Alt version of this post bc too many people asked for both <3
It's Saturday night and, like almost every Saturday night, Eddie wishes he didn't have to be at some jock party. The flashing lights, the scent of cheap mixed drinks, the incredibly mediocre loud music... And worst of all, the fucking jocks. Everywhere.
'Eddie!'
He looks up to find Steve, with a dopey smile on his face, basically skipping towards him and throwing his arms around his neck. Oh. He didn't know Steve still went to parties like those. Hadn't seen him at any of them in a while. But as soon as he gets wrapped up in an enthusiastic full-body hug, he decides there's one jock, and one jock only, that he doesn't mind running into at those parties.
'Eddie, what're you doin' here?' There's an unfocused look in his eyes and he wobbles on his legs a little bit, grabbing tighter onto Eddie for support. The touch burns through Eddie's t-shirt and he tries to ignore the shiver running down his spine.
'I didn't know you liked parties!' Steve drops his voice, slurring: 'I thought you hated the jocks.'
Eddie can't help but smile. 'I hate all jocks but one, big boy,' he tells Steve. 'Not here to party, only to get some cash.' He rattles with the metal lunchbox in his hands to illustrate his point. 'Can you let me go now so I can get on with my business, pretty please?'
'Noooo,' Steve says with an exaggerated pout. 'I'm too happy you're here! Dance with me!'
Eddie chuckles. 'I don't think you're in any state to dance right now. Jesus, Stevie, I don't think I've ever seen you this wasted before. Thought you were planning to pick up a girl tonight?'
'I was,' Steve says, suddenly sounding oddly serious. 'But it doesn't matter. Just needed to forget. The rum helped, too.' He frowns. 'Til you showed up.'
'Forget what?' Eddie asks, trying to make sense of this drunken string of words.
Something happens; something that's been happening quite often lately. Steve's eyes flash downwards, just for a second, right to where Eddie's lips are.
Eddie's heartbeat involuntarily picks up speed.
'What did you need to forget, Steve?' Eddie asks again.
'Can't tell you,' Steve mumbles so softly that Eddie can barely make it out over the loud music. 'I don't wanna make you feel guilty. I'm not judging you, y'know. 'S fine.'
He abruptly lets go of Eddie and takes a step away from him, stumbling right into some girl who pushes him back with an annoyed scoff; if Eddie weren't still standing right behind him, he would've fallen on his ass for sure.
'Alright, you're not making any sense tonight, big boy, but I can't in good conscience let you stay here by yourself. How 'bout I'll drive you home?'
Eddie glances at his watch. If he hurries, he can probably still be back to do what he came here for before the good part of the party is over. He does kinda need the cash.
'Can't,' says Steve. 'Can't go home with you.' Something in his voice is breaking and suddenly there are tears in his eyes, and Eddie still doesn't understand what's wrong; he feels like he's overlooking something huge, something that should be obvious.
'Let's just go outside to talk, then?' he suggests.
'Can't. Dance with me, Eddie.'
But when Eddie starts gently tugging Steve towards the open door leading to the garden, Steve easily lets himself be led outside. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath when the cool night air reaches his lungs, as if one gulp of fresh air will instantly make him sober up. But he's still swaying on his feet, making Eddie grab onto him tighter.
Eddie likes to think of himself as moderately strong, but unfortunately, hauling 180 pounds of muscled jock around is starting to take its toll on him. He spots a bench in a secluded corner of the garden and guides Steve towards it.
'This better?' he asks.
'Yeah,' Steve breathes out. Even now that they're both sitting down, Steve keeps clinging onto him. 'Look at the stars, Eddie.'
Eddie looks up at the scattering of lights twinkling far above them - but he can feel Steve's eyes still burning into his face.
When he directs his gaze back to the guy sitting next to him, Steve's face is even closer than before. The starlight is reflected in his hazy eyes, tiny specks of silver hidden in various shades of brown and black.
'I wish I could kiss you,' Steve whispers, looking at Eddie with nothing but admiration behind that glassy drunk gaze.
Eddie almost forgets to breathe. He knows that it seemed like he and Steve were headed exactly toward something like this for a while now, but he still can hardly believe that it is real. That Steve Harrington is really looking at him like he's just as precious as the stars in the sky above them.
He brings up a hand, gently caresses Steve's soft cheek.
