cafeoa

[cafeoa]

You’re the mutt in the light - an angel in the night

sorry I couldn't save you I tried and I tried but you were like forest fire on forest fire til you snuffed yourself out Dick Grayson x fem!Reader | pt 1 | next... word count: 2.2K warnings: implied sexual work (nothing explicit), one use of the word whore notes: I'm working on a part 2 & 3 to this, but pt 3 is a fuse bc i'm stuck between two different endings. Yummm to let characters be happy or be consumed by themselves.

"Hey," he says, but it already sounds like goodbye.

You're smiling, lips curving and moving to clutch on to his hand as if not holding it will set the sidewalk on fire. Dark and listless eyes with smudged eyeliner on your waterline, they don't smile back, and you greet him with alcohol in your breath, a taste you're certainly conscious of but exhale in full regard, as if calling him and telling him to stay far away all the same. "Hey yourself, handsome. Missed me already?" The quick blinking, the concealer under the eyes, the tightness in your expression. There's no touching of skin from underneath his suit, but it's a ghost of a grip. You're hardly there.

"I thought I was more subtle than that," Dick plays along.

"If subtlety is your game, then you're losing, Nightwing. I like my men forward and desperate." It's a lonely alleyway, deep in Bludhaven's streets, the flickering light of the lamppost hitting the corner of your face. Early November where it's still not cold enough to see your breath. Both of you let the lie settle like a bad comedy film.

Dick's fingers twitch to hover over your eyelids, shield them from the grazing light for a lapse of rest and faux sleep. You'd pull away, he knows, and he can think about reaching out but never will. So he laughs, instead. "Good thing I’ve already booked the florists. I’ll have a field of daffodils on your porch by morning."

And you spew more lies that you both pretend are real with the prettiest smile. "My favorite." Roses or lilies or sunflowers you'd tell him, but that's too much, a grain of sand, really — the forcing of a gap that's yours too smother and mute. When you curl your arms around his bicep, letting your head rest against his arm, you do it because you don't want to. He should be stepping back or pulling away but he doesn't and you're unsure what to make of it. If you're that inconsequential or if he's turned you inside out already. "Who you stalking this time?" you ask, nothing more to say.

"Anyone by the surname DeVore, been around lately?"

You drum your nails against him, fuzzy memories molding together. "Believe so. Last night, maybe." You’re glancing at him, at the white of his mask and imagining what color eyes are behind it. For fun, not interest. "Someone important?"

"No," Dick says. "Someone he knows."

"He met some blonde guy in a checkered tie,” you start, in that tone that’s all play. “Stripes too. Like a mime got into politics. Hey, Wing — promise me you’ll never dress like that. Pretty boys like you shouldn’t waste the potential."

Dick huffs, mouth corners lifting. "I'm pretty good at keeping up with trends."

"You sound like an old man."

"Listen," Dick interjects, caution underneath how he keeps his voice steady. "He comes by again, can you talk to him for me? Nothing dangerous. He just talks. Too much, hopefully." Then, adds, emphasizes. "Only if you're up for it."

He's like a little devil whispering in your ear. You want to get as far away from him as you can. You want to give him everything he wants. "Must be bad if you're dragging me into this," you murmur, you don't know why.

"Wouldn't be the first time," Dick says.

"This is more than me slipping you some gossip here and there."

"Yeah, I know. Sorry, I won't ask again."

Dick says it with a finality that twists your insides up with uncertainty. He means it, you think. You hope. "I'll do it. What do you need?"

"You can think about it, you know." He's seeing you again — that way that makes you want to wrap your arms around him and sink your face into his chest so he has nothing to read while something to keep his hands busy in the way you're used to with men.

Instead, you say, "Nah. I’ve never been good at saying no to a pretty face. Keeps things simple, doesn't it?" Then you're letting him go, turning away to smooth down your hair and scrape off clumped cigarette ash from your heels. You're not facing him as you talk, busying yourself with fixing the clothes that stick to your skin. "Come back tomorrow just before closing. The guy was talking to Ginger. Took a real liking to her 'cause it showed she's new. Young, too. Bet you he'll be back."

