The Wayne doll house
Have some haunted doll au, since it's been bubbling away in my mind.
The bat cave is large and sprawling, many layers and tunnels and hollowed out cracks in the walls. It takes many years to fully reinforce to prevent stray kids from tripping into stagnant waters or fall down crags as he once did. The doll cave, as it becomes known, is in one of the deepest, darkest corners, one where the lights of the furnished caverns above don't reach.
It's one late night sitting at the computer when it suddenly occurs to Bruce that his first encounter with a doll was at the well entrance, many levels above.
There was nothing there when he went back.
-
The justice league stared at the subaru. The subaru, having no eyes, did not stare back.
The seven of them had just finished a very long, arduous mission, and narrowly escaped government censure after the base they'd been raiding had turned out to belong to some corrupt official. With the alert up, they couldn't escape through city airspace, or even in their hero suits.
So civilian it was.
Batman had hotwired some bloke's car while the rest of them ducked into alleys and shop bathrooms, but the problem remained. There was seven of them. And five seats.
"I can shift into something more suitable for being carried," suggested j'onn, "but I believe one of us might have to hide."
"Foot well?" Hal tried, and everyone looked around at the tall, bulky, broad heroes.
"Think they'd have to go in the boot," Barry finally said. Everyone immediately turned to him. "No."
Batman spoke up before the discussion could devolve.
"I think.... I would be best for that."
The team stared.
"Batsy?"
Having no lungs meant he could not drag in the tired sigh he wished, but whatever force allowed this body to talk was capable of approximating something suitably resigned.
"As I am, I am... incapable of fully passing as human. It would be best if I remained out of sight."
"So just? Go change? I swear we won't be weird about whoever you are under the mask. Even if you're like, bald."
"Thank you, Wally, but I'm afraid I'm being serious." Reaching for the mask in broad daylight was unpleasant, but the glue and wires held as he gave it a few thorough tugs. "It doesn't detach."
Everyone stared. Clark reached out as if he wanted to check, but withdrew.
"Do you even have a civilian identity??" Oliver eventually asked. "Because at this point I'm genuinely not sure."
Wayne Enterprises and Queen Industries had a meeting that same evening. "Hn."
"Can we go back to the 'incapable of passing as human' part?!"
"We can discuss it in the car," he snapped, stalking past Barry and popping the boot. "In case you haven't forgotten, we're on a time limit."
For once, that seemed to encourage them, and batman, with great dignity, folded his joints and cape into the small space, ignoring Hal's mutter of 'what kind of contortionist -' as he slammed the lid. With a little shuffling he managed to activate his comms.
"I will inform the watchtower of our delay."
"Batman, they're tapping all outgoing signals, you can't -"
"It won't trigger," he interrupted, before he twisted his consciousness and sent it spiralling across the country.
Bruce awoke with a groan, stretching his limbs and taking a moment to marinate in his annoyance before he reached for the comm and voice modulator on the beside table.
"Batman to watchtower, we've encountered delays. If the Texan state government calls we haven't entered the state in six weeks. Batman out."
-
"Alien?"
"No."
"Reanimated corpse?"
"No."
"Uh... Demon?"
"Hm. No."
"You're not just a meta human, are you?"
"No."
"Vampire?"
"No."
"Robot??"
"No."
"Batsy, please, someone's got to win the bet eventually. How do we even know you're not lying?!"
"You don't," Batman said, not looking up from his paperwork and Flash groaned, letting his sticky notes fall to the floor as he buried his head in his arms.
"One day," he bemoaned to the keyboard, "one day we'll figure it out."
"Until then please keep your eyes on the monitors."
Flash groaned again.
-
Robin ducked under superman's arm as he scuttled down the corridor, laden with the night's haul of snacks. The real problem wasn't getting them - stopping league members from raiding the kitchen would be extremely counterproductive - but keeping them until he could return home to his human body to eat them. Batman had started searching him each time they left and it was really cutting into his daily sugar intake. Unfair! Just because he didn't actually use energy to stay up my night to fight crime, it felt like he did!!
'Oh, you're broken, Robin, oh, don't go out until the glue has fully set, Robin' his arm was fine! It wasn't like there was much crime to be fought on the watchtower anyway! At least not physically.
So he was pretty pleased with himself until he went to set the snacks down and found that the tar like glue they used had soaked through the sleeve and gotten all over his chocolates.
With his other hand, he tried to pry them off, wincing as the wrappers tore and stuck. He tried to shake it, ignoring the way his elbow rattled in the joint.
"Come on, come on - aw, cheezits."
