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ectonurites · 4 years

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idk how to quote tags on mobile where is the conner kent essay i NEED it

ALRIGHT OKAY! here’s 5k+ words plus panels & screenshots of me comparing and contrasting the two drastically different versions of Superboy (comics vs young justice cartoon) and going over what makes them such distinctly separate characters. someday i’ll refine this a bit more its kinda just a word dump that’s been living in my brain that i wanted to actually articulate after i read through Reign of the Supermen but here we go:

Pretty frequently I see the question “Why is Superboy so different in the Young Justice cartoon?” float around in DC circles. I think there are two main approaches to answering this:

Why did the writers of the cartoon decide to create a very different version of Superboy?

What factors make this Superboy so different from the comic version?

For the first approach the answer is relatively straight-forward, from the start Young Justice as a cartoon was never meant to be a direct adaptation of the comics. They just used the title and a few elements so they could create their own approach to the DC universe with a focus on younger heroes. For example, Artemis Crock in their show is also COMPLETELY different from her comic counterpart, Zatanna is aged way down to be a member of the teen team, and Kaldur’ahm was created for this show (and integrated into the comics as Jackson Hyde). They were always trying to do different things than the main comics universe, so them making a different version of Conner also makes sense. Their approach to him is also very clearly influenced more by how he appeared in the Teen Titans comic run that was still coming out as Young Justice started airing (his design, and some other elements we’ll discuss along the way), as opposed to his original version from the 90′s/the Young Justice comic.

So the basic “why” is that from the start they wanted to create something unique to their universe, which they definitely did accomplish.

The much more interesting subject to dive into, though, is looking at the differences in Superboy’s story that contribute to him becoming such a different person.

The drastic changes made to the following factors are what I view as the main source of his differences in personality/outlook/characterization:

The conditions and history of the world at the time he is introduced

The circumstances around him being introduced/leaving Cadmus

The reaction Clark has to him and how their relationship starts

The people he first interacted with & became close to, and how he interacts with the world

The timing of him finding out about his connection to Luthor

The State of the Worlds

In the comics, Superboy is first introduced in Adventures of Superman #500 by iconically saying “Don’t ever call me Superboy!”

during a 1993 event called “Reign of the Supermen”, a follow up to the 1992 event “The Death of Superman”. Based on the title of the 1992 event, I think you can, uh, guess what one major difference in the setting here was vs. the state of the world at the time he was introduced in the cartoon. Obviously Clark didn’t stay dead forever, but Superboy first comes onto the scene as a young clone of Superman who insists he is the new Superman (one of the four characters trying to do so during the event). This is in the main DC universe in the early 90’s, which means that heroes in general, including teen heroes, aren’t a new thing! Not only has the Justice League been around for a while but so has the Teen Titans. Once Clark is alive again, Superboy goes off on his own to establish himself as an individual teen hero.

So how is that different in the cartoon?

In the cartoon, Superboy is first introduced in the pilot episodes “Independence Day” and “Fireworks”

on the 4th of July in (what most people consider to be) 2010. This was supposed to be the day that Robin (Dick Grayson), Speedy (Roy Harper), Kid Flash (Wally West), and Aqualad (Kaldur’ahm) would get to see the true Justice League HQ at the Hall of Justice, which... doesn’t go exactly as planned.

In this world, superheroes are a newer thing, this is something that the creators have talked about before. At this point, while there is an established Justice League, there are no known teams of teen superheroes. Just the fact that as of season one Dick Grayson is still Robin is a pretty good indicator that this world is early in it’s time with a Batman. Now, the sidekicks aren’t a secret, as they appear very publicly in this first episode, but they are almost always seen acting with their mentors at this point. Again, there is no Teen Titans in this setting, and there never has been.

So when they do form the first teen hero team? It is kept covert-ops. They do not publicize that they act as a superhero team, and the members who weren’t already publicly known heroes (mainly Miss Martian and Superboy) end up being pretty… unknown to a lot of the world outside the hero/villain community! Again their existence is not strictly kept a secret, but they keep the fact that there’s a team of minors who are heroes going on independent missions VERY under the radar on purpose. Thus, those who aren’t going around doing super public hero activities just don’t have nearly as much of a presence.

So to summarize:

In the comics, Superboy is immediately put in a spotlight (he befriends a reporter and is all over tv and literally trademarks the name Superman) becoming known to the world and establishes himself as a solo acting hero YEARS before joining any teams.

In the cartoon, Superboy is kept relatively out of the spotlight, immediately becomes part of a covert-ops team and doesn’t act solo very often. The well known teen heroes in this setting are sidekicks working under a mentor, and Superboy does not actually act as a sidekick.

What does this mean for Superboy?

Superboy in the comics gets to, right away, act on his own and get a taste of what being Superman is like. In the cartoon, he’s brought into the world at a time where there already is a Superman. I think back to this bit from the therapy episode, where he says:

“See, from the moment I first opened my eyes in that Cadmus pod, there’s been one thing I’ve wanted, and feared. To know what it is to be Superman.”

Comics Superboy started out getting to do that! He immediately got a shot at filling that role, and he then makes the choice to relinquish it back to the original once he’s alive again. He (begrudgingly at first) understood that it wasn’t yet his time to be Superman, and knows he’ll someday fill those shoes for real- but in the meantime being Superboy is gonna be his own thing and he’ll embrace it and make it work.

Cartoon Superboy is left in a shadow, not ever truly knowing what it’s like to fill those shoes (except in a doomsday scenario training exercise gone awry that he then just feels intense guilt over). This leaves him a lot more frustrated and lost, and I think is a major contributor to how angry this version of Superboy is compared to his much more ‘chill go with the flow’ attitude in the comics.

Cadmus

In the comics, in that same issue he’s introduced, we find out that Superboy broke out of his cloning tube prematurely and left Cadmus with the assistance of the second Newsboy Legion, who also gave him his first leather jacket, before the programming that would allow Cadmus to control him was implemented.

He quickly gets up to speed with the situation, that Clark is dead. So he comes on the scene starting to save people and saying he is Superman, or at least the clone of the original one. A major thing that does influence his character here is the fact that… this is the 90’s. He is designed around the idea of what is ‘cool’ back in 1993. (look, even his original character design sheets call him cool)

So right off the bat he’s got a stereotypical ‘cool teen guy in that era’ personality, which is often played for comedy to add a little lightness to some of the dark things happening during this event.

Anyways, he has left Cadmus, he’s acting on his own, and he starts realizing that his powers aren’t exactly the same as Superman’s over the course of the Reign of the Supermen story.

After the main conflict is settled and Clark is fully alive and acting as Superman again, the two of them end up going back to Cadmus to find out what the exact deal is with him. I’ll go into this more in a later point, but they find out he’s not exactly a clone of Superman (or Lex- him being actually involved as a DNA donor is a retcon that happened a decade later). They agree to let someone from Cadmus (Dubbilex- the grey guy with the horns in this pic) leave Metropolis with him, as he sets out on a press tour to establish himself as Superboy now that he relinquished the trademark on the Superman name back to Clark.

Let’s pause and look at how this is different in the cartoon.

In the cartoon, when the trio of Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad decide to prove themselves to their mentors they run off on their own to attend to a fire at Project Cadmus when the Justice League got called off to do something else. Upon arriving, they accidentally uncover some weird things about Cadmus, like the crazy amount of sublevels, the creatures roaming around, and the fact that it’s not on the main power grids. They eventually find Superboy, still in his cloning tube. They break him out, but then get captured themselves.

When they are then put into tubes by Cadmus personnel, they manage to convince Superboy to help free them by promising him things like getting to meet Superman, and see the moon. The group of four now working together manages to escape from the building and it topples down, where they are then greeted by the Justice League who are Not Happy.

Superman flies away shortly after, and the group of kids explain to their remaining mentors that sure, they disobeyed orders, but they accomplished something good here, and they are going to keep doing it, whether the League likes it or not. The compromise is the formation of The Team, to be covert-ops while the Justice League acts publicly, and the boys are joined by Miss Martian.

So to summarize:

In the comics, Superboy leaves Cadmus pretty independently (with some assistance) to go act on his own as a hero immediately. He returns to Cadmus later for more information, and they reveal truths to him about his existence. After he knows his truth, he goes off to continue establishing himself as a solo hero but lets Cadmus still supervise what he’s doing through Dubbilex.

In the cartoon, Superboy is rescued from Cadmus by Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad, without knowing pretty much anything about himself besides the fact that he is a clone of Superman, and is immediately put on the covert ops team.

What it means for Superboy:

Comic Superboy goes to act on his own, even after he admits he’s not the real Superman anymore. Yes he’s not 100% alone in terms of ‘he’s got people (Rex, Roxy, Dubbilex, Tana) around him’, but as a hero he’s a solo act and ends up taking residence in Hawaii. In the cartoon, by joining a team right away, he’s taking on a very different style of being a hero, especially because the team itself is covert-ops. Rather than regularly saving the day all on his own much like Superman, which can help comic Superboy feel like he’s still living up to the name more, cartoon Superboy is working under the radar in a group setting, while still wanting to desperately fill those Superman shoes.

He is overconfident in his abilities and wants to be the hero he was created to be, so him being put into this very different type of superhero situation is another major contributor to the frustration/anger. Even later on when comics Superboy is part of forming the Young Justice team, they were never a secret covert-ops team, they were always publicly known. (hell, a reporter is the one who gave them the team name Young Justice because he’d misheard Bart)

Superboy & Superman

In the comics, as we have established, Clark was dead at the time Superboy first came on the hero scene. Clark comes back to life, during a little bit of a lull in the middle of the huge conflict. He immediately accepts that Superboy is one of four who came forward to try to replace him, and one of the only two (Superboy & Steel) who genuinely only had good intentions in doing so. Clark, Steel, Supergirl, Hal Jordan, and Superboy then all work together in the big battle against the Cyborg Superman.

Once things are settled, Clark is curious about him, and where he came from and his origin, so they end up going to Cadmus together with Guardian and learning more about him, as I previously mentioned. Once it is established that Superboy is in fact a metahuman clone who was created to mimic Superman, but is not actually a clone of him, Superman still accepts him and thinks he’s earned his right to continue using the ’S’ shield and have the name of Superboy.

They part ways so Superboy can go on his press tour, but in general they have pretty positive interactions where they mutually respect each other! Not too much later in the comics even (I forget exaaactly when this happens but it’s definitely before the 1998 Young justice comic), Superman is the first one to give Superboy a real name, “Kon-El”, something he is so happy about he literally cries.

How is this different in the cartoon?

When the boys first escaped, and Superboy first meets the Justice League, Clark is standoffish. Other members of the league need to nudge him over to go actually talk to Superboy, and it’s not much of a conversation before he flies off and away, leaving Superboy frustrated and alone.

This… turns into the standard for almost the entire first season. Other characters constantly telling Clark that he needs to reach out and be support for the boy (like in this iconic diner scene with Bruce and Clark), but Clark consistently being too freaked out by the fact that someone made a clone of him without his knowledge to properly accept Conner. While this does over time get better, this being the immediate reaction when Superboy is brand new in the world definitely… has an impact!

He is rejected by the person he idolizes, and feels neglected and abandoned, and definitely kinda overcompensates with ego to try to make up for it.

So:

In the comics, Superman and Superboy work together from the start, not falling into a hero/sidekick situation but rather acknowledging each other as individual heroes with respect for one another. They grow to see each other as family much faster, and little tension between them. A crucial difference in situations, though, is that at the time these versions first meet Superboy is not actually a clone of Superman.

In the cartoon, Superman at first avoids Superboy, and does not offer guidance or mentorship or anything the boy needs. It is clear that he wants to work with Superman and be like him, since it was what he was created to do. It takes a lot of time for Clark to accept Conner in this setting, and there is a lot of tension for the first several months Conner exists. (they seem to settle this towards the end of season 1/during the gap between season 2, but it still has it’s impact on who Conner is early in his life)

What does this mean?

I feel like this is another major factor that contributes to Conner being so angry all the time in the cartoon, he feels immediately rejected by the person he’s supposed to be someday, rather than accepted by him. Again, very different from how comics Superboy got a chance to be Superman, and a chance to then work with the real deal as equals.

Friendships, Relationships and Identity

When Superboy is freed by the second Newsboy Legion, it’s primarily out of a ‘we’re clones who are stuck here, but you need to be out there, you’re what Metropolis needs right now!’ kind of idea. The first person he actually becomes close to is a reporter named Tana Moon.

Tana and Superboy’s relationship is… bad once it actually becomes romantic due to their huge age difference (she’s around 23, he is for all intents and purposes 16), but during the Reign of the Supermen where they’re still just friends for the most part, it’s not as bad. Tana becomes the GBS correspondent who focuses on everything Superboy (at this time still insisting he is the new Superman) is doing as a hero, and they become close friends.

GBS then also brings in Rex Leech (and his daughter Roxy) to be his agent, to promote Superboy and manage things for him. Rex is exploitative as hell, but Roxy does become another really important person to Superboy. These characters along with Dubbilex are his main supporting cast at the start of his solo comic when he’s in Hawaii.

In this whole era, Superboy is pretty much a celebrity. He’s cool, he’s a superhero, and I think it’s very notable he does not have a secret Identity. For a decent chunk of time, he is always just ‘Superboy’ (until, as I mentioned earlier, Clark gives him the name Kon-El. Even so, he doesn’t adopt a regular secret identity [Conner Kent, although he actually used a different one, Carl Grummett, before that!] until he begins living with the Kents in the early 2000s). By the time he joins any teams, Kon is pretty damn confident in who he is as a hero and has a relatively good grasp on who he is in general, if anything he’s a little too confident.

Young Justice was created in the aftermath of World Without Grown Ups when the trio of Superboy, Robin (Tim Drake) and Impulse (Bart Allen) had teamed up. After they saved the day they realized they worked well together and formed their team, utilizing the old Justice League base in Mount Justice. They were eventually joined by more members, especially relevant here is Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) who Kon later dates for a portion of the Teen Titans run that these four are in after Young Justice ends.

The four of them become close, and when Kon dies during Infinite Crisis it rips a hole in everything they had established growing up together over the past several years (Cassie joins a cult dedicated to bringing him back, Tim tries to clone a new Kon, Bart got aged up and took on the mantle of the Flash, etc) and Bart’s death that followed similarly shook the remaining Cassie and Tim. This group eventually does get to reunite, with Kon and Bart coming back during Final Crisis, solidifying how even things like death don’t keep them apart for long. It’s hard to look at the comic book versions of these four characters and imagine how they would be without their connections to each other... until you look at the YJ cartoon and see a world where they’re not even all part of the same generation, let alone a friend group.

Now in the cartoon…

The first people Conner primarily interacts with are Dick, Wally, Kaldur, and M’gann, along with the League members who interact with The Team pretty regularly, Red Tornado, Batman, and Black Canary. He’s shown to be friends with the other memebers of the team and get along with them relatively well, but in general he’s not much of a social person.

Much like in the comics, Superboy is considered very attractive, and immediately upon their meeting, M’gann is interested in him. Very, very interested in him.

At first it definitely does seem more just like an innocent crush, but it’s later revealed to be a little more… concerning than that. As in ‘Megan subtlety influencing Superboy to become her dream boyfriend based on a TV show she likes’ concerning. Like… she literally gives him the name ‘Conner’ after the TV show character that was the boyfriend of the character she bases her human self and entire identity on. The two date and once that becomes a thing, a lot of their plot lines in the following seasons revolve around the ups and downs of their relationship.

In general in this show, Superboy doesn’t really get much of a chance to establish himself on his own terms. Within months of him leaving his cloning pod, he and M’gann start going to high school with secret identities, so he’s already having to hide who he truly is to blend in with other people, before he even knows who he truly is.

So to compare:

In the comics, Superboy gets to figure out who he is as Superman’s Clone/Superboy very publicly, has multiple love interests and a celebrity status, and over time becomes part of a tight-knit group of friends. He doesn’t use a regular secret identity for the first several years he’s active.

In the cartoon, Superboy has one love interest with a very large impact on him, not nearly as much focus is given to his other friendships, and he immediately adopts a secret identity meaning he needs to hide who he is from the start.

What it means:

These factors play a big difference in his attitude, particularly highlighting how extroverted his comic version is and how introverted his cartoon version is. Comic Superboy never really needed to hide who he was until years into his career, vs being told to do so early on in his life. When you get used to needing to hide things so early, that can definitely lead to being more private/disconnected from others. Also somewhat related- in the comics, when Kon is given knowledge in his cloning tube, more pop culture got included. He mentions knowing Star Wars without having seen it, and references a ton of TV and Movies, vs the cartoon version of him that seems to have been given a lot of history of the world but not the current fun stuff. It’s the difference between knowing what’s going on in the world and what’s popular, vs only knowing the past and what’s fundamental. Not knowing pop culture like this can also really contribute to feeling alienated and lead to introversion. (I just... I think about how in the comics Kon’s favorite TV show is Wendy The Werewolf Stalker, in the cartoon Conner just... watches white noise static)

Also, having a completely different set of friends with different personalities has a big effect, people are always gonna be influenced by the people they’re close to to some extent. Bumping Conner up to Dick’s generation of heroes instead of Tim’s not only gives him completely different friends, but it also puts him in this position of being one of the ‘Original Team Members’. By this I mean, a member of the first iteration of the only teen team, one of the people that younger heroes coming onto the scene and joining the team in later seasons see as an experienced and older team member to look up to (despite the fact that cartoon Conner is permanently 16- they never fixed that for him like in the comics). That just creates a different dynamic entirely, because in the comics even when the Tim/Kon/Cassie/Bart group are more experienced on their team late in the Teen Titans run, they are still always going to have heroes like Dick Grayson, Donna Troy, Wally West etc as the older generation of ‘original teen heroes’ who came before them.

Also, while I am talking mostly about in-universe reasoning here, I do wanna bring up one slightly more meta reason that might also have contributed to them choosing to go for a more ‘introverted brooding hero’ characterization with him: the fact that their version of Wally already filled the ‘flirty jokey’ archetype original Comics Kon fits into. Having two characters like that in the show from the start would definitely get... overwhelming. And at the time this show was first airing, in the comics, he was relatively devoted to Cassie and not nearly as flirty anymore anyways.

Lex Luthor / Details of Cloning

In the comics, as I have already mentioned and will now actually explain, when Superboy was first introduced he was not the clone of Superman and Lex Luthor as we know him to be today. Kon was a metahuman clone, made with the DNA of Paul Westfield who worked at Cadmus, that they genetically altered to look like Superman, and gave powers based on the energy aura they discovered to exist around Clark’s dead body. This telekinetic field gave Kon the distinct powers he had for his first decade of existence: His Tactile Telekinesis (often referred to by him as TTK)

Lex Luthor was originally not directly involved in his creation, but he was aware that it was going on as is revealed during the Reign of the Supermen arc. Kon’s TTK allowed him to mimic Superman’s flight and strength, but not all of his powers. TTK also gave him powers Superman DOESN’T have, such as his ability to dismantle machinery or mold materials he is touching into different shapes. (The reason this is called Tactile Telekinesis is because there needs to be a tactile element, he needs to be touching the things)

It is not until 2003, a decade after Superboy was created, that writer Geoff Johns in his Teen Titans run decided to alter Superboy’s origin. He established that Lex Luthor had been the real human DNA donor and that Superman’s Kryptonian DNA was actually used in the cloning process. Around this time, Conner also begins to exhibit more of the typical Kryptonian powers, like Clark did around this age.

This information is at first only known by Conner and Tim, because the email had actually been sent to Tim directly. The two keep it a secret as Conner was not ready to tell the rest of the team, because he fears the implications it has, and is afraid of becoming evil or being rejected. This revelation about Lex being one of his ‘parents’ DNA-wise coming years into his hero career changes a lot of things for Conner, and makes him begin to question who he is. Unfortunately, Lex does at one point take control of Conner and force him to break Tim’s arm and attack Cassie directly (as well as the rest of the team, but these two specifically are what Conner expresses the most guilt over after the fact). This era of Conner in the comics is where he’s definitely closest to his cartoon counterpart, because he’s very troubled and dealing with a lot of heavy stuff regarding himself as a person. Yet there’s still traces of who he has always been in there. I mean, if you’re only familiar with cartoon Conner, can you really imagine his final words as he’s dying after saving the world being “Isn’t it cool?”

Now, looking at the cartoon…

Conner finds out about his connection to Lex in November, only a few months after having existed outside of a cloning tube. He finds it out on his own, from Lex speaking to him directly, after Conner went back to investigate the remains of Cadmus and ended up having a fight with Match (another clone who is able to pass for Conner’s duplicate who they… their version of Match is another thing they drastically changed from the comic version but as we’ve established that’s something they like to do so I’m not gonna dwell on it).

In the cartoon, Conner’s powerset is, from the start, different from both Superman and comic Superboy. Here he has heightened senses and strength and the ability to leap really far, but he lacks actual flight and some of the other standard Kryptonian powers, and has no TTK. The cartoon explains these gaps in his powers as being due to his half human DNA, and they introduce these patches that are able to suppress his human DNA and give him temporary access to full powers. Lex uses these patches as a way to manipulate him. Much like in the comics, Lex has a code word programmed into Conner that effects him, although it isn’t quite used for the same amount of ‘total mind control’, and he doesn’t get fully brainwashed and turn against the team or anything. Instead, the code word (here “Red Sun” rather than “Aut vincere, aut mori” [Translated as “to conquer or die" / "victory or death”]) just leaves him stuck in a hypnotic trance.

So:

In the comics, Kon finds out after years of believing he was a metahuman clone who was given powers to mimic Superman, that he is actually a clone of Lex Luthor and Superman, which alters his entire perspective on himself! This causes him to become a lot more unsure and anxious about who he is, in stark contrast with how confident he was before. There are still traces of his old self within him, but this is a development in his character that influences him moving forward, making him a bit more serious but still at his core the same person he used to be.

In the cartoon, Conner finds out after months of thinking he was a clone of just Superman, that he has half human DNA and the donor was Lex Luthor. While he always had confidence in his abilities, he was still somewhat lost as a person in knowing who he really was outside of things other people have assigned to him (teammate, boyfriend, superhero, etc), and finding out this information about himself just adds to the uncertainty and frustration.

What it means:

Having this struggle be something Conner has to deal with so early in his existence is one of the most fundamental changes in my opinion. Finding out that Lex Luthor is one of your clone parents is something that will alter your entire perception of yourself and who you are! In the comics, Conner had already been confident in who he was so it shakes his world in a really big way, but in the cartoon he still didn’t know who he really was so it just adds to further confusion.

I think that even with the more serious characterization Kon starts getting in the 2003 Teen TItans run, his history and past as the fun cool 90′s Metropolis Kid isn’t entirely forgotten, it’s still a part of who he is/was. Sure, maybe he’s sometimes even embarrassed by how he used to be, but it’s not treated as though it didn’t happen. All of his history comes together to create the character and who he is by the time he wears just a T shirt as a costume.

By skipping over the fun era of his life and jumping right into who he was when he started facing these huge changes, it creates such a completely different set of challenges for him and that contributes directly to how he’s characterized.

Putting it all together

The ultimate point I am trying to reach in all of this is that, beyond just ‘they made a writing choice to make him different’ the environment that Superboy was brought into and the events that took place right when he came into the world greatly influenced the type of character he would become. Every time an adaptation is made of something like comics, there are going to be changes and alterations to fit the world the creators want to make. Sometimes these changes are minor and don’t actually change who a character is (an example for the YJ cartoon’s universe itself: In the tie-in comics [issue 6] it’s established in this universe that the Flying Graysons weren’t just Dick and his parents, but other family members were active parts of it too. One was an uncle also named Richard, who actually survived the fall that killed the rest of his family but was left paralyzed and thus unable to care for him. This uncle already used the nickname ‘Rick’ which is likely why Dick ended up using ‘Dick’ as a name in a modern setting even though it has fallen out of popularity as a nickname because uh, connotations. This is something that is mostly unique to their world and helps to explain some things, but it’s not like tragically losing a few more family members changed their version of Dick and his backstory that drastically. At his core, he still has many similarities to his comic self) but they’re still changes, and that’s okay. Superboy, though, is such an extreme case where they made so many changes that at his core he really does become a completely separate character. Sure he has the name and design, but I was able to write five thousand words about differences here and am struggling to come up with more similarities beyond that.

I think there still could be specks of the original Superboy buried inside cartoon Conner, and that maybe he could have been more like his original version under other circumstances. Looking at these differences and where they come from is, I think, a cool way to begin to understand what elements contribute to who each version of Conner Kent really is. I think it’s clear from how I wrote this that I prefer the comic version, but there are definitely things that are fun to look at and think about with both.

if u read all of this UH thanks for listenin to me ramble! sorry if this is incomprehensibe!

#rainbowroadimpulse #sam writes #conner kent #superboy

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amillionsmiles · 4 years

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in your bedroom after the war (Dick/Artemis)

Title: in your bedroom after the war Summary: As far as coping mechanisms go, Artemis could be doing worse. At least her method has a gymnast’s ass. / Post-Invasion, pre-Outsiders. Rated M. A/N: I have one (1) agenda and that is messy grieving fuck buddies who are each other’s ride-or-dies. if you are not into fic that sits squarely in sad feral horny territory, then this is probably not your speed.

[Read and review here] or continue under the cut.

| GOTHAM

| JANUARY 14, 2017; 12:05 AM EST

Artemis is a bit heavier than she was in her teenage years, but her feet land lightly on the fire escape by the window. An hour ago, she’d called her mom from Metropolis, promising she’d be home by midnight. Ever since her daughter faked her death a year ago, Paula Nguyen has become even more of a worrywart, and Artemis knows that the five minutes she’s running late are going to cause her to receive an earful.

“Didn’t think I’d see you back in this neck of the woods.” A familiar figure drops from the roof above onto the rung below her.

“Nightwing.”

She’s not surprised that he’s been keeping tabs. Officially, he’s been on a leave of absence for the past six months, but Dick, like her, is vigilant in his grief.

She’d come back to Gotham because it put her closer to Metropolis and Beta Squad’s continued investigation of LexCorp, but the truth is that she could have Zeta-tubed from Palo Alto easily. Their—her—apartment had been no good though, not without Wally. So she’d left most of her things in storage to figure out later and moved back in with her mom. On days when Artemis can’t muster the energy to get out of bed, Paula wheels determinedly around the kitchen, ready to whip up some mì xào or a warm bowl of mì gói. They play card games and laugh about how bad Wally was at tiến lên the first time Paula tried to teach him. Your boy has no patience, he always wants to play his strongest cards right away, her mom had teased, and Wally had protested, I make it a rule to always put my best foot forward! and Artemis had loved him even more then.

Loved. Loves. She hates the past tense.

“I mean, were you ever going to ask me to grab coffee?”

She can see the bits of Wally in his cracks. In a room together, it was always easy to tell they were best friends from the way they riffed off each other. The acrobat and the speedster: all verbal gymnastics and fast-moving quips. But unlike Wally, who liked poking fun because he liked getting attention, Dick is at his wittiest when trying to avoid talking about himself.

Artemis reaches out and pulls him to sit down beside her. She makes a show of looking at her watch.

“How’s… 12:15 AM this Saturday?”

Dick pretends to check it against his mental schedule. If his is anything like hers, it probably goes: Wake up. Exercise (beating up bad guys counts). Mourn.

“Yeah, seems like I can swing it.”

“Perfect,” says Artemis, sliding up the glass panes to let them into her childhood bedroom. “I’ve got just the stuff.”

In the kitchen, Brucely stirs briefly from his dog bed to sniff the air and yip, then curls back asleep. Paula hands Dick a mug, waiting for him to take a sip before saying, “So you were the one who had the brilliant plan to have my daughter fake her death.”

Dick splutters; from the table, Artemis rises to his defense. “Mom,” she says. “Leave him be.”

Setting his cup down, Dick leans against the cabinets, bending his head slightly and rubbing the back of his neck. He does a good job of appearing chastised, and Artemis wants to roll her eyes, if only because she’s heard from Bette and Raquel that this pose is far too effective at convincing women to want to forgive him or try again.

“I’m not leading much of anything these days, if that’s at all a comfort to you.”

“Hmph.” Paula sniffs. “You live alone?”

“Yeah.” Dick shoots Artemis a questioning look over her mom’s head. Artemis shrugs.

“What do you do to fill the time?”

“A lot of reading. Gotham’s library system actually has a pretty good selection, believe it or not. I’ve also gotten really into meditating.”

“And you don’t sleep.”

Dick stiffens. For the first time, he looks exposed, a boy with too much guilt and too much time on his hands.

“I do. Tonight I was just… restless.”

Paula nods and backs up her wheelchair so she can sit by Artemis, curling her fingers over Artemis’s hand and squeezing. She raises her drink, Artemis and Dick following suit, the three of them toasting to invisible losses.

