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The Star that Wouldn't Die - Chapter 15

Jason Todd x Fem!Reader

<previous - masterlist

Summary:

Jason has a conversation with the tattooed man, and he gets his hand held in a moment of need.

Word Count: 4,862

Gloryhole was becoming a fixture in Jason’s life. Whatever operation was run out of Gloryhole was clean. Tim was still digging, chasing down scraps of data and cross-referencing every bartender and bouncer on payroll, but he hadn’t found anything useful yet. The place had all the correct permits, but it was owned by another company, which was owned by another. Shell company after shell company made the trail near impossible to crack. 

Tim would do it, with time. He’d figure it out. So in the meantime Jason kept playing the long game, kept showing up, kept watching. 

. He took the tattooed man’s warning seriously. Started dumping his drinks out subtly when he was sure nobody was watching, ordering more afterward, made a more active effort to blend in with the general population that went. Tighter clothes, no hoodie, changed his body language to something smoother, more laid back. It was all an act, one elaborate play he was putting on to pretend like he belonged here. Like he wasn’t investigating it for a drug operation. 

He’d seen him a few more times, had even figured out what his name was by listening to conversations and running a facial ID scan. Rafael Velasco. That accent he was trying to hide? He couldn’t figure out what that was, his home state didn’t give him any insight into that. Rafael was from California, and on paper he was clean, employed in a private security company, and moved to Gotham about two years ago. No criminal record, no known affiliations, no prior military experience. Still, Jason didn’t buy it.

Rafael got tense when the music got too loud, positioned himself between certain groups, always wore a purposefully bored expression. But he was more like a predator in a cage, and whatever was going on here, he clearly knew about it. 

Which led Jason to his working theory, he was the princess’ bodyguard, the girl Jason had yet to meet or identify. He didn’t know who she was, but he was learning to track her presence anyway. On nights she wasn’t there, the club music was closer to the standard electronic garbage. But when she was around, the whole vibe shifted. Throwbacks, nineties R&B, early 2000’s pop music, hip-hop. Really it seemed to be whatever mood she was in each night, and she had taste.

She was at the club around two nights a week on average, sometimes more, sometimes less. But Rafael didn’t always follow, which put a kink into the whole bodyguard theory. Sometimes Rafael showed up on his own. And sometimes even when he could tell that she was in the building, he couldn’t find Rafael. 

The most annoying thing was that when she was here, she was damn good at being invisible. He’d scanned every corner of the old speakeasy, but he hadn’t spotted anyone who instantly seemed like the princess. There were women who fit the vague profile he had, but none of them seemed like a home run. 

But she had spotted him, and had given him a warning through Rafael, which made him uneasy. Watching meant she wasn’t just some passive observer, she was watching, and that was dangerous. 

Jason had tangled with Gotham’s underground royalty before, and they were rarely subtle. So whoever this princess was, she was either hiding in plain sight, or wasn’t what she sounded like. And Slickbane the supposed owner of the club? Even more elusive than her. He was starting to feel damn near impossible to track.

The code he’d identified, he had yet to figure out the rhyme or reason to it, the taps on the tables were still undeciphered, and he hadn’t heard anything else about the code to get whatever drugs they were peddling here. The true scope of the business was still shrouded in shadow, no matter how many nights Jason spent lurking in corners and watching. 

Tonight it seemed, the princess was not around, but Rafael was. Jason didn’t clock him at first, not until the man slid into the booth beside him quietly, “You’re getting more subtle at least.” His tone was dry, but not unkind. 

Jason glanced over at him, getting a better look at the tattoo this time, it was lighter in here than in the alleyway, the overheads throwing streaks of gold across skin and ink it was finally possible to get a good look at it. It was eclectic, but still put together. The teeth around his wrist were from a wolf, or rather the shape of one, negative space in the shape of barbed wire around its legs. A crown tangled in thorned vines sat near his elbow, the rest wake smoke or tangled greenery. 

“Nice ink.”

Rafael only hummed in response. Looking over the club once before returning his gaze to Jason's drink. He’d swapped to club soda earlier in the night, something he could actually drink while working. Rafael clearly noted it but didn’t comment, leaning back in the sticky seat and stretched out, looping an arm behind the seat, like they were old friends, and not strangers. 

“What are you looking for?”

He couldn’t lie, Rafael had already clocked him for asking questions he shouldn’t, and he sure as hell couldn’t tell the truth either. So instead he sat silently, and Rafael let him, fingers starting to drum on the back of the seat absentmindedly. Not in any particular way like the taps on the tables, just movement. Just a man who hated sitting still like a dog in a cage.

A bartender nearly tripped and spilled a drink on a bleach blonde girl, Rafael didn’t blink at the commotion that followed. Didn’t even seem bothered by the brief brawl and yelling over the music. Jason glanced at her, “Just the accountant.”

“I thought you didn’t work here.” 

“I don't." 

Jason wasn’t sure he bought that, he might not work here officially, but he sure was around a lot, and the staff respected him, some of them even seemed to fear him. He never paid for his drinks, never even had to ask for them. No bouncer tried to muscle around him. That sort of thing gave away that they at least knew him. The strange part was the women, groups of women would flock to him and drag him to the dance floor, and he simply let them. 

“Then why does someone who works for a security company spend so much time here?”

“Been looking in on me?” He paused for a moment, half waiting for an answer, but the right side of his lips quirked upward, “Red Hood?”

Jason felt the words hit like a cold knife underneath his ribs. And just for a moment he stopped breathing, stopped moving. How the fuck. He’d never come around Gloryhole as Red Hood, and he knew for a fact that you couldn’t run him into facial recognition and get a hit. There was no reasonable explanation for how Rafael knew he was Red Hood. Unless he knew more. Unless he knew everything. Did he know his real name too? Did he know who his family was? That would be a problem he couldn’t solve on his own, he’d have to tell them about the breach of their identities.

Rafael laughed at him, leaning back into the seat, “Way to make it obvious when someone is right. Should practice your poker face more.”

“People don’t just figure that out.”

“No. But you have a very distinct way of moving. I’m just happen to have the training to recognize it. Consider it our little secret, wont even tell The Princess.” The words were sincere, a quiet truce between the two men. But he didn’t believe him, he seemed like the type to smile in your face before gutting you like a fish. 

“I don’t believe you.”

“One question then, and I’ll answer to the best of my ability.”

To the best of his ability, which meant he had to pick something Rafael would be willing to answer. The princess’ identity? Likely off the table. Slickbanes real name, likely the same story. Key players, possible informants, information about the security, or shipments, all of that wouldn’t get a vague non-answer.

 He only had one shot at this, and he needed something Rafael would actually answer.  

The taps. That was likely his best route. And if he could crack the taps, then maybe he’d have a real foothold to work off of. 

“Alright,” Jason leaned back slightly, trying to mirror Rafael's relaxed posture even as he felt the mans arm across his back, “Tell me about the taps.”

Rafael snickered, “You’re smarter than you look.” He mulled over the question for a moment, before speaking, “It’s called Glory Beat. There’s two types of code, universal, and security level. I’ll give you universal, but not security level, that won’t be helpful for you anyway.” 

“Sounds like bullshit.”

“Believe me, don’t believe me. That’s up to you.” Rafael shrugged, slow, lazily,  “Two slow taps is just a suspicious customer, like,” he paused, eyes turning to a different table and motioning with his head to it, “The redhead at that one, he fumbles too much when asking for things. Three sharp taps means move, tap, pause, tap, means GCPD is in the building. Four quick taps means they need backup. Drag and then tap means either the owner, or the princess has entered the building, rhythmic tapping means a drop is ready. Knuckle tap means it’s safe.”

A grin tugged at the corner of Rafaels mouth then, like he’d saved the best for last, “And finally, as coined by the princess. Tapping with your nails indicated sarcasm.” He chuckles, low and dry, “Very helpful that one.” And then he tapped his nails against the table. 

So The Princess knew what the taps meant. Maybe she wasn’t orchestrating anything herself, not running logistics just like he’d been told, but she wasn’t ignorant either. She’d coined one of the codes, as a joke sure, but it still meant she had some authority over this place. And that alone was enough to make his pulse tighten. If he couldn’t get directly at Slickbane, maybe she was a way in. 

He’d have to write down the list before he forgot it, and even then from what he’d seen the information he’d just been given felt incomplete. Jason was still cataloging the information in his mind when Rafael spoke again. “That’s the baseline. But like anything worth its salt, it evolves. Timing, pressure, who's watching, whose tapping. There’s a nuance to it that can’t be taught.”

“Vauge.” 

“You asked how it worked. I gave you the basic math. Anything more than that, you’d have to be part of the system. And you’re not.” Rafael’s tone was easy, but his eyes weren’t. He could see it now that he was close enough, the way his gaze never stayed fixed on one point for too long, the faint twitch at the corner of his jaw. Rafael was relaxed, yes, but it was the calculated kind of relaxed, the way a predator lounged in tall grass. 

The universal taps it seemed, weren’t all that universal. Not everyone who came knew them, not even all the employees knew them. That part wasn’t said outright, but the implication that you had to be part of the system to know them did. Rafael was being purposefully cryptic, still undecided if Jason was friend or foe. The same way that Jason was still undecided if Rafael was friend or foe. 

But more importantly, why was Rafael willing to give this information to him? Any loyal dog to Slickbane would know better than to go running their mouths. Yet here he was, talking anyways. A man like Rafael - whatever he was - should’ve known better. Loyalty in this business wasn’t optional; it was survival. 

 It wasn’t smart, but he had to ask. 

“Why the hell are you telling me any of this?”

“The princess likes you.” That wasn’t the answer Jason had been expecting. He didn’t know what he had been expecting, but a woman who he’d never met liked him enough to give him a piece of the puzzle? That was the last thing he expected.

“The princess who you claim that you won’t tell I’m Red Hood.”

Rafael shrugged, “And I won't. The warning I gave you, that was from her to a stranger she wanted to give a chance to back off. This is a courtesy I'm doing on her behalf. Let's just say she’s a fan of the Red Hoods' work.”

The pieces didn’t fit. He’d been told the Princess didn’t handle logistics, that she wasn’t a player. But Rafael’s words told another story. SHe knew the codes. She knew enough to warn him. She knew enough to decide if he lived or if he got burned out of this place like rot scraped off the floor. 

And she was a fan or Red Hood. 

HIs pulse beat hard in his ears, none of it made sense. If she was Slickbanes daughter, she should hate him. Red Hood wasn’t exactly good for family business. And yet, Rafael sat here, offering up slices of information like tribute, all because the princes liked him. Unless it was all a lie. Unless she wasn’t real at all, just a phantom name that got tossed around to test him, to lure him deeper into the game. Maybe the princess didn’t exist, maybe Slickbane didn’t even have a daughter. Maybe this was a long con. 

Maybe some of the other rouges in Gotham would have information and be willing to give it up. Penguin was known for squealing easily, Black Mask less so but it still wasn’t impossible. And maybe, just maybe he could play this. Maybe he could get a little bit more information out of Rafael before he disappeared back into the hoards of people on the floor. 

“So you work for the princess directly then?”

Rafael considered for a moment, a muscle working in his jaw, he seemed to know what Jason was really asking. “I don’t work for Slickbane. I work for her. You want to ask your real question straight out or are you going to try and veil it again?” His voice was tighter when talking about Slickbane, annoyed almost. He was adamant that he didn’t work for Slickbane, but the princess. But with the princess being Slickbanes daughter, what fucking difference did that make?

But at the same time, if she really was Slickbanes loyal daughter, she wouldn’t like Red Hood. Fuck it. If this blew back into his face he’d deal with it, if not, he’d take the information and gladly use it. “How do I find Slickbane then?”

Rafael smiled, wry, as if Jason was finally asking the right questions. “He drops in once or twice a month. Sometimes less, there isn’t a particular pattern with it. You won’t find him unless he wants to be found.”

But he did come here, which meant if Jason stuck around long enough, he’d get what he wanted. For now, he still needed more information. Rafael was standing up now, moving to leave, it seemed he wouldn’t be getting anymore out of him at least, and what he had gotten had only given him more questions. 

Still, Jason let him go, watching the patrons and the way they tapped their fingers. That at least made more sense now, yet there were no mentions of drops tonight. Only suspicious customers, moving from table to table, indicating that something or someone was safe, and the most used was sarcasm. He didn’t get anything else useful tonight, but at he got more than he expected from Rafael. 

Jason let the case slip his mind as he slipped into your apartment when you opened the door for him. He’d gone home to get his Red Hood gear just to visit. He needed comfort after how unsettled tonight had made him. You were in pajamas, which wasn’t unusual. And Ophelia, like normal, tackled his ankles with teeth and tongue. 

It hadn’t been that long since you’d gotten her, but she was already noticeably bigger. Still just as playful and with every single ounce of puppy energy she could possibly fit within her tiny body. She was getting better about not running outside the door whenever it was opened at least. 

The second he was inside the door you spun around, dramatically, clapping your hands together, “Alright! So tonight we have Doctor Who on the menu. The accents take a minute to get used to, sure, and it gets a little strange at times, but it’s really good, promise.” You motioned to the couch, before hopping over the back of it and landing on one of the cushions clumsily. 

He was instantly calmer at the sight of your dyed hair and patchwork apartment. The invisible rope that had started knotting in his stomach during his conversation with Rafael finally started to untie itself. At some point you’d stopped asking him to put all his weapons by a door before spending time with you. He could only assume that meant you trusted him more now than you did when he first broke into your apartment. 

He kicked his boots off before settling down on the opposite side of the couch, picking Ophelia up and setting her on his lap. You, on the other hand, had a sketchbook and pencil in your hands. The apartment wasn’t particularly well lit, but that didn’t seem to bother you as you queued up the first episode before starting to drag your pencil over the page. Ophelia curled up in his lap since yours was occupied, and he scratched her head absentmindedly. 

Halfway through the second episode your phone rang, and you answered it without hesitation, even though Red Hood was currently sitting on your couch. Had you really become so comfortable with him that you didn’t mind taking phone calls while he was there? 

As it turned out, it wasn’t even just a phone call. It was a facetime, at nearly five in the morning. Unashamed through the speakerphone came a guy's voice. A guy's voice that suddenly had Jason in a crumbling school playground clutching an action figure in his hand and knocking it against two others. 

“Dude, you won’t believe what just happened. I swear to god, I’m laying here trying to sleep after studying, and I hear this banging on my window.”

“Was someone trying to break in again?”

“NO! A raccoon was tapping on my window with its fat little paws. Ran away when it saw me though. I almost thought I was gonna get my own pet, but nooo, of course not. How’s Ophelia doing?”

You grinned wickedly, turning your face to Jason for a moment, before back to the phone. You weren’t seriously about to do what he thought were you? 

Except you totally were, flipping the phone around to show Ophelia curled up on his lap, on Red Hoods lap. Sammy squealed over the phone, “WHY IS RED HOOD ON YOUR COUCH WHAT THE FUCK?”

“I TOLD you that I made a new friend!”

“You didn’t say it was with RED HOOD!” 

He suddenly realized he could play along with this, you were doubling over in laughter, and rather easily relinquished your phone into his hand. “Hi Sammy.”

He was older now, with a different haircut than the photo on your computer's background. Actually most shockingly, there was a visible pride flag in the background. Had he never known that Sammy was gay as a kid? Because he certainly didn’t remember him being gay. Fuck was he a shitty friend?  That sort of thing was important to someone's identity, then again, he’d forgotten you and Sammy. Him being a shitty friend wasn’t a question, but rather a fact. 

He didn’t let himself think about that for any longer as Sammy stiffened on the phone, “Hi um- what do- what am I supposed to call you or- you aren’t gonna kill her are you?” Now that he wasn’t talking to you he was fumbling his words, stuttering. That felt more right. It seemed more like the Sammy he remembered, at least until he got to know someone. 

Except he didn’t have any complete memories of Sammy. Just information that he knew now when he didn’t two days ago. 

Jason tilted the phone a little, angling it so Sammy could see both him and the dog sprawled happily across his lap. “I’m not gonna kill her. Relax. She and Ophelia are safe.”

He was hit by the strangeness of the voice modulator again. The words didn’t sound particularly comforting with the way it distorted and changed his voice. He could probably turn it off and you wouldn’t recognize his voice, after all, he was still going through voice cracks when he died. Better not to risk it though. 

Sammy blinked at him, then you when you leaned back into view, still giggling. “Safe? SAFE? You’re literally- look, no offense. But you kill people! And now you’re sitting on the couch like some Saturday night sleepover guest?”

“Friday night,” you corrected, “Also Doctor Who night. You’re interrupting the timey-wimey-ness.”

It was blatant that Sammy was not as calm or collected about the situation as you were. You’d had time to get used to Red Hoods presence, ever present Red helmet and all, but then again, you’d never not been chill about it. Jason hadn’t thought about it much since that night, but why were you so chill about him breaking into your apartment? Was it really just growing up in Crime Alley, or was it because of something else that happened in your life? Sure he was piecing together more of his childhood with you, but after his death? That was still a huge blind spot for him.You clearly still cared about the kid that he’d been, and you were doing alright now, but what about the in-between? 

You were moving back to be visible for the camera, leaning up against Jason and pressing your cheek to the side of the Red Helmet unbothered. Jason stiffened slightly, it wasn’t that he’d not touched you since he started visiting you, but you really were comfortable. You weren’t afraid to touch him or the helmet in spite of the atrocities he’d committed while wearing it. He wasn’t sure if that was a comforting or concerning thought. But for now it’d be filed away for later. 

Sammy dragged a hand down his face, before pointing at you, “Oh my god. You’ve completely lost your mind.” 

“He poses for drawings for me! He broke in after I took a photo of him with the flash on. Bethany really was not pleased. Gave me a near hour long lecture about having no survival instincts. But she’s the one who grew up in the nice part of Gotham, and I’m still alive aren’t I?”

Sammy choked on air for a moment, before gathering himself again and pointing at the camera. “Shes right! Just because you lived through your wild streak doesn’t mean you should go do stupid stuff like that! Art is not worth your life.”

“Art is my life!” You argued back, the both of you either having forgotten him despite the fact he was right there, or simply not caring. Either way, it made him feel oddly warm. Like he was catching up on something he didn’t even know he lost. 

“Oh so if you died chasing down an art reference you’d be happy.”

“I didn’t die! I got a new friend.”

“I’m too tired for this shit. Goodnight lunatic.”

“Night Supernatural!”

“That is SO not funny.” And then the phone was hung up. You were moving back to your place on the couch and out of his personal space, giggling to yourself. Your attention now turned back to the TV and your sketchbook. 

Jason let the silence stretch for a few minutes before working up the courage to ask, “So, your friends…know?”

You picked a hand up, making a so-so motion. “Sorta. Sammy and Bethany are my ride or dies, so there isn’t a reason not to tell them. I maybe haven’t gone into specifics just to avoid their lecturing about my lack of survival skills, but other than that I don’t see any reason not to tell them.”

Stephanie wasn’t included in that list, even though she'd confirmed to him that she had been invited to your place, that you spoke of him in a vague way that couldn’t indicate a hookup, but she wasn’t on your list of trusted friends. Smart, she was still new in your life. He didn’t know when Bethany came in, but he knew that your relationship with Sammy had been a longstanding one. 

“How’d you meet them?”

“Sammy and I have been friends for a loooong time. Met in elementary school and never left each other alone after that. Before he went to college we lived together for a time. He’s been with me through everything, seen the good, the bad and the ugly, And never once has he turned away, just been someone I could lean on through everything. Bethany works at the same animation studio that I do, different team though. Work Christmas party gone wild.”

Jason cocked his head, "That's it? A work party and suddenly you’re best friends?”

You laughed, dryly, “God no. Our studio has rooftop access, I’d drunk more than my share and decided I needed to stargaze. She caught me and thought I was too drunk to be alone. So she climbed onto the ledge with me and told me if I was gonna fall off a building I wasn’t going to do it alone.” You tapped your pencil on the sketchbook absentmindedly, “We sat there until sunrise just talking. Cartoons and the catering being shit, how she hated the color of her dress, stupid shit. Then she dragged me down to a diner and made me eat greasy eggs before we both had to be back at work. Been stuck with her ever since.”

