#bat detector

[indagold-orchid]

Sodoku is in fact the cuddliest laughing rat!

[astralportalmultidimensional]

🦇👀

[rats-rats-rats-rats]

I don't see a rat

feesh ;)

[jcmarchi]

The ‘Secret Routes’ That Can Foil Pedestrian Recognition Systems

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/the-secret-routes-that-can-foil-pedestrian-recognition-systems/

The ‘Secret Routes’ That Can Foil Pedestrian Recognition Systems

A new research collaboration between Israel and Japan contends that pedestrian detection systems possess inherent weaknesses, allowing well-informed individuals to evade facial recognition systems by navigating carefully planned routes through areas where surveillance networks are least effective.

With the help of publicly available footage from Tokyo, New York and San Francisco, the researchers developed an automated method of calculating such paths, based on the most popular object recognition systems likely to be in use in public networks.

The three crossings used in the study: Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo, Japan; Broadway, New York; and Castro District, San Francisco. Source: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2501.15653

By this method, it’s possible to generate confidence heatmaps that demarcate areas within the camera feed where pedestrians are least likely to provide a positive facial recognition hit:

On the right, we see the confidence heatmap generated by the researchers’ method. The red areas indicate low confidence, and a configuration of stance, camera pose and other factor that are likely to impede facial recognition.

In theory such a method could be instrumentalized into a location-aware app, or some other kind of platform to disseminate the least ‘recognition-friendly’ paths from A to B in any calculated location.

The new paper proposes such a methodology, titled Location-based Privacy Enhancing Technique (L-PET); it also proposes a countermeasure titled Location-Based Adaptive Threshold (L-BAT), which essentially runs exactly the same routines, but then uses the information to reinforce and improve the surveillance measures, instead of devising ways to avoid being recognized; and in many cases, such improvements would not be possible without further investment in the surveillance infrastructure.

The paper therefore sets up a potential technological war of escalation between those seeking to optimize their routes to avoid detection and the ability of surveillance systems to make full use of facial recognition technologies.

Prior methods of foiling detection are less elegant than this, and center on adversarial approaches, such as TnT Attacks, and the use of printed patterns to confuse the detection algorithm.

The 2019 work ‘Fooling automated surveillance cameras: adversarial patches to attack person detection’ demonstrated an adversarial printed pattern capable of convincing a recognition system that no person is detected, allowing a kind of ‘invisibility. Source: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1904.08653

The researchers behind the new paper observe that their approach requires less preparation, with no need to devise adversarial wearable items (see image above).

The paper is titled A Privacy Enhancing Technique to Evade Detection by Street Video Cameras Without Using Adversarial Accessories, and comes from five researchers across Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Fujitsu Limited.

Method and Tests

In accordance with previous works such as Adversarial Mask, AdvHat, adversarial patches, and various other similar outings, the researchers assume that the pedestrian ‘attacker’ knows which object detection system is being used in the surveillance network. This is actually not an unreasonable assumption, due to the widespread adoption of state-of-the-art open source systems such as YOLO in surveillance systems from the likes of Cisco and Ultralytics (currently the central driving force in YOLO development).

The paper also assumes that the pedestrian has access to a live stream on the internet fixed on the locations to be calculated, which, again, is a reasonable assumption in most of the places likely to have an intensity of coverage.

Sites such as 511ny.org offer access to many surveillance cameras in the NYC area. Source: https://511ny.or

Besides this, the pedestrian needs access to the proposed method, and to the scene itself (i.e., the crossings and routes in which a ‘safe’ route is to be established).

To develop L-PET, the authors evaluated the effect of the pedestrian angle in relation to the camera; the effect of camera height; the effect of distance; and the effect of the time of day. To obtain ground truth, they photographed a person at the angles 0°, 45°, 90°, 135°, 180°, 225°, 270°, and 315°.

Ground truth observations carried out by the researchers.

They repeated these variations at three different camera heights (0.6m, 1.8m, 2.4m), and with varied lighting conditions (morning, afternoon, night and ‘lab’ conditions).

Feeding this footage to the Faster R-CNN and YOLOv3 object detectors, they found that the confidence of the object depends on the acuteness of the angle of the pedestrian, the pedestrian’s distance, the camera height, and the weather/lighting conditions*.

The authors then tested a broader range of object detectors in the same scenario: Faster R-CNN; YOLOv3; SSD; DiffusionDet; and RTMDet.

The authors state:

‘We found that all five object detector architectures are affected by the pedestrian position and ambient light. In addition, we found that for three of the five models (YOLOv3, SSD, and RTMDet) the effect persists through all ambient light levels.’

To extend the scope, the researchers used footage taken from publicly available traffic cameras in three locations: Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo, Broadway in New York, and the Castro District in San Francisco.

Each location furnished between five and six recordings, with approximately four hours of footage per recording. To analyze detection performance, one frame was extracted every two seconds, and processed using a Faster R-CNN object detector. For each pixel in the obtained frames, the method estimated the average confidence of the ‘person’ detection bounding boxes being present in that pixel.

‘We found that in all three locations, the confidence of the object detector varied depending on the location of people in the frame. For instance, in the Shibuya Crossing footage, there are large areas of low confidence farther away from the camera, as well as closer to the camera, where a pole partially obscures passing pedestrians.’

The L-PET method is essentially this procedure, arguably ‘weaponized’ to obtain a path through an urban area that is least likely to result in the pedestrian being successfully recognized.

By contrast, L-BAT follows the same procedure, with the difference that it updates the scores in the detection system, creating a feedback loop designed to obviate the L-PET approach and make the ‘blind areas’ of the system more effective.

(In practical terms, however, improving coverage based on obtained heatmaps would require more than just an upgrade of the camera sitting in the expected position; based on the testing criteria, including location, it would require the installation of additional cameras to cover the neglected areas – therefore it could be argued that the L-PET method escalates this particular ‘cold war’ into a very expensive scenario indeed)

The average pedestrian detection confidence for each pixel, across diverse detector frameworks, in the observed area of Castro Street, analyzed across five videos. Each video was recorded under different lighting conditions: sunrise, daytime, sunset, and two distinct nighttime settings. The results are presented separately for each lighting scenario.

Having converted the pixel-based matrix representation into a graph representation suitable for the task, the researchers adapted the Dijkstra algorithm to calculate optimal paths for pedestrians to navigate through areas with reduced surveillance detection.

Instead of finding the shortest path, the algorithm was modified to minimize detection confidence, treating high-confidence regions as areas with higher ‘cost’. This adaptation allowed the algorithm to identify routes passing through blind spots or low-detection zones, effectively guiding pedestrians along paths with reduced visibility to surveillance systems.

A visualization depicting the transformation of the scene’s heatmap from a pixel-based matrix into a graph-based representation.

The researchers evaluated the impact of the L-BAT system on pedestrian detection with a dataset built from the aforementioned four-hour recordings of public pedestrian traffic. To populate the collection, one frame was processed every two seconds using an SSD object detector.

From each frame, one bounding box was selected containing a detected person as a positive sample, and another random area with no detected people was used as a negative sample. These twin samples formed a dataset for evaluating two Faster R-CNN models –  one with L-BAT applied, and one without.

The performance of the models was assessed by checking how accurately they identified positive and negative samples: a bounding box overlapping a positive sample was considered a true positive, while a bounding box overlapping a negative sample was labeled a false positive.

Metrics used to determine the detection reliability of L-BAT were Area Under the Curve (AUC); true positive rate (TPR); false positive rate (FPR); and average true positive confidence. The researchers assert that the use of L-BAT enhanced detection confidence while maintaining a high true positive rate (albeit with a slight increase in false positives).

In closing, the authors note that the approach has some limitations. One is that the heatmaps generated by their method are specific to a particular time of day. Though they do not expound on it, this would indicate that a greater, multi-tiered approach would be needed to account for the time of day in a more flexible deployment.

They also observe that the heatmaps will not transfer to different model architectures, and are tied to a specific object detector model. Since the work proposed is essentially a proof-of-concept, more adroit architectures could, presumably, also be developed to remedy this technical debt.

Conclusion

Any new attack method for which the solution is ‘paying for new surveillance cameras’ has some advantage, since expanding civic camera networks in highly-surveilled areas can be politically challenging, as well as representing a notable civic expense that will usually need a voter mandate.

Perhaps the biggest question posed by the work is ‘Do closed-source surveillance systems leverage open source SOTA frameworks such as YOLO?’. This is, of course, impossible to know, since the makers of the proprietary systems that power so many state and civic camera networks (at least in the US) would argue that disclosing such usage might open them up to attack.

Nonetheless, the migration of government IT and in-house proprietary code to global and open source code would suggest that anyone testing the authors’ contention with (for example) YOLO might well hit the jackpot immediately.

* I would normally include related table results when they are provided in the paper, but in this case the complexity of the paper’s tables makes them unilluminating to the casual reader, and a summary is therefore more useful.

First published Tuesday, January 28, 2025

[sagsunandmoon]

sometimes i think about how in batman arkham knight, when he walks through the gcpd every metal detector goes off. it inspired me to think about just how many metal weapons the bat carries on him at all times, enjoy this:

The JLA on an off world mission, negotiating with an Alien species:

Unknown Leader: “Yes, I’m afraid this meeting is under a no weapon policy, so please deposit them here along with any other belongings” holding a large metal box

Ollie: deposits his bow and arrow, along with a knife strapped to his calf

Diana: following suit, depositing her lasso and sword

The others do as well, the box quickly filling with a range of explosives, swords, knives, handheld traps, etc.

Then it gets to Batman…

He was just going to ignore the order, keeping all of his equipment with him before Diana gave him a sharp look, he sighed-

He started with his batarangs, the team expecting him to move on once they were released from his utility belt, but instead he proceeded to pull 2 from his calves, 2 from under his boots, one across his chest (nobody knew that the insignia could also come off??), and 4 hidden under his cape along his back.

Unknown leader: Alright then, we may procee-

Batman released his grappling hook from the belt, along with 4 explosives, 2 smoke bombs, and an emergency flair, putting them in the box as well.

Barry looked at him with utter confusion in his eyes, yet also nodded, clearly impressed. He moved to turn back to the leader but was stopped when Bruce pulled out even more equipment.

He unhooked one ear of his cowl, pulling out 3 different lock picks, the other ear detached and and became a retractable blade. (no one knew how this was possible).

Just when they finally thought it was coming to an end, he takes out 3 more knives lined in his cape pleating, a can of shark repellent?, an inhaler (for Tim), a small tin of hair gel (for Dick), a snickers bar (for Jason), a glitter bomb (for Steph), weighted gloves (for Cass), sunglasses (for Duke, not because of his power but because someone will ask him about the power and he feels he needs the glasses to complete the look), and a juice box (for Damian).

The box is full, the team is bewildered, Bruce has the audacity to ask for a second box. The aliens audibly sigh.