“Aren’t we all.”

Later, back on the fire escape, Dick taps his fingers against the railing, jittery. “I feel like I need to start doing jumping jacks. What was in that stuff?”

Artemis bites back a smile. “Yeah, Vietnamese coffee packs a hit. That’s my bad. Probably should have given you something non-caffeinated at this hour.”

“It’s fine. I’ll jog it out, or something.” He turns to go, but Artemis stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, listen—it was good seeing you tonight. And if you need someone to talk to…” What she really means is: it’d be nice to be around someone who’s hurting as much as I am. Not to say that the rest of the team wasn’t as torn up over Wally’s death, but she and Dick had been ground zero. Closest to the blast.

After a pause, Dick nods. “Yeah… I could use a sparring partner, actually. I’ll send you an address.”

“Okay.” Satisfied, Artemis withdraws her hand, curling her fingers into her palm.

It feels like a start.

Dick’s directions lead Artemis to Wayne Manor; from there he takes her to the Bat Cave.

“I thought you were striking out on your own,” Artemis says, using her forearms to deflect a kick to her face. Dick grunts and recovers, throwing a punch to her stomach; she dances out of the way.

“I am. I just pop in here from time to time because Bruce has better equipment. Plus there’s less of a chance of me disturbing the neighbors.” He gestures to the eerily blue-lit stone walls around them.

Artemis feints and goes low, ducking under Dick’s guard. Two quick hits to Dick’s sternum pushes him back, before he gets a hand on her wrist and twists her around so that her back is pressed against his chest.

“Weren’t we supposed to be talking?”

Kicking his shin, Artemis breaks free. “All right, fine. I’ll start.” Jab. “I keep wanting a scapegoat.” Kick. “Like, one person to blame, instead of something as big as the Reach. But it’s not some giant revenge thing, and I know Wally wouldn’t want me to go down that sort of all-consuming rabbit hole even if it was, and that pisses. Me. Off.” On those last words, she manages to use Dick’s momentum against him and flips him over her shoulder.

For a minute, it’s so quiet between them she can hear the faint plip of water dripping from a stalactite into the water below the sparring dais. Still lying on the floor, Dick confesses, “I keep hearing him.”

“I make a joke to myself and he’s there, in my ear, with the punchline. And then…” He passes a hand over his face. “And then I realize that the real punchline is him being gone.”

Slowly, Artemis approaches him. She feels like she did when they were undercover at Haly’s circus so many years ago, that brief moment of hangtime before their hands connected in the air. She means to sit down next to him, pat his shoulder, she doesn’t know what, but instead Dick sweeps her legs out from under her and she goes down hard, the air whooshing out of her chest as she falls flat on her back.

“Agh!” The release sets something loose inside her. Next thing she knows, she’s yelling again, louder, just because.

Dick catches on and then it’s just the two of them shouting, their voices echoing through the cavern, threading around and piling atop each other like a flock of birds. After they’re done, Dick rolls so that they’re lying side by side.

“You know, when we were starting out—when we first became friends—I used to make fun of Wally that if he kept talking so much while running he was bound to swallow more bugs, or something. And he’d just shoot back like, ‘Nah dude, you think I’m not fast enough to see them and dodge them in the air?’ But you know how he was always so hungry after missions? One time I was so mad at him I put a bug in his sandwich. I’ve never forgotten the look on his face after he bit into it and I said, dodge that.”

“You didn’t.” Artemis gasps and covers her mouth, horrified, but she can see it so vividly: the colors draining from Wally’s face, making his freckles pop even more against his skin, the same greenish tint his cheeks took the time they went to Vietnam and he got food poisoning. He’d spent two days feverishly glaring up at the mosquito netting, and Artemis had draped cold hand towels over his forehead and promised she wasn’t going to leave him for the very obliging boy who kept bringing them ice.

“I did.” Dick is gleeful. “Really put the ‘rank’ in prank.”

Artemis snorts; the snort turns into a full-blown guffaw. Dick turns toward her, laughing too. His hair is matted with sweat but still soft; it brushes against her forehead.

It feels so good to be close to someone again, to be able to flip on a dime from sadness to frustration to anger to laughter and not have to explain herself. She can’t remember the last time she smiled and didn’t feel guilty about it, and she means it more affectionately than anything when she reaches over and brings Dick’s mouth to hers, like if she inhales whatever they’ve temporarily managed to create here between them, it’ll be enough to tide her over for the next few months. For a second, he’s warm and responsive, before his lips stiffen and he pulls back.

“I shouldn’t have done that.”

Shouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t. Shouldn’t beat yourself up about it, shouldn’t blame yourself for getting back in the game. Artemis is sick of people telling her how to deal, how it’s supposed to go. It’ll get better and then it doesn’t. People talk like there are guidebooks for this kind of shit, like it’s a marathon she just needs to pace herself through. And it’s the stupidest thing, but she misses being held.

She sits up and crosses her arms, resisting the urge to curl in on herself. “You didn’t do anything. I’ll go.”

“No, Artemis, wait, I don’t think you should go, I just want to understand what’s going on—”

“I want you to touch me, okay?” she explodes. “I want you to touch me because he’s never going to again and I know you loved him too and—and maybe if it’s you, I won’t feel so desperately alone.”

Dick looks stricken, and then, hesitantly, he reaches for her. His eyes are so blue, the kind of crushed eggshell you’d use to make a paint. “You’re not alone.”

“Prove it,” she says, vision blurring with tears—wanting, needing him closer, and then his hairline is up against hers again and his nose is at her cheek, his mouth at her jaw, soft but with a willingness to bruise. Don’t ask me what we’re about to do, Artemis silently begs, and Dick doesn’t.

Wally had been a restless lover. Always turning them over, switching positions. Artemis had taken it as a challenge, part of the ongoing competition that defined their relationship. Deep down, she’d known that Wally would be just as content if the rest of their sex life consisted solely of spooning gently on Sundays, which, if anything, was why she’d been so eager to experiment—because it felt like an easy gift she could give, not something she had to master to “maintain excitement” or make him stay.

She’s not sure what she expected from Dick. Maybe that’s a comfort—that she wasn’t fantasizing before they happened, wondering about all the mechanics of how it would go. Dick lets her call the shots, lets her ride him into the ground, the grip of his fingers around her thighs the only reminder she isn’t just angling toward oblivion. When he presses his thumb between her legs, it’s a weird sort of anchor—like hearing a voice pick up on a line you thought was dead. She has a body, and here’s someone on the other end of it, caring about her release. As soon as that thought hits, the relief shudders through her; she keeps rocking long enough to feel Dick follow, a stutter and a grunt, before she collapses boneless over him, the sweat of his skin a comforting stickiness against her cheek.

Internally, she apologizes to Bruce for desecrating his training space. Then again, they’re hardly the first of the Justice League to get handsy in less than appropriate places. She’s seen how Black Canary and Green Arrow act around each other.

Below her, Dick catches his breath. The rush of blood—his or hers—is loud in her ears.

“I didn’t think you’d be so…” Giving, she means to say, but it gets lost on her tongue. “I mean, Zatanna…” she trails off again.

If Dick’s embarrassed at the prospect of his ex-girlfriend having blabbed about the details of their sex life to Artemis, he doesn’t show it. His fingers find a snag in her hair; gently, he works it loose. The air smells hedonistic. He keeps combing. Nice is the only word she can think to describe it, and that makes her want to cry again, so she squeezes her eyes shut.

“Thank you,” she whispers against his chest.

Dick pauses his ministrations. He flattens his palm against the base of her neck and just—holds her there.

“Don’t mention it.”

When she goes home that afternoon to shower, she runs the water on full blast for a long time.

Armed with Chinese food, she visits Dick’s place the next day intent on making amends. Dick doesn’t even act surprised; he just points to the glass coffee table where she can set the bag of chopsticks, napkins, and takeout.

“I’m trying to decide what to watch.”

There’s really no need for him to stand in front of the TV the way he does, one hand propped on his hip as he clicks through options with the remote. Artemis lets herself ogle, a bit. The surest way to blow past what happened between them yesterday is to be honest with herself, right? And as far as coping mechanisms go, Artemis could have done worse. At least her method has a gymnast’s ass.

“Any preferences?”

“Between what?” asks Artemis, cracking open the carton of lo mein and settling back against the cushions. The Netflix suggestion algorithm onscreen paints a condemning picture of Dick’s tastes. “True crime or… true crime?”

Wally had been really into nature documentaries. One time during freshman year, when they were still living on Stanford’s campus, they’d gotten high in Wally’s dorm room and watched Blue Planet. Wally had cried when the seal got flung apart by killer whales.

“I’ll Be Gone in the Dark it is, then,” says Dick. He settles next to her on the couch, peeling back one of the orders and sniffing its contents. “What’s this one?”

“Salt and pepper ribs. They were today’s special.”

“Artemis.” Dick beams. “You really do care about me.”

Ten minutes into the episode begs a single question: “Isn’t it sort of depressing that you spend so much of your day fighting crime, and then you go home to unwind and just watch… more of it?”

Dick shrugs. “It keeps me sharp. And it’s nice seeing other people solve problems.”

“Well, if you ever feel like branching out, there’s a short film about Rubik’s cubes you might like.” Artemis nudges his side. “Remember when you were a scrawny math geek?”

Bringing both hands behind his head, Dick smirks. “Still a math geek. Just not scrawny.”

Artemis stares. That was just a bit of friendly showboating, right? Or was it a flirt? Not trusting herself, she whips her gaze back toward the TV. What feels like eons later, the credits roll.

“Artemis,” Dick says, too soft for having just finished a show about murder. He taps the corner of his mouth. “You’ve got some food stuck.”

She wipes with the back of her hand; a breaded piece of orange chicken emerges as the culprit. Without thinking, she flicks it off, sending it flying somewhere onto Dick’s carpet.

“Oops.”

Chuckling, Dick shakes his head. “I need to vacuum tomorrow, anyways.”

The mention of tomorrow stirs her. “Right. I should head out.”

“Yeah.” Dick rises to help her clean up their mess, holding open the plastic bag so she can toss in the soiled napkins and other bits of trash. “Or—”

He hesitates, but the hesitation’s enough. It might as well be a hand on her wrist, with how it stops her in her tracks. All night, despite what she told herself, she’s been looking for proof: proof that his aloneness fits the shape of hers, that he needs her, too. This time, Dick makes the first move—cups her face in both hands and kisses her, slow and deep and full of heat. Some pepper from the food they ate still lingers on his lips, making her mouth tingle, and Artemis is dizzy and flat on her back on the couch before she knows it, giving in.

Not scrawny at all, she thinks, admiring the solidness of Dick’s knees on either side of her, the weight of his frame as they grind together. The sheer mechanics of it feel very horny-teenager-after-prom, but the way Dick sucks her bottom lip and swallows her breath down with it is decidedly adult. These days, Artemis practically lives in her sports bra, which doesn’t exactly grant easy access, but when Dick’s fingertips skim over the cotton covering her breasts the sensation zings all the way down her spine.

“Need… off…”

“Yeah,” Dick murmurs, humming as he moves down the column of her neck. “Gimme a sec, I’m working on it.”

She’d worn sweats because she figured their bagginess would keep her from sparring again and any potential… situations that could arise from that. Instead, all it means is Dick unties the drawstrings easily, sliding her pants down her legs. Cool air brushes across her as he shifts positions; she wants to sob in relief. His teeth graze her hip and then catch the edge of her panties and—oh. Fuck. The moan tears out of her and she scrabbles at the armrest, hips rising of their own accord. Next time, she is handcuffing Dick to a bed, because what he’s doing with his tongue and fingers should be illegal. She can feel him grinning, the bastard, and the only thing keeping her from crushing his head to a pulp between her thighs is the maneuver he pulls where he hooks her knees over his shoulders, so he can change the angle and plunge in deeper. Artemis shoves the edge of her T-shirt into her mouth at the last minute, only barely managing to muffle her cry.

Dick surfaces from his solo mission looking entirely too satisfied, mouth glistening. Trembling, still, from her orgasm, Artemis squints at him, possessed by some combination of unbridled lust and rage.

“Dick.”

“You calling, or asking?”

“Shut up,” she hisses. She feels like a newborn foal, after what he just did to her, but the urge to dismantle him just as thoroughly sends her surging upward and pushing him back. Dick welcomes their reversed positions by peeling off his shirt and tossing it over his shoulder, all while Artemis works furiously at his belt. It shouldn’t feel so good, to hear the metal clink against his button and watch the leather slide through the loops. To see the shadows the light of the TV casts on him—the lashes on his cheeks, the hollow of his throat. Artemis hadn’t paid much attention the first time, too desperate and caught up a bit in self-loathing, but now she’s actually enjoying this, savoring the flex of Dick’s abs as he pushes up to meet her, his skin pebbling at her touch.

“I’m going to take you apart,” she purrs.

Dick groans and bucks. The sensation sends a sharp spike of pleasure through her, and she clamps down on him tighter, refusing to yield.

“Try me, Tigress,” he rasps, pushing himself up on one arm so he can mouth at her collarbone. With his other hand, he pulls off her hairtie so her hair comes free of her ponytail, and this is going to be a thing with him, isn’t it, him wanting to fuck her while her hair swings loose around her face. She indulges him for a few minutes, claws his back and bites his shoulder for good measure, but then she’s pushing him back down and stretching out her body as languidly as possible to remind him who’s boss. Their pace slows. Dick keeps a hand fisted in her hair, so he can tug her head back in order to keep her neck exposed to his wanton mouth, but his grip gets less sure the closer she pushes him to the edge.

“Art—” says Dick, the single syllable like a painting pinned to the wall, fraught with desire, and then he just lets it drop, the tresses of her hair falling through his fingers. She wants to tell him that he’s beautiful, that he does look like a boy wonder, right then, in the midst of coming undone, chest flushed and hair mussed and pupils blown nearly wide enough to overtake the blue.

She doesn’t, but she stays the night, and that’s close enough.

High-functioning, Artemis’s therapist had called her, before Artemis moved back to Gotham. And it does feel like a high—the sneaking around, the after-hours meet-ups, the back-and-forth. There’s no one really keeping tabs on her, though Artemis has plenty of cover stories if anyone asks (new intel, side reconnaissance, etcetera, etcetera). Her mom eyes her and says, “As long as you’re not planning on staging your own death again, because I will find out and I will kill you this time,” and that’s that. Artemis nearly laughs. If anything, what she’s doing is the opposite, a small resurrection. An entire month and a half passes this way: day trips and dinners and movie nights and Dick and her in a bathtub, in the shower, against a wall. She even wears a gown and heels once, not because they have an actual event to attend, but because Dick has a fantasy that involves taking her from behind in the Wayne Manor library.

They’re in his apartment on a Sunday morning bathing in the afterglow, sheets tangled around their waists. Thank god Dick is one of those assholes that splurged on not only a nice mattress but also a solid bed frame. Artemis reaches over to push the hair out of his eyes. The black tuft on the back of his head that she likes grabbing is fluffed up like a duck's tail, and under the sunlight slanting through the windows, he looks angelic.

“Are you falling back asleep?”

Yawning, Dick snags her around the waist, dragging her to him. She should not delight this much in being manhandled.

“You wore me out,” he complains, tucking his chin over her shoulder.

“They just don’t make them like they used to,” Artemis sighs. Dick growls a little at the dig, fingers tightening against her hip.

Well. If he’s going to nap, she is, too. Comfortably spooned, she snuggles back against him, prepared to drift off.

“Do you think Wally would have wanted…” Dick doesn’t finish the thought.

Artemis turns in his arms. Dick has long eyelashes, and he’s looking at her through them almost bashfully. She places a hand on his chest. Feels his heartbeat thump once, twice.

“I think he would want us to be happy.”

“Are you?” Dick’s voice fades out and he has to swallow hard to clear his throat. “Happy?”

“I’m not… miserable.”

Dick runs his hand up her bare arm, over her shoulder. “Me neither.”

“You know, Wally and I thought…” She bites her lip, remembering a whoosh of air, Wally speeding to her side to kiss her and interrupting her report on the disabled Paris MFD. I know we promised each other we’d get out of this game, but maybe we can have our life together and play hero, too. “We thought we’d have everything.”

Dick’s response isn’t mournful; it’s matter-of-fact. “After my parents died, I never really convinced myself that I could have it all.”

“That sounds like something Batman would say.”

“Does it?”

“A little.”

Once upon a time, Artemis had stood before the team ready to lay bare her darkest secret, waiting to be kicked out. And Dick had shown his hand: he’d known from the beginning and hadn’t cared. You aren’t your family. You’re one of us. She knows he’s second-guessed himself over the years, wondering how fit he actually is to play leader. But for her, trust has always been the easiest thing about the two of them. It was why she’d said yes so easily to his deep cover mission—because she knew that he wouldn’t quit until he’d brought all of them home, that he would do whatever he could to keep them safe.

Taking his face in both her hands, she looks deep into his eyes. “You deserve good things, Dick Grayson.”

“Mm.” Dick smiles into her kiss, hooks his ankle over hers. “Keep telling me that. I’ll start to believe it.”

Jade abandons Will and Lian on a Tuesday, and Artemis’s carefully crafted equilibrium falls apart. At least this time she’s not the one directly being left, unlike when she was a teenager. Her expectations of her older sister had hardly been high, but if she’d plotted them on a graph they’d have trended upward. Now they’ve tanked.

“Did she leave any hint of where she was going?” Dick asks over the whir of his juicer. He’s gotten really into squeezing oranges lately; Artemis can’t complain because he always gives her the first glass.

“It’s Jade. She never wants to be found, and I hardly think she’s about to try an Eat Pray Love type thing.”

“Eat Slash Steal, maybe?” Dick offers, dropping two ice cubes into a drink and setting it in front of her.

Artemis sips, balling up a napkin and throwing it at him at the same time. “Watch it, that’s still my family you’re talking about.”

“I’m sorry. How’s Will taking it?”

“As well as any dad trying to raise a two-year-old by himself would.”

“So, poorly.” Dick taps his finger against the table. “Are they coming here?”

Artemis looks at him blankly. “Why?”

“I figured they might want to be closer to you and your mom now that Jade’s gone. Gotham’s not so bad—you and I turned out fine. And Will probably needs to look into preschools and a babysitter for Lian soon. If you move in with me, you can bring her over whenever.”

The last piece of information slips in so casually she thinks she’s misheard. “What?”

“If you move in with me, you can bring Lian over whenever,” repeats Dick. “This place is as good as yours. You’re over here all the time anyway.”

Suddenly, she can’t breathe. “You’re serious.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She can’t meet his eyes. “W—Will’s home is in Star City. He’s not going to move.”

Slowly, Dick says, “Okay. But my offer doesn’t really depend on Will.”

Her stuff is still in boxes. She’s still paying for a storage unit almost 3,000 miles away. And Dick is waiting on her so intently it makes her chest hurt.

Artemis stands up. “We’re not doing this.”

Dick’s eyebrows rise. Annoyance, or maybe anger, flickers across his face. “You wanna fill me in on what exactly it is we’re doing, according to you?”

“We’re not going to fight about this like we’re…” In a relationship. In love. In anything other than a messy configuration started by shared grief. She doesn’t say any of it out loud, but she doesn’t need to—Dick’s always been great at reading people, and he’s known all her tells from the start.

“Right.” The single syllable comes out as cold and pointed as an icicle. He pushes his chair back from the table and stands up. The clouds are rolling in, throwing shadows across his features. Even now, Artemis wants to kiss him, wants to be the one to smooth the furrow between his eyebrows away.

“Dick…”

“Do me a favor, will you?” Dick grabs his jacket from the hook by his door, shrugging it on. He pauses, briefly, in the doorway. “Lock my door on the way out.”

That night, she lies alone in her bedroom next to the picture of her, Wally, and Brucely. Brucely snuffles at the foot of her bed and then leaps onto the covers, and this time she doesn’t shoo him off. Neither does she fall asleep.

There was a song Jade had liked to sing, passed down from their mother: a Vietnamese lullaby about a yellow butterfly, to the tune of “Frère Jacques.” The butterfly flies all over the sky. Come and see. Come and see. When it became clear that Artemis’s hair would grow in blond, not black, Jade started pulling it, making her giggle. You’re the yellow butterfly, see?

The taxicab she calls for the airport is bright yellow in the morning light. Plain old civilian travel for plain old civilian business. You don’t need to be a superhero to fly across the country and move in with your brother-in-law and your niece. She’ll sing silly little songs and wash Lian’s hair, and they’ll be a family same as anyone else’s: clumsy, incomplete.

“Artemis.” Dick coalesces out of the fog. They haven’t seen or spoken to each other in a week, and she should be mad that he’s here because it probably means he’s been monitoring her web traffic and caught wind she’d bought plane tickets. Still, all she feels is relief.

Jade had laughed when Artemis had let slip what she was doing during one rare sisterly bonding moment. “Oh, darling sister, your thing with your little bird boy isn’t about moving on. You’re using him as a holding pattern. Try not to damage him too much, hm?” Rankled, Artemis had hung up the phone—what did Jade know about anything, besides shoving it under the rug and pretending it didn’t matter? Now, though, Artemis sees things more clearly. Jade did know something about bodies and what they could and couldn’t fix; after all, isn’t that why she ran?

She worries with the strap of her duffel bag, letting Dick approach.

“If this were a romcom, you would have waited until I got to the airport and then run through security.”

“If this were a romcom,” says Dick, stopping in front of her and shoving his hands in his pockets, “I’d be trying to make you stay.”

She thinks he might be the one person left on this planet who knows her best. She thinks they could save each other, if they’d let themselves try. But they each have work to do on their own, first.

Setting down her bag, she tucks her face into the crook of his neck and breathes him in. Wherever else she goes, this spot will always feel like forgiveness. Nose buried in her hair, Dick squeezes her back.

The taxi driver rolls down his window. “Is this guy coming with us or not?”

Artemis pulls back, and there’s so much sky in Dick’s eyes.

“You know where to find me,” she says.

| STAR CITY

| JULY 29, 2018; 7:30 AM PST

“Who are you here to recruit this time?” Will asks, leaning against the doorframe, but Artemis doesn’t need an answer, doesn’t need any details but the black hair she can see just over Will’s shoulder, Dick’s voice at the end of a line.

He jumps, and she jumps with him. They’ll figure out everything else as they go.

Before Dick can respond, she says: “I’m in.”

#young justice #artemis crock #dick grayson #traught #dick x artemis #my writing #fanfiction #ff: yj

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pricetagofficial · 4 years

Text

Sweet Tarts -TD

Warnings: Pure tooth-rotting fluff

Paring: Tim Drake x Wally sis! Reader

Word Count: 2.8K

Tag List: @kishony-the-geek @idkmanicantenglish @unknowntoanyone @subtleappreciation @catxsnow @river-bottom-nightmare @screennamealreadyused @woahjaybird

A/N: I did not specify if Wally and Y/N are biological or adopted siblings, so that part is entirely left up to you and how you want to interpret it.

“Come on Y/N, just come with me. It’ll be fun!” Wally protested, pulling on your arm.

You rolled your eyes and looked up at your older brother, for the last hour he had been trying to convince you to go to a team party with him but all you wanted to do was sit and read the newest book in your favorite series. It had just recently come out and you were more than excited, but of course, Wally had other plans.

“Why can’t you just ask Dick to go with you?” you brushed him off, turning to look at your book once more.

“He already is, but I want to introduce my little sister to the rest of the team. They know literally everything about you but what you look like. You come this one time and I will never ask you again for as long as I live.” He pleaded, dashing over to look at you.

Wally did have a point, the only people you had actually met on the team were Dick, Conner, M’gann, and Artemis considering they were all close friends with Wally. You knew Dick had younger brothers, but you had never met them let alone knew what they looked like. Dick and Wally were the worst when they were together, normally where you found one, nine times out of ten the other was with them causing trouble and giving Bruce and Barry gray hairs.

There was even a space for you on the team, considering the fact that you had similar powers to that of Wally and Barry but the hero life was never for you. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to help others but Barry was stressed enough with just Wally and Bart; adding you to the mix was an accident waiting to happen. Besides, you were the slowest of them all and didn’t want to hold anyone back. Both Wally and Barry respected your decision, but Bart never stopped bugging you to join.

“Wally, you and I both know that if I go to one, it will turn into every single one, and before I know it one of you has managed to rope me into joining the team.” You closed your book and crossed your arms, “I know the schemes you and Dick come up with, you really think you could pull this one past me?”

Wally gave you a shrug. “Maybe, but please? I want you to meet everyone else.”

After a few more moments of contemplating, you finally let out a sigh and dropped your head. “Fine, I will go to this one! But I swear if you try anything funny, I will punch you into the next century.” You threatened.

“Oh, come on, you and I both know you can’t do that.” Wally teased, poking your forehead only for you to flick his nose. “You aren’t fast enough for it.”

“No, but Barry is.”

Wally seemed to take that threat semi-serious, he got up with a huge smile on his face. “I swear, you will not regret coming to this!” he laughed and sped off to his room to call Dick and let him know that their plan was a go.

It was a couple of hours until the party but Wally spent most of it making sure that you were good to go. He was oddly concerned with what you were wearing, and how your hair looked. It should have raised red flags all over the place, but you brushed it off as Wally just being his over-analytical self.

Before you knew it, the two of you were standing outside the zeta tube in Central City ready to go to Mt. Justice for the party that was being hosted as a celebration for one of the team’s biggest cases completed.

Recognized -Kid Flash B03, -Velocity B032

The two of you didn’t even make it in the cave before Wally was dragged into a hug by his best friend. “You guys made it! Velocity, good to see you.” He grinned and hugged you tightly as well.

“Dick, I don’t go by Velocity you know that.” You chuckled hugging him back.

“If you don’t go by Velocity, then why is it there?” a voice asked from behind him. Conner and M’gann walked up to you with a smile on their face.

You crossed your arms and gave them both a look. “You all know very well why it’s there and not my name.”

Wally and Dick rubbed the back of their necks with a suspicious look on their faces. “We have no idea what you are talking about Y/N, but either way I’m glad you decided to come. There are so many people who want to meet Wally’s famous sister.”

The four of them ushered you further into the cave where there were dozens of people there standing around, talking, and eating the many snacks M’gann had made. Most people were in their civies as well, the few who weren’t wore either glasses or their masks to hide their identity.

Taking a look around, you remembered the last time you were in the cave. It was the day that you got the nickname Velocity, but tried to push it to the back of your mind as Dick and Wally specifically maneuvered you towards the snack table.

“Make yourself at home, we’ll be right back,” Dick said and walked off with Wally right behind him.

“Don’t you move.” Wally threatened and followed his friend before disappearing into the crowd, leaving you alone at the snack table.

It was at this point you regretted coming to the party, your brother and the only people you knew ditched you at the snack table so you did the only thing you could. Gorge yourself on the delectable treats in front of you. Grabbing a plate, you put a little bit of everything that could fit on your plate. Your appetite was quite large, but it was your metabolism trying to keep up with the speeds your body could handle. The only person you had seen eat more than you was Wally; he was like a human garbage disposal.

You were snacking on a cherry tart when you heard someone stand beside you. Looking to your left, you saw a boy with messy black hair and the brightest blue eyes you had ever seen. He was only a bit taller than you and had his arms crossed over his chest with a disheveled look on his face as if he was forced to walk over.

Before he could catch you looking, you quickly turned your head and finished the tart in your hand.

“You should try the apple ones, they’re the best.” He said softly.

Turning to look at him, a small smile spread on your face. “I don’t know, I’m pretty attached to the cherry.”

The boy chuckled and held out his hand. “I’m Tim, Dick is my older brother.”

You took his in your own and shook it. “Y/N, Wally is mine.” you smiled.

“I figured, you’re all he seems to talk about.” Tim smiled, leaning against the table to look at you.

“Oh really? How many embarrassing stories should I be worried that everyone knows about?” you asked, finishing your cherry tart.

Tim laughed at your question. “None so far, all he says is how cool you are and that he is proud of you.”

Hearing those words made you smile more, maybe Wally wasn’t such a terrible big brother. “I’m proud of him too, putting himself out there to help those who can’t protect themselves every day. It’s not easy, and Wally loves it more than anything.” You explained, reaching for an apple tart and taking a bite of it.

“You’re right, these are good.” You smiled.

“I told you.” He grinned. “But you have the same powers, so why don’t you fight with him and the team?” Tim asked, tilting his head as he took a cherry tart off of your plate.

You tried to swat his hand away with a laugh only for him to stay out of reach and take a bite.

“I prefer to stay out of the action, I’m not as fast as Barry, Wally, or Bart. I’d only slow them down, and worry them more, so I’ve taken up an internship with Iris and journalism and help keep people’s noses out of their identities.” You explained, looking around. “But that does not stop them, especially Bart. Every time I see him, he brings out the suit Barry had made for me and makes a big deal about asking every chance he gets.”