“Between Bethany and Sammy, I know if there's something stupid I want to do, at least one of them will be right there with me. Bethany wasn’t there for my wild streak, as Sammy calls it, but I know that if she was I would’ve had just that much more support.”

Jason's jaw tightened underneath the helmet. He was glad you had people like that, you deserved people like that, but he still found something ugly and green coiling in his chest. He shouldn’t be jealous. 

“Do you have people like that?”

The question hung in the air for a second, “Sort of.” It was complicated, his whole life was complicated. He knew for a fact that he couldn’t go to his family with anything, and get unquestioned support, there was Roy. But Roy had Lian, he couldn’t just drop everything to go help him anymore. And he sometimes thought that Roy was just watching out for Jason just because he didn’t let Dick do it himself. 

“So you’re mostly on your own then?”

“Mostly. It’s not like I'm complaining. I’ve learned to be self-reliant, and some of it is my fault, I could've made better choices. But it still gets lonely.”

“Family is supposed to support you through the bad choices. It might not always be pretty, it might not be the support you want, but the support you need.”

You spoke like it was simple, and maybe for you it was. But Jason didn’t live in a world of simple. He lived in a world where the one man who was supposed to protect him hadn’t done anything about his death. He’d let Joker keep running around and killing people even when the system clearly didn’t work. Maybe it wasn’t all Bruce’s fault. In hindsight, Jason had only made the situation more complicated when he came back to life, maybe he had a larger role in the rift between his family than he wanted to admit. Maybe he was the one who finally broke it. 

He shifted slightly, careful not to disturb Ophelia. The quiet in your apartment was like a sanctuary, a fragile pocket where he could be more than Red Hood, more than the sum of his mistakes. But did he deserve that? 

You noticed the pregnant silence, and slid one hand over to his, resting it over his own. TV half forgotten in the background, pencil still in your other hand and scratching against the paper as you drew. “Maybe I could be your family then, if you need it.”

His world stopped. You had no clue the true weight those words carried. You didn’t know the way his eyes were stinging beneath his helmet, how he was trying to stop himself from audibly crying. He couldn’t speak, you’d know just how broken he was if he did. But he did turn his hand over and lock his gloved fingers with yours. And Jason let himself lean into the moment, into whatever this was, without trying to push it away. 

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[shaddork]

Sweet Tea and Soulmarks - Chapter 3

Damian Wayne x Southern!Reader

Previous - Masterlist

CW's: Bite wounds, Medical Jargon, Mentions of Damian's past with the league. Mention of euthanasia.

Summary:

A patient with strange bite marks comes into the ER, a nurse at the hospital gets a new vet for her dog.

Word Count: 4,712

Friday May 9th, 2025 

The hospital was always loud when Damian got there. 

Not once had Gotham General known silence, not even in the old days. There was always something: someone getting stabbed over a street corner argument, someone rolling in from urban exploring with some new strange disease, an unlucky civilian recovering from a villain attack. The list went on. Chaos was the norm, noise was a baseline that thrummed through the hospital with vicious efficiency. 

Today was no different. He’d already finished his morning rounds, which went by within routine. Other than maybe an elderly patient who kept insisting her dead husband was still visiting her at night. She wasn’t dangerous, just a tad strange, and cleared by psych. It was just the kind of day that lulled you into a false sense of security, into the calm predictability of practicing medicine. Those days were always nice, but they never lasted long. 

He was sorting through a batch of lab orders when he heard his name called, “Wayne. Go help Dr.Hatch in the ER. They need more hands.”

Dr.Park didn’t even look up from his tablet as he spoke, but Damian still acknowledged him with a single nod before heading toward the ER. No protest, no comment, just action. It was part of why Dr.Park liked him, and various others within the hospital disliked him. But Damian wasn’t going to change himself just to please others. His work could speak for him. 

Park was tolerable. A senior resident with a habit of quizzing interns mid-task, but he respected silence, which made him more bearable than most. That was something that Damian respected about him, a lot of people in this hospital didn’t know when to shut their mouth. 

The ER was the opposite of silence, the true heart of Gotham General. It was a dizzying mix of noise, speed, and blood. The specific kind of chaos in the ER felt almost familiar, comforting in the way that it demanded absolute focus. It was easy to slip into the routine after years of being Robin, after training in the league. First years didn’t always get assigned down to the ER, which made being pulled to help didn’t feel like an obligation rather an opportunity. 

In fact, it almost felt like a reward. No day passed in the ER without someone being wheeled into surgery, and where there was surgery, there were chances. Chances to observe. To scrub in. To hold retractors. Maybe even to close. 

Damian didn’t crave praise, but he did crave progress. And surgery was the kind of challenge he wanted. Whether it was trauma, cardiothoracics, neurosurgery, or something else entirely he would specialize in, he hadn’t decided. Not yet, but he would. 

The elevators were packed full of visitors and staff alike, so Damian took the stairs. He often did, it was faster anyway thanks to his training as Robin. Jogging down the stairs barely raised his heartrate, though he kept himself from vaulting the railing this time. He didn’t need someone to see and question what he was in such a rush for. 

The ER, like always, was chaos contained by scrubs and clip boards. Gurneys rolled by, nurses shouted vitals over the noise, and there was the ever present smell of antiseptic and blood layered in with the distinct Gotham smell of piss that wafted through the doors to the outside. But amidst the whirlwind Dr.Hatch stood like a lighthouse in a storm. She was easy to spot, tall enough and built like an amazonian woman. Damian had at one point almost asked if she was from Themyscira before thinking better of it. 

She was already striding toward the OR when she glanced back and caught sight of him, “Wayne. Bed Five. Bite wounds. Clean and assess. Then scrub in. OR5”

He didn’t need to be told twice. 

He grabbed gloves and a surgical mask as he crossed the ER, stopping at the curtain encased bed. The man on it looked grimy, twitchy, clothing torn and one leg bouncing relentlessly on the gurney. Bite wounds. Possible animal attack, though in Gotham that could mean anything from a stray dog to an escaped hyena. 

He grabbed the chart hanging on the man's bed and scanned it quickly as he stepped in. Male, mid-thirties, multiple bite wounds on left forearm and shoulder, flagged for possible infection. 

“I’m Dr.Wayne. I’ll be assessing and cleaning your wounds today.”

The man gave a jerky nod, but didn’t verbally respond. Damian set the clipboard down before turning his attention back on the man.  Bite marks got some priority, but they weren’t the first thing dealt with in Gotham. This was scut work, but Damian would get to scrub in on a surgery after this. And this still mattered, infection could set in quickly, and a bad stitch job could lose more than just function in one limb. 

The tray he needed was already prepped and set by the bed, likely by one of the nurses. He’d probably need a rabies vaccine depending on the context, but first he needed to assess.

He unwrapped the soaked bandage from the man’s forearm, peeling it back slowly. The smell hit first: iron, infection, and something acrid underneath it. Then the wounds came into view and Damian stopped. 

These weren’t animal bites. 

They were human. Unmistakably human, clearly violent. 

He leaned in slightly, inspecting the bruising and jagged punctures. There were three marks, one on the wrist, one near his elbow, and one on the outside of the bicep. They weren’t shallow or panicked chomps. These had torn through skin, muscle, and in some places, exposed the fat underneath. One of them had a crescent-shaped bruise like the attacker had twisted their jaw after clamping down. 

These were intentional. The kind of rage-fueled wounds he’d seen in League interrogations or Arkham psych evaluations. 

Damian’s brows dipped slightly. Did human bites even qualify for rabies prophylaxis? They weren’t typical vectors, but these weren’t typical wounds. It was better safe than sorry though, but that situation was dependent. Like if the man had done something to deserve these and it was just someone trying to get away. Yet he wasn’t likely to get real answers from the man if that was the case. 

He slid on a pair of gloves with practiced ease, “What happened sir?”

The man jerked in his place, grimacing as the antiseptic hit raw tissue. “Fuckin’-bitch bit me. I was just walkin’ home, mindin’ my business, and she came out of the damn alley and latched on like some rabid animal. Didn’t say nothin’, just bit. Some meta freak, probably. Off her meds or somethin’.”

Damian didn’t respond to the aggressive tone the man had, didn’t even blink at the venom in his voice. It took effort, but he kept his focus on the wound, methodically irrigating the deeper punctures, careful not to cause unnecessary pain. Gotham had no shortage of people who hated metas, mutants, or anyone even slightly different. His job wasn’t to argue, it was to clean and close. 

But the edges of the bites kept nagging at him. Humans didn’t just rip skin like this, even those in Arkham who he’d seen do similar things had a reason. It just wasn’t always one that made sense to him. 

“Did she say anything to you after the attack?”

“Not a damn word. Just came up fast, sunk her teeth in like she was tryna take a chunk outta me. Fuckin’ psychos in the city, I swear.”

Damian didn’t comment, just continued cleaning out the wound on his arm. The mans vitals were stable, and he didn’t have a fever. And just in case a human did catch rabies - it certainly wouldn’t be the strangest thing in Gotham - he’d get him a rabies vaccine. 

The man seemed fine with Damian's silence, letting him methodically clean out the wounds without complaint. But he could tell that the man was in pain, the subtle twitch of the mans jaw and his fingers clenching and unclenching gave it away. Typical Gothamite, used to pain and just wanting it fixed. It certainly made his job easier at least. 

 The last bite wound Damian cleaned was one of the deeper wounds, and while cleaning it, it quickly became obvious there was a foreign object lodged within the arm. The only reason it wasn’t visible was because of the blood and gore. It came out easily, not truly lodged into anything after the area had been cleaned. 

A tooth. A fucking human tooth lodged into another mans arm. Yeah. He’d definitely be needing a rabies shot, even if it was just a precaution. Damian held up the tooth, it was an incisor, had a crown on it even. A canine would make more sense to be embedded into the skin, an incisor was just strange. It had no cracks, no jagged edges, and had a golden crown on it. This had been ripped out of the attacker's mouth. Could humans even bite down that hard? Normal ones at least. 

Damian would have to look that up later. 

“Jesus Christ. You’ve got to be kidding me she left a fucking tooth in my arm?”

“Seems so.”

Damian paused for a moment, setting the tooth down and finishing the cleaning of the wound. “I’ll have a nurse follow a post-exposure rabies protocol, make sure that if she was rabid you won't get it. There’s not much we can test the tooth for we’ll give it over to the authorities. In the meantime, we’ll run a blood test as well just to make sure you didn’t catch anything else.”

“Okay.” 

God Gotham was weird. Someone gets bitten and they come to the hospital, get a human tooth pulled from their arm, and basically just walk off the injury like nothing had happened. Damian couldn’t decide if he loved or hated that strangeness. It kept life interesting, sure, but it also meant that his presence as Robin was still relatively necessary. Especially with a retired Batman. 

He stepped back and pulled his gloves off when he finished, tossing them into the biohazard bin. “A nurse will be here soon to take care of you and then get you discharged.” Damian didn’t wait for his response, moving through the hospital towards OR5. Strange bite marks didn’t remove the opportunity to get to participate in a surgery. 

Besides, this wasn’t something that Damian needed to worry about. At least not yet. A one off occurrence didn’t mean that something big was coming. Not always at least. 

In some weird, unexpected way, the first-year residents' locker room had become a comforting place. 

It wasn’t inherently pleasant, there was always someone half-dressed, and the room smelt of sweat and antiseptic. The lights were fluorescent, making the room look as sterile as the rest of the hospital. But despite all that, it had become a pocket of peace. A space where Damian could collect himself, take a breath, and brace for the next thing. 

Today had been exhausting, though not horrible by Gotham standards. He’d assisted on a trauma surgery, an impalement from a tree, and the rest of his shift had been spent in the ER, stitching up lacerations and superficial wounds. Nothing too complicated. Just steady, mindless work. 

Scut work. 

The other residents needed the practice, their movements still uncertain when stitching someone up. But Damian didn’t. He had years of experience, more than any of them would believe. He’d stitched himself closed more times than he could count. He’d stitched up his father, his brothers, Stephanie, and even Cassandra when she let him. 

Still, it was familiar. And in familiarity there was comfort. He could quiet his mind while doing it, let his hands and muscle memory take over. Let the chaos of the ER blur around him. 

He pulled his scrub top over his head, he’d worn a compression shirt underneath today. Most days he wore one, only on laundry days did he go without. It kept people from seeing his soulmarks, and if they managed to look past those, it kept them from seeing the scars on his body. It kept the questions at bay. This way he could just change and go. 

He stuffed the scrub top into his duffel, a personally bought scrub top so it was his job to take it home and clean it. The hospital standard issues were stiff and scratchy, his were better. 

“You heading home?” Nates voice came from behind him. He was already out of his scrubs, and tugging a sweatshirt over his bare torso. At least Nate acted somewhat normal about Damian’s soulmate marks. Not everyone did. He idly wondered if Nate had seen his scars and just had enough tact to not say anything about them. 

“Mhm.”

Nate dropped himself down on the bench next to Damian, his sneakers in hand and staring to pull them onto his feet. “You look like shit.”

“Appreciate the honesty.”

Nate continued, “Couple of us are going out for drinks. Valdez heard about a place that has margaritas the size of a small child. You should come.”

“I have things to do.”

Nate shrugged, “Sure. Of course. Very mysterious. Very Bruce Wayne’s son.” Nate grinned, his tone teasing, and he finished pulling his shoes on, “Come on man. Just one drink, or don’t drink. It’s more about not going home and immediately crashing into bed then questioning your life choices in silence.”

“I don’t question my life choices.” Damian’s voice was flat. He didn’t question his life choices anymore, that was true. He used to, for years. When he chose to stay with Bruce instead of going back to the league, or when he made the decision to step away from Robin to go to medical school. But he was comfortable with his life now. 

“Then you’re the only one in our year who doesn’t. Then again, you don’t have a massive pile of college debt do you?”

Damian's jaw tightened for a fraction of a second, and he didn’t reply. 

But it was true, he didn’t have debt. The Wayne name and everything that came with it had shielded him from the kind of financial burden his peers were staring down. But Nate and the others didn’t know the rest of it. They didn’t know that as a young child he was intimately familiar with how the inside of a human's body worked. They didn’t know the countless sutures he’d done, the burn wounds he’d treated. They didn’t know he’d been raised with a sword thrust into his lap even as he was just taking his first few steps. 

They didn’t know that he wasn’t ahead because he was privileged. He was ahead because he survived things most of them could barely stomach in lectures. But it wasn’t something he could explain to them, and he didn’t care to. 

Not all of his peers would make it through residency even, but those who did he’d likely be working beside for the next decade or more. And it would help if they didn’t assume he was some rich legacy brat coasting on his family name. 

Damian slung his bag over his shoulder, “Text me the address.”

“Really? You’re gonna come?”

“I said text it. I didn’t say that I would show up.”

Nate grinned anyway, pulling his phone out and working on doing just that as Damian left the room, and then the hospital. He went home first, showered and changed into a different pair of clothing. Something casual and comfortable, but still put together and presentable enough to go to a bar with coworkers. 

Appearances mattered. HIs entire life they had. As an Al Ghul it had been drilled into him. By the time he became a Wayne, the importance of looking put together didn’t need to be explained to him. The weight of the things he was heir to didn’t need to be. Ras Al Ghul’s grandchild, Bruce Wayne’s son, Batman’s son, and still holding the potential to take over the league of assassins. Duties he’d be given the freedom to pick and choose what he wanted. 

Bruce hadn’t made Damian take the Batman mantle when he’d retired, and Damian didn’t want it anymore. The more time he spent as Robin the less he found himself yearning for the cowl his father donned every night. The more time he spent with his strange and large family, the less he found himself wanting to take over for Ras. Then he found Thomas Wayne’s journals, and something had changed in him permanently. 

The bar was one of those in-between places. It wasn’t sketchy, but it couldn’t be described as nice either. It wouldn’t have been Damian’s first choice, but then again, he didn’t frequent bars like his father used to, or how Grayson and Todd still did. The bar was loud, not because of the music but because of the way almost everyone there was trying to scream over each other to be heard by their friends. 

Most people were with a group of people, but there were a few stragglers sitting at the bar, staring into the bottom of a glass like it could wash away whatever it was they were there to forget. 

He found them in the back, sitting together in a booth, two pitchers of beer and several glasses on the table, a large basket of fries already half gone. Nate, Valdex, Rowe, and a nurse he was pretty sure was named Mira were spread across the table. Nate spotted him first. 

“No way! You actually came.” He scooted over to make room for him in the booth. Damian took the spot. The seat was slightly sticky when he sat down.

“You sent the address.”

“Yet you said it wasn’t an agreement that you’d come. But I'll take the miracle.”

Valdez set her glass down, raising her brows at him, “Wayne, I thought you were allergic to casual human interaction. Never thought I'd see you coming out to drink with us.”

“I had a free night. And I don’t drink.”

“More for me then!” Rowe said, raising his glass to take another gulp of the amber colored liquid. 

Mira spoke next, Damian hadn’t interacted with her much, but she seemed good at her job from what he had seen. “Honestly, after today, I barely want alcohol. Just fries and a few hours where I’m not having to be on all the time.”

A round of half-delirious agreement passed the table. 

The conversation drifted quickly, hospital horror stories, the weirdest patients they’d seen, theories about who was dating who. Anything involving drama Mira was the most caught up on, had the most information. “Nurses see everything.” She wasn’t wrong. Most doctors barely bothered to learn their scrub nurses names. But the thing that surprised him was the lack of questions aimed toward him. Nobody asked about his family, no one asked why he didn’t drink, and nobody asked what it was like growing up rich. They treated him like he was the same as them. 

What surprised him the most was that he didn’t feel the urge to leave. 

A particularly loud laugh from another table caught his attention, briefly turning his head to it. 

Again?

This was bordering on improbable. Just a few tables away, sat with a slightly older man and woman, was the southern vet that he’d run into randomly twice now. Gotham wasn’t a small city, the chances of this happening again was unusual. It wasn’t like he was particularly close to the shelter right now either. 

You looked different now, hair down and styled, makeup across your features, more casual clothing on. Now that he’d realized you were there, a part of him subconsciously tuned into the conversation you were having, half paying attention to that, and half paying attention to the conversation happening at his own table. 

“He’s an itty bitty thing Gavin! Y'all really should take him in. Sweet as sugar and love to cuddle.Think of it as a trial run for a baby if that’s what you need to tell yourself!”

The burly, dark haired man apparently named Gavin laughed at you. “A cat is not a suitable test run for a baby!” The girl sitting next to him nodded in agreement. They were holding hands, probably dating. He couldn’t see any rings that would signify engagement or marriage. 

“They’re basically the same dang thing! They run through your house and cause trouble. Kids and cats,ain’t much of a difference ‘cept one’s got thumbs.” 

Damian took a sip of his water, gaze flicking between his coworkers and your table again. He was eavesdropping, he knew that. But it came naturally to him at this point, almost as easy as breathing. 

“She’s got you there,” The woman at your table teased, elbowing Gavin with a grin. 

“That kittens cute as all get-out too. If y'all don’t take him, I will.”

“Now wait just a second,” Gavin grumbled, holding his hands up like you and the woman he was dating had just pulled a weapon on him. “We’re still talking about it.”

“You’ve been talkin’ about it for a week,” you pointed a french fry at him, “Poor thing’s waitin’ on yall to make up your minds. You can’t just leave a baby hangin’ like that. It’s cruel.”

Damian watched the way you leaned back in your chair. You were relaxed, these weren’t strangers to you but rather someone you knew well. Maybe the brother you’d mentioned, but there wasn’t much resemblance there other than eye color and a cowlick in your hair. 

He looked back at Nate, who was telling a story about one of the senior residents at the hospital getting into an argument with one of the attendings. Damian nodded along at the appropriate moment, but his mind was still a few tables away. 

Twice it had been coincidence, once it had been less so. But still, three times? It was strange. 

Mira noticed his distraction before everyone else, “Wayne, what are you staring at.”

Damian blinked, he hadn’t been expecting to be caught. But then again, he hadn’t expected you with your southern accent. “Nothing, just thought I recognized someone.”

Nate leaned over, trying to follow where Damian had been looking, eyes landing on you. “That table with the country girl? She’s pretty, she your type?”

“No.” He’d said it too quickly, near immediately. 

