued was a few days, and that was largely because the big bat had been in space and didn’t want anyone to move in until he was there to help. It was mostly because Nightwing developed a tendency to go off on his own and come back 10x more traumatized than he’d left and Batman wanted to provide some sort of emotional support (as much as Batman could be), but still. He’d been there within a few days.

He wasn’t jealous or anything. He was just concerned. If the Bat couldn’t figure out where they were, and soon, then...

He looked over at Phantom. His wrist ached again.

What would it mean for them? They’d eventually either have to escape or die here. They were already working on the first one, but the second was rapidly approaching. If they went full ghost after, they might have a shot of getting out, but they’d already kept them this long. If they went full ghost mode, then they’d probably cut their chances in half. Then, once they ended them for good...

Nothing. Bye. That’s it.

It’s not that he’d already given up. He didn’t want to die, if for no other reason than for spite. Who the fuck were these people to come along and just decide a whole different species is just not sentient anymore? Fuck that. But he also wasn’t optimistic.

He knew that whatever was keeping him alive right now was fading. He could feel it in every little cell in his body; it was like feeling your heart slowly stop bleeding and knowing there’s nothing you can do to fix it. It was terrifying. He suspected Phantom felt it too, after everything.

They didn’t have enough in them to make it out of another fight, not with these people. Their only chance was to run.

But they weren’t ready. He’d made some progress with the collar, but not much; Phantom had been much more successful in that front. He didn’t think they’d be able to get far if they rushed them. He supposed it could work if they were the only three here, but they constantly had people helping out during experiments. It wouldn’t be long before everyone who’d ever helped before was called in to help again, and they’d be right back where they started but worse.

He closed his eyes, trying to breathe through the pain. Different techniques that had been drilled into his head popped up, demanding attention until he realized it wasn’t working and he switched tactics. It was like someone had started touching the nerve itself, gripping it and twisting. It made him squirm, taking over his whole thought process for several minutes. Who could think though this sort of pain?

Eventually, it calmed down on its own. He had little pinpricks of sweat dotted on his forehead; that had sucked. That had sucked hard and he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to do that again. What was that, exactly?

He looked down at Phantom, who was still lying on the floor for... unknown reasons. He was going to leave him be for a few more minutes, but he hadn’t moved since the last time Cardinal had checked on him. He... should, right? That was what people did when someone’s on the floor and they haven’t moved?

He slid down and off the cot, next to the other boy, He made his way to the floor, looking at him from where he’d sat down. He could see tear tracks on the boy’s cheeks, his eyelashes fluttering with sleep. When he reached a hand outwards, he could feel warm puffs of hair against his hand. He looked at him fondly for a few more minutes.

His heart ached. When he’d first found out that he had a twin, he hadn’t been interested. He had Nightwing, and he supposed Batgirl counted too. He had the baby bird, who was delightfully unhinged in the way only a baby brother could be. He was fine; he didn’t need any more siblings. But right here?

He couldn’t imagine what his life had been like before Phantom. Memories wrapped around themselves, trying to remember where the boy had been. It was like they couldn’t comprehend a life without him. Imagining the future was much the same; no matter how hard he tried to imagine it, Phantom was always by his side.

This is what that looked like, right? Being by someone’s side no matter what. He had a suspicion that Phantom could probably leave whenever he wanted to by now. He’d been training his collar pretty hard. But he stuck by his side. He couldn’t comprehend it most days; most other people would have turned tail and ran by now.

The other boy started blinking awake, yawning and bringing his hand up to wipe his eye. He watched him as he did so, resisting the urge to tuck his hand in his hair.

He loved his family; all his family. Affection had been something he’d struggled with for a while. He’d gone from a caretaker that was full of gentle touches and temple kisses to being wary of anyone walking within touching distance to being in the manor, where a pat on the shoulder was pretty much it unless it’s Nightwing they were talking about or something bad had happened, all within a few years. It was jarring. Sometimes his body didn’t know whether to tense to run or to stay relaxed.

He’d never had that problem with Phantom. The circumstances were not ideal, it’s true, but it just came easy when he was with the boy. Maybe it was a twin thing and maybe it was a ghost thing, but for whatever reason, they just seemed to click.

Phantom stretched, looking at Cardinal with half-lidded eyes. “What’s uh... mmm, what’s goin’ on?”

He looked at him. “Nothing much. I only just woke up myself when I noticed you were on the flo-oOor-”

His left came forwards to grasp his right. He hissed in pain as Phantom started up to fuss over him.

He grabbed his wrist, looking over it. He rubbed along the scars. “Can you outstretch your hand for me?” He asked softly.

He tried. It was like the fingers had a sudden rebellion, refusing to outstretch like he’d demanded. The other boy looked at him and rubbed his flesh. It didn’t help the pain, but at least he knew he wasn’t alone.

“I think the electricity damaged your nerve,” he said quietly. “I go through the same thing,” he added, holding up his left hand.

Cardinal stretched out his right arm, bumping the other boys hand against his one. “At least you damaged your left,” he said.

Phantom snorted. “If I had to damage either of my hands, I would’ve preferred my right. I’m left-handed.”

Cardinal laughed with him. “Somewhere, somebody is laughing their ass off at us,” he said.

“Oh, undoubtedly,” he said. He started popping his knuckles, one by one, “We both damage our writing hands in the same way almost exactly a year apart? That’s wild.”

He hummed. “If we get anymore freaky shit like that here I’m suing,” he joked.

“Honestly, I think we should,” he said lowly. “We’re young and cute enough the court would probably eat this up,” he pondered.

Cardinal thought about it. “My adoptive father is an A-list celebrity,” he said, equally quiet. “We’d probably be able to do it.”

The other boys eyes lit up. “We could destroy them mentally one at a time until they’re nothing but a shell of their former selves!”

He leaned away from him slightly. “We could totally do that, buddy, but you’re scaring me a bit,” he said, amusement evident in his voice.

He looked back up at him, a somewhat manic gleam in his eyes. “I run off of spite and caffeine, dude. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had caffeine? I was supposed to get a coffee after I met with the spirit of Gotham and got kidnapped by your brother instead. Then I got kidnapped by the GIW.”

“Oh my god-”

“I know!”

Cardinal looked at him for a moment. “They’re never going to let us out of their sight again,” he said. “Batman’s going to put me on a fucking leash-”

Phantom laughed brightly. “That’s fine. My older sister will absolutely join him. Think they’ll take us on walks together?”

He startled out a laugh. “As long as they don’t start feeding us off the floor- do you want food?”

He snorted. “Sure- what do you want?”

He hummed. “Something with protein.”

He chucked some sort of protein poptart at him. He tore into it the wrapper with his teeth, eventually gaining access to the sweet treat. He took a bite.

It wasn’t bad. It definitely wasn’t a poptart, but it was something with a decent amount of protein, and it was poptart-adjacent. It was good enough.

Phantom sighed as he looked in the cabinet. “Man,” he started, “I would kill for some zesti.”

Cardinal laughed. “No fuckin’ way,” he said. “Nightwing drinks that shit. I swear it’s going to come out one day that they put addictive chemicals in the crap.”

“You know what? It could have the same dark secret as slurm and I’d still drink it. I’d debate it-”

“The fuck is slurm?” He wrinkled his nose.

“Fucking- you remember Futurama?”

“OH- that stupid show ‘Wing watches?”

“I guess? Anyways- one of the episodes they figure out the drink the main character drinks all the time is slug-”

“Nope. Don’t, I know what you’re talking about. You’d fucking drink that, what is wrong with you?!”

He watched as the other boy laughed, coming out of the cabinet with some water. “Look-”

“Don’t ‘look’ me as if-”

“Dude, it’s good. Just trust me.”

“Nightwing’s made me try it, I do not trust you. You’re all going to get some horrible disease and I fear I’ll get it too just from that sip.”

“Stop,” he wheezed.

“This isn’t funny, you have a problem-”

“I only overdosed on caffeine ONE time!”

“You did what-”

He laughed. Cardinal vaguely wondered how it would sound if they were out. If they weren’t on the floor of some government facility, trying to survive some shit that sounds like the plot of one of Nightwing’s shitty shows.

He took a deep breath. He looked away.

He might’ve picked up a few dramatics, but hey, he earned it. This was a situation to be dramatic about.

Phantom looked at him. “Hey, what’s up?"