[into-the-gimmickverse]

Tumblr Gimmickverse list (updated vers) (Pt 1)

To all the gimmick blogs, I am so sorry for summoning you all. This is unfortunately the only way I can post the list <3

The threatsverse

@fuck-you-ominous-threats

@the-real-list-of-ominous-threats

@backup-ominous-threats

@the-fake-list-of-ominous-threats

@the-list-of-real-ominous-threats

@list-of-lists-of-ominous-threats

@twelfth-list-of-ominous-threats

@another-list-of-ominous-threats

@love-you-ominous-threats

@this-threat-is-ominous

@i-identify-as-an-ominous-threat

@nominous-threats

@autotheist-of-ominous-threats

Signsverse

@ominous-signs

@silly-signs

@hazard-symbols-that-fuck-hard

Gimmickthiefverse

@gimmick-thief

@gimmick-thief-thief

@bad-gimmick-thief

@gimmick-thief-thief-thief-thief

@gimmick-thief-theif-thcief

@gimmickthiefthiefthiefthiefthief

@gimmick-remover

@gimmick-thief-burglar

Identifierverse

@fish-identifier

@cat-identifier

@identifying-cars-in-posts

@identifying-horses-in-posts

@identifying-planes-in-posts

@poorly-identifying-cats-in-posts

@identifying-cat-phenotypes

@identifying-cats

@identifying-cellphones-in-posts

@identifying-bees-in-posts

@identifying-guns-in-posts

@identifying-guitars-in-posts

@identifying-gulls-in-posts

@identifying-fonts-in-images

@identifying-the-unseen-in-posts

@dragons-locator

@creatures-in-posts

@certified-piss-posts

@mammalidentifier

@identifying-spacecraft-in-posts

@dog-spotted

@cat-spotted

@i-identify-guns-in-posts

@identifying-dinosaurs-in-posts

@identifying-birds

@identifying-maille-weaves

@identifying-typewriters-in-posts

@mouse-spotted

@snake-spotted

@certified-new-york-posts

@chicago-mentioned

@identifying-snakes-in-posts

@which-os

@identifyinggimmickblogsinposts

Detectorverse

@fox-detector

@bear-detector

@detector-detector

@loss-detector

@girl-detector

@orca-detector

@carbon-monoxide-detector

@south-carolina-detector

@corviddetector

@goose-detector

@crab-detector

@gay-detector

@opossum-detector

@bell-detector

@columbiforme-detector

@corvid-detector

@axolotl-detector

@snow-leopard-detector

@bat-detector

@salmon-detector

@detector-detector

@mouse-detector

@cat-detector

@trans-detector

@egg-detector

@shark-detector

@bug-detector

@dino-detector

@crowdetector

@fish-detector

@skid-fit-detector

@therickrolldetector

@crane-detector

@lizard-detector

@i-detect-rickrolls

@pigeon-detector

@bronzong-detector

@text-inverter-detector

@tsunderedetector

@british-alert

@eroticismofthemachinedetector

Achievementverse

@pointless-achievements

@achievement-unlocked

@randomitemdrop

@dailyquests

@achievement-achievement-unlocked

[eidolonetchings]

Obsessed with all of these actually

Actually, you can do B without the third identity- oh maybe it could be a way for him to explain "childish" Jax being CEO Tim Drake

Tim: You've met Angel in person, actually

Bats: What.

Tim: Yeah we're basically identical so we switch sometimes. Mostly we use it for Drake Industries stuff

Bats: *moment of vindication ("Angel is a CEO!"/"They are twins!") before they actually process that and start reanalyzing every Jax interaction they've ever had*

Bats: *not entirely confident* You're lying.

Jax/Tim: I was kinda hurt you didn't notice, to be honest

Bats, who canonically took Jax at face value when he acted sad as a joke: oh my gosh we did meet him. When????

I am putting in my guesses for how the third identity is gonna pan out because if I’m right then I have physical proof that I’ve earned being smug abt it.

A) literally just Alfred (Tim’s Version), answers the bat question of “how the fuck aren’t they dead in a ditch yet”, with the same way that the bats aren’t, Alfred™️

B) Tim somehow gaslight gatekeep girlbosses his way into making them think he has an identical twin and that they swap who goes to see the bats so the other can do hotline stuff (primarily because I think it would give Bruce several gray hairs)

C) Randomly creates a meta fake identity with technomancy and acts aghast when the bats say he implied Angel does all the tech stuff because he would NEVER discredit meta identities talents like that

D) Bats won’t get off his back about running into dangerous gang hide outs so he makes up a criminal informant who totally exists you guys dw about it he 100% knew that warehouse was vacated before entering trust

you're hilarious. alright let me hear it

A) wonderful idea. alfred!tim would be really funny

B) twin theory will never not be funny to me

C) this one is actually so funny he just pretends to be a meta for shits and giggles bc 1. it'll piss batman off and 2. why not

D) i'm actually so into this last one i may steal it briefly because i'm laughing my ass off at the idea like:

tim: that warehouse is safe dw

bruce: how do you know that

tim, who was at that warehouse not two seconds ago: uhh. i checked.

bruce: what

tim: i mean james. james checked.

dick: who's james

tim lying out of his ass: my criminal informant who exists

bats: what (there's ANOTHER one?)

[frownyalfred]

the thing about the bats is that they're never lacking pockets. belt compartment, suit pocket, random reinforced lining in a glove, you name it. they've got a million gadgets and items hidden away on their person at any given time. getting them through a metal detector is a nightmare. and it's not all weapons -- it's weird multi-purpose tools, fear toxin antidotes in little vials, different clips for the grapple lines, etc.

the average person looks at a batkid and thinks they have ten, maybe fifteen items on them max. supers with x-ray or magic see a whole car's worth of items carefully layered under the various armor pieces and belts. and somehow every single bat knows where every single item is at any time. just like their dad <3

[indagold-orchid]

So when I kiss him, he emits 20 khz and 50khz squeaks at the same time which according to everything I looked up, he hates and loves it?

Mixed messages.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

wow this is the first ever art for the Thomas and Martha Wayne Memorial Gas Station 🥹

does jason todd have a memorial in the gas station? i'm pretty sure you said there aren't uniforms, but does bruce have a bloody tshirt behind plexiglass or something which he inexplicably got from police evidence? i feel like more people would be rightfully concerned by this behaviour without the whole vigilante thing to hide behind

there's a framed photo of him behind the register yeah. it stays up after he comes back to life and it pisses him off so so bad.

[stealingyourbones]

Zeta Beams are a very finicky and powerful technology that require specific conditions to work properly.

Being shot with an unknown ray from one of Lex Luthors guns mid zeta was not one of those conditions.

Superboy, reappearing out of the zeta beam, now dazed and confused, stumbles and leans against the closest solid object and takes in his surroundings.

He’s in a lab of some sort, and whoever used it knew a wide variety of sciences. Chemistry equipment consolidated to one corner of the room while a mildly cluttered bench of mechanisms, welding equipment, and doohickeys take over another corner of the room. The entire workplace was bathed in a toxic green light coming from…

Kon turned and gawked at the massive swirling green vortex and pushed off the metal edge of the tear in reality that he had been leaning on.

His mind was running miles a minute. He was meant to be at the Watchtower and he’s here in some windowless laboratory and a portal that looks like something straight out of science fiction. He doesn’t know what to do but all of his scrambling thoughts screeched to a halt the moment he heard footsteps and an unknown heartbeat coming down a set of stairs he hadn’t noticed on his quick scan of the room.

He should have flown to the ceiling and hid or used his X-Ray vision to identify the threat but he was reeling so badly he just stood frozen in place, a foot or two away from the portal casting a long shadow that cut through the violently green glow.

A man in an orange jumpsuit barrels down the stairs with- is that a bazooka?

The orange wall of a human man whipped around the barrel to face him. “DIE GHOST!”.

“I’m sorry what?”

Kon didn’t get a verbal answer but he sure as hell got a physical one. The man pulled the trigger and a glowing green bullet of *something* shot towards him. Kon momentarily debated dodging out of the way with his super speed but thought better of it. Robin would tell him to stay still and show the threat that he couldn’t be harmed to shut down the fight before it could escalate any further.

Blocking his face from debris, Kon closes his eyes and lets the projectile make contact.

He expected to be thrown back into the strange vortex portal thing or feel the impact, but to his surprise he felt absolutely nothing. Whatever glowing green and white metallic stuff he was hit with, he was completely invulnerable to as a half Kryptonian.

(It is at this point where I sped the writing along to bullet point outlines)

- Kon goes hey wtf man I’m not a ghost

- Jack doesn’t buy it it might be a ghost trick.

- Jack slowly walks up to Kon with a Fenton bat.

- Kon stares at him arms crossed. He knows now he can’t be hurt

- Jack, making full eye contact with Kon and goes ‘you can’t fool me ghost’ or something and hits him over the head with the bat.

- Bat shatters over Kon’s head as Kon stares at him and does a “are you done?”

- as he says this Jack Fenton slowly raises a lipstick lazer

- Jack turns on lazer and Kon glares at Jack exasperatedly.

- Kon’s patience runs out. He grabs the lazer from jacks hands and crushes it in his palm.

- I’m not a ghost man. I was trying to zeta to the watchtower and now I’m here now can you stop??

- Jack doesn’t understand what those words mean. Mutters that this might be a fascinating new discovery and goes over to the tech corner

- Grabs a tsa metal detector wand looking thing and waves it over Kon, who hasnt moved and is now curious to see what this man will do knowing now that he can’t be hurt. (Later found that this universe boosts his powers a tad which is making him More Invulnerable)

- It beeps and jack looks at it and his face of confusion turns to a massive grin. He turns towards the stairs and shouts to Maddie that they have a extradimensional non ghost guest and to move the ghost gear out of the guest room.

- Kon is like what the shit why did this mans attitude chanhe so much

- kon is then temporarily housed by the Fentons whilst they are delighted to start on a new big project. they plan to make an addition onto the ghost zone portal to find the frequency of other dimensions and make a gateway between them using Kon as the tuning fork to find his dimension.

[luludeluluramblings]

Vigilante!Smalltown!Reader exhausted and cornered after a night of running from the Bat Family.

Bruce with adoption papers in his Batbelt: I'd advise you just come quietly. You're exhausted and we have you surrounded.

Vigilante!Smalltown!Reader: Maybe, but do you really think I don't have a plan to get out of this?

Bruce my precious baby has a contingency plan im so proud: You're to exhausted to use your abilities any more, but, by all means, try.

Vigilante!Smalltown!Reader taking a deep breath and making sure the entire family's attention is on them.

Vigilante!Smalltown!Reader pointing directly at Bruce: Catwoman tops him.

The entire Bat Family's heads whipping to look at Bruce at breakneck speed.

Bruce: There is nothing wrong with-

Vigilante!Smalltown!Reader: He calls her 𝓜𝓸𝓶𝓶𝔂~

Bat Family.exe has stopped working

Bruce: It was only one time-

Jason: It's fucking true?!

Stephanie: Ｂａｔｍａｎ＇ｓ ａ ｂｏｔｔｏｍ．．．

Dick: There is nothing wrong with being a Bottom.

Barbara over the comms: We get it, Dick. You're a switch. But, really? A mommy kink, B? Talk about issues.

Duke: Cass, can you confirm if he's lying?

Cassandra the human lie detector: He is.

Tim: You guys realize this means Wonder Woman probably topped him too, right?

Damian: So that's how Mother got him...

The entire Bat Family dissolving into a massive analytical debate over all of Bruce's previous relationships and roasting the ever loving shit outta him while Bruce continues to deny being a bottom.

Vigilante!Smalltown!Reader sneaking off: my work here is done

A/N: I may have cackled while writing this. It's terrible, but, boy oh boy, does it bring me delight.

