#and the barry feeling like he doesn’t have to keep everything to himself around hal he doesn’t have to do it all alone | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

colehasapen · 3 years

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(ONE SHOT) I tried hating you but the anger is gone DC COMICS

A03

Barry remembers what it's like to be in love. He remembers the fluttery, soft feeling in his stomach when their hands brushed, the warmth in his cheeks when their eyes met across crowded rooms. He remembers gentle words and whispered promises, and he remembers holding his whole world in his hands. He remembers thinking to himself that they'd always have each other, that they'd be together through thick and thin.

Barry remembers being in love, and he remembers learning that love wasn't always good enough. Love wouldn't survive everything, and people wouldn't either.

Once, Barry had held his whole world in his hands, but that had made it all the more painful for it all to be ripped away. One thing after another, until there had been nothing left but tears, and rage, and suffering - his own, and that of others. It hadn't filled the gaping hole in his chest, hadn't made him feel better, but he had told himself no one else would feel that pain again if he could help it.

No one else would lose their child. No one else would have to see the boy they'd raised and loved like their own turn to dust in front of their eyes. No one else would have to sacrifice themselves.

No one else would have their mentor, the closest thing to a father they’d had for a long time targeted because of who they were connected to.

No one else would see a city reduced to rubble, and then learn afterwards that a member of their own family had burned with it, unable to outrun the blast.

No else else would have to want so desperately for the little life inside of them to grow up big and strong, only for it to be taken away from them because some bastard wanted them to hurt.

So Barry had stood back. He had stepped aside and stayed quiet and done as he was told because it meant that no more innocents would have to suffer. He'd beaten down his own morals and ripped away everything that made him a hero, because he'd sacrifice himself so that no one else would have to.

He'd turn himself into a monster if it meant that the fighting would end.

He could understand Superman's pain, his rage and anger, because Barry had felt them both, first when Wally had died to save the world, and again when Zoom had stolen that little blossom of hope he'd held inside of him. He could understand why Joker had to die, he could understand the leap in logic Clark had followed, because Lois and her baby had been innocent.

Innocence hadn't saved them, but Superman had promised them a world where it wouldn't happen again, if only they followed him.

Barry had always been a follower.

A follower, and a coward.

So Barry had followed. He’d followed Superman, he’d followed Hal; he followed them so far that he almost doesn’t recognize himself anymore. He’d once thought to himself that he’d follow them into hell, but he’d never thought it would be a hell of his own making. Barry had walked himself into failure, all while telling himself that he was trying to make the world a better place.

He’d lied to himself. He lied to himself after every death, after every injury and cruelty. He’d kept lying to himself, unwilling to see past his own suffering to see others hurting just as much because of his own actions. He’d clung so tightly to the illusion of peace that he’d ignored the bodies he was stepping over to get there.

He’d already lost Wally, he’d lost Jay, he'd lost Bart, he’d lost the baby, he'd even lost the Rogues, and he hadn’t wanted to lose anyone else.

But then he lost Iris.

Barry’d been in love with Iris for so long that he almost didn’t remember how not to love her, but she’d seen him for what he truly was, what he had been trying so desperately not to look at; a monster and a coward. She looked him in the eye and laid it all out, every single one of his failures, and then she walked away, and for once in his life, Barry hadn’t followed. He’d been angry, and hurt, and it had been a painful knot in his chest that made it hurt to breath as all those soft fluttery feelings turned caustic and poisonous.

Barry had been in denial, but his eyes had begun to see past the illusions he’d made himself.

Nothing she had said was a lie.

When Iris had left them, Barry had turned around and clung so tightly to Hal that he’s surprised he hadn’t choked the Lantern. He knows now that Hal had been struggling just as much as he had been, had been floundering after the loss of Wally, their child, and then Iris, but all Barry had seen at the time was someone to hold onto. He’d been grabbing for any stability he could, and Hal had been there. Hal had always been his rock, just as Barry had always been a beacon to guide him home, but loss had sent them both into free fall, and neither of them knew that they didn’t have a safety net until they hit the unforgiving ground.

This time, it was Barry who walked away.

Shazam - Billy’s death had been the last straw. He had been the one to finally shatter the world Barry had built for himself.

Superman had killed a child.

Barry couldn’t look away anymore, he couldn’t avert his eyes or plug out the sounds again.

So he had started to listen again, he started to act instead of follow.

Barry saves people again, and it had started with Batman, back even before Billy. It had started with Bruce; Bruce who was Barry’s friend, Bruce who Barry was supposed to hate - but Barry’s too empty for hatred.

He had been angry for so long that he wonders if he’ll ever feel anything again.

Changing sides isn’t easy, but Barry never thought it would be. He turns his back, he walks away from Hal. He asks Hal to come, to leave Superman behind and become a hero again, and when he refuses Barry ignores Hal pleading with him to stay with him. It hurts to leave Hal, it’s agony to hear the terror in his voice when he’d told him there was no leaving Superman, but Barry can’t stay anymore. Hal won’t come with him, and Barry walks away. He knows he’s not going to be welcomed among Batman’s rebellion with open arms, he’s spent too long following behind Superman for that to happen, but he doesn’t let the cold reception get to him, doesn’t let the ache in his jaw stop him.

He needs to make it right after all, even if it’s likely none of them will ever trust him again. Even if it’s likely he’ll never wash the blood from his hands, the least he can do is try to prove to them that he’s genuine. To prove that he wants to repent for what he let happen, for what he did, and the people who died because Barry was too cowardly to make his voice heard, or too blind to see.

Bruce’s people don’t trust him, but Barry doesn’t blame them. He doesn’t even trust himself anymore. He lets them put the monitor on him, he lets them glare and whisper. He can feel them watching him, he sees the way they shy away, he knows the doubt. He doubts himself too, he wonders, sometimes, that if it starts getting too hard, will he fall back into the habits he’d developed? Will he kill again if things get too slow, too irritating?

Who will suffer if Barry has a bad day?

They’re afraid of him.

Barry’s afraid of him too. He’s afraid of what he could do, he’s afraid of what he’s done. He’s afraid that someday he’ll go too far again, and he’s afraid that once he starts on that road again, he won’t be able to turn back. He’s already lost everything, and he’s afraid that someday, he’ll decide to throw away whatever is left.

Some days, all that fear gets to be too much for him to handle. Everything gets to be too much. The memories and the what-ifs rise in a tidal wave that not even he can outrun, and they sweep him back out to the sea of misery. He drowns in it.

He just wants it all to end.

It’s during one of these episodes that Batman finds him.

Barry’s folded himself into a dark corner, his head buried in his knees as everything gets to be too much. Sometime, in between the moment his heart and started hammering in his chest and the world had started to get fuzzy, he’d ripped off the helmet, and his hands had found their way into his hair where he’d started to pull as the weight on his chest grew to be crushing. He’s probably vibrating, a distant part of Barry knows, and it’s probably set off one of the many alarms Batman has linked to him, but Barry can’t bring himself to care. All he can think of is the empty yellow and red suit, the warped helmet, the hole where Metropolis used to be. All he can hear is the ragged sound of his own breathing and the voices of the doctors telling him the baby hadn’t survived Zoom’s attack.

He remembers that kid, the one who had thought he was strong enough to fight back, the one who had wanted to do the right thing, and the sound of his back breaking when Wonder Woman and Superman put him down with the intention of keeping him down.

Barry could have stopped them.

But he didn’t.

All he did was watch, and then run away when it got too much and he’d seen the face of a kid who learned that his idols weren’t heroes any more.

He wants it to stop.

“Flash.”

He’d go back if he could. Bruce had told him to restart everything, but Barry had been too scared then, that he’d just make everything worse.

“Flash!”

Why shouldn’t he? It would be easy to just start running. He’d erase himself from the timeline, and maybe the next Barry would be better . Maybe the next Barry wouldn’t fail everything and everyone.

Maybe the next Barry would be fast enough.

“Allen!”

Better yet, maybe the Speed Force would decide that he was unworthy, and Barry Allen wouldn’t survive the lab accident that had given him his powers.

“God dammit - Barry! Snap out of it.”

Barry comes back to himself with a stinging cheek and a gasp. He feels like there’s cotton stuffed in his head, like there’s a vice in his chest and a knife in his guts. Batman - no, that’s Bruce, the helmet is off - is kneeling in front of him, hands on Barry’s shoulders and expression drawn with stress, making the premature age lines all the more obvious around his stormy eyes.

“I-” Barry wheezes, blinking tears out of his eyes as he stares at Bruce in shock, then at where the vigilante’s hands are resting on his shoulders. The warmth of the touch is seeping through his costume, it makes his skin tingle even with the layers between them, and Barry wonders almost hysterically how long it had been since someone had willingly touched him without intending to hurt him. “Bruce?” His voice is a choked rasp, and with a panic dissipating, the numbness starts to set in again.

The touch, however, stops it from settling in.

Bruce is frowning at him. When was the last time he had smiled? When was the last time any of them had had something to smile about?

Barry used to like it when he smiled.

“What just happened?” Bruce demands, but despite the harsh tone, the hands on his shoulders are still gentle, and Barry can only blink at him, a little dumbly. He’s a little too busy thinking about how nice the warmth of another person’s touch is to really give Bruce’s words much thought. “Barry.”

Barry jolts, “I - uh-” he stutters, “-sorry.”

Bruce’s frown is easing slightly, back into that emotionless mask that he’d been wearing for - how long had he been wearing it? He’s studying Barry now, like he’s trying to gauge how much of a threat he is now that Bruce had seen him panicking. “Does that happen often?” He asks blankly, and Barry shakes his head, a little frantic.

“No!” He says desperately; he needs to stay on Batman’s good side. He needs to put his best foot forward, after all the shit he’s put Bruce through over the years. He just wants to do at least one thing right in his life.

Hal and Iris aren’t here to guide him through his attacks. He doesn’t have a lightning rod to draw him back anymore.

“No - no, it’s just - I’ll be fine once the shaking stops.” Barry tells him, “I’m sorry.”

Bruce is still staring at him, “How long has it been happening?”

Barry lets out a bitter, shaky laugh, “Years.” He says, arms moving to curl around his stomach, and he sees Bruce’s eyes follow the movement, sees the moment Earth’s greatest detective connects the dots. He’d had a front row seat to what state Barry had been in after Zoom’s attack had almost killed him. Barry knows he’d been in the Watchtower when Barry had been brought in, covered in blood and barely hanging onto consciousness because he hadn’t been able to fight back against the other speedster. Batman would have seen the medical reports when they’d been added to his file, would have known the extent of the damage Barry’s body had taken.

He knows what Barry had lost. He knows just how much Barry had personally related to Superman.

Bruce is quiet for a long moment, studying Barry as the shaking slows, and his hands stay on his shoulders, a grounding influence that helps the speedster drag himself out of the storm of emotions he had fallen into. Bruce has always been good at it, helping Barry slow down; it’s always been something that Barry’s been grateful for, and he’s been missing the other man’s influence and presence in the last years.

Back when he’d first noticed that Superman wasn’t listening to them anymore, he’d wished that Batman were there, because Bruce had always been the one that Superman would turn to. The one they’d all turn to if they needed someone to talk them down from something, to point out when their logic was flawed; Bruce had always been the best of them, no matter how much the man hadn’t believed them when they’d said it.

None of this would have happened if they’d just listened to Bruce.

“You told me once to change the timeline.” Barry says helplessly, staring up at Bruce with pleading eyes. What he’s pleading for, he doesn’t know; condemnation? Permission? Just someone to hold him?

Slowly, Bruce nods his head, an acknowledgement of the statement, “And you told me that it was something you’d only consider once we’d already exhausted all of our options.” He points out.

Barry’s laugh is almost hysterical in response, “I could just make everything worse.” He says shakily, “But what difference would that make? Everything’s already fallen apart.”

“True.” Bruce agrees, “But there’s still hope we can do better. That we can fix this. We can’t give up that chance just yet.”

It’s almost ironic hearing this from Bruce, a known realist. Barry had always been the hopeless dreamer, the one who always tried to see the bright side in a situation, the one who always urged the others to do the same. But now? After everything that had happened, everything he had lost, everyone who had suffered? Barry can’t see any possible light in their dark world.

“We’re not just fighting for ourselves, Barry. Or the people we’ve lost.” Bruce’s hands tighten on his shoulders, “We’re fighting for a future for everyone else on this planet. A future where they can make their own choices and no one has to live in fear of being heard saying the wrong thing.”

“I don’t know what the right thing to do is anymore.” He admits, “I don’t know how I can fix what I’ve done.”

“All any of us can do is try.” Bruce tells him quietly, and Barry meets his eyes, blue to blue. He sees the sadness there, the numbness and helplessness that he knows all too well. They’d both lost everything; their children, their friends, their futures. Anything they had planned for themselves had fallen apart. They’d lost love and friendship to anger, and to hate, and then they’d lost that too.

What more could they lose?

When Bruce starts pulling away from him, Barry rocks forward almost desperately, not wanting to lose the tiny connection they had made, not wanting to let Bruce slip away from him again after getting a glimpse at the man he had cared for after so long of nothing. He stops at the last second, however, and he stays where he lands on his knees, staring up at Bruce as the man slowly offers him a hand.

“Come on.” Bruce’s voice washes over him, “We’ve got work to do.” Bruce is watching him with a quiet seriousness, the same loneliness Barry feels echoed in his eyes.

He’s offering him a choice.

And Barry?

He takes the hand, and he chooses the future Bruce sees.

#cole writes #DC comics #injustice: gods among us #brubarry #bruce wayne #Barry Allen #trans barry allen #halbarry #westallen #bruce wayne/barry allen #barry allen/bruce wayne

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mageofcole · 4 years

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(ONE SHOT) I’ll try to explain the infinite DC COMICS

A03

In another world, The Flash dies a hero, saving the world. He sacrifices himself so that others may live, and he’s remembered as a figure larger than life; everyone mourns The Flash as a saint, a paragon of justice and kindness, but no one remembers Barry. No one remembers the mild and gentle forensic scientist who was at the core of who the Scarlet Speedster was. No one but the man he raised, and the man who had loved him.

In another world, The Flash dies at the hands of Professor Zoom. He dies, and his wife is dragged through time, never to see her friends and family again. He dies as he’s dragged into the Speedforce, and he becomes just another speedster trapped outside of time and space as the world goes on without him. In this world, no one knows that the Flash that follows him is a different hero entirely, they don’t know that the child their hero had raised and trained would have to grow up too fast after the loss of another set of parents. In this world, people mourn Barry Allen, the good, kind man with a heart of gold who died in a tragic accident alongside his wife.

In both these worlds, Hal hadn’t known he’d loved his best friend, or maybe he had known but had never worked up the courage to admit it until he was looking down at that plain tombstone and he realized he’d never have the chance. In both these worlds, Hal keeps losing, and losing, and losing until he has nothing left, and yet people still ask for more . In the end, he stands with nothing but hate and fear in his heart and a burning desire to make it right again. In both these worlds, Hal buries his best friend and loses half of himself at the same time. In both these worlds, Hal loses until he breaks, and he breaks others in return. He doesn’t die a saint, he doesn’t die a hero; instead Hal becomes the villain, and dies knowing he had destroyed any and all of his morals.

But this isn’t those worlds.

Here, when Professor Zoom appears, he targets Iris first. Here, he doesn’t drag her into the Speedforce, or into the future. Instead, he leaves the body of the fiery, gentle reporter where Barry can find it, bloodied and fully recognizable as the lovely woman Iris West Allen used to be. Here, Hal comes to the small house in Central, following the distress beacon his best friend had activated, to find Barry cradling his wife’s body, looking blank and numb, blood splattered across the room like some sort of morbid piece of art, and another body only identifiable by the yellow costume left slumped in the corner. He stands beside Barry as the truth comes out, stands beside Barry in the face of Superman’s disappointment and the loss of Batman’s friendship.

In this world, Barry kills Zoom first. In this world, Barry puts the costume away and steps down from the Justice League to make way for a younger generation. In this world, Wally becomes the Flash, but he still has a mentor to turn to when he needs help. Here, Hal refuses to be pushed away and stays beside Barry, and the reveal of his feelings comes naturally as they come together in more than one way. Here, it’s Barry who confesses first, who puts what they are into words and asks for more.

In this world, there’s someone to put him back together when Hal breaks. He has something to keep himself partially grounded when Coast City is reduced to rubble, something to help him lessen the weight on his shoulder and push away the demands placed unfairly on him. Here, he has a reason not to give in fully to the whispers in his ears, the desire for revenge, and the fear in his heart.

He still has a family to return to, so when the young Torchbearer comes to him, to ask him to let go of his fear, Hal takes his hand. He lets Kyle talk him down from the extremes, returns the rings he stole, and lets go of the illusion he’s built, because Kyle reminds him of what he still has, what he can still hold onto.

This time, when Hal dies, he has someone to mourn him, and when he returns, he has someone to welcome him. It’s not perfect, Hal still has a voice in his head, urging him to go further and further, to do more and more damage, but he also has arms to hold him back, and a warm, loving voice to talk him down.

He still has hopeful, wonderful Barry, who, in another world, would have just been a cold statue and a modest grave. He still has his children, who, in that other time, would have never existed. He has things to fight for, people to return to. Reasons to hide his bloodied hands so that he can protect them.

When he lands in the private backyard of the house he lives in with Barry and their family, he always lets the form of The Spectre melt away. He lets go of justice and retribution, lets go of wrath and redemption, to let himself be Hal again. He embraces life again, as gray melts away to tan, and green dissolves to the ever-familiar warmth of his father’s old jacket, and Hal choses this to anything Parallax or The Spectre can offer him.

“Papa!” A young voice shouts in excitement, and it’s only years of working with Barry that gives Hal enough time to brace himself for the super-speed missile that collides with his stomach. Nora Jordan-Allen beams up at him, all chubby cheeks and childish innocence. She’s always happy to see him, doesn’t understand what Hal had become, and loves him regardless of everything.

Hal laughs, scooping his daughter into his arms, kissing wind-swept brown hair as the four year old wraps her thin arms around his neck and kisses his cheek, “Hey there, roadrunner.” He rumbles, feeling that jumbled, hateful part of himself smooth out into something less painful. “Shouldn’t you be in bed, little lady?”

Nora pouts, and Hal can never keep up the mask of parental disappointment in the face of the big blue eyes she’s inherited from Barry, “Was waitin’ for you.” She whines, pressing her face into his neck.

Huffing fondly, Hal hefts the kid up just a little higher, resting her on his hip as he makes his way up the porch and into the house. It’s quiet, like it usually is this late in the day, when Jason and Jenny have been put down to sleep, and the sun is only a stretch of orange light streaming in through the windows as it sets and the moon takes its place in the sky. It’s peaceful, and it muffles the unending pounding of fear in his chest because Hal knows he’s safe here, in the little pocket of the world he and Barry had created for themselves. There’s memories in every corner, love in the walls, and the shadows don’t hold nightmares here.

They bought this place together, back when they’d learned that their family would be growing. Hal’s apartment in Coast City had been home for a long time, and Barry had made it warmer when he’d moved in, but it had been too small for the addition of a baby. Blue Valley had been a change from the coastal cities and beaches Hal was used to, a small, quiet midwestern town that suits them both just fine. It’s not like the big cities they’re both used to, and that helps.

It’s a new start, and Hal will always be grateful that Barry and Nora had been here instead of Coast City when it had been reduced to rubble. They’d been safe, in the little life they had been building, away from the dangers of their lives. He’s glad his enemies hadn’t known about them.

Nora whines a little when Hal puts her to bed, pouts, but he passes her her Green Lantern bear and kisses her on the forehead as he tucks her in. He knows the grumpiness is an act by the heaviness of her eyes, by how quickly she falls asleep, and for a long moment, Hal just stands there and stares. He watches her breathe, snuggled up under her covers as she clings to the bear Kyle had bought her as a gag but she had loved anyways. She’s alive, and healthy, and so many things all at once that it makes Hal feel weak in the knees.

