#bruce is not annoyed. he tears up when jason does it actually. but he pretends he is annoyed so jason keeps doing it

[tmmyhug]

batman canonically has a belt pouch with lollipops so i think stealing from the lollipop pouch is a time honored robin tradition

[batfamdcposts]

Ok but. Fic where the batkids figure out that the best way to make Bruce cry isn’t through individual incidents or collective chaos (which just makes him sigh and rub his temples); they work together to do something really sweet like make a somewhat messy and overemotional card. 

Damian draws the cover as a “test to his own skills and patience,” Jason squeezes in as many literary references as he possibly can, Steph absolutely douses the thing in glitter. Bruce is so thrilled that they’re actually getting along. 

When they actually show him and the first “Dad” mention shows up, tears start rolling down his face.

Then Bruce sees the bottom of the card, where they all conspired to sign it “love, [name],” and he absolutely fucking loses it. Just. Full-on sobs.

They do something different every time, and it becomes a tradition whenever Bruce does something particularly annoying. “How long can we get B to cry for this time?” There’s a betting pool. Alfred pretends not to notice.

They feel a little bit guilty but not enough to stop.

[comatose--overdose]

hello! first of all i LOVE and adore you cat!Jason posts SO MUCH i might burst in to tears every time i read it. And i just had this little idea of if Roy was the one got turned into cat next time like that ginger long hair cat that shed every where, what would Jason do🤔🤔 anyway thank you in advance 💞

I'm eating dirt??? I'm going feral??? I'm so friggin happy you like my self indulgent shitposts omfg???

If it's Roy's turn to be a kitty, well you know how every orange cat is a himbo??? That to the max. He doesn't bother pretending to be a regular cat, but he's finally getting a breather and by God does that mean he's tossing away his brain cells for a while. The lights are on but no one's home. He's lazing about and lounging all over his Jaybird and cuddling up with Lian. Mom is giving him scritches and Dad is feeding him steak. Life is good.

He's not nearly as mischievous as Jason, but that doesn't mean he doesn't make a little trouble for Ollie just for the hell of it. Goodbye custom tailored suit, there's no getting the stain out of it after Roy knocks an entire pot of food onto it right as Ollie was about to leave for an event. In his defense, it wasn't entirely intentional, he only meant to spill a glass of water on him. An inconvenience that would go away soon enough. But, well... He isn't a small cat and he underestimated his momentum when he launched himself onto the counter, and damn, that surface was a little slippery, so BAM!! Right into the (thankfully cooled off) pot of chili. Ollie REALLY regretted how many peppers he put in that batch and giving Roy a bath afterwards wasn't fun. He felt pretty bad about it honestly and spent some time cuddling with Ollie on the couch, headbutting and nuzzling him in apology. Ollie missed the event, but he didn't really wanna go anyway.

(Jason took pictures of the incident and used them to barter for the chance to drive the batmobile. He threw in a "please Dad?" And Bruce was putty. As soon as Roy's human again, Jay's taking him for a ride.)

Roy tends to get things like shoes and bags and boxes stuck on his head and will just kind of flail around blindly until mom, dad, or Jay help him out. Connor, Mia, Artemis, and Emiko don't bother helping him, they're too busy taking pictures and recording videos to post on tiktok, that shit's gonna go viral. Thanks guys. Love you too.

Dick and Wally show up at one point and my GOD are they never going to let him live down falling into the toilet. Jay pulls him out and dries him off, and Roy makes sure to hack up a hairball right on Wally's jacket before he leaves.

He knew the squirrels were evil after they stole his hat before, but Christ, to be able to actually UNDERSTAND what they're saying?? The things they're planning?? Darkseid would quake with fear. He stays far away from them. That's a problem for human Roy later. He'll be prepared for the uprising.

He understands now, how terrible it feels to want garlic bread but not be allowed to eat garlic bread. Mia got Italian food! And ate it in front of him!! And all he could do was watch. She's more evil than the squirrels.

Tummy rubs. Oh the tummy rubs. He doesn't bother playing hard to get like Jay did. He doesn't bother with traps. He'll just walk up to someone and flop over and if you don't pet him he whines. It's the only thing (other than Lian) that can get Jason to put down his book. ...but that might be because Roy will crawl into his arms and put their noses together before rolling over and obscuring the pages. You Will Pay Attention To Me Jason. Look How Adorable And Fluffy I Am. You Cannot Resist, Jason. And truly, he can't. He's too cute. And opaque.

He's mostly annoyed that he can't tinker with his gear. He uh... He still tries but he doesn't get very far because of his lack of thumbs. Jason looks around for him for a while before finally walking into his workshop only to see him looking mournfully at his half finished projects.

"Ginger Snap? You good?"

He just meows pitifully. But some cuddles cheer him up, at least.

Jason makes sure he learns how fun the cat toys really are. While Jason enjoyed the kicker fish and catching the fairy, Roy loves tossing around the catnip mice and tugging on the little birdie attached to a bungie cord, though he's been smacked in the face by both multiple times. Connor and Mia have so many videos of it. They've been spread around the hero community. 5 million views on Tik Tok.

He curls up with Lian and keeps her warm during nap time. He has the overwhelming urge now and then to try to carry her by the scruff. He's a big cat, but he's not that big, though that doesn't stop him from trying to carry his kitten around anyway. It's an instinct thing. Jason notices and carries her around for him, following Roy's lead. Roy also steals every blanket in the house to pile on top of her and keep her comfy. It'll have to do. He doesn't put her down for a while after he turns back, satisfied he can actually hold her and carry her around again, even if he doesn't necessarily need to.

His siblings trap him under laundry baskets when he gets annoying with the zoomies. It slows him down but it doesn't stop him. It just makes him look like a turtle. They take it off him when he starts yelling. Or when Dinah does. Jason tries really hard not to laugh when he sees it the first time, but fails spectacularly. Roy gets a little huffy but can't stay mad cause well... It made his Jaybird laugh. Plus, despite laughing, Jay did move the basket, which makes him better than his traitorous little siblings.

Stick your hand into any given box and there's a high chance you're gonna come in contact with a mountain of fluff. Maybe teeth if you're a certain little brother who's taken to using a spray bottle to keep Roy off the kitchen counters.

None of their clothes will ever be free of orange cat hair. It's a curse. It's everywhere. It got in Jason's helmet??? ROY DID YOU SLEEP IN HIS HELMET???

(the answer is yes. Yes he did.)

Honestly Jason would just stick close and keep Roy company. He's glad there's someone who gets what it's like now too. This does mean Zatanna now has two people asking to turn them into cats later lmao

[Cat!Jason posts here]

[aarongoldenwrites]

During the Jewish holiday of Passover, there’s a tradition of taking a piece of matzah, breaking it in half and hiding half of it, and then having the kids look for it. This hidden piece of matzah is called the Afikomen. It’s a typically harmless bit of fun that helps break up an hours-long dinner service, but I’m just imagining how wrong it would go at stately Wayne Manor. 

It starts with Bruce, at 9 years old, asking Alfred to really try and hide the Afikomen. Alfred humors young Bruce but Bruce gets irritable and demands Alfred do a better job. So Alfred does, and by age 11 Bruce keeps trying (and failing!) to find where Alfred has hidden the damn thing. He starts trailing Alfred through the day, trying to figure out where or how Alfred is hiding the Afikomen, but he never figures it out: Alfred always has to show him where it is, and Bruce spends weeks puzzling out how Alfred must have hidden it (Alfred never reveals his secrets).  

When Bruce goes to high school and then college the tradition sort of falls by the wayside. They have the Kanes over for the Seder, and Bruce invites Harleen Quinzel over once in college when she can’t get home to her family, but by-and-large it turns into a sober affair. 

And then Dick Grayson comes home with Bruce and everything changes. 

Dick didn’t grow up Jewish - in his mind, this is some sort of training exercise, and he never really stops believing that. Alfred starts hiding the Afikomen again and says he’ll keep using the same spot until someone finds it. Dick never does. He eventually ropes Barbara into the game and she can’t find it, either. It drives both of them nuts.  

Eventually, after Dick’s gone and become Nightwing, he asks Jason if Bruce has him doing the annual matzah hunt, and Jason demands to do the thing Dick did. 

Jason literally tears through the walls looking for the Afikomen. He dies the first time without finding it. Bruce doesn’t think to ask Alfred where it was hidden, but he does catch Alfred putting the Afikomen away. 

Tim transitions in the house and is settling in when Dick mentions the Afikomen thing to him, and Tim is curious as to why Bruce hasn’t had him do the thing during the long tedious dinner. He brings over Steph one year and the two of them spend a lovely evening sleuthing through the house, unable to find wherever Alfred has hidden the Afikomen. 

They go to Bruce for hints and Bruce just shrugs (he still does not know where or how Alfred is hiding the Afikomen this time). 

This goes on for years.  

Babs brings Cass and Steph into the game. Cass silently stalks the hallways, her eyes narrowed as she stares into a darkness that offers no answers. Damien follows her and then Steph and then Tim, figuring one of them must know something. None of them do. Dick jumps from railing to chandelier and back again, finding nothing. Jason is still putting holes in the walls, mostly to annoy Bruce. Tim is using drones and they give him no answers.  

Selina, once she’s brought in, spends an evening searching but pretending not to and then, later, corners Bruce. 

“Bat,” she says, “You don’t actually know where Alfred put it, do you?” 

“Cat,” he answers, “You will not tell that to anyone else.” 

He adds a please about a minute later. She nods; they already keep all one another’s darkest secrets. 

Kate thinks this is all hilarious and gleefully says that if they can’t do next year in Jerusalem, Wayne Manor will do (she wouldn’t dream of robbing Bruce of this). They can’t go to Jerusalem without the Afikomen. 

Damien thinks she’s serious and redoubles his efforts, but still: nothing. 

(For those wondering: Bruce runs a pretty decent service and always brings out the good wine. He growls his way through Dayneu. The Specter pops in to drink the cup set aside for Eliyahu.) 

When Thomas Wayne switches realities into this one, he finds out that the Afikomen is a thing and challenges Bruce to find it. 

“The real Batman would know where the Afikomen is,” he says. 

“Uh-huh,” says Bruce. 

“The real Batman would be able to solve such a simple mystery.” 

“You’ve found it, then?”

“Obviously, son. I am better than you in every way.” 

“Neat,” Bruce says, looking his not-father in the eye. “Where is it?” 

And Bruce can see, for just a moment, the hours that Thomas has spent scouring the house. He can see the evenings spent tracking Alfred’s patterns, threatening Alfred with torture, pleading with Alfred to tell him where the Afikomen is, and Bruce knows. 

It is the first time Bruce feels a kinship with this man. 

“You can’t find it either.” 

Thomas screams in fury. 

The first year Alfred is dead, Bruce and his kids hold the Seder at the Kane residence. Joseph is terrible at leading, however, and Kate leads a chorus of “Next year in Wayne Manor!” 

About half way through the Seder, the kids all start to get up. 

“Where are you going?” Bruce asks. 

“It’s out there, father,” Damien says. 

“We have to find it,” Jason growls.  

Selina waits a moment, then stands and pulls Bruce out of his chair, the kids all looking at him expectantly. 

Bruce nods. 

“Okay,” Bruce says, “We’ll take a half-hour and see if we can find where dad left it.” Nobody mentions that Bruce called Alfred ‘dad.’ They just get to searching. 

And for one night a year, the Bat Family get together and searches for something they will never find, and that mystery brings them closer together.   