Nate grinned, pushing his shoulder lightly, “Thats a yes! Damian Wayne has a thing for southern girls.”

He rolled his eyes and ate his fry. It wasn’t. You weren’t his type. Not at all. And yet you kept showing up in his life anyway. 

Damian was happy to let the topic drop, but Valdez apparently was not. “Okay. Who is she?”

Damian didn’t even pretend to be confused, just kept picking at the frys in the basket like if he ignored their questions they’d drop it.

“C’mon, man. You’ve been staring at her table for like, five minutes.” Nate leaned toward Damian, "What's the story?”

“There is no story.”

Mira gave him a look, setting her beer down again to lean toward him, the whole table following her. “Bullshit. There’s gotta be a story there.”

Damian didn’t answer, not a first. It wasn’t any of their business. He had to stop himself from glancing over at your table again, but he could still hear your drawl floating across the room. You weren’t even that loud, you just stood out to him for some reason. 

“Do you know her or not?” Rowe nudged Mira, “Cause if you don’t, MIra’s gonna go over there and embarrass you.”

“I’ll do it! Walk right over and ask her if she’s got a thing for mysterious doctors who are deathly quiet sometimes.” It didn’t take a fool to tell she was being serious. Slightly inebriated and more than willing to go up to some stranger and ask such an asinine question. 

“She’s a vet. Works at the shelter that just added a clinic so they can take more cases that nobody else will touch. The one that says they’ll never turn an animal away.” He said it like he didn’t know for a fact that they wouldn’t turn an animal away, no matter what shape it was in. 

“She any good?”

“She’s proficient.”

Mira clapped her hands together, standing up suddenly, “Perfect! I need a new vet for my dog.” And without any warning Mira was marching over toward your table, Damian tried to grab her arm to stop her, but Mira was already too far, practically jogging over to your table. 

Rowe leaned back into his seat, glass halfway to his mouth, “You should’ve tripped her.”

“I considered it.”

Youd’ managed to wrangle Gavin and his longtime girlfriend to go out drinking with you. It wasn’t particularly difficult. They both liked to go out and drink on occasion, and you were bored in your small apartment above the shelter. Bored and still slightly grieving from an elderly dog you’d had to euthanize yesterday. And Gotham didn’t have a barn that you could sneak off to and cry into Dunn’s withers until you felt better. Dunn wasn’t even in Gotham. 

You’d considered bringing him with you, but he was getting up in years and you thought hauling him across the country in a trailer just so you’d have emotional support would be a little cruel. He had friends and an open pasture back home. It was better for him. Maybe one day you’d buy a new horse, but that day wasn’t coming anytime soon. 

You hadn’t been there more than an hour when a woman marched up to your table, not drunk enough to stumble, but enough that her grin was lazy and she moved with that sort of liquid quality only alcohol could cause. “Hi there! Sorry to interrupt you guys, but you’re the vet at the shelter's clinic right?”

You blinked at her, You weren’t new new to Gotham. At home this would be normal. At home you’d invite her to sit down with you despite the fact Gavin and his girlfriend were there. But this was Gotham, and people didn’t just randomly approach people here. Then again, you’d already broken that rule once. But something about the wrinkled scrubs, messy dark hair, eyebags on his warm brown skin had disarmed you. Even if he was a stranger, you recognized that look and took pity on him. 

“I am. Can I help you?”

“Would you be willing to do regular vet checks? Not for a stray but- I’ve got this old pug with an attitude. My old vet retired to go to the alps or find herself or something, and I’ve been keeping an eye out for someone good.”

“I could yeah. The shelter could always use the funds.”

“Perfect! And you don’t mind pets with an attitude problem?”

Gavin laughed, his girlfriend elbowed him but he spoke anyway. He’d already pre-gamed and had the benefit of a girlfriend whose favorite thing was to play designated driver. “I once saw her get kicked by a horse and tell it that it was being naughty.” 

She clapped her hands together, “Perfect! Could I get your card or something to call and make an appointment later? I promise to only call at reasonable times of day unless it’s an emergency. I’m Mira by the way.”

Even if this was strange, you wouldn’t turn any animal away. “Alright.” you dug through your purse, finding one of your cards and giving it to the woman. 

“Thanks!” She practically skipped back to her table, and you watched her go, at least until you caught sight of who all was sitting at the table. Three of them you didn’t know, but the one who had his head down and was picking at his french fries almost angrily, that one you did. 

He was the one who spilled coffee on your notes. You almost laughed, and wondered briefly if she actually did have a dog or was just trying to hook her friend up. You turned your attention back to Gavin and his girlfriend right as she spoke. “You know her?”

“Nope.

taglist: @ocean-mochi @wandaislife @amya-da-best @maymaymarch @wendee-go @mmentallyelsewhere @gram-cracker24 @xoxoangellll @alishii @ilovvesleepp

[shaddork]

The Star that Wouldn't Die - Chapter 14

Jason Todd x Fem!Reader

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Summary:

Three Scenes, a movie, Jason almost gets "the talk", and Wayne Manor becomes the victim of a brutal paint war.

Word Count: 3,567

Age 12

The next time you saw Jason Todd was when he showed up at your door only a couple weekends later, throwing his backpack at you with wild abandon. “Go get changed! We’re going out!” 

Your mother looked up from her spot on the couch, eyebrows raising at him. “Where?” Jason stepped toward her, still grinning, and spoke low enough that you couldn’t hear. Even if you were trying to figure out what they were talking about, it was a fruitless endeavour. “That’s fine then.” But it had gotten your mothers approval. Somehow. 

Jason turned back to you, hands moving to your back and shoving you towards your bedroom. “Just change! Hurry! We’re on a time limit.” He didn’t elaborate, and you were left shoved into your room while screeching at him that secrets weren’t fair, Jason shut the door for you, and stared at the bag in your hands. 

It was the backpack that Jason had worn last time, the one he’d brought the book in. You’d already finished The Lightning thief almost a week ago, adding annotations to what he had already written. The margins of the book were practically full at this point. You supposed it was time to give that back to him. 

Inside the bag you found the second book in the series,with Jasons annotations scrawled in the margins. Which you quickly swapped for the first book, and an outfit. A pair of jeans, new girls jeans, and a graphic tee with your favorite comic book character on it. They were both soft, and unworn by anyone else. Something you hadn’t actually ever experienced. It wasn’t that you didn’t get new clothes, it was that you got new thrifted clothes. An outfit not worn by anyone else? That was novel to you.

You didn’t think about it too hard as you shrugged out of your current clothes and pulled the new ones on. They fit well, although the shirt may have been a bit big. Jason had new clothes now, so why couldn’t you? You’d have to be sure to say thanks for the gift though. Just because you weren’t going to freak out about the gift didn’t mean that you weren’t going to be polite about it. 

When you stepped out Jason was waiting by the opposite wall, bouncing on the balls of his feet, “Cool I got the right size! Come on!” He grabbed your hand before you had a chance to respond, pulling you toward the front door of the apartment. 

As you were drug out the front door your mother called after Jason, “Have her home by eight!” 

“Yes ma’am!” And then you were stumbling down the stairs inside the building, and parked outside the dilapidated building was a car that certainly looked like it didn’t belong. No, it was a nice car. Sleek, polished, and not rumbling as it idled while waiting. And an old man waiting by the doors, dressed in a sleek black suit. The whole thing was like something out of a movie. Something that shouldn’t belong in your life. But here it was. “C’mon, that’s Alfred.”

“Whose Alfred-” 

You didn’t get an explanation, just pulled toward the car as the older man in the suit opened the door to the backseat, “Miss, lovely to meet you.” British accent, had you actually just stepped into a scene from a movie and not known it?

“Uh-” 

Jason interrupted you before you could speak, “Don’t worry. He’s cool.” And you were being pulled into the backseat by your very excited best friend. 

If the outside of the car was nice, the inside of it was unreal. The seats were leather, and didn’t have any stains or holes in them the way your mothers car did. The car's temperature controls actually worked too, leaving the inside a nice pleasant temperature. The door shut behind you with a soft click, and before you could truly get your bearings Alfred was in the drivers seat. 

Jason was already buckling himself in, pointing his hand dramatically through the gap of the chairs to the front, “Off we go!” But Alfred didn’t listen to his instructions immediately. 

“Please buckle miss.”

“Oh- okay.” You fumbled with the seatbelt, cheeks warm and suddenly aware of everything. This was not a world that you belonged in. This whole thing was strange and foreign but not scary, not with Jason beside you basically vibrating with excitement and acting like this was all normal to him. 

Maybe it was now. 

Alfred gave you a small nod of approval through the rearview mirror as he pulled away from the curb, the car moved smoother than anything you’d ever ridden in. No jolting at the stop signs, no sudden rattling when it picked up speed, it didn’t shake violently as it moved. 

Jason knocked your knee with his, slouching into his seat and grinning at you like a Cheshire cat. Not that you were going to complain about seeing his smile. “You good?”

“I- yeah. Thanks for the clothes. I just,” you shook your head, muttering, “I feel like I'm gonna get in trouble for just being in this car.”

“Nah, you won’t get in trouble, promise. It’s nice though right? Look at this!” He bumped the underneath of the seat with his foot, and a little compartment popped out that he pulled two soda cans from. “Want one? They’re cold.”

“You have a fridge in the car?”

“Cooling compartment! At least that’s what it’s called according to Alfred." He shoved the soda can into your hand, already cracking his own open. So after a beat you opened yours and took a sip. Looking out the tinted window for a moment, just taking in the whole situation. How exactly Jason had stumbled into this life, you’d never get an answer for. 

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise!” 

You pouted the rest of the car ride, mumbling about how rude it was that he wasn’t telling you. But when the car stopped and you went to open the door yourself Jason smacked your hand, it stung more than when he’d playfully smacked you in the past, but you didn’t think about that “No. Wait.” 

And just a few moments later Alfred was opening the door for you so that you and Jason could climb out. It was a theater, one by Robinson park. You hadn’t gotten to go to the movies before, you had to wait until they were on the TV at home, and Jason was grinning and pulling on your hand toward the ticket booth. “You wanted to see the spooky animated one right? Then after this we can go get ice cream at the stand in Robinson park.”

“I-yeah. I did.” 

He whirled at you, before grabbing your shoulders and shaking you. “Relax! We’re having fun. This is fun.”

You laughed, despite the strangeness of the situation and the fact you were still unsure about all of this. But Jason’s grin was impossible to ignore, especially with the way it lit something up in your chest. The movie was impossible to look away from, a little spooky but the animation was addicting. The way the figures moved across the screen and the colors were used to tell the story left you mesmerized and unable to look away.

Or maybe it was just the fact you’d never seen something playing on a screen that big. You were so captured by the movie you didn’t even notice how Jason kept glancing at you during the movie like he was checking to make sure that you really were enjoying it. But as soon as the credits rolled he was grabbing your hand and hauling you out of the theatre, popcorn bucket forgotten and knocked over on the floor as you pulled you out of the theatre and toward Robinson park. 

“We’re walking?”

“We aren’t made of glass. Come on it’s like, two blocks. And Alfred's gonna meet us there. Can’t loiter in front of the theatre for that long.” 

“Okay.” You followed him into the park, staying on paths that were well lit even though the sun was still in the sky, just barely starting to dip into nighttime now. The ice cream stand wasn’t far into the park, and had little twinkle lights dipping over the top of it. You made a mental note of the colors of it, to draw later. The paint was chipped, but the whole thing looked like it belonged in a snow globe. 

The whole night felt like it belonged in a snow globe. 

Jason ordered first, birthday cake, “I’m experimenting! Trying to figure out what the best flavor is. You are too! A large banana for her please?”

You took the decision made for you in stride. If you didn’t like it you could always swap with him. “Banana?”

“Like I said, experimenting."

Once you both had the ice cream cones in hand, you walked over to one of the benches and sat down, eating your ice cream in silence for a few moments. The banana ice cream wasn’t bad, as weird as it sounded. “Okay, you wanna hear something Sammy did?” Maybe you were missing Sammy, you’d told him that Jason came back and was okay, even tried to give the action figure back to him. He hadn’t let you.

Jason turned his attention back to you, when he had previously been watching the people moving about the park, “Obviously.”

“So, Monday, right? We’re reviewing fractions, and Ms.Reynolds is doing that thing where she pulls random names to solve problems on the board.”

“Hate that.”

“Well, Sammy forgot his glasses, he knew he forgot them, but when he was called on he still went up to the board anyways. Whispered to me that he’s got it,” You paused for dramatic effect, “He did not have it. So he stares at the problem for a full thirty seconds, squinting at it and then, logically, draws a cat as the solution. I swear he gets less shy every day.”

“Probably because he’s friends with you.”

You shrugged noncommittal, finishing your ice cream and licking off any remnants from your lips. “He claimed that’s what the numbers felt like.”

You were unaware of Alfred just a few paces away, taking a photo before moving toward the two of you again. “Ready to go home now Miss?”

Age 13

The patrol hadn’t been difficult, but Jason could already feel a bruise forming on his ribs. And despite that, he was unbothered. He got to help people. Yet as Dick blocked the path up to the manor, he was suddenly weary. He was still wearing the nightwing suit, but that wasn’t the problem. He didn’t have an issue with Dick, it was just that he wasn't around all the time. He flitted in and out of Gotham like a bird. That was still something Jason was getting used to without assuming it meant something bad. 

It had always meant something bad when either his mother or father disappeared for any length of time. And they didn’t always come back from that. 

“Look little dude. It’s time, it’s seriously time.” He was holding a small basket out toward him, “Use these, please. You smell like a locker room.”

“I showered yesterday!” Daily showers, even a year later, were still something that Jasonw as getting used to. Even though they were necessary after patrol, he had open access to a bathroom with almost unlimited hot water even on days where he didn’t patrol. Neither of those were something he had before. 

Before he had to ask permission to shower because “Water is expensive Jason.”, and sometimes even when he wanted to shower the water wouldn’t be on in the apartment. 

“Yeah well that was yesterday, and today you’re gonna shower in a whole new way, that will leave you smelling nice for a much longer amount of time.”

“I don’t smell that bad.”

Dick wrinkled his nose, “Yes you do. But that’s just because your body is changing, you’re growing up. You’re starting to smell…different. Actually-” he paused for a second, hesitating, “Has B had the talk with you?”

Jason hesitated, there was no good answer to that question. He wasn’t clueless about the whole puberty situation. So, of course, instead of answering he just grabbed the basket and ducked between Dicks legs before running up the stairs to get away from him. Bruce had not had the talk with him, and the school mandated one had already been bad enough. He did not want to get it from Bruce or Dick. 

It was three days later while Jason was curled up under a blanket half asleep in Sammy’s living room and watching a movie with the two of you. You slammed your hands onto your legs, “Okay I can’t take it anymore what is that smell?” And then you were sniffing the air, moving your head around like a bloodhound looking for a scent. You landed on him, nose pressed against his shoulder as you took a deep whiff before you jolted back and gasped dramatically. “It’s you oh my god! You smell like…good! Sammy! Sniff him, he smells good.”

Sammy, although he did hesitate, did scoot closer to Jason before taking a sniff of him. Not pressing his nose against Jason as dramatically as you had, but still a sniff. “Yeah. You don’t smell like my gym socks anymore.”

“I did not smell that bad!” But despite his protest, a small shy smile spread across his lips at the compliments. Maybe Dick hadn’t been wrong. But he’d never tell him that. 

Age 14

Bruce was supposed to be gone for the day, so Jason had taken that as permission to convince Alfred to go pick you up so you two could hang out at the manor. So he could show you his new fancy bedroom and the library, even the unused art room that existed within its walls. 

You showed up with neon colored hair, which was shocking to anyone else, but it felt right to you. You’d made Sammy help you dye it in a school bathroom during a free period. You thought it looked awesome. Didn’t stop you from scowling at Jason in the foyer of the manor when he stared at it a minute too long. The same way you stared too long when you spotted a bruise on his arm that he always had an excuse for. 

You’d stopped questioning the bruises. 

“It’s…bold.”

“It looks awesome! You are just a killjoy.” You puffed your cheeks out at him, expecting some more push back or something from him. But instead he just smiled at you and nodded. 

“Yeah. It looks good. Come on, let me show you around.”

It had taken time, but you’d slowly gotten used to the idea of Jason having money now. You’d never been invited over though, and it was difficult not seeing him as much. But the books traded in between the two of you helped a lot. A phone would help more, but even as badly as you wanted one, your mother simply couldn’t afford it. 

The jealousy that coiled at the fact Jason had one was only helped by the fact that Sammy didn’t have one either. You’d get one eventually, when you were old enough to get a part time job so that you could have your own phone. There were a lot of things Jason now had that you were jealous of. But your mother had a long talk with you about jealousy that had actually helped put things into perspective. 

You hadn’t even gotten your bearings in the room that the front door opened when Jason was grabbing your hand and pulling you down the hall. You’d gotten used to Alfred, started calling him Big A even. The car that he used to drive you and Jason around to go places, it still felt like a world you didn’t belong in, but it wasn’t as strange as it used to be. This was like being thrown right back into that moment, only more aware of your situation now. Older, with more understanding of the world. 

It felt like you were Belle walking through the Beasts castle for the first time. You couldn’t stop looking around, family portraits hanging on the walls surrounded by gold frames, the floor polished so well that if you squinted you might be able to see a reflection, it was like walking through a dream. 

The beauty and the beast feeling only got worse when Jason flung open a set of double doors - they didn’t creak even - and you were greeted with rows of books stretching up to the ceiling. Leather chairs making reading nooks in a few corners. You’d been in public libraries, but this was something else entirely. Maybe you really had stepped into a fairy tale. Your hand was running down the spine of one of the books before you could even think about it, even consider that you might get in trouble for touching them. 

“Not bad, huh?”

You whirled to him, “Not bad? DUDE THIS IS A FAIRYTALE!”

Jason laughed, nearly doubling over at your outburst. You didn’t care, turning back to the bookshelves open mouthed. You really didn’t belong here, but for the moment, you didn’t care. You couldn’t see any comic books, there probably weren’t any, but this was still magnificent. 

“You haven’t even seen the best part yet! Come on. The manor is filled with all these secret hidey holes and paths like,” he pauses dramatically, pulling a book from a shelf. The entire shelf slid to the side, revealing a hidden room with couches and a TV. “This one!”

“That would be like, the coolest bedroom ever.”

Jason smirked at you, not bothering to close the secret passage before grabbing your wrist, “Let me show you my room then! It’s not a secret room but it’s pretty cool.” He led you down a hallway, up three flights of stairs, and then down a few more hallways before pushing a door open. You’d get lost here so fast, but he seemed perfectly at home. “Ta-da!”

The room was clean, large like the rest of the manor, but just oozed Jason. Posters stuck to the wall, bed unmade but still somewhat neat, a pile of books on the nightstand, and a collection of nerf guns on a shelf. 

“Holy shit.”

“Look look! I’ve even got my own closet and bathroom!” Two doors pushed open, one to a closet stuffed with clothes, and one to a bathroom. Jealousy coiled in your chest again and you had to make an effort to shove it down and grin through it. This was good, great for Jason. It was just the fact that you’d never get to live like this that made something ugly rear its head. 

“I’m gonna start calling you, rich boy.”

“Don’t you dare! I’ve got a present for you too! Come on, it's just down the hall. Alfred cleaned it just for you. Nobody uses the room anymore but I thought you might like it.” He didn’t grab your arm this time, just started running down the hall laughing, leaving you to follow him through the maze of the manor. 

The room was empty, somewhat barren, walls plain, but it was what sat in the middle of the room that mattered. An easel with a canvas, canister of paints sitting next to it and a paintbrush on the floor. The jealousy melted away, this wasn’t yours, but it was a space that had been cleaned up explicitly for your use during your visit. Jason shoved you forward, “Go on! Paint!” 

You just grinned at him, before grabbing the supplies and sprawling them out of the floor, taking a brush and dipping it into a deep vibrant blue paint before placing it in the middle of the Canvas, letting the paint take you wherever it wanted. No destination in mind. 

It started as an accident, truly. A wrist flick a little too wild that caused a flick of paint to fly onto Jason’s cheek. He retaliated by sticking his finger into a yellow paint and smearing it on the shoulder of your shirt. That was one of your good shirts, so it wasn’t your fault when you coated your hand in red paint and launched yourself at him. 