The arm fell off. Robin stared despondently at the limb, surrounded by torn wrappers and dripping black glue where it connected to the elbow. The sour stink of formaldehyde filled the air.
He was going to be in such trouble with Bruce.
The click of the door jerked his head up.
Flash stood in the doorway, wide eyed. Robin stared back.
Flash screamed.
Oh yeah @dehydratedmockingbird have a thing
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Mariner, Odyssey’s cousin and formerly a member of EEG’s field team. Xe retired a few years ago, citing health issues. Xe is secretly plagued by the Visions, which xe didn’t realize were warnings until it was too late to do anything about them.
-> Mariner has yet to figure out what xe wants to do in xer retirement. Xe’s got the rest of xer life to work on it but like. Xe feels like xe should have an idea by now. Xe’s tried to pick up some hobbies, but nothing really clicked. Pottery is the one that’s stuck around the longest.
-> Interest in the work and relation to Odyssey is what initially drew Mariner to the team all those years ago, though xe was never as invested as xer cousin. In truth, xer passion for the job had begun to fade a decade prior to xer retirement, and the novelty of adventure soon wore out as xer chronic pain grew harder to ignore. Xe stayed as long as xe did to connect with Odyssey, and because xe’d already spent so much of xer life on this career choice and felt xe’d already missed xer chance to do something different now. Thinking xer mental health had suddenly taken a steep decline after a particular expedition is what finally gave xem the push to resign.
-> Xe doesn’t really have friends in retirement. Xe has acquaintances, and there’s people xe’s friendly with, but xe was never very good at forming new relationships outside of obligations like work and family. And xe spent a lot of years developing bonds with only one group of people, so it’s strange to be removed from that now. Xe was especially close with Odyssey, though their relationship is now on the rocks. Mariner doesn’t really try to get into contact with xer old friends, feeling awkward about having left (and the dreadful realization that what xe thought were hallucinations were actually a real threat/warning and xe has told nobody else about this and explaining gets harder the longer xe keeps the secret)
-> On one otherwise routine mission into the Otherworld, late into the project but before the Storm, Mariner encountered something alone. Xe hadn’t travelled far from the rest of the team, xe’s fairly sure, but suddenly xe felt a world away and something unknowable was there with xem. It could have been acting out of benevolence or malice or some secret third thing, but all the same, it struck Mariner with an overwhelming bundle of visions and senses beyond understanding that seemed to tear apart xer mind to fit, and brought xem to xer knees. Then it left Mariner abruptly, struggling to comprehend the experience and reassemble xemself.
-> Having some kind of mental break isn’t out of the question when you’re dealing with another world that seems hostile to the rules of your reality, so Mariner managed to convince xemself that’s all that had happened. Mostly. Xe’d hallucinated it, proof that prolonged exposure to this rift had worn xer mind thin (which. also may be true at the same time). Though very shaken, xe did not tell xer teammates the details of what had happened.
-> Xe went through the motions for a while longer, business as usual, though xe remained quietly bothered. Coming back into the standard plane of reality after the expedition didn’t resolve the problem. Instead, xer premonitions got worse. Xer dreams and waking moments alike were filled with portents of catastrophe and strife; xe grew used to panic attacks, but if the visions held any meaning xe couldn’t determine what. Xe held out for a few months before abruptly announcing xer retirement for the reasons of deteriorating health. Xe tried to convince Odyssey to join xem in retirement. Odyssey, though, was all but married to the job, and would never leave while Tune was still involved, and Tune was perhaps even more committed.
-> Mariner really tried to enjoy a peaceful retirement, but the sense of dread and the flashes of tragedy still would not cease. And still, xe could not parse any meaning. At least, not until xe received news of the disaster that had befallen the EEG some months later, and xe finally understood what xer curse had been warning xem about. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, xe could unscramble what the message had been.
-> Emboldened by fear and the knowledge that it was warranted, Mariner tried again to make Odyssey quit. It was far too soon after Tune’s presumed death, and Mariner wouldn’t speak of xer premonitions, feeling too much shame to admit xe could have done something. This did not go over well at all, and the resulting argument was a massive blow to their relationship.
-> They weren’t on speaking terms for a while, but with time and distance they have recovered Some of their relationship. They don’t talk about it. Both are far too stubborn to make apologies, so bringing it up would only cause more arguments. There’s still tension between them, but they can manage a casual conversation every now and then, checking in on each other occasionally.
-> Mariner still has xer precognitions. The visions are still not clear, but xe has some understanding of what xe’s dealing with now and can decipher a few points. It’s not over. Something terrible approaches again, and something is very very wrong with Spirit.
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