[mochegato]

I Can’t Fight This Feeling

Chapter 5

Chapter 1     Chapter 4

The Gotham air was clear and crisp and so very still.  Noises from traffic and strays rummaging through trash floated up, filling the otherwise empty air.  The peace was barely broken by the sound of two sets of feet landing on the rooftop.  They stood there awkwardly shuffling next to each other for a few minutes.  Finally something seemed to break and Red Hood removed his helmet, still not making eye contact with his companion.  Nightwing looked at him for a second before following suit and removing his domino mask.  They were far enough up that nobody could see them and if Jason wanted to talk eye to eye, Dick wasn’t going to deny him.

When Jason still hadn’t spoken a few minutes later, Dick took the initiative and spoke first.  “Thanks for helping us today.  I don’t think we could have handled it without you,” he clapped Jason on the back.

“You would have been fine.  You would have figured it out,” Jason shrugged.  “You always do.”

“Not easily.  Not without a lot of pain,” Dick corrected him.

Jason chuckled.  He gave him a skeptical look from the corner of his eye.  “First time I’ve been accused of not being a pain by you guys.”  

Dick laughed and nodded.  “It’s been a while.”  He paused and watched Jason for a few seconds.  “It felt nice… working together again.  I missed this.”

Jason looked out over Gotham.  “Yeah, wasn’t so bad.  Don’t think B was too happy though.”

Dick grimaced at the reminder.  “Bruce, he… you know he doesn’t approve of your tactics.  He isn’t sure how to handle you, what to expect.  And the bat on your chest.  It makes it seem like he approves of your methods.”

Jason nodded.  “Not going to lie.  That was the original intent.  To mess with B as much as possible.  Cause as much pain as I could.  But that’s not why I use it now.  The bat… I use it so the kids don't get scared.  So they know they can trust me.”  He sighed, his eyes flicked over to Dick quickly before returning to the skyline.  “But, I think they’ve started to figure me out.  They know who I am now, so I can change that. I can take it off, use something different.”

Dick shook his head.  “No, you keep it.  I’ll smooth it over with Bruce.”

Jason nodded absently and kept his gaze focused on the city.  He shifted anxiously for a few moments nervously twitching.  Dick eyed him curiously.  He couldn’t remember the last time Jason looked nervous.  Angry? Yes, he’s seen that a lot. Annoyed, most definitely.  He’s even seen surprise and fear.  But he didn’t think he’s seen nervous since before… well, just before.

“You know, haven't killed anyone in a long time, right?” Jason asked quietly.

Dick’s eyes widened in surprise.  He had noticed, but he wasn't sure if it was intentional or a tactic to lull enemies and Bruce, though Dick wasn’t sure if Jason considered them as separate categories, into a false sense of security.  Dick kept his eyes looking out over the city, matching Jason’s gaze.  Jason was starting to open up, just starting to show some vulnerability, and Dick would be damned if he scared him off now.

“I did notice,” he nodded slightly.  “I just didn’t know the reason behind the change.”

Jason looked down again, shifting even more nervously now.  The sounds from the cars below floated up to them, filling the silence between them while Jason collected himself and prepared for the rest of the conversation.  “I'm getting married, Dickie bird.”

Dick gasped.  His head whipped to face him. He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could even figure out what he wanted to say, Jason continued.  “And she's good, Dick.  She's really good.  She used to be a hero, but doesn't remember it.  So when you meet her, you  can't say anything.  I’m only telling you so you understand just how good and trustworthy she is and B can never know.”

Dick stared at him, mouth a gape and eyes wide open.  When?  Did Jason say ‘when’?  He had heard that right hadn’t he?  “…too good for me,” Jason continued, ignoring the effect he was having on Dick.  “But she won't let me say that in front of her.  It's almost like she actually believes it, that I deserve her.”  He chuckled ruefully and shook his head at the floor.  He looked up at Dick searchingly, like the lost little boy Dick remembered from his childhood.  

“Can you believe that? Somebody actually believing that.  She's everything we were ever supposed to be, but better.  She’s more compassionate than you.  She’s smarter than Tim.  She’s more creative than Damian.  She’s braver than me.  She’s perfect.

“And you know how when you actually meet someone that you think really highly of and actually spend time with them, you start to realize maybe they're not as amazing as you thought they were?  That they’re just human and they have issues and failures just like the rest of us?”  Dick nodded absently, still focused on Jason saying ‘when he got to meet her.’  

“She's not like that,” Jason continued.  “I met her.  I’ve spent so much time with her.  Hell, I'm living with her now. And the only thing I’ve learned is she’s even more amazing than I originally thought.  She is everything to me.  She makes me want to be better, but never asks me to be because she already thinks I am.  She’s seen me at my worst and she still thinks… she still loves me.” He looked up at Dick with tears shining in his eyes.  “Can you believe that?  Can you believe someone thinks that?”

Dick gave him a small smile and pulled him into a tight hug.  “Yeah, Little Wing.  Yeah, I can.”  His grin grew wider as he replayed the words in his head.  Jason was happy.  He was really happy.  He was loved. His baby brother was getting married. He let out an excited laugh. “You’re getting married.”  He pulled away to look in his eyes.  “Tell me you proposed in an over the top romantic way.  I’d hate to think all those classic, romantic novels were for nothing.”

Jason chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder.  “I did,” he assured him.  He settled down on the edge of the building and patted the space next to him for Dick to join him.  “Lots of flowers and candles and nostalgia.  She cried.”  He clasped his hands together in front of himself and smiled into them.

“You did too, didn’t you,” Dick teased knowingly.

Jason shot him a halfhearted glare but nodded.  “Yeah, yeah I did.”

Dick sat with him for a few minutes just basking in being able to sit next to Jason peacefully for the first time in a long time.  Finally, he looked over at Jason with a curious look.  “So, she’s the reason you stopped killing?  She asked you to stop?”

Jason shook his head then bobbed his head to the side instead.  “Yes and no.  She’s the reason, but she didn’t ask me to stop.  I stopped before she knew what I did exactly.  I stopped before she found out.  I stopped before I disappointed her.”

“Does she know…” he vaguely motioned to Jason’s costume.

“Yeah.  I told her. She knows everything.  She isn’t thrilled about a lot of it… almost any of it, but she never left me.  So… she knows who you guys are too.”  He grinned at the memory.  “She said the butts definitely don’t match.  Batman has padding.”  He pursed his lips in a pretend annoyed face.  “She said Nightwing’s matches though.  She wants to know your workout.”

Dick barked out a laugh loud enough for it to echo down the street.  Jason narrowed his eyes at him and pointed at him warningly.  “Yeah, so keep your ass away from my fiancé.”

Dick laughed louder and threw his arm around Jason’s shoulders and pulled him into a side hug.  “I’ll make sure to only face toward her at all times when we meet.  No turning around.”  He nodded in mock seriousness.

Jason shoved him away playfully and groaned.  “Don’t make me regret this, Dickwad.”

Dick laughed again.  He grinned over at Jason.  He’d missed this.  He’d missed this connection, the banter, the brotherly teasing.  He’d missed Jason.  “So… has she met anyone else?  In the family, I mean.”

Jason gave him a mischievous grin.  “Oh, she’s met all of you, you just didn’t know who she was.”  Dick looked at him questioningly, his mind started racing through all the women they’d met for the first time in the last year. Having had two galas in that time frame and a launch party and quite a few charity events didn’t help narrow down the possibilities.  “She won’t be a new face to you.  But, Alfred knows who she is.  He’s met her. He’s the only one that knows about us. Alfred loves her.”  He grinned again remembering them together.  His eyes lit up at the memory.  “They bake together.  He taught her how to shoot a shotgun.”

Dick barked out another laugh.  “No way! He won’t even teach us.”

Jason smiled pointedly at him.  “Bruce won’t let him.  But, Bruce doesn’t know about her and he doesn’t control what happens outside of his manor.”  After a few minutes he looked down and furrowed his brow in thought.  “She really likes you guys.  I think she and Tim would be good friends if… if I… if it wasn’t for me.  That’s one of the reasons… Family is so important to her and I want to have one with her someday.  So I thought… I thought maybe I should start with the one I already have.”

Dick nodded.  “It sounds like she’s had a big impact on you.”

Jason smiled back and stood up.  “She has. So, dinner?  Tomorrow?”

Dick stood up next to him and gave him another hug.  “Definitely.  Just let me know where and what time.  I’ll be there.”

“And Dick?”  Dick turned back to him questioningly.  “I don’t… I’m not ready for anyone else to know yet.”

Dick nodded in understanding.  “They won’t find out from me.  See you tomorrow, Jaybird.  Can’t wait to meet your fiancé.”

<><><><><> 

“You’re back earlier than you expected,” Marinette noted with a smile as she looked up from her sewing.  “Is that good or bad?  Quiet patrol?”

“Yeah.” Jason answered absently.  He ripped off his helmet and jacket.  He threw them both on the chair as he made his way over to Marinette. She squeaked as he picked her up and placed her in his lap.  He buried his head in her neck.  “Hey, Pixie.”

Marinette immediately dropped her fabric and wrapped her arms around Jason. She slowly stroked his back and gently scratched his head in an attempt to comfort him.  She nuzzled into his hair.  “Hey. Are you okay?  What happened?”

“It was fine.  I’m okay,” he assured her, hugging her a little tighter.  “I just ran into Dick tonight.”

She sucked in a breath and tightened her arms around him.  “Oh?” she tried to force her voice to stay casual despite the way her heart was racing.

“Yeah.”

Marinette waited a few minutes before continuing on.  “And how did that go?”

Jason pulled away from her so he could see her face.  He brushed some hair over her shoulder and settled his arm back around her before he spoke again.  “It went well actually.  He noticed that I changed.  He’s really excited to meet you.”

“Oh? You mentioned me?” she asked carefully. She knew how he felt about sharing any part of his life with is family.  Hell, she knew how he felt about his family in general so if he was sharing about her, it must have gone really, really well.

“Yeah… and I… um… invited him to dinner tomorrow, if that’s okay with you.”

Marinette’s heart stopped for a second.  He invited his brother to dinner.  He invited his brother back into his life.  This was… this was huge.  “I’m okay with it.  How do you feel about it?  Are you okay with him coming here?”

Jason settled his chin on her shoulder.  “I’m nervous… but excited.  I’m looking forward to it... I think.  I just… I don’t want to be a disappointment.”

Marinette pulled away from him just far enough to cup his face gently.  “The only one disappointed in you, is you. And you are far too hard on yourself.  You don’t deserve the way you treat yourself.”

“And B,” he added.

“Fuck Bruce,” she grunted before pausing.  “Not in a sexual way, obviously.”

Jason huffed out a laugh.  “Obviously.”

She stroked his cheeks gently.  “Parents make mistakes.  They have flaws and foibles just like everyone else.  You don’t become a parent and suddenly you’re perfect.  All the same flaws and foibles you had before are still there, just amplified by stress and fear of making a mistake.  But those aren’t yours to take on.  You aren’t responsible for his flaws.”

Jason chuckled, a mischievous glint in his eyes.  “Foibles, huh?”  He waggled his eyebrows.  “Oh yeah, talk literary analysis to me, baby.  Break down those characters for me.”

Marinette pushed his face away with a groan.  “Nerd.”  He laughed and hugged her closer.  Marinette looked back up at him adoringly and smirked.  “Just focus on the chaos when he finds out it’s me.”

Jason grinned back at her.  “He’s going to be so annoyed.  You’ve been working with them for months and he never knew.”  He chuckled at the thought.  “It’s going to be brilliant.”