A weakness, a part of him whispers, something for others to exploit until you’re ruined again. Hal would burn the world to protect his family, would destroy everything to keep them safe and happy. If anyone tried to use them against him, they wouldn’t live long enough to touch a hair on their heads because Hal would make them burn.

Gently, almost afraid that he’s taint her, Hal reaches forward to gently brush her hair away from her face, tucking the brown strands behind her ear to hopefully save it from getting chewed or drooled on, and he just sort of stands there, fingers barely brushing the shell of her ear. If they’d been in Coast City - Hal doesn’t know if even Barry would have been able to get them out on time, and it would have been his fault, because Mongul had chosen Coast City to send a message, knowing the Green Lantern that lived there, one of the Justice League’s heaviest hitters hadn’t been planetside.

The city has since been rebuilt, and survivors had returned, but Hal hadn’t been able to bring himself to go back. This is his home now; the small home he and Barry had bought together with the fenced-in backyard that might be a little on the small side, but private enough for Nora, and now Jenny and Jason, to play in without anyone seeing them use their powers. They decorated it together, filled it with photos of their families and enough love that Hal’s dreams are peaceful.

A peaceful enough life, a happy family, a nice house - things Hal never would have imagined for himself, but something he has regardless. He’s a bartender now, nothing like the pilot he had once dreamed of being, and there’s no adrenaline to chase, but he’s happy. He still flies, as Spectre, and he keeps his license, because someday he wants to take his kids up into the air and give them that piece of himself and his life. The sky is still a part of him, it’s in his blood, but maybe he can understand now, why his father had tried to tell him that there was more to life than just the thrill.

“How did it go?” The gentle voice in the doorway pulls Hal from his thoughts, pulls his eyes from Nora’s sleeping face, to see Barry in the doorway. His blue eyes are soft, arms crossed over his chest, and he’s leaning against the doorframe, a gentle smile on his face.

“Well.” Hal murmurs, stepping back from Nora with one last loving look. Barry opens his arms for him as Hal approaches, letting the other man slump into his arms and bury his head in his shoulder. “I missed you.” He says. It’s hard, keeping track of time in the world between life and death, and sometimes Hal finds himself away for far longer than he thought he had been, or not as long as he had believed. It’s hard to tell which until he’s back and can look at the date.

“Missed you too, glitter-glow.” Barry’s smooth midwestern drawl washes over him, taking with it the lingering tension still in his shoulders, and Hal wraps his arms around the speedster’s waist.

This is home, Hal knows.

(In most worlds, The Flash dies a hero and Green Lantern loses everything. But in this world, Barry Allen lives, and this saves Hal Jordan.)

#cole writes #dc #the flash #justice league #green lantern #barry allen #hal jordan #the spectre #halbarry #barry allen/hal jordan #hal jordan/barry allen #au #trans barry allen #halbarry kids

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super-hero-girls-netflix · 4 years

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How about both if you want? If not you can choose.

Emotional questionnnnn: What if a superhero died (including Batman and Superman cause why not >:))?

Uhmm...I'm going to talk mostly about if they just witnessed the death of the others since I don't think I'm ready to unpack the emotional baggage of killing a friend. ( But if you also about a specific kill with specific details on how it happened you can bet I'll give you a specific answer.)

It's clear in the aftermath of Superman vs Barman that Superman's death would take a toll on the civilians. He's iconic that way, I think it would be especially hard on Kara. And it would be terrible for Gotham morale and Batgirl especially, if Batman dies while being a hero.

It'd be terrible if either hero died. Both are incredibly strong and intelligent. If either died it would mean a villain strong enough and reckless enough to simply murder any adversary.

It would be pretty scary to all if Superman died....after all Cryptonien's are supposed to be indestructible, no?

Kara would take the death pretty hard. In denial, probably. Insisting that there is a way to bring him back.

If one of the Invincibro's (yo bros) died then it'll hit hard.

It'll hit differently depending on the counterpart. And the situation.

For example, if Hal died both sides will mourn. And the Invicibros will be a mess (I suspect that Steve and Hal were co-captains, if anything Steve is a bit of a figurehead). Speaking of 'captain' the school, whoever knew the confident brunet will be in shock because Hal always seemed a little invincible. Many would mourn him since he grows on you....like fungi. Jess will be wrecked and she'd blame herself because of course she would. She was his partner, she should have been there. 'And oh gosh she was alone now, she'd have to defend the space sector alone. And even if she's assigned a new partner it wouldn't matter because they weren't an obnoxious, confident, self-centered Hal'. And yes, there will be a certain dampness in the atmosphere for both teams.

If Barry died both teams (the whole city even) would mourn. Barry was beloved as both Barry the dessert slinger and the Flash, superhero speedster. Barry was kind of the kindness of the group. The one who did good for no other motive than the fact that he loved deeply and wanted to keep everyone safe. The team would keep chugging along with this mindset...but I don't think they'd be able to eat at Sweet Justice anymore. It would hit Babs' hard because he was her best (guy) friend and they swore to have each other's backs (in my AU) and she didn't have his and now he's dead. I think the girls would prefer to just move their headquarters since Sweet Justice was painful enough to just think about.

If Carter died I'm afraid no one will notice. Hawkman's death will be acknowledged but not Carter's. Carter's death if given any attention at school would be a mystery much like he was. Same with Hawkman, his death will be mourned but he'd be considered a mystery death because of his quiet nature. This will drive the boys mad because Carter Hall was DEAD and no one seemed to care. How can they not realize that everything has changed? Carter was more or less the level-headed one of the group. It would be particularly terrible for Karen since Carter was big and strong and knowing he's dead? Yes...she wouldn't take it well. She'd most likely try to avenge him.

If Oliver died it would be a bit of a scandal. I'm sure he has quite the fan base as both an aspiring actor and the charismatic Green Arrow. He was always the *cue dramatic gasp* dramatic one of the bunch. His death will be, you guessed it, terrible. Since happy, confident, loyal Green Arrow was killed. The atmosphere around the team would tune quiet, if a little hollow but they'd keep chugging through since Oliver wasn't friends with quitters. And it would hit Zee differently because the last thing they did was fight (of course they did) and now he's dead and she realized that she had fun arguing with him and their rivalry made acting so much more fun and now how is she supposed to perform when her co-star was dead? When the idiot who would make rude faces behind the curtains and then grudgingly admit she did 'decently' was dead?!? It would hit hard because Oliver and Zee shared a passion and they both left a stain there. She'd forever associate her love for the stage to her complicated friendship with a dead actor. (I think she'd hate when in the future people forget Oliver Queen's name). The whole girl said would mourn but they didn't know Oliver as well as Zee and Zee's a wreck so they'd channel their grief into comforting her.

God help the idiot who murders Steve. If Diana hasn't already killed you, the team will. The Invincibro's, I mean. Steve is a bit of a figurehead so kill the queen and they will make it their life mission to avenge him. That is all after the grieving, of course. Steve will be mourned heavily by both teams, especially by Diana and the Invicibros. Diana will be confused at first because she never even thought that Steve could die. Never crossed her mind. She never asked for anything, wanted for anything, but she wanted him. Him to be alive. How is that even possible??! Jeez, I don't see much of him so that's all I can really say.

If Garth is killed well... Both teams will be horrified and heartbroken. It's just that Garth is so innocent and sweet. And he was killed. The whole school I think would notice because the football team will mourn (in my AU) him. The city might be a bit indifferent because despite his confidence he never demanded as much attention as his team. But the team will never be indifferent to it. The Invincibro's will be furious to hide the fact that they are wrecked because yes, Garth can handle himself in a fight but he was only fourteen. He had plans and he was their friend, goddamit. (I really want to go in depth about how the girls and guys would react but I'll resist.) Kara will react similarly because how dare they take her little brother away?? One thing is letting him handle himself when he's getting bullied but killing him?

Okay...this is a quick peek at how the team and counterpart will react to their death....now for the girls!!

(they are all killed, okay? No different or accidental deaths)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

If Jess were killed the team would be a wreck, of course. Jess, I like to think, was the mom friend and medic of the group. The girls will mourn and healing will be hard. Very hard. They'll remember all the things she holds dear. I have no doubt they'll participate in protests like Jess has been bugging them to do when she was alive. The Invincibro's will be sad too, of course. Initially, then they'll be pissed. Won't rest untill they help the SHG defeat the killer. And Hal? He'll be feral, of course he would. He is very possessive and very loyal. He'd be in denial at first (they all would) because how can Jessica Fricking Cruz, passionate kind selfless Jess be dead?? That's not possible. She cared too much, had too much to do- she can't be dead. But I feel like halfway through his revenge rampant he'll remember that Jess was a pacifist and he'll...I dunno.

If Babs died the team will be swinging from horrified, to unbelieving, to furious. They'd be sad because Babs loved being a superhero and she loved helping people and now she was dead and- they'd be a mess. And don't even get me started on how Barry would take it. Wanna know how he'd take it? Very badly. Why? Because Babs is his best friend and his counterpart and he's supposed to watch her back and she's gone for real and this is terrible and he's so sensitive and everything is fallings apart it seems. He'll definitely be a little more jaded, a lot more protective and burst into tears when anyone orders a candy cake triple ripple tower with rainbow sprinkles. But then overtime it'll turn into a sad smile. Man, the Invincibro's will also be horrified since Babs was close to pretty much everyone.

If Karen died? Absolute pandemonium. The team will be equal parts blaming themselves and torn with guilt and sorrow. They will tear the world apart looking for a way to fix it somehow. Fix it the way Karen would have. The boy team, because despite all their teasing, will be in uproar because no one messed with Karen but them!! And Carter? He'll be at war with himself, because he should have protected her, the pipsqueak was too young and small and fragile to be able to hold off evil by herself and how dare she put herself in that situation? How dare she just leave them like that?? I feel like he'll be in denial for a long time, working through everything to avoid processing his grief but when it does it'll hit hard. Probably because of something small but subtle. Like getting electrocuted because Karen had quite a few fractal scars from her experimenting and super heroing. Or when he realizes he got stung by a bee- it's the little moments when it strikes deep.

If Zee died it would be a bit absolutely scandalous of course. Not only will the girls be horrified and heartbroken but so will Zee's fanbase as an actor and her father's assistant. The girls will have quite some time to even begin to adjust but soon enough they will jump straight into plotting their revenge. The boys will be livid of course but none more that her counterpart Oliver Queen. Oliver won't quite believe it, I don't think, he'll just think that Zee will just magically resurrect herself because the annoying actress who liked hogging his showtime couldn't possibly be dead. She was like a cockroach! No matter how many times squashed beneath your shoe those wretched little things will just come back. All the time...she couldn't be gone. And truly he didn't hate her, he just liked having a goal. To outshine Zee Zatara. So...how could she be dead? This will hit especially hard when he doesn't have a counterpart to fight with. Or when the leading lady role goes to someone new. Clear to say that Zee Zatara's death will be every bit heart wrenching.

If Diana dies be prepared for hell. The girls will fall apart with grief after avenging their leader. I feel that Babs would try to keep everyone together at least. The boy team will be furious because Diana was their battle plan leader too! And how- they'd be confused because how can the immortal Diana Prince die? The school would definitely have a service for the mystery top student. How would Steve react? He'd be horrified and lost, and confused but then he'd help the girls avenge W.W and live the rest of his life upholding Diana's values. (I'm not quite sure how he'd handle the grief.)

If Kara dies then there will of course first be the mourning (at least according to the show). Then the shock. Then the doubt because hasn't Kara 'died' before? And that would lead to hope which will make the moment of confirmation the most painful. For both teams. Garth will be completely blindsided with grief and anger because how dare they take his big sister? How dare they hurt moody, cold, rude at times, big softie at heart, Kara? And well I guess we'll discover that rage is also a prominent feature if the ocean, is it not? So yes, this will be an emotional rollercoaster no doubt about it.

✨✨✨EXTRA EXTRA✨✨✨

This extra will be non-super hero's who will also mourn and attempt to avenge the lost one.

Diana- she is the princess of an island of immortal warrior woman. Her mom is 'a final boss'. She will have plenty of people to avenger her (not that she would want that, per say). I kind of have a suspicion that Queen of Amazon's will either be overly sympathetic ('my daughter has chosen her path, now we can only honor her') or furiously because they were part of her daughters dream that got Diana killed (may you pray we never cross paths again or I will curse you as you have cursed me).

Karen- not sure... but maybe her parents??? They can make a suit too??

Kara- Her cousin because family is family and that's period and she's like the only survivor who doesn't want him (genuinely) dead. And Alex, her step-sister- maybe.

Jess- Green Lantern Corp.? Dexstarr?

Zee- her DAD, remember they are super close and he's super powerful and yeah....

Babs- Her dad- who's like a cop and even though he shown to be extremely lazy I have no doubt that he'd drop the donuts to find out what happened to his precious pumpkin pants. Might even call I'm Batman. Harleen, yes Harleen who tried to murder Robin because he embarrassed Babs will definitely go after her best friends murderer (even after finding out Vans secret identity)

Okay for Steve and Carter I genuinely don't know.

Garth, I'm not sure but if he's actually underwater royalty than you can expect a whole lot of flooding, earthquakes and sea monsters.

Hal- starfire is coming for your but

Oliver- Mortimer Drake, maybe? They are sort of bro's

Barry- DA WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD

Well...this was fun, wasn't it? Thanks for the beautiful ask, as usual @thedevilsmusicbox and I look forward to hearing from you. 😁🙋

#dc superheroes #dc super hero girls #dc superhero girls 2019 #dc superhero girls netflix #dc super hero high #barry allen #jessica cruz #diana prince #barbara gordon #karen beecher #carter hall #hal jordan #kara danvers #garth #oliver queen #zee zatara #great ask #death #if they die

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finalfrontierpioneer · 4 years

Text

2020 Fic Recs

Okay, I did a fic rec list last year for 2019, and nobody asked for this, but you know what, I’m gonna do another one. Really the only thing I wanna look back on about 2020 is the fic- bc damn there were some good ones!

Same as last year, these are fics that were completed in 2020. (So no in-progress fics here)

So here goes, 20 fic recs for 2020, in no particular order! And full disclosure, these are all totally different ratings/pairings/whatever.

I tried to tag all the authors who had tumblrs, but i probably missed some, and some of them aren’t actually working but hey! the username is there!

Some stucky bc of course

Sharpened Claws by tragicama (Explicit)

Steve Rogers has a unique talent of getting himself into danger. As one of New York City’s best homicide detectives, it isn’t easy to ignore the constant call of trouble and gore. At least, that’s what he tries to tell his overprotective and brooding boyfriend, Bucky Barnes, even if he knows it might be a lie.

Bucky is dangerous, gorgeous. . .and a werewolf. As the Alpha of New York City, he is easily considered the most powerful being in the world. But when Bucky begins to lose his control over his shift, he slowly becomes aware of a bond that sends him reeling, and one he’d never thought possible.

But everything is not as it seems. After a homicide case unleashes a sequence of events that neither Steve nor Bucky are prepared for, they soon find themselves entangled with a danger that threatens to rip them apart. With the help of Steve’s partner and best friend, Sam, Bucky and Steve navigate a dark web of pack politics, masquerade balls, and a crash course in what it means to be a pack, even as a greater danger looms. And one that might succeed in ripping them apart.

These Happy Gilded Years by crinklefries @spacerenegades, nalonzoo (Teen)

Steve Rogers, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and mostly happy disposition, had lived twenty-three years in the world with very little to distress or vex him.

( Steve is wealthy and and charming, with good humor and good temper, doted upon by his mother and the highest of New York Society, with no one to ever criticize or say the word no to him. Well, other than Bucky. But he doesn't count.

He is also warm and friendly and has a talent for matchmaking. Or so he thinks. Actually, he's kind of terrible at it.

Importantly, Steve will definitely never fall in love or marry, himself. He tells everyone this, repeatedly. Well anyway, we'll see about that. )

Jane Austen's Emma, but a little gayer, set in 1890s Gilded Era New York City

Demon Seed by SucculentHyena (Mature)

[Transcript 00:11:48]

MS: You were with him the most throughout the course of events, both before and after. Your account could shed light on something we may have missed.

JB: What difference will that make?

MS: It could make all the difference. Captain Rogers’ case is unprecedented, he’s the most intact victim we’ve ever recovered-

JB: [laughing] You call that intact?

A Noble Steed by alby_mangroves @albymangroves or @artgroves, leveragehunters (Teen)

"You say the Warhorse showed up last night," Sam said in tones of profound doubt.

"Yeah," Steve replied.

"The Warhorse. The Warhorse of legend. Daelland's Warhorse."

"The same as the one on the back of the transit card, yes."

"And he appeared in your living room?"

Steve eyed the Warhorse, very large and very black and giving him a dubious look out of his strange grey eyes. "He's standing in it right now."

"Uh huh," Sam said.

"Hey, I'm not any happier about it than you are."

* * *

Steve's mom had left Daelland long before he was born, following her heart to New York, but she'd raised him on stories of its famous Warhorse. Before she died, he'd promised he'd go back and learn the country she'd come from.

That was why he was in Daelland. Not so Daelland's legendary Warhorse could appear in his living room. But planned or not that's what had happened—now Steve had to figure out what to do about it.

a hat, a horse (a Hyundai), and the will to ride by elkane @elkane, synonym4life @synonym-for-life (Explicit)

After Steve and Bucky rescue their pals from the Raft prison, they decide to dig deeper into Zemo’s involvement in the UN headquarters’ bombing which sends them on a backpacking trip across select European countries. Steve and Bucky believe this is a story about their mission. Scott Lang and Sam Wilson, who join them halfway through, believe it’s a story about their Eurotrip (and they’re probably right). This writer, however, has been waiting to tell you that the fic’s true mission is Steve and Bucky missioning towards missionary.

Follow them on their journey across Europe in tiny cars, packed subway trains and even on skis as they tumble down the Swiss Alps (in a fun way this time!), all the while reigniting untold feelings of the past through inappropriate sexual encounters and terrible communication skills.

someday at christmas (there’ll be no wars) by stevebuckiest @stevebuckyinc (not rated)

A mission on Christmas. Not even on Christmas, technically. A mission after Christmas which means he and Steve and the Howlies will be trekking through the tundra towards possible death on what used to be Bucky’s favorite day of the year. Jesus Christ.

(alternatively: bucky and steve try to make the best of a shitty situation)

the cabin by natalie_nebula (Explicit)

It felt like he… It felt like they were always so close. Everything seemed like it was under control. He remembers hearing Wanda’s voice, seeing a flash of red out of the corner of his eye. He remembers yelling something back at her, telling her to stop, to not come any closer. He remembers a bright flash, then a boom, and ringing in his ears. He remembers a black blur, and hands on his back, around his waist, then—darkness…

After the explosion in Lagos, Steve wakes up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and all he knows is that Bucky's the one who brought him there. While Sam, Nat, and the other Avengers try to figure out what happened to their friend, Steve takes the time away to heal—both his relationship with Bucky, and with himself. My cozy, romantic, and introspective Civil War rewrite.

Every Feeling by Nestri (Explicit)

Steve completely surprises Bucky with a visit, scent thick with heat. The Alpha keeps his hands to himself until Steve makes it clear he doesn't want him to.

Halbarry!

A Speedster and a Space Cop get into a Car by ChocolateTeapots @chocolateteapotsvis (Teen)

Hal and Barry embark on their most perilous mission yet: picking Wally up from the airport.

For Halbarry Week, Day 3: First Times “And you just called me Barry, genius”

Crosswind by Cinderstrato (Explicit)

Hal had collected plenty of regrets over the years. What was the weight of one more?

Just A Mark by the_butler @the-butler-fanstuff (Mature)

“What a nerd.”

Barry had been haunted by these words all his life, seeing as they were his soulmate’s mark. It came out during puberty, just like everyone else’s, but by then he was already well on the way to being a ‘nerd’ so to speak. He wasn’t just some guy claiming to be nerd because he was into Dungeons and Dragons or anime, oh no. He was a bona fide science nerd- went to interstate science fairs and competitions even.