With a sincerity that reels itself into your lungs, Dick says, "Thank you. Really."

And you turn your back on him because of it, palm on the handle of the kitchen door of the bar. The alley is sweltering hot, now. Every passing car and siren not loud enough to drown out the bubble you're in. "Better be important. From what Ginger told me, he's not exactly the funny type, but we gotta laugh anyway."

"Hey, wait." Dick's hand shoots out to grab your wrist, but he stops, clenches his fingers around empty air and lets his arm fall. "What about you? How are you doing?"

You laugh. You make the corner of your eyes crinkle intentionally, like that'll throw him off; as if he’s not one of the world's best detective's, mentored by Gotham's Dark Knight. "Same as the last time you asked."

"Working all night again?"

You raise a brow. Then you're teasing him, playful, full of energy in the way he knows is just to get him off your back. "If I was?"

"Then I'd ask how much do you need to take the rest of the night off." But he knows he could pay you off tonight, and you'd be right back the next. No amount of money would fix the way you think this is it for you. Still, he tries. He'll keep trying. Because that's the point, isn't it?

"Tempting," you say, almost sing-song. "But, I'll pass. I'm done at one, but I'm keeping an eye on Ginger. She's still getting the hang of things, still learning how get guys drunk enough they forget she exists."

"You're a good friend."

You don't understand why that makes you feel like a bastard. "Not friends. She's...new. To this. Still fidgety."

Here, late at night, Dick sees it. A downturn of your eye. A simpering smile, into a frown. "If you need anything—"

The smile is back on your face. When Dick really looks, he can picture the little girl fighting it out in there. "Yeah, yeah. If I need someone punched, I’ll shine a flashlight in the sky. Later, Wing."

Next time Dick sees you, you're caked in blood at the back of a police car. The red and blue lights cleave through the washed out brick sides of the building, swallowing up the pavement. A crowd's outside the bar, sealed off by yellow barricade tape. Officers talk to patrons and guests, getting statements, holding back the curious neighbors and passerby's who crowd around with nothing more to do on a Wednesday night. Paramedics are hauling a stretcher with a white sheet over a body into the ambulance, one pitstop before the morgue.

"Detective, a run down?" Dicks raking the scene with his eyes, watching the forensics department enter the building, watching the witnesses, making note of every twitch on their faces, which ones seem calm or frazzled or on the brink of running. There's a redhead sobbing on another ambulance, blanket over her shoulders.

"Solved case, Nightwing. Scram outta 'ere," Detective Swan drawls, popping a tablet of Nicotine gum in his mouth.

Dick forces on a grin. "Never seen you so excited to have me here," he says. You're in the cop car, staring straight ahead. There's blood on your collar. On your cheek. Dick can't tell how much is yours. "You sound confident."

"Murder weapon on suspect. Matchin' prints. Suspect not denying." Detective Swan pops another tablet. His fingers tap against the gum case in the pocket of his faded coat, itching and prying it open then closing it again. "Most dammin' of all, witness saw the whole thing."

"Did it come with a nice bow and greeting card?" Dick's eyes are stuck on you in the cop car. You just keeping looking ahead. Don't even care about the knot in your hair. "Sounds almost comical."

Detective Swan shoots Dick a glance from the corner of his eye, rolling his stiff neck with a drawl. "That's what I was thinkin'. Too good to be true."

"What do you have so far? Conspiracy? Have you picked up on anyone who might have reason to frame the suspect?" Dick's crossing his arms and looking back at the bawling redhead. "What did looking into the main witness get you?"

And all Detective Swan does is chew his gum, tap his foot, and exhale. The red of the sirens drowns his face in shadow. "It's a closed case, Nightwing."

Now Dick is stepping in front of him, staring him down with his eyebrows furrowed tight enough for it to read over his mask. "You're going to ignore this? That's not justice, Detective."

"And this is Bludhaven," Detective Swan replies. "That word don't always apply 'ere."

"An innocent person will end up punished."

"She didn't deny anything. Bad way to look innocent."

"Then we have to figure out why."