He tried not to look like he was some damsel looking for her husband that had gone off to war. “I just... I’m missing my family right now.”

Phantom nodded, coming up beside him. He noticed his left hand was cramped up at his side. “I get it,” he said softly. “I miss my family, too.”

He put his leg over Phantom’s. For whatever reason, it soothed something inside him to be linked in some way. He assumed it was a ghost thing.

“What’s the psychiatrist like?” He asked.

Phantom got an easy grin on his face. “She’s bossy. And she keeps trying to psycho-analyze strangers at the grocery store when she notices they’re buying a different milk than usual, because she’s the psychiatrist and she notices that type of thing. She slightly loses her head in a stressful situation, but the second anybody, especially me, Ellie, or any of my friends are in trouble, she’s a total badass. One time she noticed I was getting hurt on patrol and followed me out there with nothing but a thermos and a pipedream.”

“No gear?” Cardinal asked.

Phantom snorted. “Nope. Not even a good pair of boots; she wore her flats.”

“Oh my god.”

He smiled fondly. “Yeah. She burns water in the kitchen; one time she tried to make pancake mix batter and, even though you don’t need to do anything except add water, it had unmixed baking soda in it.”

“You’re fucking kidding,” he replied, looking at Phantom in slack-jawed horror.

“Nope,” he laughed. “But she’s my sister. I love her. And she’s good at a million other things. I honestly believe that she’ll be able to tame Arkham, if for no other reason than she wants to try. She’s really smart, dude, and I think she could do it.”

Cardinal whistled. “What about the Joker?”

“She’s already said she refuses to work with him in particular,” he said immediately. “She said she wants to help those that want to be, and Joker’s more akin to a ghost now. I can tell he’s been brought back a couple times, right?”

He nodded.

“Yeah, he’s... he’s too far gone. J says there’s a certain point where there’s really no coming back from the damage you’ve caused, and that fucker passed it a long time ago. She also says that considering the damage he’s done to previous psychologists, they need to stop trying.”

Cardinal nodded. “Your sister’s pretty smart.”

He smiled. “Yeah, she is. What about Nightwing? What’s he like?”

He got quiet. “He’s... I think he’s angry. Not at me, I don’t think it was ever really about me. But I think Batman didn’t do everything he should’ve with ‘Wing. He’s sensitive, and always has been. I don’t think that Batman knew how to be a dad yet, and trying to figure it out as he went along wasn’t really the best thing to do. I think I’m supposed to forgive him for being angry and taking it out on me. I mean, that’s what they always say, right?”

“Dude, if you’re not ready to forgive him, don’t. He might be doing better now, but you deserved to be protected all along. Especially since he knew how Batman was.”

He sighed. “I know. I just... he is doing better now. He checks in with me, asks how my day went, treats me like I’m his brother. I don’t want to ruin that. I like what we have going on and I’m so worried that I’m gonna screw it up.”

He hummed. “I’ll help you figure it out. It’s okay to be angry, redbird.”

He snorted. “That’s sticking now?”

He smiled at him. “Why not?”

He gave a soft smile of his own. “Yeah. Why not? But um, to answer your question. I think Nightwing would burn the world down if he thought it’d keep me safe. I think growing up with Batman does irreversible shit to anyone’s psyche, so we all have a funny way of showing we care, but I think he does. Always did. He doesn’t like admitting it, but he’d probably set himself on fire to keep everyone else warm.”

“What do you mean?”

“In a way, I think he might’ve been trying to protect me by staying away.”

“That’s dumb as shit,” Phantom replied, deadpan. “How would-”

“He’s... I don’t want to call him dumb but he’s fucking stupid. He can solve just about any puzzle you put in front of him, but he’ll still convince himself he hasn’t done anything for the community. He solved, like, 7 cases of Batman’s while he was sick and injured one week and cried because he couldn’t follow up in the field.”

“Do you think we could manipulate him into getting therapy?”

He paused. “Maybe?”

Phantom snorted. “It really sounds like all of you need it, dude.”

“Look who’s talking Mr. I Died In My Parent’s Basement.”

“Okay, so we could all benefit from a session.”

“Alf’s gonna love you,” he said, shaking his head. “He’s been teaming up with Canary to get Bat and ‘Wing into therapy for years.”

He grinned. “I want it on the record that if I didn’t know my sister and what she’d say about this very well, I probably wouldn’t have said anything.”

He grinned. “I- oh, ow, oh my god, what was that-”

Phantom dropped his smile, looking over the other boy. “What’s wrong, what happened-”

“Pain- ow-”

“In the recent wound or the old ones?”

“Like- legs and shit, ow-”

Phantom winced. “Okay, just breathe through it,” he said, beginning to rub his back and lay him down. “It’s your death wound acting up, you’re gonna be fine-”

“Death wound?!”

“It’s okay!” He said, putting his hands in front of him. “They act up during important events and things. You’re gonna be okay,” he said, starting to pet his hair. “It’s going to suck, and you might scream a little bit but you’re going to be okay by the end, I promise.”

He looked up at Phantom. He trusted him completely.

Maybe it was dumb, especially after everything he’d gone though. He... he still wanted to believe victims.

Out of everything they’d taken from him, he didn’t want this to be one. People deserved to be believed. At the end of the day, he might not be Robin, but the one thing he never wanted to lose was the trust he had with the people they saved. He didn’t want to be the type of person to doubt every detail of the story. That wasn’t how he was raised.

Catherine wouldn’t have wanted that for him.

He breathed through it, Phantom helping him. Eventually, he calmed down.

They didn’t go back to talking. They sat there, just going through the motions. He drank water. Phantom eventually ate something. They didn’t speak for a long time. They didn’t need to.

It was the moments of waiting that felt the hardest. The not knowing, the exhaustion, the uncertainty. He had no idea what was going to break first; if he’d crack and give in, giving these assholes exactly what they wanted and cracking under the pressure of being the perfect prisoner, or if they were going to snap over nothing and kill them. That was what they were gearing up to, right?

Even if they mentally broke them and brainwashed them into the perfect soldiers, they’d never be trusted. They could never look at them and say, honestly, that they didn’t think they’d run given the chance. Their options had always been escape, rescue, or death. With every passing hour, it looked more like death was the only option.

He still didn’t know why being a ghost was so bad. What had they ever done to anyone to deserve this sort of fate? It’s not like they’d ever done anything wrong outside of their own raw need for survival. He normally agreed with Bruce’s rule, but there are a few exceptions he’d be willing to make. These people?

He wasn’t sure he’d be able to pull the trigger, but God if he wasn’t tempted. He wondered if Nightwing would do it if he asked.

He scolded himself. Nightwing... he was going through something. He could see it in his eyes. The way he carried himself and the dark circles under his eyes. He was deep into... something and he wasn’t sure if he should ask this of him.

“Jason, sweetheart, I want you to promise me something,” she’d said.

Her 9-year-old looked up at her. “Yes, mommy?”

Some of the other kids picked on him for continuing to call his mom ‘mommy’. He didn’t care. She was sick and he loved her.

He’d do anything she asked.

“If it ever comes down to you, or someone else, I want you to choose yourself.”

He’d been confused. “What?”

“Someday,” she’d said, carding her gentle fingers through his hair, “Someone’s going to want to hurt you. And they won’t stop at anything to do it. It’ll come down to a decision; them, or you. I want you to choose you. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

The memory tore its way through his brain. He’d forgotten about that day.

He hadn’t known what she meant then. Even though he’d been far from innocent as a nine-year-old, entirely against his will, he hadn’t known. But he was 15 now, 16 that August.

He sure as fuck knew now.

… He’d never disobeyed a big order like this from Bruce. The thought made his stomach sour. But.

Isn’t that the thing? There’s always a ‘but’ involved.

These people would stop at nothing to hurt them. They’d stop at nothing to kill him if given the chance. It was something he was now painfully intimately aware of.

It’s such an awful feeling, knowing that one day, you didn’t come back home the same. He’d been avoiding processing it fully for Phantom’s sake, but it ripped something out from him now. Was this how Nightwing felt that night? When he’d shown up, uniform ripped, something unidentifiable in his eyes and sat on the couch, staring at nothing for hours? Sobbing in Batman’s, no, his dad’s  arms?

How had he gotten through it? How would he, so far from home? He swallowed, hard.

