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creepytoes88 · 4 years

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His cumslut

Letting Vinnie do basically whatever he wants tends to benefit me more then most people might think. My best friends are always saying I’m gonna regret letting him go to whatever party or anyone's house. They say he’s a hypocrite because he always has tabs on where I'm at and who I'm with honesty it does get annoying at times but he can't help that he has trust issues. I knew what I was getting into when I said yes to being his girlfriend he has had a bad past with every girlfriend he's had, all of them have cheated and every girl he got with outside of a relationship just uses him. He was very clear on how he feels about unnecessarily revealing clothes “Wear what you want but if I have to kill a guy tonight I'm punishing you when we get home.”

A very common phase he uses but that's the worst of it I don't mind telling him who I'm with or where I am, I never ask him where he is because because I know he won't go looking around anywhere else. I've explained this to them a thousand times “Well tell us why your so confident he won't cheat” I blush slightly and shrug “YOU DO THIS EVERYTIME” I look down “it’s personal” they look at each other and laugh “tell us you prude” I chuckle slightly “promise no Judgement or making fun of me!” they both hold out their pinkeys and nod “wellllll...I let him do whatever he wants-” kay laughs “Yea we know” I look down “i mean anything” I slowly look back up “what he says goes.... Don't wear clothes for the rest of the week.....suddenly I'm busy all week” they look at me dumbfounded “of course there are exceptions but I let him have complete control with the sexual side of the relationship.” I say with a small smile “and he's good at it too” they look at each other and look back at me before busting out in laughter, “no wonder your not worried...your his sex slave” I tilt my head Vinnie had never used that term with me, I grew up with Vinnie me and him went to school together we weren't close till middle school we decided in freshman that we would be best as friends. The second week him and I were in LA we went to a party and ended up hooking up I was a virgin, and I thought it was gonna ruin everything but to my surprise, we just kept getting more and more serious.

After 5 months of living in the sway house, we moved out into our little house, our sex life completely changed when we no longer had people living with us. Vinnie told me his sexual dreams of having me whenever he damn well pleased and having me wear things he likes. Vinnie makes jokes about it but in real life I'm only allowed to call him Vinnie if we're in public inside the house his name is Daddy and that alone. The first time we had a fight in the house I called him by his name and he simply picked me up threw me over the couch, he edged me for hours when he finally let me release the power of it made me faint for a minute scaring the the absolute shit out of Vinnie. ”Honestly your not wrong...he’s never called me that but I guess your kinda right” they are quite for a second so I look at them “what” they look at each other before kay takes a deep breath “are you happy though, Outside of the sex he not controlling or pushy?” I smile “oh he's perfect and so sweet to me honestly I'm more worried of hurting his feelings.” I feel my phone vibrant and then Vinnie’s ring tone I answer quickly wondering why he didn't face time me or text me “hey bab-” I hear him breathing deeply “whats wrong?” I ask with worry “I really need you to head home now baby I’ve had a very long day and I need to release some tension.”

I feel shivers go down my spine and I feel myself already starting to get wet I let out a fake sigh “alright Vinnie if it’s that important I’ll be home in 10 minutes” hoping the girls won’t think it’s about something dirty. Vinnie lets out a chuckle “they are still giving you shit about me?” I laugh “I’ll be home soon I love you” I hung up and give the girls an apologetic face “girls I’m-“ they laugh and stand up “it’s okay Y/n we don’t want him to throw a tantrum because your not naked when you get there” I gasp turning around seeing their playful faces “you guys are ridiculous.” We all laugh as we go separate ways, I get in my car rushing home I want to beat him to the house so I can keep the plan of being naked. The second I step in the house I start stripping and then as I’m about to pull my skirt off I hear a door slam. I gasp and rush upstairs flinging my clothes off just leaving them there. I hear the Door open then slam shut I jump on the bed quickly, I place my head and chest against the bed my ass in the air. I spread my legs as far as possible trying to calm my breathing my heart is basically beating out of my chest as I wait for him patiently.

Vinnie's POV

I pull in to the house and shut off the car taking a deep breath ”Vinnie it's not Y/n’s fault that Justin is a dumbass” I say to myself getting out of the car I slam the door releasing as much anger as possible before going in the house to my beautiful wife to be. I will marry this woman she's everything I've ever wanted or needed but now isn't the time for marriage or at least that's what I keep telling myself walking in to the house and slamming that door too I am already kinda feeling better I'm still fucking pissed but I'm not raging anymore I toss my keys into the bowl and take off my shoes seeing hers just tossed to the side unlike usual. I walking into the living room to see her shirt and bra on the floor I smirk and walk up to the stairs seeing her skirt and her panties along with her socks right outside the closed door. “Hello my love-” I walk in to see her bent over with her ass in the air, her beautiful flower on full display along with her cute little button. The sight takes my breath away I can see her arousal dripping down her legs “well aren't you just the prettiest view.”

I see her wiggle her squishy cheeks making me laugh a little “wanna give Daddy a little dance show princess?” I was kidding but my baby never disappoints she immediately started to shake her butt to an imaginary song I watch with my mouth open a little I truly didn't know she was capable of dancing that way. I watch in awe as she began to make her ass clap (as one does💀) I grunt as I feel my dick become impossibly hard I began to take my clothes off as I pull down my boxers. My cock slaps against my lower stomach making my stomach twist I grab ahold of it watching as large amounts of pre-cum slip out. I swiping my tip letting out a little grunt, I hear her call my name I look up at her to see her look at me from between her legs “can I help?” she asks as she bites her lip. I immediately let go and I feel another large amount of pre-cum drip down my staff again making me blush slightly no one makes me as horny as she does.

Y/n’s POV

I jump up from my spot I roll off the bed dropping to my knees in front of him I take both my hands and intertwine them with his big warm hands. First I lick up the line of pre-cum that's made its way to his balls all the way back to his tip before sinking down till he hit the back of my throat. Vinnie lets out a gasp rocking his hips against my face pushing the rest of his cock down my throat a gag comes out as a result but I continue to bob my head and suck I pull my head off taking a breath or two before opening back up and taking him all the way till my nose is pushed against his naval. The prickly hair tickling my nose I let out a small giggle “Oh fuck what was that” Vinnie moans above me and he grabs the back of my head by my hair in a fist “I'm gonna fuck your throat baby are you ready?” I nod my head best I can with his thick and long cock stuffed in my throat and blocking my airway. He pulls back till his tip is almost out before thrusting back in a popping and gagging sound come from my throat and my eyes rolls to the back of my head. I never thought I would get so much pleasure from giving a man head in my life but something about his taste and the feeling of him stuffing my throat that I just can't get enough of. Once I spent a whole day just sucking his dick he came in my mouth and down my throat too many times to count I had a little stomach bulge after and it kinda looked like a food baby. I remember Vinnie asked if that meant I was technically carrying his children now I smile slightly at the memory but I'm brought back to reality when I hear him calling my name “oh fuckfuckfuck” he pushes his cock as far down my throat as possible “Shit Y/n fuck baby!” shooting a long, and hot load down my throat I grab his hips gargling my throat around his cock making him jump and try to pull away as he continues to cum down my throat. He succeeded in pulling out and the last little bit of cum landing on my tongue “mmmm Daddy you taste so good” I say licking my lips I use my finger to the the rest off my chin and off his tummy I look in his eyes at I take the finger and put in my mouth moaning at the taste again. “Fuck Princess you enjoy that way to much don't you think?” he laughs as he lays down on the bed “my balls hurt” he laughs I crawl back on top of him kissing his cheeks and finally his lips “you taste so good though Daddy, I just can't get enough of you.” I run my hands threw his hair “give me like 10 minutes and ill make you feel so good baby” he says as he kissed my neck I sit beside him rubbing his god like body (somebody said something about licking his biceps in the comments as I kinda like that idea so enjoy)

I run my hands over his shoulders and down his arms admiring his gorgeous skin I feel the need to worship him show him just how much of a slave for him I am he doesn't need to tell me I'm his slave, I already know I am and I'm gonna show him. “Mmm Daddy let me worship you” I whine as I began to kiss his chest and shoulders I run my hands up and down his toned stomach I began to kitten lick his hard muscles sucking little hickeys while I'm at it. “Fuck Princess what did you say” I start to kiss and lick his abs my hands rubbing his hard thighs pulling away I say “when I was at lunch with the girls I finally told them the truth about why I trust you so much they called me your sex slave.” I stop and begin to leave hickeys all over his hips and sex lines his hard cock brushing my cheeks and chin “I thought about it and I agree and honestly I wouldn't have it any other way” I lean down kissing his lips “oh princess I'm gonna make you more then just my sex slave” I sinister smile runs across his face and gleam appears in his eyes “I'm gonna make you my cumslut and your gonna beg for my cum....well everywhere if I have it my way.” he says looking in my eyes I feel a blush run on my cheeks and an excited shiver run down my back “you know you'll have it your way Daddy that my job right?” I say with a cute smile tilting my head trying to look innocent Vinnie let's put a dark chuckle “I can't wait to ruin you and really turn you into my cumslut” he pulls me down before flipping us over so he's on top “you won't be able to think about anything else except the way it feels for me to cum in your beautiful body” that sentence sent a violent shiver down my spine, I just got on birth control a little over 2 weeks ago but we haven't had raw sex quite yet mostly because we wanted to be sure the birth control is in full effect before taking the chance. (let's pretend you can't get pregnant on birth control at all lmao) I guess now is better than never “please Daddy make me your cum slut” I whine hooking my leg around his hip running my hands threw his hair.

Vinnie’s POV

My poor little bunny had no idea what she was doing to me as far as she's concerned these are just words flying out of her mouth but to me they are her words of true love and true trust. She trusts me enough to control her body and soon her mind, once she falls into the state of a cumslut I know she won't be able to control her body or her mind hopefully she feels relaxed in that state. The last thing I would want is for her to have a bad experience with me being the one in charge. I push my head into her neck running my staff between her slick lips a small moan falls from her lips “thank you, baby, I won't disappoint you I promise.” I kiss her lips once more before grabbing ahold of both of her legs pushing my spongy tip into her entrance the feeling completely different from when I have a condom on I let out a low gasp. Goosebumps pop up on my skin and a shiver runs down my spine as I pull out a light popping noise is made “UGH FUCK YOUR SO TIGHT” I let out a loud moan throwing my head back. I look back down seeing my sweet girl looking back up at me with wide innocent eyes and her mouth slightly open her hands hold tight onto my shoulders without even thinking I push inside of her both of us moaning as her wet walls fluttering around my dick about sending me into orbit I quickly bottom out letting out a grunt using my free hand to move her hair out of her face “F-fuck Daddy please I want you to use me” I began to jackhammer into her feeling her wall pulse around me her loud moans filling my ears as I pick up her legs pushing them into her shoulders feeling myself go further inside of her “Da-DADDY” I chuckle “what baby is there something you want” she whines and grinds her hips into me making me go even further if that's possible. “Daddy please cum inside of me I wanna feel it” Her little body was shivering, I feel my balls tighten so I began to rapidly pound inside of her “OH YESSS IM CUMMMING” she yells out thrusting her hips up. I grunt pushing as far into her as I can releasing deep inside of her, I look down to see her tense and shivering “you ok bunny,” I ask slightly worried “i-so um I-please” I look at her slightly confused “what baby?” I say with a little laugh I see her open her eyes a little before spreading her legs again “more please.” she whines out I drop my mouth open at my cute little whiney mess “oh princess you have no clue what you just did”

I have other things coming but should I make a part 2 to this

#vinnie #vinnie hacker #vinnie hacker imagines #vinnie hacker smut #vinnie hacker x reader #Sway #Swayboys #sway gaming #swaygaming #swayla #swayhouse #hypehouse #thehypehouse #hypehousesmut #Smut #smut imagine #smut imagines #dirty imagines #imagine

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bright-whump · 3 years

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Heyno it's the fluffy anon again. I'm came back with a fluff idea! I hope you like you sweet bean.

Easily distracted/lazy whumpee and Very focused Caretaker. Whumpee tends to like to do things more entertaining to them. This makes them do needed projects, assignments, and more get put in the back burner.

While the Caretaker is always up to do things ahead of time on right on time. Though it takes time out of the day that whumpee claims it could be hug time, snack time or more.

One time though there was a project whumpee and Caretaker needed to do for the rest of the group so they get started on it. But as things progressed whumpee began to get distracted and bored. Slowly doing less and less work.

Whumpee thought it was fine until they see Caretaker staying later and later to finish some work that the whumpee left it. They felt a bit ashamed about it. So they decide to try to change it.

So while caretaker was out whumpee went on their computer and did all they could do to not distract themselves. Although most of the way it mostly failed. Primary by whumpee looking for loop holes in those rules and ideas on how to focus.

Whumpee was thinking about giving it up or saying they tried their best, but the idea of Caretaker taking their job is too much to ask. Especially if they barely did anywork. So against their own idea of working they was able to complete all of their assignments.

That when the caretaker walks in to see whumpee crying while sitting infront of their computer. "I did all my work, Caretaker please don't worry about it" whumpee said with tears in their eyes.

"I won't but let's get you something to eat"Caretaker said after be slightly stunned by thr explanations.

ADHD and executive dysfunction Whumpee WHEN this is just ME ajfjhsfh

Literally trying to focus on work on the computer? With access to literally everything ever in another tab? It's not gonna happen. Also I don't want it to happen. Yeah I need to do it but the fact that I have to means I'm instead going to sit here in dread and depression for the next 30 years until I die. Thanks.

Poor babs 🥺 Whumpee trying to be better for Caretaker!! Caretaker taking care of them!! All they can do is try!! I love 🥺💕

(kinda ignoring the fact u said they're just ' lazy ' lmao i v much hate that word sorry it's been used against me and others with mental illness/disabilities too much 😖 not that lazy people don't really exist having no actual underlying issues—or that in most cases being lazy/wanting to do nothing/relax is an inherently bad thing bc it's not but—I just relate more to neurodivergent whumpees/all of mine are if I write them so that's what I read here lol)

#fluff #asks #u shall b deemed #my fluff anon #txt

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consumeconstantly · 4 years

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SBGS ch 6

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | ao3

2:00AM | CoffeeVamp: marinette dupain cheng could step on me and i would thank her

CoffeeVamp: did you all see how bad ass that girl was

CoffeeVamp: she was just like demon spawn is robin? Well fuck you for being in paris

CoffeeVamp: and her file oml this girl does so much for paris and he classmates treat her like CRAP

Daddy: How do you know her Damian? Clearly you guys have met before. Can you really trust her with your identity?

Jesus: this girl has been keeping her own secret identitieS under wraps for years I doubt she’ll rat

CoffeeVamp: DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON MDC

CoffeeVamp: all i ever wanted was for MDC to design smth for me but u ruined ALL my chances demon spawn !!!!

2:15 AM | TheOG: I think we can trust her

TheOG: Don’t think she trusts us tho

CoffeeVamp: yea what was with the zip ties

CoffeeVamp: do you have smth to tell us ;)))

CoffeeVamp: have u been getting spicy in paris ;)))

CoffeeVamp: remember to use protection we don’t need any mini yous around

LadyLady: she’s good. I can see why Ladybug trusts her

DemonSpawn: She’s a friend I met in Paris. She can keep a secret.

2:20 AM | DemonSpawn: I regret not trusting her.

CoffeeVamp: i cant believe that u thought someone who was nice enough to spend time wu willingly could be a supervillain

Jesus: that’s pretty fucked up man

Jesus: Surprised she didn’t rail on you more for that. I would’ve given you a beat down

LadyLady: u need a game plan to get her on your side. She doesn’t have a good reason to trust u anymore and id like it if we were on good terms with the one person that can contact lb

The OG: ^^ babs is always right

TheOG: you only have two weeks

DemonSpawn: How do I get on her good side?

Jesus: you better hope and pray because girls like that do not forgive easy

TheOG: try being her friend again

Jesus: like she wants to be his friend anymore

LadyLady: Apologize to her.

Jason is right.

It’s clear that Marinette does not want to be involved with him any longer. Marinette comes in right as the bell rings, then faces firmly ahead and doesn’t spare him a single glance. Notes that he slips to her are ignored. She doesn’t check her phone for his texts except for once, when she texts him: anything related to last night will be discussed out of school.

Instead of going home for lunch, she willingly sits with Lila, just so she can avoid him cornering her in the bakery. Damian watches them from a distance, but he’s close enough to hear most of the conversations. Most of their other classmates are taken in by some video on Alya’s. There’s a quick exclamation from the Ladyblogger, saying something about being able to meet some American celebrity, and she and the rest of the class run off to somewhere else, though not before inviting Lila and Adrien. They’re turned down, and Marinette continues to sit with the two of them.

“We’ve got a photo shoot together later today.” Adrien sounds tired. Like he’s giving up, almost.

“Would you like to come, Marinette?”

Damian can’t make out Marinette’s reply, but she must say yes, because Lila’s calculated facade slips away to reveal shock and interest. Lila entwines her fingers with Adrien’s, an act Adrien clearly isn’t expecting, as he flinches.

Marinette levels a glance at Lila, who looks surprised at Adrien’s reaction, not that Damian can blame her; she practically hangs off Adrien every day, playing up their couple relationship for the media, and Adrien never reacts like this. He inches closer. Lila reaches out to touch Adrien on the shoulder, in a gesture of soothing, but Adrien flinches again, this time gaining a distant look in his eyes and starting to breath hard. Lila goes to kneel--it’s clear that Adrien is on the verge of a full blown panic attack-- but Marinette holds Lila by her arm and shakes her head, gesturing for her to wait off to the side.

Adrien’s reactions are trademarks of an abuse victim. His reactions are rather dramatic in comparison to the clenched jaw and distant eyes that he normally sees in kids in Gotham, which leads Damian to the conclusion that this is either a more recent thing, or when he is abused, he emphasizes his weakness in attempt to get the attacker to stop. The question of who seems rather redundant; everyone knows that Adrien Agreste is the sheltered, sunshine boy who never stepped a foot out of his mansion before turning twelve. Though he models, his actions are still highly restricted. There’s not really much of a chance for Adrien’s abuser to be anyone other than the people within his immediate vicinity, so the suspects were his father, the personal assistant, his drive, or someone he works with.

He’ll have to keep this information in mind moving forward. Though Damian ordered extensive background checks on each and every student at Francois Dupont, he only read the profiles of the people in his class, and only keeps tabs on the people that are of interest.nIn Mlle. Bustier’s class, the only people who Damian is interested in are Marinette, for obvious reasons, Lila Rossi, for the sheer number of times she was akumatized during year two of Hawkmoth’s presence, Chloe Bourgeois, who may not be Francois Dupont student, let alone in France at the moment, but has a parent who currently sits at the top of his family’s Hawkmoth suspect list and has gotten countless people akumatized, and Adrien Agreste, the only person other than Marinette who hasn’t been akumatized in the akuma class. If Adrien really is being abused-- and he doesn’t really see any reason for Adrien to fake the symptoms, given that there’s really nothing for him to gain out of this situation-- that knocks him up a space on the list of Hawkmoth suspects. Victims of abuse, especially in a high profile situation, are often likely to either lash out or coop themselves up. Since he isn’t purposely excluding himself from activities, given that he converses with Marinette, Lila, and two other classmates named Nino and Alya, it’s possible that he has adopted Hawkmoth as an alter ego to pursue revenge.

All this, of course, is mere speculation. Before making any abrupt jumps in his logic, like he did with Marinette-- though he defends himself with the fact that his thoughts on her being Hawkmoth were mere speculation, and that it was merely coincidence or a case of extremely bad luck that Marinette… what, thought he was Hawkmoth as well and then passed the information onto Ladybug? Now that he thinks about it, the whole situation seems ridiculous, and he finds that Ladybug’s lack of tact when coming face to face with her supposed arch-nemesis doesn’t befit a hero of her caliber. She seemed oddly emotional about the whole thing, like his existence as Hawkmoth was a personal betrayal. But Ladybug and Damian never met before that. Why did Ladybug take Marinette’s personal vendetta upon herself? His head hurts.