A/N: I'm also in that weird place where I have a million ideas or none at all and either have very little time or motivation to write. No in between. Urgh.

A/N: I don't actually headcannon Bruce as a bottom, but as a dude who has tried everything at least once (or twice.) But y'all can if y'all want.

[solxamber]

Mission: Emotionally Compromised || Jamil Viper

Jamil’s greatest failure as a spy? Falling head over heels for the person he was meant to destroy.

this one is for @chocolatebearstrawberry who made the divider i use here!! i love you <3

As the CEO of one of the most powerful tech companies in the world, you’ve always prided yourself on two things: your razor-sharp business acumen and your ability to sniff out deception from a mile away.

Your competitors, on the other hand, have prided themselves on one thing: trying (and failing) to steal your technology.

For years, you’ve played a high-stakes game of corporate cat and mouse, batting away industrial spies like a bored housecat knocking expensive wine glasses off the counter. You’ve watched billion-dollar corporations sink millions into elaborate heists, only for their agents to fail spectacularly. Frankly, it's getting a little embarrassing for them.

But now, thanks to the untimely departure of your longtime secretary (who swears their early retirement has nothing to do with being bribed into luxury exile), you suddenly have a vacancy.

And judging by the pile of applicants currently waiting in the lobby, every single one of them is a spy.

The Parade of Intelligence Failures™:

First up is Agent Steve (probably not his real name), whose résumé is written in Comic Sans and lists "lockpicking" under "special skills." When you ask him about his previous administrative experience, he stares at you blankly for three full seconds before blurting out, "I can type… very fast?"

Next is Ms. Definitely-Not-Wearing-a-Wire, who keeps touching her ear like she’s communicating with someone. Midway through the interview, you distinctly hear a whisper from her earpiece: "Ask about the security systems."

Then there’s Tech Bro #5, who brings a USB drive and, while maintaining full eye contact with you, tries to plug it into your computer. Your computer. The one sitting on your desk. Right in front of you.

By the time Mr. Fake-ID Falls Out of His Wallet stumbles in, you’re fighting the overwhelming urge to launch yourself out the nearest window.

This is getting pathetic.

You’ve sat through twenty interviews of barely competent corporate espionage, and you’re ready to set up a PowerPoint presentation titled, "How To Spy Without Immediately Getting Caught: A Workshop For Morons."

Do they think you built a billion-dollar empire by being stupid? Do they think your years of fending off corporate espionage haven’t honed your bullshit detector into a finely tuned death laser?

You start debating whether to just hire a golden retriever and call it a day—at least dogs have loyalty.

And then he walks in.

Enter: Jamil Viper.

The moment he steps into your office, you know this one is different.

For one thing, his résumé isn’t riddled with typos or hilariously obvious red flags. His credentials? Flawless. His demeanor? Polished and professional, with just the right amount of charm—not so much that it feels like he’s trying to butter you up, but just enough that you actually want to keep talking to him.

And his entrance exam? He aces it. Perfectly.

Too perfectly.

There is no way in hell that someone this competent just happens to be looking for a secretary position. You know he’s a spy.

But unlike the human disasters before him, Jamil Viper is actually good at his job.

And if someone is going to try and infiltrate your company, wouldn’t you rather it be someone who at least has the decency to be competent about it?

You lean back in your chair, watching him carefully as he sits across from you, his expression unreadable. You wonder how many layers of deception he’s hiding behind that composed facade.

Slowly, a smile creeps onto your lips.

This could be fun.

Because if Jamil Viper thinks he’s going to outmaneuver you, then clearly, no one has warned him that you love playing with fire.

You slide the contract across the desk, extending your hand.

"Congratulations, Mr. Viper," you say, amusement dancing in your voice. "Welcome to the company."

His fingers are warm when they clasp yours in a firm shake. His gaze, sharp and assessing, lingers for just a second too long.

And just like that, you hire a spy to be your personal assistant.

This is either the smartest or the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.

And honestly? You can’t wait to find out which.

Jamil has never questioned his assignments before. His role has always been straightforward—he is given a task, he completes it with precision, and he collects his payment. There is no room for personal involvement, no need for unnecessary complications.

This particular job should have been no different. His directive was clear: infiltrate one of the most formidable tech companies in the industry, assume the role of a secretary, gain the CEO’s trust, retrieve the necessary proprietary data, and exit without raising suspicion.

A simple, methodical process. He estimated it would take no more than a month, perhaps two if the CEO proved particularly cautious.

However, the moment he steps into your office, Jamil recognizes that this assignment will not proceed according to the standard operational model.

You are perceptive. That much is clear from the outset. Your interview questions are sharp, carefully constructed to gauge more than just his administrative skills. You are watching him—not just listening, but studying, assessing. There is a calculating glint in your eyes that suggests you have already categorized him in some way, and he does not yet know whether that categorization is in his favor.

Then comes the moment that shifts the trajectory of his expectations entirely.

You lean back in your chair, fingers steepled as you regard him with an almost amused expression. "So, Mr. Viper," you say, voice laced with something close to mischief, "are you a spy?"

The question is absurd in its directness, yet the casual way you pose it makes it clear that you are not expecting a confession—you are testing him. A lesser operative might have faltered, might have hesitated for the fraction of a second that would betray uncertainty. Jamil, however, meets your gaze evenly, offering a measured smile.

"If I were," he replies smoothly, "would I admit it?"

You laugh—not a dismissive scoff, but an actual, entertained laugh, as if you are thoroughly enjoying this game. And that is what makes Jamil's stomach twist slightly. Because he is beginning to suspect that you already know.

The contract slides across the desk, a silent challenge. He watches as you extend your hand, the motion deliberate, expectant.

He has been in the industry long enough to recognize a trap when he sees one. And yet, despite every internal alarm warning him to be cautious, he shakes your hand.

He has taken on countless assignments in his career, but this time is different.

This time, he is not just infiltrating a company. He is stepping into a game.

And for the first time in his life, Jamil wonders if he is the one being played.

Jamil Viper is, quite frankly, the best thing that has ever happened to you.

You have run this company for years, clawed your way to the top with sheer wit and willpower, and in all that time, you have never known peace. Your life has been a never-ending cycle of fires to put out, idiotic employees making mistakes, and backstabbing business partners who think “compromise” means “stealing your ideas and pretending it was a collaborative effort.”

But then Jamil arrives.

Jamil, with his quiet efficiency and terrifying competence. Jamil, who doesn’t ask you to repeat yourself because he actually listens the first time. Jamil, who doesn’t need reminders because he remembers everything, down to how you like your coffee and which pens mysteriously go missing when your CFO visits.

For the first time in your career, you are leaving work at a reasonable hour.

You actually saw the sunset yesterday. The sunset. Do you know how long it’s been since you’ve seen anything but the dim glow of your office lights at midnight? You don’t. You’re afraid to check.

Your skin? Clear.

Your inbox? Organized.

Your sleep schedule? Still questionable, but at least now it’s due to personal choices and not business emergencies.

You are so overcome with gratitude that you nearly burst into tears when you realize you no longer have to threaten your vendors personally because Jamil handles it all with a few well-placed emails.

He is better than any assistant you have ever had. Possibly better than some of your business partners. Hell, at this rate, you wouldn't be surprised if he could run the company better than you.

Which is exactly why you can’t afford to let him go.

You know why he’s here. You are not naïve. He is undoubtedly a spy, sent to steal your technology, your secrets, your life's work. But the problem is that he is too good. You cannot afford to lose him.

So, you make a decision.

You will convert him to your side.

It’s not just about protecting your company anymore. No, this has become personal. Jamil Viper is yours now. He just doesn’t know it yet.

The numbers didn’t make sense.

You were good at numbers. Numbers were the only thing in this world that didn’t lie. Numbers were solid, unyielding, completely immune to human deception. And yet.

Your CFO had to be skimming. You’d suspected it for a while—no one bought that many first-class flights for “business conferences” that didn’t exist—but now that you finally had the time to actually dig into the company’s finances, you could feel it in your bones. There was money missing. Not a lot at once, just enough that a lazier CEO wouldn’t notice.

But you noticed. And now, sitting in your dark office, practically feral with frustration, you were going to find it.

Jamil peeks into your office, and you see his brows furrow in irritation. He steps inside without invitation, eyes flicking to your desk, to the stacks of papers, to you, hunched over and pulling at your hair like a mad scientist on the brink of discovery.

“…Why are you still here?” His voice is level, but you detect the judgment beneath it. “I made sure your schedule was clear. You should have been home by five.”

You make a vague, distressed sound—somewhere between a whimper and the dying gasp of an overworked CEO. “I have a mouse to hunt,” you say, still frantically flipping through documents. “A very cunning mouse.”

Jamil, to his credit, does not roll his eyes. He does, however, step forward and pluck the file from your grasp before you can protest. His sharp eyes scan the pages, his fingers flipping through them with practiced ease.

You watch as his expression shifts into something thoughtful, his lips pursing slightly, his brows furrowing in deep concentration. You can see his mind working.

Jamil is infuriatingly intelligent. He always has been. You knew it the moment he walked into your office for his interview and answered every question with precision so perfect it was almost suspicious.

But this—this is something else. His eyes flick from one line to another, scanning, calculating, searching.

And then it hits you.

His hair.

His stupidly perfect, annoyingly silky, meticulously styled hair.

The way it’s always just slightly different every day. Some days it’s neater, tied back with care. Some days it’s looser, like he didn’t have time to properly tame it. Some days it’s so perfect it looks effortless, which means it probably took him ages to get it like that.

Your brain connects the dots.

Your CFO’s expenses had fluctuations that made no sense at first glance. But what if—what if the embezzlement wasn’t consistent? What if he only siphoned money on certain days—days when he needed to make the numbers look normal, like a fluctuation in operational costs?

Like how Jamil’s hair was slightly different depending on how rushed he was in the morning.

Your eyes widen. You grab Jamil’s arm.

“It’s the payroll processing days,” you say, the revelation clicking together. “The numbers don’t match on payroll weeks because he’s hiding them within the irregular adjustments! He’s only stealing when payroll is being processed because that’s when the accounts fluctuate naturally.”

Jamil blinks, then looks back at the files, and you see it—the exact moment he finds the irregularity, the way his eyes sharpen, the way the corner of his lips twitch in mild irritation.

“…Huh,” he says, flipping back to double-check.

You beam at him. “Jamil, I could kiss you.”

He does not react, but his ears turn slightly red. He hands the file back. “Don’t. Just fire your CFO.”

“Oh, I will.” You grin, stretching your arms behind your head. “And then I’m going to have so much fun ruining his career.”

Jamil gives you a look. You pretend not to see it.

Jamil has worked for a lot of powerful people before. He’s seen how they act—detached, ruthless, calculating. People who don’t say thank you unless there’s an audience, people who treat loyalty as a transaction rather than a virtue, people who see their employees as numbers on a spreadsheet rather than human beings.

And then there’s you.

You, who smile at every single employee as if they’re the most interesting person in the world.

You, who face betrayals with an easy grin, as if it’s just another puzzle to solve.

You, who refuse to be jaded, as if the sheer weight of your responsibilities isn’t trying to crush you every single day.