Marinette laughed along with him.  “You should make sure to take a picture.”

Jason turned back to look at her.  His smile turned loving.  “You’re brilliant.”

Marinette rolled her eyes.  “Yeah, sure.”

“You are.”  He moved his head closer to hers.  “You’re brilliant” He kissed her forehead.  “…and beautiful.”  He kissed her cheek.  “…and brave.” He kissed her other cheek.  “…and… um… benevolent.”  He kissed her jaw.  “… and…”

She grinned at him and moved her lips until they were just a few centimeters from his.  “Run out of attributes already?”  She looked down at his lips and back up to his eyes.  “Shame.”  She stood up and walked out of the room with a flirty glance over her shoulder.

“Hey!” he called after her.  “I wasn’t done.  That was just the B’s.”  He grinned as he watched her swish her hips as she walked down the hallway.  “Come back here and let me love you, woman!” He jumped over the back of the couch and raced down the hallway after her.

End

Tags:

@jasonette-july-event @jayjayspixiepop @aespades @how-to-function-properly @pawsitivelymiraculous @maribatserver @toodaloo-kangaroo

[phis-corner]

How about #34 and #9 on the fluff/angst list?Ship is yours to decide

34- “Please don’t do this.” 9- “You meant too much to me.” | Platonic Timari

Note: reverse robins au, where Tim was the one captured by Joker instead, choosing to take his own life instead of break under torture. Marinette, having given up LB post Hawkmoth’s defeat, chooses to take up her dead brother’s mantle after seeing Bruce spiral. She is also Bruce’s biological child in this au.

I got reaaaally into reverse robins, and this is the result. 

TW: suicide mention

Her father and Alfred are being increasingly shifty about the Red Hood, abruptly stopping conversations when she enters the room and changing the subject when she brings up the mysterious man who’s been picking off the corrupted people in this city.

So she makes a plan to look into it in her own time, carefully watching and observing to find a free time slot, and seizes the opportunity.

Dad is at a WE meeting because Lucius threatened him with no gadgets for a month if he didn’t show again, Alfred is asleep (because he is actually human, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary), and Damian is in Bludhaven with Jon, both working their respective day jobs as an officer in the BPD and a journalist.

Marinette silently logs into the Batcomputer, bypassing the security on Hood’s file with a little help from Oracle (hey, Steph was being kept out of the dark too, and they were both curious.)

She reads the basic information, and scrolls down to the DNA section.

Her blood runs cold when she sees the information listed there, because how can it be a match?

He’s dead.

Dead.

Captured by the Joker, tortured near the breaking point, before taking his own life with a shard of broken glass to preserve their secrets.

She watched them lower his body into the ground. Watched as his friends and family stood there, under the clear blue sky, which seemed too pretty for such a terrible day.

Watched as his teammates broke down around his grave, as Bruce’s face crumpled when everyone else is gone.

Watched Damian, two weeks later, finally show up and leave a single purple hyacinth, kneeling in front of the headstone and tracing the letter with a single finger, head bowed, before leaving. 

She searched up the meaning of the flower. I am sorry, please forgive me.

She mourned him.

Mourned a brother, so kind and intelligent, who never really knew how much he meant to all of them.

She has her own suspicions about how he was captured in the first place, but pointing fingers would do more harm than good.

Her father spiraled again, after he died.

She didn’t want to do it. Didn’t want to introduce a new Robin, and slowly let the world forget about the second. Robin should have died with Tim.

But Batman will not stop, and as long as he keeps fighting, he’ll need a Robin to hold him back.

Marinette dons the costume, two months after they bury him, and tries to forget that this uniform, his spare, still smells like him.

She’s wearing a dead boy’s clothes.

Alfred helps her make a new one after that first night.

Eventually, he does accept her as Robin. He trains her harder than he did both Damian and Tim.

She pushes through.

And now, four years later, there’s evidence proclaiming that he’s alive.

Alive, and on a killing spree, weeding out Gotham’s corrupt at the very center, strategically taking people out to topple the system.

A laugh escapes her, even as her shoulders shake with tears, because the methods are so familiar, so Tim, that she doesn’t know how she didn’t notice earlier.

She asks Jason to cover for her that night. 

He agrees without any questions, seeing the serious look on her face. Marinette has never been more grateful for the boy she and Dad found stealing the tires of the Batmobile.

After Batman leaves (Robin is benched until Red Hood is taken care of, whatever that means), and she pretends to go to bed, she opens her closet and pushes against the hidden panel in the back wall, revealing a spare uniform.

Robin escapes out her window, even though she knows that Alfred will have been alerted by the window opening.

Too bad for them, though, because she removed all the trackers except the emergency beacon, which can only be activated from her side.

The Red Hood is elusive, but she knows his tricks. She keeps up with him as he turns corner after corner, jumps from building to building, until he stops on the roof of Wayne Enterprises.

“Robin.” He says, helmet filtering out any signs that it’s her brother underneath. “But you’re not really Robin, are you? You’re wearing a dead boy’s clothes.”

She can’t help it, she flinches at how casually he speaks of his own death.

“Tim.” She tugs at the uniform, which has never fit right, despite it being tailored to her exact measurements. “What happened to you?”

“What happened? I died, that’s what happened.” The helmet comes off with a click and a hiss of air, and then it’s just her brother, older, eyes violent green, face twisted into a sneer. “I went off to follow the lead on the Joker myself, since Big Bird shut the door in my face and told me it wouldn’t amount to anything, got myself captured, and ended my own life to preserve their secrets. But you should know all of that, Replacement.”

The nickname is like a dagger to the heart. “I never wanted to replace you, the same way you didn’t want to replace Damian.” She says steadily, staring straight into his eyes even as her heart skitters frantically. “I was keeping Robin’s legacy alive.”

“Robin should have died with me.” 

“You know as much as I do that Batman needs a Robin, and Batman would not stop fighting as long as he lives.” She replies. “I never wanted to be Robin, Tim. It’s been four years, and it still feels like it doesn’t fit. But there was nobody else to do it, no one else to bring him out of that spiral.”

Tim is silent for a moment, so she continues.

“Come home, Tim. Please. We’ve all missed you so much. Dad isn’t the same anymore. No one is. We can be a family again.”

“Don’t you see, Marinette? I was never meant to be Robin, either. I was just that one annoying kid who wouldn’t leave Bruce alone, the one who blackmailed him into letting a second Robin out onto the streets. Even after I moved in, I was just that one kid who never really belonged, the outsider trying to insert himself into a family, pretending that Bruce cared for me as much as he did his biological children. Bruce only allowed me to stay in the Manor because I knew his secret. Damian made no effort to hide his disgust around me. You- you were the only one in that house who treated me like an equal.”

He draws a gun and points it at her, and she hears the safety click off. “But you’re Robin. He shouldn’t have made another child Robin. He should have said no, let the legacy die.”

“Tim,” She pleads. “Please don’t do this.”

Something in his eyes waver for a moment, fading to blue, before they harden into acid green again. “You meant too much to me. Let’s see if you mean enough to Batman too, enough for him to arrive on time.”

The gun goes off with a bang, and she feels the bullet enter through a crack in her armor, burying itself in her torso.  The pain is nothing new, but overwhelming all the same as her entire body seems to be on fire.

The last thing she does before everything goes black is calibrate the beacon to send the signal to Nightwing only, before smashing the button with all her remaining strength.

I hope Flamebird gets them here on time.

There are two reasons why she chooses to send it to Nightwing, and Nightwing only. One being because Damian doesn’t know that Tim is alive, and despite everything, he deserves to.

The other?

She doesn’t trust her father to make it.

permanent tags

@wannajointhecrabcult @miraculous-simmer7 @certainmuffinbagelcalzone @fantasyislive @chocolateherringtacofan @junarvion @susiej1118 @aestheticnpoetic @toodaloo-kangaroo @ladybug-182 @itsmeevie01 @g-arya @souleateralicestein @nightstarblue @i-is-mysterious @moonystars14 @vixen-uchiha @the-flapdoodle-noodle @labschaos @nathleigh @jalaluvsu @kaithehero @iamablinkmarvelarmy

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[batarella]

I Don’t Hate You - Part 5 (Jason Todd x Reader)

will i ever find true love? with standards like this? will i ever find someone who’ll quench my thirst like jaybaby does?

nah.

(If you haven’t already noticed, since the reader is inspired by Jade West, ALL the songs in her singing scenes come from the covers by the iconic Liz Gillies! This one’s scene is inspired by Liz’s live story right here)

WORD: 6908 WARNINGS: EVEN MORE FLUFF BWAHAHAHAHA

Masterlist

I DON’T HATE YOU - MASTERLIST

-----

Jason: ‘don’t do it.’

Jerry the science teacher was starting to catch on to him with Jason’s eyes darting to his crotch for no reason and his hand under the desk, but Jason managed to fool him by pulling out his notebook right where his phone was and pretended to take notes with his free hand. It was getting harder to hide it though, especially when he’d crack into a wide grin in the middle of a boring discussion all of a sudden. He looked like an idiot.

Y/N: ‘I’ll fucking do it.’

Jason: ‘she’ss a teaacher.’

Y/N: ‘that hasn’t stopped me before.’

Jason was writing scribbles onto his notebook at that point, lingering his eyes on the teacher for as long as he could while his other hand blindly texted barely readable typos. How were you able to text so well?

You sent another text before he could respond. ‘I’m totally doing it.’

Jason: ‘I’m sure she wasd looookin behind yuu’

Y/N: ‘no. she was definitely looking at me. Who else would she look at when she’s talking about baby murderers.’

Jason: ‘oh.’

Jason really wanted to laugh now. He double texted.

Jason: ‘I get it now.’

Y/N: ‘im not a fucking serial killer.’

Three dots floating in a bubble followed after.

Y/N: ‘yet.’

Jason kept his eyes on the board. Thankfully, this was chemistry. Bruce taught him more about that subject than Jerry ever will. He didn’t need to listen.

Y/N: ‘it’s just her divorce.’

Jason: ‘you have got to stop asking facultyyyt memberd how their divorce is going.’

Y/N: ‘why not’

Jerry definitely caught him by now. His glances at him included unbothered shakings of his head and flattened lips. But he didn’t say anything and went on with the discussion. He probably didn’t bother. Jason would end up with the highest test score no matter what he was doing in his desk. And the man had large bags under his eyes that screamed ‘I really don’t give a fuck about any of you’ to his students.

Jason: ‘you’re worse than a serial killer.’

You: ‘Im no Amelia Dyer.’

Jason: ‘remind me to look her up.’

You: ‘she killed 400 babies and had a infant farm for 20 years before she got caught.’

Jason: ‘sounds like something you’d do’

Y/N: ‘I don’t kill babies. I just scare them.’

Jason: ‘that’s the first step right there.’

You sent a middle finger and it made him silently cackle. Somehow, your sense of humor through came off a lot less dark, maybe because you didn’t sound like you were serious, when in actuality, you probably were. It didn’t matter though. He was smiling like a crazy person in the middle of a discussion about balancing equations.

Jason placed his phone back into his pocket and waited for the bell to ring so he could go meet you at the library for the fifth week since you started. You were halfway through your sentence. He never thought he’d get there. Somehow, he wasn’t exactly looking forward to the end of it as he thought he would.