That was the start of the war. Paint flying everywhere in the room, you had a suspicion that Jason was letting you win, letting you coat him in the paint more than he did to you, but you didn’t care, not as you chased him through the room with your hands covered in green now, “SUBMIT LOSER!” 

The canvas in the middle of the room had been long forgotten, and you were so focused on coating Jason with as much paint as possible that you didn’t even notice the figure leaning against the doorway, phone in hand, photo being taken. 

“Well, well, what do we have here?” He was pretty, that was your first thought. But Jason seemed irritated by his presence. 

You’d abandoned all sense of caution and just looked over at Jason with an eyebrow raised, he nodded, and that was all the encouragement you needed to launch yourself at the stranger and drag him into the paint fight. 

taglist: @gram-cracker24

[shaddork]

i'm reworking the outline of TSTWD and uh. yea so somehow like. 3 more chapters got added and the slowburn is even more slowburn now.

[shaddork]

i'm actually obsessed with this drawing of him it's not even funny

Prince of Gotham

(heavily inspired by this post op if you see this, I didn't want to bother you 🙈)

[shaddork]

Sweet Tea and Soulmarks - Chapter 2

Damian Wayne x Southern!Reader

Previous - Masterlist - Next

CW's: Injured animal, abandoned animal, mention of death

Summary:

Dropping an animal off to a shelter doesn't go as planned for Robin, and a chance encounter as Damian leaves him owing a stranger money

Word Count: 4,634 Words

Saturday, May 3rd, 2025

Damian eased the door open with his shoulder. The lock had been upgraded recently, no longer the rusted old thing that used to “protect” the building, it was better than it used to be, but he still managed to pick it in just a few moments.  He’d had to set the mutt down briefly in order to get the lock undone, but now it was tucked back against his chest. He was holding it close, but not tight. It was injured, the dogs’ fur was matted and blood covered. Some bastard had tossed it into the street. He had watched it happen, right as he was heading back toward the manor for the night. Caught the tail end of the heinous act as the car peeled off, leaving a shaking pup on the side of the road in its wake. 

The pup was breathing, but significantly more labored than was comforting. 

The clinic was dark inside, the blinds were drawn so that no light from the city leaked in through the windows, leaving only the red glow of the exit sign lighting up the room. Familiar territory. Even with the expansions that they’d done, it was still the same. 

The scuffed grey tile was cold and hard, the front door was still stubborn and squeaked as it opened. But the important thing wasn’t how the clinic looked, it was that they never turned an animal way. They weren’t the most popular shelter in Gotham, but they were his personal favorite because of that simple fact. 

The pup would be okay if damian left her here, but he’d stay anyways. At least until it was closer to when they opened and she was in the hands of someone who could help. 

He set the pup down gently on one of the chairs, crouching down low to adjust the towel around it. He briefly scratched the coarse fur on her head, and her eyes fluttered open momentarily to look at him. 

 This wasn’t the first time he’d dropped an animal off here as Robin, it wouldn’t be the last. He reached out to pet the pup on the head gently. 

Then something cracked across the back of his shoulder. 

It didn’t hurt, not really. There was plenty of force behind the smack, but whatever he had been hit with wasn’t very sturdy. The smack was more startling than it was painful. Even if he wasn’t wearing Kevlar, it would have stung at most. 

On instinct, he twisted around to face the assailant. The clinic was closed, lights off, doors locked, nobody should be here. But despite that, there was undeniably a woman standing a few feet away from him. 

Brandishing a broom as if it was a sword, bristles angled forward toward him. It was ridiculous, the broom wasn’t even a decent one. It was an old, shitty, plastic with fraying ends and duct tape holding it together in place. 

Her hair was tousled, sticking out in waves that suggested that she’d rolled out of bed only moments ago. The clothing only solidified that impression, oversized hoodie, pajama pants, bare feet on the tile of the clinic. This didn’t appear to be a criminal, this appeared to be someone who’d just woken up to a home invasion. 

But that didn’t make any sense. No one lived at the clinic. 

“I will hit you again, I swear to God-” Your voice was sharp with adrenaline, the kind that made people swing first instead of asking questions. But there notably was an accent in your voice, a thick southern drawl. 

Damian straightened to his full height, turning his whole body toward you slowly, cape falling into place behind him. His eyes never left your form, and as he was straightened something flickered in your eyes. Recognition, enough that your arms dropped an inch before the broom clattered to the floor. 

“I’m sorry, sugar! I thought you were robbin’ the place. I didn’t expect you to be, well-” You motioned at him vaguely, “Robin.” 

Damian narrowed his eyes at you, your demeanor had changed entirely. It wasn’t that you were threatening before, but you certainly were trying to fight off an intruder, confident. Now there was an embarrassed edge to it, a slight curling inward of your shoulders. 

You didn’t seem like a threat, especially not now, but he also couldn’t come up with a reason why you were in the clinic after hours. That demanded an answer. “Who are you and why are you here after hours?”

You straightened up, pushing the broom aside with the toe of your bare foot. “I’m the new vet,” You didn’t offer your name, “I live in the apartment upstairs. Easier to keep an eye on any critters who need round the clock care that way.” 

The accent lingered in the air like syrup, nearly the opposite of how most people in Gotham sounded, something that Damians own voice had never quite picked up. He’d heard similar accents before, normally only in brief passing and videos. He’d once called Jon southern and gotten a five minute correction on the difference between southern and midwestern. Your accent was certainly southern, and out of place in Gotham. 

“You live here?”

“I did just say that.” Your arms crossed over your chest, eyes flicking over him, slower this time. You took in his uniform, where it was plating and where it was kevlar, the utility belt, his general form. Then your gaze snagged just briefly on the hilt of his katana, it would’ve been easy to miss. Only a second before your eyes were meeting his domino mask. “Now, why exactly are you berakin’ into my clinic?”

Damian glanced back at the pup briefly, before stepping once to the left so the pup was visible to you. The pup let out a pitiful wheeze, and your whole posture changed again. Now morphed into something professional, someone working rather than someone in their own home. 

You were quickly moving to crouch in front of the pup, peeling the towel back. Each movement was quick but gentle. “Poor baby,” you murmured, “C’mon now. You carry her into that room over yonder, and I’ll look her over.” The words were spoken with a vague hand motion toward one of the new doors in the shelter, presumably leading to the clinic. 

Then you were disappearing down one of the other shadowed hallways of the clinic, not bothering to turn any lights on after yourself. You were moving like this was routine, as if this was something that happened every day. 

Damian picked the pup up again, careful to support her body while not knowing exactly what was wrong with her. The lights in the exam room flickered on automatically with the movement inside the room. The decor was similar to the older part of the building where the shelter was, blending the shelter and clinic together relatively well. 

The room smelt like antiseptic, the smell overpowering the cacophony of smells that were typically associated with an animal shelter. Actually even the shelter portion of the building smelt different than it used to, better taken care of, cleaner. Likely a new cleaning routine instituted now that there was a clinic on site. 

He laid the pup gently on the exam table, it squirmed around a bit but didn’t try to jump off or escape. Puppies were supposed to be lively squirmy things, and she was just laying there, letting him move her about with little effort. 

You appeared in the doorway less than thirty seconds after he had the pup settled, arms full of supplies and a stethoscope now looped around your neck. It was strange, seeing someone dressed in pajamas but carrying around a stethoscope and medical supplies like this was normal. He was so accustomed to scrubs that this felt shockingly foreign. 

You dropped the items you’d gathered on the countertop, it was just the basics really. Alcohol wipes, vet wrap, thermometer, that sort of thing. “We’re still workin’ on gettin’ all the rooms stocked. Clinic isn’t technically open yet.” You picked the pup up and placed her on the scale attached to the exam table, waiting for the number to pop up before moving her back onto the towel. 

Damians lack of response didn’t seem to bother you, simply continuing with the process of checking the pup out, scrawling things onto your skin with a black marker as you did. 

The exam was fluid, practiced. Enough that he didn’t feel the need to question what your qualifications were. He’d seen that sort of movement, even if this was with an animal and not a human, it was the same way that the attendings at the hospital moved. 

You checked the pups temperature, each paw was lifted and turned gently in your palm, fingers ran down the pups rubs. Ears, teeth, gums. And all the while you used the alcohol wipes to clean some of the blood out of the pups fur. You weren’t describing every movement you did to fill the space some vets felt the need to. None of this was a performance to impress him, t was just a woman doing her job. 

The exam was efficient, taking only a handful of moments before you were wrapping the pup back up in the towel. “She’s got a respiratory infection and a sprained paw, but otherwise healthy. She’s pretty exhausted though. Antibiotics, rest, and a good bath and she’ll be alright.” You rubbed the pups head before turning your attention back toward Robin. “Could be worse overall, how’d you find her?”

Your expression was soft, touched with gratitude for saving the pup. Not all stray animals needed human intervention, but this pup certainly wouldn’t have survived being on her own. 

“Saw someone toss her into the street.” Keeping the rage in his voice in check was something he’d long since mastered. It used to bleed through whether or not he liked it, but after years he finally managed to get his tone in check. 

“Jesus, did you give ‘em a good smack for it?”

He was silent for a moment, considering the best way to answer. You didn’t seem like you were new to the city, there were signs that you had experience here. Recognizing him as Robin and then the lack of panic when you did realize who he was. But there were also signs that you weren’t a Gothamite, the drawl of your accent too thick to belong to the city. Most obvious was your weapon of choice when you thought he was an intruder. A flimsy broom, not a gun or a knife. 

He finally settled on the words, “I intervened" simple enough that it wouldn’t scare off a non-gothamite, but it still would confirm that the situation was taken care of either way. 

You didn’t push for clarification. The lack of pressing on the answer also said you were a Gothamite, that you knew better than to push for information you might not like. Information that could put you in danger. No, you just nodded and started grabbing some blankets from a stack on a nearby shelf. 

There was an observation kennel in the room, and you stuffed them inside it. The kennel was clean, likely hadn’t even been used yet, “Thanks for bringin’ her here. Some folks would’ve just walked past. Pretended not to see her.” Your gaze wasn’t turned toward him now, focused on what you were doing. 

“I’m not most people.”

Your lips quirked up slightly, “No shit Sugar. I”m pretty sure most people don’t wear body armor and carry swords.” There wasn’t any bite in your voice, it was barely even teasing, more of an observation than anything else. But still not something a Gothamite would say. 

Damian chose to ignore it. “You’ll keep an eye on her?”

“Like I said. I live upstairs, I’ll make sure she’s warm and fed. I’ll be checkin’ on her every couple hours to make sure nothin’ changes. If anything happens then I’ll be close enough to handle it real quick.” You paused for a moment, wiping your hands on the front of the beaten up hoodie. “You wanna name her before you leave?”

“No.” The word was immediate, sharper than he’d intended it to be. “I’m not keeping her.”

You didn’t seem offended, just leaned your weight into one hip, a bemused look crossing your face. “Alright then Sourpuss.” she drawled, “I’ll let the girls draw names in the mornin’, see which one gets the honor of namin’ her.” She tilted her head, quiet for a beat, “Anythin’ else I can do for you?”

“No.” His voice was clipped, final. But despite that as he turned and started to walk out, he was only three steps toward the door when she spoke again. 

“Hang on.”

He stopped, but didn’t turn around, there was shuffling behind him, a drawer opening. And when he did turn around you were holding out a card between two fingers. Your nails were short, clean but a little stained from ink. 

“Call next time. This number rings through my work phone. So long as the city ain’t killed me yet, I’ll answer. An’ it’s better than breakin’ into the place anytime you find an animal that needs help.” You said it casually, a suggestion rather than an invitation. This wasn’t you flirting and giving him your number - something that happened more than he liked - but rather work related, practical. Something he could respect and understand. 

He stares at it for a beat, the cardstock was plain, just your name, a cell number, and a small sketch of a sleeping dog and cat in the corner. It wasn’t your personal number, but it wasn’t the clinics general voicemail either. Meant for things that couldn’t wait until morning. 

It didn’t seem like anyone had told you that he stopped by more often than he’d like. Always under the cover of darkness with animals nobody else would take, or ones he didn’t trust anyone else with. Even though the motion was practical, it pressed it almost pressed into being personal for him. 

He took the card, nodded, and slipped back down the hallway and through the front door. No goodbyes, no awkward lingering. Just the cool night air greeting him as he stepped back out. 

Wednesday May 7th, 2025 

Damians first mistake of the day was being too tired to care. In truth, he made this particular mistake often. The cafe was close to the hospital, and coming off a long shift running off adrenaline that wore off quickly once it was time to go home. He was basically sleepwalking by the time he made it to the cafe, even if it was only two blocks away. All he wanted was caffeine, quiet, and somewhere warm to sit for a few minutes before collapsing into the bed at his depressingly barren apartment. 

At first he had told himself the lack of decoration was practical, efficient, spartan even. Minimalism saved time, avoided clutter. But with each week he spent in the apartment the more he hated it. The more it reminded him of the hospital, sterile and barren, when it was supposed to be his haven from the hospital. But he had the manor on the weekends, no matter how complicated things were with his family, it felt like home. 

Maybe one day he’d find the time to decorate the apartment, but likely not. 

The cafe wasn’t empty at this time in the afternoon, but it wasn’t packed either. He was so tired that he barely registered the people sitting at the tables scrolling through their phones or in conversation with others, the barista chatting with one of her coworkers. He just needed caffeine. Maybe a triple shot of espresso. Enough to get home and handle a load of laundry and answer a couple of texts before bed.

He had tunnel vision, eyes fixated on the counter, the lit up sign behind the counter, where he would have to order coffee before waiting for it to be done. And because of that, 

Thud. 

His hip clipped the corner of a table he hadn’t seen - hadn’t paid attention to -  and the impact sent the paper cup sitting on the table lurching, tipping over and spilling hot coffee across a small stack of handwritten notes and printed papers splayed in front of a woman he hadn’t seen until he was already apologizing. 

“Sorry, I didn’t-” Damian muttered in Arabic before he could stop himself, dragging his hands across his face trying to rub the exhaustion away momentarily, then his eyes finally focused on her. 

Of course, it wasn’t just some stranger, but the southern vet from the shelter, staring up at him with eyes wide, trying to decide on being mad or just being startled. You were sprawled out, boots resting on the bottom rung of the chair across from you, hair braided and tucked over one shoulder. You blinked slowly, looked down at the now soggy paperwork, then back up at him. 

“You good?” You pulled the boots off the other chair, grabbing a napkin and looking down at the papers with a sigh, dropping the napkin instead of trying to dab the papers off.  If he wasn’t so exhausted maybe he would have had a chance to answer before she was talking again, then again maybe the shock that he wasn’t being cussed out by a stranger would have been enough to keep him quiet for that time. “You look like somebody done dragged you through the back end of a graveyard and forgot to apologize for it.”

Damian blinked, it was colorful language, and the fatigue was making him slow to process “Excuse me?”

“I said you look dead on your feet,” You gestured vaguely at his clothes, the wrinkled scrub top under the hoodie, matching scrub pants, dark circles under his eyes, “Just…sit down I’ll get you a coffee.”

Damian blinked again, this time slower, needing a moment to process her words. He wasn’t used to people offering him things without an agenda. Robin didn’t get offered things, and Damian Wayne was only offered things with the expectation of something in return. But something about your southern drawl was oddly relaxing, comforting. You’d make a good nurse, the thought crossed his mind briefly before remembering you were a vet. Part of your job was to comfort people when their pets were sick or had to be put down. 

You weren’t mad, anyone else would have been mad. Certainly any true Gothamite would have been mad.  The papers you’d been writing on were ruined. They’d have to be re-done. And even when you initially picked up a napkin to dab them dry, it only took a moment for you to come to the realization that it wouldn’t help. 

“I can buy my own coffee.” Despite his protest, Damian was already sagging into the chair that you’d freed from your boots. He intended to go get his own coffee, he really did, but it was like he was fighting with gravity, and unlike Grayson who moved through the world like physics were optional, gravity always won when he was this tired. 

“You can pay me back then.” You were already standing, walking away with lazy confidence. He didn’t watch you as you spoke to the barista, just stared blankly at the soaked papers sprawled across the table you’d left at the table. They were veterinary records, or something close to it. He didn’t know, and for the moment, he didn’t care. 

You came back a moment later, two cups in hand, just plain white paper cups with no frilly writing on the cups. One handed to him like it wasn’t a big deal. Almost like you knew him, or this was normal, like he wasn’t a stranger who’d just ruined what you’d been working on. 

He hesitated, not quite trusting it, not quite trusting you. “You didn’t ask what I wanted.”

“You didn’t look like you cared. It’s just black coffee. Enough to keep you alive ‘til you’re horizontal again.”

“Hn.” It wasn’t agreement, but it wasn’t protest either as he took the cup from you.  He took a sip, and it was bitter, hot enough he burnt his tongue on the first sip, but he didn’t care.

You sat back down, the chair scraping against the table, and started to look through the stack of papers, figuring out what was ruined beyond salvation and what was worth saving. Ruined papers went to the left, the salvageable ones went to the right. You didn’t say anything. 

Damian didn’t speak either. Brain so fatigued that even if he was the sort of person to fill quiet spaces with words that he wouldn’t be able to. He drank the coffee in small, scalding sips, hands curled around the cup like it was a lifeline. In a way it sort of was. 

Maybe he should just start ordering coffee to the hospital before he gets off shift. Would mean he didn’t ruin people's paperwork at the cafe again. 

“Nurse, vet, or doctor?” The question pulled his attention back to the real world and away from his quiet mind. 

“Huh?”

You were looking at him, direct eye contact, “You’re wearin’ scrubs. Only three professions I know that wear scrubs. So i’m guessin’ one of those”

Damian glanced down at himself, sure enough the scrubs were still visible beneath his hoodie. He hadn’t even registered that he’d walked out of the hospital without changing clothes today. 

“Doctor,” he muttered, "Technically."

You gave a low whistle, leaning back and tipping your chin at him, “Must’ve been a hell of a shift. Especially here in Gotham, props to you.”  You didn’t press for any further information, didn’t ask what kind of doctor, or where he worked. Even gothamites thre a thousand questions at him when they found out, but you just nodded and went back to sorting the papers. 

It was oddly grounding, to not have to explain his whole profession to a stranger for once. And a little disarming. 

It would’ve been the polite thing to ask what you did for a living, but he Damian didn’t bother. He was far too tired to care about what polite was for the moment. 

The silence stretched until you were gathering the papers - now neatly separated into two clear stacks - that you spoke again. You were standing to leave, but your movements were unhurried. “You got a name Doctor Disaster?”

“Damian.”

You offered your name in return. He already knew it. Or more accurately, Robin already knew your name. Damian Wayne didn’t. Even with the years spent mastering the separation between the two identities, this tired he wasn’t sharp enough to remember to separate them fully. Wasn’t cognizant enough to remember to ask for your name in return. 

But you didn’t seem bothered, just like you hadn’t a few nights ago standing across from him in the shelter wearing your pajamas. Your gaze flickered over him once more, almost clinically. “Well then. I’ll see you’round, Damian.”

And just like that you were gone, brushing past people in the cafe and moving toward the street. The bell above the cafe door jingled as you left, and he couldn’t help but watch you walk away. Your figure slowly disappearing down the sidewalk and toward whatever other things you had to do for the day. 

He looked back down at the cup in his hands, still warm, now mostly empty. He hadn’t given you any money to pay you back for the coffee. He took another sip of it anyway.

The next morning Damian woke up with a headache and the kind of dry mouth that made him regret every sip of coffee and skipped glass of water from the last fourty-eight hours. Though morning wasn’t an accurate descriptor for what time it was. The sun was already low in the sky, mid afternoon. He’d slept for nearly a full twenty-four hours, dead to the world. 

He barely remembered getting home, much less showering, running the laundry and then collapsing into bed. But he was in a soft pair of sweatpants and could still smell the soap lingering on his skin. At least he hadn’t collapsed straight into bed wearing dirty scrubs. 

Waking up here, in his apartment, was never something that he looked forward to. 