'Maybe you don't have to wish,' he whispers back, unable to stop his eyes from flashing towards Steve's beautiful lips for a moment. 'Tomorrow. When you're not drunk anymore. If you still remember this.'
'No.' Steve shakes his head, so fiercely it makes his hair flap in all directions and his complexion at least two shades paler. 'Can't.'
'Why do you keep saying that, Steve?' Eddie asks softly.
'Cause.' For a moment Eddie thinks Steve is gonna grab his ass, but then... he randomly frees Eddie's handkerchief – the one with the skulls – from his back pocket.
'Cause of the Russians.'
Eddie can only stare at him in confusion.
'They tied me up,' Steve all but whispers. Eddie hates how small and broken his voice suddenly sounds.
He has always known – broadly speaking – about what happened to Steve and Robin miles beneath Starcourt last year. He's never actually heard Steve talk about the details, though. All he knows is that he and Robin were captured by Russian spies and somehow made it out alive. He could always see how difficult it was for Steve to talk about it whenever it came up, but he never wanted to pry. And now here they are, at some goddamn high school jock party of all places, and all of a sudden Steve willingly brings it up.
'I was with Robin,' Steve continues, still in that scared and broken voice. 'And they tied us to a chair. We couldn't move. And they – they hurt me. They hit me. 'Til I was bleeding all over. I thought I was gonna die. Robin thought I was dead.'
'Jesus Christ, Steve,' Eddie breathes out, tightening his grip around Steve's torso.
'So I can't,' Steve mumbles, holding up Eddie's handkerchief as if it's some kind of logical explanation for whatever it is he's trying to tell Eddie.
'Wh- What?'
'I know what it means, Eddie,' he says, as if he's even remotely making sense right now. 'You know John?'
'Who the hell is John?' Eddie only keeps finding himself more and more lost in this conversation.
'My cousin,' Steve says, like it's obvious, like he's ever talked about some cousin named John to Eddie before. 'The one in New York. He knows all about that shit, right? He sends me the good magazines sometimes when my parents aren't home. That's how I know.'
'Know what?'
Steve only waves around with that stupid handkerchief again.
'You're flagging, aren't ya? You like pain. Like BS... BM...'
Eddie feels his jaw drop.
'What the fuck are you talking about?' he asks. 'It's – this is a metal thing. It looks metal. I literally have no idea what you're – flagging?'
Now Steve's face finally mirrors the confusion Eddie has been feeling for the past ten minutes.
'Are you serious?' he asks, for one second showing more clarity in his eyes than Eddie has seen all evening.
Eddie nods.
'So it's not...' Steve stops himself, swallows, frowns. 'You're not into, like, hurting people and shit?'
And finally, it all clicks together in Eddie's mind: the repeated chorus of I can't, the story about the Russians, the goddamn handkerchief... Flagging. BDSM.
'Why the hell would I get off on hurting you, Steve?' is all he can get out of his mouth.
And Steve honest-to-Satan starts giggling; it sounds so relieved that Eddie kinda feels like giggling too, scary metal image be damned.
'I dunno, it's more common than you think,' Steve mumbles. 'I wouldn't judge you, alright? But I knew I could never give you that. No matter how much I like you. And then you'd get bored of me.'
'Oh, Steve,' Eddie whispers out. 'You don't need to worry 'bout that, I swear. For all I care, we can have the most vanilla sex in the world forever. Or never have sex at all. As long as it's with you... I'm good.' Eddie cringes as soon as the words leave his mouth: it sounds too cheesy, too sincere. He kinda hopes Steve will have forgotten this particular part of their conversation tomorrow morning.
But Steve doesn't look at him like he thinks it's stupid at all: his eyes are wide and he's smiling a soft smile.
'You sure? You won't get bored?'
Eddie chuckles. Now that he's being too goddamn cheesy anyway, he might as well double down on it. 'I can't imagine getting bored of getting to hold this body in a million fucking years. In any way you'll have me.'
Steve heaves out a relieved sigh before he buries his head against Eddie's chest.
'Can I bring you home, now?' Eddie asks.
There's a twinkle in Steve's eyes when he lifts his head again.
'Ooohhh... You wanna have the most vanilla sex in the world with me now?'
A chortle escapes Eddie's lungs.