Your eye caught sight of Wally and he was talking to Artemis, with Dick at his side. They seemed to be talking in hushed whispers about something and gesturing towards your location but things weren’t adding up. Before you could even voice your concern, or mention it to Tim you saw a blur out of the corner of your eye.

“Speaking of which.” You quickly set your plate down and grabbed Tim’s hand and took off down the hall to get away from Bart. You loved him to death, but this kid had an exuberant amount of energy that rivaled Wally’s and this was the last thing you wanted.

“Y/N!” you heard Bart call from behind you, only making you pick up the pace a little.

You could have run faster to get away from him, but for some reason, you grabbed hold of Tim and drug him along with you. It limited your speed and you felt him tug on your hand.

“Here, this way.” He said and opened a door and quickly shoved the two of you in, quietly shutting it behind you.

The two of you hid in the dark closet, Tim’s ear pressed against the door as he listened for Bart’s steps to fade away. Somehow the two of you had outrun him and hid before he could actually find you. A couple minutes passed before you let out the breath you had been holding.

“Thanks for that.” You smiled, blinking as your eyes adjusted to the darkness. It had only just dawned on you exactly where you were, and how small the room was. “Tim, did you just shove us in a broom closet?”

Tim rubbed the back of his head. “It was the closest place we could hide, I figured from the way you took off that you didn’t want to deal with him asking you questions.” He looked around, before reaching for the door. “I think it’s safe to come out.” He said and pulled on the handle, only for it to not budge.

“Tim, why is the door not opening?” you asked.

“Uh, it’s locked.”

“It’s what?”

“It’s locked.” He repeated.

You ran a hand through your hair and let out a sigh. “How are we locked in here? Does it unlock from the outside only?”

“It seems so, and I don’t have my utility belt or I could totally get us out of here.” He responded and pulled out his phone, using the light to look around. You had left yours with Wally because the outfit you were wearing did not have any pockets.

“I have no service in here either, so it looks like we just have to wait it out.” He sighed and sat on a box, you sitting on one leaned against the opposite wall. The closet was big enough that you were comfortable, but your knees were touching and you were crowded by various items.

“It’s never a dull time with you bats.” You chuckled, leaning your arms on your thighs.

“I could say the same thing about you speedsters.” Tim teased. “Between you, Wally, and Bart, someone is always laughing and having a good time.”

You tilted your head at his comment. “We’ve never met before tonight; how do you know I always make people laugh?”

Tim was thankful for the darkness of the room; you didn’t get to see the slight blush creeping up on his face. “Wally and Bart talk about you all the time, every story they tell has at least one person in tears laughing.”

Your face began to heat up as well, with you tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. “Well, life is too short with this occupation. What better way to live it than to make others laugh right?”

Tim laughed softly and looked at you with his blue eyes illuminated by the soft glow coming from his phone. “Yeah, you never know what day will be your last so might as well live it the way you want to, right?”

The tone in his voice seemed to change with those last few words. Tim had known about you for a while and even harbored a slight crush from the pictures Dick would show him of you and Wally. But seeing you in reality, was something different entirely; the way your eyes shone when you talked about your family and running made him fall even harder. Sure, you weren’t a public hero like your brother or uncle, but you were still a speedster and running was in your blood.

Slowly his hand reached over and took yours, keeping his touch light and soft. The last thing he wanted to do was scare you off, or make you think he was some kind of weirdo. But the second you tightened your grip on his hand, his heart fluttered.

“I have to be honest; I did not want to come to this stupid party, and getting locked in a closet was not on my list. But I am glad that it's with you.” You smiled, looking at your entwined hands.

His fingers were long but calloused. It showed the hard work he put into his title of Robin, but no matter how rough they were his touch was soft. He gripped your hand in his and looked at you. You had only met him that night, but there was something that pulled you towards him. Maybe it was the fact that he understood what it was like to have a big brother’s legacy to live up to or the simple fact that he understood that you didn’t want to join the hero scene. Whatever it was, it seemed to pull him towards you as well.

Before you knew it, his face was right in front of yours and you could feel his warm breath fan over your face. One inch closer and your lips would be on his, and your eyes locked with his. Tim’s hand left yours as he cupped your cheek with both hands, threading his fingers through your hair slightly.

The magnetic pull only got stronger as you leaned in closer, your eyes fluttering shut as his lips brushed against yours. His lashes tickled the skin on your cheeks as Tim kissed you fully, leaning into it to feel it closer.

The kiss itself only lasted a few seconds before he pulled back and looked at you, his eyes shining with something you couldn’t decipher.

“You taste like cherry tart.” Tim gave a lopsided grin, savoring the taste of your lips on his own.

“I am definitely glad I am stuck in a closet with you now.” You grinned, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, and kissed Tim once more. His hands held your waist as he pulled you onto his lap to bring you closer to his body.

This kiss lasted longer than the first one, but not by much. Before either of you could react, the door to the closet swung open as light flooded into the room. You let out a squeak and jumped off Tim’s lap and landed on the floor with a thud.

Looking up, you saw Dick standing there with his arms crossed and an amused expression on his face. “Having fun, you two?” he teased.

Tim’s face flushed darker as you glared at Dick from your spot on the floor.

“Hey, Wally! I found her!” he called. Within seconds, Wally was next to Dick and peeking into the closet and saw your current position.

“You know, when we planned on setting you two up, we did not mean for you to make out in a dark closet.” He grinned.

“Wally!” you snapped and got up and dove at him quickly, Wally speeding out of the way. It all clicked why they wanted you to come to the party so bad and Wally’s sudden interest in what you wore out of the house. He was trying to set you up with Dick’s little brother.

Knowing that he was in trouble, Wally took off down the hall with you right behind him zooming through the cave as you tried to catch him. The night ended with Wally nursing a large bruise on his shoulder and you and Tim exchanging numbers and planning your first official date of many yet to come.

#Costly Affairs #Tim Drake #Timothy Drake #tim drake fanfic #tim drake fanfiction #tim drake x reader #tim drake x fem!reader #tim drake x you #tim drake x y/n #Red Robin #red robin fanfic #red robin fanfiction #red robin x reader #red robin x you #red robin x y/n #DC comics

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sohotthateveryonedied · 4 years

Text

Feels More Like a Memory

Read here on AO3!

Summary:

Ric gulps down the rest of the beer and gestures to the bartender for another. Then he holds out his hand. “I’m Ric, by the way. With a C.”

“Wally. With a W.”

“That’s a tragedy.”

“And Ric isn’t?”

It’s not easy being a ghost. Ric isn’t dead. He has flesh, breath, motion, all signs of life. But Him? The person he apparently used to be but who might as well be a stranger told in someone else’s story? That person is dead, and Ric can’t help but feel like a murderer for pushing him out. He isn’t Dick Grayson. Not anymore. Ric slides into a bar stool, flagging down the bartender. “I’ll have a beer.” This place isn’t his favorite haunt in Blüdhaven, but they do serve good brews despite the lack of customers and general grossness. And, frankly, he’s not in the mood for company tonight. He’s been fielding calls all day from those people, the ones who knew him Before. The ones who foolishly call every few days as if expecting the ghost to answer in Ric’s place. Bruce. Barbara. Damian. Even some names that Ric doesn’t recognize but couldn’t care less about if he did. A Donna Troy. Jason Todd, even though Dick saw in some old files that he’s supposed to be long dead. Some kid named Tim. Ric doesn’t even pick up anymore when the calls come. It’s too exhausting playing defense, trying to remind these poor idiots that the Dick they knew is dead. Ric can’t keep pretending to have any part of himself that cares about these strangers, that keeps him straddling the line between past and future, or it will tear him in half. He’s had enough of the visits from “old friends” and family members he wouldn’t recognize from a Christmas card.

It’s a weeknight, so the bar is empty but for a few alcoholics and some guys playing pool in the back. Ric might even join them later, hustle a few rounds. The door to the bar opens, a dulled bell sounding to announce the newcomer. Ric doesn’t bother looking up. It’s not like he’ll recognize the new face—or any face, for that matter. The bartender brings over his beer. Ric thanks her and takes a sip. The stool next to him creaks. “I’ll have a Coke with three maraschino cherries, please. Thanks.” It’s a deep voice with a bit of a midwestern twang. From Missouri, maybe? The “please” is a clear indicator that he’s not from around here, nor does he go to bars a lot. Not this kind, anyway. Ric has tried and failed to turn that part off, the part that picks apart every detail in the world into quantifiable data. His memories may be gone, but whatever that crazy bat guy trained into him has stayed in his head as muscle memory. Ric couldn’t escape it if he tried. He drinks his beer, side-eyeing the guy. “Never met anyone who goes to a bar for a soda.” The guy doesn’t...he doesn’t flinch, exactly. But there’s the slightest of shivers that runs through his frame as if hearing Ric’s voice does something to him, even though he’s the one who sat next to Ric in the first place despite the plenty of empty stools around them. Maybe he’s lonely. Maybe he’s just a weirdo. Whatever this guy is, he recovers quickly. “You can’t exactly get a Coke with three cherries from your neighborhood grocer.” “You can if you make it at home.” The guy’s mouth quirks. “Then I’m here for the wonderful atmosphere.” Now that Dick is facing him, he can see that the guy has bright red hair that curls in front of his forehead, wind-blown like he spends his life riding on top of a bullet train. His eyes are green and practically every inch of visible skin is sprinkled with freckles. “If you’re looking for atmosphere, you’re sure as hell not going to find it here,” Ric says. “This place is the pits.” “Then how come you’re here?” Ric shrugs. “For the moldy buffalo wings and terrible service, of course.” The guy laughs and, for whatever reason, Ric gets the impression that it’s the first real laugh he’s had in a long time. The bartender serves up his soda, cherries and all. “I’ve got to be honest, Blüdhaven is even worse than I remember it. Ever since that bat guy disappeared, it’s like all I hear about Blüd now is how much the crime has escalated.” “Nightwing,” Ric corrects before he can stop himself. “His name was Nightwing.” “Right, Nightwing. What do you think happened to him?” He got shot in the head. Not that Ric can tell that to a complete stranger. Then again, he’s been meeting far too many “complete strangers” lately who turn out to be anything but. They try to worm their way into Ric’s life as if they know him, as if they have some kind of a claim on him. “Have we met before?” he asks. He tries to do it casually to cushion the blow of completely changing the subject, but it’s hard to remember what casual even is anymore. “You seem...familiar.” The guy plasters on a smile. “Just have one of those faces, I guess.” “Says every person who’s ever pretended not to know someone.” That gets another laugh. Maybe he’s just a happy guy? Definitely not from around here, then. “I’m from Central City, actually. Just here for the weekend. I was trying to track down an old friend.” “And did you find him?” The guy’s eyes dim, but he keeps up some of the smile, like he’s mourning a memory. “Nope. He skipped town pretty recently and has been missing since.” “Sorry to hear that.” The guy drinks his soda. “How about you? What keeps you in a place like Blüdhaven?” “Believe it or not, this is the only place I’ve been in so far that’s felt like home.” He’s already buzzing from the beer combined with the whiskey this morning and the vape he bummed off a couple guys earlier. Might as well go all in. “I got shot in the head a while ago and since then, I’ve been a clean slate.” He points to the scar on his scalp, but he doesn’t have to. A goddamn aircraft could see that thing from orbit. “It’s hard to figure out ‘home’ again when every place you go is filled with too many people who know and care about you, you know?” “You and I have very different definitions of ‘home’ then. The way I see it, home is wherever the people who love you are.” “You’d be surprised. It’s more like leeches, really. Or a landlord begging for rent even after you’ve moved out. It’s fucking exhausting.” He gulps down the rest of the beer and gestures to the bartender for another. Then he holds out his hand. “I’m Ric, by the way. With a C.” “Wally. With a W.” “That’s a tragedy.” “And Ric isn’t?” That makes Ric laugh. The weird part is that, at the heart of whatever this is, there’s something natural about laughing with this random person. Wally. It feels familiar, like this is someone important, as insane as that sounds. He blames it on the alcohol, but he could almost convince himself that this Wally guy is something vital he’s been missing. But Ric has seen the files Batman showed him while he was futilely trying to jog Ric’s memory. There was nothing about anyone named Wally in there, so he’s in the clear. “So,” Wally says, “amnesia, huh? And I thought I had problems.” “You have no idea. Weirdly enough, the amnesia part isn’t even the worst of it. I can deal with having no memories. The real problem is everyone else’s memories trying to force their way into mine. Everybody remembers me as somebody else, but they can’t understand that the man they knew is long gone. It’s pathetic.” “Can you blame them? If someone I loved forgot who he was, I’d want to bring him back too.” “Then you’ve never had to deal with lost memories before. Everyone talks about how amnesia can be a blessing in disguise, giving you a reset on life. But it’s more like being dropped in the middle of a sports game where you don’t know the rules or who your teammates are, and everyone’s waiting for you to just get with the program and kick the ball somewhere.” Wally bites a cherry off its stem. “What I wouldn’t give for that.” At Ric’s questioning look, he says, “I have two kids. Twins, Jai and Irey. They’re...they were incredible. They were the lights of my life. Then there was...something happened. I lost them both, and now all I have left of them are memories. But I swear to god, sometimes it feels like having the memories hurts a million times worse than losing them in the first place.” Well, shit. By the looks of him, Wally can’t be more than twenty-four, twenty-six years old. Losing two kids so young must be hell on earth. That Damian kid said stuff about how Dick was like a second father figure to him and how when Damian was dead, the greatest relief after coming back was that Dick wouldn’t have to mourn him anymore. But Ric doesn’t remember any of that. If he ever did lose Damian like he said, it means nothing to Ric now. Dick may have lost a child, but Ric didn’t. Wally swallows thickly, drinks his soda until his throat clears. “So trust me, I get wanting to forget. But if you want my advice, I say hold on to your family for as long as you can, even if you don’t want to. You never know how much time you’ll have with them.” Ric honestly doesn’t know what to say to that. “I’m...I’m sorry, man.” Wally clears his throat, forces a smile, but each one is dimmer than the last. “It’s fine. But you see why I don’t drink.” He doesn’t elaborate, but Ric gets the message: Because if I did start drinking, I would never stop. “I can’t even imagine losing someone like that,” Ric says, sipping his fresh glass of beer. “I know my parents are dead, but my memories are so messed up that I don’t remember much of it. And even though I can’t remember anything after that day, it still feels like it happened twenty years ago. I’ve never had to grieve anyone but myself.” “It helps to have people around you, for one thing. That friend I mentioned, the one who skipped town? We used to have a system that whenever one of us was having a bad day, we’d go down to that gay bar a few blocks from here and stay there until we forgot what we were upset about.” After a second, he asks, “You ever been there?” Ric resists the urge to grimace. “I’m straight, actually. That kind of stuff...it’s not really my thing.” Wally blinks at him. “You’re kidding.” “Excuse me?” “Nothing. That’s just...surprising.” “Okay?” This wouldn’t be the first time someone’s accused Ric of being queer. Just because he likes mesh shirts and the occasional crop top doesn’t mean he’s gay, okay? He’s as straight as an arrow. “No, that’s not—I mean...I don’t know what I mean.” Wally shakes his head. “It’s easy to forget that not everyone lives the same life you do, I guess.” Ric clinks his glass with Wally’s. “Cheers to that.” Ric can’t explain what about this conversation makes him feel more comfortable than he has in weeks. Maybe it’s the beer. Maybe it’s the human interaction with someone who isn’t another bar-hopping asshole or part of his old “family” trying to bring him back to a home that isn’t his. Ric has spent so long driving strangers to their destinations in his taxi, sleeping under a new roof every night, gambling his money away and drinking himself into oblivion as long as he can afford it. But here, with Wally, he feels settled. His head clears, and it’s such a foreign sensation that he stops for a moment just to let himself soak in it. “How long are you staying in Blüd, Walls?” He doesn’t mean to say the nickname, it just slips out of him like a bar of soap between slick hands. Wally doesn’t seem to mind. He even smiles, and Ric can’t help but wonder if the friend he was talking about used to call him that. “This is my last night, actually. I’m going to this mental health facility in Nebraska for a while to recharge. I just wanted to see my friend one last time before I left.” “I’m sorry you couldn’t find him.” “Yeah. Me too.” Wally downs the rest of his drink and stands, tossing a few bills on the counter. “I should probably head out. It was nice talking to you, Ric.” Ric shakes his hand again. “You too. Track me down if you ever find yourself in Blüd again. It’ll be nice seeing a familiar face for once.” “You got it.” Wally turns to go but stops at the door, one hand mid-twist on the knob. He looks back at Ric. “Don’t forget me again, okay?” He’s gone before Ric can answer, the door closing behind him. Ric was lying before, when he talked about the worst part of being an amnesiac. The worst part isn’t the missing twenty years, or the annoying family members, or the fact that he can name all fifty states but can’t remember whether he likes mustard or not. It isn’t any of those things. The worst part is knowing about the past that waits for him to sink back into it even though he can’t, no matter how hard he tries. It’s struggling with the fact that he has a whole family he doesn’t recognize but who loves him more than he’s ever seen a person be loved before. It’s seeing that love, witnessing the lengths they go to just to have their Dick back, but not being able to feel any of it because that isn’t his life. It’s not Ric’s love to have, and it never will be. Dick Grayson may be dead, but the love he earned is eternal. And that, right there? That’s what hurts the most.

#whumptober 2020 #ric grayson #dick grayson #nightwing #batman #robin #wally west #kid flash #the flash #birdflash #titans #teen titans #dc comics #fanfiction #fanfic #no.15 #memory loss

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thorinlandscaping · 4 years

Text

why did it have to be me?

my @batfamsecretsanta gift for @peppersonironi. Hope you like it!

The soft knock on Bruce’s office door alerted him to two things. First, that the person knocking was Dick. Second, that Dick had something important to talk to him about. Dick never knocked unless he needed Bruce’s help with something important, or he’d done something stupid like that time he’d somehow ‘accidentally’ convinced the entirety of Gotham (and the rest of the world) that Bruce Wayne and Batman were dating.

Bruce wasn’t looking forward to this conversation.

“Come in,” Bruce said, mentally preparing himself to either help with some insane problem, or to begin damage control immediately. Dick shuffled into the room, eyes on the floor. This inspired no confidence in Bruce whatsoever.

“So. Bruce,” Dick said, as he looked up and made rather intense eye contact with him and oh no, is Dick going to tell him that he’d accidentally revealed Batman’s identity to the press, “I have something to tell you.”

Oh god, Dick had revealed Batman’s identity to the press. He was going to have to deal with every single person knowing Bruce Wayne is the Batman. Bruce had prepared for this, but he didn’t think he’d ever really have to face this reality. He was going to have to fake his death. He really didn’t want to fake his death. But, if he had to-

“I have a crush on Wally,” Dick said.

-he would, wait. What? Did Dick just say he had a crush on Wally?

“Wally West? Kid Flash? You have a crush on him? You didn’t reveal my identity as Batman to the press by accident?” Bruce asked, deeply relieved and very shocked.

“Uh. Yes, yes, yes and no? Has someone revealed your identity to the press?” Dick asked, slightly concerned.

“No,” Bruce said.

“Okay… Well, I was wondering if you could give me some advice on how to ask him out. You know. On a date,” Dick said, his nervousness shining through in his voice.

Bruce sort of wanted to cry. His kid was asking him for romantic advice. He was so proud, Dick was growing up. Oh god, Dick was growing up. It seemed like only yesterday Dick had found out Bruce’s identity as Batman and had managed to bully Bruce into letting him become Robin. Now he was out there asking people on dates. The next thing Bruce knew, he’d be dating his arch-nemesis and going on a journey to become a ninja.

Wait. “You’re asking me for romantic advice?” Bruce asked. Bruce’s romantic prospects since Dick had been in his custody had been Talia Al Ghul (Dick had laughed at him, then asked if she could teach him some ‘assassin ninja tricks’), Selina Kyle (Dick had laughed at him, then asked if Selina could steal him the Rosetta Stone for ‘superhero detective purposes’), and Hal Jordan (Dick had laughed at him, then reluctantly admitted that, despite his flaws, Hal was alright). Why Dick was asking him for advice after his general disapproval of Bruce’s taste, Bruce couldn’t fathom.

Dick sighed. “Despite your lack of good taste, you generally manage to end up with the people you set your sights on. So I’m asking you to help me figure out how to ask Wally out successfully. I’m not asking you who you think would be a good boyfriend for me.”

Bruce supposed that made sense. Sort of. Unfortunately for Dick, Talia and Selina had been the instigators in his relationships with them. And with Hal, well. Neither of them can quite remember exactly how they got together, what they do know is that Clark couldn’t look them in the eye for a good month afterwards. Weird things happen on space missions, okay?

This, of course, meant he had no idea what advice to offer to the fifteen-year-old boy staring at him as if all his dreams for the future would come true if he did exactly what Bruce told him. It was honestly terrifying. Bruce was going to ruin Dick’s life. Or at least destroy all the trust that Dick placed in him. This was too much pressure.

Maybe he should give advice based on how he asked out people as Brucie Wayne? But then again, those ploys only work because he’s a known rich and famous playboy and nobody would say no to a few days as a billionaires sugar baby. Except Lois Lane, who would instead just steal his credit cards whenever he’d try. Clark had truly found a woman that complimented him perfectly.

“Well,” Bruce began, looking around the office for inspiration, or perhaps divine intervention, “Get him a gift, something he likes.” He’d given Selina an expensive painting once and that night she made out with him on a roof. Romantic bribery through materialism works.

Dick nodded, jotting down his words on his phone. Dick was taking this as seriously as he took breaking into villains' lairs, which helped Bruce relax not at all. Dick was counting on him.

“Maybe bring him to a romantic spot, or a place that has a lot of meaning to the two of you,” Bruce continued, thinking of how Thalia had propositioned him in the middle of a fight against some guy on a yacht. That had been so romantic.

“And then make sure you ask him out to a place that he likes,” Bruce closed off with. Like when he’d taken Hal to see the inside of NASA and Hal had nearly broken a multi-million dollar spacecraft. Or when Hal had taken him to an escape room and they’d uncovered a drug trafficking ring operating out of the escape room’s back room. Hal and Bruce didn’t go out much these days.

Bruce had become so enraptured in his own thoughts of his and Hal’s dates, he’d forgotten that he was meant to be giving Dick advice until Dick threw a stress ball at his face. Bruce focused back in on Dick, ready to face scorn for the very basic advice he’d given, only for Dick to look at him gratefully.

“Thanks Bruce, I think this’ll really help me,” Dick said.

It would? Okay. Bruce would take it.

“Anytime, Dick. I wish you the best of luck,” Bruce said, doing his best to keep his utter bewilderment out of his voice. His advice could have been read off of a wikihow article.

Nonetheless, Dick left the office in higher spirits than when he came in. Bruce hoped he’d never have to do that again. He also hoped that the advice he’d given would work.

Three days later Dick burst into his office, informing Bruce (who was busy sexting Hal) that he had a date with Wally that evening and could Bruce please, please let him borrow the Batmobile to pick Wally up. Bruce had kindly told him, absolutely not, and to get out of his office. Internally, he was celebrating that his half-assed romantic advice had worked.

Dick left the room pouting, leaving Bruce to disrupt his and Hal’s sexting with updates on how his child was growing up too fast, and asking if he should adopt another one (or seven). Hal, used to this, told Bruce that he should only adopt another kid if the kid could steal the tyres off the Batmobile.

Later, when Bruce would enter the Batcave, ready to start patrol only to find the Batmobile missing, with an ‘IOU’ note in Dick’s handwriting left in its place.

Dick was so getting grounded later.

#batfamsecretsanta2020 #dick grayson #bruce wayne #batlantern #birdflash #batman #my writing #ratspeaks

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myonechicagoworld · 3 years

Text

CHICAGO FIRE – FIREWORKS (S01E18)

[car door shuts]

Gabby Dawson: Hey, Chief. I just thought I’d… catch you before

shift started.

Chief Boden: You caught me.

Gabby Dawson: Uh, good morning, first of all.

Chief Boden: Morning.

Gabby Dawson: So obviously I heard what I heard last night. And I

guess I’m just trying to figure out what to do about

it now that it’s kind of out in the open.

Chief Boden: It’s not out in the open.

Gabby Dawson: Well, I mean it’s out in the open for me, because I

don’t know if you’re aware or not, but Pete and I

are dating.

Chief Boden: I’m aware.

Gabby Dawson: So you may also be aware that Pete’s become

increasingly convinced that people are keeping

secrets from him about his dad, vis à vis…

Are you gonna tell him what’s going on before he

hears it from Kelly’s dad?

Chief Boden: Benny Severide is not gonna be coming around 51

anymore.

Gabby Dawson: Still, Pete is gonna keep digging until he finds out.

Chief Boden: Gabby, your dogged inquisitiveness…is one of the

qualities that makes you such an effective paramedic.

But it is of no use to you in this matter, which is a

private one.

If you care about Mills like I think you do… drop it.

I’ll see you back at the house.

cutscene

[food sizzling in pan]

Benny Severide: Hey.

Kelly Severide: Morning.

Benny Severide: Morning. We got scrapple and we got eggs.

Grab a seat. There you go.

Kelly Severide: Thanks.

Benny Severide: So, um… Whoritsky’s offered me a teaching post,

and I’m-I’m thinking about doing it. Figured I

could come down and see you ever couple

weeks, hang out. What do you think?

Kelly Severide: Sounds good.

Benny Severide: Will probably have to spend one more shift at the

house. Kind of re-familiarise myself with a couple

of things. So why don’t you tell Boden I’ll be there

about noon.

Kelly Severide: What the hell’s going on with you and Boden?

Benny Severide: Look, Wally and me, we go way back. He and I,

one minute we’re at each other’s throats and-and

the next I’m helping to put a new deck on his

house, okay? This is nothing new.

Look, I promise you, I-I’ll be a choir boy, okay?

A mute choir boy.

cutscene

Chief Boden: Keep that 2 ½ on the roof line. I don’t want a flare-up

spreading to other buildings.

Kelly Severide: Oh, hey, sir, sir. You’re gonna want to stand back,

okay?

Man 1 (Owner): It’s my restaurant, are-are my employees safe?

Kelly Severide: (into radio) Hey, Casey, you got a search status?

Matt Casey: (into radio) Building’s clear, just opening up the ceiling.

Pop a couple of these tiles.

[tiles breaking]

Kelly Severide: Building was empty, your people are out.

Man 1 (Owner): Son of a bitch said I’d pay. I never thought he’d go

this far.

Kelly Severide: Yeah?

Man 1 (Owner): Ten years without a grease fire. I opened four

restaurants in the union, suddenly he sees money.

I refused to sign. They send this thug!

Kelly Severide: Sounds like you’re gonna want to talk to CPD.

Man 1 (Owner): What good would that do? This guy’s not gonna

stop until I’m-I’m ruined or dead.

Lady 1 (Owner’s Wife): [sobbing]

Matt Casey: (into radio) Okay, Chief, we’re almost done. Send in

engine for the wash down.

[ceiling crashing]

Firefighter: Whoa!

Joe Cruz: Casey!

- title -

Peter Mills: Lieutenant!

Joe Cruz: Mills, get out of here!

[grunts]

[glass shattering]

Joe Cruz: [groans]

Chief Boden: Hit him with the hose!

Joe Cruz: Come on!

[water spraying]

Joe Cruz: Lieutenant!

Matt Casey: [grunts] I’m okay [pants]

Thanks, Cruz.

[water spraying]

Matt Casey: Seriously, it’s fine. It didn’t burn through my gear.

Leslie Shay: Then what’s this?

Matt Casey: Ow.

Gabby Dawson: Hold still. It’s just a first-degree burn.

Will you give me that bandage?

Couple more seconds of whatever that was that

dumped down on you, it wouldn’t have stopped

at the jacket.

Leslie Shay: [sighs] It smells like fuel.

Otis Zvonecek: That’s ‘cause it was. Homemade gasoline fire

bombs in the ceiling.

Lady 1 (Owner’s Wife): [sobbing]

cutscene

Matt Casey: Back door was kicked in. It’s not like whoever did it

was making an attempt to hide it was arson.

Man 2 (James Whoritsky): CPD said they’d back seat to my office

on this one.

Kelly Severide: On that union rep who was threatened by the owner

of the diner?

Man 2 (James Whoritsky): Yeah, your owner, Stuart Tuxhorn, filed a

complaint against a, uh, Lou Krinsky

last month. We’re checking it out, but

with a case like this, the evidence is

circumstantial at best.

Kelly Severide: [chuckles] Yeah.

Man 2 (James Whoritsky): Did I say something funny?