Damian finds himself walking over to their table, where Marinette is speaking in soothing tones, careful not to touch Adrien at all. He calms down enough to start breathing regularly. Even though his eyes are still watery, he looks up at Marinette with a tentative smile. Marinette looks back at him with such pure, unadulterated love, that Damian blinks slowly to make sure he’s not seeing things. There aren’t many people who show emotions that don’t have some hidden barb underneath, or an undercurrent of a different emotion alongside it.

Then, Marinette sends a calculating look at Damian, and a briefer one at Lila and Adrien.

“Lila, can I talk to you in private for a moment?” Although Marinette’s tone keeps to a pleasant range, Damian finds it rather familiar. Like when Alfred pulls him or one of his brothers to the side to politely tell them what they’re doing wrong and how to remedy it. But there’s a bit of genuine ferocity in Marinette’s tone, and the Italian girl steps back.

“Adrien, I’m going to leave you here with Damian just for a second, okay? I’ll be right back, and if you need me for anything, just call.” She gives Damian a look that says if you hurt this boy, I will end you and heads off with Lila.

“Damian,” Adrien says. He’s trying to come off as calm and cheery. He misses the mark terribly. Somehow, Damian gets the feeling that the boy isn’t very good at bottling up his emotions, odd, considering that he’s grown up partially in the limelight. “I see you’re well acquainted with our everyday Ladybug. She really is amazing.”

There’s a touch of awe, and it makes Damian uncomfortable for no good reason.

He’s not sure how to deal with people who look like they’re about to cry. Damian doesn’t have to deal with that. Dick’s in charge of any emotional clean up that’s necessary in the public; Alfred helps his family manage their emotions in the manor. He decides that going with the flow is the best option in this situation. An everyday Ladybug. What an interesting piece of terminology.

“She is.” Damian admits, “We’re not currently on the best of terms.”

Damian will be surprised if Marinette even manages to civilly work with him for the rest of the week. He wasn’t expecting their subsequent interactions after last night to be the same as they were prior to her finding out that he was Robin and thinking that she was Hawkmoth, but he thought she would just interact coolly with him. Not this silent treatment. She refuses to talk to him and only looks at him with some combination of disdain and ill intent.

He can’t manage to give her the same treatment, both because he is on a mission and because he can’t fault her for thinking that he was Hawkmoth. The situation is really, rather comical, but he spent enough time ruminating on his actions the previous night to pick up on all of the red flags that made her come to that conclusion, and even is she was a hero for a short period of time, he can’t expect someone who is, by and large, a civilian to have the same investigative capabilities his family does. If anything, he is ashamed of himself for jumping to the conclusion that she was Hawkmoth, when instead, it turned out she is working for Ladybug.

However, the Marinette he’s seen so far doesn’t seem the type to hold grudges, especially not when it comes to any pressing issue, and he finds that all of the decisions she makes are heavily logic-based and influenced by Sabine’s values, who is definitely an upright woman if he’s ever seen one. Marinette has too strong of a work ethic to actually ignore Damian when it comes down to it, but he has to wonder why she acted so blatantly hostile to him. Her character combined with her actions just don’t match up, which means there's another reason why she’s acting this way.

While Damian excels at extracting raw data and testimonies from people due to brute force, and is decent enough at getting people to do what he desires, determining the source of a person’s frustration, what drives a person-- he needs more work with that. He’s much better at getting people mad. And Damian doesn’t think he’s seen Marinette mad at anyone except for Celia DeVries. She has nerves made of steel and patience carved from diamond.

“I hope you figure it out.” Adrien says with such sincerity that it’s frightening. He’s surprisingly pure-hearted for a model entrenched in a mega corporation like Gabriel. The entertainment industry, particularly the fashion side of business, is a very cut throat world. Adrien doesn’t seem like a person who’s been in the public eyes for years. “Please be a better friend to her than I am. I really wanted to do more for her, but my hands are... tied.”

Lila is subdued when she and Marinette return. Her eyes dart to Adrien, and she frowns and bites her bottom lip. Then she looks away and crosses her arms.

“Let’s get back to class. I’m excited to go to the photoshoot after school! I haven’t spent any time with you in so long, Adrien.” Marinette doesn’t sound like she’s faking it. She sounds so genuinely happy, and Damian wonders if he can make her sound like that again. If he ever made her sound like that.

Adrien looks at Marinette, then asks Damian, “Would you like to come too?”

The look that Adrien gives him tells him to say yes, even though he can feel the cold that radiates off Marinette. Damian agrees; it’s time to try Barbara’s suggestion and apologize, and since he doubts that he’ll get a word in edgewise when they’re working together at night, he has to try apologizing sooner.

The rest of the school day slips by in a blur.

Then, the four of them are out on the streets, and Damian finds their combination unnerving, to say the least. He’s still on bad terms with Marinette, and Marinette has never been on the best terms with Lila. She’s going to this shoot solely for the opportunity to be with Adrien, and something about that unsettles Damian. Still, regardless of how Damian feels, the photographer on the set of Adrien and Lila’s shoot loves all four of them.

“Fantastico! Adrien’s friends are rare finds. It’s true about what they say; beautiful people, they associate with beautiful people.” The photographer flits around Damian and Marinette, getting uncomfortably close. Damian shoots him a glare, but the photographer simply takes it in stride.

“Yes, yes, the most beautiful eyes, so passionate. The perfect measurements, too! Lara,” he calls to one of his assistants, “Get them all to makeup. These four are who I’ve been waiting for to fulfil my vision of envy. Gabriel will have to wait on his magazine spread. I’ve been inspired!” The photographer circles the four of them, like a hunter and his prey.

Out of nowhere, the photographer grasps Marinette’s chin, and despite the initial flinch she gives-- he’s not sure whether she was going to kick or punch him, but the sudden spitfire in her eyes said she was going to do something-- she settles into a locked jaw and curled fingers. Damian sees a slight jump from Adrien as well, which seems unusual; on the way over, he talked about how he worked with this photographer before and was very comfortable with him. He regaled them with funny stories of how he tended to reference spaghetti in shoots that were less pleasant to make the models laugh.

“Ah, Adrien, you have truly delivered the favor of Fortuna upon me. I cannot believe I never saw this earlier. You have brought this girl to shoots before, have you not? I never forget a beautiful face, even when I am focused on other things.”

Marinette calmly displaces Vincent’s hand from her face. “Thank you for the kind words, Monsieur, but I think it best that we just watch the originally planned shoot. I am no model and have no interest in being one.”

Vincent gives Marinette a once over, like he’s not used to people disagreeing with whatever vision he has for the day. “From one artist to the next-- this project is important to me. I’ve had the idea for years, but have yet to come across the perfect models to portray it. What will it take to convince you? ”

At this, nearly all the tension that Marinette has coiled up in her shoulders dissipates. Vincent has said the right thing. “I see. Really, Vincent, I think it’s best that you continue with the Gabriel shoot. M. Agreste wouldn’t be happy if he found out that his spread was delayed.”

“But the Muse, Mademoiselle! She runs away so quickly. And the four of you are perfect.” Vincent turns to the other three.

“Surely, you understand. Mlle. Rossi, M. Agreste, you must have felt an urge to do something so strongly that it pulls you in. And you,” he looks more closely at Damian. “You are an artist as well, aren’t you Monsieur? I can tell. It’s in the hands and eyes. Art, she comes, but she is fickle. If I don’t do this now, it will be gone forever. And the pursuit of true art means more than any Gabriel spread.”

Surprisingly, it is Adrien who responds first. “I might not understand art, Vincent, but I know what you’re talking about. The feeling of wanting to do something badly, to set yourself free…”

He twists his ring. Marinette looks at him sadly again, hands twitching like she wants to hold him to provide comfort.

“Besides, I don’t really want to do a Gabriel spread today. I haven’t spent time with friends in a long time, and I don’t think anything could make me happier than doing a photoshoot with you three right now.”

This makes Lila look at Adrien in a curious sort of way. Not the sad look that Marinette is giving him, but one of a slowly dawning realization. When Adrien references her as a friend, she looks happy. Proud, almost. Then, she looks like she’s connecting dots in her head, and she doesn’t look happy with the conclusion that she’s drawn. As soon as the frown touches her lips, Lila shifts back to an impeccably crafted mask.

Damian doesn’t agree with the sentiment that they are friends. He has barely had a full conversation with the blond, though he will admit that Adrien does have more of a brain than the rest of his classmates. He looks at the ill-concealed shadows beneath Adrien’s eyes and sees Tim.

Lila agrees almost immediately after Adrien finishes speaking. “Inspiration is fleeting. Art waits for no one.”

Marinette purses her lips. She asks Vincent, “You won’t get in any trouble for this?”

“I can handle any backlash Gabriel throws at me. Heaven knows that man has pissed off one too many photographers before.”

“You can, but what about everybody else involved?” She looks at Adrien, specifically. He fidgets with his ring again, and sends Marinette a look so pleading that she sighs. “Fine. I don’t mind doing the shoot.”

“Fantastico!” He turns his gaze to Damian.

“I’ll do it.” He’s never been particularly fond of photographers, given that the invasiveness of the media has led his family to various unpleasant situations, but Cass went through a photography phase, and out of all of his ‘sibling’ relationships, he is the most willing to indulge her.

“Will you tell us what the subject of the shoot is?” Marinette has inched closer to Adrien. Adrien pauses, stops fidgeting with his ring, and looks at Marinette. A world weary smile creeps onto his face, and his hand reaches out for Marinette’s like he wasn’t expecting himself to do that. He looks surprised when he finds his hand in hers, tenses for a moment. But Marinette doesn’t say anything, and rubs soothing circles on the back of his hand with her thumb. This seems to relax him more than fidgeting with his ring. He sags, and Damian can’t bring himself to feel anything but pity for Adrien. Lila looks curious, but not jealous.

Vincent surveys the four of them again, a growing smile on his face. “No, I think the four of you are already perfetto. A little direction here and there, but yes, yes, this is very good.”

“Lara, bring them to makeup. You know what to do. I must set up! Don’t call Gabriel; we will most likely be taking this to a second location at sunset.” Then, Vincent is off, muttering something in Italian under his breath.

“Thank you so much for agreeing to do this shoot,” Adrien rambles as soon as they get into makeup. “Vincent is such a great photographer and he’s taken really good care of me over the years. He’ll take good care of all of you as well.”

He continues, a little softer. “I really wanted to spend time with the three of you, together. I--I think it would be really nice if we could all be friends.”

Damian has his eyes closed because eyeshadow is being applied, but he can practically feel the surprise rolling off Marinette.

“Adrien, we are friends already.”

“We are, but we’re not really close. The only person I talked to often was Nino, and recently, father has-- ” he breaks off, looking exceedingly uncomfortable, before speaking quickly in an attempt to speak up before losing his nerve. “But I don’t just mean friends with me, I mean the four of us. I want the four of us to be friends.”

The makeup artist who is working on Adrien shushes him, but Damian gets to open his eyes. Adrien is clearly nervous. He’s not shaking-- he is bred far too well for that-- but he has reverted back to fidgeting with his ring. He tries to bite his lip, but the makeup artist shakes her head and tuts.

The girls are both silent, and Adrien looks so nervous that he has to do something. He doesn’t think he’s interacted like this with anyone as nervous as Adrien before; his brothers were all big personalities, as were the Teen Titans. He may have come across nervous or anxious civilians as Robin, but those situations were more straight and cut, involving little to no talking. Damian decides to that a cross between how he interacts with Dick and how he interacts with the people he saves is the best bet for this situation, though his tone comes out more condescending than he planned.

“Why the four of us?” Damian can’t really see why Adrien has singled out the four of them. As far as he can tell, there’s no good blood between them. Adrien, Marinette, and Damian all harbor varying levels of dislike or discomfort towards Lila; Adrien, Lila, and Damian have all fucked over Marinette in various ways (or so he Damian assumes on Adrien’s part-- he is sure they would have been closer, otherwise); Lila, Marinette and Damian haven't talked to Adrien in any capacity that implies that they're more than mere acquaintances; Damian has done nothing that would put himself in the favor of the three.

Adrien fidgets even more, and the makeup artist smacks him and says that she doesn’t want to have to redo his eyeliner. “I think we all have a lot in common. And, I might not be good at showing it, but I like the three of you.”

Marinette makes some noise in disbelief and Lila narrows her eyes.

“Hear me out on this, guys. All of us try to help people when we can,”

“That’s basic human decency, Adrien,” Marinette says.

“Me, helping people?” Lila scoffs.

“We help people out more than most people do-- and Lila, you really do help people. Sure, you might not have been telling the truth about all of the celebrities or all of the charities you worked with, but you’ve helped a lot of charities throughout the years.”

Damian quirks an eyebrow. “And me?”

“I’ve heard about Silverstein and Company.” Adrien says, then continues on with his list of Reasons Why They Should Be Friends.

“None of us like telling people about our problems.”

This is met with no resistance.

“And we’re also all lonely.”

Silence.

Marinette’s makeup artist breaks up the oppressive silence, “And all good looking to boot!”

“It’s true what they say about the most beautiful,” Lila’s makeup artist says, “They’re always so troubled.”

Marinette laughs, but it’s strained. “Don’t worry Mademoiselle. We’re just being teens.”

“Loneliness isn’t a good reason to form relationships.” Lila says. Her voice is quiet. She looks off to some fixed point in the distance.

“It’s not the worst reason there ever was,” Adrien shrugs, satisfied now that he’s said his piece. His shoulders are back a little more now. Whatever happens next is up to them, not him. “And I like all of you. I think we all have very unique personalities that could work well together.”

Marinette shrugs her shoulders. “If there’s one thing that I’ve learned about relationships, it’s that initial compatibility means very little in the grand scheme of things. Relationships can work as long as you work for them. They might not be the fairy tale storyline that people chase after, but relationships that are worked on last longer. Adrien could be right. We might be able to all be good friends.”

Lila fixes Marinette with a stare. “You’re willing to be my friend? After what I did to you?”

Marinette shouldn’t be willing to be friends with Lila after what she did. In fact, after reading multiple books on healthy relationships when trying to cope with Chloe way back when, she shouldn’t be willing to be friends with any of them. It feels fucked up, but Marinette realizes that Damian, who believed she was a super villain, has the least strikes against a healthy relationship currently.

Even though Marinette knows that circumstance doesn’t excuse any of them-- Marinette doesn’t excuse her stalkerish tendencies back when she first met Adrien, either-- she knows that the three of them are just teens who have too many responsibilities and problems on their shoulders. They’re capable of change, and as both Ladybug and Marinette, she wants to believe that someone’s past actions doesn’t mean they can’t move forward. Perhaps their current actions should be taken with a healthy dose of cynicism, and perhaps their past colors how much Marinette will be able to trust them in certain areas, but throughout her years of existence she’s seen that there is no person who has only done good in their life.

“You’ve been better lately. I respect someone who changes themselves for the better.” What Marinette doesn’t say; she’s mostly willing to try this tentative friendship out for Adrien’s sake, because Lila seems to be the only one who can get Gabriel Agreste on her side and Marinette needs her help if she and Adrien’s trust if she can ever dream of emancipating Adrien.

Marinette is also confident that Lila is currently coming into her own, and knows that Lila didn’t have any good example to model herself after during her formative years. The fact that she’s changing now? It’s honestly pretty impressive, and even more so considering the people that are in Mme. Bustier’s class aren’t exactly cut from the most inspirational cloth. Why Lila is trying to change is something Marinette is curious about, but they’re definitely not close enough for Marinette to ask Lila that. There is also the very important fact that Lila has not been akumatized this entire year, nor has she gone out of her way to encourage someone else’s akumatization.

A small smile settles on Lila’s face. “Thank you. For what it’s worth, I am … sorry for what I did to you back then.”

Marinette hums with her eyes closed as a light layer of shadows placed on her crease. “I accept your apology. While we’re on this topic, I’d like to apologize to Adrien. I’m sorry that I haven’t been a very good friend to you. You’re an amazing person, and I want you to know that. Your self-worth should never be degraded by other people, and I really hope that you can come to rely on me.”

A watery, affectionate smile from Adrien. “Marinette, you’ve always been one of my best friends.”

“I regret what I said to you yesterday,” Damian cannot muster an apology-- he does not apologize, certainly not for doing his job, but Marinette is… useful. He needs her to accomplish her mission, and she’s kind.

There is no verbal response from Marinette, but she’s looking at him, at least. She hasn’t looked at him all day besides the one glare she gave him that told him to take care of Adrien.

Lila looks between the two of them. “What are you sorry for? I was under the impression that the two of you were great friends.”

He is sorry, if only slightly, but it takes a lot for him to get an apology. If anything, Marinette should be apologizing to him, for mistaking him as Hawkmoth, right? “Last night was--”

Marinette cuts him off with a sharp laugh. “Damian here thought I was Hawkmoth.”

Adrien bursts out laughing. “Oh my god, you thought Marinette was Hawkmoth? Out of all the Parisians you could choose! You know she goes around the city saving random people, right? She’s our everyday Ladybug. Doesn’t sound very supervillainy to me.”

Lila laughs too, and the tension in the preparation room finally breaks. “Please, if Marinette were Hawkmoth, she would have gotten Ladybug and Chat Noir’s Miraculous already. Have you seen what a planner she is?”

This gets Adrien to fake shudder. “It’s true. If Marinette really were Hawkmoth, she’d be so powerful. She knows everybody’s deepest fears, can kick ass and take names, and can come up with the weirdest plans that solve everybody’s problems in an instant. Imagine if she went to the dark side.”

“She would make an awful akuma.” Lila agrees. “How powerful you are as an akuma is linked to how strong you are mentally and how strong your emotions are when the butterfly lands on you. Whatever makes Marinette upset enough to have an akuma after her would probably be the result of some very strong emotions.”

“She’d be strong enough to level the entire city.”

Marinette is bright red, and if it were not for the fact that mascara is being applied to her lashes, she’d probably have her face buried in her hands. “Okay, okay, I would be an awful akuma. But I won’t ever be akumatized, so it’s fine.”

Adrien thinks of Marinette being an akuma more, and his face goes pale. “She really would be able to steal Ladybug and Chat Noir’s Miraculouses successfully.”

“No, she’s too morally righteous to do that. She’d probably go after Hawkmoth and win while she was akumatized.” Lila looks pensive. “All akumas retain most of their original personality traits, just exaggerated. Some even have some semblance of control over their actions.”

“If that wouldn’t be one of Anime’s top 10 betrayals, I don’t know what is. Hawkmoth akumatizes Marinette and then she rightfully kicks his ass.”

“Guys,” Marinette hisses. “I won’t ever become an akuma. Never.”

“You say that like you can refuse Hawkmoth,” Lila laughs. “You can certainly go after akumas, but refuse them? No way.”

Adrien zeroes in on Marinette’s hesitance. “Have you?”

Marinette shifts in her seat, her mouth set into a grim line.

“You have,” Adrien says with a touch of awe. Damian is impressed too; no reports of people being able to refuse an akuma have passed through the many hours of research he’s spent scouring the internet. He understands why Ladybug put so much trust in Marinette. “When?”

This sets Marinette on edge. Her back straightens into a board.

Lila picks at her fingernails in shame. “Did I?”

Marinette doesn’t respond, but the tremble of her mouth and her silence answers the question well enough.

Damian doubts he’ll ever get the full story of what happened that first year when Lila arrived. Marinette isn’t one to snitch, and Lila is both unwilling and tentatively ashamed of the past. Adrien won’t answer out of courtesy. Damian will never go to any of the other classmates to hear a bastardized version of what went down. He supposes he’ll never find out the whole truth.

Marinette’s stylist claps her hand. “Okay, enough teenage angst for today. All of your makeup is done, so it’s time to get into your outfits. Let’s go, kids.”

They’re silent as they dress.

