@badthingshappenbingo - Rage against the reflection
@whumpers-monthly - Kidnapped
CW: Kidnapped, captivity
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He’s been here for weeks and Ronald has beaten him every single day.
The snow was falling softly over Moscow as James trudged back to his apartment, exhausted from a long day at university. He'd been looking forward to a quiet night in, curling up on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate and a show he couldn't understand the language of.
But as he entered his living space, he was met with Ronald's grin, waiting for him in the living room. James felt his heart drop and his body tense up. This was not the homecoming he had imagined.
Before he knew it, James found himself on the other side of the world, his once vibrant world had been reduced to just a tiny room: a bed, and a bathroom. Every night, Ronald would visit him, alternately showering him with love and affection, or raining down blows that left James bruised and battered.
As he stared at himself in the mirror, James couldn't recognize the person staring back at him. His skin was a mass of purple and blue bruises, his eyes swollen shut from the clotted blood.
In the moment of despair, it all became too much for him. His screams echoed in the small room, his throat raw from the force of his pain. And then, without even realizing it, his fist shot out and shattered the mirror, leaving behind a trail of blood as he crumpled to the floor in tears. He was crying, tears streaming down his face, as he wished for nothing more than to go back home.
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Mina/Jonathan, Mina/Dracula, Jonathan/Dracula
Mina/Jonathan:
Basically I think they’re really cute! That line about Jonathan not letting Mina go into that unknown and terrible land (of being a vampire) alone is SO romantic! I’m also really intrigued by fucked up scenarios where one or the other has been turned into a vampire and there are Moral Quandaries. But otherwise they just don’t particularly interest me. It’s sweet, I don’t hate it, good for them, etc. I think at the end of the day I just tend to prefer ships for conflict.
Mina/Dracula:
On the one hand, it’s simply not a thing in the book? And I fully understand why book fans are annoyed with Mina being assigned a romance with Dracula just because she is the main female lead and because he preys on her. Which can have. weird. connotations.
And to an extent I feel that way too! But simultaneously the connotations are interesting. Vampires, and Dracula particularly, are very compelling to me because of how well they can be positioned in the crosshairs of predatory and romantic. Dracula-the-story is explicitly about Dracula as a force of horror, preying on the protagonists. Any romantic feelings or ship dynamics are going to have to be in relation to and navigating that. If you take book canon Mina being preyed on by Dracula, and then add the complications and quandaries of there being any sort of romantic angle— idk that’s just so much scarier and therefore more interesting to me!
The reincarnated bride stuff in 1992 was not well done. But I’m still forever intrigued by the questions it raised for Mina’s identity and agency, though I don’t think it was ever fully aware of them either. But like who is Mina, really, if her thoughts and feelings are being overridden by this past life? Does that past love matter more than the current relationships she’s fostered? Her current values are clearly at odds with all the murdering her long lost love is doing! What now! I’m generally just very interested in reincarnation tropes from an introspective or deconstructive angle, and the 1992 film never engages with any of this, but its set up makes me kind of insane.
Jonathan/Dracula:
Likely my main ship in the novel! The segment at Dracula’s castle is just SO interesting and so charged. There’s simultaneously a strong comedy and shenanigans factor, ie Dracula doing all his housework, and generally just being fucking weird, but there’s also The Horrors.
Jonathan is basically living out a Bluebeard/Beauty and the Beast type narrative. It’s genuinely incredibly chilling, and well done. The moments that can be read as romantic just make things sadder and more terrifying. And that appeals to me for pretty similar reasons to Mina/Dracula. But it’s just up close and personal in a very particular way.
The way Jonathan simultaneously has to depend on him for protection from the brides. Or just to remember to feed him! That he’s a frail human that needs things in order to live! And how that is (presumably) more of a concern as Dracula becomes more interested in leaving for England is soooo fucked up!
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Hello! I saw your bingo card and I’d love to read the prompt “rage against the reflection” with Dick Grayson if you’re up for it :)
@friendlyneighborhoodcapricorn this is for you :*
@badthingshappenbingo fill #1 !!
You can also read it on ao3 HERE.
The Batsignal is on. Yellow light floods from the GCPD rooftop, the shape of the bat above the skyline a cutting edge against the night sky. It feels like black ice, like frozen iron—like the ink-black pupil of a single roving eye that will not avert its gaze.
This is the third signal of the night. Or the fourth. The fifth. The sixth. Dick has lost count. He swears it’s there every time he turns around—like maybe the switch never clicks all the way off, a dial continuously cranked one notch higher, every emergency bleeding into the next.
Someone needs help.
Someone is causing trouble.
Someone needs to step in.
Won’t someone help?
Won’t someone do something?
Please help.
Please.
Please.
Please.
He hears their cries in the alleyways, the streets, the docks, the warehouses. No matter how many he saves, how many he stops, there are always more. This is how it always goes. Dick can’t slow down, can’t pause to breathe. The night is dark, and the shadows don’t sleep, so neither can he. This is the mantle of the Bat—the legacy he must uphold. He has to be the Dark Knight, the shadowed terror of every crook in Gotham, the silent savior of every damsel in distress. He wears the cowl, he wears the crown; it doesn’t matter that the cape feels like a noose around his neck.
What’s one more crisis, anyway? What’s one more catastrophe? Just add it to the pile. It can balance right there on top, next to the fact that Damian has run off again, and Dick’s grapple gun is out of commission, and the Batmobile is on the other side of town, and oh, yeah, did Dick mention that he’s surrounded? Because he’s definitely surrounded.