Kelly Severide: Yeah, this union guy, if he’s connected to city

politics, you can’t tell me that someone isn’t

already trying to get this buried.

Chief Boden: Look, we’re good here. Just keep us posted.

Kelly Severide: Can I talk to you a sec?

My old man wants to come by the house again.

Chief Boden: Kelly, I don’t think that’s a good idea.

[door closes]

Kelly Severide: Whatever business you guys got, that’s your

business. But he said he’ll be a choir boy and

it’s-it’s one more shift.

Chief Boden: Here’s the deal, Kelly. I don’t know what your dad

has told you…

Kelly Severide: He hasn’t told me dick.

Chief Boden: Some guys when they retire and they come back

around the job, for some reason, they gotta tear

it down. I’m no psychologist, but your dad, he’s

always been really adept at tearing things down.

So that he’s the only one left standing. He has a

take on how Peter Mills’ father died, and it’s

untrue. And that would hurt Pete if that were

thrown in his face. I will not allow your father to

do it. So it would be in everybody’s best interest

if you were to meet your father in another house.

So… you can tell him. Or I could tell him.

[cell phone rings]

Benny Severide: Hey.

Kelly Severide: Hey. Uh, my buddy Jason Baseden over at Squad

One, you remember him?

Benny Severide: Yeah, sure, I remember Jason.

Kelly Severide: Well, he heard you were in town and he was…he

was…he was, like, “get your old man over here!”

It’s a newer house, all the latest bells and whistles

and I can stop by later if we don’t get a call. So…

so stop over there, okay? Jason’s expecting you.

Benny Severide: Yeah, sure, of course. No problem.

cutscene

Gabby Dawson: Hey.

Peter Mills: Hey. Um, hey, don’t be jealous, but, uh, Dolores down

at the records department of the academy… I sent her

a gift basket of cookies and brownies, just trying to

butter her up to try and get information on the fire my

dad died in, and… it worked. She sent me over the

Battalion Chief’s original report. And I am starting to

see why Boden and Kelly’s dad don’t want to talk

about it. Two firefighters dying and the other

fire-fighter’s wife was pregnant with her first child.

Gabby Dawson: Tough to relive through, you know?

Peter Mills: Yeah.

Well, Dolores is still searching, she’s gonna send me

anything that she finds.

cutscene

Joe Cruz: [growls]

[dog growling]

Leslie Shay: Hey, guys, what does ‘ebullient’ mean again?

Joe Cruz: No idea.

Mouch: Bull-like. To resemble a bull.

Otis Zvonecek: Means cheerful and energetic.

Mouch: Or that.

Leslie Shay: All right, thanks.

Otis Zvonecek: Why?

Leslie Shay: One of these guys used it to describe himself.

Matt Casey: Any guy that describes himself as ebullient, you don’t

want his sperm.

Leslie Shay: Yeah, right. Thanks.

Mouch: How much longer you gonna be on this donor kick?

Leslie Shay: Until I find the right guy.

Mouch: And you can just look at ‘em on your computer.

Leslie Shay: Mmhmm, like I’m doing right now. Correct.

Mouch: I admire your gumption. Most other people would, you

know, keep that behind closed doors.

Leslie Shay: Every time Cindy gets pregnant, Herrmann plasters her

sonogram images all over the fridge. And what? I’m

supposed to hide in a corner?

Mouch: I said I admire your gumption.

[phone vibrates]

Leslie Shay: Well, thanks.

Matt Casey: Hey Heather.

Heather Darden: I was in the neighbourhood.

Matt Casey: Great.

Heather Darden: Hey, um, did you notice an earring in your truck?

I’m missing one.

Matt Casey: Uh, I didn’t see it, but I can… I can take a look.

Heather Darden: Thank you.

Oh and by the way, Saturday the kids are staying

with my parents and I was planning on having

dinner with one of my girlfriends, but her dad’s

not doing so hot so she had to fly out to

Jacksonville. But I’ve already got that night free

so I was thinking, why don’t we grab dinner?

cutscene

[alert beeps]

Benny Severide: (over PA) Smoke eater in the house!

Kelly Severide: God damn it!

Benny Severide: Donut man in the house!

�� Donuts, everybody! Donuts!

Firefighters: Oh, hell yeah!

[indistinct shouting and cheering]

Benny Severide: Come and get it!

Kelly Severide: Hey, what happened to going to Squad one?

Benny Severide: I didn’t want to.

Come on, you guys, let’s get a donut.

Hi, Wally.

You know, I used to bring those to the ladies

in arson all the time. One of them, Ruthie,

she didn’t have anything personal in her office.

I mean, nothing. Not a family photo, nothing.

All she had behind her desk, right in the middle

of her tack board was this quote, “If you can’t

do anything about it, don’t worry about it.” And

I am, like, “Man, this Ruthie is locked into some

higher level stuff,” right?

Chief Boden: Benny, can I talk to you real quick?

Benny Severide: Yeah, just a second. So anyway, Ruthie retires

and I go in to say goodbye and I look at the

board and the quote is still there. And I say,

“Hey Ruthie, you forgot your quote.” And she

says, “That’s not mine, that was here when I

moved into the office.”

[laughter]

Benny Severide: All this time I thought she was like this oracle

or something, you know? Anyway, I kept the

quote. What the hell? Couldn’t hurt.

Lead the way, boss.

Chief Boden: You’re not welcome here.

Benny Severide: Yeah? Is that why you have my son hustle me

down the road?

Chief Boden: You are not welcome here.

Benny Severide: 25 years on the job, 15 of them in this house.

Nobody tells me when I can come and go!

Kelly Severide: Whatever you two are trying not to bring attention

to, guess what? You’re bringing attention to it.

Benny Severide: We got this, Kelly.

Kelly Severide: No you don’t!

He wants to stay here one more shift, that’s it.

Can you keep your mouth shut while you’re

here?

Benny Severide: Who the hell are you to tell me to…

Kelly Severide: It’s a yes or no question!

[knocks on door]

Matt Casey: Lou Krinsky, restaurant workers local 553 is here.

Looking to talk to us.

Chief Boden: We’ll be right there.

Matt Casey: Do I need to turn the hose on you guys?

Chief Boden: We’re good. We’re fine. We’ll be right out.

Hmph. You always had all the answers.

But I’m gonna tell you, this is your only shift. You

try and show up again for a second, I will put an

ass kicking on you 20 years in the making.

Benny Severide: Ooh! You still got it, Wally. I was starting to think

all those bugles had turned you into a big

marshmallow.

It’s the way it’s always been with me and him.

Kelly Severide: You didn’t own this house. You rented it. And I’m

here now, so show me some respect.

cutscene

Man 3 (Lou Krinsky): Just curious why a report coming from this

house has the arson department trying to

finger me for burning down a restaurant.

Matt Casey: That report conveyed the owner’s statement to us,

that’s all.

Man 3 (Lou Krinsky): Oh, okay. Well then, I would like to make

a report. Tuxhorn… rapes baby seals.

Put that in the report, have him have to

defend it.

Chief Boden: This is between you and the fire investigations.

Man 3 (Lou Krinsky): Yeah, and it got that far because you

guys took the word of some sweatshop

owner over that of a fellow union brother.

Why don’t you show some courtesy, talk

to me first.

Kelly Severide: We’re not talking about a busboy who got fired,

Lou, this is serious business.

Man 3 (Lou Krinsky): I know. I’m being accused of starting it!

Kelly Severide: We just wrote down what we saw and heard.

Man 3 (Lou Krinsky): [scoffs]

Matt Casey: Guy’s a skull cracker.

[door closes]

cutscene

Leslie Shay: You’re awfully quiet? Everything all right?

Gabby Dawson: All right, let’s… let’s say that if you knew

something… What?

Leslie Shay: Nothing.

Gabby Dawson: No, no, no. Don’t give me that. What? What

is it?

Leslie Shay: Um…

[chuckling]

Gabby Dawson: Ohh… ohh…

Mouch: Oh, goodness gracious.

Leslie Shay: I’m not here to judge you.

Mouch: [stammers] I didn’t… see, that… when… when the…

what?

Leslie Shay: I’m not here to judge you. I just want to know how

it works.

Mouch: Who else knows?

Leslie Shay: No one.

Mouch: Dawson?

Leslie Shay: Just Dawson.

Mouch: Oh Shay.

Leslie Shay: Don’t worry. She’s sworn to secrecy. But, Mouch, I

gotta ask. Six foot? 175?

Mouch: I aged out. It was my understanding they were gonna

take that down.

Leslie Shay: Fine. Look, I got a million questions I’m gonna ask

you. Can I? Please?

Mouch: [sighs] Okay, I’m ready.

Leslie Shay: Great. First off, the sperm. Did you…

[fire alarm buzzes and blares]

Mouch: Oh!

(Over PA): Truck 81, Ambulance 61. Restaurant fire.

[sirens blaring]

[horn honking]

Kelly Severide: Mr Tuxhorn.

Man 1 (Owner/Tuxhorn): I never should have told you ‘cause

he’s gonna bury me now.

Kelly Severide: Stay back.

Lady 2 (Bus Driver): I’m the one who called. I was making my

stop and I saw a man on fire running

through the restaurant.

Chief Boden: Okay, no one goes in. Hit it from the window. Quick

takedown. If that driver’s right, this is gonna be a

recovery.

[water spraying]

Matt Casey: (into radio) Cleared the dining room and bathrooms.

No bodies. Moving into the kitchen.

Kelly Severide: Guess I don’t need to remind you to keep your

eyes on the ceiling.

Matt Casey: That’s exactly what I’m doing.

Kelly Severide: Hey. It’s the same entry point as the last fire.

Matt Casey: Wherever he is, he’s long gone.

(into radio) This is Casey. Building’s clear.

[door swings open]

Kelly Severide: Uh Casey…

Matt Casey: (into radio) We need a medic.

[indistinct radio chatter]

Gabby Dawson: [grunts] Let’s turn him over.

Leslie Shay: [grunts]

Gabby Dawson: Agonal breathing. Fire may have scorched his

lungs.

Matt Casey: How bad?

Gabby Dawson: I don’t know. Airway looks pretty fried.

Leslie Shay: His arms are burned. Can’t get a line in. He’s got

minutes at best.

Gabby Dawson: We move him or lose him. Give us a hand?

Leslie Shay: On three. Very gentle. One, two, three.

Gabby Dawson: (into radio) 61 to Main, let Lakeshore know we

are two minutes out with a burn victim.

Leslie Shay: Dawson…

Gabby Dawson: (into radio) 61 to Main. Cancel that. Victim is

DOA. We will transport from scene for safety.

Dispatcher: Copy that 61… [continues indistinctively]

cutscene

Man 2 (James Whoristsky): Well, we verified it. Krinsky’s alibi

clears him from the second fire.

Matt Casey: Come on, he’s union muscle. He could have had

one of his knuckleheads torch both places.

Man 2 (James Whoristsky): I’m not arguing with that. But as

of now, we don’t have actionable

evidence.

Chief Boden: I got a drawer in the morgue full of evidence. I

don’t care if the man inside is homeless or a

CEO, he didn’t deserve the death he got.

Man 2 (James Whoristsky): Oh, and I think he did? Come on,

give me a break.

Kelly Severide: The guy who owns these restaurants is fearing

for his life.

Man 2 (James Whoristsky): We need proof. Do I really need to

explain arson investigation to you

guys? It take a while.

Kelly Severide: Let’s go back to that second fire and look around.

Matt Casey: Yeah. All right.

Kelly Severide: Cool?

Chief Boden: Yeah. Take your dad with you.

Kelly Severide: Chief, he gave his word that he’d keep his mouth

shut around here…

Chief Boden: I know he’s a pain in the ass, but he’s a hell of an

arson investigator.

Kelly Severide: Oh yeah.

[door closes]

Peter Mills: You know, I could cook you up something if you’d

like.

Benny Severide: Oh, that’s all right. Thanks, though.

Peter Mills: I didn’t know that you and my dad were on Squad

together. And um… the other firefighter who died

with him.

Benny Severide: That’s right. Ross McGowan. Two years on

the job. About your age. Had his whole life

ahead of him. Never got to meet his daughter.

A real shame.

Peter Mills: Yeah, I’m sorry to bring that up. I know it must be uh,

really hard to relive.

Benny Severide: Yeah. Never should have happened.

Peter Mills: How do you mean?

Benny Severide: Well, like you said. It’s hard to relive.

Peter Mills: Respectfully, Mr Severide, I get the sense that there’s

something you really want to tell me.

Kelly Severide: Hey. Let’s take a ride.

cutscene

Leslie Shay: So, like the pamphlet says, you just…do it in a cup?

Mouch: No, uh, a…a gossamer-winged stork flies down and…

Leslie Shay: [sighs]

Mouch: Yes.

Leslie Shay: And have you had contact with any of the…

Mouch: With the kids? God, no!

Leslie Shay: Because…

Mouch: I’m Father Flanagan? No way! I treasure my privacy.

Leslie Shay: Damn. It just… seems so impersonal.

Mouch: Let me just stop you right there. My cousin Ted and his

wife, Patty, they tried for a long time, couldn’t conceive.

They decided to go the AI route, that’s shorthand for

artificial…

Leslie Shay: I got it.

Mouch: Okay. So now they have a lovely daughter Elsa who is

the light of their lives. And that family is filled with

nothing but love, despite the clinical origins.

Leslie Shay: That’s beautiful. I…Is that why you became a donor?

Because of them?

Mouch: No. The cash. 125 a pop. That’s what they call a renewable

resource.

Leslie Shay: I don’t know, man. Might have to figure something else

out.

cutscene

[door closes]

Benny Severide: So, Matt, was that Andy Darden’s widow I saw

you with at the academy dinner?

Matt Casey: Yeah, Heather. That was her. She just needed a ride.

Benny Severide: It’s good to see you guys haven’t turned your

back on her. That’s important.

Matt Casey: Yeah. Absolutely. I’ll take the back.

Kelly Severide: Both buildings were broken into from the rear

entry. Gas accelerants were used.

Benny Severide: Okay.

I don’t know about this teaching gig.

Kelly Severide: Why not?

Benny Severide: Job’s changed too much.

Kelly Severide: It’s almost exactly the same. It’s just better gear.

Benny Severide: Well, the people have changed is what I’m

saying. Back when I came up, you fought a

war at 18. You had kids by the time you were 22.

You’d live a life. You were a man. Now these kids

are coming straight out of their parents’

basements to the firehouse. What the hell can I

teach somebody like that?

Hadley: [indistinctive chatter]

Benny Severide: Like him.

Hadley: [laughs]

Kelly Severide: Who? Hadley? He’s fine.

Benny Severide: Yeah. Okay.

Kelly Severide: They still have wars. People still pop out kids. I

don’t know why you gotta piss on everything.

Benny Severide: Rubber. From the sole of a sneaker. That bus

driver was right. Somebody was on fire and

running through here. What was the homeless

guy wearing?

Kelly Severide: He had boots on.

Benny Severide: Then we’re looking for somebody else. It

wouldn’t be him.

Hadley: So this thing collapses and knocks us down… [laughs]

Kelly Severide: Hadley.

Hadley: Yeah?

Kelly Severide: Quit playing grab ass, would you?

Benny Severide: Look at this. You see that? Pry marks. This door

wasn’t breached from the outside. Somebody

had a key. The owner or somebody he hired.

They let themselves in the front door and then

they pried this open. Make it look like it was

broken in from the outside.

Kelly Severide: You gotta be kidding me.

Benny Severide: Inside job.

cutscene

Chief Boden: Thank you. Appreciate it.

15 minutes after the second fire was call in,

18-year-old kid walked into an urgent care unit

five blocks from the scene. He had second and

third degree burns. Claimed it was a barbecue

mishap. Memorial went and picked him up.

He’s there’s now.

Kelly Severide: I want to head down there and check it out.

Chief Boden: Kelly…

Kelly Severide: I don’t like getting lied to. I don’t like getting

worked. And if someone other than that union

guy got that homeless man killed, I want to

know.

Matt Casey: I got him covered.

Chief Boden: Hit it.

[door closes]

[knocks on door]

Kelly Severide: What’s up, Omar? Lieutenant Severide, CFD.

Teen 1 (Omar): Oh geez. Damn barbecue. Didn’t know the gas

was on and boom. Lucky I’m alive.

Kelly Severide: Where were you standing?

Teen 1 (Omar): Right in front of the grill, trying to light it.

Kelly Severide: Then how’d you burn your legs?

Teen 1 (Omar): I don’t know. It was a big ol’ fireball, though.

Kelly Severide: Those aren’t barbecue burns, Omar. I’d know.

I’ve responded to 20 of them.

Teen 1 (Omar): I-I swear to God…

Kelly Severide: And they’re gonna test the shoes you were

wearing against the rubber fixed to the floor

in that diner and it’s all gonna go south.

Teen 1 (Omar): Why? For what? I-I didn’t do nothing.

Kelly Severide: A guy was killed in that second fire.

Teen 1 (Omar): No. No, no, no, man.

Kelly Severide: Look, I’m not a cop. I just want to know

what happened and I’ll help you any way I

can before the cops get involved. And

they’re gonna get involved soon.

Teen 1 (Omar): Okay. All right, mayb… there’s one thing

maybe you can help me with.

Kelly Severide: I’ll try.

Teen 1 (Omar): It was an insurance scam. Tuxhorn and his

wife wanted two of the diners to go down

and they was gonna lay it off on some union

dude who he was beefing with. And he

asked my dad to help him do it. My dad

owes him a lot of money, so he said he was

in to settle up. But my dad, he got a knee

replacement surgery last year and he ain’t

too quick. So I said I’d do it. I was pouring

the gas… I don’t know. Maybe the fumes hit

a pilot light or something. And I was just

running through the restaurant all on fire and…

Tuxhorn put me out and he took me here and

he said to say it was a barbecue accident.

Look, man, I’ll take the ride for it. I just gotta

leave my dad out of it. Can I do that? Can I

leave my dad out of it with the cops?

Kelly Severide: Don’t bring up his name.

Teen 1 (Omar): Okay. Thank you.

cutscene

Mouch: Did somebody change his food, ‘cause there is

something going on here.

Peter Mills: Where’s Herrmann?

Matt Casey: Bar management seminar.

You guys close to opening?

Gabby Dawson: Uh, a few weeks…hopefully.

Joe Cruz: Hey, uh, Shay, where’s your iPad?

Leslie Shay: Put it away for a bit.

Joe Cruz: Did you find a donor?

Leslie Shay: Regrouping.

Joe Cruz: So you’re not going the whole sperm donor route

anymore?

Leslie Shay: What is this, an interrogation? I told you, I’m

regrouping.

Otis Zvonecek: So, um, who asked who out? I’m just

curious.

Gabby Dawson: [laughs]

Peter Mills: Um, wait. You did, right?

Gabby Dawson: What?

Peter Mills: Yeah, you asked me to dinner that one night.

Gabby Dawson: Oh no, that-that wasn’t a date.

Peter Mills: Damn.

Gabby Dawson: What’s up?

Peter Mills: Dolores from Records, she sent me an email

earlier. I just… I can’t open it on my phone.

I’m… I’m gonna try it in there.

[typing]

[tense music]

cutscene

Chief Boden: Hey, Kelly, great job.

Kelly Severide: Hey, thanks, Chief.

Chief Boden: You too, Benny.

Benny Severide: Thank you. I appreciate that.

How about I get a cup of coffee before

I take off?

Kelly Severide: All right.

Leslie Shay: Hey, you got a second?

Kelly Severide: Yeah.

What?

Leslie Shay: So how are you?

Kelly Severide: Um, what’s-what’s going on?

Leslie Shay: So here’s the deal. You know I’ve done

thorough research on this whole

insemination thing. And today I got… well,

I guess, uh, accidental window into how

the whole process works, and it really left

me feeling… hollow.

Kelly Severide: Okay.

Leslie Shay: And you know, I’ve been searching for the

perfect guy to be the father of my baby.

Someone honourable, strong, good looking

[chuckles] I mean, sue me. And maybe even

someone who would want to be part of the

child’s life. And someone who would want to

celebrate, you know, how beautiful it could be.

With me… a cool chick who’s not gonna freak

out and they’ll never have to worry about, you

know, me wanting a divorce or trying to take all

their money, or be a bitch or… [exhales] Kelly I

want to know if you’d like to have a baby with

me.

Kelly Severide: Look, Shay, I…

Leslie Shay: No, no, no. Let me finish. And we’d go through

the insemination process…

Kelly Severide: Um…

Leslie Shay: And… and yeah. Okay that’s it. I’m done.

Kelly Severide: I don’t… I don’t… I don’t know what to say.

Leslie Shay: That’s okay. I just… I just want you to-to think

about it.

Kelly Severide: I…

Leslie Shay: Thank you. And listen, if the answer’s no, I mean,

there won’t even be a hiccup between us. It…

it’s okay. It-It’ll be solid Always you and me.

Okay?

[kissing sound]

Kelly Severide: Uh…

cutscene

Benny Severide: Okay, that’s it. I’m outta here.

Mouch: Great to meet you, Ben.

Benny Severide: Good to see you again.

Joe Cruz: Such a pleasure.

Benny Severide: Good to see you.

Otis Zvonecek: Thanks for the donuts.

Benny Severide: Yup.

Matt Casey: Take care, Benny.

Benny Severide: Hey.

Peter Mills: Hey. Mr Severide, can I talk to you in private.

Benny Severide: Actually, I’m just taking off. It was nice

meeting you.

Peter Mills: Yeah, please… I really need to talk to you.

Benny Severide: Can you make it quick?

Peter Mills: Sure.

Um, the Lambert Tree Award. It’s the highest

award awarded to a firefighter. My father was

nominated and everyone up the line signed off

on it… except for you. Just curious to why.

Benny Severide: Some other time, kid, okay?

Peter Mills: Is this what you’re trying to say to me? Do you

feel bad about not signing off for it? That even

though my father was a hero… and even

though he gave his life…

Benny Severide: It’s an award for valor!

Chief Boden: Benny.

Benny Severide: He wants to hear it. I’m gonna tell him.

In the middle of that fire, your father

panicked and pulled off his mask, which

would have been his business, except

another guy died trying to save him. So,

no, I didn’t sign it. Because I could not in

good faith reward someone for

demonstrating cowardice…

Firefighters: Whoa!

Come on, man!

Hey! Hey!

Come on!

Benny Severide: Unh!

[panting] You want to know why Boden

thinks your father wasn’t at fault? Do ya?

‘Cause he’s an optimist, I guess.

I’ll see you back at your house.

Chief Boden: Mills… You are off duty until further notice.

Get your gear. Wait for Benny to get off site,

and you go home and you’ll wait to hear

from me.

Rest of you, get back to work.

Gabby Dawson: Hey, you okay?

Peter Mills: No.

Gabby Dawson: Look, I totally get what lead up to that

and I am so sorry, but you can’t just go

around punching people.

Peter Mills: My dad wasn’t able to defend himself. So I did.

[locker door slams]

Peter Mills: [sighs]

cutscene

Chief Boden: We were all real close. Henry and me. Benny.

Our wives. Then Ingrid and Henry, they

separated. My wife left me. It was during that

time. It just happened. Then I realised that

Henry might have still had feelings for her,

and I may have moved too quick, so I

stepped back just to see. And I was right.

Henry moved back in after a month. Ingrid

always says I broke her heart. So if you

think that there’s something that Peter needs

or wants to know, I’ll go to his place after shift.

I’ll tell him.

Gabby Dawson: Is what Benny said true?

Chief Boden: Not from where I was standing.

cutscene

Heather Darden: Matt?

Matt Casey: Hmm?

Heather Darden: You have like, two utensils in this kitchen.

Matt Casey: Yeah, it’s on my to-do list.

Heather Darden: You’ve been busy, huh?

Matt Casey: Yeah, it’s been one thing after another lately.

Heather Darden: Have you been dating? Since Hallie?

Matt Casey: Uh, there was someone for a minute, maybe

less. Wasn’t the right time.

Heather Darden: Sorry to hear that.

Matt Casey: What are you gonna do? Damn that smells

good. First home-cooked meal I’ve had

since… I don’t even know.

Heather Darden: It sucks having to come home to an

empty house, doesn’t it?

Matt Casey: Yeah.

Heather Darden: We don’t have to be alone. We don’t

deserve to be. We’re good people.

Why can’t we be happy?

Matt Casey: Heather… I’m really glad you’re here. And

if it was under different circumstances,

believe me… but Andy was one of my best

friends. And he was your husband, and… I

think we should honour that.

Heather Darden: You know what? You’re right. Let’s just

count our blessings

Matt Casey: Dinner and a movie. Let’s get the movie ready.

cutscene

[knocks on door]

Gabby Dawson: Hey, bruiser.

[door shuts]

[kissing sound]

Peter Mills: What’s the word? You heard anything?

Gabby Dawson: Yeah. I, um, spoke to Boden briefly.

Peter Mills: What did he say?

Gabby Dawson: Well, he hasn’t heard from Benny so

the hope is that he doesn’t raise a

stink. If that’s the case, then hopefully

this thing will stay in house. Boden

says to just sit tight for now.

Peter Mills: That’s all he said?

Gabby Dawson: That’s all he said to me.

Peter Mills: Okay, look… can I just say that even though

I’m… maybe in a jam right now, I feel… I feel

lighter. ’Cause since forever I’ve been carrying

around this weight of not knowing. And I could

always just tell that there was something out

there that wasn’t being told to me. At least now

I can… I can move on.

Gabby Dawson: Hey… what Benny said isn’t true.

Peter Mills: I don’t want to talk about it anymore, okay?

Gabby Dawson: Baby, it’s not true…

Peter Mills: Look, I-I don’t want to talk about it anymore

[exhales]

cutscene

Matt Casey: Heather.

[orchestral music playing on TV]

[TV turns off]

cutscene

Benny Severide: He’s just like his old man. It was Henry

Mills against the world. The guy always

had a problem. So if people want to

knock me for being arrogant or

whatever, let them. At least I was

un-conflicted. And in this job, you

better damn well have that going for

you, or you and your buddy’s badges

will end up on the wall at the academy.

Kelly Severide: Well, I didn’t know his old man, but I

know Peter. And from what I’ve seen,

the kid has heart. He has courage.

Benny Severide: Yeah, well I’ve seen your squad. Maybe

you’re not the best judge of character.

[bag zips]

Benny Severide: Look, Kelly, I…I really did come down

here to spend time with you. I didn’t

mean for any of this to happen. And if

anything I did reflects poorly on you,

I’m sorry about that. I guess your old

man is just a guy stuck in his ways. But

hey… if you can’t do anything about it,

don’t worry about it.

[door opens and closes]

cutscene

[knocks on door]

Kelly Severide: Hey.

Peter Mills: Hey.

Kelly Severide: Listen, I know it’s been on your mind

and, uh, I think you’d be a really great

addition to squad. You’re gonna want

to take Hazmat Tech “A”, Vertical

Rescue and Building Collapse One. If

any of them are full, you let me know I

can…I can pull some strings.

Peter Mills: Really?

Kelly Severide: Really. Let’s push it, see what happens.

Peter Mills: Okay.

Kelly Severide: Great.

[chuckling]

- end -

Definitions:

Scrapple = Also known by the Pennsylvania Dutch name Pannhaas or “pan rabbit”, is a traditionally a mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and wheat flour, often buckwheat flour, and spices. The mush is formed into a semi-solid congealed load, and slices of the scrapple are then pan-fried before serving

Agonal breathing = Medical term used to describe struggling to breathe or gasping. It is often a symptom of a severe medical emergency, such as a stroke or cardiac arrest. The gasping associated with agonal respiration is not true breathing, but rather a brainstem reflex.

Hazmat Tech “A” = Hazardous Materials Technician course provides the essential knowledge, skills, and abilities to operate offensively or defensively at an incident involving the release of hazardous materials.

Building Collapse One = This course is extensively hands-on and prepares the student to operate safely and efficiently at a building collapse incident. It offers practice in cutting, breaching, lifting, stabilising, searching, shoring, packaging, and removing victims from a simulated collapse environment

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zayray030 · 4 years

Text

Do you even care?

Chapter Title: Let's talk about how bad we fucked up.

Chapter: 3/?

Summary: Everyone keeps trying to pin the blame on the other until Maya opens up their eyes.

“Put him on the bed. NOW!” demanded Bruce, cowl down and everyone could see the worry in his eyes and the distress.

Everyone looked down at the boy in the hospital bed in his school uniform and realised just how tiny Damian was. He looked like a doll that had been stitched way too many times and left to be thrown away.

“Who did this?” hissed Bruce, eyes narrowed into slits.

“Barbara sent me the footage on what happened Bruce. Their names are Adam Fisher, Normin Gah and Ranny Dlawn.” answered Dick, looking slightly ill but rage could be detected in his voice.