The shoot is a flurry of excitement. There are many whispered conversations, but Marinette can’t keep track of half of them. Whenever she isn’t in a shot-- which is fairly rare as she seems to be the main subject of whatever Vincent is shooting for-- Marinette focuses on what needs to happen next. Though she’s still not currently the biggest fan of Damian or the Justice League, she will give them a fair chance, because as much as she hates to admit it, she needs the help. Batman is right. Even though she wasn’t actively working on the case for the first year, she still had plenty of time to gather evidence to back up her main suspects. Her lack of expertise in technology hinders progress greatly.

Not to mention that because Marinette was so wary about hurting Adrien and so swamped trying to keep a balanced schedule, she wasn’t able to find enough evidence to feel safe in her convictions. Master Fu warned her of incorrectly accusing Gabriel in the eye of the public, and he hasn’t come out to fight since the Scarlet Moth incident. She’s tried to investigate Gabriel in his own house, but any evidence slips through her fingers. He’s a very careful man.

Now that the promise of college is coming up, Marinette needs to take Hawkmoth down. Marinette doesn’t want to continue her schooling in France. Not anymore. She wants to go to a foreign college, where dreams of akumas won’t plague her at every step. Half the reason she finds herself on the streets as a civilian constantly is to erase the gory imagery of death and blood that linger in her mind eye from akuma battles. Seeing happy and alive citizens in all of the areas where Hawkmoth attacked make her feel better, but aren’t enough to chase away her nightmares entirely.

Marinette moves through the rest of the photoshoot in a haze. When she is in shot, she focuses on whoever she’s shooting with. Lila, with sharp green eyes, barely begins to lower her guard when Marinette directs the conversation towards past modelling shoots she’s been involved with. They interact unnaturally at first, but after starting to talk about Dior’s Spring/Summer ready to wear line, they find that they have similar tastes in silhouettes, though not in color.

She forces herself to ignore the fiasco that was last night, and talks to Damian about small nothings that don’t touch on anything important. When she runs out of topics, she begins to talk about Renee, and his gaze shifts to something resembling regret and some other emotion she can’t read. Dealing with whatever issues Damian has is not ideal. He’ll have to sort out his feelings on his own.

Adrien’s expressions are the easiest to read. Whenever he’s in a shot with Marinette, he is happy, plain and simple. There is less weight on his shoulders, and as Marinette attempts to cheer him up with poorly thought out puns, he looks like a kid again. He even starts punning back, and Marinette can’t believe how much she missed that. Chat Noir stopped punning a while ago, and it hurt in unexpected ways.

Really, Marinette just wants Adrien to be happy. Adrien is Chat Noir. Her best friend. Her partner. Marinette thinks Adrien deserves the world. She wants to pave a path for him so that his entrance into the adult world is easier, because the facade Gabriel has built of a picture perfect family attempting to cope with the loss of a mother and wife isn’t what Adrien needs.

Maybe Marinette wants him to have the childhood he wasn’t afforded. Marinette clings to warm memories of her own childhood, where Maman trained her in self defense and Papa taught her how to bake when things get particularly hard nowadays. Her heart warms when she sees Adrien give shy smiles to Damian and Lila. She’s proud when he strikes up conversations with them.

In all honesty, the only part of the shoot Marinette remembers is the last section of group photos they take when they move to a second location. It’s a cold day in Spring, which means Parisian tourists are more likely to be found inside an art museum, rather than on the beach. Adrien convinces them all that they should run around the beach, and somehow, they end up playing some extremely difficult version of capture the flag, but without the flags.

Somehow, Marinette ends up on a team of her own, for the sole reason that she’s the only one wearing white, and the person who holds the opposing team’s flag is Damian. She tackles him onto the sand, but not before both Lila and Adrien are hot on her tail. They end up in a pile, and Adrien’s laughter rings so sweet and true, that Marinette’s heart fills with love. She shifts, so her body is facing skywards instead of into Damian’s arm, and she reaches one arm across Damian’s body to grab Lila’s hand, who flinches at first touch, but relaxes. Marinette’s other hand finds itself tangled in Adrien’s hair, and despite the cold weather, Marinette is content.

She looks towards the horizon, where the sun is setting in a million different colors, and finds herself longing for a time where every day can be just like this moment.Where there is nothing filling her head except thoughts of the people who make her happy. Her eyes shift straight up.

Where morning fades into night, the sky is so very, very, blue.

Marinette’s room turns into an organized warzone at night.

The area of her room that was previously used to hold up various sketches and mood boards for designs in progress turns out not to be an upholstered wall, but a curtain that hides two whiteboards and a small library of books on the psychology of emotional manipulation, manuals of martial arts, and various books on strategy. The shelf above her desk space holds a projector that Marinette uses to project images from her computer onto the left white board.

“I’ll catch you up on my previous attempts and what you have to know in order for this partnership to work.” She takes her tablet out, flips through several screens, then uses her fingerprint to unlock a folder of notes. “This is a chronological list of things that Ladybug and I have attempted in order to find Hawkmoth’s location. There is a separate folder with suspects for identity that’s alphabetized. If you’re interested in more in depth analyses of past akumas, I can send that to you and your team’s emails now, as most of the information is readily available online. I’m assuming that you have a team, correct?”

“Yes, I can send their email addresses to your number.”

“No, for any information regarding Hawkmoth or superheroes in Paris, you can contact me through this number and email address. Ladybug and I both check it regularly; it’s a safer, more encrypted way of communication.” Marinettte taps her Miraculous communicator and connects it to her computer, so she can work on a bigger screen. “Which person is your main point of contact?”

“Oracle.”

Marinette contacts Oracle through video call. She doesn’t want to have to explain everything twice even if their partnership turns out to be nonviable. It takes a few moments to get through, but a woman’s face pops up on the screen. She’s a redhead and doesn’t wear a mask. Her coloring is obviously different from the rest of Batman’s affiliates, and despite her initial grievances with the white films over the vigilante’s eyes, she understand why it’s necessary; their suits aren’t magic, and there’s nothing stopping people from running facial recognition software and matching them up to people who reside in Gotham.

“How did you get this number?” Oracle asks warily.

Marinette moves her chair slightly so that Oracle can see Damian, who's currently looking at her tablet on her chaise. “I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng, your point of contact in Paris and the one who will be working with you for the next week. As you can see, Damian’s already viewing some information that Ladybug and I have compiled over the years. Please get the rest of your team on this call. I’d like to get all of the basic information out of the way now.”

“Damian?” The girl on her screen is a dead ringer for the girl they compiled multiple files on yesterday, but she can’t get a trace on where they’re calling from, which makes her suspicious.

Damian shoots her a text, confirming that it is actually him in the room, then goes back to scrolling through the tablet.

Nightwing, Red Robin, Red Hood, and Batman all appear on the screen shortly.

“Great, the gang's all here,” Marinette says unenthusiastically. “I’ll say it one more time. I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng and I will be your primary point of contact during your two weeks trial period here in Paris. I’m assuming that your team has been brought up on the events that occurred last night. In order for this attempted partnership to go more smoothly, I will provide you lists of suspects, past attempts at revealing Hawkmoth’s location, and more detailed information about all of the past akumas that have appeared. These files will only be available to you for the week unless the collaboration goes successfully. Damian has already given me your contact information.”

As an afterthought, Marinette adds, “Don’t bother trying to copy any of the files. You won’t be able to. You also won’t be able to pick up on my location through this video call; I’m using a Miraculous Communicator. The magic makes it so that any technology other than another Miraculous will be unable to find any identifying location.”

Marinette knows about this thanks to Max’s brief stint as Pegasus. Though Marinette had not yet learned spells that would allow her to materialize her communicator outside of the time that she was suited up, she had Max try to find Ladybug’s location after sending him a text. He and Markov were both unable to.

“Since the Justice League insists on sticking their nose where it does not belong,” Marinette can’t help but be bitter about this whole situation, despite the fact that her frustration with Damian has decreased. “Ladybug and I have created a plan to make full use of your resources while you’re still butting in. I’ve sent a list of which organizations need monetary support. Most are affiliated with mental health.”

“Let’s move onto how you guys as a team can help us. As far as I understand, Batman’s team is proficient in technology and investigation. For the past two years that we’ve actively been on the case, nobody has had those skill sets and been in the long term possession of a Miraculous. The police attempted investigation for the first year, but their evidence and information was largely unhelpful. I will give Damian the Miraculous Communicator that I am in possession of to use his skills with so long as he tells me what he’s doing with it and he uses it while I’m in his immediate vicinity. He can try to find out Hawkmoth’s location on it, perhaps with a greater degree of success that we have been able to.”

She goes through the checklist she made one more time, just to make sure that she didn’t miss anything. She doesn’t really expect anything much to come out of this collaboration, except for the reassurance that the Justice League won’t interfere at the end of the week. Speaking of: “One more thing. I want a notarized agreement that the Justice League will not interfere in Paris, nor will any of their agents of affiliates be sent here if this collaboration doesn’t yield information that is already known.”

“Got a lotta spark in you, don’t you, little mouse?” The vigilante called Red Hood-- the one with a helmet instead of a stupid domino mask-- laughs.

Marinette scowls. So far, the Justice League-- particularly the vigilantes of Gotham-- have not left her with a stunning first impression. Maybe she’s a little biased, but they certainly don’t seem to have any respect for her. Still, she only has to work with them for two weeks. “My name is Marinette, but clearly your helmet hasn’t shielded you from the memory loss that frequent concussions have clearly given you.”

“She got you there, dumb ass,” says Red Robin, a grin a mile wide on his face.

“Hood,” sighs Oracle, sounding highly stressed. Marinette decides that she is the most likeable. “Like I said earlier, we want to be on good terms with Marinette.”

“I’ll get you the documents and funds by tomorrow.” Batman’s voice is just as gravelly as the first time she contacted him. She finds that the more she hears him speak, the more pleasant she finds his voice. An acquired taste. “Even if this week is unsuccessful, the Justice League will be more than happy to continue to fund these organizations. Is there anything that Ladybug, Chat Noir, or you need personally?”

“None of us are going to use the Justice League’s funds for personal gain, Batman.” The accusations grates on her.

“Batman means,” Nightwing shoots a look to the side of his screen. Interesting, Marinette thinks. All of Gotham’s vigilantes are in one location, judging by their backgrounds and the location tags that her communicator provides her. Perhaps they have a headquarters of some sort. Back when there were extra heroes on the Miraculous team, Marinette sometimes wished that they had a location that they could all reliably gather at without revealing someone’s identity. It certainly would have made strategy easier. “That being a hero without any support is difficult. It must have taken a toll on your personal lives. If we can aid in any way, we will. We can excuse absences or hire tutors as necessary.”

“I’m no hero.” But Nightwing’s proposal may actually be helpful. Even though Marinette is making the grades necessary to go to the colleges that she wants, her continual absence and tardies aren’t very flattering.

Then her mind flashes to Adrien. Can she use this offer to get him out from underneath Gabriel’s thumb? Marinette doesn’t know if she can do that. He’s already in a delicate position-- and already at risk, thanks to the photoshoot earlier today-- and she’s not sure that Gabriel won’t move towards drastic measures if anything changes on Adrien’s end. If she wants to get him away from Gabriel, she may have to reveal his secret identity.

“Ladybug will make the decision for herself; she has access to everything that is said during our meetings. Chat Noir isn’t in the loop about our communications or any of the investigations that Ladybug and I have done. Ladybug says that he’s stressed in his civilian life, which is why his appearances have been decreasing,” Marinette admits. “I’ll leave it up to Ladybug to give your offer to Chat Noir. If I can get a reliable excuse to get out of class or get to class late, that would be greatly appreciated.”

“Chat Noir doesn’t know?” Red Robin sounds horrified.

“He’s currently a high risk for being akumatized. Ladybug didn’t want to risk it.”

Red Hood crosses his arms. “So you have more of a job than Chat Noir does in all of these Paris heroics, huh?”

Even if Chat Noir did know, Marinette would have her hand in the pie at least twice as much as him.

“I wouldn’t say that. I’m just more available than he is.”

“And more trusted than he is,” Red Hood insists.

It’s not that Ladybug trusts Marinette more than she trusts Chat Noir, it’s that Ladybug is Marinette. But she’s not going to admit that. Not to them, and certainly not until Hawkmoth is taken down. Maybe not even then. She can only imagine the looks of devastation that she’ll get if she does admit that she’s been Ladybug all these years. Her parents will freak out, Adrien will probably feel heart broken and betrayed, and Alya and the rest of her classmates will inevitably rail on either her or Lila or both of them. It just doesn’t sound appealing to her anymore, though she can certainly remember a time not so long ago where she so desperately wanted to expose her identity.

“You’d have to ask Ladybug that,” Marinette settles on. She copies and pastes one of the many messages that she has pre drafted and schedules it to send a few minutes later, so Batman’s team receives a communication from Ladybug while Marinette is at the white board. She spent all of last night preparing for this meeting, imagining so many scenarios that she barely slept. The email she’s sending will suggest what Damian should attempt to do with the Miraculous communicator that Marinette has. She adds in an extra comment that she trusts Chat Noir with her life, and that she’ll talk to him about offering him help in his civilian life, but won’t mention anything about the Justice League.

“Why doesn’t Ladybug just use her own communicator to join in on these calls?” Red Robin asks after receiving her email.

Marinette turns from the white board, where she is listing the past three akuma attacks and where her top three suspects were at each of the times. “There may be magic surrounding her identity, but that doesn’t mean Ladybug wants more time for all of you to try to figure out her identity.”

“Sounds irresponsible of her,” says Red Hood. “Leaving a civilian to do all of the dirty work. Who are those people you have listed on the board?”

Marinette decides to let the comment about Ladybug slide. Red Hood is currently her least favorite out of all of Gotham’s vigilantes, but she has to remind herself that respect is mutual, and Ladybug hasn’t really given them much to go on.

“The top three suspects for Hawkmoth. Gabriel Agreste, the CEO and head designer of Gabriel. Nathalie Sancouer, Gabriel Agreste’s personal assistant of over twenty years. Mikael Bordeaux, CFO of Silverstein and Company's French holdings.”

Oracle takes off her glasses and wipes them. “Sounds like your top candidates are all people in pretty high positions.”

“Agreste,” repeats Nightwing. “Agreste, as in Adrien Agreste? The boy that’s in Damian’s class?”

“The same,” Marinette says, not sure she likes where he’s taking this conversation.

“Hold up,” Red Robin says after a few moments. “Why is it that Gabriel Agreste and Nathalie Sancouer are on your list? Both Gabriel and Nathalie have been akumatized before. That should automatically take them out of the running.”

Marinette shakes her head. “That’s what I thought in the beginning, while the police were still in charge of the case. But based on my understanding of akumas, it’s very possible that Hawkmoth can transform, send out an akuma, then detransform and let themself be akumatized.”

The whole Collector incident was a deliberate ploy to throw her off. She spent at least half a year convinced that Gabriel and Hawkmoth couldn’t possibly be one in the same, despite the fact that he had the Miraculous Tome.

“What about Adrien, then? He’s the only one in your class that hasn’t been akumatized, sans yourselves, he hangs out with the people most likely to cause and become akumas, and has caused a fair number of akumas himself. Besides, he must know it if his dad’s Hawkmoth, which means he could be Mayura or even Hawkmoth himself.” Even if Red Robin presented her this theory before Marinette knew Adrien was Chat Noir, she wouldn’t have believed it.

“Adrien is not Hawkmoth.” Marinette isn’t sure how to explain how she knows without revealing his alter ego. She can’t tell them that he wielded the snake Miraculous either, because that contradicts her earlier statement that she didn’t know any of the other holders.

“Demon Spawn,” Red Hood says. “What do you think about Adrien? You’ve been in a class with him for the past month.”

Damian finally looks up from Marinette’s tablet, blinking to bring himself back into the situation at hand. “What?”

Marinette scoffs, remembering that he thought that she was Hawkmoth. She’s not upset about it, but she doesn’t trust his ability to discern alter egos-- at least not magical alter egos. “I wouldn’t trust Damian’s ability to read people as reliable evidence to tell whether someone is Hawkmoth or not.

This causes a myriad of reactions from Batman’s team and most of them are surprisingly loud. Red Hood whoops, “Roasted,” while Red Robin laughs and pounds the desk in front of them. Oracle smiles wide, her eyes crinkling. Even Batman manages to draw a smile to his face.

This makes Damian put down her tablet on the chaise and flush slightly. “I said I was sorry for that.”

Marinette thinks about brushing him off in annoyance but decides against it. Just based on the evidence that he gathered, it wasn't an awful assumption, and the Miraculous magic probably prevented him from even thinking about the possibility that she could be Ladybug, leading him to the next most possible conclusion. “It’s fine.”

In fact, even if Marinette can’t trust Batman and his affiliates with Chat Noir’s civilian identity, she should still try to maneuver Adrien away from his current situation. She can call it in as a personal favor to Marinette, and as long as they have human decency, they should agree to her request. She’s been gathering receipts that detail Gabriel’s systemic abuse of Adrien for years. This is a good opportunity to begin Adrien’s emancipation process. She’s currently on her way to a better friendship with Adrien, and since Batman insists the Justice League has all the resources that she wants, there’s no reason not to take advantage of them. She turns back to the camera.

“Adrien is not Hawkmoth and wouldn’t know whether his father or personal assistant are. In fact, it would be preferable to remove Adrien from Gabriel’s care; Adrien is in danger of being akumatized because of how awfully Gabriel treats him, and I have the evidence necessary to take him to court. I just need a legal team that’s good enough to go against a billion dollar company.” And time to convince Adrien that he needs to leave. That may be a more difficult task, considering the unending love and forgiveness he’s displayed for matters concerning his father so far. Honestly, sometimes Marinette thinks that he never learned how to hold a grudge.

“Noted. Let’s come back to that later, though. I want to talk about some other suspects you have on this list you gave us.” Oracle readjusts her headpiece and shoots a glare over her shoulder, presumably to tell the rest of her team to quiet down and get back on task. They certainly have an interesting team dynamic. They’re much warmer to each other than Marinette first expected them to be. They’re certainly closer than she and the Miraculous Team had been, when there still was a team, at least.

Oracle shares her screen. On it is a picture of Andre Bourgeois. “If Hawkmoth is able to be akumatized, then Mayor Bourgeois is one of our top suspects. The Justice League has compiled multiple lists of suspects before we sent Damian to Paris. He stopped a lot of international press for akuma attacks and has caused multiple akumas.”

Marinette frowns. Mayor Bourgeois being Hawkmoth crossed her mind a few times, but she always decided that he was largely incapable and had little motivation. “What are your criteria for deciding who might be Hawkmoth? I highly doubt Mayor Bourgeois is Hawkmoth, despite him stopping the press.”

“We determine how many akumas a person has caused, how much damage the akuma caused to the person’s primary residence and workplace, and how well they’re connected to the people being akumatized. Andre Bourgeois has been involved in the akumatization of slightly more than half of all the akumas that have occurred, so long as we include his relation to his daughter and wife and there has been extraordinary little damage done to the arrondissements that he frequents.”

“Interesting. Share the list with the contact information I sent you earlier. You share some of the same criteria as we have come up with, but you’re drawing the wrong information from what you have. Akumas caused is also one of our criteria, as well as the damage that has been done to the person’s residence. I don’t think that a person’s personal relations play much into who ends up being akumatized, however, there’s good reason to believe that Hawkmoth is in a position of power, or at least well connected. They seem to know what’s happening in the city before it ever hits the news.” Marinette opens a program on her computer, then turns on the projector to display a map with pins.

“We’ve been interested in the location of primary suspects at the time of akumatization; Ladybug believes that Hawkmoth’s Miraculous power is restricted to Paris. Which means that Hawkmoth needs to be in or close to Paris at the times of all akumas, which crossed Mayor Bourgeois of my list a while ago. He’s been absent for multiple akumas when he needed to go to conferences outside of Paris. The purple dots are Gabriel, the red ones are Nathalie, and the blue ones are Michael. You can see that they’ve all been in Paris every time an akuma occurred and within a ten mile radius of where the akuma was first spotted. That’s quite unusual, considering they’re all in high positions of companies that should typically have them travelling.”