Jamil has worked as a secretary before, long enough to know that this is not normal. It’s not normal for a CEO to approve leave requests without question, to cover all medical expenses without a fight, to sit down at the employee cafeteria and listen to people’s grievances like a normal person.

It’s definitely not normal for you to turn to him at the end of a long, grueling day—after uncovering a massive embezzlement scandal in your own company—and say, “Let’s get dinner. My treat.”

Jamil expects a high-end restaurant. The kind of place where the portions are offensively small, the food is questionably pretentious, and the bill alone could sustain an entire household for a month. The kind of place where people like you—people with power, people with money—go to flaunt their superiority.

Instead, you take him to a tiny, hole-in-the-wall restaurant run by an elderly couple who clearly know you on a first-name basis.

“Ah, welcome back!” the old woman greets you warmly, eyes flicking to Jamil with curiosity. “And who’s this? A date?”

Jamil chokes on air.

You laugh—loudly—and wave off the comment. “Nah, just my secretary! He helped me catch a mouse today.”

Jamil doesn’t bother correcting you.

The menu is scrawled in barely legible handwriting on a whiteboard near the counter. You order the greasiest, most artery-clogging meal he’s ever seen in his life. Jamil orders something safer, something that won’t take five years off his lifespan.

When the food arrives, you practically vibrate in your seat, taking a bite with the enthusiasm of a child eating their first piece of candy.

Jamil stares at you in mild horror. “You eat this every day?”

You grin, already halfway through your meal. “Yeah.”

Jamil doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

But he eats. He eats, and he listens to you ramble about ridiculous workplace rumors, and he watches you laugh so hard you snort when you make a terrible joke.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, Jamil finds himself laughing too.

Not because your joke is funny—because it isn’t. It’s awful, actually.

But maybe because your eyes shine too brightly in the dim light.

Maybe because you seem so human right now, so painfully, vividly human.

Maybe because he knows he’ll have to leave you behind soon, and yet here he is, eating unhealthy food and smiling at you.

Jamil has never questioned his jobs before. He gets paid, he gets the work done. Simple.

So why does it feel so different this time?

Jamil has worked for some eccentric people before. Billionaires with more money than sense, CEOs who thought meditation on top of a glass skyscraper would give them divine insight, a director who once insisted that his morning coffee had to be stirred exactly 72 times counterclockwise or the stock market would crash. He’s seen it all. Or so he thought.

And then there was you.

You were a genius, of course. No one could deny that. You had single-handedly revolutionized an entire industry and kept your technology locked down so tightly that even the best corporate spies had walked away empty-handed.

But you were also—how to put this nicely?—completely, utterly unhinged. Eccentric was too mild a word. You were like a mad scientist and a particularly stubborn golden retriever had been fused together in a tragic yet strangely effective laboratory accident.

Jamil has had a front-row seat to your absurdity for months now, but today? Today takes the cake.

He enters the office expecting chaos, but he still isn't prepared to see a bouncy castle taking up the center of the room. It is massive. Garish. A primary-colored monstrosity that clashes violently with the sleek, modern aesthetic of your office. It is also, for some reason, fully inflated.

Jamil watches as you bounce in deep concentration, your tie undone, your shoes discarded somewhere in the corner. Your movements are precise, like each jump is a carefully calibrated equation.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Dare I ask?”

You pause mid-bounce, floating for a second in the air like some kind of enlightened acrobat before landing gracefully and turning to him with a grin. “I needed to think.”

“…So naturally, you brought a bouncy castle.”

“Of course.” You wave a hand, as if this should be obvious. “Sometimes, when my brain gets stuck, I just need a little kinetic stimulation. You know, shake up the neurons.” You jump again, flailing slightly before catching yourself. “It’s like—have you ever had a word on the tip of your tongue, and then you do something completely different and suddenly it comes to you? Same concept. Except instead of drinking water or taking a walk, I jump on an inflatable castle like a responsible adult.”

Jamil stares. His headache is already forming. “You’re going to break your neck.”

“Nope! Tested the weight limits. We’re good.” You bounce again, then stop abruptly, eyes widening. Your entire posture shifts, shoulders straightening, expression sharpening. You scramble off the castle, grab a nearby notebook, and start writing furiously.

Jamil watches, baffled, as you tear through an entire page with equations and diagrams, the kind of thing that would take a normal person weeks to conceptualize. And then you stop, beaming like a kid who just cracked open a piñata full of gold.

“I GOT IT,” you declare, spinning the notebook around as if Jamil has the clearance—or the desire—to understand whatever ridiculous breakthrough you just had. “This is going to make everything ten times more efficient! Jamil, this is genius.”

Jamil, who has not slept properly in three days because of this mission, who has already accepted that this job is going to either kill him or make him reconsider every life decision he has ever made, just sighs. “Great. So was the bouncy castle necessary?”

You turn back to him, eyes bright, smile wider than he’s ever seen. “Absolutely.”

And the worst part? The part that truly makes him question if he’s losing his mind?

He almost believes you.

Meetings like this made you wonder if you could get away with legally replacing the entire board with three possums in a trench coat. These relics in overpriced suits had two working brain cells between them, and one was currently occupied with nursing last night’s hangover.

They thought that their decades of mismanaging money somehow gave them wisdom. You would almost find it impressive, the way they clung to their illusion of relevance, if it weren’t so unbearably tedious.

You could fire them all, of course. You could clear this room in five minutes, clean house with a snap of your fingers, but you had held back out of sheer pity. They were close to retirement—one foot in the grave and the other on a luxury cruise.

Let them ride out their last few years clutching their outdated business strategies and egos. It wasn’t like they actually did anything.

But today? Today, you were at your limit.

Jamil was standing behind you, stone-faced, but you could tell he wanted to be anywhere else. His exhaustion mirrored your own. You’d been sitting here for an hour while they droned on about numbers they clearly didn’t understand.

Internally, you begged for something—anything—to spontaneously combust just so you’d have an excuse to leave. A small fire? A sudden, mysterious blackout? A divine intervention from the heavens themselves?

And then, as if the universe had heard you and decided to throw you a different kind of entertainment, one of them made a mistake. A grave mistake.

“—not that it matters to someone like you,” one of the old fossils sneered, voice soaked in condescension. “You just sit there and look pretty. Maybe that’s why you keep your secretary around—eye candy to brighten your day, hm?”

Silence.

Jamil felt the shift before he saw it. The room, which had been filled with the usual underhanded comments and the shuffling of papers, went utterly still. The air thickened, tension snapping tight like a bowstring.

You moved, slow and deliberate, sitting up from your languid position and resting your elbows on the table. Then, with a sharp crack that echoed through the room, you slammed your hand against the polished wood. Jamil was pretty sure he saw the surface splinter.

And then, you smiled.

“Say,” you said, your voice honey-sweet, “how’s your son’s wedding prep going?”

The man blinked, startled by the sudden shift in topic. “Uh—fine?”

“That’s wonderful.” You laced your fingers together, tilting your head like a benevolent ruler addressing a particularly stupid peasant. “I hope he has a strong savings account. And you, too, for that matter.”

His confusion deepened. “Why would—?”

“Because as of right now, every single one of you is fired.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

You stood, straightening your sleeves, your expression as calm as if you’d just commented on the weather. The rest of the board gaped at you, struggling to process what had just happened.

“Pack your things,” you continued, tone still sickeningly pleasant. “Security will escort you out. Your pensions will remain untouched—I’m not a monster—but your presence is no longer required. Effective immediately.”

Then, without waiting for a response, you turned on your heel and strolled out of the room.

Jamil took a moment to savor the stunned expressions, the way the old man who had made the comment looked like he was trying to compute his own downfall in real time. He had seen you be cunning, eccentric, absurd, even, but this was the first time he had seen you wield your power properly. It was—

Well.

He wasn’t about to admit it was impressive.

Or flattering.

Not even as he followed you out the door, suppressing the smallest, most insufferable urge to smile.

You’re good at reading people. That’s what makes you such a good CEO. You can tell when a business partner is about to backstab you. You can spot a bad deal from a mile away. You figured out your CFO was embezzling money based on a hunch and a particularly sleepless night.

So why the hell can’t you figure out what’s going on with Jamil right now?

Your day is over. Your work is done. You’re walking out of the building, feeling suspiciously well-rested for once, because Jamil is the best damn secretary you’ve ever had.

And there he is.

Standing near the exit, very much still here, despite having clocked out hours ago.

You stop. Blink. “Jamil? What are you doing here?”

He startles like you caught him committing a felony.

Which, honestly, makes you even more confused.

Jamil is the picture of composure in any situation. He could talk his way out of a hostage negotiation, probably. He could charm a boardroom full of old, corporate sharks into agreeing with his terms.

And yet, right now, he looks like he wants to evaporate.

You tilt your head. “What’s up? You good?”

Jamil scowls like you’ve offended his ancestors. And then, without meeting your gaze, he thrusts a box at you.

"Eat properly," he grumbles. "Heaven knows you can afford it."

And then he turns on his heel and almost sprints out of the building.

You stare at his retreating figure. Then you stare at the box in your hands.

What just happened.

You consider yourself a genius. You built an empire with your own two hands. You have patents worth billions. You have business rivals who would kill to know what goes on in your head.

And yet, this one interaction has you completely, utterly lost.

It’s only when you get home that you actually open the box.

Inside is a clearly homemade meal. Balanced, nutritious, and suspiciously catered to your exact tastes.

You crouch down. Laugh a little.

And then you pull out your phone.

You: thank you <3

Meanwhile, In Jamil’s car:

He hears the message notification. Opens it. Sees your text.

And immediately slams his forehead into the steering wheel.

The honk that follows is so obnoxiously loud that a street cat outside lets out an ungodly scream and scrambles away like it just witnessed a murder.

Jamil exhales sharply. He grips the wheel like it personally wronged him.

You’re going to be the death of him.

Jamil does not get sick.

It is a fact as ironclad as his ability to keep a secret, as certain as the sun rising in the east and setting behind your ridiculous office where you concoct new ways to stress him out.

Jamil does not get sick because sickness is a weakness—an opening in his otherwise airtight, bulletproof existence.

And yet.

Here he is.

Dying. Absolutely, irredeemably, spectacularly dying.

His body betrays him completely, weighed down by a fever that could probably fry an egg on his forehead. Every muscle aches as if he has been tossed into a meat grinder, his throat is raw, and his head is a battlefield of pain and regret.

He barely manages to lift his phone and call you, the only person who needs to know why he’s breaking protocol and skipping work for the first time in his entire life.

The phone rings. Once. Twice.

And then—

“Jamil! What’s up?”

Too loud. Why are you always so loud? He winces, nearly drops his phone on his face.

“I… I can’t come in today.” His voice is hoarse, unrecognizable. Disgusting. He clears his throat, which only makes it worse. “I’m sick.”

There is a long, stunned silence.

Then, very, very slowly—

“You’re what?”

Jamil closes his eyes. He does not have the strength for this conversation.

“Sick,” he repeats, barely suppressing the urge to just fade out of existence right then and there.

Another pause. Then, in a tone that is so soft he almost doesn’t recognize it coming from you—

“…Oh.”

Something about the way you say it makes his stomach twist—though that could also be the fever.

“Take care of yourself, okay?” you say, genuinely concerned. “Rest, drink water, and if you need anything—”

He does not hear the rest.

Because he blacks out.

Jamil is sick.