He was not Jason Todd. He was not Robin. He was Cardinal, and he was totally in control of this situation. That’s what he had to keep telling himself.

He was totally in control of the situation. He could have whatever crisis he needed to about it later. Right now, he needed to keep a level head and focus on Phantom.

He looked over at the other boy. He could still feel pain rocking down his body, nearly overwhelming him. If he hadn’t been trained by the best of the best, he probably wouldn’t have been able to breathe through it. The bat himself would’ve been better at it, but he still wasn’t half-bad.

Phantom looked at him like he’d just watched him do something impressive. It didn’t feel very impressive, but he smiled at him regardless.

“Dude,” he whispered. “You gotta show me how to do that.”

He laughed a bit. “Yeah, maybe I will.”

They’d finished their food and water. Cardinal shoved the empty bottles into his hoodie pocket for later, shoving the wrappers back into the cabinet. It was getting to be uncomfortable just how routine it felt.

The keys jingled shortly after. Just a bathroom break.

One of the agents that would be called in if they thought they needed to be held down took them to the bathroom. The usual crowd of lower levels were there, looking at them and waving. They never tried to speak to them; they couldn’t, or they’d be yelled at. But they always waved, and usually-

One of them pressed something into Phantom’s hand. He smiled at them, mouthed thank you, and kept walking. Cardinal himself felt something being slipped into his hoodie. He looked up at the person who did so. He winked, pressing his finger to his lips.

Out of all of them, they thought they were the coolest here. He wasn’t willing to trust them; they were still working for the GIW. But, in a weird way, he thought they were being more genuine than Agent A was.

They went into the bathroom, did what they needed to in the stalls, then walked out to the sinks. It was vaguely unsanitary, but now more than ever they trusted the water from the bathroom more than any unsealed bottles Agent A stuck in the cabinet. She’d already shown her true colors. He didn’t care that she was ‘concerned’ afterwards.

Going back was also an uneventful affair. Phantom had started letting out pulses of ectoplasm after they came back to kill any bugs they planted- it was actually really nice, not being worried about whether or not they’d missed one. He was still vaguely concerned, however, that they were going to come back one day and find them in the ceiling. He really needed to learn to control his powers so they could move the stash somewhere.

No. He needed to learn how to use his powers so they could escape.

They hadn’t dared look to their prizes until they were safely back in the room. Phantom had some candy- Cardinal had a note with a single word.

“Soon."

It was dated June 4 th . They had no idea what it meant. It wasn’t signed. Was June 4 th the date today? Was it a date in the future? Had it already passed?

He had no idea. He wasn’t used to having no idea. He took a deep breath.

If the note was any indication, he’d find out... soon. He could live with that.

Phantom got his passion project out of the ceiling. He’d done a remarkable job on it so far; it only needed a few more finishing touches.

“Cardinal,” he was holding it up. “We can’t shoot it in here, for obvious reasons,” he rolled his eyes, “But this is yours. If I bond it to my ectoplasm, you won’t be able to use it. I’m not opposed, but I wanted to give you the option.”

He nodded. He took the gun. He stared at the little connector that had recently ruined his life. “What do I do?”

He hooked it to his wrist, being gentle and watching his reactions. He pressed a button.

The whole thing started glowing green. “Okay,” he said quietly, “You need to keep that connected for a bit, so it can get used to you. If you need a break or to disconnect it, press this button-” he pointed to the button in question- “First. If you don’t, you might mess the whole thing up. That, obviously, is not good.”

He nodded. “And I just pull the trigger and it goes off? How do I cock it?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know who designed this initially, but it’s pretty advanced. You don’t need to cock it; it doesn’t even have a safety on it.” He rolled his eyes, exasperated. “It’s like they wanted this thing to go off on a random Tuesday. No wonder it was abandoned; the whole design is unsafe.”

“But it’s the best we’ve got.”

He got quiet. “Yeah. It’s the best we got.”

They were quiet. Phantom checked over the gun on occasion, and eventually deemed it ready to go. They stuck it safely back into the ceiling, along with the note and the candy. No sooner were his feet on the ground did the jingle of keys catch their attention.

Agent V stormed in. “You unpicked his stitches,” she said dangerously.

He looked at her. “What?”

“I stitched that one’s-” she pointed at Jason, “Mouth shut yesterday. And now it’s undone. Why?”

“Because I wasn’t going to do anything and there was a scalpel sitting there? Why does it matter, his blood-”

“Shut up! You had no right to do that!”

“Didn’t I?” He asked, baffled.

“You do not take that tone with me, do you hear me, maggot? You do as I say, or you don’t do anything at all!”

“What did I do wrong here?! You never said I couldn’t take out his stitches-”

She stalked forwards, grabbing him and pulling him up. “You things are so fucking needy. You wanna know what we do too needy? I’ll fucking show you.”

“You can’t-!”

“Shut up, dog, unless you want to get punished, too,” she growled. He looked at him, still gripping Phantom’s shirt. She looked at Cardinal for a few more moments. “Get up,” she demanded.

He did as she said. He was tempted to hit her, but she beat him to it.

She stepped forwards and slapped him, her hand landing right over his ear, hard. As much as he tried not to be afraid, the loud ‘Pop!’ and the rush of blood terrified him.

He fell to the floor. Phantom looked at him with wide eyes.

Before either of them realized what her intention was, she had Phantom out of the room. He tried to run forwards to follow them, but they were already out the door. She had replaced the locks. He could hear Phantom still screaming obscenities, Agent A making threats. He was terrified of what was about to happen. He took a deep breath, trying to remain calm.

He thought of what his mom said. He thought of the note.

… If he weren’t curious about the note and its contents, he’d be planning their escape for tonight. He would’ve thought it sounded sinister if it weren't for the group that wrote it. He didn’t trust them, but you know what they say. Satisfaction resurrects cats killed my curiosity, and all that. Besides, he knew they couldn’t live like this. Sooner or later, and he had a feeling it’d be sooner, something would give, and they’d never be able to get it back. He had the sickening feeling that he knew they wouldn’t be able to escape on their own.

Waiting was hell. Both for ‘soon’ to happen and for Phantom to come back, because he had to come back. A million different thoughts ran through his head. His right ear was weird, and he couldn’t hear out of his left at all. It was like someone had shoved some earplugs into him. He felt bile rising in his throat at the thought.

Before he knew it, Phantom was thrown back into the room. His shirt was off and bundled in his arms. He had tears and snot in his eyes. His back looked like someone had whipped him, over and over again like a broken record.

They said nothing. They didn’t need to. It was obvious enough what had happened, and it was obvious he was embarrassed about it.

He took down the first aid kit, cleaning his back methodically. He hadn’t dressed the wounds yet when they heard more keys and footsteps. They halfway expected Agent A to be there to ‘care’ about them. Instead, they found Agent J with new clothes, ordering the pair to follow them to take a shower.

They went obediently. Cardinal helped Phantom walk, and when they got to the shower, he helped carefully wash his back a bit more thoroughly, taking his time to avoid the lacerations and cuts that had formed. When they got out, their shoes and his gloves, masks, and belt were still there, along with the new clothes. Nothing was missing out of his belt; he assumed that they assumed he didn’t have it on. He put on the red sleeveless hoodie over his belt, along with the tighter-fitting black sweats. Phantom threw on a gray hoodie with blue, loose sweats.

When they got back to the room, Cardinal methodically dressed Phantom’s wounds and tried to talk to him.

If something really was happening soon, they needed to be prepared. They made a mental list of things they can carry on them. Phantom grabbed everything out of the hidey hole that he could. Cardinal stuffed his belt to the gills with food and medical supplies stolen from the kit, the gun and dull baterang in the pocket on his left. He watched Phantom stick the journals in his torso; he was slightly jealous. That was so cool.

He smiled as best as he could. He could tell Phantom was tired. He was, too.

Being here was like having your soul sucked out of you. He could feel it in every moment he spent worrying about the future, worrying about their present, if they were going to survive. They were so tired of surviving.

Soon. That could mean so many things.

He closed his eyes and thought of Batman. He’d already done everything he possibly could to ensure Cardinal’s survival. He wouldn’t just throw him away the moment he made a questionable decision. Breathe in. Breathe out.

… Nightwing was likely going to burn this place to the ground, though. He was going to help him.

He’d waited this long to see what would happen. They were so close. Being impatient now could wreck everything they had built.