There is also the little detail that Marinette found the Miraculous Tome in the hands of Gabriel Agreste, but Marinette doesn’t feel safe indulging them with that information yet. If she tells them, they will want to see pictures of the book.

“How haven’t you cracked this case wide open yet?” Red Robin looks at the screen appreciatively. It’s clear that Marinette spent a lot of time on this.

Marinette bristles. She may have a good amount of information, but her proficiency with technology leaves much to be desired. It took her an unnecessarily long time in order to get the map up and running. “Well, Red Robin, that might have something to do with the fact that neither Ladybug nor I knew anything about how to use technology in the way that was necessary to track him once the police handed over the case in the second year. Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that falsely accusing someone as Hawkmoth could ruin their entire life.”

Master Fu warned her against direct actions against anyone on her suspect list. In fact, he outright forbade her from doing anything, and although she no longer takes his words at face value after the many bumps in their relationship, she’s not going to try to ruin any of these people without evidence. Especially not Gabriel, not when he’s Adrien’s father.

Red Robin frowns.

Marinette takes a deep breath. She’s too tense. She’s been taking every word that these vigilantes say as something they don’t actually mean. Marinette needs to relax. Jumping to conclusions helps no one.

Damian’s eyes are on her, and she’s sure he’s passing judgment. She needs to get out of this situation, get out of this headspace. It’s not productive or healthy.

“I think we should end this meeting now,” Damian says, and Marinette begrudgingly agrees with him. She knows this is his olive branch.

“You were the one who was upset at the lack of time,” Oracle points out. “We don’t have much time. We need every minute we can get.”

“Marinette has given us plenty of information to digest for one night. We’ll regroup tomorrow and start on coding the programs to determine Hawkmoth’s location.” Damian reaches over Marinette to end the call.

Obstinately, Marinette refuses to look him in the eyes. She’s been flip-flopping this entire day, and it’s not doing any great wonders for her mental health. Everything’s been coming to a head in these past few days, and it isn’t a good feeling. She can feel the pressure on her shoulders, the expectant gazes of all of Paris to do her duty and expose Hawkmoth, but she feels the weight of the inevitable backlash Adrien will face if her theories are true.

The past few days feel like three years compressed. People she’s never interacted with have inserted themselves into the fray, and the big leagues have pulled out all the stops. She just talked to Batman and his team. He’s been in the hero game for decades, and she’s in the room with his son, Robin.

Everything is just too much.

Marinette feels like she’s been a bad Ladybug. Like she hasn’t done enough to find concrete evidence of her primary suspects because she is afraid of what will happen after. She’s half surprised she hasn’t gone into hysterics yet, but then again, she’s gotten very good at holding herself together when everything around her falls apart. The added touch of an outsider makes the fragile balance she’s achieved teeter.

Damian takes her distressed appearance personally and heaves a sigh. “Look, I --I didn’t think that you were Hawkmoth all along, only for a day before everything went down. I don’t know what I wanted out of you, but your friendship was nice. I did genuinely want to be friends with you, and I still do.”

This makes Marinette feel even worse. She’s trying so hard to find fault with Damian-- which is surprisingly easy-- in order to distance herself. She can’t afford to get attached to someone who can hurt her and is likely to hurt her, because an akumatized Ladybug is the last thing Paris needs. But hearing him apologize so genuinely means that Marinette can’t summon up a negative response. She may not be able to say that she truly knows Damian, but she knows that he is a very prideful person. It can’t have been easy for him to apologize to her so openly. An acidic response rests on her tongue for a moment before she pushes it back.

“You were just trying to follow up on a lead. I shouldn't blame you.”

“But you do.”

He hit the nail on the head. Marinette grimaces, letting her eyes flick over Damian’s hunched shoulders and set jaw. She doesn’t blame him for thinking that she’s Hawkmoth, but she does blame him for getting the Justice League more involved, which makes exactly zero sense if she evaluates the situation logically. Her heart feels like Damian is the element of change; if he never arrived in Paris, Marinette would still have everything under a better semblance of control. It doesn’t matter that Batman said the JLA had been looking into Paris for half a year, and that even if Damian weren’t sent, there would have been someone else.

It’s fitting that in order to move forward, they must break down whatever security that Marinette has built into her life, because life is just cruel enough to mess her up like that. Right now, she’s a wreck mentally, emotionally, and even physically. Marinette can feel her throat closing up.

“It’s not your fault,” she offers. “And maybe if we get out of our current situation, we can try being friends again. But right now? I-- there’s just too much stress on me, right now.”

Damian understands this, but as he descends the steps of her ladder, Damian can’t help but wish that she felt otherwise.

Omake

“How is it that Mayor Bourgeois is not in your top three suspects for Hawkmoth? He’s stopped a lot of international press about the akuma for the first year!”

Marintte deadpans. “Honestly? The man is way too stupid to ever be Hawkmoth.”

“Haven’t we come to the conclusion that Hawkmoth is stupid though? He couldn’t steal jewelry from two untrained teenagers for years!”

Marinette decides not to take offense at that, and concedes. “Fine, maybe he should be on the list. I’d certainly akumatize Chloe and Audrey Bourgeois if I had to interact with them on a daily basis.”

_______________________________________________________

will these be regularly scheduled? absolutely not, even though i have the whole thing finished because i get the feeling that i am going to Change Things sooner or later (somebody please smack some sense into me everything in this story goes awfully very soon and the plot goes wonky and AHHHH)

#maribat #sbgs #miraculous ladybug #dc #daminette #original content #adrien agreste #lila rossi #marinette dupain cheng #damian wayne

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nokomiss · 4 years

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@deadtedkord replied to your post “I’m still up for taking fic prompts! Let me know if there’s something...”

not to pop up w angst but maybe something about either bruce or steph keeping tabs on steph's adopted baby years down the line. not getting involved just, checking in every now and again to make sure that kid is safe and happy and never has to know the pain that they do. make me CRY 2020

Okay this skirts the line of ‘not getting involved’ as steph’s baby does make an appearance but this wouldn’t leave me alone! hope you enjoy <3

It was a slow night in Gotham, which just… didn’t feel right to Steph. So instead of cutting her Batgirl patrol short and heading home to study for the midterm she had in two days, she hit up the comms to see if anyone else needed a hand.

Robin and Nightwing were fine, apparently eating falafels and chatting with some stray cats after interrupting a carjacking. Tim was off with Young Justice, Jason was with the Outlaws, Babs was doing some fairly intense cold-case research that Steph knew would end with her sneezing over some dusty police file and Cass was having a movie night with Alfred.

Steph finally asked Bruce, knowing that he always had something going on.

Being left out of a case is fine -- they all do their own investigations, there’s nothing at all unusual about that -- but there was something about the sharpness of Bruce’s voice when he said, “You’re not needed, Batgirl,” that hit Steph the wrong way.

It had felt personal, in a way things between them hadn’t in a long while.

So Steph did what she did best: ignored the hell out of Bruce’s pettiness and showed up anyway.

Immediately she could tell that she wasn’t actually needed. The kidnappers weren’t exactly supervillain material. The kids were unharmed and locked in a room together.

She couldn’t figure out why Bruce had tried to keep her away.

She helped zip-tie the kidnappers, who Bruce had dealt with quickly and easily while she’d still been assessing the situation and trying to find whatever hidden threat she was meant to stay away from.

And it was Bruce that she was dealing with, she realized suddenly. There was a stiffness in his shoulders, a tightness in his jaw showing that he was uncomfortable with something, and that wasn’t a Batman trait at all.

Only the fact that the kidnappers were still conscious -- albeit dazed -- kept her from asking what was up.

“You can go now,” Bruce said. He still hadn’t unlocked the door the kids were behind, even though Steph knew that they’d been there for hours.

“What? There are like five kids in there,” Steph said. “I’ll help. Kids love Batgirl.”

That strange twist of his mouth again, and then Bruce said, “Okay.”

It sounded almost like he was trying to convince himself that it was a good idea.

Steph rolled her eyes as she unlocked the door. The kids themselves were totally unharmed, and the kidnappers had clearly known what they were doing in one respect: the room was stocked in juice boxes and tablets, and the kids were for the most part calmly playing games. They ranged between roughly four and six years old, and there were loud gasps of joy when Batgirl and Batman barged into the room.

There was no clear-cut demographic of the children -- two boys, three girls, a variety of ethnicities, though Steph noticed they all wore nice clothes, clearly no hand-me-downs, and their shoes were trendy and had clean soles. Chosen for their parents’ wallet size instead of anything more nefarious, most likely, which made Steph relieved.

Steph’s checking the kids over, making sure everyone’s physically and mentally good when one of the girls says, “Thank you for saving us, Batgirl!”

Steph looks at her directly for the first time and felt her heart drop.

She knew that face. She’d seen it a thousand times, she’d seen it in the pictures her mom still had hanging in the hallway from her childhood. The same eyes, the same baby-fine blonde hair, the same wide smile. Other things were different -- she couldn’t stop staring, couldn’t stop seeing the shape of her mom’s jaw, her dad’s ears, and her loser ex-boyfriend Dean’s freckles and eyebrows.

It felt like she was frozen, like the way she felt in dreams sometimes, like the air itself had solidified and moving just took too much effort.

She could feel Bruce’s presence behind her, heard the rumble of his voice letting the kids knew that their parents would be so proud of how brave they were being, that the bad people were going to jail, that help was on its way.

She blinked, and everything rushed back into focus. And she was still standing there, dressed as Batgirl, while the girl she’d given birth to beamed up at Batman like he was the most amazing thing she’d ever seen.

“You’re welcome,” Steph tells her daughter.

The girl smiles and flings her arms around Steph’s waist. Her face is pressed into Steph’s belly, just inches away from the c-section scar, and Steph rests her hand on her back, wishes that she wasn’t wearing gloves so that she could feel how warm and alive and present she was.

It’s a moment she never thought she’d have - that she’d never really wanted to have, if she’s honest, because she knew that if she held her daughter she might never let go -- and it’s over before she knows it. The girl lets go, hurries back to the other kids, beaming and saying, “I hugged Batgirl!” like it’s the biggest accomplishment of her life.

One look at Bruce and what she already knows is true is confirmed beyond a doubt; he’s watching her carefully, like she’s something that might break. Like she’s in danger of doing something dumb.

She shook her head lightly at him, trying to show without words that she’s not going to break, that she’s not going to try to do something stupid, that she’s--

That she’s happy and sad and trying very, very hard not to think about the fact that her daughter is four years old and has survived her first kidnapping.

They lead the kids out of the room, shielding them from the kidnappers with their capes. Bruce lets her accompany her daughter, holding her hand and marveling at the way her little fingers curled perfectly into Steph’s, the way her daughter held her head high, tears unshed.

“You are so, so brave,” Steph tells her, because she’s never going to have this chance again, and she’s wearing a mask, and her daughter is looking at her with something akin to hero-worship in her eyes. Steph remembers being little and seeing Batman and the way the thought of heroes out there making the world safer had made her feel, and it twists something inside all sharp and intense to think of her daughter feeling that when looking at Steph. “Always remember that. You’re incredible, and your parents are so lucky to have you.” Quieter, because she had the chance, and she knew better than to squander a chance -- “Your mother’s so proud of you.”

“She’s gonna be, I didn’t cry hardly at all,” the girl says, and Steph’s heart twists again, because there’s sweetness and love and pride in her expression at the thought of her mom seeing how brave she was. This is a girl who is happy, who is loved, who will have the best possible life.

Steph smiled at her as widely as she could and waved, not trusting her voice.

Before she leaves, she sees a woman break through the line of cops and cry out, “Hope!”

Steph’s daughter runs into the woman’s arms, and just like that, the spell is broken, and she’s not Steph’s daughter anymore. She’s someone else’s daughter, a woman who is sobbing with relief that her little girl is unharmed, who is clinging her daughter so tight that the girl -- Hope, her name is Hope -- is pushing away at her, is laughing and talking a mile a minute about her ordeal, and Steph hears her voice, crystal-clear, say, “Batgirl rescued me, Momma, she said I was brave.”

Steph barely makes it out of sight -- there’s a building, two blocks over, and the roof has an abandoned, overgrown garden, and Steph likes to go there, sometimes. She’s standing in the overgrown garden and Bruce is hugging her, and she’s laughing and crying all at once.

“Hope,” she says into Bruce’s chest, conscious of the fact that minutes before, she’d been holding her own daughter like this. “You knew that already, didn’t you?”

“You know I’ve been keeping track of her.” Bruce’s voice is gentle, “Do you want to know anything else?”

Steph shakes her head, still pressed tight against the Batsuit -- the smell of kevlar and sweat and faintly, leather -- but then asks, terrified of the answer, “That-- she hasn’t had experiences like that before, right?”

She doesn’t even really want to know the answer, doesn’t want to know if her daughter had been doomed from the start, if her bad luck was somehow genetic, but Bruce replies. “She’s never been targeted before, no. She handled herself admirably.”

“She did, didn’t she?” Steph said, obscurely proud. She doesn’t really want to but she lets go of Bruce, steps back to sit on a wrought-iron bench. In the daylight it would be scorching hot, but at night, the metal is cool and inviting.

Bruce sits beside her.

“I know I shouldn’t have gone,” Steph says, because acknowledging her own fuck-ups is something she’s used to, “and I’m glad you tried to keep me away.”

“I didn’t intend for you to find out about this,” Bruce said. “I know the topic is… painful.”

Steph opened her mouth to tell Bruce he had no idea, to try to put to words the conflicting swirl of emotions-- not regret, exactly, because she knew with bone-deep certainty that she’d made the right decision to not raise her daughter, to keep her away from the wreckage that had been her life the past few years, but a more abstract feeling of sadness that the circumstances had been necessary at all in the first place. A wish of what might have been, had she been older, had she been prepared, had she not grown up the way she had. A thought that at some point in the future, things might be different.

But then she realized that Bruce, out of everyone, actually would understand. He had children.

“My mom told me,” Steph began, unsure as to how Bruce would take this, but knowing she had to set the words free that were bubbling up in her throat, “that kids, whether or not they were yours, are the one thing in the world guaranteed to break your heart. Because you want so much for them, you want them to have everything that you never had, that could never possibly be, and that-- that it’s impossible. You can’t remake the world, can’t make it a kinder place. You just have to live with it. That loving a child meant pinning your heart to your sleeve, and having to suffer the consequences.”

Bruce didn’t say anything, but reached over and clasped her hand in his own.

“I think-- I think she might have been wrong. About not being and to remake the world, because that’s what we do every night. And she was right, but… I know she didn’t want me to go through everything I had.” Looking back, she’d been a lot younger than she’d realized when she’d been pregnant. Just a few scant years older than Damian, and he was so firmly a child in her mind that it made her reconsider all those feelings she’d had at the time of being grown-up. She hadn’t felt it at the time, but she was older now, had a world of experiences that shone a light on exactly how young she’d been when she’d gotten pregnant.

She knew that to Bruce, she likely still was a child. Right now, she didn’t feel it.

“Like, I knew she was out in the world before,” Steph said. “But now… She’s real, in a way that she wasn’t before.”

“Her life is significantly safer than ours,” Bruce said, reassuringly. She could hear the truth of it in his voice, trusted him on this. Then he said, “I knew you didn’t want to see her.” There was no condemnation in his voice, only understanding, but Steph felt compelled to defend herself anyway.

“I wanted to see her so badly,” she said. She couldn’t look at Bruce, just looked at the tangle of dying plants around them, at the Gotham skyline, all soft lights and sharp edges, beyond that. “It felt like losing part of myself at first, but I knew… I knew what her life would be if I kept her. What my life would be.” She took a deep breath. “If I’d held her, and wasn’t strong enough to let her go afterwards, I would have been condemning us both.”

Now it seemed unfathomable. She wouldn’t be Batgirl now, she knew that much. Would never have been Robin. Spoiler might have been laid to the wayside, like it had when she’d been pregnant, but she remembered how she’d longed to go out in the night even when her belly made her waddle and struggle to sit up. Likely she still would have figured out a way.

But she wouldn’t have taken the risks she had. Wouldn’t have thrown herself into things as wildly. She probably wouldn’t have died, wouldn’t have broken her mother’s heart, wouldn’t have caused all the grief she could still sometimes see in Tim and Cass’s face when it was alluded to.

Instead, she knew the path her life would have taken: trying at first to stay in school, but working long hours. Her mom being forced to babysit every spare moment, life turning into a never ending scheduling conflict. Quitting school in favor of a minimum wage paycheck and abandoning hope of becoming something greater, something more. She might have managed a nursing degree, her own mother had with an infant at home, but she’d seen that path, too.

She wouldn’t be here, now: sitting on a rooftop with Batman, filled with a flurry of might-have-beens, having just saved a roomful of children who looked up to her with something akin to worship. Wouldn’t be worrying about a midterm in biology.

And the woman she’d seen, the one who’d loved her daughter enough to elbow her way through a police line, wouldn’t have that.

“She looked so loved,” Steph said.

“She has good parents,” Bruce said. “She’s taken care of. Cherished.”

“She seemed okay, and the kidnappers were jokes, but they didn’t… this isn’t going to hurt her, is it?” Steph had been kidnapped plenty, had been involved in various criminal acts even younger, and she knew it had skewed the way she looked at the world.

“She attends a preschool,” Bruce said. “They were meant to be going on a field trip to a farm outside of town. One of the kidnappers disguised themselves as the van driver, while the others distracted the teachers. One of the other children on board’s father is the director of a medical group, I understand that there are delays with getting treatment for the child of one of the kidnappers. She was never harmed.”

Oh. That explained the juice boxes, they loved their own child enough to do something desperate to save them.

“That kid’s going to get the treatment it needs, right?” Steph already knew the answer but asked anyway.

“They’ll get a letter from Wayne Memorial this week,” Bruce confirmed.

Steph had another question, one that Bruce likely wouldn’t answer. Shouldn’t answer, but she wanted confirmation. “Did… Does it feel different, with Damian, from the others?”

Bruce took a minute to think, long enough that she knew he was answering her underlying question with care. “At first. The others, I chose. I brought them in, I thought it through, I knew them and wanted them in my life. Wanted to make a home for them. I didn’t choose him. And at first, if anything, it was harder.”

Steph listened. She wasn’t sure if Bruce had ever spoken of this out loud.

“But then it was like he’d always been a part of my life, just like the others, a part that was irreplaceable and unique but that I loved in the same way.”

That settled something within her, something she hadn’t realized was bothering her.

A long pause, then Steph broke the silence. “How do you do it?”

Bruce looked at her, waiting for clarification.

“Send your kids out there every night,” Steph said. She could still feel the way her heart had dropped when she’d realized that her daughter was in danger, and couldn’t fathom what it would be like knowing her child was out trying to punch supervillains in the face. “Doesn’t it scare you?”

“Every day,” Bruce said. “Every night.”

She wondered if he was thinking about Jason’s death, about all the close calls. About how Damian flung himself into danger so recklessly, like he still believed he was invincible. The way all kids thought they were invincible. About Dick, Tim, Cass. About all of his children, choosing the fight over safety every time.

She wondered if he was thinking about her in Leslie’s clinic, clutching his hand and dying.

Bruce continued, looking down at their currently clasped hands. “I have faith in their ability to keep themselves as safe as possible. I train them as best I can, make sure they have the best equipment. Try to always know where they are, in case I can help. But mostly… your mother was right. Having kids is putting a piece of yourself out in the world and not knowing if it’s safe or not, and being grateful for every day that it is.”

He’d been careful with his words, never said you, but Steph could feel the weight of a small fortune’s worth of equipment and technology in her suit, in her belt. The communicators that shared her location.

The way he’d tried to protect her by trying to keep her away tonight, so that she wouldn’t have to face this complicated churn of emotions.

She rested her head on his shoulder and mumbled, “Thank you. For everything.”

She felt him shift, and the slightest hint of pressure as he pressed a kiss into the top of her cowl.

“There’s a file, if you want to know more about her.”