Jamil, your unshakable, hyper-competent, borderline immortal assistant—the man who somehow pulls miracles out of thin air while looking vaguely unimpressed—is sick.

You expected betrayals, corporate espionage, elaborate counter-strategies in your ongoing war to get him on your side.

You did not expect this.

And worse—he sounded awful.

Not just tired. Not just mildly inconvenienced.

You sit at your desk for approximately three minutes, trying to convince yourself that it’s fine, that Jamil is a grown man who can take care of himself.

Then you Google “how to care for a sick employee” and make the deeply logical decision to immediately drop everything and go check on him yourself.

Which is how you end up outside his apartment, ringing the doorbell like a maniac.

There is no response.

You ring again. And again.

Nothing.

A small, horrible thought creeps in. What if he passed out? What if he hit his head? What if he—

Just as you're about to kick down the door in a move that would absolutely get you arrested, it creaks open.

And Jamil is standing there.

Barely.

He looks terrible.

His usual sharp, careful composure? Gone. His hair is an absolute wreck, his eyes are dazed, and his entire body is actively betraying him by swaying on his feet like a tragic willow in a storm.

You are horrified.

“Oh my god,” you whisper, stepping forward before he can literally collapse. “Jamil, you look—”

Like death. Like the very concept of suffering incarnate.

But you do not say this out loud, because you are a good person.

Instead, you step into his space and grab him before he keels over.

“You’re burning up,” you mutter, steadying him. “When was the last time you ate?”

Jamil blinks at you very slowly, like his brain is buffering at dial-up speeds.

“…Food?”

That is not an answer.

You curse under your breath and haul him back inside, which is a feat of great strength because he is all lean muscle and fever deadweight.

How did this happen? Why did this happen? Who let this happen?

Oh. Right. Him.

Jamil is going to die.

Not from the fever, no. That would be merciful.

He is going to die from sheer embarrassment because you—his boss, his greatest headache, his most infuriating problem—are here, in his apartment, fussing over him like some kind of divine punishment.

He barely registers you pulling out a thermometer and shoving it into his mouth with all the grace of someone who has never done this before.

The numbers blink back at you ominously.

“You’re burning up,” you mutter. “Okay, I’m ordering soup. And you are not moving until you eat something.”

Jamil tries to protest. He does.

But then you press a cool towel against his forehead, and—

Oh.

Oh, that is nice.

His body betrays him once again by relaxing into your touch.

By the time the soup arrives, he is too weak to even lift the spoon properly.

So you—without hesitation, without a single ounce of normal human shame—just feed him.

Like a child.

Like he is some helpless, pathetic creature.

Which, okay, maybe right now, he is.

But still. This is humiliating.

It is also the best soup he has ever had in his life.

Jamil finally falls back asleep.

And you sit there, staring at his peaceful, fever-flushed face, wondering how the hell this became your life.

You were supposed to be running a company, not playing nurse to your best-paid spy.

You should not care this much.

And yet.

You check his temperature again. Still high, but better.

You sigh, raking a hand through your hair, and grab your phone.

“Okay,” you mutter into the receiver, pacing the room. “But what do I do if he wakes up and refuses to rest?”

A pause.

Your voice drops, quieter. “Yeah, I know. I just don’t want him to push himself again.”

Behind you, Jamil shifts.

You do not notice.

But he notices you.

Your hair is mussed, your usual sharp, teasing grin replaced with something softer.

You look worried. For him.

Jamil stares, something twisting in his chest.

Oh.

Oh, he is so incredibly doomed.

You always knew Jamil was a spy. That much was obvious.

The way he answered every question perfectly in his interview? Suspicious.

The way he executed his tasks with military precision? Suspicious.

The way he didn’t try to subtly flirt with you or brown-nose like all the other incompetent spies before him? Extremely suspicious.

But he was competent. So stupidly, ridiculously competent. And you’d rather keep an enemy that made your life easier than deal with another incompetent fool.

Besides, you like playing with fire. So you decided to see how far you could push him.

So tonight, you left your office unlocked. Oh no. What a terrible mistake. If only someone didn’t sneak in and steal your files.

And to make things more interesting, you left some semi-important files open on your computer. Documents that looked serious enough to be tempting but wouldn’t actually do much damage if leaked.

Right before you left, you made sure to sigh dramatically in front of Jamil and say, “Ugh, these files have been keeping me up at night. I sure hope they don’t get leaked or anything.”

Then, you went to your surveillance setup, made yourself some popcorn, and watched.

Because of course Jamil was going to take the bait.

And sure enough, there he was.

You watch as he sits down at your desk. Silent. Focused. The very picture of efficiency.

You lean forward as he navigates to the files. Click. Click. Scroll. His fingers hover over the copy button.

And then—

He just… stops.

Your eyebrows shoot up. Oh?

Jamil stares at the screen like it personally insulted his honor. His fingers twitch over the keyboard, hesitating.

Your interest piques. He should’ve copied them by now. He’s supposed to be a professional, isn’t he?

He clicks out of the important files.

Your jaw nearly drops. What.

He clicks out. He clicks out. He actively chooses not to take anything of worth.

Instead, you watch as he scrolls past all the confidential reports—

—bypasses all the juicy, corporate secrets—

—ignores all the schematics—

—and copies a single folder labeled “raccoons_for_a_rainy_day.zip.”

You almost choke on your popcorn.

Jamil pauses. Stares at the screen for a long, long moment.

Then, as if committing a terrible crime, he ejects the USB, tucks it away, and swiftly leaves your office.

You sit there, stunned.

Because out of everything in your company’s database, out of all the valuable information he could’ve stolen—

He took your emergency raccoon meme collection.

You blink. Once. Twice.

And then, slowly, a grin spreads across your face.

Oh. Oh, this is delightful.

You knew you were converting him to your side, but this? This is proof.

Jamil, the competent, efficient, dangerously intelligent spy, had a perfect chance to complete his mission. And instead of betraying you, he chose to betray his employer instead.

For you.

How flattering.

You had dealt with a lot of strange things in your life. A lot. But this? This was definitely one of the stupidest.

Your old secretary—the one who took a bribe and fled like a rat from a sinking ship—was currently sitting in front of you, begging for her job back. Why? Who the hell knew. You had been certain that the bribe she took would have lasted her a few years, maybe even bought her a cute little vacation somewhere far away, but apparently, money couldn’t buy wisdom. Or, in her case, common sense.

You leaned back in your chair, fingers steepled together, watching her ramble through increasingly desperate justifications. I’ve changed. I’ve grown. I’ve learned from my mistakes. You doubted it.

Jamil stood beside you, completely unreadable, but you knew him well enough by now to recognize the signs of his barely contained fury. His shoulders were stiff, his posture rigid, and—most damning of all—his fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles had turned white.

Oh, interesting.

Obviously, you weren’t rehiring her. She wasn’t even ten percent as competent as Jamil, and unlike her, Jamil wasn’t stupid enough to take a bribe when you were the one offering him far more than money. But this? This was a perfect opportunity to test something.

So you sighed, long and dramatic, before rubbing your temples as if this decision physically pained you. “I’ll consider it,” you said finally. “I’ll call you back once I’ve made my decision.”

Her face lit up, all eager gratitude, and she left the office with a bounce in her step.

The moment the door clicked shut behind her, you stood, intending to grab a file from your cabinet—but you didn’t get far.

Because Jamil blocked your path.

You blinked at him, more amused than anything, but your amusement flickered into something softer when you saw his face.

He looked wrecked.

Not in an angry way, not even in a controlled, simmering fury. No—this was something else entirely. His eyes searched yours like he was trying to find some sort of answer, his breath slightly uneven, his expression utterly betrayed. He looked like you had punched him in the gut.

You had seen Jamil irritated, seen him exasperated, seen him indulge in rare moments of smugness when his plans went exactly as intended. But this? This raw emotion spilling out of him like a dam breaking—this was new. And you couldn’t stop the way your heartbeat stuttered at the sight.

“Why?” His voice came out hoarse, like he barely trusted himself to speak. “Why would you… Why would you even consider hiring her back?”

You tilted your head, keeping your voice light. “Why does it bother you so much?”

Jamil’s mouth opened—then snapped shut. You could practically see his thoughts racing, running too fast for him to catch up, but something cracked inside of him, because once he started speaking, he couldn’t stop.

“Did I mess up?” he demanded, voice sharper than he probably intended. “Was I not good enough? Did I do something wrong? Why would you—” He cut himself off, exhaling shakily, his hands twitching at his sides like he desperately wanted to reach for you. “You know she isn’t competent. You know she isn’t better than me.”

You hummed, tilting your head in faux thoughtfulness. “Of course, I’ll give you a different position,” you mused. “No need to worry about job security.”

Jamil broke.

Before you could even register the movement, he grabbed you.

His hands found your face, his fingers curling against your skin like he needed to ground himself, like he needed to prove something—and then, he kissed you.

It wasn’t careful. It wasn’t polite. It was desperate, burning with frustration and something deeper, something so much more vulnerable than you had ever expected from him.

And then, hypothesis proven, you kissed him back.

For a moment, you simply blinked.

Jamil pulls away like he just touched something scalding, his breath uneven, his eyes wide with something close to terror. You watch as realization sets in—his own actions hitting him all at once, like a dam finally bursting and drowning him in the consequences of his own emotions.

“I—” His voice is hoarse, almost shaky, but he’s trying to regain control, trying to salvage something, anything. “I’m not who you think I am.” He says it like a confession, like a last-ditch effort to make you see reason, to make you step back and realize that you shouldn’t want him, that you shouldn’t choose him. “I was hired to—”

“My dear, sweet spy,” you interrupt, voice dripping with amused affection, “won’t you be mine?”

Jamil freezes.

You can see the exact second it dawns on him. The way his expression shifts from confused horror to pure, unfiltered disbelief. You knew. You always knew. Of course you did. He should’ve realized it sooner. You were too sharp, too perceptive, too you to have been in the dark about something so crucial.

And yet, here you were. Choosing him anyway.

His lips twitch. His shoulders shake. And then, he laughs.

Not a small chuckle, not a bitter scoff, but a real laugh, something rare and unguarded, something so genuinely light that it catches even him off guard. He laughs so hard that he nearly doubles over, his forehead dropping against yours as he exhales shakily, trying to regain some semblance of composure.

You feel his breath ghost against your skin, feel the warmth of him so close, and yet, there is no hesitation anymore, no careful, measured distance.

He shakes his head, still breathless from laughing, and when he finally meets your gaze, his expression is something unreadable, something painfully soft.

And this time, when he kisses you, there’s no fear left.

“…Fine,” he murmurs, his voice quieter now, more vulnerable than you’ve ever heard it. “I’m yours.”

You wake up to the warmth of an arm draped over your waist, the steady rise and fall of a familiar chest behind you. It’s a rare thing—to wake before Jamil. He’s always been the early riser between you, slipping out of bed before the sun has even had the chance to settle into the sky. But today, for the first time in two years, you’re the one watching him sleep.

Two years since his terrified confession. Two years since you pulled him into the kind of love neither of you had ever expected to find. Two years of whispered promises, stolen kisses, and a loyalty that runs deeper than any mission, deeper than any past betrayal.

The early morning light filters in through the curtains, soft and golden, catching on the matching rings on your fingers. A quiet proof of what you’ve built together. The sight makes something tender settle in your chest, and you press a kiss to his forehead, gentle and lingering.