“Well their parents just lost a ticket into every Wayne gala and any business plans with them have been terminated.” said Tim from behind his phone.

“And they just got a very biased interview by Clark Kent.” muttered Clark. Sure he might not see eye to eye with Damian but that did not mean he wanted to see the kid bloodied up and bruised.

“Do you know what he said? When we came to pick him?” asked Jason after a few minutes of silence. The ones that weren't there turned and raised an eyebrow at him.

“What?” asked Emiko.

“He asked us what we were doing there.” and his voice sounded so surprisingly distraught for the big bad Red Hood before he continued on fiercely. “He said he thought a baby Hitler wasn't worth saving.” he hissed out the words baby Hitler like they were poison and turned to Jon.

“Kent?” Bruce growled out, sending him an ugly glare and Jon shrunk in on himself. Kryptonian or not this man was scary.

“I-I have nothing to say that could ever make what I said to him alright.” Hon finally said, head bowed down in shame.

“Mmh. What else did he say?” Bruce asked his son's and Wally after turning one last bat glare at Jon.

“He asked why we wouldn't be happy that we would be finally dead.” said Wally after a beat of silence when it looked like Damian's brothers weren't going to answer their father.

“Why would we be happy?” asked Gar, genuinely confused.

“He thought that we hated him.” said Tim distraught.

“We don't hate him!” Everyone present immediately denied but Bruce just shot everyone a glare.

“So what was that conversation earlier?” asked Bruce. Everyone had the sense to look ashamed of themselves and bow their heads down.

“I texted the rest.” muttered Wally and everyone could see the phone in his hands.

“Oracle already told the others.” said Dick, lifting a hand to rub his face.

“Why didn't he fight back? He has the skills to.” asked Gar.

“I told him not to use his strength against civilians. I guess I should have been more specific.” said Bruce, self loathing clear in his voice.

“No shit, old man!” snapped Jason.

“No fighting.” said Clark before Bruce could open up his mouth. Jason and Bruce just stood there glaring at each other until Jason turned away.

“What the fuck happened to Damian!” came an angry voice and when they turned around they came face to face with one angry Maya Ducard.

“Umm, who are you?” asked Emiko in confusion.

“Damian's friend. Now what the fuck what happened to Damian and who do I need to hurt?” she asked, turning a powerful glare at Damian's family.

“We're already dealing with them.” said Dick hoping to stop the girl's anger.

“Oh and how? Not do a business deal with their parents?” asked Maya sarcastically.

Tim blushed bright red and looked away. She turned and glared at him before marching over to Damian. “I called Suren. He'll be able to heal Damian.” she said shortly, taking a seat on the edge of Damian's bed.

Everyone just nodded at her and it was silent before more people began to enter.

“Hermano, what happened?” Jaime asked Gar.

“What he said. Is Damian okay?” asked Colin frantically. When he saw Maya there he calmed down slightly but still felt panic.

“Physically we will be fine.”

“And what does that mean?” asked Raven.

“Meaning God knows what those heathens said to Damian.” snapped Maya glaring at the pale girl.

“Okay, ladies. No fighting.” said Kori, getting in between the two girls.

“Why would Damian believe them though?” asked Wally.

“Have you seen Damian's self esteem? It's as low as him.” snapped Maya. “Why else do you think he stayed completely helpless? He would have fought back, no matter the consequences. But thanks to you dicks he instantly thinks you would all think that he's just an assassin.” she spat at the last word as if it was poison and everyone looked down in shame.

“But baby brother knows we love him.” said Cass softly.

“Please. It's amazing that we actually manage to convince him that he's a good person worth love. None of us help his mental state and honesty. I'm shocked he didn't stab himself.” she whispered the last part to herself but everyone still heard her.

“We have a shit ton of grovelling to do.” muttered Jason.

“You think?” asked Gar sarcastically. Before another fight could break out a bright light appeared into the room and a small black haired kid came out.

“Where is he?” he demanded and Maya just pointed to the bed. “Shit, he looks bad.” he muttered and held his hand out and suddenly Damian was encased in a white light.

When the light disappeared, everyone could see Damian looking as healthy as one could be. The stab wound was gone and all the bruises disappeared. Hell, even some wrongly lumpy places in his body were gone.

“Been practicing magic. Didn't mean to ignore him.” said Suren when he saw Maya’s questioning look.

“Better than me at least. I ignored him for a full year.”

“Well looks like we won't be the only ones begging for forgiveness.” muttered Dick.

“I'm sorry? You guys are going to be his personal slave for a month after this fuckery!” snarled Maya. Behind her Raven, Kori and Jaime nodded their heads in agreement.

“Yeah well you also princess!” Jason tried defending himself.

“Why you-” before Maya and Jason could start fighting a groan came from the bed.

They all watched nervously as Damian opened his eyes and sat up. “What happened? And why the fuck are you here?” Damian asked.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 4

Part 5

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themusicplayedherlife · 5 years

Text

Of Warmth and Growth

pairing: dick grayson x f!reader characters: reader, the team, dick grayson word count: 7.7k+ warnings: angst, self doubt, and boat load of fluff summary: dealing with a broken heart isn’t easy, but your friend megan is hoping to get you out of that fink by inviting you to her holiday party where you meet someone that might help you move on. a/n: there’s a whole story behind this--originally this was started as a requested oneshot, but i couldn’t bring myself to finish it, so i revamped it and wrote a different story that i posted some time ago. fast forward to november, i made it my goal to finish this before the new year, and i was so close, too, but family took priority. there might also be a disconnect, but I really tried smoothing it over, hopefully I did well. anyway, better late than never, though?

Happy Harbour

December 7, 2019

“Sometimes it’s very hard to move on, but once you move on, you’ll realize it was the best decision you’ve ever made. You’ll see.”

You want to laugh bitterly at Megan’s words, but her sympathetic smile and warm gaze are holding you back from doing so. She’s only trying to help, you’re reminded by your conscious as she continues to spew words of healing and bullshit. Utter bullshit.

Your bitterness wins and you say, “I know,” wanting nothing more than for her to shut up.

Her smile turns sheepish and she pats your hand affectionately before excusing herself to get more coffee, or to get away from you. You wouldn’t blame her if it was the latter, you haven’t exactly been good company to keep around since your break up.

Sighing, your eyes trail to the world on the other side of the small cafe’s window. It’s bustling and full of people with shopping bags, all of them preparing for the holidays. It really is a different world outside, you muse. Everything inside the coffee shop is warmer and cozier—quieter compared to the outside. It almost, almost makes you forget about your broken heart that was ripped and stomped on by the person you thought loved and cared for you, things that you still, unfortunately, feel for them.

Your red-haired friend comes back with two styrofoam cups instead of one, and she sets one down in front of you, taking her seat across from you once more. “I got you another earl grey.”

You pick up the warm styrofoam, enjoying the heat against your palm. “Thank you.”

Megan doesn’t say anything for once, instead she watches the world with you, letting only the soft jazz of the cafe to envelop you. You can tell she’s going over something in her mind, she’s never this quiet unless she’s thinking, and that’s—usually—never a good thing, at least not when it pertains to you.

It’s not until you’re halfway done with your drink that she finally speaks, having grown restless with her thinking. She’s looking at you, her eyes narrowed and a little shaky, never really making contact with your own, but still facing your direction. “Sooo, I was thinking,” she drawls, “Conner and I are inviting some of our old friends over for a little get together this weekend and I thought, hey, maybe I can convince my best friend in the whole universe to finally meet my other friends, you know, I want us all to be friends and—“

“You’re rambling.”

“Right; sorry. It’s not going to be a huge thing, just a few of us watching crappy movies and drinking spiked eggnog, maybe play some games or something.” She reaches for your hand holding your drink and finally meets your eyes. “And I really want you to be there. What do you say, huh?”

“Megan,” you start warningly.

She raises a hand as a peace sign. “I know, I know! You said you wanted to keep a low profile this holiday season, but I really want to introduce you. They’re really nice people, a little odd, but so am I and you’re still my friend!”

You purse your lips, mulling over the idea. “Are the girls going to be there?”

“Yes! Well, Karen will be, I’m not sure about Wendy, yet. Should probably ask her tonight.”

Again, you think it over. Not only will you be in a small, confined space with a lot of people (she might have said it wasn’t going to be huge, but you and her have different definitions for small and huge), you’re going to be stuck in a confined space with strangers. It doesn’t sound very pleasing, but then again, you haven’t been very pleasant and there’s no denying that you always dodged her past intents to get you and her friends to hang out, and yet, she’s still here, trying to cheer you up.

You owe it to her.

“Okay, I’ll go.” She immediately squeals. Loudly. Blushing, you look around the cafe, and just as you feared, everyone in the small cafe is looking at you. You sigh, lifting a hand to stop her from over exerting herself—and from embarrassing you any further. “Just don’t expect me to bring anything.”

“That’s fine! That’s fine! As long as you bring yourself, I’m content.”

You’re going to regret it, you just know it.

Happy Harbour

December 14, 2019

You tug at the hem of your outfit, uncomfortable. You could hear the loud laughter of the people inside accompanied by the soft hum of Megan’s holiday playlist. In your hand is a Tupperware full of brigadeiro, a Brazilian dessert your grandma used to make for the holidays before she completely quit eating sweet things (in front of your mom anyway).

Fingers tighten around the container. Maybe you should go... You could always deal with an angry Megan later.

“Are you going to go in or are you just going to stare at the wreath all night?” A deep, amused voice registers in your mind and your body jerks in response, almost making you drop the Tupperware if it weren’t for the steady hand holding you against their strong, chest. “Whoa, there!” he exclaims, warm air fanning over your neck. “You all right?”

He doesn’t allow you to pull away until he steadies you, making sure you’re upright before letting you go. “Yeah, I’m fine,” you breathe out. “Thank you.”

He chuckles and you whirl around to meet your assailant and savior—and holy fuck is he gorgeous. They were gorgeous, too, but in that average kind of way. Nothing about them stood out to people, but to you? They were the most beautiful person you had ever seen. But this man in front of you, you had to be stupid not to notice how gorgeous he is. Striking blue eyes peering into you, a mischievous glint in them and matched by the lopsided smirk adorning his face; unruly black locks in waves and falling to one side as he runs his fingers through his hair. There’s something distinctly boyish and alluring about him that it renders you speechless.

“Megan never told me she had such a gorgeous friend,” he suddenly says. Or maybe not so suddenly because you’re sure his mouth had been moving before you allowed yourself to fall under his spell.

Hold on.

Wait a second.

Gorgeous?

Did he really just call you gorgeous, too?

Your throat closes and your eyes widen, hopefully not comically or at all because holy shit. A really gorgeous man just called you gorgeous. The last person to ever compliment was your mom. But she’s your mom. She’s supposed to think you’re pretty good looking. And before that it was them. And realizing it now, they probably never even meant it. So this? This is new and weird and what the fuck are you supposed to say to something like that to someone like him. “I—“

A draft of air hits your back as the door is swung open behind you. The Christmas music that Megan has been preparing since June is louder than before without the door closed.

“You’re here,” she squeals, wrapping her arms from behind you, her chin settling on your shoulder. “I’m so happy you came!” She kisses your cheek messily and something sweet and alcoholic fills your nostrils. “And you brought something!”

“Yeah, yeah! Don’t make it a thing.” You laugh, pulling away as she makes a show of having to let you go. “How much eggnog have you had?”

“Not too much.” Her eyes turn to the other guest and her eyes brighten. “Dick!” Dick? What kind of name is Dick? Was his mom angry at his dad? Noticing your stare, he smiles down at you, amusement never leaving his face before he turns to Megan. “You’re here! Wally and the others are already here.” She moves away from the door to let you both in.

Dick gestures to the inside of her apartment. “After you.”

Blinking owlishly, you thank him and enter the loud apartment full of people you don’t recognize—well, mostly of people you don’t recognize. There’s Karen and Mal by the Christmas tree talking to a redhead and a blonde, who Dick makes his way over to after excusing himself. Wendy is with Marvin by the snack table, the two arguing—really it's Marvin arguing—about which dessert is the best for the holidays, and a few other really gorgeous and fit people. Why are all of her friends ridiculously good looking?

“You okay?” Megan asks, her hand settling on your shoulder and squeezing lightly.

Your head swivels in her direction. “What?”

“You were frowning,” she says softly. “Hey, if I forced you to be here—“

“No,” you interrupt her quickly. “No, I’m glad you invited me, I just—I’ll be okay. I promise. You were right about me having to move on. I can’t avoid society forever because of a broken heart. I just need to get used to… this,” you say, moving your eyes around the party of people that seemed to already be coupled off.

She smiles gently but doesn’t seem all that convinced. “I’m right here if you need me, okay?” She takes the Tupperware from your hands. “Come on, let's say hi to everyone.” When you bristle, as you take off your coat, she laughs. “In moderation.”

An hour into the party and you’ve already become acquainted with mostly everyone at the party. You meet Wally and Artemis, the couple who were with Karen and Mal when you first arrived; Raquel and her baby boy, Amistad. Cassie and Tim; Jaime and Bart; Gar and some really weird guy who keeps glaring at Conner; Kaldur, who looks strangely familiar—and only smiles when you mention it before being pulled away by Megan—and Barbara, who eyes you momentarily before flashing you a warm smile. She’s a little intimidating, if you’re being honest.

There are still a few more people you have yet to meet, but you seriously need a break, and you say as much to Megan.

“You said a little party,” you say accusingly, as if you hadn’t known this was her definition of small.

She laughs, her arm hooked around yours as she pulls you towards the spread of food and drinks. “It is little!” She lets go of you, opens the treats you made and places them between all the others. She then grabs a clean cup to fill it with eggnog before handing it to you. “Here! Conner and I made it, so it might not be… good.”

You take a tentative sip of the thick liquid made out of egg and spices and doused with alcohol and holy fuck do you regret it. “You and Conner made this?” you sputter, the taste of bourbon lingering strongly on your tongue.

She pouts. “The recipe called for a ton of bourbon to counteract the sweetness!”

You pull the cup away and eye the liquid with scrutiny. “Did you put a whole bottle of Bourbon from Costco in here?”

“Yes?” she answers, a little unsure. “Probably. I don’t actually remember.”

Conner comes up from behind her and wraps his arms around her waist. “Enjoying yourselves?”

She tilts her head to kiss him on his cheek continuously and smiles. “Always.”

You avert your gaze.

“It’s good to see you again,” Conner addresses you after they’ve had their fill of small pecks. Honestly, you don’t blame them for being so affectionate and in love. It wasn’t that long ago that the two finally decided to give each other another chance after a falling out that Megan still doesn’t want to talk about. And again, you don’t blame her. You don’t want to talk about the reason why you and your ex broke up either, let alone think about it.

You hum and reluctantly move your gaze back to their interlocked embrace. You manage a smile. “Same to you. Been a while hasn’t it?”

Before he can reply, Gar interrupts with a call of their names. He’s standing near the fireplace with Bart, leaning over something. “Come check this out!”

Megan wiggles out of Conner’s hold and instead grabs his hand to lead him towards the boys. “Don’t go anywhere!”

Conner flashes an exasperated glance at you over his shoulder, which you return, before he wraps his arms around Megan again—the two laughing and joking about who knows what as they close the distance between them and the boys.

Sighing, you take another sip of the eggnog and your face scrunches in response to the liquid coating your tongue. “Bleh.”

“Fell victim to the spiked eggnog, I see,” a voice cuts through your thoughts as you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand.

Eyes snap up to meet the familiar, amused gaze of Dick. “Uh, yeah.”

He offers you a different mug and you eye it suspiciously. He chuckles. “It’s just apple cider, I promise.”

You reluctantly relent, taking the mug he offers as he takes the one you had been drinking. You take a sip, and surprisingly enough, it really is apple cider, no alcohol at all. “Oh, god, thank you.”

He flashes you a pearly smile, and takes a sip of the eggnog without grimacing. “So, how did you meet Megan and Conner?”

“Oh, um, from school. We went to the same high school.” He quirks an eyebrow. “I was a year below them, but I became friends with Megan when she joined the cheerleading team. My friendship with Conner just followed naturally after that.”

His eyes brighten, as if what you’re saying is actually interesting. “Really?”

You curl a piece of loose hair behind your ear. “Uh, yeah. What about you? How did you meet them?”

“Oh, through our families,” he supplies, a little detached, as if it weren’t really important. “Most of us met like that.”

You frown, but try to hide it behind the rim of the mug. “Wow. Then you must’ve known Megan for quite some time, then?”

His eyes flicker to your lips and his turn upwards. “Actually, I’ve probably known her for about the same amount of time as you.”

Wait. If that's true…“Does that mean you went to the Halloween disaster of 2016?” You remember Megan telling you she would be inviting her friends to the dance, and you heard that she did. Maybe he was among them?

He snorts. “Is that what they’re calling it?” You nod eagerly, hoping to hear his side of what happened that night.

“No.” You deflate, and he huffs a laugh. “I wasn’t able to go, had plans that night. Did you?”

You pout, the disappointment you felt at missing that night coming to mind. “Unfortunately, no. I was sick, but I heard from Marvin and the others that it was a night to remember.”

You don’t get to ask him more questions because as soon as you open your mouth, the front door opens to reveal a beautiful girl with dark, raven hair in delicate waves and bright blue eyes entering the room. Immediately, everyone (excluding you, Marvin and Wendy—wtf Karen?) recognizes her and greet her with a loud exclaim of her name, “Zatanna!”

Dick turns to you and you already know that he’s about to excuse himself. “Do you mind if—“

You shake your head interrupting him with, “No, no, go ahead.”

Surprisingly, he reaches for your arm and squeezes gently. “I’ll be right back.”

You blink after him and mutter, “Yeah. Okay.”

“Be right back” doesn’t happen. He stays by the pretty girl’s side, the two of them being overly familiar with one another—tight hugs, continuous small touches, long eye contact, leaning against one another. You wouldn’t be surprised if they dated at some point, to be honest; or maybe they are dating—ugh. Why does the thought of it bother you?

“You all right?” Wendy softly asks, her kind eyes full of worry and briefly moving to Karen by the entrance.

What’s that about?

You try to keep from frowning. “I think I just need some fresh air,” you assure her.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, I’ll be fine. I’ll just be out for a moment, besides—“ you flick your eyes to Marvin by the dessert table stuffing his face with walnut bread—“I think you’d better stay to make sure Marvin doesn’t eat all the walnut bread.”

“Oh—damn it, Marvin!” She sighs ready to chastise her boyfriend, but she pauses to look at you. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

You hum in agreement and watch as she saunters over to Marvin before turning on your heels and stepping out through the sliding doors leading to the balcony.

The cold winter air bites your skin, your long sleeved turtleneck not enough to combat the cold, but just thinking about going back inside makes you try to suck it up. You cover your mouth with your sleeve as you lean against the railing—Happy Harbor lights glinting brightly in the dark.

Maybe you should leave. You’ve been here a good amount of time to deem acceptable, right? You’ve met some of Megan’s friends and even talked to a few of them for a while, and you didn’t show an ounce of disgruntlement—as far as you know—so you should be good right?

An ache fills your chest, pulsing slowly as you let out a long sigh. God, what happened to you? You weren’t always like this. So closed off and unwilling to spend time with your friends. You’ve practically been unconsciously ignoring Karen and Mal, attaching yourself to Megan when she is alone, or staying with Marvin and Wendy because they act least like a couple compared to your old classmates. And the moment the one person you’ve talked to for an extended period of time at the party joins his pretty friend, you become bitter about it!

You need help.

Something heavy lands on your shoulders and back, strong cologne filling your nostrils and making you jump.

“Woah, easy, it’s just me.”

Startling blue eyes twinkle with mischief and your shoulders drop, heat combatting the cold air. “Anyone ever tell you not to sneak up on people?”

He just grins and settles in the space beside you, eyes sweeping over the town you grew up in. “My job kind of requires that I do.”

You slip your arms through the sleeves of his coat, ignoring the fact that it’s not exactly your size. It’s warm anyway. “Thank you.” You lean forward, tightening the coat to fit you snuggly. “What kind of job requires you to have ninja like stealth?”

He chuckles, meeting your gaze. “I’m an officer at Bludhaven PD, trying to become detective.”

Your eyebrows furrow. “Bludhaven? Really?”

He hums, elbow resting on the railing and cupping his cheek.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Gotham has its norierty, but so does Bludhaven. It was basically untapped, scandals and crimes hidden behind a veil created by corrupt officials, until a couple of years ago when it all came to light with Nightwing’s arrival.

“Yeah,” he drawls, mulling it over, “but what isn’t? Anything can be dangerous if you think about it.” He leans closer to you. “Where do you work?”

“Happy Harbour Times, Opinions.”

“Then you must have to deal with a lot of angry readers when you write about something they don’t agree with, right? Threats and angry phone calls and letters. Those can be dangerous, too, right?” he asks cheekily.

You laugh, ducking your head. “I guess you’re right.” There’s still no comparing writing articles to police work, no matter how light of a situation Dick is trying to make it. “Why police work, though? It’s not many people’s first choice. Especially in Bludhaven.”

He shrugs. “Always been interested, I guess.” He leans back, hands holding onto the railing and causing his blue cable knit sweater to wrap tightly around his arm muscles. “My guardian…” Now, that’s an interesting choice of words. “He was—is a fan of mysteries.” His voice is far off, stuck in his jar of memories. “When he took me in, we’d used to solve cases together, most of them taking place in Gotham, where I was raised.” He chuckles. “And I guess from there I just… I just decided I wanted to be a cop.”

“I see... And you decided not to become a cop in Gotham?”

“Gotham has good people looking out for her already.”

“She could always use more.” He cracks a smile, blue eyes twinkling with the city lights as they find yours, and you return it shyly. “But I get it. Bludhaven has become yours, in a way. Separate from your… guardian.”

“In a way,” he repeats, and you have to look away from or else your heart will stop. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

He nudged your shoulder with his. “Happy Harbour Times?”

“Ah.” Your breath comes out in a puff, the night air still growing colder by the hour, but you don’t mind it. Dick doesn’t seem to mind either. “Well, when I was a kid, my third grade teacher told my parents I was a really good writer. So, they got me into workshops and short story competitions,” you recall, remembering the constant competitions your parents would sign you up for without your knowledge sometimes. They did it with good intentions, hoping to help hone your skill, but it was too much sometimes. “Truth is, I hated it. Never really liked… fiction, I guess? Don’t get me wrong, give me a good fiction novel and I will read it for days, but… it… it just wasn’t me,” you confess locking your fingers in place.

“I was about ready to give up on writing when my tenth grade English teacher assigned us a topic to write about and I guess I fell in love with the research and being able to go out and interview people.”

“Yeah? And what was it that you wrote about?”

You bite your lip and find Dick staring at you, a curious glimmer in his eyes. “Don’t laugh?” He promises he won’t. “Robin.”

He chokes on his saliva, eyes growing in disbelief. “As in Batman’s Robin?”

You tuck strands of hair behind your ear, refusing to meet his gaze. “Yeah, um, the prompt was about vigilantes and I chose to write about him instead of the Flash, Batman, Wonder Woman and whoever else everyone wrote about.”

“Why?”

You shrug, trying your best to mask your embarrassment with a blase attitude. “Fighting crime with Batman? That was pretty cool, you know? He was living every kid’s dream.”

“Was he?” he asks, voice soft.

“He was!” you confess, smile blooming on your face as a memory of you and your friends playing as the superhero sidekicks comes to mind. It’s some of your best memories from elementary school. “But I didn’t want to just write about the good. He was a kid seeing some fucked up shit, after all.” You pause to look at him, only to find he’s not looking at you, but at the city lights. There’s something… wistful and forlorn in those blue eyes of his, and you wonder if he’s thinking back on his time in Gotham, seeing Boy Wonder up close and personal. “Being Robin must’ve taken its toll on him, both mentally and physically.

“And I wanted to write about that. Even had my parents drive up to Gotham for the weekend so I could do some snooping, maybe even find Boy Wonder myself.”

Finally he reacts, lips twitching as he turns to look at you. “And how’d that go?”

“I learned that the citizens of Gotham really hate being asked questions.” He chuckles and you smile. “But those who did answer... you can tell they were grateful for him and worried about him. The kid really touched people’s hearts, whether they agreed with his nightly activities with Batman or not.” You tilt your head, watching his eyes light up with your words. “It’s just a shame I didn’t get to interview Robin himself.” You grab hold of the railing and lean forward. “But I’d doubt he’d have given me the time of day if I had gotten the chance to ask him. Probably too busy saving babies and punching villains with Batman.”

“I’m sure he would have made time for you.” Your fingers slip from the metal to turn to look at him, unsure of his sincerity. “How could he not?” His cheeks have become flushed with the cold, nose bright and blue eyes stark against his skin.

You smile, but you’re sure it looks more like an awkward grimace. “You’re just saying that.”

“I’m not.” He frowns, sincere eyes knocking your breath away. “I know if he knew someone as sincere as you wanted to ask him some questions for their article, he would have dropped whatever he was doing to help you.”

You don’t know why you stand there, waiting for him to laugh in your face and say his punchline. You don’t know why he just stands there and stares back at you, quiet and shining with sincerity that he’s trying to penetrate into your being. It’s weird and totally unnecessary, but maybe a part of you is desperate to know if he’s really being sincere and a part of him is desperate for you to know he is.

“Hey!” Megan’s voice break through the trance you’re both in. Her head barely poking out into the cold and green eyes narrowing. “Get in here before you both catch something!”

Dick chuckles, attention moving from her to you. “Should we head in?”

You nod mutely, smiling tight lipped.

As you follow Megan inside, the only thing on your mind is that you might have already caught something.

Bludhaven

December 15, 2020

“You’re really not coming home for the Holidays this year?”

Megan is pouting on your computer screen, but you hardly pay her any attention. You have an article on Bludhaven’s growing homelessness due in the morning and you still have some revisions to do. Your little mishap earlier today took time that you were reserving for this article and now you’re running behind.

“‘Fraid not,” you tell her, your voice accompanied by the clicking of your keyboard. “I’ve been overloaded with a ridiculous amount of work this month and I need to get it done before the end of the year.”

From the corner of your eye, you can see her scavenging through boxes of decorations. “Won’t your mom be disappointed you won’t be coming home?”

“Nope,” you pop the “p” as you rewrite a fragment. “She’s coming down to see me instead.”

She stops, head lifting like a prairie dog on alert. “So it’s just going to be you two this year?”

“Maybe. Dick said he might stop by, but he’s not sure.”

“Ooh,” her teasing rings through your quiet bedroom and you roll your eyes.

“It’s not like that, Megan.” You wished it were like that, but it’s not, and maybe it’s for the best. Dick became one of your good friends since the party last year and one of your best friends after you volunteered for a transfer to Bludhaven’s Times earlier this year. You don’t want to mess with what you have, not right now when your life feels perfectly balanced.

“Don't let the person who didn't love you keep you from the person who will,” she says, sounding serious as hell and making you snort and pause in your typing. “Hey! Don’t laugh at my words of wisdom!”

“This has nothing to do with them, Megan. When I said I was finally over them, I meant it.” The moment you were able to look at an old tagged picture of you and them on their friends’ Instagram and you felt nothing, no numbness, no anger nor sadness, just a strange vagueness as if they were a stranger, you knew you were over them. “Dick and I… we like where we are.”

“Boo.”

Conner appear on screen and shakes his head as he wraps his arm around her shoulder. “Don’t listen to her. I respect your decision.”

She rolls her eyes, playfully pushing his head out of the screen. “I respect your decision too, doesn’t mean I agree with it.”

“Heckling does not equate respect, babe.”

You laugh at their antics, their displays of affections no longer bothering you. Now, when you see them you just feel happy, happy for them and for you. Bitterness long gone from your bones, and there’s one person you can thank for that.

Your phone on your desk dings.

Dick 🥳🤩: Chinese food 2nite?

You: only if you promise to get extra egg rolls

Dick 🥳🤩: Got’chu, omw.

“You’re smiling! Why are you smiling? It’s Dick, isn’t it? It’s totally Dick.”

You roll your eyes, trying to keep your face neutral but knowing you’re doing horribly at it. “I have to go, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Wait, is he coming over?” She gushes, and Conner is back on screen, trying to wrestle the phone out of her grip.

You laugh when you hear a curse from Conner. “I have an article to finish, Megan.”

“You can’t just leave me hanging like this—“

All right, you’ve had enough. “Bye, Megan!”

Megan🧡: 😨 You hung up on me?

Megan🧡: 😡😡

Megan🧡: Expecting deets tomorrow ❤️

You: goodnight, megan!

It doesn’t take long for Dick to arrive and for you to shove your article aside—you’re almost done with it anyway, nothing wrong with a little break.