She’d known that, from the moment she’d made him promise to keep her baby safe. She knew Bruce didn’t do half-measures, that he took each promise he made as a lifelong commitment. She’d known that, and she’d never consciously thought about it, because it was too much. “No, I think-- I think I saw enough.”

She’d seen a child deeply loved, a child that was brave and beautiful and bright. That flung herself at heroes, safe in the knowledge that they were only there to help.

She’d seen all she needed to know that her daughter was living the life she’d hoped to have herself as a child. That she was living the life that Steph had hoped for when she’d signed those papers.

That this was one glorious instance of one of her choices going exactly right.

#deadtedkord #batfam #my fic #stephanie brown #bruce wayne #warnings for mentions of teen pregnancy and adoption #and complicated feelings about parenthood

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featheredriddler · 7 years

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I just started crying because I miss the ed and oz s3 eps 1-6 why am I like this

#shelley rambles #like full on real tears mates #here's the thing right I'm so divided #because half of me loves them being petty enemies and likes the storyline #the other half of me wishes Gotham didn't ruin this duo like couldn't they had been the only true friends in Gotham #I want them to run the city together I'm upset #but I know the show isn't about maintaining friendships and relationships #I don't know if by the end of the season they're friends again I'll feel a lot better #but something tells me they won't #but at the same time I'm like s3 has literally focused on building these two something is bound to happen #it's so strange people I've never watched a show and actually wanted something to happen so bad #and honestly I don't know what would had been the big deal making ed and oz 'boyfriends' when tabs and babs are a somewhat item #like whys it a big deal to make male characters gay and not female characters??????#like imagine if they did there would be potential for so many storylines #idk I'm a mess lmao

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starspatter · 4 years

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Heroes and Thieves, Ch. 15

Title: Heroes and Thieves Fandom/Universe: BTAS, pre/post-RotJ flashback

Summary: A story about second chances, healing, and having hope.

Rating: PG-13, for references to character death, child psychological torture and trauma.

Genre: Romance/Family/Friendship/Hurt/Comfort

Word Count: 4,800 Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Also on ff.net and AO3. ...I lied. This is totally a harem story. *flees*

She held onto my coat that night, like a kid lost in her sleeves Oh we warmed the ground, we hushed our sound We slept on walking feet Oh Darlin’, pardon me Can you help me remember When we were all flying free

-Gregory Alan Isakov, “Living Proof”

————————–

After.

Barbara breathed out as she stood before the large, warehouse-like building, gazing anxiously up at its second floor (and watchful security cameras she knew were installed overhead). The reinforced structure still seemed relatively sound despite the recent disaster. The… original occupant certainly knew how to choose a hideout location and prepare for all potential outcomes. …Must've been a habit he picked up from his previous landlord.

With a wary hand, she buzzed the doorbell.

Sooner than she expected, the entry flew open to reveal an unfamiliar face: a young man with a short crop of mane spiked in the front like flames, similar in color to her own.

"Well hellooo there," he greeted with a wide grin, eyeing his guest up and down. "What can I do you for, miss?"

Barbara stared at him in surprise.

"Er, is Tim home? He… does still live here, right?"

The stranger licked his lips, resting toned muscle casually against the doorframe.

"Who cares about him? What say you and me get to know each other a bit first, as fellow redheads, hm?"

He loomed towards her, admiring her luscious saffron locks. Barbara grimaced, getting ready to give the kid a good taste of a police twist hold (if not taser) – when a voice she recognized interjected from behind.

"She's a cop, Roy. And she used to be Batgirl. I wouldn't try anything if I were you."

Tim emerged beside the other teen, regarding the two dully. Unfortunately the statement only seemed to fuel his friend's lust further.

"Hot damn. You here to arrest me, officer?" He waggled his brows. "Slap some cuffs on me and take me down to the station? I wouldn't mind that on the first date."

"Roy."

"Kidding, kidding. Jeeze, you really have no sense of humor now, do you?" He lowered his limb dejectedly. "Anyway, you didn't tell me you were acquainted with such a gorgeous babe. Ain't you gonna introduce us?"

Tim sighed.

"Roy, meet Officer Barbara Gordon, the Commissioner's daughter and former Batgirl. Babs, this is Roy Harper, a.k.a. Speedy, Green Arrow's ex-sidekick."

"Ex-partner," the other boy corrected. "And it's 'Arsenal' now."

"Whatever. Now could you please give us some privacy?"

"A'ight, I can take a hint to take a hike," Roy smirked with a suggestive wink. "I've got a 'date' myself anyway. I'll leave you two alone. Don't wait up~"

He whistled and growled as he passed by Barbara on the way out, who shot him a dirty look before resuming attention to Tim.

"I see you've been keeping company. Honestly, he's worse than the Flash." (What was it with all the male copperheads she met giving her ginger brand a bad name?)

"We know each other from the Titans," he replied in a dry tone. "He needed a place to stay after Queen kicked him out – again. Dick said it was okay."

Barbara paused.

"You talk to him recently?"

Tim shrugged as he moved aside to allow her in.

"We keep in touch. He calls every so often to check up on… things."

She studied his backside as they started heading upstairs to the loft.

"And? How are 'things'?

"Fine."

She glanced around the interior of the room as they approached the top; it looked pretty much the same as she remembered. There was the ornate wall of Asian-styled checkered windows overlooking the city, and the ninja sword rack hanging next to a decorative dragon panel (behind which she knew there was a concealed compartment that used to contain Nightwing's costume). Dick did always have a flair for the Orient.

Running her hand wistfully along the armrest to the sofa, she recalled how she and Dick used to sit and cuddle together on it, enjoying late-night Chinese takeout and talks, among… other things.

A frown settled on her face as she noticed something… "off" about the couch cushions.

"'Fine', you say. …Is that why you have 'this'?"

Tim's eyes immediately narrowed as she stretched behind the seat and unzipped the foam, removing a bag of greenish-purple powder from deep within.

"It's not mine."

He answered, a little too hasty.

"Whose is it then?"

"Roy's," he stated flatly, seeming nonchalant about selling out his flatmate.

"And you're telling me you've never used any?"

He hesitated, eyes slanting aside in silence. She scrutinized the stash, recognizing to her horror that it was likely the popular new drug that was being distributed in the streets amongst decadent youth; an isolated chemical strain similar to Joker toxin, but more mild. Not strong enough to cause permanent psychological damage (at least when taken in minor doses), but enough to mimic the euphoric high for hours on end.

"Have you been doing deals with Jokerz?"

"Like hell I would," he snapped.

She reached out to sternly grab his wrist, trying insistently to meet his eye.

"Tim. Be honest with me. Please."

He yanked his arm away, glaring fiercely in anger.

"What is this, some kind of bust? Fine, go ahead, book me. I don't care. Why don't you just charge me with murder while you're at it?"

"Tim…"

"You don't get it, Barb." He clutched at his sleeves, digging digits deep into his skin. "You don't know what it's like, living with fucking laughter inside your head all the time. At least when I'm laughing louder I can't hear him."

She swallowed, biting her lip. Gently, she set the plastic down on the table.

"I do understand," she whispered softly.

He blinked at her.

"Tim, the reason I came here, is because… Lately, I've been having these… visions." She sank down on the lounger, steepling fingers in front of her. "You remember the time Scarecrow gassed me and left me in a hallucinogenic nightmare state?"

He nodded.

"It's like that, only now, I get them when I'm awake as well, at complete random. Ever since the quake, I'll experience these abrupt panic attacks, and see all kinds of terrifying shit. Then, the flashbacks start, and there's one that's always recurring…" She closed her eyes, reflecting reluctantly. "All of a sudden I'll see myself back at Arkham, fighting against Harley. We go over the edge of the cliff, and I'm hanging on like before, and she starts to slip… Only this time, I fall with her. I – I die, just like that time in my dream."

She hunched in on herself further as she continued.

"It doesn't end there though. It keeps going, and I can still see everything else play out, like when I visualized my dad going after Bruce afterwards. I – I see him and Joker, and you – JJ – there with the gun – and – and… The shot hits Batman instead."

Her speech tapered off as she finished the sentence. Her audience was deathly quiet as she carried on in a tremulous hush.

"Then you and the Joker – he – he makes you do all these horrible things – so many deaths – including Dick's – and finally my dad's the only one left – and he has to take you both down by himself – and it ends with either him shooting you – or you shooting him – and either way everyone I love is… gone."

She looked at him, tears starring her eyes.

"I'm sorry. You probably don't want to hear any of this. I – I just had to come see you…"

"To make sure I haven't gone on an insane murder spree?"

Barbara lowered her head in apology.

"I didn't mean it like that…"

Tim exhaled, unlinking his limbs as he leaned back against the table.

"For what it's worth, I don't think I've done anything recently that would land me a spot in Arkham. …Anyway, shouldn't you go see a doctor about this or something? Or someone else who can help, like…"

The weight of unspoken word hung heavy in the air. She shook her head.

"I'm scared. What if they can't treat it, say my condition's permanent? I'm no good to the force like this, I can't function out in the field. I'll have to give up my badge, after I worked so hard to finally get here..."

Tim rolled his eyes slightly.

"Gee, I wonder what that could possibly be like?"

Contriteness crossed her countenance again.

"…Sorry. That was dumb, I shouldn't have said that. I was being selfish, only thinking of myself. I shouldn't have bothered you with this. You've got enough to deal with, you don't deserve to have my issues dumped on you as well."

Tim held up his hand.

"Look, it's okay, Babs. …Is there anything I can do?"

She lifted timidly, chewing her lip.

"I – I was just hoping maybe we could… I don't know – talk for a bit?"

Tim remained mute, mulling for a moment, before turning and walking over to the mini-fridge. Opening it, he retrieved two chilled beer cans before revolving back.

"You want a drink?"

She boosted an eyebrow, but nevertheless gratefully accepted the offering of booze.

"I'm not even going to ask how you got these."

She muttered as she popped the tab and started to chug it down.

…

A nearly emptied six-pack later, they were both more than a bit tipsy, but Barbara especially so. Turns out she wasn't very good at holding her alcohol.

"I mean, who do those jerks think they are?" she slurred as she slammed her container down. "I'm not some little girl or someone's possession. I can date whoever I damn well please."

Tim perceived her lurch lopsidedly as she groped for another, growing concerned.

"Don't you think you've had one too many?"

"I'll be the judge of that," she hicced as she swatted his hand away. Tim persisted however, prying the prize firmly from her fingertips.

"That's it. I think you've had enough."

As he stood up to put the beverage back, he simultaneously fished out his phone and began dialing with his free hand.

"I'm calling your dad to come pick you up."

He felt a pressure on his lower waist, and he looked down to see Barbara clinging to the back of his shirt, burying her flushed forehead against his spine.

"Please," she mumbled into the fabric. "Just let me stay here a little longer."

He gulped, but submissively sat back down. She warmly nestled her head against his shoulder, causing his chest to beat rapidly in confusion.

"…What the hell happened to us, Tim? How did we end up like this? The four of us, hardly even speaking to each other? Dick would never return my phone calls, and Bruce – God, Bruce – I don't even know where to begin with him."

"To be fair, he was never much of a conversationalist to begin with," Tim griped bitterly. "Besides, don't you, uh, have a new boyfriend now?"

He cleared his throat, and Barbara sighed as she sat up, hugging her knees close to her for comfort instead.

"Sam's great. He understands, but… He doesn't really 'get' it, you know? What we've been through."

She traced a rim of condensation on the counter.

"Hey, you remember that time Bruce almost married a plant-woman? That was wild."

"Yeah? What about when Farmer Brown unleashed a bunch of giant mutant insects on Gotham? That's got to be the craziest adventure we ever had."

"Please. You weren't there when Baby Doll and Killer Croc teamed up and nearly nuked the city. I mean, can you imagine those two together? You can't compete with a weirder pair than that."

It was startlingly simple, to slip so smoothly back into nostalgia. Swapping stories, trying to one-up each other's exploits. Barbara would even fondly describe some of the times she worked with the original Dynamic Duo, back during the "good ol' days" – of colorful costumed villains, wacky crimes, and ridiculous motivations. Telling increasingly tall tales and amusing anecdotes that almost made Tim laugh. …Almost.

"So let me get this straight," she repeated, "You flew the Batplane all the way to outer space… to the Justice League Watchtower… by yourself?"

"Yup," Tim responded as he sedately cracked open the last metal vessel still in his lap and took a sip.

Barbara shook her head in disbelief.

"You always were a risk-taker. I still can't believe Bruce went missing and got brainwashed… again. How come I never knew about any of this? Why didn't you contact me?"

"You were off at grad school. I figured I could handle it."

Barbara propped her elbow on the plush, leaning her cheek thoughtfully against it as she tucked her legs underneath her.

"...It's good that you went to them for help."

Tim peered down, picking absently at the paper label, peeling off aluminum.

"Mr. Kent told me afterwards, that Bruce did call him in secret. The operating room's walls were lined with lead though, since they used to take X-Rays and brain scans there. Even the curtain and that stupid apron Joker wore had lead shielding. He had hench-spies stationed everywhere, in Metropolis as well, so he could render me unconscious as soon as Superman showed up and I wouldn't be able to scream. …He really was prepared for everything."

Barbara couldn't believe it. Just how long had that disgusting sicko been planning this?

"What about the Martian? He's a telepath, isn't he?"

Tim shook his head.

"Apparently the last time he attempted a city-wide psychic sweep to look for Luthor, he wasn't able to shut it off. The flood of thoughts nearly drove him mad afterwards. Bruce didn't want to risk it."

"That still doesn't excuse-"

"What's done is done," Tim curtly cut her off, crushing the canister in his grip to transfer his own resentful rage, before tossing it in the trash. "I've accepted the damage. There's no use in going back and flinging hindsight accusations at this point."

Barbara surveyed his sullen expression in overwhelming sympathy.

"…There's one thing Joker didn't count on."

"What?"

"You fighting him off in the end. You were stronger than him. You won."

Knuckles balled on Tim's kneecap.

"That wasn't a win. We lost the moment I confessed everything to him."

"That's not true, Tim."

He shook his head.

"I killed him, Barb. I did what none of us were ever supposed to do. And the worst part is, I – I was glad about it."

She extended her palm to wrap reassuringly around his wrist.

"So? You have every right to be, after what he did to you."

Tim's fist only tautened further as he avoided her eyes, ashamed of his own ugly sin.

"You know, it's ironic – Batman got gassed by Scarecrow once too. Only instead it took away all his fear. He was seriously out of control, to the point where he wasn't even afraid to kill criminals. I had to take him down myself. I… managed to keep him from making a big mistake."

He laughed then, though it sounded hollow. His eyes had such a pained look, moreso than anything physical could've caused him. The hurt was in his heart and soul. Barbara's own heart broke to see him like this. Her brain swam, swarming with remorse. Wishing there was something she could do to help heal him, convince him that he had a good heart, one that was still worthy and capable of loving others, and of being loved in return…

…

Slowly, she inclined forward – and kissed him.

…

For a second, all Tim could register was the flavor of liquor mixed with black licorice – lush and luscious on her lips – before panicking and pushing away.

"What are you doing?"

"I… don't know."

"…I think you're making a big mistake."

Barbara bristled.

"Who says?"

From their positions, she was practically on top of him. He grasped her shoulders, keeping determinedly at bay.

"You're drunk. And probably hallucinating."

"I'm not hallucinating."

He sighed, scraping a hand through his hair.

"I'm not Dick or Bruce, you know. …I'm nobody."

"You're not nobody."

Conflict clouded his eyes.

"Look, this is all kinds of wrong. What about Sam? Besides, your dad would probably kill me…"

The whites around her blue irises widened.

"Kill you…?"

…Shit.

"Babs, no, I didn't mean-"

She slid off, seizing arms around herself, impressing into her flesh.

"He'll kill you. You'll kill him. …Everyone's going to be killed. And it's all my fault."

Shit. Shit shit shit. He should've known better.

"No one's dying. We're all still alive." (…If what they had could be called "living".) "You're just imagining it."

Her claws only clamped tighter.

"Sam… What if he comes after Sam? I'm putting him in danger. Oh God." Her pupils contracted, zoning into the distance. "Sam, don't open the door – he's got a gun!"

This was not good. He was losing her. He tried to twist her around, get her to see him instead of… of… whatever it was she was trapped by.

"Babs? Hey, hey, look at me. Look at me. Whatever you're seeing right now, it's not real. You hear me? It's not real."

She stayed stiff as a board though, staring far off into vacant space.

"Dad. Oh my God, what's he doing to Dad? He's trying to turn him crazy too. No, no, make it stop!"

Worriedly, Tim shook her shoulders.

"Babs, hey, c'mon! Snap out of it!"

Her eyes were glazed, no longer glued to one spot but rolling everywhere else. Darting frantically to and fro. Features contorted, seemingly in some kind of phantom agony.

"My legs. I can't feel my legs. He took my legs."

Nails curled around her abdomen area, clenching cloth in anguish. Scrabbling, scratching, as if searching for something.

"Babs!"

"The baby," she sobbed. "I lost the baby. I couldn't protect him. Couldn't protect… im…"

The last part was muffled by a wounded choke, but… From the way she said it, it kinda sounded like…

His name.

Helpless, Tim looked on with an aching empathy as the normally tough, take-charge woman he always knew coiled into a fetal form, crying miserably. He mused if this was how he must've often looked to the others back then. He didn't know what to do, how to help her. He felt so utterly useless.

Running over options, his mind halted at one possibility. Something that used to help him deal with nightmares as a kid, before… everything. It was probably dumb and desperate, but it was worth a shot.

"Wait here. I'll be right back."

He dashed to the bedroom, opening up the nightstand drawer and fumbling around inside. Withdrawing the object from the far back, he considered it grimly for a beat, before gritting his teeth and resolutely taking it back to where Barbara was now rocking herself.

"Babs? Hey, look: Remember this?"

She ceased instantly when she saw the Batarang suspended in front of her.

"You always felt safe whenever Batman and Robin were around, right? Nothing… bad can happen to you as long as they're there."

Sentiment welled in her ducts as she reached out tentatively for the reminder, cradling it close to her breast.

"Just in case you run into trouble up there."

"Dick… Bruce…"

Tim drew her in towards him in a compassionate embrace, soothingly stroking her quivering back as if she were the child.

"It's okay, Babs. It's okay." He reiterated the phrase in her ear. "You're okay. I'm… okay. We're okay."

They stayed like that for a while, and eventually the shudders and sniffles subsided as she seemed to fall into a fitful sleep. While she still whimpered occasionally, holding the Batarang nearer did appear to help somewhat.

Just then, he heard the opening and closing of the front door as Roy returned from his "date", bounding up the steps and stopping short upon witnessing the scene before him.

"Whoahey, am I interrupting something?"

He grinned, and Tim scowled at the guy's terrible timing.

"This isn't what it looks like. Just hurry up and help me get her to the bed."

Roy was about to open his mouth to make another snide remark, but promptly shut it upon seeing the searing look Tim speared at him, and the sweat and tears on the moaning visitor's visage. Switching into serious mode, he lent a steady hand with supporting her to the mattress. He was still a hero himself, after all, always available to aid any damsels in distress.

As he agreed to take over looking after the patient for the time being, Tim thanked him and left the bedside temporarily, pulling out his cell again as he traveled downstairs. Inhaling deeply, he began to punch in another number he knew all too well, forever engraved in the back of his skull.

After a couple rings, the other end picked up with a gruff greeting.

"…Yes?"

The cold, almost impatient lack of pleasantry was all Tim needed to confirm he had indeed reached the right person.

"Bruce, it's me. …Barbara needs help."

…

When Barbara finally awoke, the first thing she spotted was Tim sitting on a reversed chair next to her, chin reposed idly on his forearms.

"Hey."

"…Hey."

"How are you feeling?"

"Better, I guess. …How long was I out?"

"The whole night. You were tossing and turning a lot."

She elevated gradually, sensing a moist towel fall from her crown onto the sheets in the process. Had he been nursing her this whole time?