"And if she didn't do it?” Detective Swan opens his gum case. “Worst thing that happens is a dead crony and a jailed whore."

Dick's jaw sets.

Detective Swan meets his eyes then, from behind the mask. Tired, slouched, red in the whites. "Not everythin' gotta be fixed. Sometimes, best thing for everyone is to just let it die."

Bludhaven PD thinks its information is safe only because Dick finds it more convenient to convince them of it than have them change things up each time he needs to steal data. He's reading over your case on his handheld the minute its logged and filed, mouthing the typed words under his breath, the blue of his screen making him squint. Each detail is placed in his head like a house of stone.

A gunshot went off in the bar. Police called. DeVore shot dead in a private room, bullets match the gun with your prints on it. A gun you were caught holding. Unregistered. No fight back from you, no excuses. "He was being rude," your first statement. Ginger the sole witness, incomprehensible. All tears and snot. Dick sees her picture and it's the girl in the ambulance, same small shoulders and slouched figure like the worlds eating her. DeVore was trying something, allegedly, from her account and yours. Wound up and drunk, then you pulled a gun. Case closed.

But that's not your gun. Dick remembers: the small metal revolver that could fit in your hand, the make of it. You had slipped it out of your purse, kept it concealed by your hip, standby on your side that time you were walking down the block home from the bar during Halloween, two men yelling behind you for passing off their coy flirting. A bold one reached for your arm, and the barrel was on his side, your smile all light and fluttery like a dare. Dick had made it in time. Wrapped his hand around your wrist and lowered it gently, the sight of him sending the two men scampering away like brittle alley cats. "I wasn't going to," you'd said, stashing the gun away. You were chuckling to yourself. "My aim's so bad, I'd probably missed."

A Smith & Wesson 442, 38 special caliber. Something cheap and easily concealed. Yet the murder weapon was a Sig Sauer P365 AXG Legion, added AXG Grip Module, custom gray frame finish. Semi-Auto, 9mm Luger caliber. One thousand-fiver hundred online, higher underground and unregistered.

Crime scene photos don't give much away. Blood splatter on the bedsheets; the gun fired down at him based on the pattern. Entry wound on the side of DeVore's head. Clean exit wound. Bruising on the sides below his ribs. The autopsy hasn't been performed yet, so Dick extrapolates what he can. They're botchy and pulsing with blood underneath the skin — blunt force trauma, is his best guess. No way you'd cause that with a punch. Yet there aren't any notes of other object used to attack except for the Sig Sauer. Either the forensics team is duller than should be acceptable, or they saw little reason to search further on a solved case. It makes his jaw clench. The city doesn't want to be saved, Barbara said once. It resurfaces in the back of Dick's mind, for a second, a moment where he doesn't know what else to think about.

You're on the news come morning. No break through story, no special segment. What shows across Dick's television is a three minute report with your mugshot that he catches over a cup of earl grey while mapping out underground firearm sellers on his kitchen island. It's you from the night before; hair smoothed out now, smudged eyeliner wiped away, shoulders straight and broad. Dick pauses, sets his mug down. Over your throat, like a blossoming necklace of thorns, strangulation marks raw and sickening.

His stomach convulses. His head is in his hands, eyes closed as the bile fizzes and settles like acid. That wasn't in the file, that wasn't in the file.

[cafeoa]

Café con leche | Series

You’re the mutt in the light - an angel in the night [Dick Grayson x reader] coming soon… pt 1 | pt 2 | pt 3

Those who turn away from the light wallow in the darkness of their own shame. or, a man is murdered. You've killed him. Dick knows you, he just wants to help.

