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whyisaravenlike-awritingdesk · 8 months

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How Could You Think, Darling, I'd Scare So Easily? (ao3)

The moment I heard this song, I just knew I had to write a Nessian drabble, and so here it is for day 3 of @nessianweek !

Set post-acofas and pre-acosf. Each night Cassian sits on the roof of the building across the street from Nesta’s apartment, waiting for a light in her window.

There was a light in her window.

A flickering flame, almost swallowed by the darkness, a candle fighting hard to stay lit in the draughts that slipped through the cracks in her window frames.

Go home, Cassian.

The words she’d spat on a darkened road laden with snow, with venom on her tongue and agony in her chest. That Solstice night - weeks ago now, months - when she’d pushed him away so thoroughly he thought it a wonder there was any part of himself that remained unbroken, he’d taken it in his stride, let her walk away, only to follow her at a distance to make sure she got home safe.

Go home, Cassian.

Didn’t she realise that he was home? Wherever she was, whenever he was by her side— he was home. And it didn’t matter that she hissed and spat and clawed at him with that sharp tongue of hers. Fuck, it didn’t even matter that she had been out tonight, in a bar with other men. It killed him, but it didn’t matter when she took them home, didn’t matter that it wasn’t him waking up in her bed in the morning, or bringing her tea as the sun broke above the horizon.

It didn’t matter, because no matter how much she tried to make him run— here he was.

Sitting on a rooftop across the street from her apartment, waiting in the darkness for a glimpse of a light in her window. A sign that she was home— that she’d made it back safe.

She was broken and hurting and trying desperately to find some way to mend, and gods, didn’t Cassian know well enough what that was like? Didn’t he remember his own anguish, his own agony, after his first war? So how could he judge her now— how could he fault her, when her heart was breaking as much as his?

And how could she ever think it would be enough to make him turn away?

His love was not feeble or fickle or fragile— it was unending and uncompromising and unwavering, and gods, how he wished she saw it. How he wished she knew that she was the beginning and ending of his everything, that which his entire world seemed to now revolve, and it was her name he whispered in the darkness each night, her face he saw behind closed eyelids. What was he, without her? Who had he been, in all those centuries he’d endured not knowing her name?

So it didn’t matter that she pushed him away.

None of it mattered.

Nesta was his, the one he’d almost died for, and when he promised her they’d have time he meant it— meant every fucking word he’d uttered as he lay there close to death. He wouldn’t turn from her now— not even with all the distance between them, all the words spoken in anger.

And as that candle continued to flicker on her windowsill, he ran a hand through his hair and rose to his feet. He turned away, knowing that he’d be back tomorrow night.

And the next, and the next.

For however many nights it took until she was okay again… he’d be here, sitting on that rooftop. Waiting.

And with each tremble of that fragile flame in that distant window, he’d picture it— the day he’d wake with her by his side, her fingers woven tight with his, her eyes no longer stricken with the kind of grief that stole his breath, endless in its magnitude. The day he’d hold her again, kiss her the way he had in those last few moments on that battlefield, the kiss he’d thought would be his last. His heart ached behind his ribs, some piece of him shattering with every slam of her door in his face, but still—

It didn’t matter.

He wouldn’t break, could take anything she threw his way, and good gods, he’d been through enough to know that he’d go through it all again if it meant that at the end of it all, he got to hold her in his arms.

So he’d wait.

He’d sit in the darkness and make sure she made it home. He’d stand back, waiting on the sidelines with his heart bruised black and blue, because he’d promised to find her and he’d meant it, and even if it took her a little longer to find her way back to him…

Cassian would deal with it.

Because he was hers in every way imaginable, and oh, he loved her. And there was not a single thing in the world she could do that could shake the love from him, make it vanish from his heart. Nothing, no matter how hard she tried.

He’d wait for her. For a week, a month, a year. A century or a millennia. It didn’t matter. She was his, and he was hers, and someday, he knew, they would have the kind of forever that the poets and the bards sang about, the kind that made everything else cease to be. Someday, he would love her the way she deserved, cherish her the way she ought to have been cherished all along.

It was just a matter of time.