Just yesterday, he told himself it was wrong to enjoy watching you scream at the stoners hiding behind the encyclopedia sections knowing no one would go in there at all. You were, quite literally, kicking them out of the library while Ms. Peterson backed you up like a shrieking duo. One of them cried while you charged at him, looking like you were about to tear his hair out and you threatening to stick his blunt up his earhole.

It went from something so obnoxious to something so amusing to watch. Perhaps the wrong was in him.

Jason listened to the teacher for the last ten minutes of the class, then the bell rung and everyone started for the exit. He picked up his bag, then took out his phone to tell you he was on his way.

“Texting in class now, Todd?”

He wanted to throw his bag, or anything he had on his hands really, to that source of that voice. Brandon. Fucking Brandon. With his still throbbing new nose and football varsity jacket over his shoulders that made him look even more loathsome than he already does. He came up to Jason and stood him off.

“Every single day for the past week, you text in class.” Brandon brought his leg up to rest on a chair beside Jason. “What? You think you’re so much smarter than everyone now?”

“I’m smarter than you, that’s for sure. But that’s not really much to brag about.”

“I can tell on you, you know. How’d your GPA like that?”

“Didn’t know you were a dirty snitch, Brandon.”

“Who you texting?” he raised his arms up to intimidate him. “That psycho bitch you hang out with all the time?”

Bruce told him to keep his rage in check even more so in class than he barely does in patrols, but at that moment, in a dizzying blur, Jason skillfully pushed Brandon against the wall and pulled his fist behind him without much care for the onlooking crowd.

“Want a new nose again, jackass?”

“Fuck you-“

“ALRIGHT, ENOUGH. STEP AWAY FROM HIS NOSE.”

Jerry. Poor Jerry. The tired teacher grabbed onto Jason’s shoulder and pulled him away from the linebacker. Jason backed down, lowering his arm, then kept his glare on him while he puffed up his jacket.

“Both of you. Get out of here. Todd, you don’t want me to send you to the VP’s office again before I call your father. Everyone walk away. Yes, everyone. Walk on. Get on with your business.”

He kept his head craned down while Jerry screamed at anyone sparing him a look. Jason shoved his bag over his back and stormed out of the room. Slamming the door, he walked to the library and found an empty table waiting for him with a cart full of books at the side. Ms. Peterson had her hand on her hip, snarling at him when he took the seat. “Get to these by today, boy.”

He ignored her and sat down, leaning forward to take yet another nap with his arms folded under his head.

All it takes is one triggering moment. One thug to taunt him. One word from the Joker. One lecture from Bruce. One threat to his humanity. And now his head’s all boiled up and all he wanted to do was block out the rest of the world and take a nap. And even then, he knew he wouldn’t wake up feeling any better.

“Jason,” Bruce told him a five weeks ago, the first day of his library sentence. “Anything going on in school you should tell me about?”

“Nothing. What makes you think that?”

“You caused trouble,” he said. “You picked a fight.”

“I’m fine. I’m not letting it affect my grades.”

“This isn’t about your grades. You can't let your business from the field affect you and hurt innocent people.”

“I’m not-“

“The next time the principal calls me with you starting another fight-“

“You’ll what? Take away my phone privileges?”

“I’m taking away your suit.”

He stormed out of that room before he could say anything more. Bruce never brought it up again, but Jason knew he was going to keep his word no matter what.

Jason didn’t even notice when you took the seat across of him with that prolonged, annoyed grunt that most often came with an eye roll. You placed your bag to your side and poked at his arm.

“Ey. You gotta help me with this.”

He didn’t look up when you pulled out your notes and your textbook. “WAKE UP.”

You repeatedly patted his shoulder until he let out a large enough grunt to make him crane his head up, eye squinting at you and his black hair covering his eyes. He really needed a haircut.

“What do you want now?”

“You weren’t this grumpy this morning.” You smirked. “I have to make a lit paper.”

“Why can't you do it yourself?”

“’Cuz you're the expert here. And I need that A.”

He buried his face back into his arms. “I’m not in the mood, Y/N.”

“Come on,” you said. Your voice prolonged the last syllable and you started to sound more annoying. “Don’t be a baby.”

“Just do it and ask me questions or some shit.”

“But I need your help-“

“And by the end of this, we’re at each other’s throats. I really don’t have the time for that now.”

You backed up, scoffing. “’Cuz you have something so much better to do?”

“Yeah,” he snarled. “Like taking a nap.”

He didn’t even glance at you taken aback and ignored you cursing under your breath. “Fine. Eat a dick, asshole.”

You took your stuff and drowned them into your bag, shuffling out of the table. A girl came up to you with a voice lower than a whistle. “Uhm, excuse me-“

“NO!” you screeched, then headed for the next table before she could ask anything more. The poor girl was trembling on her knees by the time you found an empty seat and pour out everything in your bag. His head was a mess, and the silence was the first step to actually making him clear his grime-covered mind. Jason kept shutting his eyes closed and focused on the blunt colors that appeared before his eyes in the shape of spirals.

For half an hour, he kept at his nap, falling asleep for a good ten minutes before he awoke to the sound of your screaming at a guy too stupid to ask you if the seat next to you was free while you were fumbling with your assignment. Jason groaned into his arm, feeling his head swell and ache and already knowing Bruce was waiting for him at home with yet another long, agonizing lecture on picking fights he never wanted in the first place. His eyes started to hurt from the force he used to shut them close, and everything in his mind was as hot as fire.

Leaning back against the chair, he knew this was going to bite him in the ass, sooner or later.

And one of the very very very few reasons he got to smile or even laugh all day was now violently taking notes while reading a book with the most fed up, furious expression on her face. He pulled out his bag, taking a water bottle and finishing its contents down his throat before he shot up and pushed his chair back.

Jason stood in front of your desk, his hand on the back of the chair across of you and waited for you to take notice of him. Your glare was terrifying. And it actually made him want to step back for once. But he stood his ground and sighed. “Can I help?”

“Get out of here.”

“I can help you.”

“I don’t need an asswipe telling me off.”

He took the chair despite you and you stared at your notebook, still with your eyebrows arched way up.

“Sorry.”

You ignored him and kept with your notes. He peered over, his elbows on the table, and you practically hissed at him when he got too close. Raising his hands up to surrender, he snarled at him before you continued your work.

“How many of reports have you done so far?”

You didn’t look like you were going to respond, and you kept writing like he wasn’t there in front of you at all. Jason couldn’t help but smile seeing you so angry and focused, knowing you were trying your best to block him out and failing miserably when he could see your eyebrow twitch and your eyes darting at him every few seconds.

Squirming his hand to you, his finger tugged on your gray sweater and scratched you like you had an itch. You pursed your lips and pulled your fist out so you looked like you were about to punch him, but he playfully held your hand and backed off. That was when he was fully smiling by now. He could block out all other thoughts easily when it was so fun to bug you.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and you finally looked up to his eyes. “Come on. Let me help.”

You licked the outside of your teeth and let out a long sigh that came with your usual grunt. Knowing you’d hate and love it at the same time, he ruffled your hair and you charged at him, almost stabbing him with your pen.

You finally managed to smile, then you gave in and handed him your notebook.

“The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe,” you said. “What do you think?”

He leaned over the table, glancing at you, then taking the time to read your notes on what you understood from the passage. “This is good.”

“I’ve read the whole book like ten times by now.”

That made his chest feel just a bit warmer. “Really?”

“Yeah,” you took out the collection book he gave you. “Ms. Peterson has no idea. I’m supposed to have four weeks-worth of penalties because of this.”

Knowing he gave you something, and you happened to like it so much that you wanted it to be your report for literature class, and with you writing a decent paper about it, with you reading it over and over, it instantly became one of the things he won't easily forget.

He never grinned so much in a while, probably since a week ago in the gym. Jason watched you take back your notebook, continuing to write as he gazed too long at your parted lips. Feeling his flesh burn, he looked away.

“I won't bite you if you change anything, you know.” you said, your eyes keeping on your notes. “Go nuts.”

You tore off the page and handed it over to Jason, then you gave him a pen. Smiling at you, he took it, then started to circling words he thought you should change and other ideas he had of his own. A moment of silence, you didn’t scream anything at him when you he gave you the corrections. You graciously nodded, then started rewriting them onto a separate page. Your hair was falling to your cheeks, and it touched your skin so delicately and soft. Pretty.

So pretty.

He was gawking. He was so gawking. You’ll never let him hear the end of it. He shook his head and pretended he wasn’t just resting his chin on his hand like a teenage girl.

The thought of you reading Poe’s works still hadn’t left his mind. It wasn’t even a complete collection. There were so many more stories out there, most just on the internet. Maybe tonight, he could send some to you and you might enjoy them, too.

Or, maybe not. Patrol. Bruce has been telling him not to text so much while he was out supposedly beating criminals. But he couldn’t help it.

There was just something about making you happy, or even just smile or let out a bit of a laugh that made him feel a whip of a breezy rush. You were often sad when you were alone, and whatever you felt at school, it was so much worse at home. Everyday, you told him bits more of how it was like with your parents.

He saw so much of himself in you. You were eerily similar. Too similar. The hidden rage, the angst kept within. Maybe that was why he liked making you laugh so much.

“So what story did you like most?”

You grinned. “I’m not entirely sure. The Black Cat’s definitely up there. I don’t know. I really like all of them.”

“I’ve read that. The Black Cat,” he said, leaning back. “What makes you like it so much?”

“I like the idea of a cat being the whole reason his life goes downhill, kills his wife, and eventually gets caught. Like his whole life was being dictated by his pet.”

“That’s dark.”

“I know,” you smirked. “That’s why I like it so much.”

He had his arms crossed over on the table to cover his chest. “You becoming a serial killer seems more possible now.”

“Fuck you,” you said, sticking your tongue out.  

It was almost 4:30. He didn’t even notice the clock. You and Jason had the most civil conversation, not an insult or a mean comment on anything other than a playful back and forth. You closed your notes, then your book, then you stretched out your arms.

“Ms. Peterson’s gonna be pissed. We haven’t done any work today at all.”

“Just put the cart behind that shelf over there. We’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

He laughed, and you went with him as he stood up and did exactly so. “I can take you home today. But we have to leave now. Bruce wants me to go with him on this… thing.”

“Nah.” You pulled on your sweater as you headed out the door. “I’ll stay behind. Dad’s usually awake at this time. He won't be asleep until like, an hour from now.”

Jason respectfully understood, and you watched him as he walked out through the halls, turning at the corner.

He pulled out his phone. There was a text from Bruce.

‘You coming tonight?’

He didn’t bother to respond when he was already on his way home. Yesterday, Penguin and Two Face both had their own bank robberies at opposite ends of town. He repeatedly told Bruce he could handle Cobblepot on his own, but he refused and demanded he go with him while they take them out one by one.

Jason was reluctant of course, and it wasn’t like he had a choice. But he did a great job at finishing off Two Face’s crew that it didn’t take long for them to go all the way to the other bank and catch Penguin before they even got to half the bank’s vaults. Bruce told him he had the option to go with him to patrol tonight or not, but if he were, he had to come home early and not laze around in school like he often did.

Tonight, he chose to go to patrol. He thought he needed an outlet and imagine Brandon’s face on the heads of drug dealers. The thought alone made him grin.

Jason walked out the exit and reached for his keys.

Except he totally forgot he wasn’t even wearing his bag until he’d walked to his motorcycle. Groaning as he walked back into the school’s entrance, he sprinted for the library, catching the door open just as Ms. Peterson was about to walk out with a deathly glare on her face at him. Jason ran for his bag, took it, then gave Ms. P a fun little hug before walking back out.