'Um, maybe tomorrow, when you're not drunk off your ass,' he answers with a wink. 'For tonight, just lemme get you to bed, 'kay?'
'Okay, big boy,' Steve answers, and Eddie can't help but laugh before he presses a kiss against Steve's forehead.
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I'm in A Mood™ (stressed) so im going back to my roots of melting two character together into one person. So bruce wayne!danny fenton. Danny Fenton who, for eight years, grew up in a beautiful gothic manor with his mom and dad under the name "Bruce Wayne". Playing piano with his mother, running around the manor with his father.
Then when he's eight it's ripped away from him. There's blood on his hands and pearls pooling at his feet, and both his parents are dead in front of him.
And he gets shipped off to distant relatives "the Fentons" shortly after, Alfred close on his heels because someone needs to take care of him, someone that knows him. Bruce goes to the Fentons for the safety of anonymity. Gotham's press wants to sink its teeth into him.
Danny misses his city even if it took everything from him. There are shadows in his eyes and he's pale as a sheet even beside his distant cousins, and they change his name to "Danny Fenton' because nobody should know that their newest child was illustrious orphan Bruce Wayne.
They call him Bruce behind closed doors. Danny prefers it that way, he clings onto the name -- the one his parents gave him -- like a lifeline. He makes friends with Sam and Tucker. Tucker takes one look at the willowy, morbid little boy standing in the corner like a shade, ghosts in his eyes, and drags him out into the sunlight, and takes him over to Sam.
When Danny is twelve, he's still not over it -- and he's a little obsessed with the Fentons' research, with the morbid. He has books upon books on death, murder, detective work. Anything he can get his hands on. And stars. He loves stars.
Alfred owns the apartment next to them and comes over regularly. Danny clings to him.
When Danny is twelve, he's still quiet, meek, a shy little thing prone to being bullied. Freaky little Fenton with the night in his eyes and too-cold skin even before he put one foot in the grave. in a sleepover in his room with Sam and Tucker, he tells them the truth. They're his friends, he trusts them.
"My name is Bruce." he murmurs, voice quiet as the breeze, always quiet. he's staring at his star-covered sheets.
"Like Bruce Wayne?" Tucker asks, a joking tone in his voice.
Danny smiles a little, lamb-like with insecurity. "I am Bruce Wayne." And he takes them down to the lab, disrupting Maddie and Jack, to prove it. Sam tells them of her own wealth then shortly after. They start calling Danny "Bruce" in private too -- its trust. Thats what it is. It's trust.
Sam goes to media functions and comes back with aching feet and complaints on her tongue -- and Danny soaks it up all like a sponge, splayed across a beanbag chair with Tucker in her room. He's not envious of her, he used to go to events with his parents and they kept him safe from the ugly of Gotham's Elite. For the most part. He's had comments made at him, he doesn't miss them.
Alfred returns to the manor semi-regularly, Danny goes with him. he wanders the hallways and helps Alfred clean, the last thing either of them want is for their home to fall into disrepair. He brings Jazz with him next time, then Tucker, then Sam. They all help him clean, and he shows them his room. The one across from his parents', it feels strange.
When Danny dies when he's fourteen, the first adult he tells is Alfred. He and Jazz go over to his house more often than they stay in the Fentonworks building. At least at Alfred's, the food doesn't come to life. Alfred sits at the kitchen table and weeps when Danny tells him, Jazz is upstairs, and its just the two of them.
Danny's ghost form wears pearls around his wrist and the gloves look stained with some kind of black substance. He looks like a child who died in a lab accident, but he also looks like a child who has shadows dripping off his shoulders, curling at his feet, hanging from his eyes.
because amorphous blob batman has my heart always and danny/bruce will not escape it even in death even if that IS the only reason im giving him Mild BatBlob Vibes...so far
when they go to the manor, alfred helps danny make a pile of stones between Martha and Thomas' graves, nobody but the two of them (and sam and tucker) will know what it means. (not even bruce's children later down the line, not for a long, long time)
danny dives into ghost fighting on shaky feet and not half as witty as he once was in one world. he's skittish, skittering between blasts from shadow to shadow and clumsily making his way through each battle. but helping people lights a fire in him. he still has shadows dripping off his feet but there's a purpose in his eyes.
and god help him, he's going to help people.
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