Jamil stirs, brow furrowing for just a moment before he instinctively pulls you closer, his grip tightening around your waist. He buries his face into the crook of your neck, voice thick with sleep as he murmurs, “Why’re you awake so early…?”

You smile, carding your fingers through his hair as you whisper, “Go back to sleep.”

And as the warmth of him lulls you back into slumber, a thought drifts lazily through your mind—

"You sleep too," he grumbles, but it’s lazy, half-hearted. You can already feel his breath evening out, his body relaxing against yours once more. You keep stroking his hair, slow and rhythmic, feeling the last bits of tension melt from his frame.

Maybe playing with fire was the smartest move you ever made.

Masterlist

[avayarising]

Thing is, they don’t just suspect there’s something up. They know something’s up. For a start ‘similar enough to pass’ is not enough for a full Bat-level DNA analysis.

Then Martian Manhunter was able to scan Danny’s brain and determine that he had no ill intentions and that he genuinely believed that he was part of their family. J’onn was also able to determine that the memories, detailed and convincing as they were, were fake. They did not quite match with Danny’s emotional responses. There were gaps, and sometimes a suspicious lack of gaps, memories that were too clear when they should have been fuzzy.

Clockwork is, after all, a time guy, not a memories guy. And in 97.86% of timelines, it’s enough.

But in this one, the one the world actually goes down, J’onn discovers the discrepancies and reports them to Batman.

Batman is concerned on two levels. First, there’s the obvious worry that Danny is some sort of sleeper agent awaiting only the correct trigger to bring them down.

Second is the deep concern and worry for this poor child whose whole life was erased. Who did this to him? Where did he come from? Did he know what he was getting into? Does he have a family looking for him? Does he have a life to get back to?

How can he help him?

New Twin?

ok so we know Bruce got lost in the time stream right?

And Tim saved him bla bla bla...

Ok so I'm reading a fanfic rn and it's giving me an idea for a dpxdc crossover.

Its 'TWINcognito mode' by nerdpoe

Ok so I'm thinking it's not safe for Danny in his world so clockwork pulls some strings and sets everything up for Danny to be Tim's non identical twin (theyre similar enough to pass) and he just appears in wayne manor right after Bruce gets out of the time stream.

Like I'm talking he has a room that's 'been lived in for years', he has memories of them and growing up with tim, he's acting like nothings new ect.

So he's all like "dad your back!" And they're all looking between tim and his double like "tim??? NOT tim????" And they come to the conclusion that Bruce fucked with the time stream and he spawned in.

They all feel guilty that they 'forgot' him even though they never knew him. Especially Tim, he would feel so bad if there was someone that went through what he did with their parents neglect and they only had each other, but Tim doesn't remember who this is.

He could be fully aware and is pretending so he's safe OR clockwork thought this would be for the best so he altered Danny's memories so he genuinely believes he's Tim's twin.

For the second option I like the ideas that he doesn't remember anything/he doesn't have access to his ghost half (either he has to heal from something his parents did or he can't handle the full power that comes with being ghost king) and he won't unlock his memories/powers till he dies again.

Which if he genuinely believed they were his family, and then they tell him he wasn't real a few days ago, that would probably fuck with his mind.

[sirxlla]

Hey! Would you be willing to write a fic/preference about the bat boys with the reader during a tornado? Like maybe they are visiting her parents in the mid west and one night there's a bad tornado and they have to get into the bathroom/tornado shelter and the reader is scared or something? If not it's totally okay, hope you have a great day/night!

Experiencing a Tornado Warning/Severe Storms At Night (Batboys)

Note: Thanks for requesting this; I live in Tornado Alley and Storm Chase occasionally, so it's nice to write about something I know a lot about. 🌪 also I did more of a Tornado Warnings/Storms @ night.

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

-> Dick: The weather in Gotham has never been classed as normal; there have been snow storms, rain, droughts, and on the very rare occasion there are tornados. Usually, they weren't too bad, but between Ivy and Freeze's consistent needs to change the weather, they became more prominent here in Gotham, New Jersey.

Dick had gotten a weather radio for the apartment because, like smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, it is something that's good to have in your home.

A loud noise jolts you from your sleep and repeats a few times before a voice comes through talking about a tornado warning. Dick immediately got up, grabbed the emergency bags, Haley and you, and used you to the lowest level and most central part of the building.

You were still half asleep with the blanket around you, falling asleep on him while he diligently watched the radar. Thankfully the storm went just north of the city. He gazed at you and Haley passed out on the floor of the safe room.

"Of course." He smiled as he decided it would be better to just sleep in here tonight since you and she had curled up here so quickly. He laid down next to you and watched the weather for a bit before falling asleep next to you.

-> Jason: Loud noises don't normally bother Jason, but tonight has been awful. Every bout of thunder or flash of lightning was making him relive parts of his dark past.

Jason's the sweetest and worries about you often, and therefore, he tends to neglect his needs. You were sleeping like a baby next to him, blissfully unaware of the memories plaguing his mind. He wanted you to get sleep.

"Fuck, I wanna wake her, but I- I can't be selfish. She needs sleep." He thought to himself as he tried to ignore the thoughts in his brain; Jason put on headphones and scrolled through his music, picking something before another light crash happened outside, which caused him to jump so far in the bed.

You woke and quickly realized the problem, you weren't gonna touch him unless he asked or wanted you to. Times like this touch were either the thing he needed the most or the thing he needed the least, but before you could contemplate, the weather radio went off talking about an indicated Tornado Warning for Gotham City.

Your danger and his snapped Jason out of PTSD mode into protector mode, he pushed any anxiety from his mind and quickly grabbed your hand.

"Baby, we should get in the Batcave. It's the safest place near here, and it's underground." He stated as he pulled you up out of bed, grabbing one of his hoodies for you so you're not cold downstairs.

"Are you okay still?" You asked with worry in your eyes but he says nothing as he's so focused on getting you both downstairs. Once you get there, you ask again, but he just kinda brushes off the question with a "I'm fine."

As you both get down to the cave things settle down sound wise and he starts to feel calm and the tiredness he'd been pushing off, he laid between your legs just to wait for the storms to pass but sleep won out and he's now curled up against your leg leaving a spot of drool on the thin pajama pants you're wearing. The storm passed without any tornado on the ground, thank the Gods.

-> Bruce: Bruce was prepared because, of course, he is; he's Batman. Bruce knew there were supposed to be storms and warned everyone in the family about them. He made you take off work. He was so worried; thankfully, you work for...you guessed it, Bruce Wayne.

Bruce always made sure to take care of you, you're irreplaceable and he'd die inside if you ever got hurt or worse. Bruce watched the storms carefully and knew there was gonna be a Tornado Warning before the National Weather Service even put out a Warning.

He didn't need to move you or wake you as you slept peacefully in the room down here in the Batcave. Bruce had this room for when he was too tired to go upstairs or when he didn't want to wake you from his nightly criminal rendezvous.

He sat down in the bed with you with a tablet in his hand to monitor the storms. Bruce's fingers caressed your cheek as you slept, your lips slightly parted. Bruce thinks it's the most beautiful thing ever when you sleep, even though you'd protest it.

-> Tim: Most of the time, you couldn't sleep if there was going to be bad weather anyway. Usually, you'd get migraines. Tim always had sudafed on him so you could relieve the pressure, but tonight, that just wasn't helping.

Tim decided a movie might help, so you and him both moved to the theatre downstairs of the manor. The both of you are just on the cusp of sleep when everyone comes rushing in to use this room as a safe room. Confusion filled both your and Tim's faces.

"What's going on?"

"Yeah, what's going on?" You spoke after Tim as you sleepily rubbed your eyes, sitting up a bit as you realized everyone's urgency.

"There is a tornado warning for the house; the caves are too dangerous to be in during any natural emergency. We should be fine in here, you two are fine where you are. I'll watch the weather, all you kids get some sleep." Bruce says with that same serious, prepared tone in his voice as he looks at all his children, unnerved for the first time in a long time. Gotham has never had a tornado warning in the past hundred fifty years.

Everyone tries to calm themselves as they experience this phenomenon for the first time. Tim notices your discomfort and rubs your temples, the tornado warning was doing nothing good for the migraine pulsating against your skull.

Everyone watched the movie as the storm raged on, Tim's fingers gently pressed against your temples, rubbing slow circles against the skin the entire time. Relief fills your head as the storm passes due to the storm stabilizing the pressure in the area. Finally, you've fallen asleep after an extremely long night and early morning.

-> Damian: Damian, much like his father, is prepared for bad weather; it does not bother him either, and his room is in the basement, so he doesn't really mind when there are storms, and normally, neither do you. There's a tornado warning in the area, but of course, Damian's monitoring the storm the same way his father probably is.

Everything was going well, and you slept soundly until a loud bit of thunder crashed; it shook the house with how close it was, causing you to shoot out of bed, and tears immediately filled your eyes as you cried in fear.

Normally, lightning and storms aren't an issue for you; Damian knows that. Something about it being so close was causing you to cry, which is understandable to him; it shook him maybe just as much as you, but of course, you were sleeping, so it was pure shock as well. Damian immediately wraps his arms around you, kissing your cheeks.

"Shhhh....hush, Beloved. I'm here...." He rubbed your sides and whispered to you quietly until you calmed down. Damian could be sweet when he wanted to be, he could be gentle and kind, but it wasn't something readily available to people that weren't allowed inside his walls. He kept rubbing your sides and whispering until he noticed you started to doze off.

"Shhhh...it's alright. I'm here." He glanced over at his phone as he watched the storm's track along the northeast, noticing they dropped the tornado warning. He let out a bout of relief and climbed back into bed with you, holding you close especially because of how scared you were before going back to sleep.

-> Masterlist

-> Send me requests/ prompts if you'd like

[goddessficlover]

Alice In Gotham Pt 2

  The Bats had been on edge that last 2 months, to put it lightly. Oracle was sure she heard movement above her in the clock tower. She had assumed it was one if the Bats but none of them moved that sloppily unless hurt. And yet, all their vitals looked fine on her monitors. She called Spoiler to check it out since she was the closest. What they found was nothing at all. Except the dust was unnatural. No foot prints or evidence of crawling. Like something had been dead there for a long period of time, then suddenly scrambled awake and disappeared. The way some of the dust was still settling when she got there was eerie and sent chills down the purple bat's spine. They set up a camera and motion detector to monitor the space, and after 2 months nothing came. Still, for Oracle’s sanity and Batman's paranoia, they left the camera there as a precaution.

Other than that, Gotham seemed to have less attacks, or crimes in general, than usual. Even crime alley, things were actually running. According to Intel, some homeless kid called Scraps was fixing things for small businesses and people who simply couldn't afford to replace things in exchange for food or pocket change. Sometimes he even did it for free if it was urgent. Not only that but apparently the kid could defend himself. Had saved a couple of the night girls from people who didn't understand the word “no”. They'd give him treats when he came by once in a while. Simple things like a lollipop or a granola bar. Concerningly though, they also said he'd eat it with the wrappers still on. Kid was eating actual trash to survive. That, meant Red Hood had to try and keep an eye on him. The problem was the kid kept fucking disappearing. No one knew where he was living, or if he even slept. Sometimes he'd be around early morning, or late at night. The kid had no schedule except for Sundays. When no one was watching the dump, he go and steal broken tech or salvage tools and other scraps. It was the only time Hood managed to get a glance at the kid. Didn't even need to be close because damn those blue eyes were bright, even under his hoodie. Fuck, that was adoption bait and the others were going to go nuts. Tying to follow Scraps back to his hide out was another loss, he completely disappeared around a corner as if he was never even there.