He focused on Phantom, making sure he was as comfortable as they could get him on the cot. He handed him a bottle of water and a snack, telling him to eat it.

He asked for the red journal. Living with the bat definitely damaged your psyche in some way; he began making contingencies, different plans for different scenarios. They didn’t have much to work with.

They had enough. They had a gun. They had each other. They had the information they’d overheard from the group of lower ranked agents and from passing conversation between the agents.

They got this. They had to have this. The more he thought about it, the more he realized just how serious this all was. This wasn’t just them they were talking about; what if there were more people like this? Ones they didn’t know about? The pits were everywhere; they could have created more people like him.

Their quality of life mattered. All the ghost’s lives mattered. At this point, he didn’t care for the motivations of mad men. This was a genocide. And it was the hero’s job to stop it.

Could he even be considered a hero anymore?

#dp x dc #ailesswhumptober2023 #jason todd #danny fenton #danny phantom #dc robin #robin #batman #ai less whumptober day twenty-two #kite flies over the nightingale nest

[th3sp4rr0w]

Day Twenty-One

A03 Link <- Starts at Chapter/Day One for those just joining us :))

Prompts For Day Twenty-One Blood Loss/Shock/Near Death Experience

Alt. Prompt For Day Twenty-One Mouth Stitched Shut 

Prompts Used for Day Twenty-One Near Death Experience, Mouth Stitched Shut

Tw's; Medical Experimentation, Dubious Medical Accuracy, Torture, Electrocution, Injury

Chapter Twenty-One under the cut :)

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

Some days, you wake up and you can feel it in your bones that something’s about to change. In normal circumstances, that change would probably be good; a new promotion, getting into the college of your dreams, waking up to a text from the girl you like inviting you to hang out. But these are not normal circumstances. Danny Fenton wakes up terrified.

It’s not like there’s no reason to be. Even in peaceful moments, being pressed up against his twin like this, there’s always the undercurrent of fear. They’ve made sure it permeated their lives, soaking up every pleasant moment and leaving nothing but gnawing dread. He took a deep breath.

It had been another hard experiment yesterday. What would today bring? More scars, more reasons why they slept in precarious positions? He thought of the gun, now safely tucked away in their ceiling. They’d decided to stick it back up there when the agents started commenting that they stank again.

They were almost finished with the prototype. They’ve managed to swipe a few things here and there from passing lower rank agents that had started hanging out in groups and had somehow been right there whenever they were going for bathroom breaks. They also had several useful things in their pockets at times. It was starting to almost be funny, sometimes they'd even stick treats in their hands as they passed. If they didn't know better, they'd say they knew what the two were up to and kept useful things in their pockets on purpose.

It was shitty out of them, to steal from these people when they were being somewhat nice. But hey, survival was shitty at times. You do things you’d always promised yourself that you wouldn’t, like steal from random people in some facility and take granola bars from your teacher's desk when your parents make the food come back to live for the third time that week.

He watched Jason sleeping. He had a pleasant look on his face, soft breaths moving the white locks of his hair. They both needed a haircut when they got out.

When they were like this, it was almost easy to forget that they had been kidnapped at all. It was almost like they were just sleeping over at a friend’s house, or they were in the hospital after some dumb thing they’d done, or anywhere but here. Sometimes he wished he’d never gone to Gotham; that the bus had gone to Metropolis as planned. The GIW probably would’ve caught him there, but at least Jason wouldn’t be here with him. The GIW wanted him; Jason never had to be a part of this. He’d made it Jason’s problem now, though. Even if he could get the other boy to separate from him now, what was that going to accomplish? If they got separated now, the only thing that would happen is that they would have no idea what was happening to their better half.

Something built up in his chest, tears pinpricking the corner of his eyes. Out of the two of them, Jason was the better person. He wondered if he’d even be able to look at him if he knew the truth; what he’d done, what he was capable of. The thought made his stomach twist. He shook it from his head.

They couldn’t afford to fall apart at the seams. Something big was coming today, and while they’re here, it’s guaranteed to be incredibly unpleasant. He started shaking Jason awake.

“Cardinal?” he whispered. “Dude, come on, redbird, you’ve gotta wake up,” he said softly.

He groaned. “Phan’om?” he slurred. He jolted awake pretty quickly after that, acting like he wasn’t wiping drool from his cheek as he looked at the other boy. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, yet,” he said, looking towards the door. “But there’s going to be something today. I can feel it.”

The other boy hummed. “I... They usually don’t do anything after an intense one like that. They usually leave us alone for a day or so.”

“I know,” Phantom said, lowering his voice, “But I’ve got a feeling. It’s going to be something big, I just, I know it.”

Jason looked at him for a second and nodded once. “Okay. I believe you. How do you want to prepare for this?”

He shrugged. “Just be vigilant, okay? I don’t like this.”

The other boy hummed and went to their cupboard, grabbing two pieces of fruit jerky and some water. He tossed a bottle to Phantom, then one of the fruit jerkies. He caught both easily.

“After breakfast,” Jason said, already unwrapping his pineapple jerky, “We’ll do some exercise. Sound good?”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

They ate in silence. They were not unused to the feeling they had; it was a regular occurrence now. Eating through dread, pain, whatever they had to that week. They were getting quite good at it even; this was nothing new.

What was new was the arguing outside the door that started up about halfway through the jerky.

“I don’t care what the head said! They are not healed enough from yesterday to continue testing!”

His throat and cheeks constricted at the reminder. He pressed a hand to them to soothe himself; they’d sped up healing when he was introduced to the dry ice, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt.

“If I don’t do this, I lose my badge and you bet your ass I’m going after yours when I do!”

“Oh-ho-ho, you think I’m scared? It’s not my fault you went too hard during their testing! You and Agent J should have stuck to protocol, and I’ll tell the head that they aren’t ready because you two disobeyed her!”

“The head gave us permission to discipline the things when it misbehaves-”

“They are still children! You will address them as such!”

They looked at each other. They really didn’t like where this had begun heading.

“I’m doing this experiment, A, and if you don’t like it you can fuck off!”

It was silent for a few moments. They heard muttering from behind the door for a few moments before the familiar jingle of keys.

Jason grabbed the rest of Danny’s breakfast, stashing it in the cupboard quickly before getting on the cot right before the door swung open.

“Dogs,” Agent V greeted. “We have some wonderful news for you!”

Agent A had a strained smile. “Unfortunately, they’ve deemed more testing necessary. But, this time, I’ll be right there to make sure nobody-” she turned to glare at Agent V- “Goes too far.”

Agent V either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “You’re with us today, maggots-”

“Boys,” Agent A said, all passive aggressive digs. “Come on. We’ll take you to the exam room.”

She looked at them for a moment before leaning down to whisper in their ears, “Are you two hungry? Did you eat already?”

They shrugged and looked at each other. They’d both lost their appetite.

“We’re okay,” Jason eventually said.

“Good,” Agent V interrupted, grabbing Danny by the wrist and beginning to drag him. “Then let’s-"

Agent A quickly got him out of her grasp, holding his hand in hers. She took Jason’s in her other hand, sending a glare to the other agent. “Yes, let’s go.”

She started leading the boys down the hall. They could see Agent V shaking her head as they went, laughing a bit under her breath. They hated the sound.

Getting to the experiment room wasn’t any better on their nerves. They automatically went for their separate cots, even as they wanted to take the other’s hand. They looked at each other.

“Where’s Agent J?” Jason asked softly.

Agent A turned to him. “They asked something of the department head last night and got approved. They’re going to be out for a few days while they prepare for it,” she turned to Agent V, “Do you happen to know what that was?”

Agent V scoffed. “I have no clue,” she said honestly, “I saw them running past with that manic gleam in their eyes again after my break, but they didn’t talk to me about it at all. I half expected to wake up to the news that they’d landed themselves in the mental hospital again, they’ve been obsessing over the cases,” she cut herself off, looking at the boys. “Been obsessing over these dogs, really. I don’t know why. The only thing they’re good for is-”

“Okay, that’s quite enough,” Agent A said, cutting her off. “I’ll try asking the department head about it... again,” she muttered, looking at Jason first, then Danny. “Today’s experiment is about electricity. Agent J wants us to study your electromagnetic impulses and see how introducing some low-level shocks will affect it.”