The door jingles and as you begin to clear your coffee table—where you and Dick usually eat dinner—of your paperwork, it opens to reveal Dick still wearing his uniform. You smile up at him briefly, gathering everything and taking it over to your round, small dining table that could probably fit four people if you really tried to squeeze them in. “Hey! Let me just grab some plates and we can—“

Before you can finish your sentence, or head into the kitchen, a hand wraps around your wrist, worried crystallized blue eyes staring into you. “Why didn’t you tell me you were almost mugged?”

Ah, hell.

The crack in his voice makes your heart drop to your stomach and your eyes fall down to his ugly black shoes that you make fun of every chance you get just to hear his laugh. “I’m sorry,” you mumble. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

Which isn’t a lie. Since you moved to Bludhaven, Dick has been checking up on you more often and even picking you up from work if he has the chance—“Bludhaven isn’t like Happy Harbor. It’s… tougher and harder,” he had said after offering to teach you some self defense moves. You had laughed and said you could handle yourself, but accepted it anyway if it meant spending more time with him.

Today was just bad luck, he was on the other side of the city and you had chosen to take the bus to work that day and hadn’t been paying attention. Next thing you know, you’re being threatened to give your purse up.

His warm fingers leave your wrist and instead they find your chin. Gingerly, he lifts your head to force you to meet his gaze. “When Rohrbach called me on my way here to check up on you because she was worried, I swear my heart almost stopped.” His eyes shine with worry and there’s a twisting in your gut. “What if Louie hadn’t been nearby, huh?”

“I’m okay, Dick,” you reassure him, wanting nothing more than to lean against him, maybe have his lips press a kiss on your forehead. “I handled him pretty well. Used those self defense moves you taught me.” It was why you were able to shake him off and run to the nearest officer for help. Dick inadvertently saved you.

He finally smiles. “Yeah, Rohrbach said you left him pretty bruised up.” His hand under your chin moves to smooth out your hair before cupping the back of your head and pressing you against him. “I need you to be more careful, sweetheart. Need you to be safe.”

Your heart bursts in your chest at the pet-name and you wrap your arms around his waist, fisting the jacket of his uniform tightly. His cologne makes you dizzy—ginger and spices for the holiday. “Only if you promise to stay safe, too.”

“I’ll do my best.” His soft lips land on your forehead briefly before he’s pulling away and you restrain yourself from chasing after him. “Let’s eat? You must be starving.”

“A little,” you admit, and let him pull you toward the couch. “Eating out of the cartons today?”

He flashes you a grin. “Why not?”

As you both settle next to each other on the floor, back being supported by your old couch and you turn on your television as he pulls out the food he bought, you can’t help but think that even if your relationship stay like this with Dick, you wouldn’t mind it.

Bludhaven

December 31, 2020

You check your watch for the umptenth time.

He’s late.

Everyone around you is celebrating, filling the bar with laughter and talk, most of it incoherent over the loud music and the inebriated state most of them are in. You’re only a few hours away from the New Year and people are already drunk out of their minds—this doesn’t spell trouble for the night whatsoever.

Dick 🥳🤩 (7)

7 outgoing calls, all unanswered and completely unlike him. Sure, sometimes he doesn’t answer your calls when he’s busy, that’s a given, but he always sends you a message if he’s going to be late or apologizes for not being able to answer your call. This just not like Dick.

You try calling one more time, covering one ear with your palm to hear the ringing, but just like before, you get sent to voicemail. Worry begins to over take your annoyance. You grab your bag and quickly make your way out of the crowded bar, not caring about the warm bodies complaining.

Driving to his place takes you about thirty minutes with traffic, and you occasionally find yourself cursing at other drivers and yourself. It’s a miracle you don’t get into an accident or pulled over. With his garage key that he gave you, you open the gate and make your way to the space that has become yours over the last couple of months with how much you visit him.

Locking your car with a simple click of the key fob, you power walk to the elevator. One last time, you try calling him, hoping he’ll answer and apologize for being late, but once again it sends you to voicemail just as the elevator doors open on his floor.

“Please be okay,” you whisper to yourself.

Taking out your copy of the key, you slowly insert it and tentatively call out to him as you open the door.

No answer.

You strain your hearing as you swear you hear some shuffling and thumping, but that noise could just be coming from down the hall. He does have some noisy neighbors.

You enter the apartment and close the door behind you. “Dick?”

There’s a crash and you jump, your heart in your throat, but the familiar string of curses eases your fear. You follow the noise and come face to face with a wide eyed Dick shirtless covered in nasty forming bruises in the middle of his bathroom.

A whimper escapes your lips and you rush forward, cupping his face in your hand. “What the hell happened to you? I thought you managed to get the night off?” You turn his head this way and that, and then push him back by grabbing his shoulder to look at his torso and back. Only letting go when he winces at a particularly hard tug. “Oh shit! I’m sorry!”

He grabs your wrists not allowing you to give him space. “You’re not blushing,” he says cheekily, his eyes twinkling even with the slowly forming bruise.

Your eyebrows furrow. “Why would I be—“ Your eyes drag down to his naked torso peppered with old wounds and spanking brand new bruises and you immediately feel a wave of heat spreading through your body. “Oh.”

He laughs softly, chuckling almost, low and a sweet timbre.

But when your eyes fall lower, you’re doused in cold water, black, almost skin tight material—unitard?—and a black holster wrapped around his right leg greeting you. This isn’t his police uniform! What is he wearing? And why does it look like kevlar? “Why are you—“

You’re not allowed a moment to ask because Dick pulls you towards him with a tug of your wrists and you fall against his chest, barely bracing yourself as he wraps his arms around your waist, large hands flat against your back.

“Dick?”

“I’m okay,” he murmurs airily into your hair and you don’t know what to do, you’re pretty sure he can feel and hear your pacing heart.

You repeat his name, trying to pull away from him to look into his eyes. He doesn’t let you.

He inhales. “Just give me a moment and I’ll answer any questions you might have.”

You sigh, warm air brushing against his bare skin, and the hands that braced yourself on the kitchen sink wrap around his torso loosely. “What happened?”

Circles are traced on your shirt, one hand climbing higher to cradle the back of your head. “Remember the guy who tried to rob you?” You nod and hum, remembering that crooked nosed, pale skin idiot who thought you’d be an easy target. “He escaped during transfer today with the help of some of his friends, and I went after them. Off record.”

You pull away from him and look up at him with wide eyes and slack jaw to find his serious gaze on you, lips pulled down into a thin line. “What do you mean off record?” Your throat closes and the back of your nose stings—he went after them ‘cause that man tried hurting you? “Dick, what if something happened—”

His eyes bore into you and his thumb find purchase on your face, tracing the curve of your cheekbone. “It's just a couple of scratches and bruises. I’m okay. I promise.”

You blink back your tears and lean into his touch. “You still shouldn’t have gone by yourself!”

“I didn’t,” he says softly. “I went with a friend.”

Your nose scrunches, your eyes still watery. “Rohrbach?”

He shakes his head. “No. Better, Robin.”

“Robin?” You try to remember if he’s ever mentioned anyone named Robin at the precinct, but you’re pretty sure he hasn’t—“Wait. Robin? As in Batman’s Robin?” His gaze doesn’t change, it remains serious and your heart leaps in your chest. “You really know Robin?”

He finally cracks a smile and you’re half expecting him to say he’s joking (you don’t know which is worse, him joking about knowing Robin when he’s aware how much admiration teen you had for him or finding out that he really went after that thug and his friends on his own!), but instead he answers with a simple, “Yeah.”

“Dick, if you’re—“

He chuckles, his thumb that had been tracing your cheekbone dragging down to your bottom lip, slowly tracing the swell. You would have melted if there weren’t more pressing matters at hand. “I’m not playing with you, sweetheart.”

Your eyes fall to his torso and down to his pants and the hanging arms of his unitard and they snap back up, alarmed. “Are you—does this mean you’re also a—“ you can’t even form a proper sentence, the rushing of your blood flowing through your head and ears drown out your thoughts and voice.

His hands drop from your frame and you take a step back as he adjusts the unitard, slipping into it only to have you gasping at the familiar symbol on his chest—Nightwing.

Without waiting for his permission, your fingers trace the symbol, the material under your fingers soft and somehow firm. A deep ache blooms in your chest, your nose wrinkling and Dick reacts quickly, cupping your face with his now covered hands, and you’d laugh any other time at the fact that his suit is falling forward and down his arms, but you’re too busy trying to keep yourself from crying.

It all makes sense now! His double shifts and all the injuries—gods. How could you have been so blind?

He rubs the corner of your eyes and coos gently, worry swimming in his eyes and honestly, that’s not fair! You’re the only one allowed to be worried right now! “Hey, hey, why are you crying, huh? What’s wrong?”

Your head falls forward and Dick leans down to press his forehead against yours. “This isn’t going to make me worry less about you, Dick.” Your fingers wrap around his thick forearms. “You promised you were going to try staying safe and this,” you pause to sigh, refusing to meet his eyes, ”this isn’t going to keep you safe.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers into the space between you. “I’m sorry I’m going to make you worry. I’m sorry I’m making you cry. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”

“That doesn’t matter,” you say with a sniffle, because it doesn’t. You don’t care that he didn’t tell you he was Nightwing or that he allowed you to gush about Robin when he’s always known who that is. What matters is that now you know Dick is out every night as Nightwing risking his life and you’re not happy about that. That’s what matters.

“But I won’t break my promise.” You squeeze his arm. “I promised you I would try, and ever since that night, I’ve done my best to keep to that, and I always will.” His nose bumps against yours, trying to get you to look at you and you do, suddenly aware of the lack of space between you. “I have someone to come home to now.”

Your eyebrows furrow, and your heart pounds against your rib cage. You’re no longer okay being just friends with Dick, not when he says things like that and when he’s looking at you like this either—like you’re the only thing that matters and all he wants is to keep you trapped in his arms (you wouldn’t fight him if he tried).

Before you can voice anything, coherent or incoherent, your mouth is sealed shut by a paid of chapped lips. It’s a small peck, but it’s enough to send a tumble of acrobats into a frenzy. And all you want is to feel his lips against yours again, and so you meet him halfway after a shallow collection of breath.

Lips move in tandem, heads tilting this way and that and it’s all very much like the passionate romcom movie kisses you’ve seen over the years, the kind you’d dream about every time Dick would kiss different parts of your face and never your lips. It’s all fire and sweetness, like fireworks on a hot summers’ day and watermelon juice dripping down your chin.

A loud boom echoes in the quiet night and you jerk away from Dick, eyes snapping to his bedroom entrance, the windows covered with blinds allowing the bright flashes of light to filter in.

“Did we miss the countdown?” you find yourself asking dumbly, a little breathless and mind still reeling from his intense kiss.

He presses another one to your temple, chuckling. “Does it matter?”

“It’s the New Year!”

“Could really care less,” he grumbles, voice coming from deep in his chest as his lips dragging from the corner of your eyes to your lips, pulling you away from the firework show outside. “Too busy trying to make out with my gorgeous girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend, huh?” you tease in between kisses.

“Mhmm, have been trying to make her mine for a couple of months now, but she’s pretty clueless. ‘S supposed to be one of the best reporters in all of the tri state area, too.”

“Should’ve said something, Dick. I’m not a mind reader.”

He chuckles, pulling away from your lips for just a moment. “There’s something else you should know.”

“What?” you ask, a little hazily.

“I was Robin.”

And before you can ask him to elaborate on that or you’re allowed to be embarrassed, he closes the distance between you once more and kisses you senseless.

To think you thought you’d regret going to Megan’s a little over a year ago; if only the you from then could see you now, happy and moved on.

#dick grayson x reader #richard dick grayson x reader #robin x reader #nightwing x reader #dick grayson x you #dick grayson x y/n #reader insert #young justice #titans #fanfic #young justice fic #titans fic

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zombiesbecrazy · 5 years

Text

sliding between the cracks

Summary: If ever he deserved a drink, it was now. Just one. Maybe two.

AO3

No one questions him when Roy sits down on the couch to watch the hockey game, Stars versus Monarchs, with a bottle of non alcoholic beer in hand, with a bowl full of popcorn and pizza on the way.

He and Garth lean back and laugh and joke and yell at the TV, just as they had time and time again. For a guy who lived underwater, Garth was weirdly obsessed with a sport played on top of it.

It was a good distraction and made Garth none the wiser that Roy has mixed his imitation beer with the real thing. It barely counts as the real thing - it’s just the lame 4% crap that Dick drinks when he pretends to take the stick out of his butt - not the stronger IPA that Garth’s been chugging back all night.

He doesn’t know why he’s hiding it and he doesn’t know whether he should be annoyed or concerned that no one has noticed.

It’s fine. It’s just to take the edge off after a rough week. Roy doesn’t even like beer.

It’s fine.

***

He finds Wally sitting alone at the kitchen counter in the decommissioned Tower in the dark, with a bottle of rye and a jug of rocket fuel with a label that says Ferris Air slapped on the side, and shot glasses full of a murky looking mixture of the two lined up in front of him. Rye didn’t do anything to Wally, but rocket fuel sure did and when mixed the rye covered up the taste of the fuel, or so he said. Roy had to take his word on it.

He still remembered the day that Wally had first learned that he could get hammered off rocket fuel, Hal spilling the beans and providing the goods. He had run off to the Tower, just like now, and proceeded to get so drunk that he threw up in Donna’s hair and then passed out in the bathtub because he liked that it was shiny.

Wally didn’t get wasted often, but when he did, he was an emotional drunk and this night was no different. He’s talking more at Roy than to Roy, about how he had nothing in this universe and everything is falling apart and he doesn’t know what to do to make it better. No Titans, no Linda, no kids… no kids? Roy assumed that he was just drunk and not making sense and he rubbed Wally’s shoulder in sympathy and there was a jolt of electricity. A red haired girl. A dark haired boy. Wally’s kids.

And then there was an even younger dark haired girl and Roy pulled his hand away in shock. He knew that girl. He loved that girl with everything he had. Lian.

How had he forgotten Lian?

Wally passed out, tear stained and mumbling in his sleep, and Roy reached around him, grabbed the rye from the table and took a big swig, wincing as it burned down his throat.

If ever he deserved a drink, it was now. Just one.

Maybe two.

***

Roy freezes the moment he walks into the pub, debates the merits of just turning on his heel and walking straight out again, before he just groans and decides to sit down in the booth beside Jason and across from Dick. It’s a close call but there is no way that one former Speedy could get away from two ex-Robins without at least a little prep time beforehand and this was clearly something that they had planned.

The waitress, his usual, arrives at their table with drinks; tonic water for Dick, coke for Jason and places a vodka soda in front of him. “Hope you weren’t looking for something different tonight, Roy. They said that you’d just have your usual.”

He glared across the table at Dick, wishing that he had laser vision right in this moment. “Thanks, Bree.” Roy tried to keep the anger from bubbling up and spilling into his words, but didn’t do a very good job because Bree’s smile faded and then scurried away back towards the kitchen.

The three of them sit there, staring at each other, not knowing what to do next. “So, we have some concerns,” said Jason, finally breaking the ice, shifting on the bench to look at Roy who was doing his very best not to punch either of them. Stupid Robin’s and their stupid faces and their stupid decision to gang up on him together. “We think that you should call Waylon.”

There is something about his tone that just makes Roy see red. Voice all lazy and casual in a way that is no where close to casual, because friends don’t just drop in on friends to stage and intervention when there isn’t even a problem.

“Fuck you.” Dick opens his mouth to say something and Roy cuts him off. “You too. This has your meddling fingerprints all over it.”

He stares at the table instead of either of them. Not because he’s mad that they know or that he got caught. It’s that they ambushed him like this, out in public when it’s not even a big deal. He’s not causing any problems or doing one any harm and this is just typical Bat behaviour of butting their noses into everyone else’s business and thinking that it’s theirs. “Okay. Yes. I’m drinking. Obviously. There is nothing to worry about and I have it under control. It’s just a drink every now and then. I’m not hiding in a dark alley shooting up heroin or buying cocaine or using whatever flavour of the week drug is running the street. I’m not an alcoholic. I’m a drug addict and there is a fucking difference, alright?” Roy snarled and Jason nudges him with his shoulder, trying to get his attention but Roy’s pissed at him and doesn’t want to look The three are back to their standoff, and Roy crosses his arms over his chest and stares over Dick’s shoulder, doing his best to ignore both of them.

“Fine. If you want to try and convince yourself of that, we can’t stop you,” said Dick finally. “But know that when you decide to reach out, and we want you to, we’ll help. Any of us.”

“Yeah. Like you did the last time?” Roy downs his drink in one go, stood up from the booth and stormed out without looking back, wandering the streets until the wee hours of the night, not quite knowing what to do with himself next.

He just knew that he didn’t want to feel like this anymore.

***

He’s in his trashed apartment, alone, staring at all the Bliss capsules that Cheshire left there after their night of regret together, head throbbing, body twitching, muscles aching with the effort of just sitting there and staring at it and focusing all of his will not to do anything else but look.

His fingers are itching to move to the table so he sits on them. A part of him knows that this isn’t a long term solution, but it’s better than the alternative. Maybe.

The pills have been mocking him from the rickety table for a week. Sitting and glaring and following his every move. He can’t pick them up to flush them because he just knows that if he touches them, even with all the intent to get rid of them, he’ll down them one by one and float away down that path without a care in the world.

He doesn’t want them. He doesn’t want to take them. He needs to not want to take them no matter how much his brain and body were screaming at him that he did.

Roy pulled his phone from his pocket, hand shaking and he had to focus on gripping it tight so it didn’t fall from his hands as he scrolls through his contact list, searching for someone that he knows will be there for him, who will listen and help and has the time to get him out of this mess that is himself.

“Donna?” whispers Roy as the call picks up. He rubs his hand over his eyes and drags it down his face. “You … Dick said… well this is me. Reaching out. I think that I’m ready to talk.”

#whumptober2019 #no.21 #roy harper #tw: substance abuse #cameos by #Garth of Shayeris #wally west #dick grayson #jason todd #donna troy

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fireinthewriter · 5 years

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Save Yourself|Batmom

You stupidly decided it was good idea to patrol on your own, only because Bruce was on a mission with the league. You wanted to give the boys a night off so you went out on your own, walking the streets of Gotham alone. The boys insisted that they kept there comms on so if you were in trouble they could come help you. You reluctantly agreed, after about an hour of persuasion.

And in times like this, you were glad they convinced you.

You were on the side walk, walking across the street on a seemingly quiet night. The car didn't see you, your person dressed in full black. The sound of screeching tires was the only noise beside the sickening 'thump' of a body hitting a car that sounded that minute. As you lay there on the bloodied cement,letting your vision clear, the moments before the impact played in your mind. The sudden hitch of your breath at the sound of an engine. It all played out in slow motion in your head, the headlights momentarily blinding you, and the sound. Oh the sound of your own bones crunching and braking inside of you was one you had yet to here before. You didn't scream in pain, you didn't even just lay there. You stood up, using the hood of the car as a crutch, then making a mad dash for the sidewalk. You ran painfully back towards the Manor, not listening to the frantic calls of the driver behind you. Your day couldn't be worse, is what you would have said if it wasn't for the Joker's hysterical laugh echoing from a building beside you. You groaned, knowing you wouldn't be able to do much in your current position.

You silently crept into the building, a hand pressed tightly to your mouth to muffle your gasp of pain form each step. The laughter continued to get louder until your reached the main room, almost gasping in surprise. There stood, or more like sat, the Young Justice league, securely tied to chairs with gags stuffed in their mouths. Your gaze hardened as he taunted the kids with threats, noticing how the kids were starting to get terrified. The final straw was when he went up and slapped Wally across the cheek. (Yes these are the original Young Justice kids, and yes there kids. Deal With It) You threw a bat-a-rang above the madman's head, cutting a piece of green hair off. He turned to where the bat-a-rang came from. He somehow smiled even wider, not even knowing which bat-family member it was.

"Come out, come out!" He taunted, creeping closer. Once he was close enough, you kicked him in the stomach, sending him backwards. He coughed a couple times before looking back up at you. "Ooohhhh, the Batsy's prized Wife. Wonder what he would do for you! Go at it boys!" Joker exclaimed, signaling to his 'clowns' to get you. You dodged the first attacks, but when one landed a good blow on your stomach, you began attacking back with as much power as you could. Your broken bones grinded against each other, some ribs occasionally poking into your skin and suit. It wasn't until a loud bang erupted throughout the building did you notice the gun Joker had slipped out of his pocket. The bullet pushed through your lung, coming out the other end. You gasped, lungs already filing with blood. You took down he rest of the 'clowns' in one kick, turning and throwing three bat-a-rangs at Joker, successfully pinning him to the wall. You walked up slowly due to your injuries and punched his head, causing it to bang into the wall and for the madman to go unconscious. You spit out a mouth full of blood, falling to your knees in pain and exhaustion. placing your hands to the ground you crawled the chairs, bat-a-rang dangling in your mouth. You cut away the binding, flopping to the floor lifelessly. Wall reached your side first (well duh, who is a speedster) pressing your comm and speaking into it. The sounds on the other line were unintelligible, a series of angered shouts and grunts following by mumbled words. He placed the comm down, propping your head in his lap while Artemis and Aqua Lad applied pressure to your bullet wound. They all new it was hopeless, since the bullet had gone straight through your lung. Your mouth bubbled with blood, you spitting it out every few seconds.

"KF?" You questioned, eyes closed tight in pain. He nodded, knowing full but not caring that you couldn't see it. "Can you tell my family I love them? Please?" You asked him, knowing you were going to die. It wasn't the worst way to go, really. You saved the Young Justice team after being hit by a car. You were a fighter.

"No." Wally said, or snapped at you. He didn't want to sound angry, he just couldn't stand you talking like that. "No because you are going to tell that to them after you recover. Okay?!" He yelled at you, not being able to stop himself. The others were in tears by now, Artemis and Aqua Lad applying as much pressure they could without hurting your ribs even more. They stuck out in weird angles in your suit, no one even daring to look at them. You smiled slightly, not having enough energy to open your eyes.

"I love you guys too." You responded softly, before the darkness of you closed eyes became even darker. Your hearing cut out too, along with your taste and sense of smell. You didn't hear Wally screams of outrage, or the thuds of bodies falling the ground beside your body. Dick and Jason arrived first, Jason taking Wally's placed with your head on his lap. He pulled hair away from your face, wiping away the stray tear that managed to leak through your closed eye lids. He was full on sobbing, his whole body shaking. Dick was worse, head in his hands and bent over to the ground. Tim and Damian came next, Tim taking one look before trying to shield your body from Damian's view. But he sped past him, falling over next to his dear Ummi. He touched your too cold hand, looking at your too pale skin and glanced at your too still body. It was too much for the child, who was gasping for air between sobs. Tim was a silent crying, but even he started hiccuping while sitting by your feet. How would they explain this to Bruce? To know that he lost two family members to the madman? There was one thing for certain:

Joker just made the BIGGEST mistake in his whole crazy life. And this time, there will be MAJOR consequences.

#batmom #batman #Jason Todd #Damian Wayne #Tim Drake #dick grayson #bruce wayne #whump

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judedeluca · 6 years

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Titans: Cakes and Confessions (RoyXDonna)

I’ve been trying to type something for #royharperbdayweek for the last few days, but I’ve been artblocked. I finally busted my ass and spent most of last night working on something I felt comfortable enough to finally post on here.

This takes place in a post-Rise of Arsenal, post-New 52, and post-Rebirth world where the DCU has started gaining a semblance of their real lives back after getting free of Dr. Manhattan’s brainwashing. It involves Roy, Lian, and Donna dealing with some emotions left over following Lian’s death and what Donna went through in Blackest Night.

There’s mention of Donna’s kids and Lian’s baby brother, and some chubby!Roy stuff.

Really hoping to hear some thoughts and inputs on this since I don’t normally write fan fics as long as this in one sitting.