It wasn’t that the apartment was bad, his bed was comfortable, and everything was arranged with surgical precision, no clutter. Efficient. Spartan, he’d call it if anyone asked. The space was functional, exactly what someone like him needed. But he knew that was lie, it wasn’t home. 

Home was the manor, even despite it’s gothic architecture, dark hallways, unused rooms, it was still home. Alfred the cat was there, and Alfred the man would be there with a plate ready for him to eat. Remnants of his other siblings still lingered through the building, jackets tossed on the back of a couch, charging cables left plugged into the wall but charging nothing. 

The manor might have ghosts, but they were his ghosts. This apartment was just where he crashed between shifts, not where he lived. 

Still blinking the sleep from his eyes, Damian sat up and swung his legs over the ide of the bed. The floor was cold beneath his feet, the bathroom tile even colder. But it was just right to wake him up, the shock of the feeling comforting and welcome. 

Apparently he hadn’t bothered putting a shirt on before bed. He caught a glance of himself in the mirror and inwardly cringed. He looked like shit. Pillow crease down the side of his face, and eyebags that only fellow surgical residents could rival. He needed to shave, stubble was already forming on his jaw even though it had only been a couple days since he’d last shaved. 

He brushed his teeth on autopilot, looking down at the sink rather than the mirror in front of him. 

When he spit the toothpaste into the sink and finally looked up was when he saw it. Just barely brushing the curve of his right deltoid, another pawprint. Sometimes he wondered if, eventually, they’d wrap around his entire arm like a sleeve tattoo he hadn’t asked for. This one was still high enough that it would be hidden by most shirts, scrub tops and hoodies especially, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew one day that might be true, and then he’d get significantly more comments on them that he already did. 

Damian didn’t move, just stared, jaw tight, fingers wrapping around the porcelain edge of the sink until his knuckles turned white. This one was shaped like a dogs. Not a small one either, the pads were thick, evenly spaced. He couldn’t say what kind of dog exactly, pawprints never gave that much information, and he hadn’t seen it alive. 

Would the marks stop after he met his soulmate? Would they stop when the bond was complete? Or would they just continue on like nothing had changed. Even if they never stopped there were worse things to carry than pawprints. He could be like his father, with a soulmate mark that would never be complete. Damian wasn’t supposed to know, but he knew that his father had once found his soulmate, only to watch them die. 

He leaned back and released the sink, flipping the light off as he sighed. He didn’t need to be thinking about this right now. There wasn’t any point to it, it’s not like thinking would bring him closer to answers. It wasn’t even like he was guaranteed to meet his soulmate. And even if he did he wasn’t guaranteed to know it was his soulmate. 

Taglist: @ocean-mochi @wandaislife @amya-da-best @maymaymarch @wendee-go @mmentallyelsewhere

[shaddork]

I'm working on the second chapter of Sweet Tea and Soulmarks, and it got me thinking about what the others soulmarks would be like, what's their meet cute? How do they find out that they're soulmates? Although this is all x reader scenarios I'm not convinced that they wouldn't be someone in the dc universe. These are all Gender Neutral

For context: STAS is my (Doctor)Damian Wayne x southern(Veterinarian) reader soulmate au, with irritatingly vague and inconsistent soulmarks. There is no one standard type of soulmark, it depends heavily on each pairing. Masterlist

Jason Todd's soulmate mark is simple. He has two letters on his temple, it almost looks like a signature. It is, surprisingly, one of the more helpful soulmate marks. Yet it isn't so helpful that it's almost impossible to track down his soulmate with just the mark alone.

That changes when he's at a bookstore, and someone is there doing a book signing. He doesn't recognize the author, but they clearly write murder mystery books. And he's all for supporting local authors. So he buys a copy of one of their books and gets in line to get it signed.

Everything gets significantly more complicated when they asks for the name to sign his book too. They pauses when he tells her looks up and, "Your initials wouldn't happen to be JPT would they?"

His initials are on her temple in his handwriting, hers are on his in her own. Their dynamic is a balancing act, despite being soulmates. One writes about violent crimes, and he has committed many a violent act.

Dick Grayson's soulmate mark doesn't appear until he gets into an argument with one of his coworkers about a joke he made. They're the resident grump of the bludhaven police force, a forensic investigator/csi, and does not get along with Dick.

"This is a crime scene Grayson, not a stand-up routine." A hand shoves his chest, and he catches their wrist. Later that night they both find inky handprints there, the exact shape of the others hand. But the marks fade within hours.

Naturally, they both start testing the theory individually. Trying to get the other to touch them subtly, and keeping an eye out for any marks that appear. It's only a matter of time till they figure out that they're soulmates.

Their dynamic takes time, he thinks his CSI soulmate is too dour and makes it his mission to put a smile on that face. His soulmate this he's annoying and his smile is fake. Things only change when the roles suddenly swap. Dick is in a bad mood, and his soulmate makes a joke to try and cheer him up.

Tim Drake's soulmate mark is a logo on his leg. He's tried to track it down, only with no luck. It ends up being about as useless for tracking down his soulmate as Damians is.

Oddly enough, his lucky break comes in the form of Alfred, who informs Bruce and Tim that he's going to have someone help him with the cooking during the day. Which is all too strange, until they see the Red Robin logo on their new chef's wrist.

His soulmate is a chef, one with dreams of opening their own restaurant, but still trying to save up the money to do so. The mark on his leg is the logo that was designed for the non-existent restaurant when the planning first started.

He forgets to eat, and his soulmate makes sure that he does. Outside of that, they're rather similar. Different enough to compliment one another, but close enough that its easy for them to get along. They just click.

Bruce Wayne's soulmate is glaringly obvious to him, and he sort of hates it. There's a soundwave line on his soulmates throat, one that only moves when he speaks, near or far, it's a pattern and he's tested it. And he has a matching on on his side.

It wouldn't be problematic if his soulmate wasn't a villain. A villain known not for strategy, but rather for the chilling whispers and almost hypnotic voice attached to the crimes committed. He's put his soulmate behind bars more times than he can count, and he simply cannot figure out why them.

He's never acted on the information, just tried to figure out the why. And it doesn't make sense until new information comes to light. Information that removes any shades of black and white from the situation.

They both have their own moral code, even if they don't understand each others. They push each other, confuse each other. And his soulmate never finds out they're soulmates, tragedy strikes before that realization can ever happen.

[shaddork]

I fr cannot get over how BEAUTIFUL this is

finally had time to finish an animation… acolyte vs the sun

[shaddork]

The Star that Wouldn't Die - Chapter 13

Jason Todd x Fem!Reader

<Previous - Masterlist - Next>

Summary:

A warning comes from an unexpected stranger, and Damian call your art “adequate”

Word Count: 6,370 CW: Mentions of drugs and drug use, smoking

Undercover missions were not Jasons favorite thing. He was more than capable, and he’d gone on more than his fair share of them. But capability wasn’t the issue, it was having his face exposed, it was letting the world see him. He wore a full face mask as Red Hood for a reason. 

It wasn’t that he disliked his face being seen, no, he disliked the reactions to his face being seen. It always made his skin crawl when their brows drew together and the edges of their mouth curled upward with disgust. The hood was a form of protection for him, a way to keep people's eyes off of his deformities. 

Yet, because the world hated him, he found himself walking down an alley without the hood on in the middle of the night, hands pushing down into his pockets. As it turned out, the club that the two he’d caught in the alleyway had a name. One he didn’t know how they forgot. Gloryhole, someone had named the damn place Gloryhole. 

The name made him want to walk straight into oncoming traffic. It was the kind of name you couldn’t say aloud without some poor bastard choking on their drink. Yet behind the old laundromat, carved into an old rusting pipe there was the name. 

They didn’t operate off advertisements, they didn’t do blinking neon signs, they relied on word of mouth, whispered invites, and the dumbest club name in Gothams underworld. There hadn’t even been a dress code that he could find, so he wore something casual. 

He’d taken a black hair spray to his white streak, dark pants, dark t-shirt, dark hoodie, hood drawn over his face as far as he could get it. 

It wasn’t hard to locate the club entrance, for one, the music was audible from the street - barely but it was there - and there was a bouncer outside the door. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he was wide. A single earpiece in his right ear, the wire disappearing into the collar of his shirt. His clothing wasn’t flashy, it was simple. Meant to blend in with his surroundings. 

The bouncer gave him a once over, didn’t ask for ID, “The cover is fifteen” and a hand was outstretched to receive the money. 

Jason dug into his pocket, finding some stray cash and handing the man the bills. Covers weren’t unusual, and he wasn’t about to argue over them tonight. He had a goal, and fighting over paying fifteen dollars to the doorman wasn’t something he was about to do. 

Still, fifteen felt like a lot considering this was just some underground place. Did they even have the proper permits to operate? He’d have Tim look into that later. 

Inside, it was louder, but it didn’t immediately change from some run down alley. The staircase was narrow and steep, went down for a bit, and about halfway down he wasn’t standing in some dingy alleyway with rusted pipes, the walls of the staircase started to become lined with mirrors. The club was thriving, neon colors pulsing with the music, the bass low, vibrating more in his chest than his ears. 

Whoever decorated the place did a fantastic job of turning it from speakeasy to popular club,  all while still retaining the charm of a building so old. It was easy to tell that someone gave a damn about the vibe. 

Exposed brick walls that weren’t cleaned up or smoothed over, just sealed enough to keep from crumbling. The ceiling still carried the thick old beams from a hundred years ago, though they were now lined with black tubing, and neon lights. 

The bar itself looked like it might be the original from the speakeasy days, only cleaned up. Long and dark-stained, stretching the full length of one of the far walls. Glass shelves stacked high with liquor that ranged from cheap to expensive. A neon light strip ran underneath the bar, casting bright blues and pinks across the bartenders uniforms in an almost dizzying way.

They didn’t match exactly, but they were coordinated, clean cut, uniform enough to signal staff, but casual enough not to feel like corporate robots. 

The center of the room was dominated by the dance floor, bodies moving together with the music. There wasn’t much choreography, just energy. In the middle of the floor there was even a table for people who wanted to get up on it and dance. People were dancing on it currently. 

The music however was a shock, not what you’d expect to find in a club. No synth-heavy beats or thumping house tracks. No, it was early 2000’s to mid 2010’s music, the kind of hits that everyone knew the words too. Nicki MInaj’s, Britney Spears, USHER, the list went on. 

It was shameless, loud, and fun in a way most clubs simply weren’t anymore. Even though it was a relatively small space, and the fact that the mismatched seating and tables lining the walls made the entire space feel cramped. It didn’t bother anyone, and it was weirdly comfortable. 

You probably would have loved it. Pulled him out to the dancefloor with a grin and made him dance. Too bad he wasn’t here with you, or that he wasn’t here to drink or dance. He was here for a job. 

The bar was the first place Jason went. There weren’t any seats available, no surprise it was Friday night, but that didn’t deter him. He slid up to a spot where a group had just moved off to the dance floor, and leaned one forearm on the counter, pulling his hood down. One of the two bartenders behind the bar noticed him quickly, a clean-cut guy in his mid-twenties with sleeves rolled to the elbows. “What can I get you?”

“Rum and Coke.”

No ID check, no fuss. Just a short nod before the bartender turned away and wove through his coworkers with a practiced sort of precision. Jason didn’t have any intention of drinking it, not tonight. But it would look awfully suspicious if he didn’t have something in his hand. He needed to blend in, to look like he belonged. 

While the bartender got his drink, he looked around some more. The only visible way in or out of the building was the one he came through, but behind the bar was a door that had a “staff only” sign painted onto it. There could be an exit through there, or it was simply a back room for them to keep stock. 

Despite there only being one other bartender at the bar, there were three in total. The one who had served him, one slightly older and grumpier looking who seemed to only serve regulars. And the third bartender who was going back and forth between the bar and the tables. He was pretty looking, and the way he leaned on the tables could have been and innocent way of getting tips, or he could be fishing for information. 

It was hard to discern anything helpful from the dance floor, the lights and bodies pressed against each other made it difficult to make out any details. 

By the time the bartender came back with his drink, Jason had a better handle on the place. But he’d only had a few brief moments to look around, “Place always this packed?”

The bartender nodded, reaching into a bucket of some sort of cleaning fluid and pulling a rag out of it to wipe the bar down with. “Fridays, yeah. Word gets around.” 

Jason glanced around again, slow and easy. It was a purposefully casual motion, practiced to look that way, even if he was trying to see if he could spot anyone trading money for baggies. The song changed, the beat of the last song fading into Milkshake. Jason let it become white noise at that point. “Didn’t expect the music.”

The bartender laughed, a short sharp sound, before tossing the rag back into the bucket he’d gotten it from and leaning forward on the bar, elbows pressing into the wood. “Yeah. That’s the princess’ playlist tonight.”

“Princess?” He didn’t have to feign curiosity. If his “intel” (if he could even call it that) was right, and Slickbane did run the place, that could be someone important to him or someone involved. A lover, girlfriend, a mark. Someone easier to get to than Slickbane himself. 

“The owner’s daughter,” The bartenders eyes flicked toward the dance floor briefly, “She comes in, picks the tunes, dances till she cant stand and then vanishes like she owns the place. She might as well though, if she asks for something while here she’s getting it.”

“So she runs the place when he’s not around?” Jason was fishing, he could be less obvious about it, but it was an innocent enough question. So long as he kept his tone right and didn’t ask any follow-ups that rose a red flag. 

“Nah. She doesn’t do logistics. She just likes the music loud and the floor packed. Sometimes she brings friends with, sometimes not. Either way, she just parties, drinks, and then leaves.” 

“Sounds like a good gig.”

“If you can keep up with her, maybe. She’s the kind of person who keeps you guessing as to what she’s going to do next.” The words were casual, and while it was unsaid, it certainly left an implication that she was trouble in the best way. The kind of woman who could sweep a man off his feet and convince him to do a line with minimal effort. 

“Sounds exhausting.”

The bartender shrugged, shaking his head, “Part of the job.” One of the other patrons waves at the bartender, and he nodded as Jason before moving toward them, ending the conversation. 

She didn’t necessarily sound like she was involved, and it wasn’t so much as what he said, so much as how he had said it. His voice had been somewhere between reverence and fear. The conversation gave him something to chew on. It implied that she had a good portion of control over the club, which likely meant she had a good portion of control over Slickbane himself. 

But he was still jumping to assumptions, he had no proof that Slickbane actually ran the place. That was something he still needed to find. So he started moving through the club, he avoided the dance floor instead choosing to weave in between tables. It was an easy way to keep an ear out for any information he could get, and to get a good overview of everyone there. 

He kept a particularly close eye on the bartender running drinks to tables, but within an hour he decided that was a route that wasn’t likely to end up bearing any fruits. 

There was one other guy of interest, a larger man wearing a white sleeveless shirt, full sleeve tattoo visible on his left arm. But that wasn’t why he was interesting. It was the way he made his way through the crowd. People didn’t part of him, but he moved through it like it was an everyday occurrence for him. He moved like he was security of some kind, weaving his way through the crowd in a similar way to what Jason was currently doing, yet he didn’t have on a uniform or anything that marked him as an employee. 

He slipped behind the bar with ease, getting his own drinks, what exactly was he? Maybe someone who worked there, only not officially. Jason filed the information away for later. 

After an hour of wandering the floor he found himself a table a corner booth, settling into it and nursing his drink - still full - as he watched. He wasn’t expecting to crack the case tonight, this was just recon. He was simply surveying the landscape, to try and pick up on anything worth chasing down later. IF he was lucky he’d leave with some sort of information. 

But after a few hours of nursing the same drink and eyeing the crowd for anything suspicious, Jason was about ready to call it a night. He was already shifting his weight to stand when something caught his attention. 

It was subtle, almost nothing. Several tables scattered around the club, different groups, different conversations. Nothing to seemingly connect the groups, yet at various times they all tapped on the table. The tempo varied, and it wasn’t morse code, that much he could confirm just by watching them closely for a few moments. But it was something similar. It was too deliberate to be a coincidence. The clincher was what happened after time. Each time the tapping stopped, the table would nod, shake their head, or lean in. Each one was subtle, not meant to be noticed. But it was still a pattern. 

That was enough to keep him seated. 

One long slow sip of his rum and coke and he settled back into his corner seat. It was a good vantage point to watch without being observed. He tracked the tap sequences, watching the initiator tap out a sequence against his cocktail napkin with two fingers. The guy across him glanced toward the back room, then gave a single nod and stood. 

He kept tracking them like that, trying to figure out it it was a set of codes, or if it was versatile in the same way that Morse code was. He wouldn’t have the chance to fully figure out by watching one single group because then chaos nearly spilled into his lap. 

Sequins, blonde hair, and poorly balanced heels came stumbling past. One girl slammed into his table, plastic up tipping dangerously before she caught it with a squeal. “Oops! Sorry!” Then she was collapsing into the booth next to him with two other girls. “You good Jess?”

“I’m great,” Jess was very obviously not okay, at a minimum she was drunk. It wasn’t out of the question that she was high too. 

Jason stared down into the liquid in his glass, the ice had melted and it was water down now. Not a pleasant drinking experience, but that didn’t matter. He tried to tune the girls out in favor of gluing his attention back to the table that he was watching, the one with the tapping, but they were three drunk women. 

Which meant they were giggling, loud, and at a pitch that was hard to ignore. Then they said something that he didn’t want to ignore. Something that would be foolish to ignore. 

“Oh my god, Lena said it was like, euphoric. Said her skin felt like music.”

Jason didn’t move, didn’t tilt his head toward them, but he still zeroed in on the conversation. That? That sounded like a drug if he’d ever heard someone describe one. Not prescription, not medical, a party drug, almost certainly. Which meant that even if this place wasn’t tied to Slickbane like he had initially thought, it was still moving product. 

That alone made keeping an eye on the club worth it. If he was wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time he stumbled into a totally separate case while trying to investigate something else. Either way, he hadn’t been wasting time. 

“That’s not how she described it to me,” The second girl - Jess- slurred. Well past the point of half drunk, “She said it was like…like her blood became champagne. Everything fizzy and golden. Like you could feel the sparkle in your blood.” The end of her sentence was more a slur of words than a proper sentence, but Jason still managed to figure out the details of it. 

Champagne-blood and musical skin weren’t words typically attached to any drug on record. Let alone the same drug. Molly, Liquid X, Acid, they all had their known effects, but this was new. This was an entirely different beast. 

Which meant it was dangerous. The known was already dangerous enough, adding in the unknown element just amped it up. 

He tracked another tap pattern across the club. This time from someone sitting near the DJ booth, but he couldn’t find a specific reaction from that one. He went back to eavesdropping. 

The third girl spoke up, oblivious to Jason’s presence entirely, “You said she got it here right?”

“Mhm,” The first girl dropped her drink down like it had offended her, nothing spilled out, the cup must be empty then. “Said she asked some guy behind the bar. Apparently he was super chill, didn’t even try hitting on her or anything. But the caveat to the whole situation was that you have to know the code. Except she refused to tell me the fucking code. Bitch.”

The three of them started laughing again, laughter echoing against the hum of the music playing through the club. Careless, unafraid. Like this wasn’t Gotham. Like people didn’t get murdered for asking the wrong questions. Like they weren’t openly gossiping about some new chemical that might already have a body count. 

Idiots. 

But useful idiots. 

If this was a puzzle, the pieces weren’t cleanly fitting into place, but the edges were starting to form. The taps were significant, either part of the code the girls were talking about, or a method dealers used to communicate discreetly. Maybe inventory checks, drop confirmations, it wasn’t clear yet. Nothing about this was clear yet. 

Sure he could run in guns blazing and just take out the operation now, but he could still be wrong. The information could be incorrect. He didn’t have confirmation of anything, he didn't have enough information to feel okay going after this place. The glances back toward the hallway might just be nerves, or it was where products was handed off, or it was where the boss was watching from. 

And the princess? 

She was the biggest question mark. Either she was a pretty distraction, or she was a player. The bartender claimed she wasn’t involved, but she was given free rein, given respect, influence. That meant something. 

He needed more, more information. More time. He had enough to start forming a case, to start tracking leads outside of the club. Now he just had to find a thread worth pulling. He’d been chasing Slickbane for so long that he was starting to think that he wouldn’t be able to find hi. Yet tonight had proved him wrong, there was still hope. He could do this. 