He took out his phone, expecting a text from you, but there was nothing. So he asked you where you were before heading back out.

Out into the now empty halls, Jason walked pass the lockers, the dark classrooms, the one bright light at the center, he kept his hands in his pockets and sighed.

Piano keys.

Piano keys?

Playing. Simple chords played out but had a familiar tune he couldn’t get out from the back of his mind.

And singing.

A voice he’s only heard so often, yet he could pick out from a million others.

The music room was one he didn’t go in too often, but the sound came from there. The door wasn’t closed, and slowly, he peered it open.

A beam so little from the window, yet he could see how your back was so straight up, how your lean fingers rested gracefully onto the keys, playing the chords in perfectly strewn out notes that he could just tell you’ve been at this for quite some time. From an angle slightly to the left, you couldn’t see him, but he could see a bit of your face, the side of it, how your eyelids looked closed looking down at your own fingers.

Then you sang.

 I've seen the world, done it all

Had my cake now

Diamonds, brilliant, in Bel-Air now

Hot summer nights, mid July

When you and I were forever wild

The crazy days, city lights

The way you'd play with me like a child

Will you still love me

When I'm no longer young and beautiful?

Will you still love me

When I've got nothing but my aching soul?

I know you will, I know you will

I know that you will

Will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful?

 You…

You…

Yeah.

You were beautiful.

So beautiful…

 Will you still love me

When I'm no longer young and beautiful?

 You just… kept going.

And there was nothing, not ever, in the entire length of his existence, of his years at the streets, of his few years as Robin, of his time at either a ratty apartment or a manor, of all the people he’s met, of any song that he’s heard.

Nothing. Nothing compared to your voice. Nothing compared to you.

 Hot summer days, rock and roll

The way you play for me at your show

And all the ways, I got to know

Your pretty face and electric soul

 Breathy, low, and everything he’s kept to remember. His chest never felt so light, yet his heart was beating out of his ribcage. His bag was almost dropped down his shoulder, his mouth was parted, his face deeply flushed. Even when you played the wrong note, cursed, then went on just as perfectly as you ever could, he couldn’t tear his eyes off of you.

His eyes were so relaxed on you, and nothing, not even his trembling shoulders could make him look away.

You reached the higher notes with a perfect falsetto, then your voice echoed out even with the room as small as a stuffy classroom. His eyebrows were up to his forehead and he didn’t know if he was still breathing, when he was standing so still, frozen like a block of ice.

You had so much deepness and soul, and you were often whispering the words, but then your voice would go up in a perfect blend.

Perfect. That was all he could think of. Perfect.

His bag was on the floor now, the only thing keeping it up was a single finger.

Lana Del Ray. You sung it better than her. In his most humble, honest, totally not biased opinion. Shit, he even felt like he wanted to cry. His chest was heaving and his face never burned up so much, at almost the end of the song, he finally had it in him to move from his place and throw himself back against a wall.

Breathe. Fucking breathe.

 Will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful?

Will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful?

Will you still love me when I'm not young and beautiful?

 That last note, you breathed it out so nicely, it went straight into his soul, biting his lip, then closing his eyes.

He smiled like the biggest fucking idiot for the nth time that very day.

Jason looked like a fourteen year old girl cooing over a boyband. He laid his head against the wall, staring at the ceiling, hearing you sing vocal runs and pressing randomly at the piano. And he couldn’t stop showing his teeth, his face was hurting like a bitch, but fuck.

FUCK.

He’s never felt anything like this. Like his head was lighter than the air around him, lighter than the softness of your falsetto. He was still catching his breath and grinning above him, then at the ground, then back at the wall. It wasn’t on what he stared at. Your voice ringing in his ears, like angels were flying around playing their little harps over his head, like the sun was shining so brightly against him that he couldn’t see even a smidge of darkness anywhere in the world. How your face scrunched up, how your eyebrows raised, how you’d close your eyes and feel the song as it flew out your lips.

He rubbed on his chin and mouth to ease his aching muscles. Jason kept with his breathing, the fluttering in his chest. Everything. Everything.

Jason needed to wash his face with ice cold water at this point, gathering enough courage, he looked back into the room.

You were staring back at him.

-----

You didn’t look mad.

Though you definitely, most probably should.

You didn’t even notice he was there until the end of the song when he hit the wall with his back. Idiot must’ve thought you wouldn’t hear him.

But you weren’t mad. Not at all. Not from the way he was looking at you. Not when he was staring at you in a way no one ever had in your whole life. Not when you could see how his lips were parted and how his chest was visibly rising and how cute his face was all embarrassed and shit.

You could only smile.

Standing from the piano and grabbing your bag, you walked over to him. Jason gulped down and backed up against the wall with you standing right in front of him.

And after five weeks of knowing him,

Jason Todd finally looked like he was scared shitless of you.

But you didn’t want him to be scared of you. Not anymore. It just doesn’t seem like something you wanted anymore.

“You heard all that, huh?”

Jason was an absolute mess. He cleared his throat three times and hesitantly nodded, keeping his head to the ground.

“I-I’m uh,” he mumbled. “Sorry.”

You shook your head. “Don’t be.”

He didn’t look like he had another answer. Jason scratched the back of his head. “Uhm-“

“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

You walked first, but looked back to see if he followed. Jason rushed to your side, making sure his blush wasn’t so evident even though it clearly was. You were better at hiding your own embarrassment, so you nudged his shoulder.

Jason laughed out loud and looked at you the same way he looked at the stars. You looked back at him the same way.

“You gonna take me home?”

He managed to form a sentence. “I thought you wanted to stay longer.”

You shrugged. “I guess I can take it.”

When you stepped out the gate, Jason walked you over to his bike and handed you his second helmet. Playfully, you hit the side of his and chuckled when you sat behind him, clutching onto his waist. You felt him tense, but he eventually relaxed and you leaned in to him.

You leaned your head on his back this time. You never did that before. Your clutch was tighter, your eyes closed. If it were anyone, it could pass for simply wanting to be more secure. But that day you just wanted to hold someone you actually didn’t mind being with before you’d get home and all this would end in an abrupt stop.

After a long while, you still couldn’t smell smoke emissions from cars or even hear the horns or bells or shouts from all the city folk near your apartment. Looking up then around you with the sun still shining brightly even at this time of day, you were in the countryside. Away from the city.

“WHERE ARE WE GOING?”

“YOU’LL SEE.”

You could smell cow dung, and the earthy scent of grass you should be more used to than you actually are. The road ahead of you was wide and long, and the air was so much lighter than it was at home. You closed your eyes, this time feeling the wind against your skin.

Jason was smiling through his helmet. Further down the road, you held onto him. “I THOUGHT YOU HAD SOMEWHERE TO GO TONIGHT.”

“I TEXTED BRUCE. I’M NOT GOING WITH HIM. JUST HOLD ON.”

You smiled and looked on when he made a turn into a forest with tall trees getting taller as you rode further down. There were no people around you. Not even houses. You leaned into his shoulder and rested your chin on top.

Jason started to slow down when you reached deeper into the trees, finally stopping his bike by the curb. The air was cold, and you wrapped your sweater tighter around your body after you’ve removed your helmet. “Where are we?”

“Come on.”

Jason walked towards the trees, where there was a little cement pathway now covered in weeds and grass growing out of its cracks. You had trouble making your way through, especially when your boots had a bit of a heel in them, then you walked to Jason’s side as it became clearer what you were there for.

An old, abandoned house. Something out of the dozens of horror movies you’ve saved in your laptop.

“Dude…”

“You like?”

It was small, but its picket fence and flaking white wooden walls just screamed fifties to you, with a triangular roof, two windows on the second level, a half-circle glass wall on the right side of the first floor, and a door so rickety and old, colored in an earthly brown that had mixed in with the debris and rot. Vines were all over its porch, and there was even a rocking chair sitting right outside by the entryway, also covered in vines. Outside of the house was an old pickup truck that had rusted beyond use, sinking into the ground like it was pulled by the earth.

“How’d you know I always wanted to go urban exploring?”

“I just figured.” Jason smiled. “Come on. We can go inside.”

“Are you sure?” you eagerly started for the door. “It won't break?”

“I’ve been here once. The stairs are broken so we can't go to the second floor. Just be careful.”

Pulling the unlocked door open, and Jason right behind you, you flashed him a smile before stepping inside.

It was seriously from the horror movies you’ve watched over and over. The first thing that greeted you was a nice little foyer, with a table in the middle and a vase that used to house flowers for sure. Then behind it was the broken staircase Jason mentioned. It was made entirely out of wood, and it had fallen in so bad that it was basically a wall by now. So much of the wood was on the ground, and there were lots of papers, books, clothes, and several others cluttering all around the floor. You had to walk all over them.

There were two entry ways at the sides of the foyer. One leading to the living room, and one to the dining room and kitchen. Everything further down had been blocked out by wooden planks and even more clutter. The living room was beautiful with the glass walls that formed a half circle and a petite grand piano standing in the middle. Its cover was up, and its keys had completely gone. There was still a bit of light coming in to the windows, which shone on the room so nicely, it was perfect.

The couches were completely ruined, and you wouldn’t dare sit on it. At the center of the room, though, which caught your eye the most, was a beautiful, broken chandelier that had fallen to the ground, which was why there was so much broken glass around the floor.

At the other side, the dining room was a bit more modest. A table seating six was still intact, but the chairs were either toppled over to the ground or broken in half. Even more clutter was on the table. Nearby was the kitchen, with an island in the middle, an old-fashioned fridge you probably wouldn’t want to go near to, and other kitchen supplies scattered around.

You both took out your phones and took pictures of the place. It was too good to witness.

“Jason…”

“I know,” he raised his arms up, putting his phone back into his pocket. “Amazing.”

You covered your mouth, then walked on over to the piano. You ran your hands over it, ignoring the mountains of dust that formed over your fingers. “I dare you to play it.”

“There’s barely any keys left.”

You watched him laugh, then you both walked around the chandelier. “Getting a bit of the Phantom of the Opera vibes in here.”

“Don’t touch it.”

“I wasn’t going to.” You eyed it carefully, then you looked up at the empty ceiling. It looked almost like it was going to fall in. Hopefully it wouldn’t.

“The family that used to live here, they left around fifty years ago. A mom, dad, and two twin girls. They both had tuberculosis and died in this very house. The parents just left it after they died. Never took anything along with them.”

“That’s terrifying. You think they’ve got a listing on this place?”

Jason chuckled. “The twins used to be theater stars. That’s why they’ve got a piano. To practice. And they built the whole place around it so the sounds would echo nicely.”

You finally got it. Shaking your head with a knowing smile, you turned to Jason. He had his hands stuck to his hoodie pockets, his head craned down, his hair falling to his eyes, and his smile all over the bottom half of his face.

“Is that why you took me here?”

“You have…” he gulped, never looking away from your eyes. “The most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard in my life…”

You had to look away. For your own sake. You were turning red so much, it was embarrassing. “Stop.”

“I’m serious. You never told me you sang.”

“It’s not exactly something I hid.  I’ve sung in school a couple of times. Like in middle school graduation.”

“So I’m basically the only one in school who hasn’t heard you sing?” He placed his hand on his chest. Then pretended to scoff.

“Why don’t you sing. Right here.”

“Todd. No.”

“Come on. We have the place for it.”

You looked up at the ceiling, which was high for a house so small. It probably went all the way up to the roof. “No way.”