—————(Originally a one-shot, now continued)——————

Barry Allen was working at the forensics lab of Central City PD when it waltzes the new transfer from Coast City, Detective Hal Jordan, not just into the lab but also into his life. There’s the matter of them being soulmates- but Barry is unconvinced. Science tells him there’s a likely chance that they’re just platonic soulmates, so Hal suggests an experiment of sorts: they go on three dates, and then decide whether or not they’re just platonic, or something more.

Tired by ceelolights @ceeloilights (Gen)

Hal comes home to Barry still working late into the night.

Last but most certainly not least, Jeronica:

The long way round to heaven by Bearfacedcheek (Mature)

“This could screw everything up. Jesus why couldn’t you just, fucking not?”

“I did just fucking not Jughead,” she retorts hotly. “I’ve been not for months. No one was ever supposed to know, least of all you. So, don’t blame me for what you saw when you invaded a private moment.��

“Oh, my bad Veronica,” sarcasm, his most comfortable armour, wraps itself around his words. “Did my near-death experience compromised your privacy? I’m sorry that my spirit took an astral fucking walk out of my almost corpse and y-”

“Don’t,” she gasps. Her hand flies to her mouth and it trembles visibly as she draws it away. “Don’t say that. Jesus Jughead we almost lost you.”

sadder, badder, cooler by thefudge @thefudge (Teen)

AU. Just who is Veronica's mysterious new husband? (based on season 5 spoilers)

all i’ll ever need is you by whatacoolkid @whatacoolkid (Teen)

jughead and veronica but make it ✨christmas✨

destined to be forgotten by bothromeoandjuliet @kindnessinpain2000 (Teen)

There are plenty of broken things in Riverdale - broken families, broken trust, broken hearts - but in the middle stands the two most broken things of all, Veronica Lodge and Forsythe 'Jughead' Jones.

(Jughead and Veronica learn about the Barchie kiss - this is the aftermath)

I Really (Don’t) Know What I Want by Bella_Dahlia @bella-dahlia (Mature)

There were many potential disasters to befall an average weirdo high school student; when one had an active imagination and a love for John Hughes films, as Jughead Jones did, you sort of assumed you had foresaw the possibilities. Plus, after solving a sordid murder and joining a gang, he really thought he gone through his fair share of teenaged trauma.

Having to fake a relationship to save his best friend from dedicating his life to a mafia and getting punched repeatedly in the process definitely had not crossed his mind before now.

——————————————

Or, Jughead and Veronica don’t really know what they’ve gotten themselves into.

all the lovers with no time for me by Krewlak (Mature)

jeroncia goes to stonewall. that's it. that's the fic.

call it what you want to by an_expensive_imagination (Teen)

“First things first,” Veronica says, reaching up to slide the ever-present gray beanie off his head, “no beanies in college.”

And here’s a one off random spideypool:

Shooting For Your Heart by X_Gon_Give_It (Teen)

“In my defense, I didn’t expect you to get hurt.”

“And I didn’t expect to be run out of town, yet here we are.”

He went suddenly stiff, “Wait...you were run out of town?”

“As if you didn’t know,” Peter grumbled, but when he looked up he did a double-take at Wade's confused expression. “Almighty, you really don’t know, do you?” he snapped the drawer shut, “Well, after that little fiasco by Two-Stone Canyon, a little rumor spread that me and you were in cahoots. The rumor got some ground and it turned the whole town against me. I was run out before I could defend my case. Why'dya think I was out there the other night to begin with?”

<><><><><><>

When Peter Parker, a deputy known as Webslinger, gets accused of working with the West's deadliest outlaw he finds himself on the run from the people he once trusted. In an effort to prove his innocence, he finds himself captured by the very outlaw tarnishing his name.

#fic recs #stucky #jeronica #halbarry #2020 fic recs

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animemangasoul · 4 years

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We Parted Ways A Long Time Ago

Summery: Lucius Fox is Tim's emergency contact number.

In which Bruce and Tim have drifted apart and Bruce doesn't realize it until it's a little too late.

Chapter: 5/4+ (Final)

“Tim isn’t coming back.”

Bruce freezes. One hand around the doorknob and the other clutching at the business card his son had left behind as a parting gift. “You don’t know that.”

“I do. He isn’t coming back B. He doesn’t want to.” The words are said carefully, almost gently, but there is no denying the steel behind them. Bruce grits his teeth. How dare Jason side with Lucius Fox. Tim needed him. Tim needed them. He was just confused and angry and Bruce could fix this. They could fix this. There was a way to make this all go away. There had to be.... because if there wasn’t then--

“You don’t know him like I do Jay--”

A short bark of laughter interrupts him, making Bruce swivel around, a glare burning in his eyes. Jason quirks an eyebrow in return. “I don’t think you know him as well as you think you do B.”

“Jason,” he grits out in warning.

“What? ” His second oldest scoffs. “You don’t believe me? Cuz I aint lying to you. You don’t know him anymore. He’s changed.”

Bruce wants to snap at him, wants to insist he knows nothing, wants tear at his own hair.

But more than anything he wants his son back. He wants Tim to know how much he loves him, how much he’s worth and how much it tore him inside seeing him walk away.

He wants to shout at Jason too. Wants to scream how much he didn’t understand. That he couldn’t possibly understand because he wasn’t there. He wasn’t there when Tim dragged him back from the brink of insanity. Wasn’t there when Tim laughed with those sparkly eyes that saw the world differently. Wasn’t there when Tim cracked that one snide joke at Barry Allen’s expense that had Hal cackling for hours.

None of his kids were there when Tim told him he felt safe by his side, despite the blood on his knuckles and the snare on his mouth. They weren’t there when Tim sat next to him as Bruce drove himself mad trying and failing to let go of the ghost of his dead son. Tim had been his anchor, had been his light, his hope, his robin.

His son.

He wanted to scream and rant and get angry, but--

But this was Jason.

Jason who still cringed at loud noises when they took him off guard. Jason who died. Jason who he’d failed time and time again. Jason who’d finally started opening up and who sometimes laughed like the world wasn’t out to destroy him. His Jason. His boy.

So instead of letting the floodgate crack open, he closes it shut, slams on the brakes and breathes. Eyes falling shut momentarily as he composes himself.

“He belongs here Jay. With us. He belongs with us. Not with Lucius Fox and his family.”

Opening his eyes, he meets those of his son, holding them until the younger sighs and looks away first.

“What makes you think he aint perfectly fine where he’s at?”

Was Jason kidding?

“Because he’s a Wayne. He’s one of us. He’s one of mine. He belongs here, with his family.” With each word, his fingers tighten around the card and his chest constrict. Jason should know this, understand this. It was simple. It was right.

Of course Tim wasn’t fine where he was. Why would he? It was just the easier alternative. As long as Bruce told him he was welcome here, told him he had a home with him, Tim would come back. Bruce was sure of it.

“Do you even know why he fucking left!”

Startled at the abrupt shift in tone, Bruce narrows his eyes. “I don’t have time for this Jay. I--”

“No.”

“Jason...” he can’t quiet keep the bite out of his tone. “I can’t do this right now. I need to--”

“Need to what?” his son snaps, taking a step closer, eyes flashing green. Bruce frowns in concern. “The rep—Tim's probably at Foxes right now. What you gonna do? Drag him back by the hair?”

“Of course not!”

“Then what!” Jason was practically growling by now. The tint in his eyes even more prominent. “What you gonna do Bruce? Huh? Tim left! He left and he was fine, why can’t you just....” He trails off, fingers clenching and unclenching and---

He just doesn’t understand. Jay doesn’t get it and Bruce doesn’t have time for this.

“Jay, son--”

But again his second oldest cuts him off, arm slashing through the air to indicate how little he was willing to listen to him. “You can’t keep pretending everything is fine B! Cuz it aint. Fuck, it’s not fine. It hasn’t in God knows how long and...” Lips twisting into a something ugly, Jason runs a hand through his hair, puffing his cheeks before letting out the air in a quiet huff. “You keep acting like it’s some kinda small misunderstanding that ruined everything. And that isn’t true. It isn’t. You know it isn’t. This shit’s been long time comin and you need to accept that.”

It was as if with every word spoken a knife was dug into his soul, twisting, scarring, damaging. With every word out of Jason’s mouth, Bruce felt coldness seep into his veins, felt his heart twist, because.... because..... what if he was right? Did Bruce even know anything anymore?

World’s greatest detective,….

Him?

What a joke.

Yet, the words wouldn’t make sense. They wouldn’t fit together. As if him and Jason were playing too entirely different puzzle games and while they were the same in color, his pieces were infinitely more complex. More difficult to put together.

Jason didn’t understand. Jay was only now getting to know Tim, so he couldn’t understand their history. His relationship with his son.

“He’s my son Jay. I love him.”

It was as simple as that wasn’t it?

If you loved someone, you could eventually figure it out together, right?

Then why.....

Why did Jason’s last words stay with him all throughout the night. Long after he’d gone to bed? Long since he’d abandoned rushing after Tim. Long after Alfred and Jason had convinced him to wait till tomorrow, why did those words haunt him?

“You don’t love him. Not really. With me, with Dick, with all of us, you try and you apologize. But you never try with him. You just watch and tell him he aint good enough and that’s fucked up.” Jason’s eyes were wet. “I love you B. Course I do. And you’re doin right by me for the first time in forever, but that’s the problem aint it? Is your love like a zero-sum game or something old man? You don’t have it in you to care for your batch of fucked up orphans, equally?”

Closing his eyes tight, Bruce tries to sleep.

“Hey B.” Furrowed brows and red rimmed eyes. “How fucking tiny is your heart?”

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

Cassandra is halfway out the car when he reaches out and stops her. She pauses, registering the hand on her shoulder. Shifting back into her seat, his daughter gives him the softest of smiles before closing the door. “Yes?”

[How fucking tiny is your heart?]

He gazes out at the parking lot, fingers drumming absentmindedly against the wheel as he tries to collect his thoughts. Cass is nothing but patient. Her own hands folded delicately across her lap, not a single word out of her mouth to remind him she would be late for practice if he didn’t hurry up.

Bruce gut churns in guilt.

Clearing his throat, he looks down at his lap; brows furrowed and lips drawn in a thin line.

“Why did you call Lucas Fox yesterday?”

His daughter doesn’t miss a beat. “Tim want out. I help.”

Grip tightening around the steering wheel, Bruce grits his teeth. “He didn’t want out. He was just a little bit uncomfortable. We were going to fix things.”

“No fixing. Too late.”

Bruce tenses. A sick feeling crawling up his throat. If Cass was saying this-- “Why do you say... that?” Fumbling with the last word, Bruce curses silently, biting his tongue to stop himself from saying anything else he might regret, not that it mattered seeing as this was Cass he was talking to.

“Tim want home.”

“He has one,” Bruce says, words coming out fried at the edges. “With us.”

But his daughter is already shaking her head. “Tim want home,” she reiterates. Body still as a statue and eyes staring at something far in the distance. “He ask me. I say, not here. Your home not here. Your home, Lucius, Tanya and Tam and Luke. They home for you.”

“Why would you say that?” Because this was betrayal. His daughter had betrayed him. Went behind his back and practically ousted Tim from their family. And... he didn’t understand why.... Why would Cass do this? She loved Tim. More than anyone else, so why would she---

“I want Tim happy.” Her voice cracks at that, and for the first time Bruce notes the mild shake of her hands and the quivering of her bottom lip. “I want see Tim happy. Little brother deserve happy.” Reaching out to open the door, she steps out, Bruce too dumbstruck by her words to stop her. “Happy not with us. We need.... to.... understand.” With those last words she’s gone. Leaving behind the ghost of girl unwilling to cry at the face of loss and pain.

How was any of this fair?

How could his children expect him to accept this when they clearly did not want to lose their brother? How was Bruce supposed to just let this go when there still was a chance to mend fences and go back to how things used to be? Tim most have left him his business card for a reason. His son wanted to talk to him. Wanted them to fix things and Bruce wouldn’t let Lucius and his family get in the way of that. Not when the solution to all his problems was right in front of him.

Cassandra wouldn’t have to be sad anymore.

Dick wouldn’t have to look so heartbroken anymore

And Alfred and Jay and even Stephanie and Barbara. They all were walking around with a sizable hole in their lives and if Bruce could only find the son that fit in that hole, then he would have managed to do right be each one of them.

He just needed to talk to Tim. To apologize. To make amends. He--- He just needed Tim to understand. Bruce might have been busy when he came back, but it was only because the others needed him more. Not because he didn’t care about his third son. He’d believed Tim had been better off, more well-adjusted, more in control, so of course he’d focused his attention on those who were already slipping through his fingers.

That didn’t mean he loved his boy any less.

Tim had to understand that, right? If he explained himself? If he---

It’s only eight in the morning, but Bruce already feels a bone chilling exhaustion fall like a blanked over his body and with a sigh, he pulls out of the parking lot and begins his drive to the company.

The sooner they fixed things, the better.

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

He arrives at Wayne Enterprises in daze. Barely taking note of the employees who jump out of his way as he strides by. Some try to talk to him, but one look from Bruce have them scurrying away and eventually Bruce is standing in front of Tim’s office. Stomach doing flip-flops and breath hitching slightly.

This was it.

Now or never.

He couldn’t mess this up. He couldn’t. For everyone, for Tim, for himself. He needed to get this right.

Knocking gently he waits for the soft “come in” before sliding the door open and finally stepping into the vaguely familiar office.

It’s a bit different than he remembers. Just like Tim’s apartment, tons of homely objects have been left to decorate the previously barren space. Tim’s desk practically drowning in colorful pictures of his friends and the Fox family. And lighter tone had been added to the room, taking away the edge of gray and giving it more of a homely feel.

Swallowing tickly, Bruce tries not to linger on the changes. For they spoke of things he wasn’t yet ready to acknowledge.

“Hey Bruce.”

Stepping forward, Bruce echoes Tim’s smile with a tiny one of his own. “Hello Tim.”

“You said you wanted to talk.”

“I did.” Pulling out one of the chairs, he sits down. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Well then,” pushing the stack of papers aside, Tim folds his fingers under his chin and tilts his head. “Let's talk. I think it’s about time we do this too.”

Clenching his fists, Bruce stares at his son.

Sees the exhaustion in his eyes, sees the downtrodden face, sees how he’s trying his damn hardest not to show any emotion, and it burns. It burns and scorches his soul. Because Bruce and Tim should never have this kind of divide between them. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. It wasn’t supposed to happen at all.

The desk between them feels like an ocean. A distance so wide it prevents him from reaching across it to hold onto his kid. It feels as if he’s too late.

He wants to make things right. Tim is sitting right in front of him and he wants to make things right. He can do this. They can do this, so taking a deep breath he lets it all out.

“Why didn’t you come to me when things got bad?”

“What?” There is a twitch to Tim’s brow. His son leaning back slightly as if struck by his words. “What?”

Shaking his head, Bruce tries to keep his voice as gentle as possible. “When you started to feel the distance between us, why didn’t you come to me?”

Because.... how could they ever hope to fix anything if he couldn’t figure out why it happened in the first place. Sure he knew his busy schedule had robbed him of his third son, but what was Tim’s excuse? He’d known him for years. Years before Bruce himself died, and Tim should have known he could reach out. He’d always done it before. Reluctantly yes, but Tim had always reached out to him first when he needed him, so why?

For the first time it feels as if he’d finally gotten to the root of his frustration.

Tim hadn’t given him the chance to fix this. He’d just up and left and that wasn’t right. Because Bruce would have figured it all out with him, if his son had just given him the chance to do so, so why?

“Why didn’t you come to me son?”

“What makes you think I didn’t?” The words are soft, but Tim’s eyes are narrow and his teeth are clenched. “What makes you think I didn’t try?”

“I don’t rememb--”

“Of course you don’t,” Tim says, cutting him off; voice as soft as always but the sharpness behind them undeniable. Rubbing a tired hand across his brows he sighs. “That’s the whole point Bruce. You don’t remember.”

Taken back, Bruce frowns. “What do you mean?”

Shoulders bunched up and teeth gnawing at his bottom lip, Tim furrows his eyebrows, And Bruce.... Bruce finds himself reaching across the table unconsciously and gently tapping the other under the chin.

An all too familiar action that immediately stops Tim from abusing his lip. It takes his son a second to realize what he’d done, but when he does, he flinches away, a bone aching pain flashing through his eyes.

Bruce stiffens, watching as his son scoots away from him and....

It was..... It hurts. Chest tightening, Bruce takes a deep breath and leans back, away from Tim.

His son visibly relaxes at the motion and Bruce has to swallow down the sick sensation crawling up his throat. “What....” he starts again, trying to get them back to the conversation, trying to forget what just happened. “What do you mean? What did you mean by me not remembering?”

Tim shrugs. His face is still a bit too tight and his fingers drumming an unknown beat on the desktop. “I mean exactly that,” he says. “I came to you twice. Once after you had around two and a half weeks to relax and get to connect with the others, and....” there is a tiny wobble to his mouth when he says this. “You were in your office working on something and.... I came to maybe..... I just--” looking away, Tim fidgets with his suit jacket. “I wanted to see if you would like to have lunch together during break. I wanted to catch up with you, see how you were doing, how the others were and--” There is an undeniable hurt in his voice now, and it’s all Bruce can do not to cringe away from it. “It wasn’t anything big or--- I mean, it was just lunch. We were both in the building and I could finally maybe get to talk to you again, but.... You told me that you had plans with Dick and Damian and maybe I could come back another time.”

Bruce remembers that day with a sudden clarity.

[Not now Tim. Dick and Damian need me right now.]

[Please close the door after yourself when you leave.]

“There was never another time because you stopped coming to the office after that and saddled me with the rest of your work so you could spend more time with your family.” These words are almost spat out at him and---

He’d done that, hadn’t he. Sure it was the right thing to do at the time, but Tim, his son, his boy.... Tim had deserved better.

Was this why he was so close to Lucius? Was it Bruce who’d forced them together when he left? Was this all his fault?

“The next time I came to you, I was sick.”

Bruce blood runs cold.

No, God no. Please... please don’t say he had turned away his son when he was sick. Not Tim. Not Tim who lacked a spleen. Tim who got so easily sick. Tim who never asked for him, so for him to ask and for Bruce to---

“I contracted a virus while working a case and it didn’t get better.... it was bad B.” There is a sad smile curling around Tim’s lips and his kid shrugs, meeting his eyes. “I was gonna go to the future with Bart so his mom could try and fix me, and I called you to tell you.... so if you maybe--- If you could come with me? For support? But you didn’t even listen.”

[I can’t right now Tim. Damian got in trouble in school and I need to go pick him up. Another time, ok?]

And.... God, he feels sick.

Tim might have died and he hadn’t even listened to what he’d tried to say. No wonder the kid never--- Why did everything go so wrong?

“Lucius came with me instead. Lucius and Tanya.” Tim’s smile is bit more genuine this time. “They freaked out so much, you have no idea.” He looks very amused now. A true smile blossoming across his lips as he remembers his time in the future. “Tanya wouldn’t let go off me cuz she didn’t trust anyone there and Lucius couldn’t believe his eyes.... if I hadn’t been sick it would have been hilarious, cuz they were freaking out like crazy and they wouldn’t listen to Bart and their eyes.....”Tim shrugs, smile turning into a tired grin. “It was... nice. Having them there I mean. They came to the future because they wanted to make sure I was ok. They..... they’d never been to the future before, but still--- It was nice.”

Tim’s eyes are wet by now. He isn’t crying, his cheeks aren’t red and his nose isn’t running, but his eyes are wet and....

They’d been there. Lucius and Tanya Fox.

Bruce hadn’t.

His son might have died in the future. Might have never come back and.... he hadn’t been there.

“I’m.... I didn’t know Tim. I... I didn’t know it was that serious. If I had I swear---”

“I know,” Tim says, giving him a tight-lipped smile. “I know.”

But he doesn’t know. It’s clear as day that he doesn’t know. He’s just saying that to a peace him, and.... Bruce can’t let it end there. He can’t. Not like this.