It was a nice looking jack-o'-lantern. Not an angry or scary looking one, but not a silly, dopey-looking one either. Lian wanted to feel proud, but she had to get a second opinion. "Does it look okay, Donna?" Lian Harper asked her surrogate aunt, Donna Troy, as Donna finished cleaning the bowls and cups they'd just used. Donna wiped her hands on a dish towel before joining Lian's side. On the kitchen table there was a triple layer cake, covered in rich chocolate icing. Lian had just finished decorating the top of the cake with orange, green, and yellow butter cream frosting to make a pumpkin face. It smiled up at the young and younger women. "It looks wonderful, Lian." Donna said, patting Lian's back. "But it does look like a pumpkin, right?" Lian was unsure as she looked into her aunt's eyes. "You're not just saying that?" "You won't be getting false praise from me, honey." Donna commented, then kissed Lian on the top of her head. That made Lian believe Donna was speaking true. "I bet Daddy will love it." Lian mentioned. "I hope he does too." Donna added, as they had spent most of the afternoon baking the cake for Lian's father Roy, while also keeping an eye on Lian's baby brother Tommy. This weekend, Donna's ex-husband (Terry or Jerry or whatever his name is) had custody of their son Robbie and her stepdaughter Jennifer. So Donna convinced Roy to let her watch Lian and Tommy for the afternoon feeling he'd been doing a lot lately and could use some time to himself. It was entirely transparent she wanted time with Lian to do something for Roy while he was out of the house, but no one said anything. Tommy had just been fed and put down for a nap while Lian iced and decorated the cake. She insisted on doing it by herself to prove she could. "Well we both love all the other cakes and stuff you've been bringing over." Lian reminded Donna. "But thanks for letting me help with this." "It was my pleasure having you as a baking partner." Donna hugged the young girl. "I'm gonna go check on Tommy." But before Donna could leave the kitchen, Lian had a question she wanted to ask. A question that had been on her mind for a while. "Donna?" "Yes, Lian?" Donna stopped and turned to face Lian again. "Is everything okay?" Lian asked, a look of concern on her face. "Huh?" The question sort of caught Donna by surprise before Lian began talking. "You've been coming over a lot lately," Lian explained, "And I know you and Daddy aren't together-I mean, 'Together' together anymore. Are you alright?" "Don't worry about me, honey. I'm fine." Donna smiled. But Lian wasn't fully convinced. "Is it cuz of all that stuff that happened when I… you know." "No, Lian." Donna replied. "Well, how come you're over so much?" Lian continued. "Do you want me to stop coming over?" Donna asked. "No! I love having you over. And so does Daddy and I'm sure Tommy does as well if he could talk." Lian emphasized. Donna laughed a little before she spoke. "I just liking spending time with you guys, and I like cooking for you guys." Donna explained. "I'll say." Lian smirked, thinking about all the homemade sweets and stuff Donna had been leaving for Roy at their house, and at Titans Tower, and at Donna's place. Her dad especially seemed to really like them. And it was starting to show. "I'm gonna go check on your brother before your dad gets home. Okay?" Donna smiled at Lian. "Okay." Lian smiled back. But as Donna left the room, Lian's smile faded and the look of concern returned. She wasn't convinced at all. … "I'm home!" Roy called out from the front door. "Any wild and crazy parties or dead bodies better be taken care of by the time I step over the threshold!" He held two big bags of groceries in his arms, and one plastic bag containing takeout hanging around his wrist, as he entered the house when Lian came running out of the living room. "Daddy!" She threw her arms around her dad's waist and squeezed. "Etai Yazi!" Roy called back, which was Navajo for "Little Girl." "Gimme a sec," he said as he tried to place the reusable bags down on the side table in the hallway. He then kneeled down to Lian's level and gave her a big hug and kiss on her cheek. "Missed you." "Missed you more." Lian replied, kissing Roy's scruffy cheek. "And you didn't burn the house down while I was gone." Roy whistled. "I'm impressed." "Well I can be trusted not to burn the house down. Unlike some people." Lian folded her arms and gave her dad a pretend angry glare, referring to a certain incident Roy had while Lian was… away. "True, true. You're certainly more trustworthy than I am." Roy conceded as he stood up. "We all know you're the responsible one, though I don't know where you get it from." "Oh and, guess what?" Lian asked. "What?" "Boop." Lian poked at his belly button, sticking out after his shirt came untucked. "Hey!" Roy shooed her off as he tucked his shirt back in. "Well it's your own fault for getting fat." Lian smugly informed him. "I know, I know," Roy smirked. "I'm gross." "Nah, you're not." Lian hugged her dad again. "Whatdja do while we were here?" Lian asked. "I took care of some stuff at Titans Tower, then I did some shopping. No big deal." "Come look what me and Donna did while you were out!" Lian began to pull her dad into the kitchen, bumping into Donna who was coming out of the first floor bathroom. "Hi Mr. Speedy." Donna said as she hugged Roy. "Hi Ms. Wonder Girl." Roy replied. "You guys have fun?" "Always." "Surprise!" Lian practically shoved the cake in Roy's face. "You guys made this together?" Roy asked as Donna took the cake from Lian. "Does it look good?" Lian asked. "It looks great!" Roy messed up Lian's hair before turning his attention to Donna again. "But what's the occasion?" Donna shrugged, acting like it was no big deal. "No occasion, just wanted to do something nice while you had the day to yourself." Was the convenient explanation she gave. "I did the icing myself, and I put the pumpkin on it since it's almost Halloween." Lian revealed. "It's chocolate and spice." "I really don't know what I did to deserve you two." Roy kissed Lian on the cheek and then Donna. "You're spoiling me." "I can put these away if you wanna check in on Tommy." Donna offered as she set the grocery bags on the kitchen counter. "It's cool, I can do it." Roy reached over, but Donna playfully slapped his hand away. "No no, go see Tommy." Donna insisted. "He wasn't any trouble today, was he?" Roy asked. "Not at all." "I'll go with you, Daddy." Lian joined her father. The two Harpers headed upstairs to where Tommy Harper, nee Blake, the youngest member of the family slept. Roy quietly opened the door and stuck his head inside to see Lian's baby brother sleeping soundly in his crib. "I hate leaving him alone." Roy sighed as he closed the door. "It's cool dad, we had fun with Donna." Lian explained. "But, um…" Roy saw the look on Lian's face and knew what she was referring to. "She didn't tell you what was wrong, did she." Roy guessed. Lian sighed. "No." Lian shook her head. "But she's sad about something, Daddy. I saw it when I asked her what was wrong. It was like when you used to tell me you were okay, even though you weren't." "Damn it." Roy muttered to himself. "I'm sorry." Lian apologized. "It's okay, peanut. You didn't do anything wrong." Roy reassured her. For the last couple of months, Donna had been acting strange. But then it had been a strange couple of years for a variety of reasons and they were only just returning to a semblance of their old lives. Their REAL lives. Probably the strangest things had been how Roy was brainwashed into thinking Jason Todd was his best friend, and Donna had been replaced by a doppelganger who then gave her life to save Donna. With Roy and Donna back on the Titans with their friends Dick, Wally, and Garth, things felt real for the first time in a long time, even before the world had been gutted inside out. It was like someone had engineered a string of tragedies to make them as miserable as possible before killing them. Now they were all alive and healthy, and so were their kids and loved ones. Yet Donna had started becoming… not clingy, but, was motherly the right word? Overeager? It seemed that way to Roy and Lian, and to a lesser extent Tommy. Admittedly, he was a new addition to the Harper household after Roy learned of his existence and rescued him from Tommy and Lian's mom a few months ago. Donna seemed to worry a lot if Roy was eating enough, and had been showering father and daughter Harper in a variety of baked snacks and treats. Cakes, cookies, pies, even these delectable pomegranate pastries Donna learned of from her sister Diana. Roy was certainly enjoying them more than Lian was, since Donna saw more of the older Harper than the younger one. If he had to stay late at the Tower, she had food ready for a late night snack. If he was arriving early in the morning, there was breakfast in case he skipped the meal. It certainly explained how Roy had put on such a significant amount of weight and developed a noticeable belly on his large archer frame. Roy could sense SOMEthing was bothering Donna, as this type of behavior was new. Oh sure, Donna had long doted on Lian as if she was her daughter. But baking and preparing meals hadn't really been something she was interested in. Roy and Lian weren't ungrateful, but they wanted to know what the problem was. He kept trying to ask her if she wanted to talk, but she smiled and said she was fine. The way she said it, Roy could recognize a slight trace of sadness. Then she'd hurry off to do something else, a mission or monitor duty or something with her sister Diana and the Amazons. Lian recognized it too, but she was always a perceptive child and probably noticed before Roy did. They began to feel guilty that Donna was doing all this for them and asking for nothing. Maybe they were imagining things and she was trying to be friendly. But maybe not. That was why Roy had caved in so easily when Donna suggested he take a day for himself and let her watch the kids. He'd agreed with Lian that she would try to ask Donna what was on her mind without him in the vicinity. "What are we gonna do, daddy? I hate seeing her like this." Lian admitted. "I should've gotten Dick and the others to help," Roy said more to himself, "but I didn't want to put her on the spot in front of everyone." "But she hasn't been acting weird with them, right?" Lian asked. "It's just us, for some reason." "Yeah…" Roy furrowed his brow, trying to think. … Downstairs in the kitchen, Donna had finished putting away the rest of the food in the fridge when Roy tapped her on the shoulder. "What'd you pick up for dinner?" Donna turned and asked him. "I got some chicken and rice with plantains from this place near the supermarket." Roy explained. "But hey, before we eat…" "Yes?" Roy sighed. "Donna, I want you to please tell me what's wrong." Roy asked his teammate and best friend. "You sound just like Lian a little while ago." Donna laughed. "You guys worry too much. Can't I do something nice for one of my best friends and his daughter? Is that so strange?" "No, but I mean," Roy scratched the back of his head as he tried to come up with the right words. He should've been direct to begin with, but feared he was over thinking things. He trusted Lian's judgment, though. "I remember you don't like it when everyone expects you to act like their mom. So Lian and I, we were both wondering if you're really okay doing all this. The baking, cooking." "Roy-" Donna was about to begin before Roy cut her off. "Hey, I'm not complaining or anything. Aside that I'm gonna need some bigger clothes, of course." Roy smiled and patted his new belly. "I appreciate all the stuff you've done and how you're trying to look out for me and my kids. But I feel like I'm taking advantage of you, and that isn't even the main thing I'm worried about. Donna, Lian and I both think something's going on with you. Please, if something's wrong I wanna help. We both do." Donna wasn't sure what to say, Roy's green eyes locked on her blue ones. "Please? Tell me what's wrong?" Donna hesitated and looked away from Roy and Lian. She scratched her arm. "It's… it's silly, really." There was a little tremble in Donna's voice. "Well look, why don't we eat dinner first, and then you can tell the two of us what's on your mind over that cake you and Lian made. Promise?" … Donna wasn't sure whether or not to look forward to the talk after dinner, which was something of an event when Tommy absolutely refused to eat unless Donna was the one to feed him. Roy had barely eaten anything as he struggled to get his stepson to budge a little on the subject of mashed carrots. Lian was happy to get dinner AND a show, until Tommy swatted his food in Lian's direction. After Tommy finally settled down, had his bath, and was told a Navajo legend to get to sleep, Roy, Donna, and Lian sat in the living room with coffee and cake (and milk for Lian since she didn't need the caffeine AND sugar). Roy sat in the middle of the couch with Donna and Lian flanking him on both sides. "So, tell us what's bothering you, Donna." Roy got straight to the point. "Am I gonna have another baby brother, Daddy?" Lian wondered. "Is that why you're so unhappy Donna?" Donna practically choked on her cake. "Ahaha! No, Lian, nothing like that." Donna assured Lian. "I figured," Lian sighed, pinching her dad's side. "But I was hoping he was eating for two." "Hey now-!" Roy almost dropped his plate as he squirmed. "It's cool daddy, I like you better this way." Lian giggled. "You make the best pillow when we stay up late watching movies and you're a lot happier than you were before." "True. So thanks for that, Donna." The three of them set everything down on the coffee table before they began to really talk. Donna looked down at her hands, folded in her lap, as Roy and Lian aimed their attention solely on her. "I know my behavior has been bizarre lately-" Donna started. "I wouldn't call it 'bizarre'-" Roy added. "But with all the ridiculousness of the past few years and how badly things went for all of us," Donna began to list the horrible things everyone went through, "Prometheus, the Black Lanterns, the Villains for Hire, and then the time Barry Allen and Dr. Manhattan stole from us, I've been feeling… I-I guess I'd call it regret." "Regret?" Roy was confused, wondering what she was referring to, "For what?" Donna looked at Lian before she spoke again. "Lian," Donna felt uncomfortable just remembering what happened, "You know about what happened after you…" "Died?" Lian finished. Roy and Donna both winced. Her death. One of the most painful moments of Roy's life. A senseless accident that was a harbinger for what felt like an eternity of unhappiness for both the Harpers and their extended family. "Um. Yeah. I-I do." Lian reluctantly confirmed. "The last time your dad and I spoke before things got really bad, at your, um," God Donna hated everything right now, "Funeral. It wasn't great." "I know about that too." Lian revealed rather somberly. She knew about the awful things her father had screamed at Donna regarding the deaths of her own children. How he'd accused her of "Whoring in space" with Kyle Rayner while her son died in a car crash. Which absolutely wasn't true, by the way. "Looking back on it, I've felt, yes, what your dad said to me was really out of line, but I shouldn't have let that stop me from trying to help." Donna was now referring to how almost everyone in Roy's life had completely, utterly failed at trying to help him deal with Lian's death. Even with how aggressive he'd turned in the most recent days after Lian died, the lack of empathy most of Roy's friends had given was astonishing. It hurt worse because it turned out more had been going on than everyone assumed, which they would've noticed had they really paid attention to Roy's behavior. "Donna-" "No. Please let me get this off my chest." Donna stood and seated herself in a chair away from Roy and Lian, so she could get a better look at them as she spoke. "I've been wondering about if maybe, if I'd tried harder to reach out to you Roy, when you started slipping, then maybe things wouldn't have reached the point they did. I've seen how much you've worked towards making it up to Lian, and how hard you've been trying with Tommy. I feel like if I'd been more help back then, you wouldn't have needed to work so hard now." "I didn't 'slip,' Donna," Roy firmly told her, owning up to his actions, "I did drugs, called you a whore, tried to kill Dick and Mia, and joined Deathstroke's fake Titans because I was angry and using Lian as an excuse to justify all the crap I pulled." "I'm not trying to absolve you of the stuff you did Roy-" "He's been doing his best for me and Tommy!" Lian interjected, almost pleaded, to Donna, to immediately make her feel better and end this unbearable moment. "And I help with Tommy too! Plus I already forgave him for all that, a-and he apologized to Uncle Dick and Mia, anyway!" "It's alright, Etai Yazi." Roy tried to soothe her. "I'm sorry, is what I'm trying to say. I didn't do enough to help after Lian died. When Robbie and Jen passed away, I-I don't even want to get into some of the stuff that went through my head. You wanna believe part of me hated you, Roy? Because you still had Lian and I barely saw Robbie at that point after the divorce? I should've been more forgiving after that argument." "And so you've been worrying so much lately, doing all that cooking and baking…?" "I wanted to do something more tangible to show I care and that I wanted to make up for it." Donna finally admitted. "I've been trying to pay attention. It's easy to say stuff about doing everything I can to help, but I figured this was the best way to show it." Roy and Lian looked at each other and then looked at Donna. "Well, I've been trying." Donna sighed and sank back in the chair. No one said anything for a minute that seemed to last hours, before Roy stood up. "Donna, can you stand up please?" Roy extended his hand towards her. "Huh?" "Come on, up and at 'em." Roy said. As Donna took Roy's hand, he pulled her into a tight embrace as Lian stood behind Donna and placed her hands around her waist." "Listen Wonder Chick," Roy began, "you've got nothing to be sorry about and nothing to apologize for. I heard about what happened with the Black Lanterns, and you'd have been totally justified for taking my head off after what I said." Roy referred to the nightmarish ordeal where Donna encountered a zombified version of son, whom she tried to kill in order to stop. It didn't work, and what she did continued to haunt Donna even though Robbie was alive again. "Yeah, I would have and he's my dad." Lian agreed. "Even before I found out, I didn't blame you for anything. You didn't do anything wrong. It's not right for you to blame yourself when you needed help too after what you went through. And I'm sorry I made you feel like you had to make it up to us." Donna wasn't sure what to say. "Come on, I hate seeing so unhappy. What can I do to make you feel better?" "Yeah, what can WE do?" Lian corrected. Donna relaxed, and smiled. Roy and Lian let go and she sighed, a sigh of relief instead of unhappiness. There'd been too much sighing today. "For starters, next weekend you can make breakfast for me, Robbie, and Jen when she visits." Donna joked, then sniffed and wiped away a tear from her eye. "And then the six of us, Tommy included, can spend the afternoon baking at the Tower." Donna mused. "Snickerdoodles, peanut?" Roy conspired with Lian, taking Donna totally seriously. "Roy I'm ki-" "How about something with macadamia nuts?" Lian wondered. "No good, Jen's allergic to nuts." Roy surprised Donna by mentioning that since she wasn't aware he knew of her children's allergies. "Okay then snickerdoodles!" Lian declared. "Does that help?" Roy asked Donna, mock pouting with puppy dog eyes. "Snickerdoodles?" "You're both such dorks." Donna held his hand. "Well, DUH." Both Harpers said. "Besides, I'm the Titan who's supposed to be constantly ashamed of themselves." Roy joked. "It's kind of my whole shtick, in case you hadn't noticed." "Yeah, stop stealing my dad's shtick!" Lian ordered. "It's all he has going for him. It's bad enough you made him fat!" "Yeah, it's bad enough you made me fat!" Roy parroted his daughter. That was too much for Donna and she started to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

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batfam-imagines · 7 years

Text

Outed

Prompt: One of the batboys( dick?) is outed as gay, and the media make a big deal out of it. batmom being supportive and defensive of him. Angst and mother/son fluff pls. If you don't want to that's fine, but please tell me so that I know tumblr is working. Thanks so much

I did my best! Finals are coming up, so I’m not sure when I’m going to be able to post again! Let me know if you like this one and if you want a part 2!

Dick knew that it was dangerous to show any kind of PDA while out with his boyfriend. Wally West understood why he couldn’t, he knew that Dick was constantly in the spotlight and that he hadn’t told anyone that he liked guys. But Wally couldn’t help leaning forward to press a kiss to Dick’s smiling mouth. The red flush that stained Dick’s cheeks and the small smile that he got in return made the kiss worth it. If they’d only seen the man taking pictures outside the restaurant, they might not have been so free with their affections.

The headline breaks the next day.

‘WAYNE HEIR SPOTTED WITH ANOTHER MAN: PUBLICITY STUNT OR RELATIONSHIP SCANDAL?’

You quickly click the news off and sit in silence.

“Miss Y/N, breakfast is served”

“Alfred, have you seen the news today?”

The older man hums softly, “I read the newspaper every morning, Miss. So, if you are referring to the news coverage about Master Richard, then yes, I have indeed seen todays headline.”

“Have you -” Suddenly your phone starts ringing, a picture of Dick hanging upside down and grinning flashing across the screen, “Good morning, sweetheart”

“Mom! Don’t watch the news!”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing! Just don’t watch the news and don’t let Bruce read the paper. Please, mom – just … just please”

“Baby, are you on your way here?”

Dick clears his throat, “I’m actually standing at the front door”

You quickly stand up and make your way to the door, thankful that your husband had decided to sleep in today. As soon as the door opens Dick flings himself into your arms, sobbing into your chest like he hadn’t since Jason had died.

“Oh, sweetheart”

“M-m-mom! I m-messed u-up”

Turning to glance over your shoulder and lock eyes with Alfred, “Alfie, I’m taking Dick to the study, don’t let anyone in”

“Of course, Miss”

When you manage to get Dick into the study and settled down you speak, “Now, what’s gotten you so worked up, bluebird? I haven’t seen you this upset in a long time”

“I messed up, mom. I messed up big time”

“Is that why you didn’t want me to watch the news?”

Dick sniffles, running a trembling hand though his hair, “I have to tell you something … something I’ve been keeping a secret from everyone for – for a long time. I just didn’t know how to tell you -”

“Is this about that picture of you kissing Wally?”

Dick’s head snaps up, almost colliding with your jaw. His mouth is open, eyes wide in shock, “W-what?!”

You give your son a soft smile, “Is that what’s got you all worked up, bluebird?”

“I-I-”

“I mean you do have a thing for red-heads, Babs, Kori, you even flirted with Roy, so you dating Wally isn’t that far of a stretch”

“Mom -!”

“What I just want to know is why you’re so upset” You level your oldest son with a stern look, one that’s been dubbed “The Batmom”, “Start talking, sweetheart”

“I didn’t want you to find out like this! I wanted to – I was going to invite Wally over for dinner and tell everyone then!”

“That still doesn’t explain why you were hysterical earlier” Dick’s fingers flex, reflexively tightening in your shirt, he dips his head so his hair falls in his face and mumbles something, “What was that?”

“I thought you’d hate me”

“Richard Wayne-Grayson, look at me” Dick’s head snaps up at the use of his full name, “When have I ever done something like that?”

“You haven’t, but -”

“But nothing! I have always been about equality, you know that! I have never cared who any of you have loved as long as they make you happy! Shit, you could tell me that you were going to marry a rose bush and I would just tell you to watch out for thorns! Dick,” You gently cup his cheeks in your hand, “I love you, I will always love you because you are my son. This is your life, darling, and I have only ever wanted you to be happy in it. Now, I need you answer a few questions for me”

Dick’s eyes are wide, “O-Okay”

“Does being with Wally make you happy?”

“Yes”

“Does Wally treat you right?”

“Of course”

You let out a soft breath, “Good, if that changes I’ll cut off his legs, without his legs he won’t be much of a speedster, will he?”

“Mom!”

“You’re my baby, it’s my job to protect you. Just wait until your siblings hear about this, their threats will probably be worse”

“Oh god! I didn’t even think about that!”

The two of you look up when you hear the front door slam open, the sound of several pairs of boots being taken off makes you smile, “MOM! HAVE YOU SEEN DICK!?!?” Jason voice seems to echo through the Manor, “WE NEED TO TALK TO HIM ABOUT SOMETHING!!!”

Quickly wiping the tear tracks from his face you hand your oldest son a tissue, “You had better clean yourself up, bluebird. If your siblings see you crying they are going to blame Wally, and then it’ll be a full-on witch-hunt”

“Hide me!”

“Nope, you have to talk to your younger siblings, and then you’ll have to talk to your father”

“NO!!! This is like some form of torture! You can’t torture your own child!”

The door to the study bangs open and in pour the rest of your children Cassandra, Jason, Stephanie, Tim, Damian, Duke, and last but not least Barbra. Jason is he first to speak up, “Alright, Dickie, it looks like you have some explaining to do”

Your oldest son turns big pleading blue eyes on you one last time, “Please, mom”

But Cassandra quickly steps forward and takes her brothers arm, “Come, brother, explain”

Unable to deny Cass anything, Dick lets out a resigned sigh and stands up, “Fine, but I’m hungry so we’re doing this over breakfast”

Steph grins, “I was hoping you’d say that! I can’t wait to have an Alfred cooked meal!”

Once all of the kids file out, giving you either a quick hug or a kiss on the cheek in greeting, Alfred appears in the doorway, “Is there anything I can get for you, Miss Y/N, before I am preoccupied with the children?”

“No, Alfie, I’m actually about to go upstairs and wake Bruce up to talk to him. You go enjoy the company of your grandchildren”

Alfred smiles, “It has been such a long time since everyone has been under the same roof”

Squeezing Alfred’s hands as you pass, you call over your shoulder, “I hope you made enough food, those kids looked hungry”

“I always make enough food, Miss. Do try not to insult me in such a way”

Your laughter echoes down the hall, blending in with the sounds of your children all eating and talking over each other. Spotting Dick’s smiling face as you make your way past the dining room, you can’t help but be relieved. Dick realizing that his family loves him no matter what is exactly what your oldest son needed. Now, if only you can convince Bruce that Dick dating Wally is a good thing your day will go a lot smoother.

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camsthisky · 8 years

Text

Why Is Tim the Only One With Any Tact?

Summary: "Hiding? Tim wasn’t hiding anything. It was more like not telling. Best not to get anyone else involved in Dick’s business if it wasn’t going to help, and telling Wally, with whatever problems he and Dick were having, was probably the definition of not helping.

“Nothing,” Tim said in the most convincing voice he had. Which, if this was Dick, wouldn’t have worked even a little bit. But this was Wally, and while Wally may have been Dick’s best friend once upon a time, he didn’t know anything about Tim. “It’s just been a rough couple of nights in Gotham.”"

In which Tim tries to mediate an argument between Dick and Wally. Things don't go so well. -Set after Season 2 of YJ-

ao3 | ff.net

“Where’s Dick?”

Tim looked up from his homework, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion when he saw who it was. Wally, who really should not be anywhere near Gotham right now, was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, looking uncomfortable and altogether out of place. Which. You know. He was.

Wally’s death hadn’t been kind to Dick. He had already thought all of his friends hated him for the decisions he’d made, and when Wally had died, Dick had broken down from the stress of leading the team, taking care of Gotham, faking Artemis’ death, sending Kaldur undercover, and dealing with an alien invasion.

Even when Wally had been found, things didn’t change. The two had been best friends, but to Tim’s knowledge, they rarely even talked anymore.

So yeah, it was weird to see Wally standing in the kitchen like that was a normal thing. It was even weirder that Tim hadn’t noticed the guy come in. When--not if, never if--Batman caught wind of that, Tim was going to have to go through extra awareness training.

Wally raised an eyebrow at him, and Tim realized that Wally was still waiting for an answer. Whoops. Maybe he needed some coffee, ‘cause he was really off his game today.

“Right. Dick. He’s, uh, still sleeping, I think,” Tim said, turning back to his calculus homework. Was it rude that he kind of wanted Wally to leave?

“He’s sleeping.” Wally’s voice was flat. “At four in the afternoon.”

Tim winced, not bothering to look back up at Wally again. He kept a careful eye on the problem he was pencilling away at. “He’s tired.”

“Tired,” Wally said, his expression souring.

Somehow, Tim kept his mouth shut. But just barely. He didn’t have a lot of patience for Wally lately, or any of Dick’s friends, really. Not when they wouldn’t reach out to Dick. Sure Dick was sort of isolating himself at the moment, but Tim thought that they could at least try a little harder.

Tim was trying his best, but whether he admitted it or not, he was a fourteen year old kid, and, despite how much he wished it were otherwise, he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. It wasn’t like he could manhandle Dick into taking care of himself.

“I need a break from the team for a little while,” Dick had said to Tim a couple nights after Batman and the League’s return, after Wally’s death. “Just until I can get used to...you know. I need some space from everyone until then.”

And Tim had said, “Even me?” with a hurt expression that he regretted the moment Dick’s face had crumpled. Of course, zero point two seconds later, he’d plastered on a fake smile to reassure Tim.

“I’ll still come visit you and Bruce, Timmers, but I can’t…. Leading the team isn’t something I can do right now. And being around everyone else, I just...I need a break.”

The shadows underneath Dick Grayson’s eyes had been growing by the minute, so Tim hadn’t argued. He’d accepted it, and sure enough, the Fourth of July, the day the Reach left Earth, Dick left the team. Except, Dick’s break had only lasted about a week before he was called back to Gotham for an emergency.

Well. An “emergency.”

Batman was needed off world (or off-dimension, or something like that. Tim couldn’t figure out the details, no matter how much he’d snooped). And Bruce, in typical Bruce fashion, had sent Dick a text, asking him to watch over Gotham while he was gone, knowing what the answer would be, because the answer could never be no.

Bruce was gone before Dick could even send a reply. Even when B gave them a choice, it wasn’t ever really a choice.

So, Dick came back, donned the cowl, and stayed in the Manor with Tim and Alfred. He patrolled Gotham with Tim, drove an hour to Blüdhaven to patrol as Nightwing, and immersed himself in case after case. Tim could only watch as Dick Grayson, his huggable ever smiling big brother, retreated into himself, became a shell of himself. And everything Tim tried to do to help him didn’t work. He did what he could as Robin, fighting alongside Batman, but it never seemed like enough.

That went on for about two months before Tim and Dick got the news. The League had found Wally trapped in the Speed Force, and while Tim had been fascinated with the subject at the time, there hadn’t been enough time to get the facts before he and Dick were going after the Joker again. And after that, he found that it didn’t really matter anymore. Wally wasn’t dead anymore, and it should have been great.

And yet, nothing changed. Dick, being occupied with the Joker, hadn’t had time to meet up with his long lost best friend, and, as far as Tim knew, Wally hadn’t tried much to contact Dick.

Fast forward a couple weeks later, and here they were. Tim pretending he was interested in homework, Wally scowling at him in the Manor kitchen, and Dick asleep upstairs after pulling two all-nighters.

“Are you going to say anything?” Wally asked, pulling Tim from his thoughts.

“Here’s the thing,” Tim sighed, putting down his pencil and turning to face the speedster. Tim didn’t really know what it was that had made Dick and Wally such great friends, but whatever it was, it wasn’t there now. So, he was going to be blunt, and Wally was going to get out of his face before things spiralled out of control. Tim was 110 percent Dick could not handle this right now. “It hasn’t exactly been sunshine and rainbows around here. I’ve got homework, and Dick’s asleep. Come back later.”

Or not at all.

“I’m going to check on him,” Wally said, completely ignoring Tim’s order—and yeah, okay. So he wasn’t Batman, he couldn’t stop people in their tracks with a glare, or make them obey an order, but he’d like to think that Wally could take a hint. He guessed he was wrong about that one—and turning to walk out of the room.

“You can’t!” Tim shouted, doing an impressive leap from the chair to the door that Dick would have been proud of. He slid in front of Wally and held his arms out. It wouldn’t stop super speed, but there were still a few stray smoke bombs in Tim’s front pocket, and despite what Alfred would say if he caught wind of it happening, Tim wasn’t afraid to use them.

There was no need, though. Wally startled to a stop, not even trying to make it past Tim. “What? Why not?”

“I just convinced him to-” Tim cut himself off, dropping his arms and sighing. “Look, just, if you try and check on Dick, he’s going to wake up. You know what he’s like.”

Wally didn’t look convinced. “What are you hiding?”

Hiding? Tim wasn’t hiding anything. It was more like not telling. Best not to get anyone else involved in Dick’s business if it wasn’t going to help, and telling Wally, with whatever problems he and Dick were having, was probably the definition of not helping.

“I saw the news,” Wally said, eyes flicking over Tim’s shoulder for a brief second that had Tim thinking that Wally, usually so distractible, really only had Dick on his mind. “Arkham breakout, right? That’s why I’m here. I figured you three could use some help, especially if Dick’s hurt, or-”

“He’s not hurt,” Tim said, frowning. He was starting to see the picture that was forming, starting to get what went wrong where, and he really didn’t like what he was seeing. Because Wally said three, like he didn’t know Bruce wasn’t here.

Not good. That meant Wally was jumping to conclusions and Dick wasn’t correcting them (if he knew, and let’s be honest--Dick wasn’t Batman, but he was trained by Batman. It was more than likely he knew), and what that meant, Tim had no idea, but whatever it was it wasn’t anything good.

Not the least bit helpful indeed.

Wally’s expression crumbled into some odd combination of anger, disappointment, and relief, and Tim didn’t know what to make of it. “If he’s not hurt, then why isn’t he out there doing something?”

“Who says he isn’t?” Tim challenged.

“Don’t lie to me, Tim. Artemis told me Nightwing hasn’t been seen in over a week. I came over here because Dick would have to be on his deathbed not be out there saving his damn city. He said he was taking a break, not abandoning his family!”

Tim took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. No matter the circumstance, it wasn’t good if he lost his temper now. Wally was already angry enough for the both of them, and if Tim lost it now, Dick might not ever be able to patch up his relationship with Wally, even if he wanted to.

“Okay, first of all,” Tim started, because the kitchen had been silent a beat too long, and even if he really didn’t want to have this conversation, this wouldn’t go away just because he ignored it, despite what Bruce liked to think, “you’re ignoring a very important rule. Always have the facts before you dive head first into anything.”

“You bats and your rules!” Wally looked like he wanted to punch something. “Besides, I’m here to get the facts!”

“No, you’re here to see if you were right. Two very different things,” Tim told him. “Second of all, Dick’s not abandoning anybody. Just because Nightwing hasn’t been seen in a little while doesn’t mean he isn’t doing what he can. He’s got a lot on his plate.”

This didn’t really satisfy Wally. “I don’t believe for a second that six months ago Nightwing wouldn’t have been out there with Robin and Batman! Whatever he’s doing needs to stop.”

“You don’t know anything about what’s been going on with him,” Tim hissed, his eyes narrowing dangerously as the hold on his temper slipped. “And if you would stop being an ass for more than two seconds-”

“Tim, that’s enough.”

Tim flinched at his brother’s exhausted voice, and peered warily past Wally to look at Dick. He was obviously tired, probably just having gotten out of bed, but he was leaning against the archway to the dining room with his arms crossed over his chest like he’d been there the entire time, those bright blue eyes taking everything in--body language, expressions, surroundings.

They must have been making too much noise, and Dick had woken up to see what the commotion was about. He looked so tired.

Tim cringed. “Dick, I-”

“Stop,” Dick said, his voice quiet, resigned. Tim clicked his mouth shut. “Just, please stop, Tim. I don’t need someone to fight my battles for me.”