The music behind him was little more than a distant heartbeat by the time the heavy metal door clicked shut as he left the club. It left the alley swathed in silence, the bouncer still standing by the door but ignoring Jason. The cold air hit his face hard, sharp against the sweat and heat clinging to his neck from inside. 

Jason flipped his hood back up and started heading down the alley and toward his bike. He had to wrap around the building with how the city was set up in this portion, he’d made it halfway around when a voice broke through the stillness behind him. 

“Make a habit out of nursing full drinks in busy clubs?” It wasn’t a voice he recognized, and Jason didn’t stop moving right away. But he did slow, turn to look. It wasn’t threatening, but the words carried a weight in them. 

The man leaned against the brick wall, partially obscured by shadow. The glow of a cigarette lit his features. His entire face was sharp, in some twisted way it matched the rest of his body. It matched the wife beater, the black ink of his sleeve tattoo that crawled down his arm like a snake and curled into a set of jagged stylized teeth around his wrist. 

Jason recognized him from inside. 

He could’ve kept walking. He probably should have kept walking, it was the smart thing to do. He’d already gotten more out of tonight than he was hoping for. Chatter about a new drug, the taps, the glances to the back room, he should’ve been halfway to his bike by now. 

But he didn’t move. 

Maybe Jason was looking for a fight, maybe he thought he could get something else out of this. He wasn’t sure. He just knew that he was responding to the man instead of leaving, “Guess I'm not that thirsty.”

A corner of the mans mouth tugged upward into something similar to a smirk. He brought the cigarette back to his lips, inhaled, then exhaled slow. “Could’ve fooled me. Most people sipping that show are either on something or watching for something.” Something in his voice was familiar. 

It was the vowels, the cadence, the forced neutrality of the voice. He knew that sound, it reminded him of you, reminded him of the false way you spoke to hide the Crime Alley in your voice. 

That was new actually, remembering that you used to have an accent. 

But where he guessed that you did it to fit into certain scenes better, to blend in better at art galleries without being instantly clocked as being from Crime alley, this guy was doing it to hide association. To keep something untraceable. 

“Can’t a guy appreciate the vibe?”

The man chuckled, low and deep. “You didn’t look like you were enjoying anything. Most people who are here for the vibe watch those dancing, drink, and generally admire the place. That wasn’t what you were doing. You were watching the walls, not the women.”

“Didn’t realize I stood out that much.”

“You didn’t.” He didn’t elaborate on that. When Jason didn’t reply, he took another drag of his cigarette, then added to his statement, “Try to blend in better next time.”

“Friendly warning?” Jason was careful with his tone. This guy was certainly involved. If he wasn’t then he wouldn’t be out here warning him. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be used, maybe he was trying to keep him out of trouble. Maybe, he didn’t want to be involved but had no choice. Or maybe he was just someone who knew too much. 

“A gift from the princess. Said you reminded her of someone, he blinks like he's expecting to get hit.” His tone changed just enough to indicate that he was quoting her, but nothing else in him did, and he was far from sounding like he was attempting to imitate a female. 

Something in Jason went still. He hadn’t spotted her tonight, not once, and he’d been looking. Yet she had spotted him, clocked him as out of place. “The princess?”

The man didn’t answer that directly, just pushed off the wall and took a step toward the staff entrance next to him, flicking a cigarette to the ground. That confirmed there was a second entrance and exit, it just wasn’t visible from inside the club. 

“You’re stirring waters that run deep. Places like this? They don’t like attention. Keep your eyes forward and you’ll walk out fine.” He paused with one hand on the door, gaze flicking back toward him, “Otherwise? Someone might decide to drag you under.” 

Then he disappeared inside, the staff door clicking shut behind him with a sense of finality. The warning was eerie, and beyond that, he was pretty sure that was confirmation that the princess, whoever she was, was involved. And she had seen him, taken note of him. 

Fuck. 

Three days later, Tim had been given the information that Jason had found out so that he was able to start looking into it in his spare time. That was also when Damian came to join Jason for patrol. It was an easy night, not quiet. Quiet in Gotham was bad, it meant the city was holding it’s breath before a large disaster happened. 

It was a typical, very average patrol. No big cases, no leads for things they were working on, just simply making sure the everyday citizens were safe. Typical meant minimal injures, something Jason would always be grateful for. Injuries were never any fun to deal with. Both him and Robin would have some new bruises, but they’d survive. 

Worse had happened to both of them. 

He could feel the way Damian was practically glaring at his back when patrol ended. “Turn your GPS off. Nobody else gets to know about her.” 

To any of the other siblings, it would have been shocking that Damian agreed so quickly. But it wasn’t an unreasonable request. They’d already discussed it and it would be a short visit, and hour maybe two at max. They didn’t have time for more. Any longer than that an Bruce would get antsy and end up trying to track them down anyways. 

Fuck that. 

One thing that did actually surprise Jason though was the fact that Damian wasn’t complaining about the fact they were going to use your front door. Going in through a window or some other alternate opening would be more “on character” for them. It would minimize the chance of someone seeing them. Of you being connected to them. 

But Jason was aware of their surroundings, he kept an eye out on everything. He made sure they weren’t being followed. You had asked him to use the front door, so he would. And had Damian been complaining about this, then he would have explained to him. And likely been promptly called a SIMP in the most Damian way possible. 

Jason knocked at your door, three times,  pausing for a moment before knocking a fourth. He always knocked three times as a kid. What if you recognized the knocking pattern? What if out of everything he could say or do, it was his damn knock that tipped you off to who he was. 

You weren’t stupid. But then again, you thought he was dead. So maybe he didn’t need to be so worried about it. 

“Oh. Fair warning. Ophelia is a jumper.”

“Ophelia?” Just as he repeated the name, you opened the door, phone pressed to your ear and nodded at Red Hood briefly before stepping away from the door. As if on cue, Ophelia jumped over Jasons leg and tried to bolt. Robin managed to catch her in time. 

“Got her.”

Jason stepped inside first, holding the door for Damian while he wrangled the squirming puppy inside. You on the other hand didn’t wait for him, simply holding a finger up and padding back toward your bedroom barefoot. You weren’t talking, just listening to whatever was being said on the other end of the phone call. 

Damian had come along to meet you, but that point rather seemed to be forgotten as he took in your living room. The combination of colors that made up your room, the photos and paintings in the hallway, the bright blue police box door. It was eclectic, and Jason knew for a fact that it wasn’t the sort of style that Damian would be able to appreciate. It was too chaotic. 

The collection of comics and books, plus the unfinished concept designs sitting on the coffee table didn’t help. Your space was clean, it was just cluttered with your art and things you appreciated. 

But despite that, as Damian took a slow lap around the room, he stopped in front of the wall that you used for storyboarding. The drawings on the wall had changed some since he’d first seen the place. Not all at once, but changing one image or two every so often. 

“This is eccentric.” It was easy to hear the judgement in his tone. Obvious. 

The bedroom door clicked shut again as you returned, phone no longer pressed by your hear. “It’s helpful,” you motioned to the wall of sketches as you moved closer, “I’ve been staring at that one for a few months now. It’s a little pet project, but I can’t seem to get the dynamics for the fight quite right.”

You stepped around Damian to tap one of the pages, tilting your head at it for a moment, “It’ll come to me eventually. Always does.” 

You stepped away from the wall and toward the kitchen, pulling a water bottle out of the fridge, looking over Robin and pursing your lips. “I got the damn belt wrong. It’s always the belt.” You pointed an accusatory finger at Red Hood, “You could have told me.”

Red Hood gave a noncommittal shrug, before moving toward the couch and dropping his body on it, tossing a booted foot up onto the coffee table with a thud. Almost as soon as he did that something hit the beach of his helmet, it turned out to be a crumpled up receipt. “Shoe off the coffee table.”

He grumbled, but followed your instructions, and Robin looked at him like he had grown a second head. 

“Feel free to look around Robin.” 

The whole situation was strange. Even before Damian had been brought into it, it was strange. The fact that you’d kept letting Red Hood come over was an unwise decision, yet he was glad that you were just weird enough to come up with a reason for him to come over. It had to be way stranger for Damian. You were a civilian, and here you were letting Red Hood and Robin into your home like this was just an average Tuesday. 

You weren’t afraid of them, you didn’t hesitate, and in your defense you had expected them. This wasn’t just dropped on you, there had been a conversation about this. 

Robin took the invitation to look around easily, stepping towards your bookshelves with a muted interest. More or less skimming over the titles until he found one that piqued his interest. Jason should have guessed that would be the shelf that would interest him. The one apart from the others, with the comic book and a single framed photo. 

Damian reached for it, looking over the photo of you at your first book signing, then he picked up the comic itself. “This one’s yours,” his voice was flat, but he was already flipping it open with piqued interest. 

“My first published original. Yeah.”

Jason watched him flip through the pages, slower than he had. Damian was spending more time fully taking in the art, certainly taking in the details that were lost on Jason when he’d done the same thing. But he knew what he’d find at the end of it. And he didn’t know what Damian would say about that. 

But he stopped about halfway through the book when you spoke to him, thank god. “If you want a copy of that I have some extras. I don’t imagine you’ll be coming around nearly as often as he does.”

“I won’t be.”

“Do you want a copy or not?” 

Robin was quiet for a moment, “Yes. Your art is adequate.”

You laughed at his wording, “You’re adorable.” And you disappeared down the hallway, returning with another copy of the book in your hands, holding it out towards him. “Maybe you’ll become my second favorite Robin.”

Jason didn’t miss the way Damian bristled slightly, his jaw tightening. The glare he gave him wasn’t exactly subtle either. LIke it was somehow his fault that he’d been dethroned in a ranking he didn’t even know existed. 

A part of Jason wanted to poke the proverbial bear. He wanted to ask who your favorite was just to watch Damian get more and more annoyed. You weren’t even being condescending, you were just matching the energy that Robin was giving you. 

And before Robin had the chance to come up with some sharp response to your comment, you smiled at him. A genuine, open kind of smile. The kind that Jason would trade the world to see you make. “Do you wanna see the actually impressive work?”

Robin paused for just a moment, “...yes.”

You turned, gesturing for him to follow, and Robin did. For the most part, from that point Jason turned the two of you out. It was a bunch of art jargon he didn’t understand, things that had never been his thing even when you had tried to explain it to him as kids. 

Funny that, how quickly he was gaining random pieces of information about you now. 

But hearing you talk with Damian settled something in him, it wasn’t who you were talking to, or even what you were saying, but the way you said it. Full of passion. He leaned back on the couch and plucked a book off one of the other cushions without much thought. He hadn’t ever sat on your couch before tonight, but it was nice. 

The cushions were worn in some places, parts of the edges were paint stained, and there was the faintest water ring on the corner of the coffee table. But the cushions were comfortable, just the right amount of firm and soft. 

Ophelia seemed to agree as she settled herself by his thigh. She was already getting bigger, big enough now that she could easily use part of his leg as a headrest. And he let her. 

It didn’t feel like that long before you were guiding Robin out of your art room and back towards the living room. “Taking that one home, Hood?”

Jason didn’t look up from the book in his hands, just let out a low grunt. Noncommittal, distracted. The kind of sound that indicated that while you could try to talk to him, he wouldn't be paying any attention. Damian hovered over him, likely frowning beneath the mask. Probably judging him. Definitely judging him, especially if his leather jacket was still hung on the back of your chair. 

“Want a water bottle, Robin? Thanks for letting me take the photos I needed. It’ll help make sure those details are there in the piece. Probably gonna be more accurate than any of the Robin drawings I’ve done before this.”

Robin didn’t respond immediately, but he did take the water bottle from you. He was standing too straight, clearly turning something over in his head. “From what I have seen, they were not inaccurate…just lacking insider information that could paint a target on you.” There it was. 

Jason tensed slightly, even if he was paying attention to the book, he knew a dig when one was given. It wasn’t aimed at you, the remark was meant for him. A quiet reprimand that he was being careless. That he was exposing you to more risk than necessary. He wasn’t wrong.

But he also didn’t understand. He didn’t even have the whole picture, not yet anyways. 

“If I'm not worried about that then you shouldn’t be. If I get targeted for paintings, then the rouges are clearly losing their touch.” You smiled then, light and easy, “Besides, I stylize things enough that it shouldn’t be too recognizable.”

Jason wished he could be as confident as you sounded. But he didn’t look up, just kept forcing himself to read the book in his hands. Because if anything ever happened to you because of him, he didn’t know what he’d do. 

But he knew that it would be nothing good. 

The next time Jason looked up he had finished the chapter he was on. It could have been five minutes, it could have been thirty. He hadn’t been keeping track. You and Damian were standing by an easel that you must have pulled out from your art room. The canvas on it wasn’t one of the bold, now finished, canvases from your current series, but something quieter, different. A landscape, a graveyard specifically. The outlines were loose, unfinished, and the colors were only beginning to take shape. 

You and Robin were both holding paint brushes, both of you were painting on the canvas. You were explaining something about mixed media layering, you were relaxed, wrist flicking across the canvas, whereas Damian was stiff, trying to make his marks as precise as possible. 

Ophelia had completely surrendered to sleep, it was almost domestic. That was, if you could call two vigilantes in a woman's living room domestic. One painting, the other reading a book with her dog. And that was before adding Jasons whole “Died and came back to life” drama into the mix. Something that was as far opposite of the word domestic as one could get. 

Damian wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t interrupting or complaining either. And that quiet cooperation was as good as it got with him. For now at least, maybe one day he’d grow into more. He didn’t know if it was the art that had cracked Damians shell, or if it had been the fact that Jason himself had collapsed onto your couch like it was the most natural thing in the world. 

And in some strange way, it had become the most natural thing. Crashing into your space, like he had always belonged there. Like he always would. 

But he had to tear himself from the moment the clock was ticking, and if he didn’t get Damian home soon Bruce would start having a meltdown. “Ready to go?”

Damian paused, setting the paintbrush down and turning his attention toward him, “Yes.”

You didn’t put your paintbrush down, still painting even if they were talking about leaving, “Next time I’ll show you the mural sketches.”

Robin scoffed, but it lacked any real bite. “You’re assuming there will be a next time.”

Jason couldn’t help the snort that escaped him, strange and modulated as it was “There will be.” 

Because he had opened up and showed his family a part of his life that he didn’t think he ever would share. Because something about seeing you painting quietly with Damian made some part of his chest ache. Ache to see you in his space.

Ache to see you in his life, every single aspect of it. Even if it scared the shit out of him. Maybe it wasn’t that he didn’t want to share you, and more that he was scared that it wouldn’t go well. 

It didn’t matter that this wasn’t safe or smart, this was his second chance. And somehow he was taking it. Even if it had more risks associated with it than he ever told himself that he’d take when it came to you and your safety. 

[shaddork]

somehow its ALWAYS dialouge i get fucking stuck on? LIke idk but it just IS. But HEY. ch13 of TSTWD it almost done!!!

[shaddork]

Sweet Tea and Soulmarks - Chapter 1

Damian Wayne x Southern!Reader

Masterlist - Next

Contains: Southern Female Reader, Soulmate marks, animal death (mentioned), Doctor Damian

Summary:

Strangers in the same city go about their daily lives. One routine well worn, the other fresh and new.

Word Count: 5,724

Thursday, May 1st, 2025

Soulmarks were inconsistent, frustrating, and useless to try to chase. They had no rules, except one. They were important. That didn’t change how inconsistent they were. How they were nearly impossible to try to chase. 

Not everyone had a soulmate, and there wasn’t even a guarantee that you’d even know. Some people were “lucky” and had marks that were visible from birth. Others had a mark appear later in life. And some were unlucky enough that the marks only appeared after physical contact with the soulmate. Then there were marks that were the opposite, disappearing after physical contact, others glowed. And some marks continually grew. 

Most people considered Damian lucky. He had known he had a soulmate from a young age. He didn’t consider himself so lucky. The singular paw print that appeared on his chest when he was five, right over his heart, felt like more of a liability than a blessing for a period of time. 

“A soulmate is a bond. Bonds can be pulled, or broken. It is a liability. Be careful my son.” His mothers words, the leagues opinions on soulmates. They stuck with him, enough so that he didn’t even tell his father and Alfred that he had a soulmark until they spotted it one day. 

Neither of them said anything. And Damian was fine to let the issue rest. 

Still, he looked at the mark every morning in the mirror, feeling the weight of it pressing down on his soul. The first time they spoke of the mark was when he was sixteen and a second pawprint appeared on his chest. He was not calm or collected in that moment. 

Alfred had laughed when he figured out what the commotion was about. “Oh dear. Another one?” But despite that, Alfred gave him a better explanation than anything he had ever been offered in the league. An explanation that started easing the discomfort around the subject. “Soulmarks are not orders, they’re possibilities. SIgnposts. They don’t control you, but they do tend to reflect you.” 

The third mark appeared when he was twenty one, and they continued after that. They showed up seemingly at random, but they had never stopped. Now, starting his first year of his residency at Gotham General, the marks wrapped his body. Starting over his heart, snaking around to his back and wrapping up to his right shoulder. The marks were packed close together, each and every one unique. 

He figured out what they were when Titus died. The vet had pressed his paw against an ink pad, and then pressed it against a piece of paper. A memento for Damian to keep. It was dark and inky, and eerily similar to the marks that covered his skin. 

He used to resent the mark, but time passed, Damian learned what life was like outside of the league. He changed, he grew up. He no longer resented the sacred responsibility the mark presented. 

Sometimes when he was looking in the mirror and counting the marks, he wondered if you had the same ones, or if you had something from his life. Whatever marks you had, he just hoped it wasn’t something from his past. From before he learned how to heal instead of hurt. 

He grew from a man who didn’t care about you, and into one that despite having never met you, hoped that his past mistakes didn’t marr your skin. 

The first year of a surgical residency was exhausting. He wasn’t even technically a resident, just an intern. But at least Damian was better prepared for it than the others in the program. They didn’t have the benefit of a life spent staying up late, running around the city until he was too physically exhausted to do anymore. Working in the hospital wasn’t entirely different. 

The shifts were long and brutal, he slept when and where he could. Yet when he was called to go do something within the hospital, he had to get up and go to it. Discipline, the work took an amount of discipline that he knew the others were still working to gain. 

That being said, it still wasn’t an easy job. Bouncing between trauma cases, rounds, emergency pages, there were charts to update, wounds to close, labs to check, and attendings to impress. This kind of work demanded a precision that wasn’t just physical. It was emotional, mental. But he loved it. Here, nobody cared who his parents were, his last name didn’t mean anything. He had to earn respect here, day after day, hour after hour. 

Yet when his shift at the hospital ended, his work wasn’t done. He hadn’t truly stopped being Robin. He’d taken a step back, he had to, even if he couldn’t bring himself to give it up completely. So he stopped being as active as he was when he first arrived in Gotham. 

The night blurred into days, and the rare hours off were never really his own. He had to make more adjustments to his schedule. So he stopped volunteering at the animals shelter. The decision hurt, they specalized in animals that weren’t likely to be given a second chance anywhere else. The kind of animals other shelters wouldn’t touch: the injured, the broken, the dying. Their motto was simple, they never turned an animal away. 

He had to reason with himself to do it, it wasn’t like he turned his back to the clinic. No, he still stopped by after patrols when he could. Checking in on the animals, dropping off any strays he came across the needed help. He just didn’t have the time to volunteer there anymore. 

Still, he made sure that a new Wayne Enterprises Community Development fund was created. One that they were part of. Last he heard they were expanding, trying to add an in house vet clinic and hire a vet to focus on the animals there specifically. 

LIke every other shift he’d had at the hospital, by the time it was finished Damian was ready to collapse into bed and fall asleep for as long as his body would let him. But he had the next three days off, a bit of lucky timing in his schedule. So instead of heading towards his apartment - a mere ten minutes from the hospital - he made the longer drive to Wayne Manor. 

Damian had moved out. He was independent, and it only made logical sense to move. Commuting from the manor to the Hospital wasn’t unrealistic, but it was tiring. Having an apartment in the city made his life significantly easier. 

But the manor offered him more privacy, he could spend time with his pets and Alfred, and he had batcave access. 