Jason kept nudging you, but you wouldn’t give in. You couldn’t help your smile though. You and Jason walked over to the kitchen and just looked at all the things the family left behind. Even the toaster was untouched, and you’ve never seen an oven so old fashioned before, it still had that pastel green color on the parts that hadn’t been taken over by rust.

It was starting to get dark. But you never wanted to leave. “Thank you.”

You said it without looking directly at him, but he got it. Going back outside before everything would completely dim out, Jason walked over to the pickup truck and jumped on its back.

You didn’t have the agility to just jump on top of it without possibly pulling a muscle, so you just watched Jason sit on the edge of it and swung his legs in the air.  Standing beside him and leaning your back against the truck, you both watched the house as the sun started to set behind it. You could see the beams scatter just at the center of the roof where it angled down. The sky had grown from a brightly lit yellow to a dark orange.

-----

You and Jason were a recipe for trouble.

Was it because you were too similar? Harbored the same anger? The same hatred for a number of people you didn’t even know? Was it because you both stirred trouble when it wasn’t asked for?

It was a recipe for trouble because, according to the young adult romance novels and movies, Jason was supposed to be with a nice, sweet, innocent girl who’d bring out the good in him and was kind to everyone, have just enough of that spice in her that would draw attention but still be a sweetheart, and she’d be made of happiness and rainbows and would be what brightens up Jason’s darkness.

You were not that girl. You were the opposite. You had that same darkness as he did. You had so much anger, and instilled so much fear onto anyone you didn’t like. Maybe you were even darker. And if it were up to those same novels and movies, you were supposed to end up with basically the same type of person, someone who was bright and yellow and happy. Not Jay.

But with you both being so similar, so full of angst and dread and hate, in a world were opposites were supposed to belong together,

why does he bring so much light and hope?

How does someone just as unhappy as you are come along and make you laugh like the world was about to end?

How does someone just as full of pent up rage as you are come along, and make it all go away for a sweet, short moment?

How was it all possible? How could two people, two very similar people, fit into a puzzle that called for them to fill it what you didn’t have?

How could someone supposed to fuel the fire already inside you end up being the sun?

Jason never thought of that either. In fact, he thought he might end up with someone in his line of work. Another vigilante. Not a mean girl from school who terrorizes students with a pair of fucking scissors.

But, somehow, it all just made everything he was turn into what he was supposed to be. You could say the same.

With you in your little room and Jason in his significantly larger one in the manor, you both sank to the ground, backs against the wall, and you pulled out your phones.

You had left a message first.

Y/N: ‘Urban exploring should be more of a thing.’

Jason smiled.

Jason: ‘Nah. People would crowd those places and vandalize them.’

Y/N: ‘True. I’d want them all to myself anyway.’

Jason: ‘I’m glad you enjoyed it.’

You felt your heart jump. God, this had to stop.

Y/N: ‘I did. Thank you.’

Jason: ‘Should I get used to you being nice to me now?’

Y/N: ‘Probably not.’

He laughed and shuffled his knees.

Y/N: ‘Send me the pictures you took.’

Scrolling through his albums, he selected everything he took that day and sent it all to you. Leaning on his back, looking up at the ceiling as he waiting, Jason imagined the look on your face when you first saw the house. Your eyes never shone so brightly.

You looked through the pictures and found several, about eight of them, centered on nothing else but you smiling at the ceiling, at the piano, at the chandelier, at the tables.

Y/N: ‘Dude. Why this angle of me?’

Confused, Jason looked through the pictures.

And he cursed out loud, over and over, burying his head in his hands when he saw he’d accidentally sent eight pictures he’d secretly taken of you. Fuck it all. This is how he dies. This is the death of Jason Todd.

You were smiling out of your face, and instead of saying anything mean or the thousands of jokes that instantly came up to the front of your mind, you did the same and sent him pictures you took.

And Jason’s heart rose up from where it sank to the floor when he saw you’d taken just as many pictures of him, doing the same things as you did and some with him holding his phone up. One was just his face.

He was a fucking grinning mess by then.

Jason: ‘Don’t I look good.’

Yeah, you cooed. You certainly do. But you didn’t say that to him. You just went along with him and he changed the subject.

Jason: ‘Huge favor.’

Y/N: ‘Shoot.’

Jason: ‘Send me a voice message of you singing.’

Y/N: ‘Absolutely not.’

Jason: ‘Please.’

Y/N: ‘No.’

Jason: ‘I’ll do your library work for three days.’

Y/N: ‘not even if you beg, Todd.’

Jason: ‘I keep my promises, just so you know.’

Y/N: ‘Still no.’

Jason: ‘Sing in the library tomorrow then.’

Y/N: ‘Ms. P will throw me out the fucking window.’

Jason: ‘Yeah, she probably will.’

Y/N: ‘Do my shelving work for three weeks. Then I’ll send you a five second audio message of me humming.’

Jason: ‘Make it a minute of a song of MY choice. Then I’ll do it for a week.’

Y/N: ‘not a chance.’

Jason: ‘what do I have to do then.’

Nothing. You gripped your phone to your chest. I’d sing for you if it makes you smile any day.

Y/N: ’Two weeks. I get to ride on the cart while you shelf my books.’

Jason: ‘Deal.’

You threw your head back, then you made a two second audio message of you screaming “NICE TRY, TODD.”

Jason: ‘Mother fucker.’

Y/N: ‘HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.’

4 am. You slept at 4 am that night. And only because your eyes couldn’t take it and Jason was drooling on his bed after doing exercises to stay up and talk to you.

He had it bad.

Really bad.

And, not surprisingly, so did you.

----

I DON’T HATE YOU - MASTERLIST

-----

Taglist: everyartistwas-firstanamateur  @sarcasmismyfirstlove @damned-queen-of-gotham @idkmanicantenglish @wunderstell @birdy-bat-riya @get-loki@everyday-imfangirling @comic-nerd-dc @multifandoms916 @icequeen208@offendedfishnoises @egdolan @xemiefx @arkhamtoddler @elsenthal@mythicbitchx @supremehaunter @ burning-alive  @lucy-roo  roseangel013bf @ loxbbg  reclusive-chicken-nuggethttp-cherries shadowsndaisies river9noble

[roosterschick]

It’s not smut and I don’t know if you only write smut so feel free to reject this! What about Dick fighting the reader because he gets infected with a serum that makes him think she’s someone else! She could be on the edge of death when he realises something’s not right!

warnings: violence (like a lot of violence), profanity, angst, mentions of blood

author’s note: i wrote this at 3am while listening to on the nature of daylight by max richter on repeat. hope you like it! p.s. i know a sparrow exists in the amalgam comics but we gonna pretend she doesn’t exist for the sake of this fic ok great

It was supposed to be a normal night of patrolling. You and Dick had decided to split up in order to cover more ground. This was usual for the two of you, keeping in touch through comms with the occasional stupid joke from Dick. You two would come together if need be, kicking ass back to back.

Tonight was different though. It even felt different. Something in the air was off, but you couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was.

You’re crouched on top of a building, eyes scanning the city below. It’s unusually quiet and the silence conjures an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. A silent Gotham meant a storm was coming.

“Sparrow,” Batman comes through your earpiece. There’s an urgency in his voice that has you standing up straight.

“I’m here,” you say, alert and ready.

“Scarecrow is out tonight,” he says, making your blood turn to ice. There was something especially terrifying about Scarecrow. You could deal with Joker’s goons, you could handle Penguin and his annoying lackeys. Hell, you could even deal with Harley Quinn’s crazy ass. But Scarecrow scared you shitless. There’s something about a guy who calls himself the “master of fear” that is a whole different brand of insane. The man thrived off other’s fears, not to mention his mask itself was already horrifying enough on its own.

“Have you heard from Nightwing?” Batman asks, snapping you out of your thoughts.

“No,” you answer, confused. “Why?”

“I’m heading to Scarecrow’s last known location now. I’ve sent you Nightwing’s tracker coordinates. He’s gone dark on comms,” Batman says and despite the neutrality in his voice, you know he’s worried.

“I’m on my way,” you reply, already following the coordinates.

Your mind races as you make your way to him. What if something bad had happened to Dick? What if Scarecrow got to him? What if—you force yourself to push those thoughts out of your head. Bruce had always taught you that letting yourself get caught up in the ‘what ifs’ was more dangerous than the actual task at hand. He taught you that it does no good and usually ends up in reckless decisions.

Despite your determination in keeping a level-head, your heart is racing the closer you get to his location.

You see Dick from a distance and relief settles over you. He looks fine and doesn’t seem to be injured. Your feet land on the ground and you walk toward him.

“Dunno if you heard but Scarecrow is out tonight, we gotta get to Batman,” you say, approaching Dick.

But something about him is… wrong. He pulls his escrima sticks out and you step back, confused.

“You okay?” you ask, studying his body language. He looks ready to attack any second, like if you make one wrong move, he’ll pounce.

“Okay, jokes over, put your sticks away and let’s go,” you say, getting impatient. You were on edge, the whole situation making you uncomfortable.

“Where is she?” Dick says, venom lacing his tone.

You furrow your brows, dumbfounded by Dick’s words.

“What are you talking about?!”

“Tell me where the fuck she is, Deathstroke!”

Realization hits you like a train and you conclude that Scarecrow somehow got to him. Must’ve used one of his toxins on him and set him out on the streets to wreak havoc while under the influence of it.

You curse, calculating what your best move here is. You think that if you can get Dick to realize that whatever he’s seeing isn’t real, you can bring him back.

“Dick, listen to me, whatever you’re seeing and hearing… It isn’t real. Scarecrow used his fear toxin on you. It’s not real,” you say, taking cautious steps toward him.

“Don’t come any closer!” Dick says, and you stop in your tracks, hands raised in surrender.

“Okay! Okay… Let’s just… talk this ou-“ but you’re cut off when Dick springs into action.

Unprepared for the attack, one of his sticks strike you in the side of the head. White-hot pain pulsing throughout. You touch your ear, fingers wet and warm, coated in your blood. Your comms were no doubt busted now, cutting off any possible communication with Batman or Alfred.

“What did you do to her?!” Dick yells, his voice angry and raw.

“Dick, please, it’s me,” you say, desperate for him to snap out of this.

You’re begging for him to hear you, but all he hears is Deathstroke.

“I’m not going to fight you,” you say, but instead Dick hears “I killed her. Dropped her body in the harbor.”

You stand there, surrendering to him but all he sees is Deathstroke covered in blood. Your blood.

“I gutted her like a pig. She screamed like one too,” Deathstroke says smugly.

Dick roars as he lunges, tackling Deathstroke to the ground, ripping his mask off before punching him right in the mouth. Dick is seeing red, violent angry red and he punches again, feeling satisfaction at the sound of a crunch.

You’re trying to throw him off of you, but he knocked the wind out of you when he tackled you. Your head hit the ground hard enough to make you blackout for a few seconds. You’re trying to gain back your composure, but he’s landing punch after punch, not giving you an opportunity to stop him.

Through the rage, through the sound of his blood rushing through his ears, there’s a soft voice. A pleading voice. It’s faint, but it makes him hesitate before his next punch. The voice is familiar, but he can’t recognize it. Not when he’s so consumed by this much anger and hatred.

Deathstroke is looking up at him, laughing through bloody teeth. “She’s nothing more than another Gotham casualty,” he cackles before Dick lands another punch.

The faint voice is gone now and Dick can’t stop, won’t stop until Deathstroke is dead and his blood is running through the streets of Gotham. He knew what she meant to him, knew how important she was to him. That’s what he had always wanted, to take and take until Dick had nothing left. To leave him empty and vacant.