“We can fix this.” He suddenly blurts out; not even thinking before he speaks. “We can fix this Tim. Let’s us fix this.”

Tim is already shaking his head before he’s even finished talking. “We,” he says waving a finger between them. “Can’t fix anything Bruce, because I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“That wasn't what I meant.”

“I know exactly what you meant. You literally just asked me why I didn’t come to you Bruce. It sounds like you blame me for this too.”

“I don’t blame you!”

Slamming both hands on the table, Tim suddenly shoots up without warning. “Of course you do! You always do! I’m always at fault for every fucking thing!”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes it is,” Tim snaps, eyes blazing and lips drawn back to show teeth. He’d never seen Tim this angry before. “You always pick out my flaws. Always. Never Jason or Damian or Dick. Just me. Never mind that you demon child--”

“Tim!”

“See,” Tim hisses, eyes wide and chest heaving. “You’re doing it right now! You always stand up for him. Always. But you never do the same for me. When he threatens me you never.... you and Dick you--” Blinking furiously, Tim sways slightly. “You always pick your kids over me.”

And.... it was as if he’d been hit by a sledgehammer.

How could Tim think---

“You’re my kid too.”

Tim scoffs. It sounds broken. “Not really.”

“Tim--”

“If I was,” his son interrupts him, sitting back down with a sigh. “If I was your son, you wouldn't single me out every damn time. You wouldn’t let Damian talk like that to me. You wouldn’t let Jason and Damian try and kill me without facing consequences.... like I did.... with Boomerang. You---” A deep breath. “You wouldn’t let them hurt me, but you do, you always do, so I’m not your son. I’m not.”

Not his son?

Gritting his teeth, Bruce tries to breathe through the turmoil coiling in his stomach. Tim didn’t know what he was talking about. He was just angry right now. He was just--

But, did being angry take away the truth to his words?

Did it make what he’d just said invalid?

Damian and Jason had tried to kill Tim on numerous occasions, and he’d never said anything to them.

But when Tim spoke up.... how many times had he felt compelled to stop him? How many times? Tim.... he held his third oldest to a standard none of the others-- standards that went above and beyond what he held the others to. He held Tim to his own standards and anything below that was a disappointment.

That.....

That was wrong. Tim was just a kid. A kid with too much on his shoulders and he,…..

[How fucking tiny is your heart B?]

Damian hated Tim. Hated his brother and what had Bruce done to change that? Giving it time? Hoping they would somehow magically fix things between them and then what? Was Tim supposed to just sit there and deal with it till Damian found it in himself to stop?

What kind of parent did that make him?

It was as if every uneasy feeling he’d been hiding away suddenly bubbled up to the forefront of his mind. Every uncertainty, every fear, every worry. Everything he’d been shoving away in hopes of mending fences and going back to how things used to be.

The wave that hit him almost rocked him out of his chair. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t---

Tim had suffered. Under his watch. His son had suffered in silence. Alone, in pain, uncertain, scared.... and Bruce had let it happen.

For a second it’s as if he can see it all. His son wandering the darkness of his own apartment. Patching up his own injuries with tiny whimpers because he can’t make himself go to the cave. Because he doesn’t feel like he’d be welcomed there.

Tim who is working so hard in his lonely office, taking on too many projects until he eventually passes out. Tim who doesn’t smile as much anymore. Tim who stiffens when Dick hugs him. Tim who doesn’t belong with them anymore.

Tim who doesn’t want to belong with him anymore.

It’s hard to breathe. It’s hard to feel as if his very world isn’t falling apart all around him. It’s hard.... but he’s Bruce Wayne, and this wasn’t.... this wasn’t the time... so taking a mouthful of air, he shakingly looks up to meet Tim’s wide-eyed gaze. His son is halfway out of his chair, arm hoovering in the air, hesitant to touch him. And.... doesn’t that picture speak louder than any words.

“Hey, B? You ok?”

He nods. A jerk of his head that takes all the effort he has left to make happen. “Yes.”

“Ok, yeah. Ok. That’s good.” Tim sits back down, still an uncertain worry in his eyes, and Bruce can’t take it anymore.

“What can I do,” he says, cringing at the underlying pleading in his tone. “What can I do to fix this? Because we need you Tim. I need you.”

A shadow passes over Tim’s features and his kid stiffens. “There is nothing to be done,” he mutters. “I think it’s too late for that.”

No, no no no no.

“Son--”

Tim waves a hand, cutting him off. “I took on a job B. I took on a job too big for me and I pushed and pushed for more, but that’s all it was. A job. I filled a spot in your life you needed filled. I was the kid who saved Batman, and I was fine with that. I was ok with that. Helping you, I think it helped me in turn. But I’m done. I think we’re both done B.”

No, no no!

“I still need you.” He’s leaning forward again, not even caring about the unabashed pleading breaking through his voice loud and clear for all to hear. “You’re my son, my family. I can’t lose you. I need you Tim.”

“Well,” his son says, a croaked smile pulling at his mouth “I don’t need you, not anymore.”

It’s like a knife in his heart, those words.

And all he can do is stare, watch as the dullness in his son’s eyes turn into a glimmer of determination. Watches as Tim steels himself for one last battle. “It was not my job to do right by you B. It wasn’t my job to save you. I shouldn’t have done any of that, because.... I was just a kid. It wasn’t my job to save you from yourself. It wasn’t my job. I should have never made it my job. You shouldn't have needed a kid to bring you back from the dark, but it happened. And we’re here now. So I just want to say this.” A pause as Tim folds his fingers atop of his desk and takes a deep breath. “I want so say to you, that you hurt me. You hurt me really badly B, and I don’t want to be hurt anymore.”

Bruce felt too many things to count then. Too many emotions, too many things. But most of all, he felt helpless.

What else could he do, but to understand that he did this. He’d hurt Tim. His precious son who used to laugh like the summer itself. His son who’d told him Batman needed a Robin. His son who’d knelt down next to him; amidst the bloodbath and taken his hand. Not afraid of his darkness, not afraid of who he’d become. “It’s ok B,” he’d said, gloveless hand touching his face. “It’s ok B. You’re not alone anymore. I’m right here. Right here.”

Tim had been his anchor.

His life saver, his hope. Hope that he could be Gotham’s Batman again and Wayne Enterprise Bruce Wayne.

Timothy had saved his legacy and his life and---

“I’m sorry.” The words come out as nothing more than a whisper, but Tim still startles back, eyes wide and mouth agape. “I’m sorry,” Bruce continues, feeling the itch in his eyes intensify. “I was wrong. I wronged you. You... I hurt you--”

God, it was painful to speak. Painful to voice these things. Things he’d known but refused to acknowledge, and for what? So that he could keep living on in a blissful ignorance while Tim suffered?

What kind of monster did that make him?

“I should have done better by you. I failed you, and I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry Tim.”

“Yeah?” Fat drops of water spill past Tim’s cheeks.

“Yeah,” Bruce chokes out, blinking furiously to keep it all in. To not infringe on Tim’s sadness, to not ruin it for him. “Yeah.”

“Oh......Thank you B.”

He nods, biting his bottom lip hard to make it all stop. But then.... a gentle tap on his chin makes him startle and look up to meet Tim’s gaze. His son tapping at his own lip to indicate why he’d done what he did, and.... Bruce snorts, it sounds wet and hoarse. Tim grins back and Bruce finds himself smiling through the painful burn in his chest.

How familiar. How nostalgic.

“I love them you know.”

Bruce smile turns into a grimace, before he quickly pulls it back up. “The Foxes?”

Tim shakes his head, before he pauses. “Well yeah, but that’s not what I meant.” Wiping at his cheeks, he huffs. “I meant the others. Dick and Jason and...... All of them. “A pause. “I think I’ll always love them. More than I can ever love you if I’m being honest.”

That stung. It really did.

“And I’m sure,” his son continues, whispers floating past his smiling lips, eyes incredibly sad. “That they love me in turn. In their own way.” He shrugs.

“Then why--” Bruce starts, but again, Tim is there to stop him from finishing his sentence.

“I’ve learned,” he speaks up over him. “That without respect, love can never be enough. Not really. And I deserve respect Bruce. I do. Not because I’ve earned it, but because of who I am. That’s what family means. You don’t earn anything. You have it because they love you.” Folding his hands under his chin again, Tim tilts his head. And for the first time it strikes Bruce. How much his Tim has grown.

How truly different he’s become.

How he’s learned to express himself so well. Unafraid, eloquent, proud.

He was so different.

And not his anymore. Not his.

“Is this goodbye?” Tim nods, eyes shining wet and sad.

“Yeah, B. I think it is.”

“But--”

“If you don’t want me to head the company anymore, after this, I understand.”

“That’s not--”

“Of course I wouldn't advice it. Since Damian’s still pretty young and I was already planning to hand it over to him when he’s older. But if you don’t trust me to--”

“Of course I trust you.”

Tim freezes.

Sighing, Bruce tries to collect himself. This was... it was too much. But he couldn’t let it all fall apart just yet. Not yet.

“I trust you,” he reiterates. “I wouldn't take away your job just because.... You’re still my family Tim. Even if you don’t consider me as such anymore.”

His son flinches, but he doesn’t deny it. Maybe that hurts him more than anything else that had been said today. Maybe.

“My last name...” Bruce doesn’t know why he’s bringing it up. “I... you...”

Tim looks just as conflicted. “I would like to keep it,” Tim says in a rush. “Until Damian can take his position I mean. I don’t want to create a media frenzy so--”

“Yeah,” Bruce nods; feeling numb. “Yeah, ok. That makes sense.”

He was losing his son.

“Hey Bruce?”

He feels numb. Tired, just... tired. “Yes?”

Fidgeting in place, Tim leans forward trying to meet his eyes. Bruce can’t find it in him to avoid his gaze no matter how much it hurts. So he does, even though his very soul is screaming at him to just get out. To leave and never look back. “Can I give you an advice? About Damian?”

Scrunching up his nose, Bruce frowns. Why were they talking about Damian now? This wasn't about his youngest. This was about Tim and what Tim didn’t understa--- No. No, this wasn’t about that either. This was about Bruce and what he didn’t understand.

So, taking a deep breath and centering himself the best he could, he nods. “Go ahead. What do you need to say.”

Eyes lightening up, Tim smiles at him; it’s less worried, less uncertain and.... yeah, Bruce would sit here and listen to Tim ramble about anything and everything if it meant he could see him smile like that forever.

“Damian can’t be better all on his own B.” There is a light frustration to Tim’s voice that catches Bruce’s attention. “You need to teach him. He can’t learn it on his own. That’s not how growing up works, trust me.”

“I know you don’t like him--”

Scoffing, Tim shrugs. “That’s an understatement.”

“But,” Bruce continues, deciding to ignore the attitude. “He’s changed a lot. He is better. It’s just that he sometimes slides back whenever you visit.” Giving Tim an apologetic smile, he shrugs as well. “He’s working on it.”

Tim’s sighs, disappointment evident in his eyes as if he’d expected something of Bruce and he’d somehow ended up letting him down, again. “That’s the thing Bruce. You keep saying he’s getting better. And He is working on it. But.... why is he doing it alone? You and Dick somehow expect Damian to figure it all out and miraculously become a better human being while neither of you ever correct him on what exactly that entails. That’s not possible B. You need to do something before it’s too late.”

Too late.

Those two words had taken so much from him.

Too late.

“Children need guidance B,” Tim cuts off his train of thought. “They need consequences. You need to give him that or Damian will grow up believing it’s ok to hurt people to get somewhere in life, and that’s not ok.”

For a second the world shifts and Bruce isn’t looking at Tim anymore. Instead its father sitting across the desk from him. Eyes as serious as ever and lips drawn into a grimace.

He tells him hitting other boys to get what he wants isn’t ok. That consequences are the defining line of life and he; Bruce needs to be careful with the steps he takes. “You can’t hurt people and expect to get away with it Bruce. It’s not ok.”

Who would have thought Tim would grow up to remind him of his father?

It almost..... it almost brings him to tears. Seeing his dad in the son he’d left behind.

When had Tim grown up to be who he is today?

“I will do my best.” The words hitch in his throat, but they are clear enough and Tim, Tim smiles again and.... yeah, he would do his best. Perhaps it was time he put his best foot forward. For the sake of his family, for the sake of his kids. His best might not be good enough anymore. So perhaps it was time to do better than his best.

“That’s all I ask for B.”

The conversation seems to be coming to an end and Bruce knows it. Knows this might be the very last time he and Tim can sit across from each other and talk like this.

The very last time.

“How did we get to this?”

A shrug and then a hopeless smile. “I don’t know B. Maybe it was always meant to go like this.”

It’s not right. It shouldn’t be right.

“So,” he says, feeling as if everything he’d ever known was suddenly crumbling down around him, piece by piece. “This is it? We part ways and never.... And never---” He can’t find it in himself to finish the sentence.

Tim smiles, it’s a sad smile. A resigned one. Accepting, hallow. “We parted ways a long time ago B. You just never realized it before now.”

[How fucking tiny is your heart B?]

How tiny indeed that he hadn’t even noticed his son drifting away until there was nothing left connecting them to each other but his own grand delusions.

Somehow in the midst of his turmoil, Lucius Fox arrives. Slamming the door open, a frazzled Tam Fox at his heels.

It all feels so far away.

Bruce turns around to look at them both. Watches as Lucius Fox scolds Tim for going to work when he’d told him explicitly that he’d take care of the paperwork and it hits Bruce once more.

How right Tim was.

Bruce hadn’t even taken note of Tim being in his office when he’d been sick just two days ago. But Lucius had. Rushed to the office the minute he found out probably. What did that say about him?

Blinking slowly he watches as Lucius pulls Tim out of his chair, pressing a hand across his forehead than tsking in disapproval before collecting his things; not for one second sparing him a glance.

And it’s all too much.

It’s all so..... final.

When Lucius hands Tim over to his daughter; Tam leading Tim out of the office, a scolding tone to her voice, Bruce has already turned away. Not wanting to witness the physical manifestation of his son walking out of his life.

“Bye Bruce.”

He stiffens.

Eyes squarely resting on his lap for a second. It’s..... it’s all over, isn’t it?

“Goodbye Tim.”

“He doesn’t look back, doesn’t raise his head afraid the reflection from the windows will show him what he’s trying so desperate to avoid seeing. He doesn’t look up until the door finally swings shut and he’s alone in the office. Well, not alone per say.

“I never took you for a coward Mr. Wayne.”

Bruce scoffs. It’s a bitter and an angry sound. His fists clench around his knees and he meets the steady gaze of one Lucius Fox.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Lucius.”

The other man lifts a brow, hands stuffed in his pockets. “I always wondered when you’d realize. And then time passed and you never did, so I figured you didn’t care.” The last words aren’t said any harsher than any of the others, but they hold a steel under them that’s unmistakable.

Bruce is on his feet before his mind even has time to contemplate the action. “I care about all of my kids, Lucius.”

This time it’s Lucius who scoffs. “Not equally, but sure.”

Bruce wants to be angry. Wants to just lose it on Lucius Fox. Wants to blame him for everything that had gone wrong ever since this man had made himself at home in Tim’s life. But.... he can’t.

Because reluctant as he is to admit it, Lucius had saved Tim while he’d failed him. Protected him, gave him a place in his family and had shown him nothing but love ever since. He hated Lucius Fox, not because the man stole Tim from him.

No, he hated Lucius Fox because the man managed to be the father to Tim that he never could. Lucius Fox was the winner in a game no one but Bruce had been playing. And he hated him for it.

“Tim,” he says finally, eyes far away and throat burning at the words he is unwilling to say. “You will keep him safe?”

Lucius gives him a hard stare. Face grim and eyes dark with something Bruce can’t quite decipher. And then the man nods. “I don’t plan to let him down anytime soon.”

Nodding, Bruce is careful not to waver where he stands. He can’t afford to show weakness, but at the same time, this was his friend. His friend who chose to do right by his son because he himself wasn’t competent enough to get the job done. “Ok then. Ok.”

A final stare from Lucius as if the man expects him to say something else, but when he doesn’t, Lucius moves past him and its only when he is at the door; Bruce back turned to him, that he speaks. “I respect you as a hero Bruce, I always have. But it has been a long time since I last respected you as a father.” And with those last parting words he’s out the door and gone.

Leaving Bruce standing by the chair. Eyes dull and chest hallow.

It was the end wasn’t it?

The final line.

Timothy Jackson Drake Wayne had made his chose and he hadn’t chosen them.

Suddenly it becomes all too hard to stand so he sits back down, hand coming up to his face, shaking, uncontrollable. It’s not easy realizing you were the bad guy all along.

When tears slide down his cheeks, Bruce only covers his eyes and lets himself cry. Silent, alone.... alone. His shoulders shake and his throat tightens, and Bruce Wayne cries.

For Tim who’d been so bright and hopeful until he’d met him. For Dick who he’d saddled his legacy on without care. For Jason who he’d never allowed himself to mourn. For Damian who he’d failed before he’d even started. And for Cass whose many chances he didn’t deserve. He cries for his kids that he still had and for the kid he’d just lost. He cries. And it doesn’t make anything better. Doesn’t make Tim come back or makes Jason to forgive him. Doesn’t make the haunted look in Dick’s eyes fade away or makes Damian someone he isn’t. It doesn’t erase those red rimmed eyes of Cass. But it makes him accept it all.

Accept that he’d messed up.

He did that.

No one had made him do it. No one had forced his hand.

He had failed Tim and there was no taking it back now. No getting around it. No winning it or resetting to try again. Because it wasn’t a game and Bruce wasn’t coming out on top. This wasn’t a comic book. Batman wouldn’t win this time, because there was nothing to win.

So he lets the hot tears carve a path down his cheeks and he sits there, alone, hand pressed across his eyes and he cries.

He cries.

Hours later Alfred rests a hand on his shoulder and sighs. “Perhaps we may learn from this Master Bruce.” His voice cracks. Bruce doesn’t comment.

Perhaps.

The End

@miss-choco-chips

@throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen

@river9noble

Finally it’s all over. It has been a ride folks. I might write some one-shots connected to this universe when I find the time, but no promises. That’s all. Thank you for sticking with this story for as long as you did! I appreciate it! Bye!

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mattzerella-sticks · 4 years

Text

So I had a little brain blip this morning, about an interesting idea that could’ve happen if I were writing DC Comics DC weren’t cowards things went a little differently back then...

So we know in Crisis on Infinite Earths, Barry Allen sacrifices himself to destroy the Anti-Monitor’s big weapon. In doing so, he only has enough power to warn Batman of what’s to come before disintegrating and joining the Speed Force.

Well what if, after everything’s calmed down, Batman notices strange readings popping up and decides to investigate. What he finds is a ghost - specifically the ghost of Barry Allen. Instead of ‘dying’ he’s trapped as a ghost in the 21st century. And because of Batman being the last person he saw before he died, he’s the only one who can see him now.

So we get Batman & Flash/Bruce & Barry teaming up, investigating how to bring Barry back to life while keeping it a little hush hush from everybody else (because while it’s not the strangest thing, Barry feels weird about telling people he’s a ghost if they’re working on a way to bring him back to life - because what if they can’t?) Maybe if he He’s also highkey missing Iris and his kids. But spending time with Bruce makes him feel better in a way. Some days he even forgets about the future because he spends time with Bruce - which is weird and he also feels guilty.

He feels hella guilty for a lot of things. For Wally taking over as the Flash. For leaving Iris and his kids. For not being there for Hal when he gets taken over by Parallax.

But it’s this that gives him some saving grace, as when Hal Jordan dies, he becomes the Spectre. And Barry has someone else he can talk to.

Except Bruce isn’t jealous, not at all. Why should he? Being the only one Barry could talk to didn’t make him feel special, and give him all the time he wanted with the speedster. Not like there were always something bubbling under the surface, that Bruce never paid much attention to because Barry was always zipping off somewhere - going to see someone else. He’s trying to help Barry back to life so he can return to Iris and his kids, any other reason would be selfish and unrealistic. Although each passing day in Barry’s presence makes it harder and harder to admit that, even to himself.