It wasn’t every weekend that Damian spent at the manor, his schedule at the hospital varied week to week. Eighty hour work weeks were hard, but at least not all of that time was spent inside the hospital. Some of it was simply on-call time. Still, a lesser man would have broken, a lesser man would have focused only on the hospital. 

Damian, was not a lesser man. He was both an Al Ghul and a Wayne. If he could survive his childhood, he could certainly survive a hectic and tiring schedule. It had only been a few months since the start of his intern year, but he was already confident that he would be able to survive this. 

If Alfred could still work for his father - as idiotic as that seemed at his age - then Damian could handle this. He would not bend or break. 

Like always, when he pulled up to the manor and stepped inside Alfred was waiting. Damian had tried over and over again to convince the man to retire. But Alferd simply wouldn’t hear of it. Some part of him was happy about it though. Everyone knew that Alfred was family at this point, not just the butler. 

“Master Damian,” his voice was soft, calm, “I took the liberty of preparing your favorite tea. It should be ready once you’ve had time to wash up.”

“Thank you, Pennyworth.”

Gotham had once tried to break Damian of calling people by their last names. He’d been teased for it relentlessly, but it was something he didn’t let happen. He kept the habit for several reasons, and Alfred deserved the respect. 

The exact same as he did everytime he came to the manor these days, Damian trudged up the stairs and towards his bedroom. Exhausted, but not letting his feet drag. His steps were slow and slightly uneven though. But there was a routine to follow. Shower, change, tea, bed. Assuming none of the others were around to interrupt him for a few minutes. 

But even if they were, his siblings never took up much of his time if he just got home from the hospital. They were able to look at him, tell he was tired, and leave him be. A perk of living in a family full of detectives. It wasn’t like they were exactly around a whole ton either. 

Other than Bruce and Alfred, nobody else was technically a full time resident here anymore. Dick lived in bludhaven, but visited frequently. Jason had his own apartment in Gotham and rarely visited the manor. TIm might as well live in the manor, but he did have his own separate space. Duke had his own apartment. And Barbara, Stephanie, and Cassandra all had their own spaces and were normally only around when asked. 

When Damian stepped into his room, Alfred(the cat) was already curled up on Damians bed, he didn’t even look up when Damian stepped in. The cat was entirely undisturbed by his presence, which wasn’t surprising. 

The shower was warm - not hot - warm enough to help work some of the tension out of his muscles, but not so hot as to leave his skin angry afterward. The smallest amount of steam still lingered in the air when he stepped out of the shower, sighing and looking at the mirror. 

He looked over himself, eyes tracing the lines of the ever growing soulmark. And he started counting, he’d done it so many times now that he didn’t even really have to count to see if there was a new one. Nothing new on the front, turning around to inspect his back next. Nothing new. Another day and it remained the same. 

As much as he’d tried not to, he’d theorized about it. Tried to figure out what caused the pawprints to appear. They’d started appearing more and more the older he got. His skin currently had a hundred and eighty one. But there wasn’t any real way to know what caused the to appear without meeting his soulmate. Sometimes he wondered if they would ever stop expanding, even if he met his soulmate. Or would his skin one day just be a collection of pawprints? That would certainly get him a large number of comments. 

Even now, when he didn’t have many that were visible under normal clothing, it wasn’t common that someone saw them and didn’t have an opinion. Even this morning someone had made a comment on them. 

He’d been in the locker room for the first years, changing into his scrubs to start out the day. There were only a couple others in the room, also changing. There were only a couple others in the room, and the were also changing. But of course, one of the others noticed the marks and paused. 

Nate Hartwell, the type of guy who mde everything a joke even past when it was funny. But the patients seemed to like him, which made him a popular person for the attendings to request when they had a patient that needed comforting. “Holy shit dude. Those real?”

“Yes.” 

“They look like actual paw prints, not cartoony.” He took half a step forward before seemingly thinking better of it, stepping back, “You ever count them?”

Damian didn’t glance over at Nate, simply continuing to change clothes. “A hundred and eighty.”

A pause before Nate nodded slowly, “I’ve seen marks before but none like that.” He held his wrist out towards Damian, showing him his own. It was just a simple blue swirl on his wrist. Ridiculous, and even less helpful than Damians. “This one showed  up when I was sixteen. No clue who it’s tied to though. My brother has a paperclip on his cheek.” 

Damian didn’t respond, letting silence fall again, but Nate was a chatterbox, and kept talking, even if Damian was more focused on getting ready for rounds than having a conversation about something he couldn’t control. “Have you met them, you know, the person tied to the marks?”

“No.”

“Damn. You’d think with one that large it’d be easy.”

“Size doesn’t mean clarity.”

“Apparently.”

And the conversation left at that. Surprisingly, Nate had been one of the less intrusive of those who had seen the mark. It wasn’t like Damian hid it on purpose, but he didn’t pick out clothing that showed off the pawprints either. So there were a limited number of people who had seen the mark. It was a large mark, but not blatant, not like some others had. Jason had a soulmark on his face, one that appeared after his death, a pair of initials on his temple. 

His family had seen the mark the most out of everyone, and they all had theories, theories Damian tried not to pay attention to. There wasn’t any point listening to their inane musings. The ones that were harder to ignore was the teasing over the marks. Jason called him Paw Patrol, on the regular. And Dick had once told him that he looked like ASPCA had thrown up on him. 

Damian wasn’t even sure the marks were literal, they could be symbolic of something. 

The stranger he was tied to certainly crossed his mind a lot, but theorizing about the life that caused the marks? Damian did his best not to care about it. It wasn’t practical. Guessing at the information gained him nothing except maybe expectations, and people could fail expectations. 

After tea, Damian collapsed into his bed, falling asleep near instantly. Dreaming of the hospital. He spent so much time there he was starting to dream up fictional cases. It wasn’t until late afternoon when he woke, the warm sun cascading from the windows and onto his face, the curtains were pushed aside - Alfreds doing - while Alfred the cat was curled up against his chest. 

Moments like this were always nice. He felt safe, the world was quiet, things weren’t chaotic. A moment of decompression in what was supposed to be a day of decompression. But it all came to an end when his stomach growled. He’d been asleep for longer than he was really supposed to, and food was a need rather than a want at this point. SO he pulled himself out of bed, and made his way downstairs to the kitchen. 

That morning in particular he wasn’t alone. But it wasn’t the full family either. Just TIm and Dick sitting at the bar. Tim on his computer, Dick scrolling through his phone. Neither of them turned to face Damian, but Dick still spoke, “Little late in the day to finally be getting out of bed Dami?” His tone was teasing, light, easy. 

But still, Damian didn’t deign him with a response, stepping into the kitchen and getting his cereal instead. Once the bowl had adequately been filled with both cereal and milk, he sat down on one of the bar stools next to his siblings. 

After a few minutes, DIck set his phone down, speaking up again. “Funny story. There was a racoon in the kitchen this morning.”

Damian paused, turning his attention away from his cereal and to Dick, “A racoon?” He barely had the spoonful swallowed before he was speaking. Bad etiquette, but a racoon in the manor wasn’t exactly a common occurrence. 

The fact that it had managed to get into the manor was alarming. Only mildly so, but still alarming. 

Dick shrugged, “It broke in somehow, and then helped itself to some leftovers. It ate what was left of Tim’s sandwich.”

Bruce was paranoid, and getting into or out of Wayne Manor undetected simply didn’t happen. There had been a couple occasions when an animal had gotten inside, but each time it had shown some flaw in the security that Bruce had fixed rather quickly. A racoon getting inside wasn’t alarming in a “oh no someone is trying to break in” way, but a “Father is going to lose his mind over this” way. 

“Do we know how?”

Tim was the one to respond this time, not even looking up from his laptop, “No clue. Alfred is looking over the security footage to see if he can figure it out quickly so that it doesn’t become a whole issue.”

“Good.” The three of them fell into silence, each of them going back to their own tasks. The silence was comfortable, they’d done this time and time again. So long as there wasn’t any major news, they ate in silence when they were all present. 

Silly conversations were saved for the monthly family game nights, or for when someone was injured and a distraction was needed. It was neither family game night, and nobody was injured so they continued on in their silence. 

So when he finished with his cereal, he stood up, set the bowl and spoon in the sink, and announced that he was leaving. “I’m going to see Batcow and Goliath.” And he was leaving the room without waiting for either of them to reply to him. 

He tried to spend as much time as he could with his animals. Batcow, and Goliath had to stay at the manor for space purposes, and Alfred the Cat seemed happier here than Damian could picture him in his apartment. Jerry and Titus had passed away while Damian was in medical school. 

Even if he was steps ahead of his peers thanks to his training both in the league and as Robin, he knew it wouldn’t be fair to get a new pet at that point in time. He wouldn’t have enough time to dedicate to one. So he didn’t, choosing to focus on the ones that he already had. 

After he spent time with the animals, he’d likely paint, maybe read. Figuring out what to do on one of the days he dedicated to decompressing after work wasn’t always easy. It couldn’t be something that was like work, but Damian also didn’t like being idle. It felt like a waste of time. 

But he’d been told repeatedly that if he didn’t give himself time to rest, he’d find himself burnt out. He’d seen Tim burn himself out repeatedly, focusing on only work and never taking time to rest. It wasn’t a mistake that Damian would let himself make. 

Friday passed quietly and quickly. He fed Batcow by hand that evening, then spent time trying to paint Goliath before leaving the canvas half completed.The majority of the day he didn’t actually do anything, just existed. Once upon a time, he never would have been able to spend a day doing nothing. It was still hard, but he could now. Once upon a time, he never would have been able to spend a day doing nothing. It was still hard, but he could now. Once upon a time, he was a very different boy. 

A boy whose first instinct was violence. That statement was no longer true. Even if he didn’t always get along with his family perfectly, even if sometimes he still had the urge to react violently. TIme spent here had helped him grow out of that brash first reaction. It had shown him a different way of existing. 

Something he would always be thankful for. 

Saturday he went on patrol. By himself, Red Robin, Red Hood, Spoiler, and Orphan were somewhere doing their own things, he didn’t know if Nightwing was in Bludhaven or Gotham tonight. Bruce was at home. 

The Batman mantle had been retired for a few years now. There hadn’t been an official announcement, but Bruce had started to step back more and more. Now he just did mission coordination with Oracle when he got antsy. He’d let the others take over. 

Damian was secretly grateful for it. He didn’t want his father pushing his body past the limit and getting hurt beyond repair, or dying. 

Tonights patrol was quiet, it wasn’t always like that. If you asked Jason he’d claim that Gotham city was never truly peaceful. Damian disagreed with that. Maybe the peace wasn’t the same as other cities, but it was still peaceful in it’s own way. Street lights half burnt out, half casting amber on the cement. Neon signs blinking lazily. 

The city was still awake, music playing from clubs, diners that never closed with occasional movement from inside. On nights like this Damians favorite thing was to go around and sketch. It was still patrolling, making sure that there wasn’t anything happening that needed his attention, but with a small sketchbook and pencil in hand. 

A gargoyle, crumbling and old, barely hanging on to a cathedral roof. The type of perch that they had been taught to avoid because it was likely to break. The moonlight falling down on it, how it cast shadows into the cracks. It was more of a figure drawing, not about the details of the picture but the impressions of it. The general shape, general shadow placement. Then he was moving on. 

A cat staring out of someones apartment window, fat cheeks, eyes wide and focused on him as if he was an actual bird. It’s well taken care of. It gets immortalized in pencil graphite. 

Childrens chalk drawings on the sidewalk, a hopscotch grid with numbers, flowers and suns, birds, sloppy messy handwriting. Remnants of a childhood he’d never get to experience. The hopscotch he’d once done when alone on patrol. It was silly, it was inefficient. It was healing. 

He’d never told anyone about that moment, none of his siblings, not even Jon as close as the two of them were. He didn’t plan on telling anyone about that moment. 

Thursday, May 1st, 2025

“Ya know, Gotham ain’t as bad as people make it out to be.”

Your brother clearly thought you were insane. He stared at you across the table, his jaw lax at your words. “You can’t be serious about that.” Even though you’d known him on and off your whole life, you never could get used to his accent. Sharp, clipped, it was like being punched mid sentence. 

During your summers spent in Gotham as a child, you’d always been made fun of for your southern drawl, but they were the ones with the strange accent. Even knowing Gavin your whole life, you still felt like his accent was trying to punch you in the face at times. 

“Serious as a snakebite. Gotham’s full’a crooks and creeps, sure. But lord help me, the eye candy makes up for it.”

“You did not just refer to the vigilantes as eye candy.”

You had barely swallowed your pancake when you responses, “Well why not? Ya gonna say they ain’t eye candy? Bulging muscles, form-fittin’ clothes…I bet they’d be great at farm work.” Red Hood in particular, youd kill to have help bale hay for you back home. Any of them would work really. He just looked the part the most. 

Gavin laughed, shaking his head like you’d said something utterly ridiculous. But you were just bein’ truthful. “The only thing Gotham’s vigilantes are good at is dodgin’ trouble. And even then, barely.”

You were quiet for a moment, taking a few more bites of your pancakes. As far as he was aware, you were going home today, leaving Gotham. But no, you were just moving into your new place. You’d already done a couple shifts at your new job, now you just had to move in. 

They were even letting you stay on the premises, above the shelter which had now been added on to double as a vet clinic, you had your own apartment. An apartment next to a closet with extra scrubs, medical supplies, the works. But you had a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, hell it even had a living room. Not bad for something you weren’t paying for. 

Gavin wasn’t going to be happy when you told him that you were staying in Gotham. He’d get it, but only after you explained the why to him. A topic that you had been dodging for the whole two weeks you had been in town. 

“Guess I'll find out myself soon enough.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means’ i’m stayin’. Got a job, apartment, the works.”

The reaction was as instant and near explosive as you expected it to be, “What the fuck is wrong with you? What happened to quiet life back in Texas?”

“Texas ain’t no quiet life. You know that.” A beat of silence, he was half glaring at you now, but you continued on undisturbed, “Wyatt and me done broke up, an’ he won’t leave me alone. So i up and left.”

“How do you break up with your soulmate?”

“Easy now. He ain’t my soulmate. New mark showed up not long ago…I figure that Gotham skyline’s the one I’m meant to follow.” You tried saying it casually, in passing, like you weren’t dropping world changing information on top of him. Everyone had thought that you and Wyatt were soulmates, but if you were then the Gotham skyline wouldn’t have appeared on your lower back. 

It couldn’t been mistaken for a tattoo, stylized, bold confident strokes, dark and inky, but you hadn’t gotten a tattoo. So it was most certainly a soulmark. Wyatt had no connection to Gotham, so it obviously meant that he wasn’t your soulmate. 

It meant, that he had claimed to know what the mark on your collarbone meant, and that your whole relationship had been built on a lie. A lot of things clicked into place after the second mark appeared. 

Your mother thought you were running, and maybe she wasn’t wrong. But you weren’t sure if you were running from Wyatt, or towards who your soulmate was. Or maybe, you hoped, just maybe you were running toward the life that suited you best. 

“Well, if you’re gonna chase skylines, Gotham’s a helluva place to do it.”

You sighed, “Look it ain’t like I dunno what i’m signin’ up for. I did spend summers here with you and pa. And i ain’t defenseless neither. I wrangle thousand pound critters on the daily with ma’ back home. Just trust me on this.”

Gavin’s quiet for a moment, looking at you skeptically. You stuck out in Gotham, not even because of attire. THe attitude, the accent, the way you held yourself. It wasn’t what was expected from someone born and raised in Gotham. But you were confident you could survive Gotham. 

If worse came to worse and you found yourself wildly incorrect, it either wouldn’t be a problem, or you could flee back home to your mother and her warm southern hospitality. Either fate was leading you in the right direction for life, or it was leading you toward your doom. You’d find out in time. 

Gavin takes one large deep breath, before sighing, “Look I get why you had to get out, but Gotham’s no joke.”

“I promise I’ll be alright. You can even come see my new place with me. And if I need anything, you’ll be the first one I call. Swear on it.”

“Fine.”

You grinned at him, glad and a little surprised he gave in that easily. You might only share one - now deceased - parent, but he was still your older brother. And that came with everything from the overprotection, to the teasing. You wouldn’t trade it for the world. But sharing a room with him for the summer was more than enough to convince you that it was a good thing you two never lived together. 

Gavin helped you carry your things up to the apartment that afternoon, it was small, but efficient. A single large window in the living room, hardwood floors. The kitchen was compact, but it had the basics. You certainly weren’t cooking a thanksgiving dinner here, but it was enough for daily needs. The bedroom was just big enough for a bed, small dresser, and a corner with textbooks and various knick knacks. Most all personal touches would have to go into the living room. 

The apartment was newly built, still smelt like the wood they used to put up the walls, and some of the sharp smell of cleaning supplies from downstairs wafted upwards. You didn’t have any complaints. It was yours. Right outside was another room, shelves lining it with various supplies both the shelter and vet clinic needed, then a staircase and the clinic itself. The shelter and entrance to the building was on the other side. 

Friday was very technically your first full day of work. You’d shown up and helped a couple times to get to know the people who worked there. As far as you’d been informed, the fact they specialized on animals who were feral, or abused, or heavily injured, and focused on rehabilitation before adopting them out, wasn’t new. 

However what was new was the fact that they now had an on-site vet. It wasn’t a vet clinic, people couldn’t just make appointments with you. Your attention would be solely focused on the rehabilitation and medical care of the animals brought to the shelter. It was a good cause and a good idea. 

The consistency it offered the critters would make rehabilitating them significantly easier. Routine was important, seeing the same people day after day would make their lives less stressful even with the stressors of living in a shelter. 

Because you lived above the shelter, on days that you were working you’d be in charge of opening. So the next morning that’s exactly what you did. Going around and checking on all the critters in the shelter - only dogs and cats at the moment, no exotics yet - before making a pot of coffee. 

None of the animals currently there needed any sort of medical attention, just average daily care, so you had the luxury of scrolling on your phone for a few minutes while waiting for the coffee to be finished.  Then you unlocked the front doors so that when the other employees came in for their shift it would already be open for them. 

Unless an animal was brought in who did need medical attention, today your job would be the same as the other employees. Your focus on taking care of the animals and helping anyone who came inside. You had no complaints with that. It was an important part of the job. It was the fun part of the job. 

You weren’t under any illusion that you’d be able to save every animal who came in. there would be bad days, days where you wanted to do nothing but curl up in a ball and cry after failing to save one. 

You would gladly take easy and fun days like this one. 

There were only a few shelter workers, and management was looking to hire a vet tech to help you out with any surgical cases, which was nice. This morning though, was only you and one other girl. A dark haired shelter worker named Marcy, she seemed nice enough, although certainly a Gothamite. She was hesitant about you, and had been watching all day like she was trying to assess you. 

She could watch you as much as she wanted to. Work needed done, and you’d continue to do so until it was time for a break. Grabbing a bottle of water from the mini-fridge in the break room. Turning your attention to Marcy when she started speaking. 

“So what’s your story, what pulled a Southern gal like you all the way up here to Gotham?”

You hesitated, unsure if you should be blatant and tell her about the soulmarks. Both were hidden underneath your clothes. The one under your collarbone covered by the light shirt you wore underneath the scrub top. You’d picked it out specifically to cover the mark. 

You weren’t ready to advertise the strange marking again. It looked like writing, for a while you’d thought it was arabic. But nobody had been able to crack it and tell you what it said. Maybe it really was just some random scrawling. But the way the mark looked felt like a language. Just one you didn’t know. 

“My brother’s up this way. I used to come stay summers with him actually. But a soulmark showed up not too long ago. Gotham Skyline, clear as day. That was the final push, like somethin’ sayin’ alright, time to go.” The fact it was so far away from Wyatt was a bonus. 

You chose to believe that you weren’t moving halfway across the country to chase love. It was a logical decision. Your brother was here, you got a good job. The soulmark was pointing you in the direction that you needed to go. Or maybe you were deluding yourself. 

“Soulmark huh?” she echoed, but her voice wasn’t judgemental, “That’s either real brave or real stupid. But you certainly aren’t the first person to run straight into potential danger chasing a soulmate.”

You shook your head, looking down at the scrub top. At the top underneath covering the looping words. “I just. I”m not exactly lookin’ for my soulmate. I’ve been burnt enough. If it happens it happens.”