[cafeoa]

trope i really like is self-loathing characters desperate for the catharsis of punishment for frankly rather selfish reasons who r also obsessed with repeatedly pressing others into hating them and hurting them as essentially a method of self harm. yes baby continue making it worse for urself and everybody around u instead of doing an actually productive and effective journey of improvement and redemption

[cafeoa]

pairing: dick grayson x reader

word count: 3.2k (i think?)

warnings: rape mention (as per dick's canon)

notes: i keep thinking of applying one of my favourite manga/manhwa tropes with dick specifically, because it works so well, but i don't particularly care to put in the work of setting up that it'd take for it to land as well as it could. maybe later. as it is, i'll give you the quick rundown because i spent two days writing it lol

something ugly about you has made you undeserving of romance. you have spent your entire life puzzling out what it is and how to fix it. nothing much is special about you: the matter’s far from isolation, or becoming any particular sort of pariah. perhaps that'd be easier to explain. no. people leave you alone, your friends cherish you, your family loves you. it is not that you have not known affection, but that you have and so when you crash against the wall that horrible first time, it hurts all the more.

nothing changes after that. there is always a limit to where your interest can reach, unnamed but palpable. a line you cannot cross. it seems to you as if the entire world has reached a silent consensus during a meeting to which your attendance was not required and your input unnecessary. why would it be? this is not about you. after all, your ability to love has not become impaired. you like people. you’ve fallen in love. but who has ever loved you back?

this one facet of life has been closed off to you entirely, and you’ve been chased away from all attempts to form a romantic bond with unspoken threats of shame and implications of disgust. (a bit much of a display just for the offense of being little old you. you come to regard the matter so as you grow older and start curating some self-respect. it still stings as badly as scrubbing your skin raw under hot water, but not all the loathing is directed inward nowadays.)

regardless, you’ve learnt that you are undesirable, and nothing you can say or do will change that. you must be content with the other shapes that love can take. nothing that you want matters whatsoever.

you meet dick grayson one summer evening under exceedingly normal circumstances. you do not know about heroes or rogues, no batmans or nightwings. the person that crosses the threshold is none other than dick grayson, the handsome young man. suspicion does not cross anybody’s mind, and if it does, it comes only a good couple of thoughts after his darling smile and shapely thighs.

obviously you like him immediately. what’s not to like? he’s gorgeous.

you react to him with the tense wariness of someone hardened by years of useless crushes. trying to avoid him. trying to be normal when you invariably cannot. it’s fine. it’ll be fine.

you still crush on him.

it’s inevitable, at this point. he’s too pretty, too smart, too kind not to draw you in. every interaction comes a rush of exhilarating fear. at times, you manage to subdue yourself into normalcy, hang out with him with as much naturalness as you can muster. but then he does something particularly attractive and you’re back in square one, shoulders drawn together and so short with him he probably gets emotional whiplash. it’s as exhausting for you as it must be for him, and he still reacts to it with grace. it doesn’t help.

through your concerted efforts to be normal, or at least appear as much, you and dick become friends. not great friends, mind you, but good enough that you start hanging out on your own without any of your mutual friends present. and you only spend about three hours total pondering the meaning behind the phrasing of his texts. that’s gotta be some form of progress, right?

he sits at a little table away from the window, and beams when you arrive. coffee’s on him and conversation’s on you. you’ve got more in common than you first thought, but you go back and forth between imagining it must be fate and squashing down delusion, telling yourself you’re blowing it out of proportion.

at one point in time, a beautiful, sultry-looking woman approaches the table.

you and dick tense immediately, like you both know what’s coming. sure as ever, the woman smiles and asks for his number. you look away politely, sip at your drink. the proximity makes it useless to pretend you’re not eavesdropping (though it can hardly be called that when she came to your table), but you take care not to make any faces that’d give away the little storm brewing in your stomach.

this sucks, you think, glancing away from dick’s bland mask of politeness. all of it is hopeless and it still sucks.

you think about running off to the bathroom, get as far as shifting on your seat when dick shoots you a troubled look. the woman’s been at it for a little more than is appropriate. a minute or so more of insistence and she’ll be stretching the boundaries of her own dignity too far. you look away with pressed lips and move your hands under the table.

your alarm beeps.