#nessianweek2023 #nessian #nessian drabble #there is no plot here #just angst #Spotify

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hailsatanacab · 5 months

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Family Dinners - dpxdc

"Holy shit, you're Bruce Wayne!" Danny gaped, jabbing a finger at the man sitting at the head of the table.

The bustling dining room goes silent as everyone turns to look at him.

"Danny, who did you think was going to be here?" Tim asks, disbelief plain in his voice and Danny feels his face flush red.

"Sorry, I, uh, I guess I just never put it together. Tim Drake-Wayne. Wayne Manor. It, uh, makes sense now." He laughs sheepishly and scrubs at his neck before slumping back down into his chair.

"Well," Tim says with an indulgent sigh, "at least I know you're not just friends with me for my connections."

"Yeah, I'm really sorry, I just never thought about it, I guess."

Danny sinks lower as everyone around him laughs. Come to dinner, he said, the food is the best, he said, ignore the family, he said. Danny really wishes he'd listened to Tim and just ignored them—almost as much as he's regretting accepting the offer in the first place—but... he's having dinner with Batman.

Ancients, that's so weird!

The last time he saw Batman was in the future and, suffice it to say, it was not going well. There hadn't really been time for family dinners there.

Wait. Family dinners?

He peers around the table, openly gawking at everyone as it all clicks into place.

"Everything alright, Danny? Now realising who everyone else is?" Tim asks with a roll of his eyes.

"Uh... something like that..." Danny mumbles as everyone laughs again.

From further down the table, the smallest Wayne scoffs and clicks his tongue.

"I thought you said he was smart, Drake?"

"So, you all do it, too, then?" he asks, ignoring the jibe. Danny's only a little bit jealous as he thinks of how much easier they must have it, how much easier it'd be if his family had been on his side, too. "You all work together?"

"Nah," Dick says from across the table with a brilliant grin. "Tim's the only one that works with Bruce, we all have different jobs. I'm a police officer in Bludhaven."

"Disgusting." Danny blurts out without thinking—because seriously, what kind of self-respecting vigilante would also be a police officer?—before clapping a hand over his mouth. "Sorry."

The whole table laughs again, the loudest being the blonde girl a few spaces down from Dick. Look, Danny wasn't really paying attention to names when they were all paraded in front of him. Dick only gets remembered because his name is a joke.

Come on, Danny, recover!

"That's, uh, not what I meant, though."

"Oh?" Dick asks, cocking his head slightly to the side. Is it Danny's imagination or does his smile tense slightly?

"Yeah, I mean like, you know, in costume. It must make it so much easier to have everyone together like this."

"Costume? What do you mean?"

Yeah, Danny's not imagining it, everyone tenses up at that. It's really only now that he's realising that this probably isn't how he should bring up that he knows about their... night time activities. In fact, he probably shouldn't be bringing it up at all.

"Uuhhh..." Danny looks wildly around the table as he continues making his stupid noise. Think, think, think! There must be a way out of this!

"Danny?" Tim asks, looking concerned.

"Oh, Ancients, this isn't how I wanted it to go at all," he mutters, slipping even further into his chair. He's almost on the floor now and he so, so wishes it could just swallow him up.

His real first meeting with Batman was meant to be cool! He had planned to be Phantom, maybe save them from a tight spot, prove his worth as a mysterious and powerful ally as thanks for the help Batman gave him in the future.

"Danny, what are you talking about?" Tim starts tugging on his sleeve in an attempt to pull him back up from his pit of despair.

Eventually, Danny relents and sits up straighter, hiding his face in his hands and whining all the while.

"I'm sorry, I just didn't expect him to be here and it threw me off so now I look stupid and it's so embarrassing!" he wails, flailing his arms wide. "Why wouldn't you warn me that Batman was your adopted dad, Tim? Couldn't you have let me know?"

"I'm sorry, what? Danny are you alright? There's no way Bruce can be Batman, look at him!"

"Yeah," the blonde girl laughs from the bottom of the table, "look at him! That's a wet noodle of a man! Batman can actually do things, B is incapable of pretty much everything."

"Thank you, Stephanie," Bruce sighs, massaging his forehead.

It's... Those are the first words Danny's heard Batman say since everything went down and it's enough to knock him out of his embarrassment.

It's really good to hear his voice again. Especially now, when it's strong and healthy and full of personality—even if that personality is little more than a tired father right now—far better than how it had been, at the end.