“Hold on, you said this kid works with tech but you can't catch him?” Red Robin asked.

“Nope, couldn't even find anything through the power grid. He might be working on something but he's not even using electricity for it. Or he somehow managed to get it while staying off the grid,” Red Hood responded. Red Robin was the last person he wanted to ask for help, but it had been 2 months, and this whole week not one person had been able to confirm if Scraps was around. No one had seen him since he said he had a job. Not Hood or Jason had been able to make contact since he first popped up in crime alley. At this point he was going to break his TV and hire the kid just to make sure they were okay. Kids disappearing was never a good sign. No one fucked with kids on his turf.

“Jason… what does the kid look like?” Red Robin sighed while working on the batcomputer to check crime alley more thoroughly.

  Taking a deep breath and sighing he spoke up, “Adoption bait.”

“We can not let B know about him,” Tim groaned as he drank out of a nearly empty coffee mug.

“B is not taking another kid to put into a suit. The kid’s mine to keep an eye out for,” Red Hood growled below his helmet before taking a breath, “Besides, with how smart the kid is, he'll probably get a scholarship to some school out here and end up at Wayne Enterprise anyway. He can wait a few years to meet him.”

“Hey boys,” Oracle chimed in from the Bat computer, “I've located the kid, he tends to make camera a little fuzzy around his face but those eyes are recognizable. He was spotted a week ago in the warehouse district. The same place we have a lead on scarecrow’s fear gas.”

“Fuck,” was all Red Hood said before getting back on his bike.

“Red Hood is going to investigate. Anything else you can find on him? Maybe a facial scan so we can get him back to his family?” Red Robin began going through the warehouse cameras to find which warehouse he went into, “Damn it, the same night as that storm? We can't get any good views after he entered Warehouse 56.”

“I'm going to check it out now,” Red Hood responded, “Keep B off my back. I don't want him involved, Scraps is my case.”

“I'll try, but you know he still makes mistakes with boundaries,” Oracle responded, “Should I call in Nightwing for you?”

“No, not yet. But fill him in. Something doesn't feel right about this. Red Hood out.”

—

  It took four days and about 24 renewed microchips for Hatter to keep Danny asleep. It frustrated him to no end that the chips kept wearing out after four hours. Eventually he decided some hypnosis was in order and asked the kid directly why It wasn't working.

“Regular tech doesn't respond well to my presence,” he answered soullessly.

“Really? How can you get it to work?” Hatter was surprised his Alice understood what was going on and how to fix it.

“It needs to be infused with my blood,” he answered a half truth. While under control his subconscious need to keep everything ghostly a secret somehow still came through.

“Is that all? That's so simple… Go back to sleep Alice. When you wake you will be perfect,” he ordered and Danny's eyes shut.

  Danny wasn't in anything impressive at the moment. A white night gown, plain and simple, while laying in a bed. They had moved from the warehouse to Hatter's hideout where he had access to all the tech he needed. Hatter wasn't happy to see the scars over Danny's body. His poor Alice had be hurt, been held captive by the looks of the marks on his wrists and ankles. A scar hidden in his freckles on the bridge of his nose along side others, Hatter could hide them with make up but still he felt distaste for who every damaged Alice’s face.

 In another day's time, Hatter had created a diadem with multiple chips throughout it's construction as a failsafe. All, infused with Danny's oddly green glowing blood. When it came time, his Alice was properly cleaned by the March Hare and her now finished dress was applied, along with the waterproof silver diadem. It locked into place, no simple tug off from Batman or any of the birds would work. It had to be completely unlocked to be removed. His Alice, harmed by someone else's touch was too precious to lose. It was a hard battle to get her fully under his control after all. He wasn't going to risk anything. He skin was already pale, pale like a porcelain doll. That was what this Alice was for. A doll to admire from afar for her beauty alone. Dressed in her sky blue dress with her white apron. Her puffed sleeves and white gloves to cover the scars on her wrists. Bloomers for added volume to the ruffle skirt, and of course the thigh high white socks with mary jane's shoes. A long blond wig with bangs to hide the diadem was placed on her head, another chip in the wig before the wig was glued down, as he didn't want to risk damaging her precious skin more than it was. instead Of a headband, A ribbon was tied into her hair instead. A porcelain Alice, one Hatter would keep by his side so as to not lose her.

His perfect Alice.

—

Staking out the warehouse didn't find Scraps, but they did find a surplus of fear gas being manufactured by scarecrow with what was the most efficient assembly line these goons could have put together. It was an easy take down when Nightwing and Spoiler joined in for a takedown to stop the plan to gas the city before it started. The goons were hardly a challenge, and Red Robin would be able to make a new antidote for the rebreathers incase there was another warehouse like this one. The one thing that caught their attention was a gutted microwave on display on a side table. Evidence Scraps was here. Fuck.

“What did you do to the kid?” Red Hood growled, grabbing one of the few conscious goons who had been ziptied.

“What kid?” Spoiler hadn't been let in on the Scraps case.

“Kid?” the goon looked confused.

“Scraps. What did you do to Scraps? He fixes tech to make money. You guys had him here. Tell me what you did with him or yours knees are going to bend in reverse,” Hood snarled and the guy pales.

“We hired him to fix the assembly line. Told him it was for screwing tops on bottles. Paid him and fed him. He pulled the microwave out of thin air, and used it to fix the motor or something. He left into the storm after we paid him,” the goons caved and Hood tossed him towards the pile of them where they were waiting for the police.

“So the only evidence of Scraps is a microwave he pulled out of thin air? How does that even work, it's a microwave. You can't just hide that thing. That's not even a little one, that one looks like it was built into the wall originally,” Nightwing looked at the microwave and used some light dust from his bag before brushing it away, “There's fingerprints all over. Mostly large ones, how small is Scraps?”

“Little smaller than Robin,” Red Hood answered.

“Red Hood, Nightwing, I have eyes on Scraps with Mad Hatter,” Oracle chimed him, and the tension in the warehouse rose, “3 days ago he's spotted leaving warehouse 64 with the March Hare and Scraps following.”

“Fuck,” Hood punched one the machines, as he processed the information. Scraps was pretty androgynous looking. Hatter usually preferred natural blonde but those glowing blue eyes probably drew his attention. A wig would be an easy fix, “Scan everywhere you can Oracle, if Hatter has him we’re on a time limit.”

“Littlewing,” Nightwing placed a hand on Hood’s shoulder, “We'll find Scraps. She- they can't be gone for long. Hatter never stops with just one Alice, he'll leave a trail and we'll follow it.”

“Red Robin, Oracle,” Hood spoke into his com, “Do you have any other leads to Hatter’s location?”

“No yet, but we'll keep searching,” Oracle answered.

“Can I get in on this Scraps case? The tower ghost is coming up dead,” Spoiler asked and Nightwing left to talk with the arriving officers who took the goons into custody.

  Red Hood sighed. He'd like to keep crime alley business out of the rest of Gotham, but this kid could be anywhere in Gotham now. He needed to keep an eye on Crime alley too. He needed more eyes, as reluctant as he wasn't to accept it, “Fine. You and Orphan are in because I know you will tell her anyway. Keep Robin and Batman out of it. Kid looks like adoption bait. Goes by Scraps on the streets, their real name is unknown.”

“Sound like so are their pronouns,” Spoiler laughed, “Well keep our eyes out for them. Send the case file to me and Orphan. I'll fill her in about tonight. Should we tell Duke?”

“No, not yet,” Red Hood answered, “He can't keep a secret from B if he thinks it’s serious. We might have to if we can't find any leads to check if he can see something we can't. Scraps’ eyes are blue, like they're glowing. It’s hard to miss.”

“So, their a meta in hiding?” Spoiler asked as she walked away.

“If they are, Batman is gonna be pissed,” Nightwing responded on come.

“B can fuck off. It's not like people chose to be metas, kid probably didn't even know and has no where else to go. I'm checking out warehouse 64,” Hood left, riding his bike to warehouse 64 where he found a mostly empty lot.

  There were a few forgotten things. Evidence of a tea party and a few discarded headbands. Timbit would be able to look at them later. What pissed Hood off to recognize the edging of green in his vision, was a discarded backpack, and clothes that had long since been hung to dry.

“I found Scraps personal belongings. He was here during the storm. His clothes are hung over a banister to dry. And his bag was left behind,” Hood opened the bag, two different tool boxes inside along with smaller parts of tech. Some snacks- a frozen apple?

“Spoiler might be right about this kid being a meta,” Hood spoke up.

“Really? What gave it away?” Spoiler responded through coms.

“I found an apple that's been frozen solid in a layer of frost in their bag along with tools and tech. They're an ice meta of some kind,” Hood examined the apple. The frost was intricate like lace and beautiful as it glistened in the moonlight. No evidence of melting at all. It was freezing to touch even through his reinforced gloves.

“But they left 3 days ago. How hasn't it melted?” Nightwing asked.

“Don't know but it's still cold. The kids got a bigass first aid kit in here too. Not even a water bottle. A frozen apple, three granola bars, and the rest is all tech or tools. He carries his work more than his survival supplies. He's got a place to stay somewhere but I haven't found it yet,” he put everything back into the back pack along with his clothes.

  For now, it was a dead end. They needed a new trail, a clue, but they'd have to wait. Still, the idea of a child younger than Robin in the hands of the Hatter, it made Red Hood’s stomach churn something ugly as he fought back against the pit. When they found Jervis Tetch, he'd have first dips on punching the guy so hard he'd have to get replacement buck teeth.

—

Alice was still odd to Mad Hatter. She was under his control and the chips were no longer dying out. However there were small things she did. He complained about the temperature of the room being too high, and suddenly the room cooled while her eyes glowed even brighter. He never ordered her too, she did it on her own. She wasn't programed for that. He mentioned finding another girl to dress up  Alice disappeared from his side and reappeared 20 minutes later with an unconscious woman in her arms. Blond hair, and blue eyes. Again, he never ordered her to do so. And yet, Hatter only felt glee as he realized his Perfect Alice could do more than his henchmen ever could in a very fast amount of time. But the best part was when he asked her to disappear for two minutes and she turned invisible right in front of him. His buck toothed smile was mad as he had a tool he'd never had before. A silent Alice who was as skilled in shadows and she was in the light. An Alice the bats couldn't follow back.

“Alice, my wonderful Alice, you are more than I have imagined. We are going to send some invitations soon. So for now, go rest in bed. Your mission will be ready by tomorrow night,” Mad Hatter grinned, “I have a Tea Party to plan for a special guest!”

---

  A girl was reported missing, blonde hair and blue eyes. But no evidence of a break in what so ever. No locks were touched, only the bed where she had been sleeping was touched. Nothing on the camera aside from the quality being fuzzy. Odd, those should be updated cameras. This one may have to be replaced, or there was someone altering the feed. Oracle has yet to find evidence of tampering with the cameras. By appearance alone, one suspect on Batman’s list was Mad Hatter. He'd have to keep track of other kidnappings of women with similar appearances to be sure.