Anyway, Barry and Hal get to hang out when they can. When one day Hal asks Barry an important question - why hasn’t he moved on? He’s sure earned the rest. And so Barry hems and haws but admits he feels like there’s still something holdhing him back. So Hal gives him a chance that he never got - to set his affairs in order. He visits Wally, his dad, Jay, Bart (if he’s in the comics at this point) - even Iris, and is allowed a few minutes of being real to say what he needs to say. And it all goes well. Wally is happy to carry on the legacy, Jay is proud of him (as is his dad). He’s happy to get to meet Bart, which gives him the strength to go into the future. Visiting Iris. Now, Iris was mad, but she understands what he did and has found some kind of peace. Knows that’s who Barry is no matter how much she wished it weren’t. Tells him that what they had was special and she’ll always remember their time together fondly. However, if he’s staying for her, he doesn’t have to. Or for their kids. There’s someone new in their lives, who’s taken over the role of father and husband. While they will all still love and think of Barry in those roles, it will always be in the past. For all the speed in the world, he’s too late.

Barry and Hal go back, Barry going on about how if he’s alive he can go back to the moment he left and it’ll be like nothing happened. But Hal is like “Would you jeopardize their future, like that, change it knowing that they’re already happy?” And as much as Barry wants to say yes, he knows he can’t. He should be happy they found a way to move on, and is proud of them.

That was the last one, and Barry thinks he’s done. Except Hal says they have one more place to visit, and he takes Barry to the Batcave where Bruce is working. Bruce can’t see him this time because of Hal, which is perfect because Barry wouldn’t know what to say. Thinks it’s just to tell him the plan is off, except Hal is like ‘we both know the last thing tethering you to this plane, and it’s not the plan’. Basically makes Barry confront his latent feelings for Bruce, and decide whether he lets go and moves on. Or stays and spend possibly forever trying to find a way to become human again, basically signing Bruce’s suicide note because he will never stop looking until he dies. Bruce will never move on unless Barry forces him into it by leaving.

Barry thinks about it. And decides he will stay, positive they can find a way out. Hal smiles, already knowing what Barry was going to say. Says he can make him real like with all the others, if he wants to do anything. Barry holds off, knowing that if he takes it and does something he’ll only be obsessing over that and wants it to happen when there’s no time limit. Barry also asks Hal if he’s cool with it, and while Hal thinks Barry could have better taste in men “God cares little about two consenting adults of any gender and sex what they choose to do”

So after all this, Barry and Bruce continue working on bringing him back to life. And they have help, because more people know about Barry the ghost. And while Bruce should be miffed because it’s more people who want to talk to Barry, Barry keeps giving him special treatment. Their alone time is fonder and more charged. It’s bittersweet, as it’ll only make Bruce miss Barry more when he’s alive and in the future.

Because OF COURSE Barry and Bruce, whenever they have a chance to maybe be intimate and honest, either chicken out or are interrupted.

Anyway, Clark has this idea after being reminded of an adventure with the Legion. You guessed it - L I G H T N I N G S A G A baybay!! So Bruce decides it’s worth the risk (even after Barry nixes it, not wanting anyone to die for him to live). Bruce gathers six other people who also agree with the risk and set out to bring Barry back to life.

Barry is relaxing when he hears storms brewing. Concerned, goes to seek out Bruce. No one is there. But Hal appears, and Barry asks why he’s there. Hal spills the beans on Bruce’s plans. Barry is scared, even more so when Hal is like “we both know who the lightning’s gonna hit”

Barry races to where Bruce is, standing in the room where Barry ‘died’. Waiting. Barry finds him and tries talking Bruce out of it. “It’s gonna hit you!” “Good, that’s what I want!” “But you’ll be dead!” “I’m okay with that - as long as you get to come back to life!” Basically lightning is striking it’s getting closer, and Bruce keeps going on about how Barry always deserved to live, more than him. And that when he’s alive he’ll be able to go back to the people he loves.

That does it. Barry yells at Bruce, saying how coming back to life won’t be worth it if the one person he’s been sticking around for isn’t there. Bruce is stunned. Barry tells him about how through it all the only one keeping Barry still tethered and not in the Speed Force is Bruce, he’s his lightning rod now. And if Bruce lets himself die than Barry will be more lost than he is now. Bruce is stunned, can’t believe it. So Barry leaps forward, grabbing Bruce’s hand just as the lightning strikes and kisses him.

And Bruce can feel it.

Barry’s alive again. He steps back, unsure, but accepts that he’s alive and so is Bruce. Laughter turns to awkward silence, as Barry tries setting Bruce up for an easy let-down.

Except Bruce sweeps him up in a bruising kiss. They’re both happy, smiling. Until someone calls over the line, asking what happened. Bruce tells them, “It’s... it worked. Barry’s alive.”

They’re both alive. Barry is welcomed back, and the next steps are considered. How will it be with him back as the Flash? Navigating a new relationship with Bruce, not as a ghost but as a real person.

It’ll be hard - but worth it.

Again, just some ramblings about a pretty good plot line that DC could’ve had if I were born many years earlier and were a comic book writer lol.

#dc comics #dcu #barry allen #the flash #bruce wayne #batman #batflash #batman x flash #bruce x barry #post-crisis on infinite earths #iris allen #hal jordan #if I were a DC comic book writer

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supermanshield · 4 years

Text

But not all of them, he loves

~~~

If anyone’s heart is big enough to love two people, it’s Clark’s.

~~~

This deals with polyamory and open relationships. Clark/Lois and Clark/Bruce. The main focus of the fic is Clark/Bruce, but it’s angsty.

Words: 2,896

A/N: The timeline/continuity on this is weird, maybe. The boys are still quite young (I imagine them at the end of their 20s in this), have maybe been superheroing for a couple years max. There is a league.

Read on AO3

______________________________________________

Jimmy’s chosen the place. He’s absolutely star-struck and aware of the company he’s in, but keeps it cool as he leads their little party into a relatively quiet bar in downtown Metropolis. Barry had suggested a karaoke place in Tokyo, and Clark had to remind him that not everyone he wanted to invite would be able to fly, run, or teleport there. So, Barry is here, in civvies, and Hal with him. Behind them enters an eerily human-looking J’onn, and John Stewart, even though he’s not in the league anymore, but he tells a damn good story and Clark wouldn’t want one of his closest friends to miss his bachelor party. Pete has flown out here all the way from Smallville, just for him.

As if by miracle, Bruce has shown up too, although he keeps looking over his shoulder when they’re still out on the street, high-collared jacket and baseball cap obscuring his face. Clark is happy to see him take it off once they’re inside, but some of that fades when he notices the stiches above one of his eyebrows and makeup covering a bruise on his left cheek.

When they’re all finally settled around a large table tucked into the back of the bar – it’s quiet, even for a Friday, but you can never be too careful, and Clark is happy he let Jimmy choose the location because he obviously knows his way around Metropolis nightlife – Oliver walks in, large grin plastered onto his face. Bruce looks as if he wants to castrate him, grumbles something about discretion and leaving any society reporters at the door. The two billionaires argue back and forth a bit, Clark hears Oliver mention something about it being fine that he parked his helicopter on top of the Metropolis branch of Wayne Enterprises, and yes. They’re complete. The night of his bachelor party is underway.

Lois is with Diana, Cat, and a couple of other friends. Clark has offered to let everyone choose, they didn’t have to do the traditional men-women thing, but Diana said she would choose Lois’ bachelor party over his any day of the week. To which, of course, Lois was absolutely rub-it-in-your-face for about a week. That Wonder Woman wanted to party with her, and not with him, and somewhere, Clark can’t wait to hear what they’re getting up to right now. Everything at its time, though.

He orders everyone a round of drinks, Hal claps him on the back (which he immediately regrets and Clark is the one to apologize), there’s toasts.

“Are you nervous, man? I know I was,” Hal starts. “They say nothing changes, it’s just a piece of paper, blabla, but it does!” Everyone laughs. “I’m telling you, the moment you get back from your honeymoon, you’re knee deep in domesticity and no more going out.”

“I don’t think that will be much of a problem with Lois, Hal. Although we did have that a little bit when Jon arrived. But Lois couldn’t wait to get back out.” It’s Clark’s turn to laugh.

“If anything, she’ll start dragging you out to more things,” Jimmy adds gleefully and winks at Clark.

“Anyway,” Oliver starts, holds up his glass. “Last night as a free man!” Clark’s never really understood that. Lois has already captured him a long time ago in so many ways. All of them he loves, but he raises his half-empty glass anyway.

The table settles into a comfortable chit-chat, more jokes about Clark, stories of the early days of the league, memories and laughs. Somehow, his gathered and stray group of friends mixes surprisingly well, for which he’s grateful. Maybe this really won’t be so bad, and tomorrow will be the best day of his life (or so they say).

Amid the chatter, he looks at Bruce on the other side of the table, utterly out of place between their friends in a dark brown bar and jazz music playing softly. As Clark talks and laughs with the others, Bruce looks back at him. The gaze unsettles him, as it always does, makes him question things, as it always does. It shouldn’t. Not anymore.

(He’s chosen. A long time ago in fact. Lois is the one that waits for him, all the time. That doesn't turn him away. The one to make him laugh and feel at home in a city where no one knows each other. The one that holds him at night when the world has been too much. Bruce can simply never be that.)

---

“We should stop,” Bruce breathes, inch away from his mouth and the wall of the cave wet behind his cape.

“She’s okay with it.”

“To what extent?”

Clark sighs, swallows. “I don’t know, exactly.”

“That’s something you might want to consider discussing.” Bruce turns away before he can come up with a reply. The rock crumbles under his hand and Bruce tells him to leave when he reaches the computer.

---

“… and then Hal went and actually asked her for it! You should have been there!” The group’s laughter pulls him out of his thoughts and he laughs along meekly when Pete taps him on the shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yeah… yeah, I’m fine.”

“Not getting cold feet are we, Clark?” Oliver asks.

He looks at Bruce. “No.”

The night eventually takes them back out onto the streets, half of them already stumbling as they make their way out of the small bar, but the cool night air sobers them up. Jimmy hangs onto Clark’s shoulders, Barry tries to jump onto his back for a piggyback ride, but Clark is fast to blur away, too fast for Barry, who, despite his fast metabolism, is a little intoxicated.

“So, what now? Night’s still young.”

“That it is, Hal. If you’re on the west coast.” Oliver has his hands in his pockets, Bruce’s cap is back over his eyes.

“Hey, supes can just fly around the world and spin back the clock a little, yeah?”

“You know I can’t actually do that, right? Ask Barry.”

“Nope, not tonight. I’ll throw up.”

“Not to mention you’ll mess up big time.”

“Any other good joints around here, Jimmy?” John asks.

“Plenty. What do you say, Clark? Another bar? Something more adventurous?”

“I have an apartment close to here,” Bruce cuts in. “Bar’s fully stocked.”

“Of course you do.”

“Don’t you?” Bruce raises an eyebrow at Oliver. “Comes in handy when I have to keep an eye on a certain Superguy around here.”

The small crowd looks at Clark, awaiting answer. “Sure,” he shrugs. “It has a nice view.”

---

Lois is pregnant at home on the couch and he’s in an unfamiliar bed, away from her. The apartment feels cold, not kept by Alfred, and only illuminated by a bright moon streaming through the sheer curtains draped across large windows. The bed sheets are white, the walls light, and the corners angular, modern. A bigger contrast with Bruce’s bedroom at the manor is near impossible.

“I don’t know what you want anymore, Clark,” Bruce says as he rolls away from him, sits up. “Don’t you like this place?”

“Bruce. You bought a penthouse in downtown Metropolis. For what? To be closer?”

“It seemed convenient.”

“Don’t talk to me about convenience when I could fly to Gotham in less than a minute.”

“You know what I mean.” When the baby arrives.

“Bruce,” he starts again. But gets stuck, because what does that mean? He swallows, makes a decision in the span of a second. “I won’t be here. He’s going to need a dad. Lois needs me.”

“Okay. That’s clear.” Bruce gets up. “Okay,” he says again as he walks to the bathroom.

Yet after that, there’s the bed, cold and warmed up by their bodies on a chance night, or a take-out dinner on the couch, a documentary running quietly on the large flatscreen TV while they talk. Lois never asks, but only because she knows. Jon grows healthily, strong, Lois falls asleep in Clark’s arms, and he feeds Jon in the middle of the night.

---

Now, the apartment smells clean, the fridge is empty but the pantry fully stocked. And the bar, as Bruce said. Two couches face each other in front of large windows, Clark knows which door leads to the bedroom. He doesn’t look at it.

Bruce switches on all the lights, it floods the place in yellow. It’s bright in a way Clark’s never seen it, he realizes. He pulls out a couple of bottles, asks the others what they want. A mirror of Brucie Wayne, host and not how Clark has ever seen him, here.

“You been here before, Clark?” Jimmy asks.

“Yes,” he admits.

“Sweet place.”

The group gets comfortable on the couches, Bruce suggests they could play pool, and Clark has a hard time imagining Bruce doing anything so casual. He wonders if he’s good at it, if he’s played here before, with anyone else. The pool table is new.

John draws up some kind of a tournament, teams are formed and bets are placed. Clark sits on one of the couches next to Bruce, watching the others play, another beer in hand and Bruce has started a glass of whiskey. He’s savouring it, clearly enjoying the flavour and laughs at Barry’s jokes, J’onn’s overly serious tactics at the pool table. Clark can’t get a grasp on how normal Bruce looks, how calm, as if nothing will change tomorrow. Here, of all places and it’s somehow not fake.

He realizes, Bruce brought them here to abandon the illusion that were those slow, quiet nights. It’s a normal apartment, he says with this. It will be, now. After tomorrow. A comforting thought as much as a terrifying one.

The cashmere of Bruce’s turtleneck is soft under his fingers when he reaches out to him and there’s a glint in his eyes that Clark is unable to read, hasn’t seen in a long time.

“Can I try a glass of that too?”

“I didn’t know you were into whiskey.”

“Hey, it’s my bachelor night. I got taste buds.”

Bruce smiles. “Sure.”

Clark leans against the large island counter as Bruce reaches for a whiskey glass that he could have easily found himself.

“It doesn’t have to end,” he says to Bruce’s back.

“Doesn’t it.”

The soft kitchen light hits Bruce’s shoulders just so, accentuates his jaw, and makes him yearn for simpler times. Bruce on one of the bar stools, humming as he tastes the food Clark’s cooked for him, same light, same cashmere sweater. Who was the one to complicate it anyway? Briefly, Clark wonders if he’s made a mistake by asking Lois to marry him, but no. Bruce is the mistake. Clark was just the one to make it.

“I mean,” he starts. “I don’t know. What difference does marriage make, anyway?” Clark laughs. It comes out hollow.

“This ended a while ago, Clark. Tonight is merely closure.”

Bruce is right, of course. “Okay.”

Bruce hands him the glass, their fingers touch, and that’s it. He sends him a look, one that says are you, though? but Clark doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he just walks back to the living room. It’s his turn at pool.

Not an hour later Clark finds himself on the bed, the carpet in front of him only illuminated by the faint light reflected off the clouds over Metropolis. Raindrops stick to the large windows as they trickle down, and isn’t that ironic? Rain in Metropolis the night before Superman gets married.

“Thought I might find you here.” Laughter and yelling drift into the room before Bruce quietly shuts the door again.

“I just needed a minute to come to terms with the fact that we just... broke up, I think?”

Bruce stays in the middle of the room. “You knew that would happen. You chose.”

“I did.”

“Then stop with the guilt. I’ll be fine." His expresssion softens. "I have a kid to take care of now, too.”

“He’s great,” Clark smiles. “I know you will be.”

“Worried about yourself then?”

“I think I’ll just miss you. Miss this.”

Clark gets up and walks past Bruce. The glass of the window is cold under his touch, the street far below them. Bruce's fingertips white, his palm pressed flat again the glass, same view. He kisses Bruce's neck, tells him he loves him. He chooses those moments carefully, when it barely registers, when Bruce is almost physically unable to respond. But he makes sure he knows, anyway.

“Me too.” Bruce’s hand is on his arm now, turning Clark towards him. Bruce has captured him too, in many ways. But not all of them he loves.

(It’s hard to love Bruce Wayne. It’s hard not to love him.)

A tentative smile forms on Bruce’s face. “Last night as a free man, right?” Bruce’s offer is tempting, they’re already crowding each other’s space, heartbeats loud and it won’t take much more now. But that will only make it harder. Clark shakes his head. Still, he hugs Bruce closer, caresses his temple, mindful of the stitches on his brow. Bruce leans into the touch.

“Why does it feel so wrong to love two people, Bruce?”

Bruce huffs. “Society. Most people don’t have a big enough heart. Plus, partners cannot deal with the jealousy.”

“But you do.”

“I’m not Lois, nor is she me.”

They could never replace one another. Clark’s breathing feels restricted, his throat thick, in spite of Bruce’s comforting presence. “What if I don’t want to choose?”

“Then don’t.” Bruce’s hand moves up along Clark’s arm. “Then don’t.”

He isn’t sure who starts the kiss, but their noses touch, breathing the same air, lips brush. There’s no tongue. It’s not a start, not tonight. It’s an end.

“I’m sorry.” Sorry for loving you. Sorry for choosing Lois. Sorry for everything we did together.

“Don’t be.” Bruce is the one to make sure there is some breathing room between them again, his hand lingers. “You and I both know I've always been number two. And I... was okay with that. It was enough. In fact,” he chuckles. “It was almost too much.”

The cave is only illuminated by the blue light of the computer monitor as Clark lifts Bruce out of his chair, already fast asleep. Alfred watches from a distance and thanks Clark for arriving so fast. On those night, he sleeps next to Bruce, just to keep him in bed. On nights that Bruce pushes him away, stuck in a case and his anger almost palpable, even Superman admits defeat. Clark waits for him upstairs and eventually leaves through the window before dawn to go back to Metropolis, bed unslept in.

He’ll make sure Bruce is fine without him. Alfred knows who to call.

“I want to move out to the farm with them. Jon needs room to grow. Rao knows I did.” He smiles at the memories of Kansas, yellow fields and endless sky where he learnt to fly, where he could be himself.

“Stubborn. Thinking you can take Lois out of the city.” Bruce doesn’t know they’ve already talked about it. “But that’s good. I’ll make sure to visit with Dick and Alfred.”

“We can play baseball.” Outside, the rain has stopped, the sky slowly turning lighter.

Bruce throws him something as he walks back to the door. The key to the apartment. “Stay here tonight.”

“It’s morning.”

“Whatever. I’m going home, I’ll see you at the wedding.”

“Catch some sleep,” Clark tries before Bruce opens the door, but he’s already gone.

In the living room, the others are in various states of consciousness. John and J’onn, back in his alien form, are still wrapped up in their game of pool, Barry and Hal asleep on the couch and Jimmy and Pete passed out on the other. The coffee table between them is littered with beers and glasses. Oliver has his forehead on the cool marble of the kitchen island. He turns his face to Clark.

“Bruce just left without saying anything. What happened?”

Clark thinks, shrugs. “Not important. He gave me the key, we can stay here until we’re ready to go to the wedding in a couple hours.”

“A couple hours…” Oliver groans.

“Is that an early wedding gift, Clark?” John asks from over by the pool table.

Clark looks at the key in his hand. “No,” he chuckles. “I’m pretty sure he’ll want it back.”

“I’ll never understand the guy.”

“Don’t even try. That’s what we have Clark for,” Oliver says to the marble counter.

“I mean, I like to think I’ve got a pretty good grasp of him, but he surprises me too.” His soft insides contrasted by a hard shell, blackened by trauma and the night. His cryptic language that is like a puzzle for Clark to unfold, understand, reciprocate. They’ll still have that, have friendship. And the memories of time spent together.

In the distance, he hears Bruce’s heartbeat speeding back to Gotham. With him, doubt that leaves Clark, replaced with a light and excitement. He looks out the window up at the blue sky over the city. He’s getting married today.