She looked at Agent V harshly while saying low level. They had no idea what that was about and, frankly, given the context, they didn’t want to. Danny could already feel the build of panic in his chest.

He hated electricity. It took him months after the accident to just plug something into an outlet; the idea of this? He hated this.

He could tell he was sending a wave of something to Jason from the way the other boy looked at him, and normally he’d care a great deal about that, but not today. He couldn’t think past the steady growth of a panic attack.

“We can only do one at a time, unfortunately, but-”

“Can I go first?” Jason interrupted to ask.

The agent looked at him for a second, a scowl marking her face before Agent A jumped in, putting herself between them. “Of course, Robin,” she said, smiling pleasantly.

They both could hear Agent V’s scoff but decided not to acknowledge it. They couldn’t bother themselves with that right now.

Agent A got Jason situated in the chair, hooking him up to various bits and doodads. Danny forced himself not to pay attention unless he wanted to go into a full-blown panic attack; he somehow didn’t think that would be helpful for this situation.

It started out fine. Agent A handled the majority of the electric impulse stuff, while Agent V was delegated to writing notes about the jumps and ticks of various parts. The small shocks would jolt Jason, but as far as he could tell it was nothing painful. Like getting a shock from one of those gag gift buzzers; painless, harmless. He almost calmed down. He couldn’t see electricity jumping from connection point to connection point on the other boy; he’d also kept up a steady stream of Calm-Safe-Fine the entire time. It was... well, it was going well. He almost felt a little silly.

How could he think this could go wrong? Just because of his own trauma? He almost laughed to himself, looking at Jason who’s begun to laugh at his hair standing straight on end. He paid attention to Agent A, who looked amused by Jason’s shenanigans. As soon as the good, warm feeling enveloped him, it bottomed out into something wrong. He looked around. Where was...?

Cold relief flooded him, finding her near the doorway. She was nowhere near the machine. Jason was safe. The thought almost shocked him to his core.

Since when did he start thinking of them as ‘safe’? Was it because Agent A was trying to get them to trust her, which was suspicious? Was it because nothing was happening right now? Nausea threatened to grip him.

He’d been getting too comfortable here. Too relaxed; they’d started being lazy checking for bugs and had begun to discuss leaving the journals in an easier hiding spot. They kept the gun in Jason’s belt for fuck’s sake, if they decided they wanted to take it randomly one day, they couldn’t fight them off! They’d gotten so used to feeding schedules and hot (or, cold, in his case) meals during lunch that they thought it was safe just because Agent V was by the doorway while Agent A was conducting an electricity experiment on Jason. He felt sick with the realization.

The worst part is, he almost wasn’t angry that he’d begun to trust her. Deep down he knew that the fact that she still worked for the GIW alone was enough to immediately disregard a thing she said. That was enough reason to never trust her, even a little bit. He looked at Jason, who was still having fun. The sight was making him nauseous.

How long would it be until he wasn’t challenging these thoughts anymore? How long would it be until Agent A was just another part of their lives here, like the cot they’d gotten used to sleeping on and the ceiling hidey hole they’d begun trusting? The snack cabinet they rarely, if ever, thought about anymore? The one that just filled itself whenever it got low? When was the last time they put something in the ceiling in case they needed it one day?

He knew they had to play the long game while they were here. Be good, try not to get on their nerves, that sort of thing, but that didn’t mean they had to accept what was happening, did it? That they had to extend any sort of trust to Agent A? She was still working for them, and he’s not saying they need to immediately assume that anything she does for them has some ulterior motive, but he is saying they should take it with a grain of salt. He’s beginning to think they have no grains left; when was the last time either of them mentioned their distrust? Or does Danny only feel it now because she’s hooked his brother up to a death machine to test ‘electric impulses’ whatever the fuck that means?

He’d talk to Jason later about it. For now, they weren’t out of the woods yet on this stupid fucking experiment, but he was going to have to talk to him later about it. This was getting to be ridiculous, and he felt absolutely idiotic that he hadn’t realized their oversight sooner. They shouldn’t be trusting anybody here, especially somebody that’s been getting close enough to them that they’re casually showing up with popsicles and they don’t even inspect the wrapper before eating them.

Their main plan was still escape. No matter how nice Agent A seemed, he knew she would not help them. He had to keep reminding himself of that. No matter what, when the time came, they could not trust her. This was not some movie where they could take the ‘nice’ bad guy and run; she was a grown woman. If she wanted out, she’d get out. If she wanted to take them with her, she would take them with her. No matter how many sad little sob stories she told.

Maybe he was being a little harsh on her, but he’d been tricked and scammed before. This was beginning to remind him of Paulina, the way she used to say she was miserable being popular and enjoying it every other second of the day. He knew what being manipulated felt like; maybe it’s time he became a little manipulative himself. Not to people that didn’t deserve it, of course, just to these people. Hey, they’re expecting it anyways, right? Ghosts only fake emotions to manipulate you into trusting them, right? He put on a fake smile.

They want manipulative? Fine. He’ll give them manipulative.

He laughed at Jason’s hair, which was still messy. Only a little. He glared at him playfully as Agent A mock-scolded him. He kept his eye on Agent V as she started circling them like a hunter stalking prey.

He turned to her, all smiles. “I like your hair today,” he said softly.

She turned to him, shocked for a moment before scowling. “Excuse me?”

He sighed internally, making a show of flinching back. “I, um, I never wanna say anything, ‘cause you’re usually pretty mean to us,” he said, making sure to look shy and slightly vulnerable, “But your hair is always so pretty. I’m impressed; I always have to have my sister do mine and it’s never as neat and pretty as yours,” he said.

He could see her blink and slightly blush a bit. “Thank you?” She muttered.

Agent A looked at him. “That was very nice, Phantom,” she said.

He thought about the time he accidentally dropped his pants in front of Paulina. His face flushed. “Thank you,” he said.

Agent V broke herself out of her stupor and glared at him. “All you ghosts are the same,” she hissed, looking at him. He backed away, making sure to look pathetic. “I outta-”

“Agent V,” Agent A emphasized, “He gave you a compliment! Accept it, or don’t, and move on; don’t get mad at him because you can only seem to receive compliments from polite teenage boys,” she scolded.

Agent V glared at her. “That is not my issue here and you know it.”

“I don’t know what your problem is; all I know is that you’re being very rude to someone who just paid you a compliment.”

She scowled and went to sulk by the doorframe. He made sure to widen his eyes a little bit as he looked at her, trying to look curious instead of like he was gloating.

He was usually a shit liar. Sam had tried to teach him before, but ironically enough, it wasn’t until he met Jason, he became better at it. One of his ‘lessons’ was focused on emotions and how to fake them, since apparently improv comes up in the field more than you’d think. Danny could see that; he just usually punched through it. Maybe if he was better at it, some of the ghosts he fought could communicate with him better? Who knows.

He had started thinking of it like he was playing a game with Yungblud. The young pirate was constantly changing rules; he’d had to learn how to adapt. As long as he treated all enemy battles like they were playing a huge game, he might actually be able to do this. He was used to faking emotions and injuries on the ship; he’d even fooled Jason a couple of times. Maybe they could...

He wasn’t sure. Maybe he could make Agent V out to be a nutcase or something. Overly paranoid. Get her fired. He doubted it, but a boy could dream, right?

He looked back over to Jason, who was almost done. They only had a few more tests to go now, and then it’d be his turn. He watched Agent V move out of the corner of his eye. He kept one eye on her as he watched Jason’s reactions to the rest of the tests.

He supposed he should’ve caught it sooner. He was looking at her when she did it, after all, but he’d been so preoccupied with looking at his twin he didn’t even register it when Agent V bent a hand down and turned the knob to the electricity. Jason screamed as the volts tore through his right hand; Agent A was trying to get it to stop. He could see Agent V messed with something and it intensified. Through the panic and adrenaline, he spotted the cord where it plugged into the wall. He lunged for it, unplugging it quickly. It all stopped. The agents looked at him.

Agent A looked stunned. Agent V looked pissed. She stalked up to him and grabbed his hair.

“What did you do that for?! Huh?!”

“Agent V-”

Jason started screaming anew. He twitched with aftershocks as Agent V screamed over him.

“THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THEY’RE DISRESPECTFUL!”

She reeled. “HE GAVE YOU A COMPLIMENT!”

She laughed. It sounded like some shit Disney villain; it made his hair stand on end.