As she tracked its descent, she saw she was still adhering to the Batarang as well. She blushed a bit at how babyish she must have seemed, to have to rely on something like this to calm her down.

"Um, thanks. …You can have this back now."

He relieved her of the improvised crutch, and in exchange he handed her a small vial of medication.

"Here, take this. It's similar to what Dr. Thompkins used to give me, but more concentrated. It's not a permanent cure, but it should help with the terrors. It'll likely knock you totally out for a few more days, but you won't have to suffer nightmares during it. If it doesn't work or you're still experiencing symptoms afterwards, call her and she'll adjust the dosage."

"You got this from Leslie?"

"Bruce did."

She gaped in astonishment.

"You actually spoke to him?"

"He just told me what I needed to know, then hung up and sent Alfred over with the stuff. …Typical, huh?"

His jaw drooped a little further into folds, as did his tired-looking lids.

"You're not the first Scarecrow victim to undergo relapses like this. It's rare, but everyone responds to the fear serum differently. Yours is a more severe case."

Barbara thought about how many others had to live their lives in a compromised state (or lost them entirely) all because of some psychopath who kept breaking out of Arkham – no matter how many times they put him back in – if not released through the revolving door due to (hell, courtesy of) all the corruption in the system. How many lives were really spared, while others still suffered because of their incompetence? Inconsequence.

"You know, sometimes I wonder: If what we were doing was ever really the right thing? After what happened with the earthquake… God, I don't know. Maybe this city is beyond hope. …In the end, did we even make any difference? Was it worth it – any of it? We've saved a bunch of people, sure, but at what cost? I mean, just look at us… We're a mess."

Tim simply shrugged.

"At least Dick's still doing okay over in Blüdhaven. And Bruce seems to be handling things fine on his own. Besides, it's not like he ever really needed us anyway. Because he's Batman."

Barbara observed as Tim toyed with the Batarang in his hands, balancing the tip on the chair back. She dropped her view towards the blankets.

"…You're not him, you know," she pronounced harshly. "You'll never be him."

Her own fingers fumbled with the damp napkin, and bottle of medicine, before looking up again with a smile.

"But, that's not a bad thing."

As she said this, she extended out to pat his cheek, noting the dark bags under his eyes. Had he even slept at all, she wondered? …Then again, she was probably taking up his bed, she realized with sudden embarrassment.

Tim seemed even more embarrassed by the affectionate contact, turning away with a cough. The memory of what she had done surged back to her cheeks, and she hastily detached, nervously tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, which bloomed a matching humiliated hue.

"Listen, about what happened last night…"

Tim merely waved off whatever she was about to say in advance.

"We were both drunk. It doesn't count."

"…You're awfully quick to dismiss." Detecting his fidgeting, she gleamed in comprehension. "Ah, don't tell me – you've never kissed anyone before?"

A pure pink tinge faintly colored his complexion, corroborating her suspicion.

"Ehehe, did I steal your first kiss, Boy Virgin?"

"Sh- shut up."

His flush deepened further.

"It's not like I've exactly had much opportunity to try it," he murmured in his defense. "…Besides, if we're counting that kind of thing, technically my first time would've been with Dick."

"Oh."

He sniped a sulk at her reaction.

"I gave him CPR once. What were you thinking?"

"Nothing," she declared innocently, hand hovering over her mouth to obstruct a snicker. "I bet this time was a lot better though. I'm sure you must've thoroughly enjoyed it, if not to some extent."

Tim averted his eyes again as she winked at him.

"Wh- who knows."

"Oh please. Don't deny you were the least bit curious. You think I never noticed you sneaking peeks while we were getting changed?"

Tim burned burgundy as he shifted sight down to his toes.

"I was 13. What'd you expect?"

She nodded sagely.

"You are a boy, after all. It's only natural for these things to occur."

She giggled in entertainment at his expense. When the chuckles died down, she checked the time on the alarm clock by the pillow.

"…I guess I should get going now. I'll need to call in to the station to tell them I'm taking the next days off."

He helped see her out. Standing awkwardly in the entrance, he rubbed his neck before addressing encouragingly.

"You're a great cop, Barb. You're gonna do a lot of good things for this city. I know you'll make it a better place."

She beamed.

"Thank you, Tim. …I'll start by confiscating 'this'."

She held up the contraband, which Roy had taken the liberty of hiding again, but there was no way he could outsmart a Bat, even if she wore a different symbol now.

"And I better not catch you with anything like this again, or I will take you in. Got it?"

Tim winced at the strict lecture and slap on the wrist, but nodded. Barbara softened as she reached around to envelop in a broad hug.

"…Don't be a stranger, Tim. You're the only one I can still talk to about all this."

He wavered, but kindly reciprocated the gesture. As she withdrew, she raised an arm to lightly pet his hair, discerning he had finally hit that growth spurt; he was almost at her height now.

"Listen. Someday, you're gonna meet someone special, who loves you just the way you are. And she's gonna be so lucky to have you in her life."

Tim scoffed.

"Yeah, right. Like that's ever gonna happen."

She took his hands in hers. Hands that still twitched and trembled every once in a while, as if afraid to even be touched. Hands that had, in his opinion, committed the greatest act of transgression, taking another's soul and doomed toll on his own – but had also toiled all night to keep changing her cool kerchief, tending and tenderly wiping her temple in enduring devotion to charitable ideals. That had prostrated and prayed, begging for a favor from "God" for her sake, subjugating self in spite of whatever spiteful feelings he bore towards said sore subject. …That had rescued so many lives at the risk of his own, without asking for any reward other than to have a place to call "home", and a "family" who cared for him as much as he did for them. (And even that had been mostly taken from him too, something for which she regretfully shared the blame.)

"Don't give up hope. Things will change. It's gonna get better. I promise."

She stooped forward to peck his cheek, before letting go.

"Thank you, again, for everything. I'll see you around, Tim."

"Yeah. See ya."

She left with a wave, and he halfheartedly did the same as he watched her go.

…

About a week later, after she'd fully recovered and gone back to work as good as new, she received an urgent call from Roy at the hospital.

…

Tim had tried to kill himself.

————————–

That sky glowed all calico, like phosphor in the sea To the ground we fall, she owns us all Kings and boys and beast Kings and boys and beast

#TimSteph #Tim Drake #Timmy Todd #Stephanie Brown #Barbara Gordon #Batman the Animated Series #Batman Beyond #DCAU #Return of the Joker #fanfiction #starstories #*prepares for pitchforks*

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bigskydreaming · 5 years

Text

Batman AU where a pissed off Dick Grayson, after being fired from Robin and kicked out by Bruce, doesn’t go back to the circus when he was off finding himself. Before he became Nightwing. He meant to, even made it all the way to Europe on his way to their latest stop, but in London he got....distracted, when he ran into one John Constantine.

Now, back at this point in canon, Constantine was probably in his mid-twenties at most. I’ve always pictured him mid to late thirties in current comic canon, he’s one of those guys who comes off as older than he is, b/c like, lbr, dude lives ROUGH, lol. But me being me, like, I’m not looking to hook nineteen year old Dick Grayson up with a mid-twenties staggering disaster in whiskey-soaked human form. However, that does not mean that Dick, recently feeling disillusioned about numerous things as well as lost and directionless, two things that define John in a lot of his decades, let alone twenties -

Like, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t THINK about it, and perhaps romanticize the idea of him and John being kindred spirits. As well as maybe a little attracted to Constantine’s patented performative way of living, aka “watch how I windmill through life, giving no fucks whilst taking whatever latest misfortune befalls me in an unaffected and devilishly snarky stride, because of the thing about the no fucks, see, that’s the connection there.”

And okay, if we’re being totally honest here, its not like it just COMPLETELY didn’t occur to Dick that he was coming up with reasons to justify sticking around and hanging out and also crushing on one of the people MOST likely to tick his dad off. I mean, let’s face it, John is like, the combination of three things Bruce has zero patience for and avoids or outright disdains whenever possible:

1) Magic, ugh, unreliable, illogical. (Bruce’s super-objective POV on the subject) - Look. It makes no sense. Follows no logical rules. Every usage of it is a breakdown of the normal universe and the ordered mechanism of The Way Things Are Supposed to Work, the things Batman relies on, needs in order to be him, the Great Detective, the guy who understands how everything works and that’s how he stays one step ahead of everyone else.

In a word, magic and all its works are RUDE and they like....annoy him just on principle.

2) Eternally late and relentlessly slovenly (not everyone has a live-in BUTLER Bruce, jeez)

and

3) ...John Constantine. (Let’s be real. This one just is what it is. There’s not a whole lot of getting around it. Its hard for Dick at age 19 to pretend buddying up with John isn’t guaranteed to make Bruce grind his teeth, given that its hard for anyone at any age to pretend that while Bruce almost certainly respects the things John has accomplished at various times....being in the same zip code as him is something he tries to avoid. Their personalities are not super compatible).

So, its a tiny bit possible the Great Divergence of this AU from canon.... comes down to one accidental team-up with one of Batman’s Top Ten Favorite People, No Seriously....and then Dick kinda leaning into being a bit of a petty shit here. Look, its not his finest hour, but Bruce started it, and also, like whatever. Alexa, play ‘Teenage Wasteland’ but y’know, all...SUPER LOUD and ANGSTILY.

Ahem. Anyway.

So even though Constantine rather famously likes neither people nor drama, and Dick is both those things.....Dick is also always effortlessly charming and makes friends wherever he goes. In the end, it should come as no surprise to anyone but Constantine that he is no more Immune to Dick’s innate Likeability Quotient than most of the rest of humanity.

And for a couple of weeks they kinda just hang out, get into random mishaps with magical gargoyles and ensorcelled ravens around the Tower of London and also one specific clash with a demonically possessed umbrella that turned anyone who held it into like, Mary Poppins, but also, y’know, EVIL - look it was this whole thing, don’t ask, Constantine still doesn’t like to talk about it. He even offered to show Dick how to do a minor cantrip if his mischief minded companion would agree to keep his mouth shut on the subject from now until the end of eternity.

Dick had to hem and haw over that one for a bit, but ultimately his innate curiosity won out over his fondness for telling a rousing but also hilarious tale. It was a very narrow margin, but that was all that was needed to have Dick’s foot take its very first step along a very different road in this universe.

See, Constantine’s not really expecting much to happen even as he walks Dick through the steps of the simple spell. Magic’s as unpredictable about who it’ll roll over and play tricks for as it is in how it operates and functions and like...basically accomplishes all the many varied feats that make Bruce develop spontaneous frustration migraines, because that’s not how reality works, none of this has anything to do with how reality WORKS, what happened to the RULES, dammit!

And sure, there’s all sorts of different kinds of magic, and all kinds of different lines various magic practitioners sort into....some are born into it, like the Zataras, and Constantine himself actually, though in a very different way from the former....others end up developing a knack for it after significant encounters with arcane or occult beings, forces, artifacts or the like, as though their exposure to such a focused concentration of it resulted in a kind of charge rubbing off on them, just enough to make them able to attract and gather and channel magical forces from then on themselves. Others are chosen to it, and some just have no clue why spells will work for them but not ten random pedestrians they stop on the street and use as a rather strange sample group.

But bottom line is magic isn’t just about practice and skill, you tend to either have a knack for it or you don’t, and more people don’t than do, so John’s pretty much expecting to fulfill his end of their little gentleman’s agreement and then watch Dick duplicate everything he did exactly, with zero result.

Except turns out, Dick Grayson DOES have a knack for magic, same as he has a knack for well, everything. The guy was crime fighting and kicking bad guy ass in middle school. Forget James Bond and Captain Kirk, forget even Batman himself, ROBIN is the original and ultimate Gary Stu. Of fucking course Dick would be good at magic if he ever tried it. There’s a fairly large school of thought in this universe that posits that the force they call magic is an almost living entity in its own way, perhaps even sentient. Most of the magicians and wizards and sorcerers in that school of thinking kinda all quietly nurse the opinion that magic just, like....likes Dick Grayson, and he just charmed it with his first attempt at that simple spell and had it wrapped around his finger by the time he said Abra Kadabra.

(Because of fucking COURSE John picked a spell he could end with Abra Kadabra, have you met the man? He’s the most dramatic of them all, why do you think he hates both people and drama so much??? He’s the people and the drama!)

So there we have one lost and directionless Dick Grayson, feeling like he’s lost his footing and all his old plans and projected paths don’t really fit him anymore, or at least not well enough to help him feel like he’s headed somewhere, doing something.

Buuuuuut, then there’s that petty teenage side of him again, the one that goes fuck Batman, and also I’m right to say so.....and at least that IS a direction to focus on, even if not the most noble one....so the same brain cells that linked up and logic’d him around to the conclusion that ‘Bruce will never think to look for me with John Constantine of all people, and LOL how much would he hate that’....like, big fans of the positive reception their prior performance had received, those same brain cells leap back into action with zeal and zest and steer him to the not all that distant conclusion:

“LOL, how much would Bruce hate it if I ended up being this like, super talented magician, with expertise he knows nothing about? Could you imagine?”

Turns out Dick could, and did, and so much like that initial inch in this direction, is the true basis of him following up on that and becoming a renowned sorcerous superhero in this universe the fateful last words “Screw you dad, you’re not the boss of me and I’ll do what I want!”

I mean. Yeah. That’s pretty much exactly how it began. Yup. Oops.

But the thing is, that’s just how it starts. A random string of chance encounters and events that capture Dick’s attention and interest at a time and a place in his life where he was looking for literally anything to do just that....but once it HAD his attention and interest, everything changed. It was no longer about thinking ‘hey this will really tick Bruce off,’ because Dick’s capable of that train of thought and gut/impulsive decision making, sure, but he’s not about to commit his entire LIFE to that just to flip Bruce the proverbial middle finger.

It only continues, he only keeps going and furthering his magical studies because he genuinely comes to love it for the sheer versatility, the unpredictability of it, the way holding reality in one hand and magical forces in the other is like walking a tight rope with no safety net, and sure its not the same thing as flying, but on that note, did you know there are spells that can literally make you fly?

Dick does, now, and he knows like, seventeen different ones.

And so Dick throws himself into studying magic the same way he throws himself into everything. He’s never done anything half-assed in his life. He’s physically allergic to the very idea of it. When he does a thing, he fucking COMMITS, and becomes the best he possibly can at it....which ultimately almost always puts him in the one percentile of that thing.

He learns everything he can from Constantine, or at least as much as Constantine’s willing to teach him. Eventually their paths diverge, not because of any bad blood, but just because Dick isn’t interested in the same specialties as Constantine. So then he moves on. Travels the world, similar to what Bruce did when he was his age, training to become Batman. But Dick trains with magicians, wizards, alchemists. Madame Xanadu. Sebastian Faust. Raven. Even charms freaking Circe into teaching him an enchantment or two, because lbr, a mystically inclined Dick Grayson would inevitably intrigue the more infamous mystics of the DC universe in the same way a combat-focused Dick Grayson intrigues Deathstroke and assorted others.

Everyone except for Zatanna and Jason Blood, the magicians Bruce actually respects and relies on, and who Dick is sure would report back to Bruce about him, and he’s still ticked. Plus, Zatanna’s type of magic is innate, not really something that can be taught, and Blood’s stems from his sharing his body with a demon and Dick’s not really looking for a roommate right now.

Eventually, Dick is satisfied enough with his skills and knowledge to return to the Titans. He adopts the name Nightwing, same as in canon and for the same reasons. He’s still the same man, same leader, same fighter with all the skills he already had....just now with the added repertoire of someone who’s branched off in an unlikely direction.

Hey, Bruce did want him to go to college and learn something new. Not Dick’s fault his particular field of study isn’t Bruce-approved. (Okay, its entirely Dick’s fault, since that was after all the point, but eh. Oh well).

Nightwing’s still an acrobat and hand-to-hand fighter. He’s invested too much time, effort, himself into those skills to just give them up. He’s an adrenaline junkie, thrives on motion, activity, the rush of going head to head with someone who can really push him, challenge him. His magic is incorporated into his fighting. He constructs who he becomes as magician around the foundation already in place due to who he is as an acrobat, detective and hand to hand combatant. His magic is an added skill, not a replacement for his previous skillsets.

So he has alchemical potions on his utility belt, amid his ordinary smoke bombs and gas pellets. Tools and spells of divination and scrying for when a trail goes cold and can’t be tracked further by ordinary means. But now the Titans have another mystical expert to turn to for magical related missions, not just Raven. Their specialties are entirely different, but they’ve worked together since Raven first came to this plane, and they still complement each other well.

Of course, this changes things in other ways too. Dick’s new focus takes him further away from his time with Batman than even in canon. He’s still traveling and training for most of the time Jason is Robin and never even meets him before his death. Of course he kept tabs on Gotham no matter where he was. He absolutely knows about the adoption, about a second Robin. And about Jason’s eventual death. But he’s still somewhere places unknown in the aftermath, not easily tracked down by Tim, who sets out to help Bruce on his own, wearing down Bruce’s resistance to him being Robin between just his and Alfred’s efforts. Dick remains largely estranged from the Batfamily as Cass is adopted, Steph takes her turn as Robin, etc.

And then Jason comes back from the dead.

But again, things play out differently here. This Jason is never found by Talia and the League, never dumped into a Lazarus Pit. Instead, Leslie Thompkins opens up her clinic one day to find a catatonic Jason in a bed inside, not long after he’s resurrected. He recovers as mysteriously as he returned, helped along by being in familiar environs, surrounded by loved ones as he’s of course immediately returned to the Manor and attended on by Bruce, Alfred, Babs, Tim and Cass. So he has less resentment for Tim, for being replaced. Its harder to deny Bruce’s love for him when he has Bruce by his bedside, day after day, watching and waiting throughout his recovery. He never suffers from Pit madness. Is never influenced by League ideology. Never trains with monsters and murderers awful enough he wants to kill them himself after he’s done training with them.

And its hard to resent Bruce for not avenging him and killing the Joker, when no one’s seen the Joker since almost right after Jason’s death. The clown never returns to Gotham from Ethiopia, not as far as anyone can tell. By the time Bruce set out to hunt him down, after Jason’s funeral, the trail had gone entirely cold. Bruce hunted for him, sure, but Jason can’t be too mad about Bruce giving up before finding him. The Joker’s never been one to lay low. When even just a few months had passed without even a hint of the villain or his future plans, it was hard to imagine he was still alive - he never lacked for enemies, after all. Not unreasonable that someone else had gotten to him first.

Plus, of course, its hard to compare yourself to the ‘golden boy’ and find yourself coming up short, viewing yourself as less loved than Dick Grayson, when said golden boy still remains estranged. He’s the prodigal son in this reality, with Bruce’s anger towards his eldest for never coming back to the Manor, not even after Jason’s death - its obvious to everyone, even Jason. Tim doesn’t have the close, brotherly bond with Dick that he does in canon, and with less resentment from Jason for replacing him, its easier for the two middle sons of Batman to bond after Jason’s return.

Jason returns to crime fighting, probably still takes up the name the Red Hood - his sense of humor and irony had nothing to do with his death or the specifics of his return. He and Bruce still clash. They have their ideological differences, Jason’s harsher than Bruce would prefer. But this Jason has reasons not to force an all-out divide between he and his father, sticks to the line (even if reluctantly), not because he believes differently - he still thinks he’s right about Bruce’s way being flawed and will always argue so - but because he has reasons to stay. Things he actually feels he’ll lose if he pushes things too much, actually leaves the family. Because he has a family, he has no doubts about that here. Tim and Cass and Alfred and even Bruce. He’d miss them, if he lost them. So he makes sure he doesn’t.

And then, a couple years after his return, Jason starts feeling hunted by something. Some presence, some force constantly shadowing him, stalking him. Something supernatural. Otherworldly. In time, there’s no denying it. He’s actually attacked by some unseen, invisible presence, like some kind of monstrous beast that’s hunting him and only him.