“oh, shit, dude,” you gasp, hoping to land somewhere in the ballpark of realism. “It’s almost seven. we’ve got to go, or else we’re gonna miss the movie.”

dick gives the woman his apologies and swiftly runs out of the café with you hot on his heels. on the way to the movie theatre, you wanna ask the million questions running through your head—why’d he reject her? didn’t he like her? did he not think she was pretty? who is pretty for him? what’s his taste in partners? is he seeing someone?—but you know it’s a futile endeavor. what will you even get out of that? it’s clear dick didn’t enjoy the interaction either. you make small talk about something else, trying to draw his attention away from whatever conflicted feelings he’s moored in right now. just because you like him doesn’t mean you can’t be a good friend to him.

it’s a short walk. soon enough, he’s all smiles again. in the line for the popcorn stand, another two girls come up to him, this time much younger than you two. he’s nicer with them than he was before, but he rejects them all unequivocally.

“doesn’t it annoy you?” you can’t help but ask. when dick raises an elegant eyebrow, you panic and backpedal so hard you might as well have driven a truck through a storefront.

“a bit,” dick says, ignoring your rambling. you shut your mouth firmly closed when he gives you a sidelong glance, and continues, so very casually, “it’s worse when it comes from a friend rather than a stranger. so many people just try to befriend me because they’re looking for a relationship, or they want access to my body. it’s… tiring. i’m sure you can relate.”

“ah,” you say. your tongue feels numb, but you’re burning up under the weight of his gaze. “no. I don’t really get harassed like that or, um, asked out.”

“huh.” dick blinks. “really?”

“yeah,” you force out. blessedly, the attendant calls your attention. you jostle dick forward. “look, it’s our turn.”

dick orders popcorn. you get a large slushy that you’re not gonna finish. you make him pay. he complies with no question. inside the theatre, you spend all two hours and sixteen minutes of the showing in absolute silence. it is not so strange to be fixated on the movie, but you’re usually a little more chatty. under normal circumstances, you’d eagerly take the opportunity to lean closer to him, whisper something about the main character’s penchant for gummies and its relation to the degradation of the American working class. he’d glance at you and thoughtfully smile, and you’d catch a whiff of his cologne when you straightened.  for the rest of the movie, the twinkle of his eye as he forwent the film for your conversation would be all you’d think about.

such is not the case now.

you can tell when you’ve been summarily dismissed. in fact, you appreciate when people are subtle about their rejections. it’s always all the more humiliating when they feel the need to bring it out into the open, like your affections have been so blatant they must be commented on, debated.

the rest of the evening is spent convincing yourself that this is good, that this means it’ll be better for yourself going forward. you’ll be less distracted, if anything. dick’s attempts to discuss the movie with you afterwards fall flat, as the only thing you really want is to get home and stare at your ceiling.

when you’ve reached your apartment door, and are turning to enter after a hurried goodbye, dick calls your name.

“look,” he says, running a hand through his hair unsurely. “I don’t usually do this.”

oh, no. dread fills you up. he’s breaking up with you and you’re not even dating.

you swallow. “dick—”

“I like you a lot,” he interrupts. your teeth clang the way you shut up so fast. in fact, you feel a little dizzy. he continues before you can even process that first sentence. “I think you and I could be really good friends, and I’d love if we could continue seeing each other to, you know, hang out and talk. I do truly appreciate your insight. is that okay?”

you blink fast some three or four times. it must be comical, the face you’re making, because the corner of dick’s lips pulls upward despite him trying to keep a serious air.

“I thought we were already friends…?” you say, at a loss for anything else to say.

“yes!” he beams. “we are.”

“okay,” you respond, perplexed. this is so far out of left field. “um. text me when you’re home?”

“yeah.” he grins. gorgeous grin, to be sure, but why? “for sure.”

“cool.” you give him an awkward thumbs up and scurry inside.               

it is… baffling. you spend all of that night wide awake and pondering. dick must’ve misconstrued something, or either you missed a crucial step in your relationship. otherwise the end to that evening makes absolutely no sense. the only thing you can conjure up is that dick must reject a lot of people who, like he said, try to befriend him only to get with him or worse, only to fuck, and it’s not very likely most of those people stay in his life once it is clear he won’t budge on the matter. the fact that you didn’t immediately turn your back on him must’ve come to him as a pleasant surprise.

it’s sad. like, really fucking sad, actually.