Danny sits up, back straight, and grins. He's got this. He remembers it perfectly. Some people count sheep to fall asleep, Danny repeats his mantra to be certain that he'll never forget it.

"Gamma alpha upsilon tau iota mu epsilon, 42, 63, 28, 1 colon 65 dash 9."

Once again, the whole table falls into silence.

"Holy shit..." breathes the other D name (Duke? Danny's pretty sure he's Signal) from opposite Stephanie. "Isn't that...?"

"The time travelling code." The littlest Wayne says stiffly. "We have met in the future?"

"That's not just the time travelling code, Dami." Dick says, looking between Danny and Bruce. "That's the family time travelling code."

Danny's grin freezes in place.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"1 colon 65 dash 9." Dick explains, still flicking between him and Bruce. "It means you've been adopted into the family and we should all treat you as such, no questions asked."

"Tell you what, I'm about to ask a question." Danny says, dumbstruck. "You just told me it was a code to identify time travellers, not anything about being adopted! What the hell, B?"

Bruce looks about as shellshocked as Danny feels.

"We must have been close," he says finally, after opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water a few times.

"No! Not that close!" Danny reels back, taking a deep breath ready to refute it all, but... "Well, I mean, you found me when I first got stuck, and you helped me get better despite being... And then we fought together against the, uh, bad guy, before he, um, he... before you couldn't."

An uncomfortable beat passes while they all pick up on what Danny tried so hard not to say.

"So, you're not from the future, then, you travelled there and came back?" Tim asks, breaking the tension and leaning forward with a glint in his eye.

"Yeah, it was a whole end of the world thing, but don't worry about it," Danny says with a hand wave, "It's all kosher now, won't ever happen."

"What did happen?"

"Seriously, don't worry about it, we cool."

"How long in the future was it?"

"About ten years? You were pretty spry for an old man, B," Danny laughs, wishing they'd get off the topic of what happened and get back to the adoption bit.

Everyone shares degrees of a cautious smile as they relax out of the shock, and Dick—whose grin is the biggest—says, "No wonder you got the family code, you're already riffing on him like one of us. How long were you there for?"

"A week, before I managed to get back to my present and stop him then."

"A week? Jeez, B, that has to set some kind of record, seriously."

"Oh!" Danny says, sitting bolt upright and blinking in surprise before pointing at Dick and bouncing in his seat. "You're Nightwing!"

"What?"

"That's exactly what Nightwing said when Batman told me the code! Makes so much more sense now."

Dick laughs and claps his hands, delighted.

"You were not formally adopted?" The grumpy small one—Dami?—asks, his face pinched.

"I didn't even know I was informally adopted."

"And your parents? Are they alive or dead?"

"Damian, stop—"

"They were dead in the future, but they're alive now." Danny says, looking down. He fiddles with the tablecloth, twisting the fabric around his fingers as he fights down the pang of sadness that he always feels when he thinks of them now. He forces a bright smile on his face and hopes it doesn’t look too strained. "I just, uh, can't talk to them much, anymore."

"Damian," Dick warns, "1 colon 65 dash 9. Treat them as family, no questions asked."

"This is Damian treating him as family, the little turd has no manners." Tim scoffs, rolling his eyes, but he gently bumps shoulders with Danny to knock him out of his funk. Danny can't help but send him a watery smile.

"I have the most exemplary manners, Drake, unlike some people." Damian spits, crossing his arms with a pout. "I was merely ascertaining his status to see how he could possibly fit into the family."

"I know this is all a bit sudden, Danny," Bruce smiles, ignoring Damian and reaching out to lay a warm hand on his arm, "for all of us. But if I felt strongly enough to give you that code after spending a week with you in the future, then you are more than welcome in this family, if you so choose it. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we'd like to get to know you a bit more."

"I know a threat when I hear it, Bruce." Danny snorts. "But, yeah, I get it. I'm sorry this is all so weird, it really wasn't how I wanted to find you again, but... I'm glad I did."

"So are we, Danny." Dick says, with a warm smile. "And formally or not, 1 colon 65 dash 9 means you're family. Welcome to the fun house! No take backs or refunds, sorry. You're stuck with us."