She threw him against the wall and turned around, stalking towards Agent A. He could see them saying something, grappling at each other in the background as Danny made his way over to Jason, getting him off the chair and unhooked from the machine. When they were both on the floor, he cradled his head in his lap and soothed over him. He wasn’t sure if he was trying to comfort Jason or himself.

He was glad Jason had gone first, in a way. He was certain if it was him, he’d be wailing, and either kill them all bringing the building down or killing himself making the collar shock him over and over. He forced the thought out of his head. He kept trying to soothe Jason and make him stop screaming. If this was going where he thought it was-

The door slammed shut. He heard a terrible ‘click!’. He didn’t have to look up to see who it was; he knew what happened. The banging on the door was the only confirmation he needed.

Agent V bent down slamming her hand on the floor. “You dogs have caused a lot of trouble for me today,” she hissed.

She put her hand in Jason’s hair, sliding him towards her. “Shut up!” She yelled at him.

Danny could see the tears forming and sliding down his cheeks. He had similar marks to him, only his went from his hand, up his arm, and slid up his neck instead of going straight to his heart. He could see a few licking their way up his cheek and chin. He thought he might puke at the sight.

He didn’t stop his screaming sobs. Danny knew what it felt like. He also knew that, even if she did know, she wouldn’t care. Agent V would do what she wanted regardless of consequences; she proved that when she locked Agent A out of the room.

She muttered something about destabilization before she shook her head. His hearing was starting to be weird, probably all the adrenaline. He vaguely wondered if you could go into shock when you weren’t the one hurt.

She took out a suture kit, clamping his mouth shut. He watched in numb horror as she began to stitch his mouth closed, staring from the left and going to the right. One of the Lichtenburg scars went over his lip; she didn’t even try to avoid it, tearing through it with her needle as she reached the end. It was like something out of Frankenstein .

He started rocking back and forth to calm himself down. She noticed, laughing at him and tugging at his hair. He didn’t understand; what did he do? What did they do? Why was this happening to them?

She leaned down in his ear. “This is what you get,” she said, horrible voice penetrating his brain, “For existing. You should’ve stayed dead, dog. If you maggots know what’s good for you, you’ll fucking destabilize yourselves before you make more mistakes,” she said.

The banging had stopped a few minutes ago now. She rose, bored. She looked over to the door, then back at them. “I’m going to lock you in here,” she said. “You two have fun doing whatever it is you do. Don’t fucking touch anything,” she said harshly.

She opened the door. She banged it shut. He could hear the click of the lock. He looked around.

All at once, the overwhelming panic that had overtaken him stopped. He silently looked at Jason, writhing in pain and clawing at his own lips. He looked around. They still had the kettle in there from yesterday. He got up, grabbing the kettle itself to fill with water before putting it on the pad to turn on. It felt like he was on autopilot as he slowly made a pick out of ice, not seeing any sharp instruments laying around. He got on top of the other boy, slowly cutting the stitches and pulling them out, being careful not to touch the ice to his lips.

When the kettle beeped, indicating it was done, he stopped what he was doing, leaving the ice on the floor. He grabbed the kettle and, careful not to touch any himself, poured the water over Jason’s body. He stopped writhing in pain, at least. He helped him get up and moved him to the cot, grabbing the pick and finishing what he’d started. Jason took the kettle from him, drinking the rest of the water directly from the vessel.

The lines were still raw and pink, but at least they weren’t as painful anymore. They carefully got his hoodie off of him so it couldn’t irritate the wounds.

They looked but found no gauze. They didn’t want to risk letting them know that Jason had carried some in his belt, deciding to wait to dress his wounds until they were in their room. Maybe, if they were lucky, Agent A would come back. Regardless of how he felt about it right now, she was their best bet. She was the only one pretending to give a damn about them.

Jason hit him softly. “Look around,” he rasped. “See if you can find anything for the thing,” he said.

He knew what he was talking about. He looked around slightly as he made sure to melt the pick. What could he use to build on the gun?

He saw a bracelet on the floor. He touched it slightly; it shocked him. He looked around for a moment before grabbing a pen, turning off the device before grabbing it. He put it and the pen in his pocket. He looked at the electricity machine.

He almost didn’t even want to think about it. It had already caused them so much pain, but he had to at least consider it. He did; he took one of the connectors, cutting it off before sticking that into his pocket as well. He thought about it; it already looked old and slightly fragile. He pushed the machine down, where it broke on impact. He took a deep breath, sending out an impulse of ectoplasm that would fry any camera in the room, and the memory with it. He opened his eyes, shocked; it hadn’t hurt.

He looked at Jason, who was staring at him curiously. He began floating; he flew up to the ceiling, touching it. He blinked.

He hadn’t realized it was already used to his ecto-signature. He flew back down, landing his feat on the ground. He looked at Jason.

“Dude-”

“Shh, I know,” he whispered. “We’ll discuss that later. Put these in your belt,” he said, shoving the objects into his hand.

Jason looked at Danny, his hand slightly shaking. He probably had nerve damage; the ectoplasm couldn't fix everything. He almost wanted to apologize.

He did as he asked, shoving the objects into his pocket carefully. “What do we do?” he asked.

Danny looked at him. “What?”

“What do we do?” he repeated.

He was silent for a moment. “I have a plan. Don’t worry,” he grabbed the uninjured hand, looking him in the face. “We’re going to survive this.”

Jason shook his head. “No, I mean. They’re ramping it up. If they’re comfortable enough to do this-”

“I know,” he said. “I know. I’m... I’m thinking,” he said.

Even if Jason didn’t have a hold of his powers, he could probably train his collar to his ecto signature. He could get Jason out of there and then they might be able to run. He could get the gun working, and then they’d be able to defend themselves a little. This could work... he hoped.

Never mind that they didn’t have any idea where they were. They could be in a different state for all they knew. He took a deep breath.

He could finish his panic attack later. He just had to focus on Jason, and everything else could work itself out. He looked at Jason, who was staring up at him with wide eyes. He pressed his face into his, starting to cry.

He soothed him as best as he could. He didn’t have much experience; other than the few times he’d comforted Ellie. It wasn’t something he was used to, per say. He thought about Jazz; what would Jazz do?

He put his hand in Jason’s hair, beginning to pet him gently. “It’s okay, Jason,” he said softly. The other boy would probably lecture him about codenames later, but that was later; for now, it worked to make him ever so slightly more emotional, allowing him to let it out. “I’m here,” he continued.

Jason let out a wet sort of noise, pressing closer to Danny. He rolled with it, rubbing down his back. “It’s okay,” he soothed. “We’re going to get through this. I promise.”

He pretended he wasn’t thinking about the way Jason had looked. How it sounded. The smell of burnt flesh. Was this how Sam and Tucker had felt? Was this what he put them through?

He’d always ignored those sorts of details. It was never talked about in the group; it was just another fact of their lives that their friend had died in his parent’s basement being electrocuted. It was secondary information that they’d watched. He’d always pretended not to see their flinches when he joked about his death; he pretended Sam didn’t look slightly guilty every time they joked that she’d killed him twice. He wondered if the whole thing could’ve been prevented if the portal had never turned on, if he’d never turned it on. If he hadn’t made the ghost problem worse, would they be there right now? Would Jason be here right now?

He wondered how his twin could ever forgive him for this. He couldn’t forgive himself.

How had Tucker and Sam dealt with this? He missed them violently. He wanted to see them and hear them laugh and tease Val and go back to the library with Star. He yawned slightly, trying to hide how exhausted he was.

That was something that had begun to worry him. They both had been getting tired more easily, forcing them to eat more food. How long would it be provided? How long until they had to ration themselves to whatever they’d squirreled away in the ceiling? How long did they have until they decided they couldn’t learn any more about them and destabilized the cores keeping them alive?

He’d never been one to think about how much time he had left, even after the accident. He’d never really thought about it before; he’d never had the time. He never processed that he’d died and come back. There was always a ghost to fight or an assignment to do; he never thought he’d have to face that day. Right now, with his twin crying in his arms, was not the time to be contemplating his death. It felt useless; it happened. He got brought back. And now, he was half-ghost, and everything was worse now. That was his story, the end. Good night. Sweet dreams. That was all he was meant for, right? Just another tragic figure cloaked in their own blood. Another casualty of the war his parents... the Fenton's and the GIW started.