that very sadness—and the memory of his handsome, bright grin—turns your outlook inside out. why do you like dick? clearly he’s got the looks and the personality, but do you really know him? what do you know of him? you make a list of things you’ve learned about him in the short time of knowing him. it’s not long.

you come to the conclusion, mortifyingly so, that you don’t, in fact, like dick grayson. that, if anything, the only thing you like is the idea of the boyfriend he could be, which is not the boyfriend that he is (you know nothing about that). it’s the social acumen inherent in bagging such a hottie, and the sparkling sexual attraction bound around it, that really prompt your crushing. it’s not dick as a person. frankly, you think, a little hysterically, could be anyone, really. didn’t even have to be dick. he was just there, the handsomest person in the room. an apt target for the voracious hunger of your heart. you’d mooned and mooned over him for ages and it turns out it wasn’t even about him.

god, you’re such an asshole.

in penance, you endeavor to actually get to know dick without the embarrassment of a crush between you. and it does, in fact, help. dick’s eager to get to know you too, now that you’ve both formally acknowledged you’re friends (such a weird practice, fresh out of kindergarten behavior, but, as you soon find out, dick is weird about plenty and not entirely well-adjusted as an adult). you go on outings together, attend one another’s events, text sporadically throughout the day. you learn which video games dick likes, you tell him which movies are your favorites. it’s fun and light and uncomplicated now that you’ve freed yourself from the constraints of romantic expectation.

not everything’s good. dick’s got bad habits, which grate on you. is it so difficult to put the stupid toilet seat down? can he not learn to chop vegetables in chunks smaller than an elephant’s baby teeth? can he, for the love of god, stop yelling at the tv during horror films?  he’s got some serious character flaws, too. you find about those a lot more slowly, but they don’t cause too much trouble.

you fight one or two times due to dick suddenly abandoning you in the middle of an outing with no regard for your safety, and his tendency to get pissy instead of saying whatever’s upsetting him upfront when he knows, you’ve warned him that you’re stupidly thoughtless about your actions at times. all those are things you wouldn’t have come to experience if you hadn’t given the man a chance to actually be a friend. it’s kind of heartening, actually, to have come so far.

sometimes your crush rears up its head in the middle of nowhere. it’s kind of hopeless by now, but you can’t help the fact that dick’s attractive. neither can he, anyway. you just watch him sometimes, the way the sun hits his eyes, lashes sweeping over his cheeks. it makes you go tongue-tied and silly, but the moment always passes. it has to pass. you struggle against it, recall every time dick has upset you or insulted you in one way or the other. some days it’s easy as buttering toast, others you can barely think around the searing heat of your desire. those are bad days for all involved.

one evening, when you’ve grown close enough you’ve begun to think about dick grayson as maybe, possibly, only-if-he-says-so-too your closest friend, he tells you about catalina.

he does it over the phone line, during your almost-nightly calls. over the months, you’ve taken up the practice of teasing him about handsome people he clearly finds attractive in a desperate bid to divert attention and train yourself for when you have to do it for real. this is not one of such cases, and as soon as you realize this, you sober up immediately.

he says it so simply. talks about it like it’s just a hazard of life. there’s a tight hardness at the edge of his voice, but other than that, he speaks like it’s normal Tuesday for him.

not so much for you.

“is it okay if I come over?” you request over the line.

for a moment, the only thing you hear is dick breathe. “yeah,” he croaks, and you’re bolting out the room immediately.

you don’t know how to react to this other than with a shaky sort of desperation. it’s been years since it happened. there’s nothing you can do about it now. there’s something big he’s leaving out, which you notice but don’t point out. a big lump forms on your throat as he speaks. dick tells you when you arrive that the woman is behind bars for an unrelated crime and the only way you stop yourself from wishing ill on her out loud is the fact he looks so politely disjointed, you know your fury will only startle him.

and you feel it so frightfully, the fury.

you love dick, you realize. beyond the fancies and the underlying attraction, you love dick as a person, as a friend. he’s one of yours now.