With nothing left to examine at the scene, Batman moved on. Robin following close behind, annoyed at the lack of evidence he'd managed to find. Not even a finger print, the culprit was wearing gloves. Most criminals wore gloves, it wasn't unusual.

The Batman came to a sudden halt, “Robin, we have confirmation Hatter is involved with the case.”

  Robin landed besides his father and saw a blonde dressed in a blue frilly dress with an apron. It wasn't the same woman taken from her apartment. This was a child, probably a little younger than Robin, himself. She was alone, on a rooftop. Scanning the area there was no one else around. Just this child dressed as Alice, trapped under mind control.

“I shall remove the wig,” Robin approached.

“Oracle we have an Alice, send medical and alert the police,” Batman ordered as Robin slowly approached the hostage.

“B, are their eyes glowing?” Oracle asked.

“Oracle, does this have to do with Hood, Nightwing, and Spoiler’s sudden team up?” Batman asked, voice gruff with annoyance and frustration with their lack of reports from that event.

“Yes. The kid is called Scraps, and is suspect to be an ice meta. They had a frozen apple in their belongings. According to Hood it hasn’t melted yet. Kid went missing a week ago. We had a lead that revealed Mad Hatter is the one who took them,” Oracle gave a short report, and Batman grunted in return.

“Mad Hatter has invited you to a tea party,” a soulless voice suddenly came from the child as Robin was closing in.

  The child was now holding out a green envelope. Masked eyes studied the arm holding out the letter for a moment, something made Robin stiffen subtly, Batman nearly missed it. Robin took the envelope and then tried to grab their wrist only for Alice to pull free and jump back. Now standing on the ledge towards the open street. 

“Come forward, you will fall standing there. I mean you no harm,” Robin held out his hand to Alice.

“You are not permitted to touch me. The invite was delivered, goodbye,” With that, the Alice stepped back and fell.

Robin jumped after them, shooting his grappling hook to catch the wall only to find the Alice was gone. Batman had run after the child as well, both splitting into a silent search of the perimeter to find nothing. No sound of foot steps, nothing but the cars and people below. The Alice was gone, and no trail to follow them with.

“Nightwing, Spoiler, Red Hood, Batcave. Now,” Batman motioned for Robin to follow, clicking his tongue as the mysterious child escaped.

“Father, we still have the invite,” Robin handed the green envelope to Batman as they were returning to the manor. Only a quick pause to check the letter for trackers. The only thing inside was coordinates, a time, and the date two nights from now.

  At the cave, Batman was forced to wait for the trio to appear. Nightwing arrived first, then Spoiler. No surprise Red Hood was last and took as long as possible.

“Report,” Batman ordered, sternly. Eyes narrowing at his children who yet again hid something from him.

“Scraps was taken by Tetch during the storm. Red Hood started the case a week after Scraps went missing. We want to find this lost meta kid and get them into a safe place or back home. Hood’s area says they has an accent so they might not want to be in the city,” Spoiler answered, “They work as a handyman, fixing up anything. A tech nerd like RR.”

“Tech nerd? The kid had garbage in his backpack. Broken everything and mangled parts that should have been considered unsalvageable. How the hell are they gonna build anything from that?” Red Robin groaned, getting Batman's attention, “Shit.”

“Anything to report, Red Robin?” Batman glared as another one of his children was in on the withholding of information.

“The kid makes cameras glitch out or just fuzzy sometimes. We can't get a facial scan no mater how much we try and salvage the images or the cameras themselves. Scraps does something to them that we haven't managed to bypass,” and that made a sad piece click into this new case.

“We just ran into an Alice with vibrant eyes. They jumped off the roof after giving us a set of coordinates, a time, and the date 2 nights from now. I went to catch them but they disappeared. No sound of the landing, just silence,” Robin spoke up.

“These coordinates?” Red Robin took the paper from Batman and found the location on Gotham’s map.

“Hm,” Batman replied, looking up at the screen. A trap, but there was time to prepare.

“I shall prepare a guest room, then,” Alfred appeared behind them with a trolley of sandwiches and tea for an after patrol snack.

“No, we are not bringing Scraps to the manor,” Red Hood argued, although it was pointless to argue with Alfred.

“So you say Master Jason. I just like to be prepared,” Alfred left as quickly as he came.

“Scraps looks like adoption bait,” Nightwing sighed as Orphan came in with a smile.

Bruce just sighed as he removed his cowl, “If this hostage is a meta, we'll need to focus on trying to free them from the mind control. We night need to use suppressor cuffs, or a collar. What ever we can get on them temporarily to avoid injury. We will prepare in the mean time. Hatter uses mind control, we will be fighting civilians, keep that in mind.”

“Father, there was an observation I had when I was close to the hostage,” Robin spoke up again, “When they held out the invitation with their left hand I could see lichtenberg scars traveling up their arm. But instead of being pink and irritated, they were almost pure white. Along with several other smaller scars on their arms. They felt cold for the second I grabbed them.”

  Lichtenberg scars… They fade after a few days, which meant the kid was recently electrocuted… But why were they white? Red Hood took a breath, counting to 10 before focusing again.

“I need to know what happened to that kid and who's ass I need to kick,” Red Hood growled, after setting his empty plate back on the trolley.

“We’ll find them, now that we are all keeping an eye out. Tomorrow we patrol as normal, then we send a team after Hatter.”

—

Signal had been having a good morning patrol. He was quickly filled in on the Hatter situation and to try and follow the meta Alice if they came into contact. Signal was having a pretty normal patrol. Stopping a car jacking, a convenient store robbery, a mugging, and a purse snatcher. Nothing he couldn't handle on his own. Finally, a glimpse of shimmering sky blue caused Signal to stop in his tracks.

“Hey, there,” Signal turned to find the Alice, and just as described, their eyes were glowing. But so was the rest of their aura, it was flickering in an odd way, “Are you lost?”

“No,” they responded, and the aura began to fade a little more.

“Okay, you need me for something, right? Are you going to invite me to your team party tomorrow night?” Signal slowly approached. He just needed to be distracting enough that he could use a shadow to grab the wig.

“You do not have permission to touch me,” Alice turned transparent. The aura flared just as the shadow fell through them, missing the wig completely.

“Okay, I won't touch you,” Signal reached up to his com and spoke silently. Of course he didn't know Alice could hear him anyway, “Contact with meta Alice. They can density shift. My shadows passed through their body.”

“See what else you can learn about them. So far Meta Alice doesn't seem hostile,” Oracle responded, “If you can free or follow them back we might get a lead on either the trap or Hatter's base.”

“Copy,” Signal nodded, keeping the com on and recording the conversation for later. Alice was deathly still but their clothes and hair were flowing as if gravity and the wind had no effect on them, “Can you tell me what you need from me?”

“Has Robin read his invitation?” Alice tilted their head slightly, a habit Danny still maintained.

“Yes, was it just for Robin? Batman thought it was for both of them,” Signal hadn't actually seen the invitation himself, just the report about it.

“Just for Robin. Batman isn't invited,” their monotone voice continued. They lifted their left hand and held out a yellow envelope, “Mad Hatter has invited you to his tea party, Signal.”

“Okay, thank you,” Signal approached and took the envelope. Through Alice's gloves and his own, Signal felt a cold chill up his arm and down his spine.

“Goodbye,” they spoke before jump off the building, much like with Robin.

“Wait,” Signal tucked away the letter and followed Alice as their aura flared again. They never landed on the ground. Instead they were invisible on the physical plain and floating away slowly. Unfortunately the aura he followed soon disappeared with Alice all together, “Alice went west before disappearing from my vision. I'm attempting to follow. They can float, apparently. And go completely invisible, even hiding their aura. They're hard to track but if I can get another glimpse of their aura or find them with some light manipulation I can follow.”

“So definitely a meta,” Oracle was typing again, probably updating Scraps’ file, “Use the cuffs if you can get close, Signal. Scraps also causes camera to go a bit fuzzy when nearby, I'll let you know what areas I notice they might be in because of the glitches.”

“Still heading west as far as I can tell,” it wasn't an exciting chase since the hostage floated away at a jogging pace, but that didn't mean Signal wasn't having trouble. It was as if Scraps was using their aura like breadcrumbs for Signal to follow. Eventually, Scraps’ aura stopped appearing, they were gone, “I lost Scraps, I'm going to check the area incase I was lead here for a reason. We can pin the coordinates for later.”

“Already on it. Looks like you're pretty close to the coordinates on the invite,” Oracle responded, “Mad Hatter might be leading us to his base. Its obviously a trap, he must have confidence to be so careless.”

“My invite has the same coordinates as Robin's,” Duke looked in the general direction of the coordinates, the Botanical Gardens.

“Keep an eye out, we don't know where Scraps may next appear,” Oracle signed off and Signal moved on with their patrol.

—

Orphan was the next to receive an invite. It was the first time a civilian noticed her while blending with the shadows.

“Orphan, Mad Hatter has invited you to a tea party,” Once again holding out an envelope for the vigilante, Scraps stood unmoving until the letter was taken.

  Orphan attempted to follow, listening for breathing or foot steps, once again no one could follow them.

Spoiler was invited, and she tried and failed to grab the wig before Scraps disappeared.

Even Nightwing received an invite. Although his attempt to free Scraps was as fruitless as with the others. He did notice when he made a pun that Scraps had a habit of tilting their head to the side. A hint of a personality trapped inside.

Red Robin followed, but didn't immediately take the invite. His theory was Scraps would only leave after the invite was taken. It had been five minutes now. While he couldn't remove the wig, he was taking a few scans of Scraps.

“Shit,” Red Robin cursed as he scanned Scraps' vitals, “Scraps’ heart rate is dangerously low and is hardly breathing. Their temperature is insanely low at 90°F. They're hypothermic.”

“Please take the invite,” it was the first time Scraps has said anything since offering the invite and telling Red Robin not to touch them.

“I will, but can I get you to a hospital first- Hey!” Red Robin was quickly cut off by an ice shard suddenly flying his way.

Scraps was fast, slamming the letter roughly into his chest and freezing it to his suit before disappearing.

“RR what happened?” Nightwing spoke up on coms.

“I was trying to negotiate, and Scraps didn't take it too well. Fired an attack and now I have an envelope frozen to my chest,” he wasn't going to mention how that same push forced the air out of his lungs and bruised him.

“We can't wait for tomorrow with their current vitals, Scraps is going to die if we don't get them into a hospital. They need an ICU in that condition. Hatter is going to kill the kid at this rate,” Red Robin spoke up, trying to pull the letter and the ice off. The ice wasn't melting or breaking at all. Not even a scratch when he tried to use a bird-a-rang to pry it off, “What the fuck is this ice made of? I can't get it to budge. Can't even scrape off a sample.”

“You couldn't even get a sample off the apple,” Red Hood responded.

“This ice has an edge to pry under, the apple is solid all the way around. I thought if maybe… ha!” the entire chunk of ice along with the envelope came off in one solid peace, “I finally have a sample I can work with.”

“Everyone return to the cave for a debrief. We'll be infiltrating the tea party tonight,” Batman ordered his brood who wrapped up their current tasks to return to the cave.

It was time to crash a Tea Party.

~~~

Master List

Part 1

Part 3