Marcy held her hands up, smiling softly at you, “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. We all end up here runnin’ from something, or toward something. Maybe it’s a little bit of both?”

“What about those who aren’t transplants?” A term your brother used several times to refer to someone who had moved to gotham from somewhere else. Despite the time you’d spent in Gotham growing up, you were technically a transplant too. 

“We were born running.”

Taglist: @ocean-mochi @wandaislife @amya-da-best

[shaddork]

Damian wasn't looking for his soulmate. The marks had always been there, but they'd never told him where to go or who to look for. He had more important things to focus on. Still, when he starts running into the same woman over and over again it's hard to ignore. She's sharp-eyed, southern, kind but cautious. Damian told himself it was just coincidence.

You didn't come to Gotham looking for love, especially not the soulmate kind. After everything that happened back home, you're done trusting people who claim to understand the strange marks on your body. But when you keep running into the same man, quiet, unreadable, and always watching, you can't shake the feeling that somethings circling too close.

Cross posted on A03. This post is the materlist, all chapters can be found linked below!

Current Total Word Count: 15,073

Chapter One - 5,724 Words Chapter Two - 4,634 Words Chapter Three - 4,712 Words

[shaddork]

Fic Ideas I will never write - BatBoys Dating Sim

I have a list of ideas for fics, some of which I will certainly never write. And one of my favorites, is a dating sim. The reader downloads a sketchy dating sim one night, and of course, like every good Isekai, finds herself in the game.

Masterlist

Jason's Route:

You wake up in the middle of a robbery in progress. Jason crashes through the window in slow motion. Try to survive!

There are multiple gunfight scenes, flirting while one (or both) of you are bleeding, at first you think it has to be the most terrifying route

Tim's Route:

Tim KNOWS he's in a dating sim, and is convinced that you're just a glitch in the system.

He keeps trying to WRITE YOU OUT OF THE CODE. Every time you use a save file to come back he just gets more irritated - and impressed.

Dick's Route:

There are five full beach episodes. You aren't sure if they're repeating just with different swimsuits

The whole thing feels like a romcom, and it sort of is. Only it's hiding a true route with significantly more emotional intelligence.

Damians Route:

Damian keeps throwing you out of cutscenes, literally. At one point during a "romantic ride" he throws you off the horse and you're stuck waiting for him to complete it on his own.

He starts respecting you when you beat him in a sword fight. His route takes the longest to complete out of all of them.

Bruce's Route:

You have to complete all the others routes, get a confession from each them, and then turn it down to unlock his route. Otherwise it is "locked".

Bruce's route is what actually allows you to go home. It's less romance and more, investigating and sending you home.

[shaddork]

It’s bless your heart anon! I’m also in Texas, I hope the heat is treating you better than it is me! I hadn’t thought about Jon not quite knowing southern slang, but I think it would be funny if Damian was like “you’re the closest I have to understanding this” and Jon just fluently lies to him. He has no clue, but he will take those chances.

Also, consider, an actual interaction I’ve had with a Northerner:

Reader, deadly serious: Damian, I need you to keep it a buck with me (meaning be so for real)

Damian, sliding a one dollar bill across the table: I don’t know why you need cash but go on…

Have a nice, cool day indoors friend 💖

Ugh the heat is brutal right now. It's not even really the heat where I am but the damn humidity. But the AC is certainly AC-ing!

BAHAHA. I love those interactions so much. Jon could reasonably know most of the terms, but I think some of the more colorful ones would leave him just as lost as Damian. Depends on how much time we think he's spent in Smallville vs Metropolis.

I hope you have a nice cool day as well! And as a little teaser for the fic, here's 2 things that have been (will be) said about Damian in it.

Jason: OOoh watch out guys, Paw Patrol is getting mad.

On a separate occasion, Dick: You look like the ASPCA threw up on you.

[shaddork]

Love your Damien x southern reader idea! Bonus points if Damien worriedly has to ask Jon what “bless your heart” means from a southerner.

He was not super pleased when he finds out…

For this answer i think it's important to note that I am a southerner, Texas specifically.

As far as Damian understanding and not understanding southernisms I think there's a few important things to keep in mind. One, is that Damian is really smart. In this story specifically, he's 26, so he might just be able to figure out what "bless your heart" means on his own.

Then there's also the fact he's friends with Jon. Smallville is in Kansas, Metropolis is in Delaware. While neither of them are southern (talking about cultural definitions not geographic in the case of Delaware). However with Kansas in mind, Jon likely wouldn't use the more colorful southernisms, some of the more mild ones are likely.

SO, the question here is. Would Jon have spent enough time in smallville to use mild southernisms like bless your heart? Thereby exposing Damian to it. And what southernisms could he figure out the meaning of through context clues?

[shaddork]

Worry not! I have something in the works for this. It IS a soulmate AU, however because I am still me, it’s still slowburn.

It will have; Identity crisis’, missing people, medical inaccuracies, LOTS of animals (this is both a positive and a negative), an ungodly amount of southernisms, and the most unhelpful soulmate marks known to man.

I anticipate the first chapter will be out in a few days (probably), but until then feel free to check out my other fics! Such as;

The Star that Wouldn't Die Jason Todd x Reader -Childhood Friends -Slowburn -Best friends to strangers to lovers -Ongoing Guess Whose Wearing My Scar? Dick Grayson x Reader -Fluff -Short fic -The start to building out the soulmates AU for the Damian fic!

Wedding Crashers Dick Grayson x Reader -Fluff -This one is just really fun and a 8.7k word oneshot

Thanksgiving Surprise Jason Todd x Reader -Jason kept having a whole family a secret from the batfam

additionally! I do oneshot, drabble, and short fic requests! Feel free to drop anything like that into my askbox! But for anyone who liked the southern reader worry not, it is coming! And if anyone would like to be added to the taglist for that let me know!

just to gauge opinions...Damian Wayne and Southern reader. I cannot tell if this is actually funny or if I'm just delusional.

"Poor thing's been rode hard and put up wet"

"She's been what?"

"Rode hard and put up wet. Means she's had a rough time"

"Your speaking is inefficient"

"Well I'll be, Devil's beatin' his wife again"

"Excuse me?"

"It just means it's rainin' while the sun's out."

"That is not a logical correlation."

"Well butter my butt and call me a biscut"

"...Why would I ever-"

"It means i'm surprised, calm down."

The whole situation has so much potential.

[shaddork]

The Star that Wouldn't Die - Chapter 12

Jason Todd x Fem!Reader

<Previous - Masterlist - Next>

Summary:

Jason goes on a “walk”. The walk ends up leading him to the outside of your window.

Word Count: 3,078 a/n: So I noticed something writing this. The timeline for the flashback chapters is uh, messed up to say the least? I’m terrible at math and the year headers reflect that, my bad. So just to clarify. Jason is twelve years old, you met when he was nine.

Seven Years Ago

Four months, it had been four months since he had seen you. 

It wasn’t that Jason intended to let it be so long. At first, everything had just happened so fast. Being taken in, getting cleaned up, moving into Wayne Manor. The whole process felt more akin to grabbing an animal off the side of the street and giving it a home than adopting a child. 

It didn’t feel real. 

He expected everything to change in an instant, for him to go back to taking up space on your mothers couch, abusing her hospitality. But that didn’t happen. Instead he woke up every day in a room that was bigger than his entire old apartment - he’d taken to sleeping in the bathtub because the bed felt too big and soft - he had an actual closet now. It was filled with clothes too. Alfred cooked meals, leftovers weren’t used for meals instead they were snacks throughout the day. Someone did his laundry, someone made sure his bathrooms was always fully stocked. 

It was weird. 

It was like being stuck in someone else's life. Maybe that’s why he didn’t come see you at first, because he was waiting for it all to fall apart. Because it was nice to pretend he could really live in a place as nice as this. 

Wayne Manor was massive and echoey and full of strange little rooms that nobody ever used. There were secret passages . It felt like a more gothic version of The Great Gatsby. Four months later he had favorite spots. 

It took four months to realize this wasn’t just a gilded cage. Hourly check-ins weren’t demanded, he wasn’t locked into any rooms. He was free to go where he wanted within the manor. He was free to find a corner and read for as long as he wanted. Bruce was even working on adoption paperwork, which Jason hadn’t even asked for. 

It had taken four months for the understanding to settle, four months for Jason to stop sleeping in the bathtub. Nobody was stopping him. Nobody was keeping him here if he didn’t want to be. 

You should be starting middle school now. Jason should’ve been starting too, but the school stuff was still in progress. The school stuff was likely to be put off until the adoption issue was taken care of. 

Then there was also the entire Robin issue. Wayne Manor was full of secrets. Some were quiet, like the locked doors and hidden motion sensors in the floor. Technically, Jason had been introduced to the largest secret before even entering the household. He was welcomed into the batcave, and was told Batman's name. 

Then they let him settle, and before he knew it Bruce was teaching him how to fight, using a sparring room underneath the manor. He was being offered the ability to take on the Robin mantle. The mantle came with rules, the largest one was that it was a secret. 

Bruce had explained it all very carefully, in a calm low voice. Why their identities had to be kept secret, why he couldn’t tell friends, teachers, nobody. The only people allowed to know were selected by Batman himself. Jason had nodded, he had understood. He would never want to put you in danger, so he kept the secret. 

He had to keep the secret. Maybe that was another reason he didn’t go to see you at first. 

 But once he was in bed for the night, after hours of drills, body and mind aching from training, it wasn’t uncommon for Jason to lie awake and stare at the ceiling. His mind always drifted to you. 

Were you okay? Did you ever think about him? Had you just moved on? He hated the thought that you might have just moved on, like he was a misplaced sock. Annoying but ultimately unimportant. But that wasn’t true was it? You’d always looked at him like he mattered. You looked at him like he hung the stars. 

But he had left. He had willingly made that choice. He had willingly climbed into the batmobile and gone home with Batman. Not because he wanted to leave you, but because he was offered something. Offered a way to help better, a way to become stronger. 

He could protect other kids now, help prevent parents going missing like his own mother had. He could stand between innocent people and the things that tried to swallow them whole. 

During the day, Jason spent an obscene amount of time in the library. It was easily his favorite room. The shelves were floor to ceiling, he had to use a ladder to reach the tallest shelves, the chairs were soft and plush. Sometimes he curled up in one of them and read. 

But often he found himself looking for something that you would like. Every book left him wondering if you would enjoy it. It was dumb, you weren’t there, you weren’t a part of his new life. 

Alfred had been the one to give him the final push. Jason didn’t think that it had been intentional. Jason didn’t think Alfred knew that he had a friend he had left behind for this life. But the old man walked into the library with a stack of new books in hand, paperbacks, spines unbroken, untouched. “These might suit your taste. They’re quite popular among your age group.” 

Percy Jackson. 

For once, in bed that night he found himself reading the first book instead of staring at the ceiling. He read the first book in one sitting, the sun starting to creep over the horizon when he finished it. Something about the story got under his skin, he related to the character in a way that he hadn’t expected to. 

So he read it again, slower this time. With a black pen. It wasn’t the first time he’d done this, it used to be a ritual of sorts with you. Writing in a book, giving it to the other person, reading it again with their annotations. 

He underlined and circled bits that made him laugh or think, scribbled jokes into the margins, there were even little arrows pointing to sections with comments like “You’d totally say this.” 

By the time he turned the last page the decision had been made. He would go to see you that weekend. He picked his clothing haphazardly, soft and new, it still felt foreign on his body after all this time. He armed himself with the backpack Bruce had gotten him, the annotated copy of The Lightning Thief tossed inside. 

Bruce was working, so he had time. He didn’t necessarily have to tell anyone he was leaving, but he still found Alfred, announced he was going for a walk, then ran off. 

It wasn’t technically a lie. It was just a very, very long walk. 

Wayne manor wasn’t technically in Gotham, it was just outside of it. It was also technically not walking distance. But there was public transportation, and running. Jason would be fine. If Bruce questioned it he’d just claim he was working on his stamina. 

It took him an hour to get to the apartment. He used public transportation, and ran so much that he was sweaty and sticky by the time he was staring up at the fire escape. It was still early in the day, a weekend. You would be home, he knew that. 

Unless you were visiting Sammy. 

He stared up at your window from the alley for a long moment before placing his foot onto the fire escape, starting the climb up to your window. He was nervous, he knew he was nervous. You’d be able to look at him and tell he was nervous, His hands were shaking and he was pretty sure you’d be able to hear his heartbeat. He knew he could. 

You were going to be mad at him. That wasn’t a question, an uncertainty. You would be. He would be mad at you if the roles were reversed. 

He lingered at your window the same way that he lingered at the bottom of the fire escape. Staring into your room. You were on your bed, focused on a piece of paper, drawing. You didn’t see him. He’d have to announce his presence. 

One deep breath, a raised hand, and three knocks. The same knocking pattern as when he lived below you. The routine was the same even, coming to the window instead of the door. 

Your head whirled toward him, eyes widening. Your drawing was suddenly forgotten, you were screaming out of the bed to get to the window latch. He still helped you push it open, the rust was only getting worse as time passed. 

“Jason?”

He clambered through the window, backpack thudding against the sill as he did. As he set foot into your room like nothing had changed. Except a lot had changed, not everything, but his life was entirely different now. Yet he was still sneaking into your room through your window. Maybe that would never change no matter what else in his life did. 

You repeated yourself, at a loss for words, “Jason?” You stared at him for a moment, and he stared back. He was just as lost for words as you were. So he moved instead, setting his backpack down, opening it to grab the annotated Percy Jackson book for you. You found what to say in the time it took him to do that.  “Are you okay?? Where have you been? What happened?”

He didn’t look at you right away. It had only been a few months, but already the differences between how he had been living, and how you lived were so glaring. The building looked even more decrepit than he remembered somehow. Your clothing had holes, your room didn’t look polished. Yet somehow this run down, crumbling building felt like home. Wayne Manor just felt like a place that he was getting to stay for awhile, even if he had a big fluffy bed. 

He didn’t know how to respond, so he shoved the book toward you, waiting until you took it in your hand. “I…I just wanted to see you. I’m living somewhere else now and it’s…different.” You were appraising him, eyes narrowing and staring at him as if he was almost foreign now, and maybe he was. 

He knew he looked different, significantly more put together now. His hoodie didn’t have holes in them, they weren’t too big or too small, he didn’t smell like cheap soap anymore. He looked like someone who had been taken care of. 

Not that he didn’t think your mother took bad care of you, no. He knew she tried her best, he had been underneath her care for a time. She was a lovely woman, it was just that she didn’t have the financial resources that Bruce Wayne did. 

“You’re safe?” A reasonable question, one with a complicated answer. He hadn’t gone out as Robin yet, not really, but he had been training. Learning how to fight. But even still, Batman would keep him safe. Batman hadn’t let anything happen to the first Robin. So nothing would happen to him. 

“Yeah.”

You were quiet for a moment, staring at him still, before huffing, and dropping dramatically down onto your bed. “What's this?” You weren’t looking at him like he was a total stranger, that was good. 

“Alfred gave it to me. I annotated it, thought you might like it. You could annotate it too and we could keep swapping books back and forth?”

“Whose Alfred?”

“He…” How was he supposed to explain the situation he had found himself in? Adults knew who Bruce was apparently, but kids didn’t. Jason hadn’t known who he was, so you certainly wouldn’t. And it had been made clear that under no circumstance could he tell someone that Batman had taken him in.  “The guy I live with is super rich, Alfred is his butler.” 

You nodded, taking a second to process the words, cracking the book open and glancing at the first page. Not really reading it, just glancing over it. The quiet was familiar like an old blanket, comfortable in a way that Jason didn’t feel with anyone else. 

Your response came after a moment, and several pages flipped through, “So…you live in a mansion now?” Your voice wasn’t mean, more curious than anything. You weren’t smiling at him, but despite that, you still felt warm to him. 

“Kinda.”

You flipped another few pages in the book, still not really looking at them, “Ang he just lets you live there? Gives you books and stuff?”

“Yeah. Clothes too. And food. Alfred cooks every day. LIke your mom but way better. And I have my own couch with a massive bed. And a phone,” Jason reached into his back pocket pulling it out and holding it up so that you could see it. “He got me my own phone.”

Your mother had a phone, but you didn’t. If he knew your mothers phone number then he could have called her. He could have talked to you. Maybe he needed to get her to write it down so that he could. 

“Wow. Look at you. Guess I should start calling you Mr.Todd.”

He looked away, “Don’t call me that. I don’t like it.”

“I know Jay.” You turned your attention back to the book, flipping through it and glancing at his annotations, “I’m totally gonna make fun of your comments through this later.”

“I’d be offended if you didn’t.”

You sighed, closing the book and hugging it to your chest, leaning backward until you were laying down on the bed, turning your head to look at him. “So you just came to see me cause you missed me or something? And brought me a book?”

“Yeah. I think about you every day.” The thought of deflecting or lying didn’t even cross his mind. You were his best friend, his light. You were his life. Why would he lie about missing you? 

You stared at him for a second, “Me too.” You sat up suddenly, dropping the book on the bed and tackling him, going to tickle his sides. You were grinning now, one of them that made him feel all warm and gooey in his stomach. “You better never disappear like that again! I expect you to come visit me more often. Like, whenever you can. Any spare time you get. Sammy misses you too.”

He tried to dodge and roll away from you, but you persisted, and he let you. Laughing involuntarily because of the tickling. “Okay! Okay. I won't ever disappear like that again. Promise.” He held his pinkie out towards you. 

You didn’t hesitate before taking it into your own, “Good. Now let's go tell mom the good news! That you’re alive!”

You made Jason go with you to find your mother in the apartment. She was in the kitchen, elbow-deep in a sink of dishes, music playing low from the counter radio. He back stiffened when she saw him, like her body caught up with her brain before she could say a word. 

“Jason?” Her eyebrows rose in disbelief, “Jason Todd?”

You spoke quickly, eager to go spend time with Jason before he had to leave. Telling her he was okay, he just wanted to visit. Your mother relaxed a little at that. But before you could try and drag him back towards your room she was slinging questions at him. 

Where had he been? Who was he living with? Were there other kids? Was he eating okay? What school was he going to now? Did he need anything?

Jason stood awkwardly, and did his best to answer without actually answering. He told her he was living with her now, he had his own room, was eating three meals a day, supposedly there was another kid who was an adult now but still came around sometimes. He dodged the question about who exactly took him in and how they’d bet. 

He hadn’t planned an answer for it, but she backed off the topic without a fight. Just narrowed her eyes and dried her hands on a towel slowly. They were all reasonable questions. Any well-meaning adult would ask them. Especially one who let a kid crash in their apartment for several months after their own mother went missing. She had every right to know. 

He hated it, hated the way her eyes flicked toward you, like maybe you didn’t know what you were getting into by just being his friend. Like maybe she shouldn’t have let the two of you get so close. Hated how he didn't have the words to explain how weird the situation had been. 

Gotham was weird though, taught people not to question good things, because once you did question them, the good quickly went away. 

So he ducked the last of her questions, escaping into the living room to sit beside you on the couch. A couch that desperately needed new stuffing, a new cover. Actually, the whole couch just needed to be burnt. 

He sank into the couch cushions and let himself breathe again. One episode, that was all he let himself watch. One episode where he pretended that everything was normal. That you were still in the same building he lived in just a floor away. That he could knock on your window anytime and you’d be there. 

But the clock kept ticking, and Alfred had definitely noticed by now. Jason's “walk” had turned into a three-hour disappearing act. Bruce probably hadn’t noticed, still at Wayne enterprises for the day. But Alfred always noticed. 

Would he tell Bruce? 

Jason wasn’t sure. Alfred didn’t seem like a tattletale, exactly. But he did have a look he gave Jason when he was disappointed. He’d have to give Alfred a good reason for his excuse. A good reason for the fact that the first book in the series he had just been given the night before had conveniently disappeared during his walk. 

The truth, he’d probably have to tell him the truth. 

Jason exhaled slowly, eyes still fixed on the TV. He should go, before that look found him. Before he had to share you with people he wasn’t ready to. Letting them meet you would be like letting them walk directly into his heart. He wasn’t sure that he was ready for that.