Yeah, but if Tim didn’t do it, then no one would. Dick had zero support right now besides Tim and Alfred, and sometimes Tim thought that it just wasn’t going to be enough if Dick wouldn’t fight for himself, if he let the exhaustion and stress still clearly written on his face, pull him under without a struggle.

But Tim couldn’t make himself call Dick out on it. So instead, Tim just said, “Right. Sorry.”

Wally looked about ready to explode, obviously not reading the signs that Tim was. The sad thing was, if this had been two years earlier, Wally would have probably have picked up on Dick’s stress before even Tim.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Wally demanded, his anger turning away from Tim and towards Dick, exactly where Tim hadn’t wanted it.

“You’re going to have to be a little more specific,” Dick said, not a drop of humor in his voice. “Physically, mentally, or emotionally?”

“I’m talking about Nightwing.”

“Well, I’m not,” Dick said rather matter of factly. “So have fun having a conversation with yourself.”

Wally scowled, stepping forward. “Will you take this seriously?!”

“Oh, I am,” Dick said, still no hint of a smile on his face. “I am very seriously not talking about Nightwing. Anything else, Wally. How’s Artemis? How’s college? How’s being alive again?”

“Dick-”

“I heard that you were able to get your scholarship back. Even after being legally dead for two months.”

“I’m trying to-”

“And I know Artemis is looking into switching majors. Has she decided on one yet?”

“Dick!”

Dick uncrossed his arms and stood up straight, but he was really slow about it. Tim knew that Dick was still feeling the effects of sleep deprivation. It didn’t look like Dick was going to try to go back to sleep again with Wally here. Tim was right. Dick really couldn’t handle this right now, couldn’t handle Wally right now. Wally closed in on Dick until there was only a few feet of space between them.

Tim wanted to get between them, to push Wally back, but Dick had told him he didn’t need Tim to fight his battles for him, so he stayed where he was and watched as things unfolded right before his eyes.

“What, Wally. What do you want?” Dick asked.

Tim winced, reaching out a tentative hand toward the two. This was probably going to get ugly. “Guys, don’t-”

“I want to know where you’ve been!” Wally cried over Tim’s voice.

“I’ve been here,” Dick said, bitterness creeping into his voice. “Batman gave me Gotham and then left, and I’ve been here, trying my best to keep Gotham and Blüdhaven from collapsing without Bruce. I’ve had to juggle both cities, and believe it or not, I’m barely keeping up, even with Tim’s help.”

The look on Dick’s face reminded Tim that sometimes he hated Bruce Wayne. Dick was beyond stretched thin, and Bruce had been gone pretty much all year. He left Dick to endless nights of patrol hidden underneath a cowl and a cape too heavy for his shoulders.

The look on Wally’s face, though. That was a different story. The guy looked like he’d just been slapped, told that up was sideways, and down didn’t exist anymore. It was so...odd. Tim had expected Wally to looked cowed when he was finally told the truth, not angry. Not devastated. Not betrayed. It didn’t make sense to Tim.

But it must have to Dick, because Dick just looked resigned and tired, like he’d been expecting this the moment he realized Wally was in the Manor.

There was something that Tim was missing here. Some vital information that he wasn’t privy to.

“How long has Batman been gone?” Wally finally asked, breaking the silence. “How long have you had to…?”

When Dick wasn’t forthcoming with an answer, Tim figured it was high time he stepped in. Maybe he could diffuse the situation, but first he needed to figure out what exactly he was missing. “Bruce left almost three months ago for on off world mission. He’s contacted us a few times, but we don’t know when he’s coming back.”

Wally turned to Dick. “And you didn’t tell me?!”

Dick shrugged, not meeting the speedster’s blazing eyes. “You didn’t ask.”

“I shouldn’t have to!”

“Look, Wally,” Dick said, his shoulders still tense, “I get that things have been hard for you. I get that coming back from being dead hasn’t been easy, and I get that you don’t really want me in the picture. I don’t blame you. But,” Dick growled when Wally opened his mouth to talk again, “I gave you exactly what you wanted, so I don’t need you butting into this like you know what I’m dealing with.”

Wally’s face turned as red as his hair. “You’re kidding me, right?! I don’t know?! You’re the one who told me that you never wanted this! You told me what it felt like to live under the Batman’s shadow!”

“I didn’t exactly have a choice!” Dick yelled. “This past year has been hell, Wally! Without Batman, Gotham barely functions, and I couldn’t just leave Blüdhaven! We’ve been stretched thin since January, and I’ve barely been able to keep up! I couldn’t just not do this!”

Tim got where Wally was coming from, he really did, but this wasn’t the way to go about this. Screaming in Dick’s face was just going to put him on the defensive, push him towards somewhere he didn’t want to be.

At the same time, Tim got what Dick was saying. Because it was Gotham, and without Batman, Gotham didn’t stand a chance. With the threat of riots on Dick’s shoulders, sitting just as heavily on his shoulders as the cape did, Dick didn’t stand a chance. They couldn’t just let Batman disappear from Gotham without a trace.

Tim just wished Dick hadn’t decided to become Batman.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Wally shook his head. “Did you just say January? As in ten months ago? What does that have to do with this?”

Dick turned his head away from Wally, clearly avoiding his gaze. His jaw was set, and Tim was starting to see what was going on here. Dick had told Wally he didn’t want to be Batman, then we he had to for Bruce, Dick hadn’t told Wally. And now Wally was angry. But this had gone on long enough, and Dick looked like he wanted to hide under a blanket.

“Dick,” Tim said quietly, catching both of the older teens’ attention. Wally startled, like he’d forgotten that Tim was even there, but Dick just let his gaze settle on Tim, waiting. “Dick, maybe you should sleep some more. You haven’t gotten more than an hour since the breakout.”

Wally choked. “The breakout was Monday, Dick!”

Dick shrugged, the anger from before barely a distant memory. “The breakout was massive. And with most of the heavy hitters still out there, there hasn’t been any time.”

“Time to sleep?!”

“Time to do anything except try to minimize as much damage as possible,” Tim told Wally softly. “Gotham’s criminals aren’t exactly sane.”

“Is that why you haven’t been answering any of Artemis’ calls?” Wally asked, and Tim was impressed at the lid he’d put on his anger. “Or why you’re ignoring M’gann, Kaldur, and Conner? They’ve all been worried about you, you asshole.”

“Yeah?” Dick sighed, his shoulders hunching slightly towards his face. “Because the last time Conner and I talked, it didn’t exactly go so well. And M’gann is still upset that I didn’t tell her the plan.”

“M’gann feels like she was just as much to blame, as stupid as that is, and Kaldur and Artemis were in on it,” Wally countered. “They agreed to every part of it. So why ignore them?”

“I’m not ignoring anyone, Wally.”

And he hadn’t been. Well, not on purpose. He answered every phone call that came his way, even when most didn’t turn out too well. Just, sometimes Dick wasn’t able to get to his phone, especially when fighting or working on a case. But Tim knew he never called them back if he missed the call.

Wally threw his hands up in frustration, working his way towards anger once again. “Really? Is that not what you’re doing? You’re not hiding yourself behind the emotional brick wall that is Batman? You told me you didn’t want to become him, and now you’re practically throwing yourself at the cape!”

“I told you that in confidence!” Dick yelled right back, looking for all intents and purposes like he was barely keeping himself from bolting from the room. But Dick was never one to run from a fight once he was facing it. “I told you that thinking you’d support me! Not throw it back in my face six years later!”

“Gah- Look, Dick,” Wally growled. “I’m trying my best to understand just what the hell you’ve done to yourself, but I honestly don’t get this! Why are you doing this to yourself?!” Dick didn’t say anything. “Dick, I swear to-”

“Because it’s all my fault!”

Silence hung between the three of them at Dick’s outburst, and Dick just dropped his face into his hands. Tim stared at Dick, because of course that was what was going through Dick’s head. He still felt guilty over Kaldur’s fake defection and Artemis’ fake death. It had crawled underneath his skin, wormed its way into Dick’s head, and now he was trying to make up for it through the only way he knew how—silently pushing himself closer and closer to the edge without complaint.

Tim recovered first. “What-?”

“Everyone was so mad at me,” Dick said, cutting Tim off. “They were so upset that I hadn’t told them the plan. And- And you were gone, Wally. The moment Bruce found out, he chewed me out so hard.”

Tim wanted to punch something. Preferably Bruce’s face. Because Bruce had yelled at Dick for doing the best he could do under the weight of responsibility Batman had pushed on him. But with Batman, it was always you can do better than that, be better, do it right next time or don’t do it at all. There was never any good job or you did what you had to.

Surging forward, Tim wrapped his arms around his brother. Dick had been dealing with so much, and watching Dick break down like this, realizing what he’d been doing to himself, was heart wrenching. Dick returned the hug, and Tim pretended like he couldn’t feel Dick shaking.

He just wanted Dick to be alright again.

Wally looked lost. “Dick-”

“I wanted out,” Dick continued, like Wally hadn’t even spoken. “I put so many people in danger.”

Tim could practically hear Bruce speaking in Dick’s words, and Tim hugged his brother even tighter.

“You’re talking about Artemis and Kaldur,” Wally said.

Dick laughed humorlessly. “I’m talking about the entire team, Wally. Everyone! You and Artemis quit, but I still dragged both of you back every time I couldn’t handle it on my own. I sent the team on dangerous missions while I sat back in the Cave and pretended that it was for the best. I faked Artemis’ death to ensure Kaldur had enough trust from Black Manta.”

“Dick, we all-”

“If you can look me in the eye and tell me that what I did didn’t endanger everyone with every decision I made, you can finish that sentence.”

Wally didn’t respond, and Tim felt like this was all spiralling out of control. How did this even happen? How did they get to this point, where they couldn’t even hold a conversation without yelling and feeling guilty and crumbling to pieces?

Tim reluctantly let go of Dick in order to face him properly, taking in a deep breath. He had to fix this.

“Dick, you’ve made mistakes. We all do it. It’s called being human, and I don’t think that you wanted to put people in danger.”

“I should have done something different,” Dick argued weakly.”

“Would have, should have, could have,” Tim said. “It’s a part of the job, Dick. We all understand that, so don’t feel guilty for trying to do the right thing.”

Dick choked. “I didn’t tell anyone-”

“Then next time, trust us a little more. Let us in on the secret. But don’t blame yourself for doing something you thought was right at the time.”

Dick didn’t say anything, but he wasn’t crying, and he wasn’t shaking anymore. Wally looked like he didn’t know where to go from there, and honestly, Tim didn’t either, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him from trying to take care of his big brother.

“Alfred’s going to be home soon,” Tim said, checking the time. 4:37 pm. “And then he’s going to kick us all out of the kitchen.”

Dick swallowed and nodded. “Did he say what’s for dinner?”

Tim shrugged. “Probably something rich in nutrients. He’s been worried about you, too.”

Blowing out a large breath, Dick placed a heavy hand on Tim’s shoulder. “Well, he better join the club before membership fills up. Between you two, M’gann, Conner, Artemis, and Kaldur, the roster’s filling up quickly.”

It was a poor attempt at humor, especially by Dick’s standards, but the way that Dick’s lips quirked up into a small smile (something Tim hadn’t seen in days) made Tim grin back. Wally just kind of raised his eyebrows at them.

Dick turned to the speedster. “Are you planning on staying for dinner?”

“Are you kidding?” Wally asked, and finally, finally, he looked ready to back off. “You’re asking me if I’m staying for Alfred’s cooking?”

Tim’s grin grew alongside Dick’s, and while the tension wasn’t completely gone, and nothing was completely okay, Tim thought that maybe, soon, it would be.

#young justice #tim drake #dick grayson #wally west #young justice fanfiction #camryn writes #tact series

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rantceratops · 8 years

Text

Coldhearted

I fucking love this episode. With like, the white hot intensity of a thousand suns. Because the animation is fucking flawless and the snow looks beautiful and Wally is 100% amazing! This may in fact be my favorite episode, certainly within my top 5 fav episodes if I had to rate them. PREPARE YOUR ANUS FOR LOTS OF IMAGES BECAUSE 500% OF MY APPRECIATION FOR THIS EPISODE IS ALL THE ANIMATION PORN.

SNOW!

Oh so clever, Greg and co., hiding the first number on Wally’s alarm clock so that is simply reads “16″ on his 16th birthday in a show where the number 16 is a constant theme. I’M ON TO YOU.

You ever notice how Wally has a poster of a female with really long blonde hair on his bedroom wall? Like we all know he’s just being a horndog teenaged boy, but like... GOT A THING FOR LONG BLONDE HAIR OR SOMETHING, WALLY?

Things confirming Wally is a huge nerd: lots of dorky looking action figures, a model rocket ship, a Flash poster, a microscope and lots and lots of books (probably of the science variety... and comics, no doubt), poster of some boxer dude, a poster for some horror movie called Day of Dark, and a piece of art I’ve seen on Jerome K. Moore’s deviantart of Wally, Barry, and Jay in their Flash get-ups. How cute! Also a poster or something that just looks like a pair of shoes on someone’s feet??? Idk about that one, it’s pretty dark. (I would take screenshots but sadly blu-ray format prevents me from doing so, and I don’t already have one saved in my extensive library of screens)

Look at this cutie weirdo singing to himself and doing a little dance in bed

HOW THE FUCK DO THEY AFFORD TO FEED HIS ASS?

“You want surprise just watch Miss Martian’s expression when I collect my birthday kiss!” (keep making yourself think that Megan is the one you really want to kiss, Wally. Like, for real.)

Wally, I don’t want to alarm you, but your dad is definitely Amon from Legend of Korra!

Damn, Mary sure is good, turning on the TV at the exact moment that Iris got to Wally’s birthday wish in her broadcast.

“Spisak Jr. High” And a nice shout out to the voice of our very own Wally West, Mr. Jason Spisak! <3

“Sure would be a shame if I missed my own--” “Surprise!”

“Say Whaaaaaaaat, oh you guys, you shouldn’t have!” What a fucking little shit.

A little shit with the best facial expressions though, amiright?

Okay. Time to stop being silly for a moment as we approach the part that many people have a problem with. This is the part where I crack my knuckles and have a differing opinion than most.

So here we have Wally’s birthday party, and him hinting around that he wants a birthday kiss from Miss M. It’s obvious that’s what he’s wheedling for, anyone with a pair of eyes can see that. And Artemis, who happens to have a pair of perfectly functioning eyes (arguably better than most, considering some of the amazeballs shots she’s made) happens to be standing right next to the little duo as the first exchange happens.

Artemis gets understandably annoyed and, of course, jealous. That’s her crush (that she’s been trying to forget about, but that’s been a huge no-go because it turns out the crush of her crush is dating her fallback crush… this is getting confusing). Trying to get a kiss from another girl. Of course she’s jealous.

I fucking would be, too. It’s a completely natural reaction. Artemis would never, ever admit it even over her dead body, but she wishes she was the one he was wanting a kiss from so bad.

Anyway, even Miss M guesses what he wants, and she decides to give him a kiss on the forehead because she’s his friend and nothing more. Artemis gets some obvious satisfaction from this. Is it petty? Well, yeah, but who ever said jealousy wasn’t petty? We’ve all been in that kind of position, be it with a crush or something else entirely, where something happens that ruins something for someone else and you just can’t help but feel completely fucking smug/happy about it even though you know you’re being an awful person for doing so.

Artemis is glad he gets denied because it means he’s not kissing a girl that isn’t her, and perhaps to another end, she’s smug about it because that means he’s getting denied his crush in the same way she was denied her fallback crush. Like, she knows Megan and Conner are a thing, and she already lost any chance at forgetting Wally via Conner, and now Wally is blatantly being denied his crush on Megan, so Artemis is basically taking huge, huge petty pleasure in him basically getting denied the same thing as her. They both have crushes on two people that are already in a relationship together, and if Artemis has to wake up and smell the coffee about it, then Wally is going to, too.

Is our girl Artemis being petty? Hell yes she is! And that just makes me love her more, because she’s a multi-faceted human being with emotions. Is she reacting in a bad way to said emotions? Yes! But this is all sort of in the same vein that Wally and Artemis meet each other in, where Wally’s bad reaction leads to a bad reaction on Artemis’s part, and then the two of them suffer the belligerent relationship that they do all season because of it. Artemis and Wally are both very raw people.

FUN TIME BREAK: “I know this is all very new and intimidating, but I promise you, someday, you’ll get used to watching Wally eat.”

So majestic!

Back to for serious: Artemis walks up to Dick and Zee and is like “Think we should tell him?”

Look at that devious face, my god Artemis you amazing spiteful thing, you!

“He is the only one who doesn’t know.” “Then, please, allow me.”

Artemis wants to burst his bubble the same way hers was burst. It is, without a doubt, 100% petty and horrible and born of jealousy, I’m not denying that. But it does NOT make me want to throw Artemis under the bus or act like she’s a horrible gargoyle or that she’s a bitch or what the fuck ever. It just makes me more interested in her motivations for this moment, it just makes me want to understand every catalyst that leads to this moment, the frustration. In Secrets, Artemis was mad and angry and mildly hurt because Conner is taken, Wally doesn’t want her, and now she’s stuck with her stupid feelings for a guy that she thinks is unobtainable, and I can understand how said feelings creeping back so unbidden into one’s mind with no other place to channel them would drive them to be spiteful about it when the opportunity arises.

I also just want to remind everyone that Wally and Artemis are 15 year old teenagers (well, 16 in Wally’s case as of this episode, but still). They are teenagers with charged emotions about fucking everything, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. They are not the mature adults they grow into slowly over the five year gap. They’re mature for teenagers in a lot of aspects, sure, with the kind of jobs they have they have to be. But they are still young and learning how to deal with certain kinds of emotions and situations. So to an extent some leniency needs to be given when they act like this. I’m not saying to entirely excuse it, rather just understand it and why and what have you.

Anyway, by the time Coldhearted rolls around, Artemis has been stuck with her Wally feelings again for however long the gap is between Secrets and Coldhearted, and she’s had enough of seeing Wally pine after unobtainable Megan in the same way she was pining over unobtainable Conner. So she’s like, fuck it, I’m telling him.

And she does. With much obvious pleasure.

And on his birthday, no less. That seems to be the major act of heinousness that people can’t seem to get past when it comes to this scene in particular, is that it was on Wally’s birthday. His celebratory 16th birthday where everything should be happy fun time and all that jazz. It’s really hard for me to be bothered about it being on his birthday when it’s so obvious that Wally’s not even all that shocked or hurt about finding out. In fact, I’m convinced that both Artemis and Wally subconsciously knew that Megan and Conner were not interested in them/were taken long before they were actually privy to open evidence of it. They were just fooling themselves because they’re too afraid of owning up to the ways they feel for each other. In both cases, Conner and Megan were fallback/distraction crushes, and never anything more.

Wally literally does not fucking care after expressing his dejected “Oh maaaaan!” after Artemis informs him of the lovebirds. That’s it. That is literally it. Not once in the time we are privy to Wally’s innermost thoughts does he mention anything about Megan and Conner, or even Artemis. His concerns are all for the big League/Team team-up and later on for Perdita. Wally only had something that he subconsciously knew all along confirmed to him, and it fucking sucked, but that’s it. For the rest of the episode and every episode after, Wally has already moved on.

In fact, by Insecurity he has sufficiently matured from the events of Coldhearted and finally decides to “man up” for lack of a better phrase, and actually accept and try pursuing his feelings for Artemis. Pursue them in a real way, not in the exaggerated, ego-driven flirting way that he does with Megan. But in a very real, I’m-really-really-interested-in-this-girl kind of way; the fallback, safe distraction of Megan has been removed, allowing Wally to focus on how he really feels for Artemis.

In fact, I’ll just let Greg’s Spitfire rant speak for me on this one, as he puts it the best:

“Plus, let’s not forget the double-whammy of “Failsafe” and “Disordered”. Here we reveal just how intensely Wally feels for Artemis, and just how much interest each has in the other. The trick is that neither is prepared to take a risk. Rejection from Superboy (such as it was) is nothing compared to the fear Artemis has over being rejected by Wally.

Wally meanwhile is afraid to admit his strong feelings for Artemis, so maintains focus on the safer Miss Martian. Artemis does the same toward Superboy. Both then have to be disabused of the nothing that their crushes are viable. I tend to think that deep down, the revelation about Conner and M’gann’s relationship was less of a shock to each than it seemed. They didn’t want to admit to themselves what they were probably sensing deep down. One reason for Artemis’s extreme reaction to the knowledge, I think, is that she was trying SO hard to think that Superboy was a possibility BECAUSE Wally clearly seemed NOT to be, and so she wanted to having something she could use to push Wally out of her mind.

So in “Coldhearted”, Wally learns some big lessons. Miss Martian is out of the picture-- and that helps to clear his mind. But mostly, he matures solidly in the episode. Now he’s ready to behave differently. [...]”

Part of this is going to wind up leading me into a rant that’s better saved for when I get to Insecurity, though, so I’ll just go ahead and wrap this up.

Basically, I agree that Artemis was being petty and spiteful. She was jealous, I expect nothing less from her. But that just makes her a more amazing character, because truly amazing characters are not flawless, they are human beings with many different emotions and many different reactions and ways of dealing with things. They do not always respond to things in the “right” way.

I’m also inclined to say that someone needed to pull Wally’s head out of his ass at some point regardless, btw. Artemis, in being spiteful, also did him a favor. Not with any kind of just intentions, perhaps, but… anyway.

Long story short: I like this moment, it doesn’t both me, it just makes me enjoy Artemis’s character even more, and it certainly doesn’t warrant her being demonized or thrown under a bus. Nobody is perfect, Artemis is not perfect.

Moving on. I know the vast majority of you will disagree with my assessments, but whatever, let’s both just move on because you won’t change my mind and I obviously won’t change yours.

Leave it to Batman to really crash a party, AMIRIGHT?

“Can’t the Watchtower just blast them out of the sky or something?” “What’s a Watchtower?” *DEEP SIGH FROM BATMAN* Goddamnit Wally you can’t just go around saying shit like that you little shit.

Oh my god they’re all a bunch of little dorks, all excited about a Team/League team-up.

Have I mentioned how much I love their polar stealth and wish it had popped up in more than just two episodes? Like, they’re all so adorable!

“Now that’s a birthday wish come true!”

“Uuuuh, Batman? I think youuuu skipped…” “Kid Flash.”

“A girl in Seattle is in desperate need of a heart transplant.”

Oh Wally, Wally, get your priorities straight, dude. :( That’s what I love about this episode though, he grows up in so many ways and it’s really nice to see him have such a major shift in what his real priorities in life are.

“Who is this girl!?” “Does it matter?” (I almost wrote a fanfic once in which it was an AU, where Artemis was the girl that needed the heart transplant and Wally was delivering it to her. I still wouldn’t mind visiting the idea, I never really did get it quite off the ground but it has potential)

“Speedy delivery boy, at your service…”

Ugh, Wally. It’s like… such a burden to him at first. He’s so much more upset about missing out on the League-Team team up that he files this mission away in his mind as a chore, an errand run, something on the side that he’s being forced into and it’s going to make him miss out on all the fun on his birthday. It’s sad to see him think that way, but by the end of it, it’s a very proud moment to see him having realized that delivering that heart was the best thing he’d done that day, the best way he could have spent his birthday, something he can feel proud of. I FUCKING LOVE WALLY AND I LOVE THIS EPISODE, OKAY?

(Also just pointing out that Wally’s reacting way more negatively to delivering this heart than he remotely acted to finding out M’gann was taken. JUST SAYING. And that if Artemis is at fault for telling Wally about M’gann on his B-day, Wally is at fault for reacting so horribly about delivering a heart to someone that’s dying. They’re both only human though, and I love seeing them both like this. I’m just using this to reinforce my points)

MMM that snow! So beautiful! I remembered before this episode aired I had been desperately hoping there would be a YJ episode with either heavy snow or rain in at least a decent chunk of episode. For no other reason than I love snow and rain weather effects and how they can be used to really set up a scene. (not to mention one of my favorite episodes of Teen Titans, “Haunted”, took place almost entirely in a heavy rainfall setting, and I digged it)

So Wally runs from literally one end of the country to the other in what, under four hours?

Don’t expect half of this rewatch post to literally just be me posting screenshots for their beauty.

He’s so fucking nonchalant about the fact that he LITERALLY has someone’s life strapped to his back. Oh, Wally, my son. *sigh*

“As crystal, babe.” “Then go.” “Guess asking for her number’s pointless...” Oh yes, this is a guy who has clearly just had his romantic feelings completely crushed and shattered. He’ll be mourning for months! MONTHS I TELL YOU. ARTEMIS YOU MONSTER.

“Do you see him!?” “Nope.” “Did you see him!?” “Nnnope.” LOL

“I’m at max speed now, but if I really push it, I can dump this load, save the girl, and still get in on the action!” Oh my god, Wally... DUMP THIS LOAD? LIKE IT’S GARBAGE? I love him so much but UGH. WALLY PLEASE.

And the infamous scene where Kaldur steps on his king’s shoulders to get up in the air for an attack, lmao

Chicken Whizee’s sound like the most disgusting thing ever. Like, literally all I can think of is something gross milkshake with bits of chicken in it or something. *shudders*

Also, Wally, you cannot fucking pay for food with A HUMAN HEART, GOOD LORD.

South Dakota! Been there, seen that.

Go away, Vandal! (man Vandal is legit a scary ass villain in this cartoon, like damn. It scares me when he grabs Wally and shit, like, he could probably break him like a twig and it disturbs me)

Can we just appreciate the actual shock waves from Wally slamming into Vandal at maximum speed?

Wally’s such a fierce fucking fighter when he gets the chance. That’s why I love this episode so damn much (among other reasons). We REALLY get the chance to see Wally at his rawest when it comes to fighting and his speed, like he just lets loose with no holds barred when it comes to Vandal. Speedsters are goddamn dangerous and I LOVE it. (I also love Wally using himself as a human cannonball).

“Go, get out of here! I’ll handle Vandal!” “You’ll “handle” me?” “Little hero, do you really think you have what it takes to survive Vandal Savage?”

Put my baby down you piece of shit!

Wally literally stared death in the face and said, “NOT TODAY!”

Look at him fucking fight! Goddamn it’s so amazing! (also where did your Flash symbol go in that last one, Wally??)

And like, I don’t have a fucking screenshot or gif of it but Vandal punches him and he goes flying backwards and catches himself in a one armed handstand and lands on his feet. HOW FUCKING COOL IS THAT?

“When I heard authorities were (?) off this highway for a speedster, I assumed I’d be confronting Flash himself-- He and I are due for a reckoning.”

God, I’ll never stop being curious about what must have happened between Vandal and Flash to make Vandy say that... color me forever intrigued.

Wolf looks fucking demonic when he bites those wires on that auto-turret, omg.

“Kind of bashing my head into a brick wall here, need a new approach.” I REALLY wish I could make a million gifs of this fight, tbh. I don’t have any screens for some of this shit, nor other gifs saved and it’s a damn shame.

“Dude, you are so running on fumes right now. Battle didn’t help with that, either. But forget the hunger, forget the freezing temp, forget the wind chill! Just go, go!” Atta boy, Wally! Getting those priorities straight!

I honestly always love hearing Zee cast spells, it sounds so cool.

Wally reeeeally needs to work on his brakes.

Now prepare for some cute/sad Wally spam:

Oh man, though... could you imagine if Wally really had legit been twelve minutes off because of that fight, and Queen Perdita had actually died? He would NEVER forgive himself for that. That would eat him the fuck up for like... the rest of his life. Holy shit.

“Twelve minutes... the fight took fifteen...” Oh my god I can’t, he’s so crushed. :(

You can tell he’s so fucking drained throughout this last scene.

Look at him, crawling on the ground to try and get away. He’s NOT going to let that little girl die!

I like how this time Wally is able to power through and punch Vertigo in the face, whereas back in Revelations he couldn’t quite make it and Vertigo just knocks him away.

WALLY DOESNT HAVE TIME FOR THESE AUTOMATED DOORS.

“It’s called, YOU’RE BUSTED, JERKFACE!”

WALLY ILU NEVER STOP BEING SO AWESOME.

Awwwww, Perdita, you had Wally forever at “Souvenir.” <3 I just love headcanoning that they maintain a friendship for like, ever after this. So fucking sweet!

“The sword was cool, but, this just seemed like the right souvenir for the mission.” Hey, this totally echoes what Wally says to Artemis at the end of the Insecurity mission. “Keep the sai. This is the right souvenir for the mission.” Ouch. But more on that when I get to Insecurity)

“The man who finally figured out that the sweetest birthday present a lucky stiff like me could ever get, was seeing that little girl smile.”

LEAVE ME, LEAVE ME WALLY KILLS ME AT THE END OF THIS EPISODE I NEED TO CRY. I LOVE SEEING MY BABIES GROW UP.

#ranty rewatches young justice

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