the evening morphs into a casual sleepover. you don’t interrogate him, and he seems torn between wanting to say more and grateful you’re not prying. you keep yourself open to the possibility, but also try to comfort him as best you can. you make dinner. you put on a movie. you talk and joke and quietly watch. he invites you on the bed with him because his couch is a nightmare to sleep in and his guest room is “unavailable”, whatever that means. you don’t even think about it, just follow.

lying together under the sheets with the lights off, the rest of your feelings bubble up to the surface.

you ask before you clasp his hands between yours and look into his shiny eyes in the darkness. you try to tell him, how this single evening and all those that came before turned over your loyalty to him. how he can come to you for anything he ever wants or needs—your ear, your care, your protection. how much you appreciate his trust and how much you wish you could make anything, everything better for him. how much he deserves it.

“I’ll never leave you now,” you vow with fierce conviction, searching his eyes for any signs of doubt. any other time you would’ve questioned this statement with the sheer weight of infinite possibilities, but not now. tonight, truth is absolute and in your hand. “they will never take me from you. I will always be on your side, by your side. i’m serious, grayson. you’re not getting rid of me.”

a glimpse of  a watery smile is the only thing you see before dick throws his arms around you and buries his face in your neck. “couldn’t dream of it,” he whispers into your hair.

you hug him back as tightly as he is, murmuring platitudes and running your fingers through his hair. he falls asleep like that, in the cradle of your arms. he feels secure enough to do so, and you feel both proud and nauseous about it considering the secret you keep.

that he’s told you this at all, that he’s trusted you with such a thing—you know how big it is. you know you can never betray him.

you consider your inherent monstrosity, that little unspeakable thing that bars your from that special kind of love. you understand, firmly, that any desire you feel will never be received eagerly and joyfully. not by him or anyone else.  in silent fury, you vow to die before you be like her, to bestow upon this man your grotesque wanting with no regard for his own desire, for the integrity of his being.

that night, you press a kiss to dick grayson’s hair and let him go forever.

.

the next morning, dick watches as you leave. you turn back one last time to wave at him from the parking lot, a bright smile and tussled hair you didn’t bother to brush. you wear out the clothes he lent you to sleep, so harried last night in your haste to come over that you’d simply forgotten to pack pajamas. he suspects you hadn’t planned to stay the night at all, but he’d been damned if he’d let you go yesterday.

you’re pretty. he’s always thought so, but this morning, you’re prettier than ever. it’s the radiance of your heart shining through.

I will always be by your side, you’d said last night. you’d meant it completely, then. dick had been dazed, overcome. he couldn’t take the brightness of your eyes, the surety of your affection. he’d buried his head in your neck and fallen asleep breathing in the smell of your shampoo. in the morning, he’d woken up with your fingers carding through his hair and the gentle warmth of your body against his.

that was nice. he wonders what he has to do to make it happen again.

[cafeoa]

Café de Olla | Oneshots

the final state — not an enemy and not a friend [Tim Drake x reader]

In that one future where Tim drake becomes Batman.

Word Count: 1K

[cafeoa]

the final state — not an enemy and not a friend

It's not a possible future because it's already happened and yet hasn't — the two coexist in tandem. Tim Drake cannot escape the mantle; you do not deny your own. In that one future where Tim becomes Batman.

Amanda Waller keeps you alive because she is cruel.

She picks you off the rubbled catastrophe of cinders and heat not because you are a child hunched over in vengeful rage — no, anger has always been a game of Russian roulette where the gun jams and explodes in your hand.

She picks you because she sees you pry your father's sneakers from his cooling corpse to exchange them for a picture book. Because she sees you place it in your little brother's lap and lean against the crumbled brick wall, watching him try to sound out the words. The bodies of your parents lie beside you. And your hands are cracked and coated in white dust from the shattered sheetrock you dug them out of.

So you're thirteen when Amanda Waller steals you from what was once your city, now a no-mans zone on any updated map. You wouldn't call her a parent. She does not know nurture. Instead, she orders and she tests. If you do not learn, you are useless. Because Amanda Waller can threaten gods and men barely human, but Amanda Waller cannot outmaneuver time. Yet she has you, and through you, through every idea and mannerism she ingrains, there she will continue on to live — her work unfished and waiting.