Its hard to come to any conclusion other than that it has something to do with his resurrection. Nobody knows how that happened after all. Not even Jason. But there was definitely nothing natural about it, so with something unnatural hunting him, almost as if he’s ‘the one that got away’ or some kind of affront to the natural order of things, the Batfamily adds 2 + 2 and gets ugh, fuck, we need to call a magician for help, don’t we?

Bruce calls in Zatanna and Jason Blood first, of course. But this is well outside Zatanna’s area of expertise, she has no insight to offer. Blood’s a little bit more help. He’s at least able to confirm that the force is otherworldly, not native to this plane, and might very well have something to do with Jason’s time....not on this plane. And he is able to affirm that there’s nothing demonic about the presence, no whiff of Hell surrounding either it or Jason.

Finally, reluctantly, Bruce calls in John Constantine, at Blood’s suggestion. His number isn’t so much the last one in Bruce’s old-fashioned rolodex so much as its buried somewhere on the Manor grounds, locked in a puzzle box that affords Bruce countless opportunities to turn back or try something else before he finally gets it open and pulls out the card with his contact info and the header: IF YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST USE IN CASE OF EMERGENCY WITH ALL OTHER CONCEIVABLE OPTIONS HAVING PREVIOUSLY BEEN EXHAUSTED PRIOR TO THIS - HERE I GUESS.

Okay, maaaaaaaaybe I’m embellishing a little bit on that one there. But whatever.

And its not like Constantine is the actual last of the last he contacts here. For instance, even more than he’d like to not have to bring in John, he’d really rather not call Raven either, though he knows of her as well of course.

In this reality, the Titans remain more distant from the Justice League and other heroes. They took Dick’s side when Bruce kicked him out, closing ranks, not to mention Roy’s falling out with Ollie resulting in a similar sentiment from them. And Dick and Roy’s diverged paths here similarly result in them paralleling each other in not reconciling with their fathers - they reaffirm to each other that whatever ‘their part’ in their disputes were, they deserved better than how Bruce and Ollie handled those situations, and they’re not going to let each other settle for being afforded less than the respect and care they deserve.

So to be clear, its not that even after a couple years, Dick is still actively avoiding Bruce - Bruce’s failure to extend the hand first, make the first attempt at reconciliation and conveying that he still wants and needs Dick in his life, his family...that’s still the underlying issue, and the real change in family dynamics comes from Dick not caving and returning to a similar status quo to what he left, without Bruce ever actually addressing his own behavior and mistakes in driving Dick away without making any real attempt to get him to stay, or to follow him, or to ask him to come home.

As for the rest of the Titans, Wally still became the Flash here when Barry died, but he felt no real need to ‘move up’ to the Justice League, and with all of the rest of the original Titans remaining a cohesive family unit here, he chose to stay with them when not patrolling Central City. And when Kyle Rayner became the last Green Lantern and joined the Titans as in canon, the team was closer, more family than the line-up he was briefly a part of in canon, and so he remained with them as well.

So the end result is in this universe, for the end of their teens and the early years of their twenties, the Titans go their own way, and they and the JLA keep to their respective ‘corners’ as it were. Meanwhile Tim’s generation remains known as Young Justice.

So back to the Batfam’s problem and Jason’s unknown pursuer. Constantine’s not much more help than Jason Blood was. After all, demons are his specialty too, just in different ways than they are Jason Blood’s. and the other magic he knows isn’t of a sort they need here either.

He is however, able to offer one bit of advice - what they need, John says, is a magician who specializes in the otherworldly, not just the netherworlds. There are more things in Heaven and Hell than well...just Heaven and Hell. Plenty of other worlds, plenty of other dimensions....the kinds of places something like this creature could have come from. What they need is a planewalker. And luckily for them, Constantine just so happens to know the name of a planewalker who could help them.

Dick Grayson.

And of course the estranged eldest still comes when he’s called, because its never that he didn’t care, its just that he wanted, needed to be called. Even when tragedy struck the family, it wasn’t that he didn’t want to return and be a comfort to them, its just that he wasn’t sure his presence would be a comfort.

(Though it takes numerous arguments while working on the mystery of Jason’s hunter, like, before this gets even brought up, let alone clarified. All parties involved are of course world-class experts at the cold shoulder, not to mention avoidance tactics and evasive maneuvers of all types.)

And as Jason and his other siblings get to know their mysterious oldest brother, the much alluded to but rarely spoken of first son, the Zitka in the room, the shadow they’ve all always been aware of but never known much about - other than that he had a definite Talent with a capital T for getting under their father’s skin, and while they might be closer with Bruce in this reality, Bruce is still Bruce and that’s still a Talent they all can respect and appreciate - well.

It would be a mistake, Jason realizes, to assume that just because Dick left, that meant that he didn’t keep informed on what he left behind. He has many many means at his disposal now, for getting information when he wants it.

And it would be a mistake to assume that just because they didn’t see him care, that actually meant that Dick didn’t care. He didn’t have to actually meet Jason to feel at least a connection to the second son to be raised by the same father, the second person to wear his colors, bear his mantle, fight at Bruce’s side. He didn’t even have to know him, to grieve that now he’d never get the chance, when Jason died. To be outraged at the Joker, on his behalf.

And its not like Dick didn’t have plenty of other reasons to hate the Joker as well - he was the reason he was fired, the reason he and Bruce were estranged, the catalyst of so much of his family’s misfortune.

And no one did ever find a trace of the Joker after Ethiopia.

Almost like he’d dropped off the face of the Earth.

Vanished from it entirely.

Of course, while Dick Grayson might be estranged from his father, he still abides by the code Bruce instilled in him at an early age. He doesn’t kill.

But there are worse things than death, some might say.

Especially for a man like a Joker, because he does have one thing he truly cares about: landing a punchline. Its why everyone assumes he was killed by some other enemy after Ethiopia....the Joker can never go long without making a reappearance. He needs an audience too badly to ever stay hidden for long.

After all, what is a joke, if there’s no one to hear it?

And then as well, the family never did figure out how Jason ended up in Leslie’s clinic, after he crawled out of his grave.

How someone found him so quickly, and knew the best place to take him. However Jason ended up resurrected, it surely had to involve considerable power of some sort, supernatural energies that surely had to attract some attention....

at least from someone attuned to the supernatural, who knew how to see such things....

and had reason to occasionally visit the Wayne family cemetery.

Yes, even in this vastly different universe, there’s still a way, still time to reunite a family even this fractured. When you’re a planewalker like Dick Grayson, there’s no road beyond your reach, its just a matter of finding the right one.

And just because it takes time to find the road that finally leads home....that doesn’t mean its not out there.

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calamity-bean · 5 years

Note

Shipping meme for It and Gotham? highkey curious about the notp ngl

Notps...... You’re here for the drama, huh.

IT:

lowkey otp: Bev/Ben... They’re both so strong in such a quiet, understated, resilient, and kindhearted way.

highkey notp: For some reason, stuff like Richie/Hockstetter — i.e., any of the Losers with any of the Bowers gang — actually bothers me more than the clownfuckery that goes on in certain corners of this fandom. Or I guess it’s like... Wanting to fuck (or have a character fuck) Pennywise is so bizarre that it’s not really worth grappling with; I just accept that it comes from a mental wavelength that I will never understand. But Losers/Bowers ships are both unappealing and mundane, so they lose the protection of being too surreal to bother caring about.

[softly] don’t notp: This is much more personal preference, and I’m not saying this is bad or wrong, but there’s a lot of poly and OT3 shipping in this fandom, and I find that I very, very seldom go for those. I understand why it’s a thing to ship all the Losers in a poly romance together, but it’s not for me.

highkey otp but i’m scared of saying it because it’s not a very popular choice: Like I said, I do love Bev/Bill, but my first exposure to these characters was IT 2017, and I gotta say... In that film, Bev/Bill is pretty compelling. The kiss with the bloody hand, the blood hand pressed to the face? Nice.

highkey otp and anyone on my tumblr knows it: Reddie!!

Gotham:

lowkey otp: Baby BatCat! They were so cute.

highkey notp: Ed/Lee. I liked them so much as allies and I loved their burgeoning friendship, but then the show had to go and just do a COMPLETE retread of Kristen and Isabella: Ed likes girl, Ed is possessive of girl, Ed gets girl, girl dies because of Ed! Part of my frustration was preferring other ships, yes, but it was also just so boring and frustrating that they took a really intriguing new platonic relationship and walked it down the same tired road.

[softly] don’t notp: Jim/Babs... I just vastly preferred each of them with other people (specifically, Jim/Lee and Babs/Tabitha).

highkey otp but i’m scared of saying it because it’s not a very popular choice: I know I just said I liked Babitha, but I actually also quite liked Tabs and Butch! This was one of those rare occasions where I could get with more than two people being involved in a relationship, i.e. Tabitha being in relationships with both Barbara and Butch at once.

highkey otp and anyone on my tumblr knows it: Good LORD I had a lotta emotions about Nygmobblepot

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puckyou-forpuckssake · 6 years

Text

Alone Together—M. Marner

Requested by anon. Based on “Alone Together” by Dan + Shay. Warning: cussing and drinking. Check out my other imagines and master list on my blog with #hockeyimagines.

Boys were dicks, men were assholes, and the Corona needs a hell of a lot more lime, you thought. You asked the bartender for more limes. He nodded. Your eyes trailed him, as you had nothing better to do but wait for the limes, and landed on a guy sitting in the corner.

He was slumped over with his head down. Several bottles surrounded him, each without a label, which littered the ground. The neon light in the bar tinted him blue. Just by staring at him, you could read his story.

The bartender came back with a scotch glass full of limes. “Can I get two shots of tequila too? They’re 2 for 1 right?”

He nodded. “Sure thing. Don Julio, Patron, or Jose Cuervo?”

“Don Julio. I want shots, which means I need the strong shit.”

The bartender grumbled as he went to get your shots. You finished off your Corona and glanced over at your target. Several men were trying to pull him out of the booth, but he stayed put. He didn’t say a word and only glared up at his friends, so you assumed they were.

“Does this go on your tab?” the bartender asked.

You pulled out a couple $20s. “Does this cover the whole tab?” He nodded. “That includes the tip too, pal.”

You waited until his friends left him alone. He didn’t notice as you sat in the booth across from him. “Auston, I do not want to go to that goddamn club Willy, Kappy, and Freddie were talking about. Just leave me the fuck alone,” he snapped.

“She must’ve hurt you really bad,” you commented.

He straightened up at the sound of your voice, a voice he didn’t recognize. “Who the hell are you?”

You slid the shot towards him. “Drink up, buttercup. This’ll help you a little. You might need more though.”

“My mother told me to never accept drinks from strangers,” he blurted out.

You snorted. “Well fine then, buttercup. I was trying to be nice,” you downed your shot. “You looked lonely and I know I’m fucking lonely because of this asshole ex-boyfriend I used to have. You look so pathetic over here picking at the labels of these...are those fucking Heinekens? What the fuck man. You are so goddamn pathetic.”

“I didn’t ask for company. I didn’t ask you to come over here and judge my drink choice,” he growled. “So leave me the fuck alone. I don’t need your pity.”

You didn’t say anything in reply, but he went off on you anyway. “I get that I am the great Mitch fucking Marner! I shouldn’t be down in the shits and depressed because my girlfriend broke up with me. I should be out there bringing glory to Toronto, but yet here I am. Here I am picking the labels off of Heinekens in a corner booth in a bar with some really neon blue lights because my girlfriend and I split up and we had a lot of great memories with hockey so I don’t feel comfortable or happy there. So I just want to get fucking wasted and forget about my troubles. I don’t want a rebound or hook up. I just want some alcohol.”

You sat there quietly, taking in what he had just said. You pushed the shot of Don Julio closer to him. “I get that you want to be alone, but if you just want to get fucking wasted, then you better be alone with someone else. Let me show you how to truly drink, buttercup.”

“My coach is so going to be mad at me tomorrow at practice,” Mitch whispered.

“Let him. Would you rather be fucking miserable and sober or just forget about everything for a little while?” Mitch didn’t respond. “A few things before we get started: have you deleted your ex-girlfriend’s number?” Mitch shook his head. “Delete it right now, buttercup. Second, I saw you had some friends here earlier. Go give the bartender one of their numbers and their name. I know it sounds weird but it’ll be for the better. Trust me. Kurt hates really bad drunks and so he loves having a way to get them out.”

“You know the bartender?”

You paused and thought for a moment. Did you know the bartender? Was his name actually Kurt? You began giggling. “I honestly don’t know. I’ve already had two bottles of Corona. Anyway, when your up there, order us a variety of shots and two bottles of Molson each.”

“There is no way Babs is seeing me at practice tomorrow,” he murmured.

Mitch began to slide out of the booth, but you stopped him. “But first, drink the shot. Let Don Julio bring you into this next chapter of life,” You picked up the shot and said in squeaky accented voice, “Drink me, buttercup. Drink me up. Let Don Julio be your best friend.”

Mitch chuckled and cracked a grin for the first time that night. He grabbed the shot and had it down in an instant. “Am I going to regret this?” Mitch asked before heading to the bar.

You grinned. “Oh definitely, buttercup. The headache you will have in the morning will be awful. Your friends will tease you probably about how drunk you’re going to end up, but it’ll be worth it. It’ll be worth the moments of forgetting the pain you’ve been given. It’ll be worth being alone with someone else who is just as alone and pathetic. Honestly though, you won’t remember most of tonight. So yes, tomorrow you will regret tonight...and maybe the day after that, but in the end this is what you need to heal. Now go get us our shots, buttercup. I’m starting to sober up here.”

#mitch marner #mitch marner imagine #toronto maple leafs #toronto maple leafs imagine #nhl #hockey #hockey imagines #nhl imagines

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crypterion-moon · 6 years

Text

The Vestiges of humanity

Summary: There’s a world where everything looks normal on the outside but it hides horrors amd mysteries beyond human capabilities. This earth teams with ordinary humans, protected by superpowered heroes. But there are those who will discover the truth on the shadowy corners just out of reach, and ascend.

Kon loves Tim, there’s no doubt about it, but the passage of time has not been kind to their relationship and Tim has at last made his decision. It’s time Kon knew the truth.

When Kon comes home, he is usually greeted by a clingy Tim. And he loves every second of it. Tim hated it when he left for something as massive as a mass monster take down, after spending most of the day nursing Kon back to health the last time he got called on one like this. Thankfully, today, he manages to get away with a few scrapes and that’s it. Tim would be pleased but today Tim wasn’t at the door. Tim rarely attended now, preferring to work behind the scene the way Bab's keeps tabs on Gotham. It was like she had eyes all over Gotham and Kon found that Tim was just as skilled as she was. But he missed having his boyfriend out on the field with him but Tim seemed so reluctant to go out, nearly shaking at the thought of it. Like he was sure something would go wrong if he was there. No amount of reassurance would convince him otherwise, though it was strange, like with everything else, Kon accepted it graciously and Tim made his appreciation apparent.

“Tim?” he called out, kicking off his shoes, Tim hated it when he trecked dirt into the apartment, he was beyond a clean freak, like dirt and mud terrified him. It was kind of amusing to see a grown man like him scolding Kon while furiously scrubbing away at the floors and walls like a madwoman in pink gloves. Right now, he needed a shower after that literal monster bash, he'd cleared off most of the slime but he’s pretty sure he smells like a trainwreck and Tim would tell him for sure. But first-

“Tim, I’m home.”

He better not be in one of his bad moods, Kon thought, whether it be a failed case or a mission gone wrong or just lack of coffee, once it starts, it’s nearly the hardest thing to deal with, making Tim come out of his downs was nearly as bad as beating down an alien army invasion. It had been getting a bit worse lately. Tim had been down in the dumps more oft. More distant, gazing out over the sky and city, transfixed and sad. He'd come back down though, nearly after a few hours and apologize to Kon repeatedly. Kon had chalked it up to his broken childhood and his time at the Waynes, though he's not sure what they did, it seemed to have affected him psychologically, but Tim always said they were kind, kinder than anyone he'd asked help from before, then fell silent after that. Unnerving, and he had his suspicions but Kon was sure he'd come clean eventually.

He stepped past the kitchen and into the second hallway.Sometimes, Tim would be trying to cook, unsuccessfuly, somehow it always resulted in some kind of unidentifiable pile of goo. It took a whole load of willpower for Kon not to crack a smile much less laugh while Tim pouted at his latest culinary failure. In all honesty, Kon was no better, so if they didn’t have one of Alfred’s special drop-offs, they’d order take out. Tim could eat a horse that’s for sure which shocked and awed Kon to no end with how Tiny Tim could keep his name. Speaking of which, he'd barely heard from the old man recently, something about having to tend to his family, not that he had ever seen them. Gotham was a strange place and everytime he'd tried to ask Dick about it, he'd grit his teeth and say it wasn't anything he needed to know. Kon was sure he was lying because he was raised by Alfred with the Waynes in Gotham but he seemed intent on keeping quiet about it.

“Tim?”

Where is he? This places wasn’t huge, not like the Wayne manor or the Tower, Tim must have surely heard him. Kon was almost sure Tim isn’t listening then, he already has a list of things prepared to make Tim feel better, including the most indulgent coffee he knows how to make and marshmallows, probably his tenth cup in a day but Kon wasn't about to question his tolerance. But he’s searched nearly every room now, their bedroom, the bathroom and the little office Tim had carved out for himself to work in. There weren’t that many places to hide so where could he be? He couldn’t have gone out could he? Kon tries to call his boyfriend’s cell. It rings from the bedroom, the same generic ringtone modified ‘to parody his life’ as Tim described it.

He didn’t take his phone, that’s odd. There’s a heavy feeling now, Kon could feel it setting in his stomach. His mind began to run through all the possibilites in his head the way Tim always does. Tim and his uncanny ability to project ahead, always steps ahead. The first thing that popped into his mind then was, someone had broken in. He’s scared for Tim. He shouldn't be Tim can take care of himself but he's more fragile than Kon at the same time.

“Tim, Tim, where are you?” he called out repeatedly, “Tim?”

The phone was still ringing, his call hadn’t been disconnected yet even though, the phone usually auto disconnects a few seconds after an attempt, but he doesn’t care about that. The sound of Tim’s phone itself was holding him together as he went over every nook and cranny even impossible spaces he knew Tim would find away to squeeze into, he doesn’t notice as it changes slowly, distorts. Until he finally did and it’s glaring now. It’l like someone made a music box out of the ringtone and then ran it over and over again until it broke and rusted over, the noise was now terrifying. Something that sounded like a groan could be heard between the twisted notes. He disconnected but it didn’t stop, so Kon rushed into the bedroom, find the phone and make it stop, make it stop, the parody was turning into a nightmare.

He stopped in his tracks, just in the doorway. Tim is there, standing on the other side of the room, on the other side of the bed, his back was turned to Kon. Looking out of the window. Tim wasn’t there a minute ago, Kon checked.

“Hey Kon.” His voice made him real, made him there even if it made no sense at all, and that was all Kon cared about for the moment.

“Tim, my god I thought…”

“I’m sorry, I heard you but I…” Tim turned around, he looked so sad, his eyes blue, so blue, more than any other time Kon had the pleasure of staring into. Tim looked away for a moment then turned back to Kon.

“I wasn’t ready.”

“What’s wrong, Tim, tell me what’s bothering you, you can tell me anything.”

"Can I Kon?"

"Of course you can, you need to get whatever it is off your chest to feel better."

Tim smiled, but it was a sad one, “You always make me feel better, but I can’t make you feel better.”

“No, that’s not true, just seeing you makes my whole world light up. I can spend a whole week fighting slimes aliens, covered to toe in crap but just hearing your voice makes me feel I can keep going, even if it’s you scolding me for trekking dirt into our apartment again.”

Tim chuckled a little, but it’s enough to make Kon grin. He reached out, Tim would probably kill him later but he wanted nothing more than to hold Tim, feel him in his arms. Tim’s smile drops.

“I can’t Kon, today is the last,” Tim said, the sun setting behind him, it would be beautiful if only Tim could smile.

“Sorry about the ringtone, I fixed it so it would remind me.”

“Remind you of what?”

“Of today.”