Dick wasn’t going to let him live to reap the benefits.

Hot tears stream down Dick’s face as he thinks of your smile, your laugh, how resilient you were. He thinks of training with you, thinks of the nights you comforted him when he had nightmares, thinks of watching you bake cookies with Alfred.

“DICK!” you scream, your voice wrecked. It took everything out of you to scream, every last bit of energy you had. Your eyelids are heavy now and your vision has gone blurry. The ringing in your ears is deafening.

He stops, fist raised in the air and you whimper his name.

It’s then that Dick snaps out of his rage and sees you. He swallows thickly as he realizes that it wasn’t Deathstroke he was killing, it was you. He analyzes the state you’re in, takes note of your deep, shallow breaths.

You cough, blood running down your chin as you look up at him with glossy eyes.

“No… no, no, no,” Dick is panicking, cradling your head in his hands.

You want to speak. You want to comfort him, to tell him this isn’t his fault. You want to tell him it’s okay. You want to tell him you love him. That you’ve always loved him. But all that comes out are gasps for breath.

“No, please. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he’s babbling now. He presses a shaking hand to your cheek, feeling the warmth of your skin.

“S’okay,” you choke, blood gurgling in your throat. It’s all you can manage.

You hope Dick forgives himself for this one day. That one day he realizes this wasn’t his fault, that he was a victim too. You silently pray to whatever higher power is listening, take one last fuzzy look at Dick, and then everything goes black.

–

There are voices. Some you recognize, others you don’t. You can’t make out what they’re saying, but the murmuring of familiar voices comforts you anyway.

You blink, the bright light stinging your eyes. You try and move, but a dull ache wracks through your body, causing you to whimper.

“Dick. She’s awake.”

Your vision starts to come back, albeit a bit bleary. You think you might be in a hospital, but you can’t be sure yet. You see figures standing around the room, the first one you make out is Bruce. He’s standing, arms crossed but has a look of utter relief on his face when you make eye contact.

Next to him is Alfred. Jason. Dick.

Dick is at your side in a flash, eyes scanning your face. He’s looking for the anger and hatred he feels that he deserves.

But all he sees is forgiveness.

You smile as Dick takes your hand in his. His eyes are red and watery. The sight causes a pang in your heart.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, pressing his lips to the back of your hand.

“It’s okay,” you rasp. You turn his hand in yours so his palm is facing up and slowly trace three words with a finger. I love you. Maybe he’ll figure it out, maybe he won’t. But for now, it was enough for you.

[vikingpoteto]

the curse of cousin Chad

Read on AO3

______________________

Relationships:  GEN. Tim Drake & Jason Todd & Stephanie Brown

Summary: Tim Drake's only wish is for people to stop talking about Red Robin on the news (and a monkey's paw finger curls somewhere as Chad Wayne shows up in their lives.)

________________________

Red Robin had been better, but he had been worse too.

After Batgirl helps him sit down, he stops for a second and decides that he probably doesn’t have any broken bones, just more than a few bruises forming. Batgirl all but falls by his side, exhausted, and judging by the groan she lets out she must be just as sore. Still, she extends her fist for a bump and he grins as he obliges.

“Well, no one got shot or stabbed, so that’s a win on my book,” Red Robin says.

“That and we put away a dangerous gang that had been terrorizing the locals for months,” she reminds him.

“Yeah, that too.”

He glances around and decides the building they chose is tall enough that they can relax for a bit. He pulls down his cowl. Tim lets out a long relieved sigh when the cold night air touches his face. Batgirl follows his cue, even if she struggles with her hair for a bit to do so. The two of them let their legs dangle from the edge of the rooftop, unbothered by the height, their gazes on the sky.

Heavy footsteps approach the young vigilantes from behind, but neither Tim nor Steph worries, because they’re familiar with the sound. As expected, a third vigilante soon enough takes the spot by Steph’s other side, his helmet already under his arm and his face mask free.

“You two look really beaten considering you weren’t fighting alone tonight,” Jason says.

Steph flips him off.

Tim rolls his eyes. “There were a lot of weaklings, okay? Sometimes that’s more annoying than one strong guy.”

“If you say so.”

“How about your night?” Steph asks casually.

“Kicked some ass, shot the kneecaps of the most stubborn ones. All in a night’s work.”

They nod and resume watching the sky for a brief peaceful moment. So high above they can barely hear the sounds of sirens and late night traffic on the streets.

Then Steph sits up so fast she almost slips down the edge. Tim and Jason grab her shoulders by reflex and pull her back at the same time.

Ignoring the fact that she almost died, Steph shouts: “What time is it?”

“Hm... about 2am?” Tim checks his wrist pad. “Yeah, 2:35.”

“Oh my God!” She groans, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. “We missed the countdown by, like, a lot! How did we not hear the fireworks?”

“Gunshots?” Jason suggests.

“Fireworks and gunshots don’t sound the same, we all know the difference.”

Tim rolls his eyes, because this is so them. Of course they’d miss the start of the new year because they were busy fighting crime. Steph and Tim were even planning on going to WE’s New Year’s party together after what was supposed to be a super quick patrol, just to stop a few muggers, really . Tim is glad they did, even if Lucius is going to scold him on Monday. He hates those parties.

“Well, I have a little something here to celebrate,” Jason says with a crooked grin.

He turns his helmet upside down, revealing a bottle of booze. Of course the dramatic bitch had it hidden, just waiting for the right moment to reveal it. Steph whoops excitedly.

“Jason, you’re my hero! I mean… B is gonna kill us if he finds we were drinking in uniform, but it’s not like he’ll find out, right?”

Jason hands the bottle to Tim first, his smile positively wicked. Having been given this sort of gift from Jason before, Tim rolls his eyes and takes a generous chug without hesitation. His eyes tear up a bit at the taste when he passes the bottle to Steph.

She happily drinks straight from the bottle like Tim had… Then she freezes.

"Jason?"

“Yeah, Steph?”

“What the heck is this?”

“Spinach and lettuce juice. Timmy needs those antibodies."

"Jason, why are you like this?

"You didn’t think I was giving you guys alcohol, did you? You two are minors.”

Tim grins. He can tell Steph is trying to decide whether to throw the bottle overboard or at Jason’s head.

Before she decides, he turns his gaze back to the sky and asks: “You guys made any New Year’s wishes?”

“Resolutions,” Steph corrects. “Wishes are for birthdays.”

Jason makes a high-pitched voice, “wow, look at me, I’m Stephanie Brown, my mom loves me so much she celebrated my birthday!”

Tim laughs. “Geez, I’ll drink to that.”

There are no words to describe the horror in Steph’s face when he takes back the bottle and drinks a little more of the green juice.

He simply shrugs. “It’s an acquired taste.”

Deciding it’s not worth the trouble, Steph shakes her head and says, “I’m keeping it simple this year. My only resolution is to pass all my classes for once in my life. What about you, Jay?”

“I don’t do that corny shit.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“I know you guys like corny shit.”

“We’ve seen you cry over Jane Austen, your edgelord bullcrap doesn’t work on us,” Steph says. When Jason tries to protest that his eyes were just tearing up from yawning, she turns to Tim: “What about you? Any New Year wishes?”

“Just one, too,” Tim says. “I wanna make sure every non-criminal forgets Red Robin ever existed.”

Jason and Steph snort.

“I’m serious. No more shipping me with my family, no more stalkers. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure no reporter writes the words ‘Red Robin’ ever again.”

“Good luck with that, Timbers.”

Tim drinks his lettuce juice in silence. He hands the bottle back to Jason. Steph pretends to gag when he also takes a long sip. Despite their incredulity, Tim is feeling positive about his goal. He feels like after the Red Twins craze died down, people lost interest in him. He thinks he can pull it off.

If only he knew.

Tim almost never visits the manor anymore. He’s been to the Batcave once or twice on the past few months, but the house itself… he doesn’t even remember the last time. He decides to stop by on a rare free afternoon, hoping Duke and Cass will be around. If not, seeing Alfred outside the cave and having a cup of tea with him was more than enough.

He lets himself in, because he knows it makes Alfred begrudgingly happy when any of the kids acts as though they still live there rather than politely ringing the bell. It also makes Damian mad, which is always a plus.

Hearing voices from the living room, Tim heads straight there, excited that there’s someone home. His smile freezes on his face. Whatever he was expecting to see, it wasn’t… that.

Bruce is sitting near the fireplace pinching the bridge of his nose as he does when his children are fighting among themselves. On the opposite couch is none other than Jason being embraced by a complete stranger that is currently sobbing into his shoulder.

Jason’s gaze meet Tim’s in what is clearly a plea for help. All Tim can do is mouth who the hell is that? to which Jason mouths back I have no fucking idea.

“Would you look at that, Tim’s here,” Bruce says. Tim has the feeling he’s trying to save Jason.

The sniffling stranger pulls back and turns around. “Oh god. You’re a man now, Timmy! Last time I saw you, you were just a tiny kid!”

To Tim’s complete horror, the man stands and comes hug him tightly.

“Uh… ”

“Oh gosh, I’m sorry,” the man gives a watery chuckle “of course you don’t remember me. You were a basically a toddler and I was also a kid when I last saw you. I’m Chad, your father’s cousin.”

“Oh. You’re…”

“I mean, Bruce's cousin. I knew Jack, though. He was good people.”

“Bruce’s cousin. Hm. So your name is Chad Wayne, huh?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Nothing,” Tim pretends not to see Jason hide a snicker into his hand. “Sounds… cool.”

“Chad is visiting Gotham for a couple of weeks,” Bruce tells him. “He just graduated from college in Central City and decided it was a good idea to visit old relatives. It was such a great surprise when he arrived.”

“Right,” Chad wipes the tears from his face, “and I happened to run right into Jason here and oof. Saying I was surprised doesn’t cover it.”

His jovial laughter is so genuine that it’s almost unsettling.

“Oh. You… You know Jason."

“Yeah, man. My family was in a year long trip to Africa, so we didn’t hear about his death until a long time had passed. My parents were crushed that they couldn’t be there for Brucie then. Bruce was telling me about how you guys got him back. Nothing short of a miracle, huh?”

“A miracle,” Jason echoes.

Chad scratches his own nape, finally looking appropriately embarrassed. “Sorry I got so emotional, Jason. I almost didn’t recognize you, you got so jacked , man. I guess I have a good memory for faces.”

He speaks so fast. Steph always complains that Tim speaks too fast whenever he is in the zone and caffeinated, but that was nothing compared to Chad’s rambling.

“Oh well. C'mere, Tim, sit with us, let me get to know you guys. Even if I’m your father’s cousin, I guess I’m closer in age to you two ahaha...”

Tim is known for being a quick thinker, but something about Chad’s khaki shorts and how out of place they look in Gotham stuns him into inaction. He lets Chad drag him to the couch and doesn’t say anything else on pure fear that the guy is about to do it to ‘em.

“Actually,” Jason stands, “Tim is here to pick me up. We have this, hm, doctor’s appointment. To check my… eyes. Yeah, my eyes. Tim’s gonna drive me.”

“Oh, that’s alright, we can talk more when you two come back.”

“Back?” Tim parrots.

“Actually, Chad, Jason and Tim don’t live in the manor,” Bruce says. “They share an apartment around downtown.”

For the first time, Chad drops his too-blessed-to-be-stressed smile and frowns. “What? Why? I thought you guys just got Jason back. Shouldn’t he stay with you, Bruce?”