That was all, right? That was just his life now. He felt his own tears pinprick his eyes.

As much as he’d tried to push it down these last few weeks, he was angry. The only reason he even existed was because these people wanted to play God. What did they think would happen if they destroyed the zone? He stopped for a second. What would happen if they destroyed the zone?

It was every afterlife you could imagine. It was heaven and hell, it was Elysium and the Field of Punishment, it was Valhalla and everything else you could think of. It was a place for every religion and culture; it wasn’t one thing, and it wasn’t the other. It was everything.

It connected every single possible timeline, universe, and afterlife together. Sure, there was one monarch for it; one person to rule it all. But their job was pretty much to iron out the snags, things like the GIW. Things that might disrupt it. He knew that war was an option if the GIW kept doing what they were doing. He’d never really processed it as an option, but it was one. He knew what that would mean for this land. A pit formed in his stomach.

Pariah was in the sarcophagus. The ancients couldn’t decide without a ruler if what he understood from his conversation and personal reading was true. He wondered how they even chose a new one. He knew it couldn’t be a vote since Pariah probably wouldn’t have been made king to begin with if that was the case.

He decided it didn’t matter. It’s not like they were going to be part of the decision making if they were stuck there.

They had to get out. He had to do something. He rocked back and forth, to soothe Jason (at least, that’s what he told himself). He wondered what would happen when they got out. It’s not like he had anywhere to go, and even if Bruce wanted to adopt him, did he want to be adopted by another fruit looped billionaire?

If he didn’t want to be associated with Bruce, what other option was there? Jazz wouldn’t be legal for another year yet, and she didn’t go to college until this fall. Even if she got emancipated, could she take care of him, too? How would she afford that? College students were notoriously broke, and she wouldn’t be an exception; it would take at least a year of studying before she could get an internship anywhere, and she had her heart set on Arkham anyways. Would they even let a kid that graduated high school a year early and had only been in college for a year internship there? Was that a thing they allowed to happen? He didn’t think so.

He took a deep breath. No matter what happened in the future, he couldn’t lose sight of right now. Right now, Jason’s sobs had slowed into hiccups, and he was nearly asleep in his arms. Agent A had finally found a set of keys and she opened the door. He made his face perfectly blank as he looked up at her. He made sure to look vaguely traumatized. It wasn’t hard.

He wiped any trace of anger from his body. He made sure he radiated ‘tired’ as he did so. Even as she fussed over them, taking Jason from his arms and pulling a med kit from the hall to dress his wounds, he stopped himself from trusting her.

“She is not your friend,” he reminded himself. “She is part of them. She isn’t trying to escape. She wouldn’t help you if she knew you were. She is part of them.”

Even as she helped them to their room and left, leaving the door open and coming back minutes later with blankets and pillows to cover the boy with and prop his head up, he reminded himself that she was not their friend. As the locks clicked into place as she left for good this time, she was part of them.

A part of himself wanted to trust her. He wanted to trust her badly. She was one of the only people that had ever been vaguely nice to them before. But when you're someone in his circumstances, you can’t afford trust. He would trust her when she was helping them escape this place. If she was telling the truth right now, she was still letting two 15-year-olds be tortured by her workplace. He didn’t have much sympathy for her.

He sent out an impulse of ectoplasm instead of looking for bugs manually, then floated up to the ceiling to grab the journals. He got them both, looking around the small space.

He wanted to plan a bit more before messing with the gun. That could wait for another day. He replaced the tile and flew down.

He opened his blue journal, seeing the plans he’d made for the gun. Now that he had the parts he needed, he could plan it out a little more clearly.

He drew up the plans, the action soothing himself slightly as he went. Planning was all they had right now. If they tried to run, they wouldn’t get far. They had to bide their time. They had to wait.

The boy next to him kept shifting in his sleep. He looked at the gauze he sported. The sight made him angry all over again.

What had they done to deserve this? Had they done anything to deserve this? He didn’t know anymore. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure it mattered.

He took a deep breath. He sketched. He checked over Jason. When he was done with the plans, he floated back up to replace the journals in the ceiling tile. One of these days he swore he was going to find something staring back at him in that thing. The thought made him shiver.

He tried to send another distress signal to Ellie. He didn’t know why he wasn’t getting anything back, but he was beginning to get concerned. They had no idea how much time had passed since being here, but he was pretty sure it was about time for one of Ellie’s scheduled visits to Amity Park for some sibling time with him and Jazz. She should’ve been able to feel it and respond by now.

He forced himself not to think about it. He’d been doing that a lot lately.

He sighed and closed his eyes. They just had to survive until tomorrow. They could figure out the rest later.

They just had to be alive to figure it out.

#dp x dc #ailesswhumptober2023 #jason todd #danny fenton #danny phantom #dc robin #robin #batman #ai less whumptober day twenty-one #kite flies over the nightingale nest

[foap-enjoyer]

Little sneak peak of my inclusion in 'AI-less whumptober' 2023!

CoD edition ;)

This is the day four prompt; Hiding an injury. I've got many more in the works of course, I plan to do all 31 days!

~

“Well, that went to shit.”

“Nicely put, Sergeant.”

At least Price agreed with him. Then again, it’d be weird if he didn’t; the mission had most definitely gone ‘to shit’. Out of an assigned twenty, three hadn’t made it home, and another fifteen had been injured. The literal, figurative, documented definition of shit.

Even Ghost. The lieutenant Ghost, had been among those injured. A minor wound, compared to some of the others, but at the end of the day, it was still a bullet to the leg. Soap had watched him fall. Hell, he’d been personally responsible for taking out the prick dumb enough to even consider aiming at him.

He would’ve been the idiot to have to drag Ghost out of the fray, but luckily, Gaz was there. He had been quick to charge forward, hooking his hands through Ghost’s shoulder straps and yanking, hard. They’d tumbled off out of view, into the brush surrounding the battle field. An embarrassing feat, and yet Soap never called him out for it.

He found out later Gaz had been shot too, reaching for their lieutenant. Shoulder, right besides his neck- way too close for comfort. Way too close. 

Like he said. The mission went to shit. 

He felt bad for the doctors, too- and the nurses, and field medics, and anyone during those grueling four hours out on the field who had any single drop of medical training. They’d been strained, and if he was honest, were still strained now. Injuries don’t heal magically once you step off of the helo and onto base, after all. Four of the fifteen had collapsed upon arriving, seven had needed surgery, and yet another had died along the way. It had been pure chaos.

So why would he bring up that he was hurt?

There had been no point. A couple of bruises is what he had, and that’s all they were. Deep, purple, ugly bruises that marred the entirety of his left arm, but simple bruises nonetheless. Nothing compared to what he had seen today, and by God had he seen a lot. 

Sure, his arm ached, burned, even, but not as much as he imagined Corporal Ellias’ legs felt after being violently torn to shreds by a grenade in the field. He’d seen the man screaming as they wheeled him into surgery, where he sat in the waiting room with Price. There was no way they could save the legs, given the severity. He couldn’t compete with that. His bruises didn’t even come close to that. 

So he did the next best thing; shut the fuck up. 

Contrary to popular belief, Sergeant Soap Mactavish was very good at shutting up. An impressive feat for any soldier, let alone one who worked with explosives. They had a nasty stereotype of being crazy. Madmen. A stereotype that many of his fellow specialists happily filled in with no cares in the world. But him? 

Being a member of 141 didn’t give him that privilege. He’d learnt to be quiet as his time as a rookie, because being quiet got him further than opening his trap and yapping. You sit, nice and quiet, like a little dog, and you’re rewarded. That was the game the military played, and a game he was very, very good at. 

This was no different.

Sit like a good, quiet dog.

Price sighed from beside him. A heavy, achingly tired sound.

Soap blinked away the fog building in his eyes, glancing over at him. “You alright, Cap?”

Price looked at him, “Four men are dead, Soap.” He leaned forward onto his knees, holding his head in his hands, rubbing fingers stiffly against the bridge of his nose. “They don’t think Ellias will make it either.”

Soap leaned back into his chair, ignoring the way his arm screamed at him as he brought it up, crading it idly to his chest. “It doesn’t surprise me.” He thought back to the injuries on the corporal. Even if he did survive, he would be without legs, most definitely no longer a soldier. Mutilated beyond ‘repair’, according to the army. He could still live a good, happy life though. If he pulled through. “Have the nurses called his family yet?”