Because the nation will always want the boy scout with an 'S' and a cape, who's as tender as the sun that keeps him strong, but the world will always need an Amanda Waller who plays the scales and makes the call no matter who's blood it is. As long as she wins. As long as it keeps the world turning.

You're not Waller, but sometimes you think you're worse. You've lived through doomsday once, you don't care if you live through another; but your brother's just starting college. He's got a girl he's seeing. Might marry her one day, have kids, sit outside with them all in the yard with a white-picket fence. Maybe he'll call you for Christmas.

So you make the hard calls. Keep the world turning.

Even when the nation fractures into east and west and legacies pass down or die, you keep one foot in front of the other. Waller retires and you think something in her has gone soft. Maybe she sees the new heroes of tomorrow and thinks of the ones dead and buried. It shouldn't matter because they failed either way. Whatever sacrifice they made already forgotten.

You draw up the plans, set the game board, give the world what it needs to keep on holding to that rope and not let go no matter how rotten it gets.

Waller finds out about your meetings with the new Batman and it's all there in her tone. You've learned how to read it.

"I used to wonder what the world would be like if we were left without heroes," she says.

You glance her way — when was her voice so small ? — turn back to the mission footage. "I don't need them to be heroes. Just need them to do their job." Because Bruce Wayne dedicated his life and soul to Gotham and all he did was leave it worse off than he found it. You don't need another Bruce Wayne because Bruce Wayne failed. It's good that the mantle found its way into Tim Drake's hands. Even if it consumes him, even if it kills him.

You're closer to the Titans of Tomorrow than you'd like to be. But it's necessary. Where Waller often started things off forceful and demanding, you're friendly and complacent — deceptively so. It doesn't gain you their trust but it gives you their respect. Lex Luthor is trickier, but you have mutual goals. That makes him predictable.

When Tim Drake starts fraying at the edges, his mind too scattered, his sensibilities caving, you wrap your arms around him and squeeze him tight. You stitch him back together because his work's not finished yet.

And Tim let's you.

Even if he knows why, he holds on to it. Because the world's gone cold and all the warmth is in the wrong places.

"Everything's a cycle," you tell him, late at night through the speaker. You never say where you are but you'd bet he knows. It's why he calls in as you man taskforce X off the border of Tibet. Your finger hovers over the red button on the desk, watching the live camera feed flicker in grayscale as operatives argue.

Static hums between you. The line crackles as he exhales. "Patterns, not cycles."

"Or like a staircase."

"Descending or ascending?" he asks.

You hum. "Descending. You?"

"I'd like to think ascending."

"Well, you're the genius."

He groans. "So they say." It could pass off as amusement, if both of you pretend the exhaustion isn't veiled there.

You press on. "Either way, you've got your dips and peaks. I'd say, right now, we're living through the dip. Not the end times, but they're not pretty. We're not living in the same world as our predecessors, so we can't go about things the same way. No matter what they call it, we're living in wartime so we gotta act like soldiers. But there's going to be a peak again. A time when maybe the ideal world you're thinking of might happen. Another Bruce. Another Clark. Another Diana. Maybe better."

A pause. Just enough to let the words stir.

"It's drawing nearer," you say, eyes fixated on the screen. Operatives are aiming at one another. "But I'm not going to wait for another Crisis to reset the board. It's in our hands."

You wait for a minute. You imagine Tim in the cave or in the tower, his blue eyes behind that cowl that reminds him so much of Bruce when he stares into the mirror and it's like a betrayal because he's nothing of what Bruce stood for. The yellow symbol on his chest has been corrupted in his hands.

In the end, Tim doesn't say anything, just a quiet inhale through the comm, just enough to be picked up. So, you press the red button.

And something pops.

[cafeoa]

Macrina ! 20+, she/her

Cafe Oa | EST 1959 | Writing what I feel like for DC comics.

Hal Jordan and Kilowag approved. NOT officially licensed by the Guardians. Report us and Ganthet WILL shut us down. Separate branch in Keystone City. Approved by all three Flashes.

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[cafeoa]

okay sooo . . . i need more of wally west.