He regards his friends, a bunch of gathered individuals, outcasts like himself who have found each other through Clark, through the purpose of trying to do good. “Who wants breakfast? I’ll go get eggs.”

#superbat #write write #clois endgame but superbat also endgame but clark makes a choice #you know when you make yourself cry... i hope i make all of you cry too #please address all complaints to detective comics comics

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letgraysonsheart · 5 years

Text

The demon looks down at him expectantly. Its hovering half a meter above the ground, its arms crossover over its chest. A red aura surrounds it, and brown spiked horns are poking out from its black hair.

“Resurrection?” the demon asks, unimpressed. It squints at him again and Bruce has to look away for a second as emotions start welling up inside of him.

The demon moves its legless body, all that’s under its torso is some kind of whirlwind, perhaps a portal? Bruce isn’t sure. Either way, it’s coming towards him.

“Y-yes, my son-” Bruce starts, trying to be humble and calm but his voice still betrays him.

“Ah yes, the second little Robin,” the demon says, shocking Bruce. “Now, don’t look so surprised, we like to keep an eye on you earthlings, especially someone as special as you lot,” the demon smiles, or at least that’s what Bruce thinks the hideous expression is supposed to be. He snaps his mouth shut, doesn't know what to say, how to explain.

“What’s his name again, this boy you want back so badly that you dare summon me?” It’s dark all around them, the only light the red glowing from the demon. Bruce isn’t sure they're even on earth anymore.

“It- it’s Jason. Todd.”

The light starts switching, blinking, the demon in front of him becoming a blur before - before Jason.

His son, his boy, hovering above the ground. Bruce wants to reach out, to hold him -

“This little one? Barely anything besides flesh and bone,” the voice coming out of Jason’s mouth isn’t right. Too dark, too raspy. Jason never sounded like a demon. Bruce is thrown harshly into reality again, remembering that his son is still dead and he’s still dealing with a demon from the underworld.

The demon is reaching out its, Jason’s, arms, studying them with eyes thin as slits. Bruce's heart is yelling for him to run up to it, to feel, to hug Jason, while his brain is screaming at him to stand still. To be logical.

“How much are you willing to offer? To give up?” Not-Jason asks with a body still clad in Jason's torn Robin uniform and fragile arms now crossed over its chest again.

Bruce bites his lip, Clark, Diana, Barry - hell, even Hal, had warned him about contacting a demon. It’s a game you can’t win, they all had said. But hell, Bruce has already lost so much, is there really anything left to lose?

He needs Jason. The pain, it's too much. He had buried his parents, and now he has buried his son too. It isn’t supposed to be like this. There must have been a glitch in his universe. Fathers aren’t supposed to outlive their children.

“I need an answer, Mr. Wayne,” Demon-Jason says, his expression now tight, eyes smaller - he’s impatient. “How much are you willing to give up?” the demon repeats, moving fast towards him and now pressed up against Bruce’s face. The mirroring of Jason is uncanny. There’s even that little scar above his eyebrow from his first real scuffle with a bad guy. It had freaked Bruce out, while Jason had proudly worn the scar as a trophy.

Now it just makes Bruce feel sick, another reminder that he is the one that caused all of this in the first place. He is responsible for Jason's death, and now he has to make it right.

“Everything,” Bruce states, staring straight into the demon’s eyes. Besides hovering above the ground and the voice, its eyes are the only other thing that is completely different from Jason. Much like the aura, they're glowing red. It looks like something you would see on a sick cat, completely inhuman.

“Everything, you say?” the demon ponders, backing away slightly. The Robin cape flaggers with the movement.

The demon hovers slightly closer to the ground. “Are you sure? There is no backing out of a deal with a demon, you should know that,” it says and the unreadable expression looks so wrong on Jason’s young face.

“Of course I’m sure!” Bruce can’t stop his emotions, “I just want my son back. I’ll do anything, give you whatever you want.” He wants the pain to stop, to hold his boy again - to take back everything that’s happened and start anew.

“The price is high for resurrection. Death will not be easy to persuade, but,” the demon stops its sentence and moves closer to Bruce again, holding one finger in the air. “If you take a blood oath, one which can not be broken, I might be able to.”

“I’ll do it,” Bruce says without hesitation. A dangerous hope is flickering inside of him.

The demon smiles, a wide horrible grin cracking Not-Jason’s face in two.

The demon whispers something in a language Bruce can’t understand, and a big golden dagger materializes in its hand. The demon pushes it into Bruce’s open palm and it feels heavy as his fingers curl around it. It’s almost as big as a small sword, and he can see the edge is sharp.

“Now, go on,” the demon says, still wearing that unsettling smile. “You do this, and you are agreeing to give up anything, everything,” the demon confirms, settling the deal. The dagger starts to glow, this too with a touch of blood red in it.

“As long as I get Jason back,” Bruce confirms. The demon nods its little head, black locks flopping into its face. Jason’s locks.

Bruce lifts the dagger. He hesitates. The demon looks unsure. Not-Jasons face morphs into such a Jason expression, like a little sad puppy, it feels like someone just punched Bruce in the gut.

He pushes the glowing dagger over his palm, drawing blood. It drips on the ground.

Not-Jason reaches out his hand, Bruce notices its fingernails aren't nails at all but claws.

Bruce shakes it, feeling the blood mush between their palms.

The mirror image of Jason disappears, in a blinking bright light much like before.

The demon is back, in all its glory. Bigger than before. The red light so much brighter. Staring down at Bruce now, no hint of Jason left.

“I will have Death resurrect your son, then I will claim our prize; something that is worth a life,” the voice booms and echos in whatever realm they’re in. “Go to the graveyard where you buried him, tomorrow at midnight,” the demon finishes.

The world shifts, swirling in colors and rage.

Bruce wakes up on the floor in the warehouse he had deemed safe enough.

The summoning signal is still painted into the ground, but there’s more to it now. An eye, in the middle of it, that wasn’t there before. The candlelights are blown out. The moon is peering down on him through the glass roof.

Bruce goes home.

He doesn’t tell anyone what he did, he won’t until he knows it worked. He only has to keep the secret to himself for one more day, that much he can do.

The look Alfred sends him as he passes him on his way out of the cave and up to his bedroom, tells him perhaps Alfred is more aware than Bruce thinks.

The next night, he skips out on patrol, turns off the cowl camera and his coms, and goes to the cemetery early.

He sits in front of Jason's grave, tracing the letters with his fingers. Someone has planted more flowers, lilac ones with now drooping heads. It's been dry in Gotham for the last few days. The flowers might have been Dick's doing. Bruce knows the older boy has been visiting even if the two of them haven’t been speaking. Alfred has told him as much, in passing comments when he thinks Bruce isn't really listening.

Exactly as the clock ticks twelve, midnight, a shadow appears. It grows, more and more, a dark abyss in the already murky night, and then - a light.

The demon steps out. A figure laid on its back and floating in the air is beside it. Bruce can see yellow and green and - Jason.

“Is - is that-,” he can’t bring himself to say the words.

The demon grins, showing off razor-sharp teeth and bloody gums. “Yes, that is Jason Todd, or his soul at least.”

“And you will give him to me?” Bruce says, not one to get rid of suspicion, as he raises to stand on his feet.

“Yes, and when I do, I suggest you start digging,” the demon says, and then Bruce is throwing himself against the dirt again. A golden gravel falls onto the ground by his side. It looks a little like the dagger he used to take the oath with, and he grabs it without a second thought.

He looks up as the demon makes a sound. Bruce watches as Jason, his soul, turns into more of a cloud of white light. He pushes the gravel against the earth and is almost afraid to harm the soul as he digs in while the soul sinks into the ground. Into Jason’s grave, towards his body.

He thinks the demon might be helping him, the earth gives away after his movements almost too easily. Still, he feels like it takes too much time to hit the wooden casket where his son is laying.

The last of the earth flies away, confirming his suspicion that the demon had a hand in how easy it was to dig. Demons aren't known for their patience, after all.

His fingers shake as he goes to open the casket, afraid of what he’ll find.

“Do it, if not you want the boy to suffocate in there?” the demon comments, now hovering above his shoulder. Bruce can smell its sickly sweet breath.

Bruce throws the top open, pictures of half-rotting bodies and human bones prone in his mind. What he sees is something entirely different.

Jason.. he looks perfect. Where there were once gruesome scars from the Joker and the explosion, there are now only old healed wounds. Even the autopsy scares have almost faded. His skin looks healthy, a little on the pale side, but his cheeks are rosy and his hair is still jet-black. His eyes are closed though, no sign of being awake, and Bruce feels worry takes its place in his mind.

“He is only asleep. Raising from the dead is energy-consuming,” the demon explains, maybe sensing Bruce’s feelings.

Most important of all, Bruce can see Jason's chest rising and falling. He's breathing. Bruce cradles his son close, finally holding his boy in his arms again. He doesn’t care that the demon sees when a few tears drop down from his chin.

With his precious cargo in hand, he climbs out of the godforsaken grave. It's an awful reminder now, one he plans to get rid of as soon as possible.

Bruce turns to leave, he doesn’t care what the demon has to say now, he has Jason and that’s all that matters.

“I think you’re forgetting about my payment,” the demon’s voice booms, Bruce can feel the vibrations of it in the earth.

Bruce turns back again to look at the demon. Jason is still asleep in his arms with his head rested on Bruce’s chest.

“There is no price as high as a life,” the demon ponders, “Death did not give up Jason’s soul easily. She had taken a liking to it, to how tortured it was.”

Bruce feels dread pool into his stomach, fill its way up to his chest and throat.

“The only thing we could agree on was well - a life for a life.” The demon isn’t hovering anymore, but standing on jean-clad legs on the ground. This new transformation looks almost human, besides the still glowing aura and the red eyes. The horns are still there though, just poking through strands of hair.

If he has to give up his life for Jason’s, then so be it. He goes to put Jason down, pushing his nose into the boy's hair to breath in his scent one last time. He places a kiss to the crown of his son's head.

The demon interrupts him.

“Oh no - no Bruce, it’s not you,” it says.

Bruce feels cold, too cold, all of a sudden. Like someone has frozen his stomach and chest, and made his heart beat fast in an attempt to break out of the ice.

“You’re not young enough, and too aware of this world,” it continues. A figure starts floating towards them, appearing out of the dark. He can’t see who it is and he doesn’t want too because-

He had promised to give anything. Everything. Bruce had promised the demon his everything, just to have Jason back. He had been so desperate, once he had understood there was a real possibility that he would get to hold his youngest again. Bruce understands now, that he's slipped up. Not thought through the consequences, not thought about anything besides Jason at all.

“A life for a life, one son.. for another.”

Bruce, with Jason still in his arms, falls to his knees.

The figure floats up to them and.. it’s Dick.

He’s wearing his Nightwing suit, but his mask is gone. It looks like he’s been in a fight, he has a black eye and a busted lip, and he’s unconscious. His hands are tied behind his back, and his feet tied together. He’s floating above ground beside the demon, head tipped down onto his chest. He’s is still breathing.

“No - that’s not what I meant!” Bruce says, laying Jason down as careful as he can on the cemetery ground and stepping closer to the demon. He wants to reach out for Dick but the boy hovers just out of reach. It almost looks like he flickers, like an old light about to go out. Bruce furrows his brows, gears turning in his head but he can’t find any explanation, his mind shortcutting because of fear and desperation.

“You said anything and everything,” the demon reminds him.

“Please,” he rasps, his voice raw and emotional, “don’t kill him. Don’t take him from me, I, I need them both. Take me instead,” Bruce is desperate, begging. He never thought of this as a possibility, never in his wildest fantasies.

He just wanted Jason back, and was blinded by his grief.

“I won't kill him,” the demon says, its voice too nonchalant for Bruce’s liking. Yet, he let himself hold onto a glimmer of hope. It's quickly crushed as the demon continues.

“I won’t let you have him either. Death requested him, the only price she could accept. He is special, she says, the way he has held onto the light as he has waded through dark and grimy waters is remarkable. She would love to break him in. While your soul as of right now, is of no value to us.”

A black hole, a portal, is opening behind the demon.

Jason makes a sound behind his back, a sigh, and Bruce’s stomach twists as he reaches out towards Dick. His hands hit thin air, the demon moving too quickly and playing its tricks, dragging Dick out of his reach.

“You should be thankful I don’t murder the boy as an offering, right here in front of you,” the demon snarls as it bats Bruce’s hands away. It pushes Dick further towards the blackness.

“I gave you your son back. A life for a life, a son for a son, one Robin for another. It's a fair price. We could have taken more, as you so foolishly said you would give up everything.”

Bruce stands frozen to the ground as Dick disappears into the blackness. Bruce can’t see him anymore, his blood rushing and his heart beating so loud. His oldest son, gone.

“You should be grateful,” the demon says and Bruce feels everything but. His emotions are fighting inside of him, conflicting and confusing. The demon steps into the portal like he is stepping over a small fence. One foot in and one foot out. Its human form is almost scarier than its demon one.

“We won't be seeing each other again,” it says, so final. The portal starts closing. The demon disappears.

“No!” Bruce yells and he is moving, running, towards the portal. His arms reaching out. This can’t be it. He won't allow it. The demon - there has to be another way. Another price.

The portal closes before he gets to it. A domino mask falls to the ground in its place. Bruce is on his knees, digging into the dirt and staining his suit even more. He holds the little piece of fabric in his hands, his fingers feeling the soft material contrasting with the hard tech in them.

“Bruce?” a voice behind him.

Jason.

Bruce turns around and it’s Jason, standing there, his Robin suit somehow on even if he was buried in a black suit and tie. He has the boy in his arms before his brain is catching up with his movements, and tears are streaming down his face.

He has given up everything for this. Now he wonders if the price was too high. His mind is a muddled mess of emotions, as his hand placed on Jason’s back curls tightly around the domino left behind.

A life for a life, the demon said.

Bruce feels like he’s paid double. The demon might have given him Jason, might have mended that grief but now.. now there is a whole new piece of Bruce’s soul missing, and where it once was is now filled with even bigger guilt and grief.

“What’s going on, Bruce?” Jason asks, voice muffled by how Bruce is pressing the boy against his chest.

He can’t bring himself to answer. To admit what he has done. Jason will never forgive him if he learns the truth. Jason and Dick might not have been the best of friends, but they had started to become brothers, before. They had shared a somewhat mutual form of respect.

A son for a son.

His grief for his youngest for the grief of his oldest.

As he holds Jason close, he realizes there is no way he will be able to move on from this.

#tw character death #but not the one you think #tw demons #kinda???#all the angst!#:D #i dont know what this is honestly and were it came from #i hope you enjoy? its might be really fast paced but thats the only pace i know #this might become a longer fic idk we'll see #jason todd #bruce wayne #dick grayson #my writing #elie writes #whats my tag for this again asfkjld #jason todd fanfiction #dick grayson fanfiction #batbros #kindaa

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bigskydreaming · 5 years

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I just really hate how much of Kyle’s story had to be erased or buried in order to make way for Hal’s return to the spotlight. Like the Hal being Kyle’s Space Dad thing is fun and all, sure, except for how its also this kinda obnoxious way of looping Hal into being part of Kyle’s successes and triumphs as a hero, like....after the fact though? Kyle’s entire thing is in a universe filled with legacies and mentors and sidekicks, he was the one guy who was just COMPLETELY unprepared for any of this, and just had the weight of an entire intergalactic peace-keeping corps’ tragic past and legacy just thrust on him with no warning, and the thing is....HE DIDN’T HAVE TO ACCEPT IT! Even once he understood what it was he was really inheriting, the sheer scope of it and what was expected of him now, to carry on the work that was intended to be shared by THOUSANDS, just...all by himself, with no one to teach him, guide him, share with him, understand what all this was like....

Kyle Rayner’s high concept is that in a franchise that revolves around the idea that “being a GL means you’re never truly alone, you’ll always have thousands of comrades in arms to learn from, lean on, etc”.....he was the one and only character who had to do all that ALONE. Even now, with the Corps restored and back to its full capacity, its obvious in pretty much every story that Kyle has never learned how to fit in with the rest of them, be ONE of them, like here’s this guy who busted his ass for years and years trying to make all of this possible, bring all of this back, make it so he isn’t the last one anymore, the only one....and then it HAPPENS, and he’s still kinda...lost. Because he doesn’t really fit. Because even among this chaotic community of varied experiences in the Corps, he is the ONE guy that NONE of them can ever truly relate to, not even John or Guy, because while they were still around, neither of them were expected to....BE the last Green Lantern, the way he was. Neither of them ever felt the same responsibility to fix what had been broken, that it was down to them, like Ganthet basically put on Kyle.

And like, the thing was....Hal wasn’t there for any of that really. And when he was, most of it was as the BAD GUY that Kyle was fighting, the one who had destroyed everything Kyle was stuck trying to fix. Yeah, ultimately the Parallax retcon made all of that not really his fault and so its not like Kyle blames him for any of that, or should, but its also like....what are you doing, acting like the guy who was literally the face of his enemy for years and years is like....this Space Dad who thank god he’s finally around to give Kyle the mentoring he desperately needed, when like....no dude, Kyle did everything he’s famous for and celebrated for in canon....on his own. Without you, or anyone else. He is who he is because he had one bad-ass mom, Maura Rayner, who raised him right and gave him the tools he needed to succeed...

ESPECIALLY the one that served him best....the ability to recognize when he didn’t have it handled, and ASK FOR HELP.

Which is not a skill Hal could ever teach anyone lol, sorry.

But like, that was one of the greatest things about Kyle at the start of his story....he was wearing one of the most powerful weapons in the universe, the last of its kind at the time, and there was no one who could teach him how to use it the way he was meant to be taught, none of the teachers he was SUPPOSED to have...but rather than just keep trying to bulldoze his way through things and stubbornly insist well he’d figure things out himself then....he was like, okay, I need all the help I can get...and he literally went on a tour around the country, stopping in every major hero’s city to ask them if they could help teach him stuff they felt he should know. Like that was the main reason that for a long time he was called the only Lantern Bruce had ever truly respected....because Kyle had the humility to recognize he was NOT qualified, and he needed to GET qualified, by any means necessary.

And that’s just...so....Kyle, and so fundamental to his character and what makes him so great, but all of that has kinda been handwaved away, not even like retconned in a lot of places because they couldn’t figure out a way to do that that actually made sense....but instead like this sleight of hand thing where they’re like if we dont mention it for long enough and just hype up the Hal as Kyle’s Space Dad mentor person stuff, it’ll eventually be as if Hal really was there guiding and shepherding Kyle all along, even though...lmao, no, that is quite literally incompatible with the majority of Kyle’s overall story and character arc....which is why for as much as the comics talk up Kyle’s role and specialness as the Torchbearer and White Lantern and other titles....they’re extremely vague about delving into details at this point about what any of that even means and what it refers to and he’s mostly shunted off stage so nobody asks too many questions like, hey if this guy is so important and honored by the Corps, why isn’t he involved more in their biggest storylines and like, front and center?

Its the same problem I was talking about with DC not wanting Dick or the other Batkids to surpass Bruce. DC screwed up massively with their second generation of heroes....Dick and Kyle and Wally and more....because they DID advance the universe’s overall story and timeline, they DID allow the younger heroes to age, and then they DID kill off and do away with a number of the old guard which allowed the original legacies to step up and fill their shoes, AND DO A KICKASS JOB OF IT ACROSS THE BOARD.....

Until, fifteen, twenty years after they started doing that (with Wally), by which point DC’s writers were primarily fanboys who’d grown up idolizing the original heroes like Hal and Barry.....and so they rolled the clock back to allow for their preferred heroes to take center stage again....

Which leaves the younger generation stuck, and with no real place for themselves, which I think is also a big part of the reason their Titans’ reboots haven’t worked. Because they know that these younger heroes are TOO experienced, TOO good to just go back to being actual sidekicks, but they went to all this trouble to bring back all the originals and don’t intend to let them go again any time soon, and so they’re like...well, we can’t have this middle generation fucking things up and making the older heroes look bad, so they kinda just get shuffled around the DC universe and various titles in the hopes that they’ll find somewhere they click, but no idea what to even aim for.