“I heard it’s open season on Bats. Let ‘em rip, boys!” their leader crows, hefting up a semi-automatic in one meaty hand. Dick moves on instinct, flipping backwards and out of the way as the gun goes off, a sharp RATTATTATTATTAT that rattles his teeth in his head. Lead bites into walls and windows alike, bullets ricocheting across brick and stone and glass in a deadly hailstorm, and in the midst of it all there’s Dick, sweeping and dodging and delivering hits until it’s just him and the leader, one against one.
This should even the odds. Dick should be able to take care of this guy, would on a normal day, quick and easy and without a thought. But tonight… oh, tonight he feels slow, sluggish, as he twists out of the line of fire. Again, and then again, and then again. He can’t get in close, can’t keep going—something needs to give.
He finds an opening. A dive and a leap, and he just barely catches hold of the railing of a fire escape, pulling himself up.
There’s no chance to breathe. He doesn’t have the luxury—doesn’t have the time. The gunfire is following him—it’s hot on his heels, just a split second behind. He has one shot at this; there’s no room for error—and he can’t even spare a thought as to exactly how close it’s going to be before he leaps, letting gravity take over.
He doesn’t miss. He hits his mark. The thug goes down, and the gunfire stops, and it makes no difference at all. The grief still feels like ash on his tongue—the cowl still feels like the weight of the sky itself. The only thing that’s changed is the gasping of his own breath in his ringing ears, and even that will become monotonous in due time.
But maybe not the stinging pain in his side.
Dick grunts, one hand rising to prod at it. His glove catches on torn kevlar, hot blood slick between his fingertips.
A lucky shot. Hit at just the right angle to punch through his armor. It’s only a graze, nothing too dire, but it hurts like hell and Dick just—he doesn’t have time for this. His Robin is in the wind and the city needs him and he’s desperate for a goddamn second to just breathe, to get a fucking handle on this, but ha ha jokes on him, right?
With a snarl, he clamps a hand over the wound. Instinct has him heading upward—it takes three tries to get a hold on the fire escape a second time, hauling himself up one-handed. He feels like a sunflower, forever seeking a warmth that he’ll never find, not in the dead of night in the depths of Gotham. The shadows are going to swallow him whole.
He makes it to the roof. Still seeking, still searching, he gasps air and turns his gaze across the skyline of the city he’s supposed to protect. Batman needs a Robin—where do you look for a Robin who doesn’t want to be found? Where do you go when the whole world feels like it’s falling apart?
Dick doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how to do this, how to be Batman, how to save a city that can never be saved—he doesn’t know anything, and it’s eating him alive.
***
He winds up on the roof of the GCPD. Feet numb, head fuzzy, he stumbles the familiar path to the Batsignal.
It’s off. For once, one time in this endless night, the bulb is dark. Bliss or oblivion, Dick doesn’t care. He can only lean against the frame, head hanging, arm barely propping him up.
He can’t stay here. He needs to regroup, to staunch the bleeding, to find his Robin. He needs to catch his breath so he can keep going. The air feels ragged as he gasps it down, hand pressed against the hole in his side.
It’s here, as he’s trying to hold himself together in every way that matters, that the clouds part somewhere above him. For one sharp, brilliant moment, his reflection becomes crystal clear on the glass of the batsignal, illuminated by the light of a full moon high above. He sees what’s become of the Batman, right there, in perfect clarity—sees what he’s become. A face that should be familiar twists into a stranger’s; everything he’s made of himself, all of Dick Grayson and Nightwing both, buried beneath the black cowl.
He stares and stares and it only stares back, white lenses cold as the grave.
It hurts. He wants to cry out, a wounded animal howling at the skies. Wants to balk, to curl up and cry. He can’t fill the cowl, the cape, the boots. Not like this—not having known the man who was always meant to wear them. Bruce was too big, larger than life, and Dick can’t—he can’t do this. He doesn’t want to.
He moves without thinking. Wound forgotten, he raises his hand and slams it down on the glass. He just wants out—wants to break it, to shatter his reflection, to never ever have to face the crumbling ruins of himself again. He’s been so strong for so long—because it’s been asked of him, because he’s the eldest, because there’s no one else, because he has to be perfect, because he has no choice—but god, he just wants it to end.
The sting of his hand brings him back to reality. Because of course nothing is that simple. The glass of the Batsignal is reinforced—it’s bat tech, completely bulletproof. He can’t shatter it. Hell, there isn’t even a crack. The only mark he’s made is the bloody hand print he leaves behind when he pulls back, marring his reflection.
It’s poetic, probably. Sacrificial blood, one man’s pulse traded for the pulse of the city. Bruce… he gave his life for this. Gotham. To keep all these people safe. And now it’s Dick’s turn, like father like son, dust to dust and shadow to shadow.
It’s poetic. It is. But Dick can’t think about that right now.
The clouds overhead shift again. Between one blink and the next, Dick’s reflection is eclipsed once more by the night. He draws in a deep breath—holds it—lets it out slow.
And again.
And again.
Until he can stand up straight again. Until he can feel his fingers and toes, until he can shove everything back down inside his chest. He swallows, gritting his teeth as he pulls out the first aid kit from his belt to get a makeshift bandage around his side. Then, jaw locked and back straight, he steps back out into the night.
To find his Robin.
To help people
To fight crime.
To be the Batman that Gotham needs… even though he knows he will never be the one it deserves.
***
The Batsignal is on. Dick knows without looking back. Its light—baleful and orange, stark against the clouds—is unrelenting. He can feel it, a sliver of glass in his bleeding heart. It feels like ice, like iron, like a never ending call to arms. It asks for more, and more, and more—what it asks for never ends.
The Batsignal is on, and Dick Grayson only feels cold.
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