Price sighed again, “They’re gonna wait, see if he survives the night. Don’t want to put all that stress on them for nothing.”

He nodded. It made sense, after all. “You speak to the receptionist, then?”

“For a moment, before she shoved me out here.” Out ‘here’ was their waiting room. Outside of the actual medical ward their base owned. He wouldn’t even consider it a waiting room. More like a glorified corridor. “They’re over-run in there, poor sods.”

Sit like a good, quiet dog. “Yeah, no kidding.” He rubbed a thumb gently over his sleeved-injury, massaging the fabric over the bruises. It sent a shockwave of fresh agony through his body, causing him to jolt violently in his seat. Price didn’t seem to notice. Somehow. “Any news on, um-” Fuck, that hurt. “Gaz ‘n’ Ghost?”

“Ghost is doing fine. Bullet didn’t pierce anything major. He’s awake and moving, last I heard.”

“And… Gaz?”

Price inhaled sharply. “Gaz is in surgery. Bullet…” He exhaled, softer, this time. “Something about it is upsetting the doctors.”

“Fuck.”

“Fuck indeed, son. Fuck indeed.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Soap had no doubt that his Captain was thinking about Gaz. He couldn’t blame him, now, he was too. Until a clog in his mind clicked. “Have you been checked out yet, Price?”

His captain blinked, opening his mouth to speak. Nothing came out. Soap chuckled, prodding the older man’s shoulder with his good arm. “Go get checked out.”

“I’m fine.” Price found his voice, furrowing his brows. “Just a few scrapes.”

“Always better to get checked out, aye?”

Price’s eyes fell on him. “Have you?”

 Soap smiled awkwardly, meeting his gaze. He watched as the man glared into his soul, studying every inch of him available to the eye. “I’m all good, Price.” He promised, “I got checked out on the plane.”

It technically was true. A half-truth. He’d gotten a nasty cut on his head, and a field medic had offered to close it up for him during their journey back, when she had had the time to take her gaze away from the grievous wounds of his teammates. 

He sported the beige, sad, half-sticky plaster as a token of his truth.

“Go on.” He encouraged with a wave of his hand when Price jostled slightly, uncertain. “Get lost, go get looked at.”

“Alright.” That one word was filled with doubt. Soap smiled harder, a grin that bared his teeth. A defensive smile. “Stay here, will you?”

“Wouldn’t dream of leaving you, Cap.”

-

To be continued, look out for my oneshot AI-less whumptober book coming out on my AO3 :)

Tsukuyomi_Ravioli | Archive of Our Own

#ailesswhumptober2023 #sneak peek #sneak peak #sneak preview #gaz cod #soap cod #soap x ghost #soap mw2 #john soap mactavish #soap mactavish #coming soon #call of duty #mw2 #cod #modern warfare 2 #simon ghost riley #modern warfare ii #ghoap #price mw2 #captain john price #john price #captain price #ghost x soap #141 #soapghost #cod fanfiction #cod fanfic #whumptober #whump tropes #whump writing

[aprocessionofthoughts]

Chicken Noodle Soup

ai-less whumptober 2023 day 18- fever/vomiting/warm soup fandom- batman TW-none summary- Dick is sick, Jason helps

ao3 masterlist

Dick is not feeling well. Which is a shame since he was supposed to teach gymnastics today. He loves working with the kids.

So here he is, lying in bed, hardly even able to get up. He’s already vomited and he’s pretty sure he has a fever, but he doesn’t have a thermometer to check. There were things he was supposed to do today. And he was going to look into the new smuggling ring in Bludhaven that he’s heard rumors of.

There was something else that he can’t quite remember. It was important. Or at least he thinks it was. 

He groans, turning over in his bed. He can’t think anymore. He’ll deal with it all tomorrow.

For now, he’ll sleep.

Yes, sleep sounds good. 

He’s just about to drift off when someone slams the door to his apartment open.

Dick jerks up and immediately has to cover his mouth to suppress the surge of nausea.

“Hey! Dickwing!”

Oh. He was supposed to meet with Jason today.

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

Jason slams into Dick’s apartment. His brother’s been bugging him about hanging out. Jason had ignored him at first. Then refused. But every week, Dick would ask again.

Jason had finally agreed just to get the other man to drop it. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that hanging out with his older brother sounded nice. Not at all.

So, he had agreed to get coffee, as long as Dick paid. Jason had arrived at the coffee shop early, but then Dick had never shown up. He had waited twenty minutes past their meeting time and texted him, but Dick hadn’t answered.

Well, if Dick wasn’t going to show up then Jason would just have to go and bother the golden boy at his apartment.

He picked the lock and then slammed the door open.

“Hey! Dickwing!”

No one was in the living room, and Jason didn’t even bother going to the kitchen. He knew how Dick’s kitchen usually looked. And so he went to the idiot’s bedroom.

“What the heck, Dickwing! First, you go to all the trouble of getting me to agree to meet up, and then you don’t even show up?” Then Jason paused. Dick was trying to get out of bed, but there was obviously something wrong with him.

“Sorry. Just give me a moment.” Dick said, stumbling over to his closet. “Let me just… Let me just get changed.” He picked up a shirt, but it slipped to the ground. He went to pick it up, but then stumbled and Jason leapt forward to catch him.

Jason lowered his idiot of a brother to the ground. He was pale and his forehead was beaded with sweat and he was trembling.

“Sorry. Sorry.” Dick muttered.

“Shut up.” Jason said, scooping his brother up and depositing him back on the bed. “Why didn’t you just tell me you were sick?”

“Forgot.” Dick’s eyes were closed.

“Forgot you were sick, or forgot to let me know. Because with you it could go either way.”

“Forgot we were meeting. Sorry.”

Jason sighed. “Do you have a thermometer?”

“...No.”

Jason sighed again. He would probably be doing a lot of that today. “Why am I not surprised?” He muttered.

“Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.” he said, looking around the room. It was a mess. And there was Dick’s phone on his bedside. Jason picked it up. It was dead.

“Sorry.” Jason spun to face him and Dick smirking.

Jason scowled. “Well, I don’t need a thermometer to tell that you’ve got a fever.” Jason looked up. Was he really going to do this? He glanced back at Dick, at his brother. Fine. “You stay in bed. I’ll get you some water and see if I can scrounge up anything edible in your kitchen.”

“You don’t have to–”

“Would you rather I call Alfred? Because you know he’d come over and lecture you on proper self care and keeping your apartment clean.”

Dick didn’t answer.

“That’s what I thought.” Jason muttered heading towards the kitchen. And yup. It was just as bad as he thought it would be. Take out containers littered the counters, and the only thing in the cupboards were cereal boxes. He opened the fridge and grimaced. There was only milk and what had maybe been more takeout. It was hard to tell.

“I’m going to get some groceries.” he called out. “You better still be in bed by the time I get back.” There was no answer from the bedroom, but whatever.

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

After he came back the first thing he had to do was clean the counters. There was no way he’d make the food on those disgusting things. Once the kitchen was at least a little better, he settled into the relaxing process of chopping veggies and stirring together a warm chicken noodle soup. As it simmered he started cleaning up the apartment to give himself something to do. He picked up trash, cleaned the coffee table. There wasn’t a broom so he wouldn’t be able to sweep. And he tossed the dirty laundry in the washer. 

The smell of soup had filled the apartment by the time he was done.

He turned off the heat and filled a bowl for himself and another for Dick.

He carried both to his brother’s room.

“Food’s ready.”

Dick blearily looked up.

“That smells good.”

Jason grunted, setting Dick’s bowl on the side table and sitting down in the room's other chair.

“Eat up.”

Dick smiled at him. “Thanks, Little Wing.”

“Whatever. I can’t have you keeling over and dying. The old man would be a pain to deal with.”

Dick chuckled, steading the bowl with his knees as he took his first spoonful. “This is incredible.”

Jason ignored him. Of course his soup was incredible.

They continued to eat in silence, Jason looking up occasionally to check on Dick. Not because he cared. He just didn’t want his soup to go to waste.

And if next week he agreed to go out to coffee with Dick, that was just because his brother owed him. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that he may or may not care about his older brother. Not at all.

#ailesswhumptober2023 #ailesswhumptober #day 18 #fever #warm soup #vomiting #Jason todd #dick gayson #good sibling jason todd #batman fanfiction