And so you’ve got Kory with Roy and Jason here and then now she’s in space with Vic and a handful of others that honestly feel like they just pulled names out of a hat, and meanwhile she’s got SOME kind of romantic history with Dick, but good luck trying to pin down where or when that even happened, because that would mean committing to them having been ages that just do not work with the ages they try and claim Dick is now and the amount of time the Titans were supposed to have been retroactively active and lol what even.

And meanwhile, Titans and their age group remain the first to get picked off and killed in any major event, Titans keeps being the first book to be axed, they tried to speed through an original Titans’ lineup all the way to a team made up of Tim’s age group in a span of thirty issues, and on and on. And its just a mess, and it all traces back to the sheer wtf of DC having spent twenty years writing about their universe growing up and moving to the next stage of things....and then trying to take it back, and its like no, you cant stuff all that back in the bottle, it GREW. It doesn’t FIT in there anymore!

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ofmorninglory · 5 years

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For some reason, @teatitty said “Clint and Barry could be brothers” and the only goddamn thing I could think of was Anastasia AU where Clinton Francis and Bartholomew Henry are the only two survivors from the palace seige when the Revolution broke out (and let’s pretend this is somewhere in some country that we will invent for the sake of accuracy, which doesn’t have to exist because it’s a non-existent country) and while Barry got out of the castle with his best friend Hal and their cousin Steve, Clint wasn’t all that lucky.

He was almost caught trying to run away, and while trying to make it out of the crowds without being stepped on, the poor boy hits his head somewhere pretty roughly. When he wakes up, he’s at a hospital somewhere, can’t hear very well, has no idea who he is, and is frightened beyong belief. He vaguely remembers the name “Clint” but nothing besides that, and he’s wearing this ring that hangs around his neck in a silver chain, engraved with the words “Every light is a promise”. Clint doesn’t know what it means.

So, he starts getting moved around orphanages. He never manages to stay in one place too long because he’s rambunctious, makes too much trouble and can hardly communicate with the other kids because of his hearing problem. He is an outcast, usually, and sometimes he’ll feel so lonely that he’ll feel there’s nothing more than that emptiness he feels. When he’s feeling like this, Clint will thumb absentmindedly at his ring (the one he’s growing into) and think about, whoever gave it to him, probably loved him very much.

When he’s old enough that the orphanage he’s managed to stay in doesn’t want to support him anymore (18, 20? Something like that), he leaves to the city in a feeble attempt at searching for a life for himself. He doesn’t have much of anything, and he knows his hearing is going to be a problem, but Clint has faith, at least, and hope that he’ll find his family one day.

Cue in Natasha and Tony. They’re known around the city as the greatest conpeople known to history, and mostly everyone has been screwed over by them at least once. Tony used to be part of the noble-folk, back when “royalty was in”, but he’s since let go of his previous life. It’s not that he doesn’t miss his family (who he lost a long, long time ago) but it’s safer for him to exist simply as Tony and not as Anthony Edward Stark. Natasha, on the other hand, has always been a nobody. She has no idea who her parents are, and she doesn’t particularly care about finding out. She’s found a family with Tony, even though they fight a lot and food is hard to come by, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

They start hearing the rumours. Everyone is talking about the lost prince that’s supposedly still in the country. They know about Prince Bartholomew and Duke Stephen getting out of the palace with the help of Harold Jordan (known palace guard and family friend), but they’re out of the country now, safe as refugees in Paris (sue me, Paris is nice). Rumour is out that Prince Clinton is alive and well, somewhere in the country, and the Prince and the Duke are offering a whole lot of money for whoever can bring their last family member to them.

Natasha wants an out, so does Tony. They see this as the perfect opportunity.

They meet Clint on an accident. The man was looking for a place to hide from the thunderstorm raging outside and had bolted inside the palace (that Tony and Natasha had been staying at for months now) only to be met with a set of menacing people pointing at him with guns that Clint had never seen before.

Tony sort of kind of thinks about it first. Sure, he doesn’t believe the rumors about Prince Clinton Francis being alive, but if they were true, Tony is pretty sure that the boy would look like this street-rat. Provided the street-rat had a bath. And a hair cut. And new clothes.

Natasha sees it too, although a little bit slower. Clint’s eyes are what buys her--they’re the royal family’s blue, almost identical to Prince Barry’s or Duke Steve’s eyes--and she’s quick to try to convince him. She has to be smart about it, too. Clint doesn’t look like the kind of man who would lie to a grieving family who lost everything, but he looks like the kind of man who is lost and in desperate need of some hope to hold on to. If she feels a little shitty about lying to him, Nat doesn’t let it show.

So, they travel to Paris.

Well, at least they try to, it’s not as simple as it looks. First they have to get Clint ready to be Prince Clinton Francis, and try not to get caught by the city police, who are getting closer on their trail. Tony tells Natasha several times they should leave before all the borders are closed, but their papers aren’t ready yet and they have to be very careful about how they go around this. It doesn’t help that Clint somehow manages to bring attention to himself (like a fool) and there’s this soldier that keeps butting into their business when they’re out and about. Natasha hates James Barnes with a burning passion because he keeps getting in the middle of all of her plans.

When they finally make it on a train out of the country, the goddamn train is searched, of course, right before it goes over the border. They’re looking for Anthony Stark, the police got word that the last noble Stark was trying to flee the country, and that just wouldn’t do. Tony pleads them to leave without him. Natasha is having none of that shit.

Someone in the train aids them--an older man Tony recognizes as Bruce Wayne, who hadn’t gone into hiding like all the other nobles had, who had remained prideful until the end and who had only gotten his children out of the country, staying behind himself to help others escape--and they manage to jump out of the train and into the forest. After that, it’s the huge trek to Paris, where Tony is already in contact with Oliver and Dinah Queen, a couple of nobles who managed to escape the country before Revolution broke out. They’re old friends of the Starks and agree to help the runaways for a little while until they can get to the Prince and the Duke.

There are a lot of those cute moments with Natasha and Clint. She tells him about how it was growing up in the street, about how finding Tony had been sort of a life-line for her. Clint, in turn, asks her if she’s going to miss her homeland. She says that she won’t, but then continues on saying that it’s the only thing she’s known for her entire life. Clint thinks maybe she is going to miss it. They dance, of course, because dancing is explicitly created to fall in love, and Natasha kicks herself over and over because this wasn’t supposed to happen.

When they get to Paris, Oliver literally can’t bow fast enough because he’s sure that this is Prince Clinton. He had known the little bugger (his noble family had been closer to the royals) when he was only a boy, and he was sure he was looking straight at a ghost. Clint is embarrassed and tells him not to do it, that he’s not even sure he’s the Clinton everyone seems to be looking for (Dinah arches an eyebrow: “you’re literally called Clint”).

Natasha sees how much he’s grown over the past couple of months of travel, how much he seems to remember from their lessons on the royal family. There are things Tony and he never taught him and he still knows them. For no reason. Natasha really tries to remain skeptical about actually finding the Prince Clinton Francis, but then one night, Clint wakes up from a nightmare, and Natasha tells him a story.

She recounts one summer day, when she was younger, and a parade on the streets, celebrating the royals. She tells him about Prince Clinton, how she’d had this horrible urge to run to him and talk to him. He had seemed like such a charming child (he was, in fact) and she does actually go up to him against better judgement. Natasha had dogded right through the palace guards, bolting towards the place where the royal family were sitting inside their cart. She’d looked up at Prince Clinton, blue eyes meeting green, and he’d smiled at her. He’d smiled at her and Natasha never forgot that.

Something tickles in the back of Clint’s mind. Natasha tells him to make that story into his, to make it part of his Prince Clinton persona, maybe it’ll help. And Clint starts telling the story back to her, in full detail, from Prince Clinton’s point of view. As he nears the end, he stands up from his bed, confused, and finally finishes Natasha’s story.

“And then she bowed...” “I never told you that, Clint.” “You didn’t have to,” he says, voice soft, “I--I remember” Natasha was already in love with Clint, and now, as she realizes this is, in fact, Prince Clinton Francis, he can’t help but feel like her entire world has been ripped from her all at once. She’s never had a family, had never known love other than Tony’s friendship, and now that she’s found Clint, and she has to lose him again? She doesn’t think she can do it.

But Clint deserves a family. She tells Tony what she knows, confirms with him that Clint is actually Prince Clinton, and they both decide their plan has already gone wrong anyways.

They eventually make it to Barry and Steve (Steve, who Tony desperately tries to court, except Steve is simply uninterested or is playing hard to get; Natasha has a thrill watching Tony trip over himself for this Duke) and of course we get some angst because Clint finds out Tony and Natasha were simply using him for the money. He storms out, doesn’t even get to talk to Barry and Steve, and goes back to the Queen’s house, angry and hurt and feeling so, so stupid. He couldn’t have been Prince Clinton. He was only an orphan, with no name, no past and no future.

Then, as we near the end--did you think we forgot about Sargeant James Buchanans “Bucky” Barnes? We did not, we were just biding our time.

The solider comes to Paris, to the Queen’s house, when Clint is there all alone. The man has been following them for a while, and he’s here to bring Clint back home. He doesn’t believe Clint to be the Prince, and Clint doesn’t anymore, so he’s almost ready to go with Bucky. He doesn’t care what’s waiting for him back in his homeland, he just wants to stop hurting so much.

But just as Barnes is about to take him, Barry and Steve come looking for Clint. Somehow, Tony and Natasha managed to convince them to actually go meet their friend (the man they conned) because he hadn’t had anything to do with this entire scheme, he just wanted to find a family, and they’re both sure that he really is Barry and Steve’s family.

(Maybe there’s a tid-bit of how Barnes used to be a palace guard, too. How he used to be Steve’s best friend before the revolution. Maybe there’s a lot of angst and anguish here, when Steve comes to the Queen’s house, expecting to find his cousin and finding his best friend instead. Barnes doesn’t say anything. Simply sighs, let’s go of Clint, and leaves the place. There’s not anything else he can do. He’ll go home and explain to everyone how Prince Clinton wasn’t alive and the rumors had been false. He’d tell everyone Clint had died. He’d find a way. He’s sparing this family’s life. He’s not like his father.)

And then there’s this reunion, where Clint doesn’t know how the fuck to act, and he just kind of fumbles around with his ring, which now officially fits him, and Barry takes one look at it and just breaks.

“Every light is a promise,” Barry says, softly, coming to sit next to Clint on the bed, blue eyes staring into blue, “My brother and I--we’d use to promise each other things during thunderstorms. When lightning struck, we’d give each other one more thing to hold the other, too. Mostly, they’d be stupid things, like how next time I’d give Clinton my dessert or how he would cover for me when I wanted to sneak out of the palace with Hal.”

Clint stares at him, eyes wide, heart open.

“The last promise I made to my brother,” Barry continues, and takes off his own ring--one that’s almost identical to Clint’s, “was during the night of the seige. It wasn’t lightning that time, but fire, and I promised him we’d always find a way to each other.”

He’s crying. Sobbing, actually. Clint doesn’t know what to do, but then--then he remembers.

“You held my hand,” he says, shakily, “while Hal was getting us out--you held my hand so tightly I thought it’d come right off. I tried to hold on to you, Bar, I did. I was so small, my hand slipped yours--I saw you being taken away by the crowds. I was so scared, Bar. So frightened. I let go of your hand. I was an idiot.”

They’re both hysterical now, and Barry finally breaks completely, wrapping Clint in a tight hug while he repeats his name over and over--Clinton, Clinton, Clinton, my brother--and Clint can’t believe he’s found his family. What’s left of it. He’ll take it all.

Days later, after Steve and Barry have caught up on whatever Clint has missed (they’re moving to London, soon, it isn’t safe for them anymore; they don’t know what Barnes will do), Clint starts missing Natasha and Tony. They were his first friends, after having no one for the longest time, and now that they’re gone, even when he has gotten his brother and cousin back, he can’t help but feel a little bit empty.

Natasha isn’t faring much better. Tony probably isn’t either. Everyone is miserable. Natasha can’t take it any much longer after Dinah (who is now her self-appointed best friend, Nat doesn’t understand) continues hounding her about going to find Clint.

“He’s not a prince anymore! It doesn’t matter! Go get your man!”

So, she does, eventually. She does this whole grand gesture about going to find him and telling him how stupid he was, how much she truly started caring about him, and how she’d take a chance with him if he was willing to give it to her.

It’s only Barry listening to her from up the balcony, sure, but Clint’s brother tells her that Clint himself went looking for her.

Once they finally get to tell each other they’re in love, it’s wonderful and Natasha thinks, for the first time, she found her home.

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bluboothalassophile · 5 years

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Getting to Know More

Fun facts about Terry McGinnis:

He was a notorious middle child in a HUGE family: Dick, Jason, Athanasia, Cassandra, Tim, Duke, Damian, Alina, himself, Helena, Thomas, Bruce Jr., and Matt. His extended family included Dick’s wife, and Dick’s kids, Thomas, Mar’i, and Jake; Jason’s adopted daughter Lian Harper; Tim’s wife, Stephanie; and Duke’s wife; Claire Clover. His extended, extended family also had Uncle Luke’s and Aunt Babs’ kids; Carrie and Nell, Bette Kane, Grampa Lucius, and, well, at this point one got the picture; huge ass colony of Bats living in Gotham here.

He shredded it where skateboard, hockey, motocross were concerned, but he had the coordination of a spaz for baseball and surfing.

His mom was awesome on epic proportions. Seriously, he didn’t know how she did it but she redefined super mom.

Another thing to know, he totally did not have a crush on the Princess of Atlantis, he was only going with her to this movie because he happened to like it, and because Mareena was the only chick he knew who didn’t like chick flicks (Mar’i, Helena, Lian, and Max could all go Suck It! He was going to see a damn action flick if it fucking killed him this year!) Mareena just also happened to like action flicks, which was why she was here with him.

Standing there in the theatre line he tried not to stare at Mareena who was hiding her identity under a hoodie she had stolen from his room when she had walk up to the Manor with a movie for them to see. Mareena did not have friends in Atlantis who appreciated the arts of action flicks. Terry didn’t care though, he was no longer being that weirdo who was going to a theatre alone. Also, she was a chick Dana could not get jealous over and drive him insane. He would think college meant that the drama would die off with the age grow up, but apparently not. And he was not getting blue balls because Dana was having imaginary jealous fits over imaginary slights.

“Why can the line not move faster,” Mareena huffed.

“Because the line is moving this pace because people are slow. Besides, we’re ahead of the line for the premiere line,” he jabbed his thumb over his shoulder to show her. Mareena frowned.

“You people are annoying,” Mareena said icily.

“How are we annoying, you wanted to go to this movie, so I’m going with you to see this movie,” he said.

“I would’ve asked someone else, but,” she started.

“There’s no one but Don and Dawn, and we both know there’s no way in hell that Barry and Iris would let them come.”

“I could’ve gone to New Krypton,” Mareena argued.

“Oh yes, because watching their movies is so entertaining,” Terry rolled his eyes.

“You land dwellers have no appreciation for the fine arts of moving with a flow,” Mareena argued.

“Pipe down, and don’t draw attention of the paparazzi,” he snapped when her hood started falling off of her head, which had him pulling it more firmly over the green hair of hers. Only disadvantage of going to the movies with Mareena was the fact her hair glowed in the dark. But other than that, trade offs, made it worth it!

“You do realize they’d be more inclined to notice you and not me, right?”

“I’m wearing a Gotham Knights cap, and I am not royalty, I’m just one of a hundred Wayne kids,” Terry point out.

“I thought you were a Prince,” Mareena said.

“No, I’m a Wayne,” he said. “Not royalty.”

“You are also…” she held up her index fingers by her head and smiled a bit.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t count,” he shrugged. Dick had been Batman, Jason had briefly been to save Dick’s wedding, Cass currently was, Damian was next. It wasn’t anything special anymore, it wasn’t special in the family he belonged in. Though B was still the control freak behind the scenes for them so technically B was still the Bat.

“Why not?”

“Cause B’s the big man in charge.”

“Your dad is in a wheelchair,” Mareena pointed out.

“Partial paralyses is not a disability, it just means his legs have to take a break sometimes and Mom has to push him around, it’s not abnormal to what normally happens with him,” he shrugged.

“You guys have issues,” Mareena stated.

Terry merely shrugged. “Dad’s fine, we’re fine, it’s all fine!” he snorted.

“Last time you said that everything was on fire,” Mareena stated.

“Let me restate we’re fine. But mostly keep your hair away so I don’t have to explain to Dana why the hell I’m seen with another woman.” Terry stated.

“Ah, the nefarious Dana, why are you still dating that woman?” Mareena asked. “She was bratty when you were a teen, she’s worse now.”

“Not all of us get fairy tale romances,” Terry shrugged. “Besides, I like sex, sex is a great relief to the stress of everything.”

“You sound like a cad.”

“You should hear my sisters talk,” he shrugged. Mar’i, Helena, Max, and Lian were way worse than him about the sex talks, girls were all about feelings, and emotions and connections, it was annoying, and they always talked about it and guys! Terry probably knew more about women than the average guy and it was a disturbing amount information his sisters had given him. And just to clarify, he thought of Mar’i, Lian and Max as his sisters because he had known them since he was in diapers! It was hard to think of them as anything remotely close to something other than sisters.

“And you shouldn’t knock down romance,” Mareena stated. “Your family has the most epic love stories according to my father. Other than maybe Diana and Steve’s.”

“You’re nuts!” he sputtered.

“Am not, the story of B and Selina, Dick and Kori, Jason and Raven, Tim and Stephanie, B and Talia,” she stated. “Epic romances.”

“That’s just gross, and disturbing to think about my family’s love lives,” he grimaced.

“You guys are secret sweethearts I bet,” Mareena decided with a cheeky smile.

“We are the Knight! We are the Terror of Nightmares! We are NOT Sweethearts! Even Alina is even an epic of epic badasses,” he argued. His phone buzzed and he pulled it out to see the text was from his mom.

“What’s up?”

“After the movie we need to go get Matt, Carrie, Tommy and Nell from school. Babs and Luke had to go to Africa,” he said.

“Oh.”

“So we’ll get them, get a slice, and then I’ll drop you off, or are you tubing?” he asked.

“Why would I be tubing?”

“Cause it’s up or down with you,” he retorted.

“Can I stay? I haven’t hung around the surface too much, and I do not want to go to the Tower,” she said.

“Yeah. Julia will help us set up a room for you,” Terry said. Julia had come to Gotham recently because Alfred was sick.

“Who is Julia?” Mareena asked.

“Julia is Alfred’s daughter,” he answered.

“Alfred is not B’s father?” she said in bizarre wonderment.

“Uh… yeah, not a secret,” he pointed out. “Alfred is awesome, and he’s totally grandpa, but he’s not blood.” Terry shrugged.

“WHAT!?” Mareena sputtered. Terry jumped a bit as he stared at her bewildered expressioned.

“What!?”

“He’s not blood!?”

“No, I mean, like ninety percent of my family isn’t blood.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “It’s not news.”

“I…” she started. “I always thought you were related,” he said.

“Really?”

“Black hair, blue eyes, ungodly pale.”

“What about Duke or Damian!?” he sputtered.

“Okay, so you don’t all look alike,” she rolled her eyes.

“Exactly, and we are all pretty much adopted. Only Athanasia, Damian, Alina, Helena, Tommy, Junior, Matt and I are actually B’s blood kids.”

“I thought you were just… you know, cause you’re a huge family and dad says B started young, really young, so I just assumed,” she shrugged.

“It’s all public record,” he shrugged. “B hasn’t been shy about it. Dick, Babs, Jason, Cass, Tim, Duke, Steph, technically and kind of, Harper, Cullen, Bette, and Renee.”

“I just thought you were related, and I thought you were also, you know,” she shrugged innocently.

“What else did you think we were!?” He sputtered.

“Vampires,” she said innocently.

“I hate dad for starting that rumor,” Terry muttered sourly.

“That one is funny though!” She persisted. “Hal told me, before I met you guys, that you were all demons.”