“What’s going on, Tim?” Kon swallowed the lump in his throat, something feels wrong, so, so wrong.

“I wanted to tell you sooner, I wanted it to last longer, to be human again.”

Kon is stunned, the words coming out of his mouth made no sense, even though they were English, the meaning behind them was jumbled and out of context, and quite frankly it was freaking him out. Tim was the one who moved closer, around the bed to face Kon.

“I never was what you thought I was, Kon, maybe at one point I, but that…was a long time ago. Today, is the last day I get to enjoy that with you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“After tonight, I’ll be gone, you won’t see me ever again, and you never will want to, you shouldn’t.”

It was like a gut-punch, like Tim’s gut-punches but worse because he felt it in his mind, his words, his heart. But it made no sense, Tim, the logical one was making no sense.

“Tim…” Kon would’ve reached out, he was so close but Tim got to him first, wrapping his arms around him suddenly, embracing Kon like his life depended on it. Holding him in a dying man’s grip.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” Tim whispered feverishly until his voice was so low no human would’ve heard the next words he was saying, and those words frightened Kon so much he nearly threw Tim to the ground. Instead, he gets his hands on Tim’s arms and held him back, to stare into his eyes. He doesn’t believe it. Not one second of it.

“It’s already coming to an end isn’t it?”

“Tim…”

"Cover your ears, Kon."

The man he loves took a step back, takes another and another, his arm is still outstretched brushing along Kon’s as he moved away, until he’s so far back the already dimming sun could barely reach him. Those blue eyes were shining, shining so brightly. Tim, Tim, Ti- Uro- Tima-sh….

Tim stopped him, “Don't say, don't say that name, please.” Blue tears falling, "Please Kon, look away."

He doesn't instead, he watched the man before him fall apart, literally. What should’ve been his silhouette expands and writhes, he could still see Tim’s face. Those sad, sad eyes, crying out a siren song, dying bird, leading trails of screams that should never be followed, one that should never be seen or mentioned. The bounadaries of his mind creaked and groaned like a dam against the unending black around him, the whispers that echoed around like a chant.

<i>Let the sleeper awaken, and eternity take place...return, return, return, tear the veil...Sleep unto death...death unto eternity, no witness, out of sight...don't listen...cover your eyes, ears...look away...look away...</i>

"LOOK AWAY!"

Those words came out in an inhuman shriek that in all of his years of fighting monsters, nothing was more terrifying, like claws and nails raking across iron and rust and glass, loud and piercing, and Kon was forced to screw his eyes shut, the terror now bending his mind like a reed. But shutting his eyes didn't make it any less, as the sounds that reached his ears now had no substance to it, nothing solid to ground or makes sense to them, he tried to cover his ears to no avail and he cursed his superhuman hearing. Only Tim's voice carried him through, what humanity was left in it.

“Thank you, for letting me come back down, to be human even just a lttle while, I’ll never forget you,” Tim’s voice…was changed, “One day, I will carve your name and you will forever remain.”

He struggled with the last human words he could muster, “I love you.”

He shouldn't be able to see with his eyes shut tight, but he could. So many eyes, so many many eyes, yet none of them were looking straight at him, they looked outward and at nothing and everything. The deafening beating of a heart echoed around Kon and the all consuming darkness, he realized was not night, it was just, dark. Gotham is a dark, dark place.

He wanted to curl up, and shut down, but the words, Tim’s voice came together in a twisted melody, that horrible horrible distorted ringtone was going again, adding fuel to the nightmare. When he finally opened his eyes, the lights had flickered on and it was eight in the evening, Tim's phone still ringing with that dumb sounding jingle he'd loved so much.

#tim drake #kon el kent #kon el #connor kent #dcau #lovercraftian AU #timkon

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lalaurelia · 6 years

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Quick Gotham 5x01 thoughts

Not too coherent and spoilery for those who haven’t seen the ep yet, because there’s one scene that I cannot keep silent about.

First off, starting the ep with Riddler isn’t as fun as it sounds XD And it’s in the future, when all the gang comes together to fight on the wall as we’ve seen in the trailer. This gives me hope, concerning the end of the episode.

Jim gives a sitrep for us, and we know that help’s not coming. He’s looking so tired and spread a little bit thin - and still looks too handsome XD He also mentions “Penguin” in every other sentence, like, boy, you’re giving yourself away with how much you’re thinking about him XD

Meanwhile Oswald enjoys some steak which is not cooked to his taste, feeds it to the dog while the starving workers watch on - I am really on the fence in regards with that direction for Oswald. He was never one to behave so foolishly, you know. It’s a bit too ham-fisted.

Then it’s all the usual - chaos, chaotic attacks, supplies stolen, half-rations halved, all that. Bruce arranges for help to fly in with the chopper, but the chopper, predictably, goes down, and is it really surprising that the ever opportunistic Oswald is the first on the scene, taking the spoils from the small gang that owned that turf... before he showed up, that is?

Jim is second, and heyyyyy, it’s “Oswald!” all over again, no GCPD warning, no nothing, just Jim calling his name out and it’s enough to make Oswald pause and go all “Old friend” and pleasantries on Jim. They flirt shamelessly as they do, in that warehouse full of armed people on both sides XD

Tabitha attacks Oswald, nearly kills him, prompting him to plead to Jim for help - the only moment of weakness he allows himself, because even after that Oswald is all proud and unafraid and uuuuuugh I love him?

Tabs gets done in, and I am not sad to see her go, even if Jessica Lucas is a very pretty sight on screen. Babs shows up, all rage-mode, and I want to feel more for her, but I kind of don’t.

Oswald once again shows that he’s a good tactician with a steady aim - more reasons to love him, okay XD And he wants to keep the key players alive and under his control - too bad Babs will have none of it.

Jim wants to make a deal with him to split the supplies and to spare Babs, but it doesn’t go well - even though these boys love their deals, they’re best when they do it in privacy, you know? with too many onlookers they’ve gotta put up appearances.

And Jim, how fucking could you! God! This... may have been the only way, but I am not liking it - or you - any better for it. Although, to his credit, he does look kind of guilty afterwards, and he avoids Harvey’s suggestions about how he should’ve shot to kill. I want to believe that Jim just doesn’t have it in him to shoot at Oswald to kill.

Oswald, on the other hand, is in terrible pain, hurt and furious, aaaaaand he offers bounty for whoever brings him Jim’s head. I swear I cried.

And... overall it’s a very good ep, you know? There’s this drama with Selina who is suicidal and bitter, Bruce feeling guilty, Babs swearing revenge, but I’m sorry, I only see Jim and Oswald and how they manage to fuck everything up between them with their stubbornness and unnecessary witnesses. Do your deals in private, boys. Seal them with kisses. That’s much more productive.

#gotham #gobblepot #jimwald #oswald cobblepot #jim gordon #otp #dc

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gobblepotstew · 6 years

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Thoughts on tonights episode -> YIKES.

I am unsure who okayed some of this writing but....

The Good

Jim is going through it and it's time he realize what Gotham is about. Pure hell on earth. He takes it out on some civilians and Oswald just to find some semblance of stability.

Lucius had some scenes!! Yes! True screentime for my boy! The moments with him and Edward were the best. They have this reluctance but respectful nature towards one another that I LOVE. But that being said Ed's 5 episode fiasco could have been 3. I don't know why the writer's made it longer.

Alfred and Bruce fighting side by side is the best music *cue DJ Khaled* and seeing them work to get Selina back is adorable.

Selina being the sly cat girl she is has taken no L's. She gets her revenge but it's sudden and unsatisfying. One minute Jerry's singing to his own tune, next minute he's on the floor and I am like... Bro I just blinked. How she get Ecco's clothes anyways? I would have liked to have seen that.

Oswald and Zsasz. Make any show entertaining in the least. The shootout with Penguin's army was great. Also the court scene was fun. I will be honest, must be hard to carry a half season until the Joker comes as far as bad guys go. Zsasz was enchanting as always with his zingers. But this feels like the last we will see of him in the series :(

I liked when Oswald brought his goons to the GCPD and they essentially barked for Zsasz. GOLD.

The Bad

Ummmm...why did Babs parts seem weird? Like she didn't shoot Penguin, and went to Jim in the end? What? She lost Tabs so now she loses her mind? No, Gotham don't do that. Don't muddle her.

Jim all gunhoe about what's right and what's wrong, wants a shootout with Zsasz he's clear to lose, picks on Oswald when this man saw fit to help you (for his own means) and is generally drunk and pissed at the world but sleeps with Babs for comfort. Wow. That's low. Jim and Babs deserve more than that.

The Ugly

Ed is the bomber. But why would he hit the helicopter before you ask? I can surmise he did it to lure Oswald. This was a twist and I ain't mad at it. He's killed countless people in the past in cold blood. So what's a few hundred? He is losing his mind again and there is only so much paper one can throw around before getting the answers. Next week Bane. I hope we get no more new characters after this.

TL:DR

This episode was a lot and not in the way I hoped in some bits. Lots of Oz and Jim interactions which were great. 8 more to go gang. 😩🍺

#gotham #spoilers #what even #i was tipsy and now im sober #thats how strange it was #fox gotham #ep 5.04 #yikes all day #lots of action

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inappropriatefangirlneeds · 6 years

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Gotham s5ep1 “Year Zero” Personal Review

““It will come” “A thousand rounds of freshly minted nine millimeter stock” Warning spoilers below

Hello there Gotham. The scenery with Edward arming himself and the disturbed vinyl sound makes me remember everything why I love this show. Oh, Oswald all dolled up and with a knife, I love it even more!

“It's two minutes past pumpkin time, sweetheart.” I was worried about BARBARA KEAN. The last season ended as if they would make her some horrible “someone got what feminism is about really wrong” character but there she is protecting women, looking stunning and being god damn reasonable! She´s doing good! She´s doing it on her own terms. Granted the men buying time thing seems a tad bit silly but could be quite entertaining, also pragmatism rules! “Honey, no one is asking you to forget what happened, but how do we protect the women who come in here every day looking for safety? We need this.” It was heart breaking and inspiring to hear her tell Tabitha “I need you too” This is how it should be, this is how you should do it. Also this just erased all my memory to all the wonky Barba and Ra´s al Ghul stuff. Please just don´t let her be all cray cray mad from now on. I really root for Oswalds ““Can we move past this? Say the whole Tabitha-Butch chapter is over?” approach. I could have done without all the BUTCH & TABITHA GALAVAN stuff. It just made barely any sense for Tabitha. It lessened the unexpected joy over finding out Tabs actually cared about Barbara. And while I always found it odd that OSWALD COBBLEPOT would neglect his revenge it feels stale at that point. And for me it gets even more cheapened if they have it circle on with Barbara trying to off Oswald. Things should come to an end or it makes something grave look like some soap opera relationship drama know. [Also why am I so suspicious about Tabs “don´t” line maybe being not only pure love and reason but a hint that she will somehow be back. Like oddly I don´t feel they would bring her back, but .. still suspicious!] “Gee. For a second there, I was worried.” Gee that was a good line. But I´m not really feeling it that SELINA KYLE would put the blame on Bruce like that. I get the pain, I get where she is and I get that there has to be some strain in between them because of this but I also feel like Selina would know, recognize and acknowledge that it is just Jeremiah who is to blame and no one else. Her saying something like that in that moment and state that she is in, perfectly reasonable but I so hope they won´t go further down that route once she´s healed (just have to assume that’s gonna happen) Sure it also seems to go hand in hand with her NO1. rule, that she just should have stuck to it and her going astray lead to her state and that Bruce is ultimately to blame which would send her on an even more solitary path than the one she has been on before, full of resentment for others BUT she´s always broken that rule, she´s always taken risk for others and not always has some profit from it, still she must have recognized to worth of that, I hope the writers won´t ignore that, like just to drive Bruce and Selina apart or something. The two of them had plenty of conflict, there is some things that Bruce actually did that Selina blames and resent him for, they do not need this as source of conflict. Also they already had her in a hospital and hopeless situation. Enough! But damn, those first few scenes. Camren Bicondova is such an amazing actress. This just broke my heart before I even got to know what situation she is in. Also damnit, I didn´t need the feelz of this plot line, I really didn´t please just let Selina be ok again soon! ALFRED PENNYWORTH seems to be out of his depth with everything, but hell who wouldn´t be. It seems they´ll keep pushing Bruce to be the one to call the tune, especially since Jim signing him in. That surgeon should just kiss Alfred, they should just let off some steam, clear the head, get rid of some tension and have Alfred build up something of his usual shine. Like I know it´s important for Bruce that someone watches Selina while he tries to fight for the medicine in the basement, and it´s great that he trusts Alfred with this but idk I feel like there´s still plenty of punches for him to throw in the right faces. “It's made him unassailable.” Can we talk about the shade in that line: “I mean, we have Penguin in City Hall, for God's sakes. He raided the armory and stockpiled weapons, then repurposed a factory to manufacture ammunition.” Jim´s voice was awesome when he delivered that. Like can you believe it, off all malady, we got penguin in the city hall, what a disgrace, I can´t believe it. But I´m glad OSWALD COBBLEPOT was clever to get things going well for him! Love that. He looks great too. But why the hell did he dress everyone around him so bland and boring??!!! Where is the previous style. Bring it back! Why is everyone looking so unhappy. >>> Oh no .. was this fashion foreshadowing. Apparently, Oswald dines well while letting everyone else starves. I feel Mr. Penn´s accusatory, disappointed and annoyed gaze. Also what is with all that politician like rhetoric? It´s bland, it´s boring. And it´s at odd times. Oswald has always been great with talk but now there´s something else happening and I don´t like it. I mean it´s great that he´s back on track with the self preservation thing , it suits him and it´s nice but he´s shown great concern for the people of Gotham and now he wouldn´t care at all that people starve in his workshop?! #notmypenguin I don´t buy it, and just because SELINA KYLE alone didn’t devastate me and I´m in that kind of mood I´m gonna read it into Oswald as well. After all I do think it makes more sense if I see Oswald being not quite in a dissimilar place than Selina is, or rather he is where I do think Selina could be if they give her back her agility (and hopefully a will to live) and just let her off without mental health treatment. Resentful, only being able to acknowledge the bad that has been done to them, desperately trying to keep themselves safe and especially keep themselves safe from others. I think it´s even telling that Selina can´t walk and they show Oswald getting a device for his leg just to be shot in it later. Oswald seems genuinely relieved and happy, the “feels good” carries joy. The device probably lessened the pain he has been in and moreover it grants him more mobility and agility, which in the current environment is more important than ever. However that cheery mood just lasts a tiny moment, it´s promptly followed by: put a knife on it . It´s pure survival. There´s some happy laughter about the new improvement but promptly Mr. Penn enters with more bad news and even worse something that basically challenges him and his leadership. Oswald just has to dismiss it. I feel like him talking so carelessly about the workers is not actually the lack of care but him being in a state where he just can´t acknowledge it. Something that he previously might have seen as something that needs to be tackled and resolved is now just a threat > Dismiss it! Same with the food. It´s not perfect, it´s not up to standard, it´s not what it should be > Overcooked, just get rid of it altogether. Not acceptable. Previous Oswald would have acknowledged a problem but would also have seen the other side and tried to utilize both but now he just can´t. Moreover his appearance is more on point than ever, meticulous even, and we get a scene with a makeup brush which certainly highlights this. > Everything has to be perfect, in place and under his control, he can´t tolerate anything else. He just can´t provide a target, and even if it´s smeared eyeliner. I think he´s strained, he´s scared, he´s terrified, he´s hurt. And it took a toll on him. It also explains the constant politician lingo, he just sees everything as a threat and he has to fire and try to disarm with the politician protocol. He can´t get to the core of a situation anymore it´s just politics of survival. Maybe even more in his head than it actually is. [Okay to be fair maybe I´m not taking into account the full situation, after all it is more than reasonable to fear for his life in his situation, even Tabitha aside, but it´s not like he hasn´t navigated through that before] [Also, I might just read nonsense into this because I´m sad and because I just don´t want Oswald to be a cookie cutter meaaaniie]

* Also how is everyone else just so great at acting. I´m shook. I thought, as usual with the time jump I´m just gonna be annoyed and really wondering how everyone got to the place where they are and why they suddenly liked someone or disliked them (*cough* Oswald n Babs what happened) but I´m just super emotional about how they all talk to each other. The scene with JIM GORDON & HARVEY BULLOCK & LUCIUS FOX discussing their situation was just so brilliant. (“And the truth?” “We're on our own.” “The truth is we have no idea what might happen. And our job is to keep ourselves and everyone else alive.” > so sell them hope) Respectful, open, aware of the situation, direct no sugar coating but mutual understanding. Same with the JIM & BRUCE SCENES. Feels like they really want to build them up to “Equals” pretty quickly. Even the scene with JIM & SCARECROW was brilliant. “I know what you're thinking, Captain. I have so few bullets. Do I spend one on him? Is it worth it? “I already know it's not.” But damnit the boy is worth everything. Although I find it really hard to see scarecrow as Jonathan Crane or see any connection between those, I guess it´s more convenient to just let that go and enjoy Scarecrow like he is. It´s great to have so many references of characters knowing what shit all the others are in as well. Tabitha/Barbara quickly call that Oswald is short on supply. It gives me an odd “we´re all in this together” vibe despite all of them still fighting each other. But as it seems they´re indeed going to team up. Another example of this was: “Sorry. Mouths to feed. And you know all about that, don't you?” I chuckled when OSWALD COBBLEPOT pulled that one on JIM GORDON. Despite having more guns, Oswald still went for the verbal manipulation, try to make Jim see him as basically doing the same just on another side, with other methods. Also can we talk about they paralleled them as well with the matter of TRUTH! “Truth is, I was never gonna make that deal. I need all those supplies.” “But if it was me, wouldn't I just admit it? I mean, it's not like I'm going to be arrested.” Oswald really didn´t have a reason to say that he didn´t shot the chopper down except for it being the truth. Jim really didn´t need to tell Oswald that his deal was just a ruse and never genuine, except for it being the truth. No matter the situation, no matter the circumstances those two do share some values! Apart from GOBBLEPOT subtext still going strong we´ve reached another HARVEY BULLOCK & JIM GORDON milestone. It´s their beginning 2.0. No matter what they´ve been trough, no matter how their relationship changed they are basically back to Season 1. In season one Jim held up his badge and announced everything has to be done the right way. Then Harvey Bullock scolded the boy scout and lectured him on Gotham´s ways. The right way doesn´t work in Gotham. Not we have Jim do the same, and Harvey sticking to his old role. “Three months ago, I would've lost my badge for that.” .. “You want rules for this game? I'll tell you. I'll make it simple, okay? You win or you die. Next time, shoot to kill.” * “Fine. Whatever.” Oh mood. * “Say it walking.” Oh Harvey, that´s a great one. * “I haven't been happy in ten years.” Oh shit what a mood again. * “Everything all right?” “No, but we're alive, so that's something.” Great line, and I kinda wish it was a mood. * Is the pilot okay? I´m worried. * “You´ve earned a place here” and then Bruce doing that tiny tiny tiiny nod … * Also Jim Gordon not regretting staying in Gotham “Hell no” holding up hope like that, although he might not even have it himself is wonderful. He really radiates the vibe that he got this as much as someone can in that situation. * Things I (and probably everyone else) just knew would happen 1. Tabitha: “He's gonna regret giving me this.” > Penn: Hey just letting you know quality suffered Oswald: Bullshit *fires shot* bullet doesn´t go the kind of boom it should > Another bullet does the same making the talk about regret echo in a mean but expected twist. 2. Gotham: A chopper will bring us the much needed supplies it´s gonna be great, it´s just gonna work once but it will work Chopper: Get shot down, what a surprise 3. Dumpster in an alley: Is there Audience: Ah Edward´s new bed *waits* Yes there he is. EDWARD NYGMA set up in a game against himself could develop really nice. And they had some great visuals in the scenes with him!

#gotham #gotham meta #oswald cobblepot #jim gordon #gotham s5ep1 Year Zero #boysout #mine Gotham full episode reviews

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