“Well, Rae is,” he shrugged.

“I thought your dad was big anti- anything that isn’t human marrying into my family,” Mareena said.

“Luci made valid points which had B accepting the fact marrying into a family as divine and powerful as Rae’s is a… you know, it’s kind of a divine honor,” Terry shrugged. “Besides, I didn’t know they weren’t married until they were officially married.”

“You didn’t know they weren’t married?” Mareena asked.

“They’ve been together since I was in diapers,” Terry shrugged.

“Really?”

“Yes really. I’m pretty sure they were the ones who found me,” Terry said.

“I’m learning more about you than I ever thought possible.”

“All of this is actually public record.”

“Really?” she asked skeptically.

“My biological mother was Mary McGinnis, she was married to Warren McGinnis, they died in a car crash when I was three days old and they were driving home from the hospital. I’m technically property of A.R.G.U.S. so Waller took me in, Jason found me about a year later,” Terry explained.

“That’s weird,” she decided.

“No, what’s weirder is the fact that Matt is my full brother,” Terry stated. “Mary and Warren were dead five years before Matt was even conceived, and he’s my full brother.”

“What?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you were B’s blood son,” Mareena said carefully.

“I am. Waller injected a serum into Warren McGinnis’ DNA to scramble his own DNA to match with Bruce’s. Warren was a chimera essentially thanks to Waller’s tinkering,” Terry said. “I’m a ‘clone’ of Bruce’s in a way or I was supposed to be with what Waller set up, and I’m his son, but NO, he did not get involved in the conception of me or my blood brother Matt. He’s the genetic material for us. He’s still Dad though since he’s well, Dad,” Terry shrugged.

“That’s complicated.”

“That’s my family. Also, completely public record,” he shrugged.

“You’re not normal,” she said icily.

“What!? I’m completely normal! I’m going to a movie, and with you no less, in broad daylight, and I’m not turning to ash because of the sun either!” he smiled.

“You’re sounding like a assbutt,” she muttered.

“Asshole,” he corrected. “And you started it.”

“What did you expect from my family?” she asked.

“Lots of energy,” he answered honestly. “Dad always said that you guys were energetic like no tomorrow and wild, also unpredictable, dangerous, and loud, very loud.”

“You expected that!?” she sputtered.

“Did you think I was expecting a mermaid from Little Mermaid, fishtail and all?” he asked her.

“Yes!”

“Nah,” he shrugged.

“You’re an ass,” she informed him.

“I’m aware.”

“Good.”

“Besides, I’m a you know,” he shrugged. “Being unpleasant and assholes in general are required.”

“Oh! The ticket booth! And next time we are dropping your family name to get into the movie.”

“You wanted to be a normal American teen this time instead of being a Princess of you know,” he said.

“I did not want that. You wanted that. Freaking love of invisibility. I swear if you were metas you’d all be like that.”

“Rae cast an invisibility spell once, that was awesome, terrifying and cool.”

“Why!?”

“Oh, the demons were hunting her, I was like seven, and it was a giant hide and seek game,” Terry said.

“That’s not normal.”

“You grew up under the sea,” he pointed out.

“You grew up in Gotham.”

“I don’t like you right now,” she decided.

“You adore me, I’m paying for the movie,” he pointed out.

“True,” she decided.

“Awe, you two are an adorable couple!” the ticket attendant said when they stepped up to buy the tickets for S.O.S. “First date?”

“We’re not a couple,” Terry stated as he paid for the tickets.

“But we are friends!” Mareena declared slinging her arm around his shoulders.

“Barely.”

“You adore me!” she declared.

Terry rolled his eyes as the ticket clerk chuckled but gave them their tickets. “I’ll spring for the snacks, you get the good seats,” he ordered as they had their ticket punched and walked into the crowd.

#bluboothalassophile #fanfic #one shot #hopes for a bastard spoilers #hopes for a bastard universe #terry mcginnis #mareena curry

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darkspellmaster · 6 years

Text

Young Justice Theory: Final Crisis connections

Given events that have taken place over the last three episodes and the clue that the episodes spell Prepare the Anti life equation, it’s becoming more and more clear that that Greg and Brandon probably are pulling from Final Crisis and the events surrounding it.

The more I’m looking at the events of good old Final crisis the more I’m seeing stuff going down with the YJ crew that mirror stuff going on with Final Crisis. And, while I don’t think that this event will happen in this season, I feel like we’ll see this whole event going on with either Season 4 or Season 5.

-New Gods are at war and Darkseid manages to manifest inside the body of a human, and making him want to be the architect of a new universe. On top of this a Monitor is placed inside a human to deal with his failings in his duties.

So we know that Darkseid is up to something since he’s making deals with the Light. We also know that Halo’s powers came from the sky. The question is was it coming from outside her or coming from inside her already. She knows facts about New Genesis, and realizes a lot of things about herself and yet she doesn’t connect to her past self. Meaning that there’s the option that this can either be the Mother box they pulled apart and put into her, or that this could be a New God that is reacting to things around her.

We know Orion is missing, or rather away, according to Bear. Could he or another God be in her? This could also be a Monitor, as they can also come in male or female forms and being placed in her as her body has the ability through the Mother Box to connect to the New Gods.

-New God Granny Goodness posses a body of a Green Lantern to frame Hal Jordan for Murder, and that leads to Bruce deducing who she is and him being captured. This also leads to the call to arms by the Heroes for a war against Darkseid.

So how might this play in. Well we know that the VR Sets that are being put out are pushing the GW network which is run by jerk faced G. Gordon Godfrey, aka, Glorious Godfrey -who works for Darkseid himself.

Oh but that’s not all. As others have pointed out these goggles seem to connect to Granny Goodness, the head of the Female Furies on Apokolips and also a right monster. While it’s clear that these goggles are being used for possible corruption purposes, I think they’re also being used for scanning. Namely to identify children who have Meta genes to exploit them to build the army that Darkseid needs, and more than likely it’s scanning for pieces of the equation itself.

Granny could very well be Helga Jace or anyone in disguise, and it’s clear that the others in the Light have someone that they’re working with outside of Godfrey. On top of this, given what happens in Final, it’s very easy to see Granny getting her hands on Batman after maybe framing someone on the team for murder.

Having the JL have to rise up against them would make sense, which could lead to other issues with the Light later.

Keep in mind the ones that they are going after meaning to Apokolips their minds can be ore easily played with. And who are the ones using the VR sets the most? Kids.

-Outsiders and the Judas contract act as a distraction and the possible infection of various characters.

With team Batman working their own and the looming implications for the Judas contract coming into play it’s not hard to see this working in favor for the Light. It wouldn’t be that hard to see, through some means, Wonder Woman and others being infected while out in space and carrying the illness to earth. This could led to a lot of problems, namely the title of Antisocial Pathologies. Which more than likely will be covering the whole situation with the bacteria named Morticoccous.

-Time Travel again and the return of Bart and Conner.

So in the original story Lois get’s mortally wounded when a bomb goes off and wounds her at the Daily Planet. Meanwhile Barry and Wally have to race against the Black Death -the death of the New Gods, and stop a bullet from killing Orion. Meanwhile both Bart and Connner were returned from their deaths via the LoSH from the future and the two sent back to help save everyone.

Likely we’re going to see Barry and Bart doing the running with Wally returning along with Conner if he’s killed to stop the situation. This may tie into the idea that Barry may go into the future with Iris leaving Bart with someone like Max or grow up Bart, or leave Wally as the only Flash with Jay joining them.

-Dan Turpin searching for Missing kids leads him to the Dark Side Club, failure to stop Orion’s death and the fall out of Darkseid using the Anti life equation on the humans.

So we already have people looking for missing kids, although we don’t have a Dark Side Club, and we already have a missing Orion, so that all checks out and connects. I don’t think he’s dead...yet, but it could come into play later.

Okay so this is somewhat important. The Anti Life Equation is more commonly a math problem that is a math proof of the futility of life. This is unleashed through the net in the original story. However! I don’t think that will happen this time.

Behind Babs is the Oracle Eye. Now this is not the normal Oracle looking icon.

That is the oracle Symbol. You know what the eye is for?

This is Brother Eye, a program that was created by Batman due to his paranoia from his memory being erased by Zantana in Identity Crisis. Brother eye is a huge satellite that watches Metahumans and can infect people with nanotechnology.

It’s more likely that Darkseid will wind up controlling this and end up using that to infect or corrupt the people of earth.

Meanwhile we would probably see Barry and Bart probably meeting Wally and possibly Conner in some future time line and fighting against the super human army that Darkseid created. More than likely we would see exactly how the supers that are not infected stay uninfected by the equation and possibly a cure to all of this in the form of a symbol by Anthro given to Metron of the New Gods.

-Heroes of unlikely types.

Given that Lex and Dr. Sivana play a huge role towards the end of this story helping to go against Darkseid I would not be surprised if we got the story point that, with the tech that Lex has, he and Silvana are able to get control from the Justifiers in this story with the heroes in the future and turn them back to normal so they can fight against Darkseid. We probably will see Damian here in this future.

I’m really not sure how things will play out for the rest of the story. But given the ending being called Nevermore I think we may see some really depressing endings come out of this.

Superman comes back from the future, and Batman get’s “killed” by Darkseid after escaping from being held by Commander D. The Flashes end up leading the Black death racer to Darkseid to kill him, meanwhile the Ray traces the Metron symbol across the earth freeing everyone, and then everything gets sucked into darkness after Wonder Woman releases Darkseid from the body of Dan Turpin. Superman, thanks to the LoSH finds a wish granting machine and has to sing to it to counter Darkseid, and winds up fighting against the evil monitor that has been mostly controlling Darkside. This leads to the army of Supermen from the multiverse to come and that leads to the arrival of various teams from across the multiverse to fight with the Darkness. In the end they win and Superman wishes for a happy ending.

Turns out that Bruce isn’t dead, he’s sent back in time and has to time jump back to the future. This leads to the Battle for the Cowl, leading Dick to become batman, Damian to become Robin. Tim to search for Bruce as Red Robin and Jason to become a protector of Gotham. Barry Allen comes back from the dead, the Teen Titans reform with some fall out regarding Conner trying to figure out himself now, and Bart dealing with being dead and alive again.

Honestly it’s hard to guess what they’re going to pull from this story but if I had to guess...

Return of Wally West from the Future.

Batman “dying”

Jason, Dick, Tim and possibly Cassandra fighting for the Cowl

Birth of Jon will come out of this I’m damn sure

Conner either deciding to go to the future because he feels he can do good there being with the Legion of Super Heroes.

We may see hints of the Guardians of Oa taking on a bigger role or hints of the Crisis on Infinite Earths looming.

I’m sure Young Justice Season 5′s crew will look very different than what we have now.

Halo is not going to make it as I think she’s living on borrowed time.

Terra’s death and other things may lead to Brion staying with the team and helping them go forward.

Forger will probably go back with the New Gods and become the Bugs leader.

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stardustrobin · 6 years

Note

for dick and wally as lanterns, do you think they got their rings at the same time or was one active before the other?

i’d like to think that Wally might have gotten his first, then Dick sometime after.

i’d imagine it happened some time in their Teen Titans years while running around as Kid Flash and Robin. Wally gets his while he’s on a mission with Barry and Hal and he’s super excited about it and can’t wait to show it off to everyone! because how cool is this!! he’d probably even asked Hal to show him a thing or two so he doesn’t make a complete fool of himself in front of the team because then that would be uncool. so after he gets a few lessons he speeds back off to the tower and shows it off to the others and they’re all really excited for him. Dick of course is the one who is the most interested and offers to train with Wally and his new skills and even does his best to help out and learn what he could really do with his ring.

not long after that the Titans get themselves into a pretty big scrap with some alien group who heard of a newbie lantern that they think could be an easy target. the Titans weren’t fully ready for something like this but they held their own for a while before things start to go bad. everyone is starting to feel lost and hopeless, that this could be then end but Dick is doing his best and trying to keep their moral up and giving them the hope they need to keep going. and it works for a while before Wally get’s badly injured and Dick has to pull him to the side and keep him out of sight from the invading aliens. Dick’s doing his best to make sure Wally’s okay and that his powers are healing him and doing a bit of clean up and field dressing, assuring him that everything’s going to be okay and that they’re going to make it out of this alive and well.

and that’s when Dick’s ring comes to him. he wasn’t expecting it but he wasn’t complain either because in the end it helped them out a lot and saved their asses. so after that they both started Lantern training together, learning the straight and weaknesses of their rings and how much stronger their rings were together.

#flashhwing #★;#my hc;

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super-hero-girls-netflix · 4 years

Note

I'm back :D

Headcanons on sleepover (Boys and Girls)?

Girls First!

#1: Zee NEEDS to be Host if it's the whole group

Zee hosts as often as she can because she likes sleeping in her own bed and not having Babs' dad knocking on the door every 5 minutes.

It's also hard to coerce convince the girls into magical makeovers if she has to be alert about using her magic.

Also...she is positive that Commissioner Gordon suspects her of murder. (He doesn't, he just has the naturally narrow eyed thoughtful look)

Zee, in other words, prefers to host their sleepovers.

#2: Babs is a Wriggler, Kara is a Thrasher, Jess is a Talker

Diana, Zee and Karen are relatively quiet sleepers. Like sure Diana snores a bit and Karen might drool and Zee might shift in her sleep but they are NOTHING compared to Babs, Kara and Jess.

They are nightmares to sleep with. Babs wriggles in her sleep and babbles too. Especially if she's stressed. She'll be talking utter nonsense. Literally like 'waffles have feelings too' or 'butterfly fart machine'. No one shares a bed with Babs because she is known for stealing the covers and wrapping herself in them. Like a Babs Burrito. And if you try to take some back she will shove you off the bed. Still very much asleep.

Kara, she is a hazard to people everywhere. At least if you don't know how to control sleepy Kara. The girls know the control word 'go back to bed' but that only helps them when Kara tries to fly away. If she's kicking and or punching it's doom. Typically her erratic attacks are sparse and weak, so just like a pro-wrestler but badly aimed, but still...no one sleeps within 5 feet of Kara Danvers.

And lastly Jess. Jess is not much of a physical threat while asleep. She stays in the same position and doesn't even drool or snore or anything. But in the middle of the night you might hear a yelp, or a drawn out very loud groan. That's Jess, she groans a lot in her sleep, regularly. And if she's extremely stressed she'll even mantain conversation. Very poorly. Kara tried once. It went like this.

Jess: The moon, is just a ball of cheese.

Kara: Oh? Can your eat it?

Jess: Like a rock

Kara: What do you mean?

Jess: I'm nice, you're mean.

So yeah...they can share a bed with this chic and they have. That's why most if them sleep with headphones tucked into their ears.

#3 Movie Night

Karen hates horror movies. They creep her out and Kara is obsessed with them.

In fact while Karen and Kara argue about which genre to watch, romance or horror, the rest of the girls watch them fight.

Which is more amusing then it sounds.

#4 Diana can't cook

Diana is a girl of many talents but she can not cook. Not a bit. Not even instant mac and cheese.

Babs has tried to show her how to make a burrito- failed.

Jess a salad- failed.

Karen, some stir fry- failed.

Kara, warning up some pizza- failed.

She just can't cook. Moving on.

#5 Babs is generous with everything BUT her stuffed animals.

These are things she has said:

"Rest your feet somewhere else, Kara"

"Burrito Bat Butch hasn't cuddled with anyone but me, ever. Hands off!"

"Listen, if you wanted a pillow you can just ask- you don't have to treat General George Jennings like that!"

"Give me the bear, Karen. Give me the bear."

"EEY, NO TOUCHIE!"

#6 They can't do a proper Binge Watch with each other.

Babs drinks a lot of soda and munches on a lot of snacks so she has to constantly use the bathroom. Insisting they can keep watching but of course they pause anyway.

Zee cannot step away from her phone. It's always vibrating with emails and messages and she is too invested in her rep to put it down. She is the type of gal who likes texting while watching a show. This drives the other girls up a wall because then Zee insists they catch her up.

Kara cannot, for the life of her, sit still. Even though they are curled up on the couch, one of the girls leaning into Kara's side, or having their head on Kara's lap. Or anything, really. Kara breaks the comfort because she cannot sit still. She shifts too often, changes the legs she tucked under her, stretches her back. It is annoying because then the girls around her need to shift too.

Jess gets restless quickly. She predicts the ending or loses interest when the plot becomes to predictable. So then she starts, trying to be subtle, looking through her schedule and doing school work. Its more infuriating because when the girls ask pointed questions she almost always gets it right.

Diana is of course knew to the world of man and stills doesn't get everything that is happening. Sometimes she misunderstands the plot completely and they have to rewatch the episode, explaining everything that time. This makes the watching chunky and somewhat less enjoyable. Usually Zee is the one to do the explaining. No one blames Diana of course, but still.

And Karen? She just wants to see if her ship lives. She is a fangirl through and through and has to scream into a pillow every time they have to press pause. Which is three to five time throughout a single episode.

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Now for the boys,

✨✨✨✨

#1 Food Competition

Barry eats a lot. Barry is never sure how much is enough. Barry can eat a supermarket out of business if he was particularly hungry. Hal knows this. Still his pride won't accept it so every time Hal challenges Barry to eating some disgusting amount of sauce or drink.

Sometimes Hal wins.

Barry has a sensitive stomach.

But usually not.

#2 NO HOMO

Steve doesn't really care how close any if the dudes sleep to him.

Barry doesn't either. In fact its likely he'll fall asleep on someone else's sleeping bag with his feet propped on one of his teammates stomach.

Garth will probably end up trying to cuddle up to Hal or Barry or Steve or any of the boys.

Hal will most definitely fight him on that. What can you say? He's the Type A male. But he really won't bat an eye if Garth does it when Hal is already asleep.

Oliver will sing love songs to his bro's, flirting hard as hell...up untill Hal, Carter, or Steve smack him. Where he pouts and let's Garth and Barry soothe him.

Carter doesn't like being touched in general so like hell he's going to let any of the boys near him. Or hold a conversation with him. He will just sit in the corner of the room, quietly observing. (He is most definitely trapped in the home where they are hosting the sleepover).

#3 Make Him Laugh

Another challenge.

Whoever makes Carter smile or *le gasp* laugh is deemed royalty.

Usually it's Barry. Who didn't even try. He just tripped over something.

Barry wins a lot.

#4 They Order In

Hal refuses to cook on principle. Rather be fed.

Oliver doesn't like getting butter on him since it'll 'destroy' his complexion.

Garth can't cook.

Carter refuses to feed anyone. He'll cook for himself and no one else.

Barry always offers but he is a forgetful cook and they feel bad throwing out whatever abomination he makes so they force it down. Of course, they learned to order in before Barry offers.

Steve can cook but he is very precise about the recipe, double checking and stuff so being fed takes forever if they let him start.

They arm wrestle to decide who chooses what they eat so yea...Carter always picks. Steve usually pays. Barry too. Everyone else is broke as hell.

#6 They butt heads.

All the dam time.

Hal is stubborn and Oliver is prideful.

Carter refuses to cater to anyone.

Garth is immovable if he wants to be.

Steve is trying to compromise but no one listens to the voice of reason over their own shouts.

Barry eats ice cream. They'll tire themselves out eventually.

#7 They Reprimand Hal

These are things they have definitely said at least once during a sleepover.

"Goddammit Hal! She's my science partner! How am I supposed to look her in the eye now?"

"Do you value your life? Yes? Then please refrain from speaking."

"Shut! Up!"

"Who are you calling stupid, stupid!"

"I'll tell Carol."

"The hell, man? Were you born with the unexplicable urge to be an asshole?"

"Go to bed, perv!"

Ah well, imma close it off here. Very lovely prompt. Headcannons are always fun. 👍

#dc super hero girls #dc superhero girls 2019 #dc superhero girls netflix #dc superheroes #dc super hero high #barry allen #jessica cruz #diana prince #barbara gordon #kara danvers #karen beecher #carter hall #hal jordan #hal might be a player #garth #dc headcanon

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