“Actually, that’s a funny story,” Jason says, taking Tim by the arm. “I’m sure Bruce will love to tell you all about it. I can’t be late for my appointment, isn’t that right, lil' bro?”

“Uh… Yeah. Being dead made his insurance skyrocket and the cancelation fees are a nightmare.”

“Hm-hum, all that. See you around and stuff.” Jason is holding Tim’s arm with such force that it’ll bruise for sure. They’re still on the way to the door when he hisses: “ Get me out of here right now.”

“But I didn’t even see Alfred,” he whispers back.

“ Now, Timothy ! ”

They don’t stop powerwalking until they’re in the car. Jason doesn’t bother going back for his bike and Tim makes a mental note to ask Cass to bring it back to their place later.

For a second, they just breathe Gotham’s polluted air to remind themselves they’re still home and not in a Disney sitcom.

That’s when Jason starts ranting. Apparently he was on the way to the kitchen to get just a bowl of cereal when he walked into Alfred getting the door open for cousin Chad. Alfred had said "Master Jason, I didn’t know you were here" and cousin Chad recognized him and started losing it. Bruce didn’t let Jason kill him, unfortunately, but managed to pull a story out of his ass about Jason coming back from the dead after someone from the Justice League messed up the timeline or something like that. The official story is that they found Jason just a couple of weeks ago and are still working out the kinks of having a family member return from the grave. Except Jason’s speech was a lot more convoluted and involved a lot of curse words and shakespearean insults.

“...and I didn’t even get my freaking cereal!” he finishes, just as Tim parks in front of their home.

“Well. That was an afternoon you just had,” Tim says. Jason huffs and gruffs on the way to the elevator. Tim waits until the doors close to say: “Bruce didn’t pull that story out of his ass, by the way.”

Jason frowns. “What?”

“Your cover story,” Tim clarifies. “He had it for years. I know everything about it if you want the details. He asked me for feedback when he was figuring how to make it believable and whatnot.”

“What? When? Why?”

“As soon as we found out you were alive. He wanted to be ready in case you decided to officially join the family again. It took a few days of work, but the plan exists and is ready to go whenever.”

Jason doesn’t say anything. Tim had expected that, so he allows him to mull over the newfound knowledge. He also expects Jason to head straight for the kitchen, which he does, and Tim follows his brother closely, not commenting on the tension of his shoulders or the way his jaw is set tight enough to crack a few teeth.

When his brother just stands near the sink apparently unsure of what to do with himself, Tim gets milk from the fridge and starts preparing a bowl of cereal.

“What were you doing there, anyway?”

“I went to see Alfred,” Jason mumbles. “But he was busy, so I was… I was talking to Bruce for a bit.”

“Oh?”

Jason grabs the bowl Tim is offering him. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Shut up.” And Jason stomps his way to his room, slamming the door after him.

When Steph shows up after class, Tim tells her not to bother him.

WAYNE FAMILY

Tim: @Bruce so wats his deal

Bruce: Dear Tim, what do you mean by that? sincerely, Bruce Wayne.

Tim: chad

Tim: whats his night persona

Tim: his masked name

Bruce: Tim, Chad is not a vigilante. sincerely, Bruce Wayne

Dick: shoot

Dick: he’s a villain???

Bruce: Dear Dick, Chad is not a villain either. He’s just a civillian. sincerely, Bruce Wayne.

Duke: dont he want to avenge his parents?

Bruce: Dear Duke, His parents are alive and well. They’re international activists currently on a mission to feed the poor somewhere in South America. sincerely, Bruce Wayne.

Damian: That means he’s must be a sleeper agent of sorts. I’ll collect some of his DNA for examination. Drake, I trust you’ll do a thorough check on his background, official and otherwise.

Tim: on it

Bruce: Damian, if you get your second-cousin’s DNA to run tests, your weekend at the Kent farm is permanently cancelled.

Jason: so b you admit you text like it’s a business email just to fuck with us, huh?

Bruce: Dear Jason, Mind your language in front of your little brothers. Sometimes I’ll sacrifice the format for the sake of speed. Regardless, this is the ideal way of writing a text message. sincerely, Bruce Wayne.

Bruce: @everyone Chad will be staying with us for a few weeks. He’s just a regular civilian with no tragic backstory, no metapowers and no secret identity. I expect all of you to behave like Alfred taught you and hide your secret identities like I trained you to. No one will investigate him or do anything to compromise our identities. Is that clear? Awaiting confirmation, Bruce Wayne

Cass: weird

Bruce: Dearest Cass, It’s not weird. Civilians exist. Sincerely, Bruce Wayne

Tim: not in our family they dnt!!!

Tim: cmon b you cant tell me s not suspicious!!!!!

Bruce: It is not.

Alfred: Master Bruce already checked his DNA for metagenes and ran a thorough background check with the help of miss Barbara. Unfortunately, Master Chad is clear.

Cass: weeeeeiiiiird

Tim decides to avoid Wayne manor for the foreseeable future. Instead, he buys Alfred’s favorite brand of tea and wonders if he can convince the butler to come over to stay with them for an afternoon or perhaps the whole weekend. Tim is more than willing to share the couch with Steph and let Alfred have his bed. He puts the tea away with a passive aggressive note letting Jason and Steph know that tea is to be saved for Alfred.

Jason is in the living room cleaning one of his guns while Steph does her homework on the carpet by his feet, meaning is just an afternoon like any other for them.

Tim has to remind himself of her resolution before he gives in the temptation of asking her to go patrolling with him. The thing is that his resolution is a lot easier to pursue when Batgirl is around, because she can deal with the civilians after the fact while Red Robin vanishes as soon as the criminals are in cuffs.

Alas. Working alone can be fun, too, he tells himself.

Before he heads out to get his suit, however, the buzzer sounds. He hears Steph cheering and saying something about pizza.

Then a voice that makes Tim freeze in horror.

“Oh, hey. I must have the wrong apartment. Is this Tim and Jason Wayne’s place?”

“Uhhhh…”

He runs so fast Bart would be proud, hoping he can sign at Steph to send him away before he sees them, but it’s too late. Tim rushes only to find out that, in all the glory of his khaki shorts and boat shoes, Chad Wayne is already inside his apartment.

Tim is very aware that Jason is frozen on the couch right behind him, still holding a gun.

“Chad! What a surprise!”

“Hey, Timbo!” Chad grins, looking genuinely happy to see him. “Damian told me you wouldn’t be working tonight and then he gave me your address!”

Why, god? Why hadn’t Tim killed Damian when he had the chance?

“And who is this lovely young woman?” He asks. “If she isn’t spoken for, I might want to steal her for me.”

“I’m his ex, actually, and I sort of live here.” Steph offers her hand. “I speak for myself.”

Instead of shaking her hand, Chad brings her fingers to his lips and gives them an excuse of a kiss. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma damme .”

Steph’s smile is too wide to be natural and her eyes look like they’re about to jump out of the sockets. Like the rest of the family, she seems to struggle to believe this guy is real. Tim can’t save her, he just wishes Jason would put away his things while cousin Chad is busy with Steph.

“So, Chad, it’s so nice to see you, but uhhh... What are you doing here?”

“Well, since you guys never go over I had to come see you! And trust me, I get it , when I let my folks’ place to go to college, I wanted to spend even the breaks at my frat house. Anyway, I thought I’d come here, we can order some take out and…”

His eyes finally find Jason and he freezes. “...is that a gun?”

Crap, poop, turd, crap,  crapcrapcrapcrap-

“Uhhh… yeah?”

In the same way when he heard that Jason doesn’t live with Bruce, Chad’s positive vibes vanish and he looks distraught.

“Guys… does Bruce know about that?”

Before anyone can stop him, Chad walks in like he owns the place and takes the seat by Jason’s side. Tim and Steph exchange a panicked look, both praying that the gun isn’t easy to assemble or at least that Jason doesn’t have any ammo within arms reach. The two hurry to join them, Steph dropping on the couch and casually leaning against Jason in a position that allows her to hold his arm should he decide to throw Chad out. Tim takes the arm of the couch closer to Chad, ready to pick him up and throw him away himself if he says something stupid.

“We keep it here for safety,” Jason says simply.

“Okay. Oof.” Chad reaches for Jason’s shoulder. “Look, I get it. Gotham is dangerous. But having a gun at home is more of a hazard than anything else, Jace. Can I call you Jace?”

“No.”

“Look, I’m an only son, but if I had a little brother like Tim, I’d want to show him a good example, you know? And guns are not the solution. Do you genuinely think you could shoot someone? I don’t think so. I served the army and there we learn that shooting a person is harder than you can imagine."

Tim can see Steph discreetly pinching Jason’s thigh to keep him in check. Jason looks like he’s asking himself if he’s in the Twilight zone.

There is a beat of silence and Jason opens his mouth. Tim braces himself. Before disaster hits, Steph blurts:

“Actually, that’s why Jason’s here.”

Fortunately, Chad doesn’t notice Jason’s and Tim’s perplexed faces because he’s focused on Steph again.

“Of course Bruce hates guns with his parents and all that,” she frowns sympathetically. “But… Chad, Jason died. Of course he’s getting therapy, but he still needs something to feel safe at least at home. Isn’t that right, Jay?”

She gently rubs his arm. Jason knows Steph enough to recognize the play along or you’re dead in her falsely upset expression.

“Uh… Right. That. I moved in with Tim because, uh, I know Bruce is weird with guns." Another pinch to his thigh. Clearly in a begrudging voice, he adds: "And I super agree with him. I mean, what if Damian found it?”

“God, no,” Tim deadpans. “I don’t want to even imagine Damian with a gun.”

“But Tim and he knows he's not to mess with it,” Jason adds.

“Bruce told me you’re here you and him are a bit at odds, but he didn’t tell me you fought over you having a gun.”

“Bruce doesn’t know and you can’t tell him,” Tim cuts in. Batman is definitely going to forget his no-killing rule if he finds out they let cousin Chad see Red Hood’s gun. “Please, Chad. I promise you we’re careful. We’re just trying to make the best out of a difficult situation.”

Tim hopes the mention that this is a touchy subject will deter Chad. He forgets to take in consideration that Chad thinks they’re his family despite him knowing literally nothing about them. He is under the very wrong impression that he's allowed to talk to them about personal shit. Which is great. This is just great.

“If it makes you feel better, this is temporary,” Jason says. “I talked to my, uh, my therapist about it and he cleared me to have the gun. When I start, you know, getting over the death trauma, I’ll get rid of it.”

“Right,” Steph nods eagerly. “We’re planning on throwing a party when we reach that point and everything.”

The three of them wait with baited breath as Chad considers their excuses, his expression somber. Then Chad opens his arms and pulls Tim and Jason into a triple hug.

“I get it,” he says in a hoarse voice he probably finds cool. “You do what you have to do to cope, man. Bruce told me you’re brave and I can see that’s true. And you, ” he squeezes Tim, “I heard from Dickie that you’re a little prodigy, but I’m so proud of you for being there for your brother!”

God, he has so many feelings. Tim promises himself he’ll never complain about Dick being clingy again. Dick has a Batman level of emotional constipation if compared to this guy.

“Right,” Jason pulls himself free from the hug. “I’m gonna put this away, alright?”

He gathers his cleaning supplies and the spare parts spread across the coffee table and takes it to his room. His expression says he's still trying to figure out what that was.

“But, Timbo…”

“Just Tim is fine.”

“I thought you didn’t know Jason before his death? Bruce adopted you kind of recently, didn’t he?”

“Uhhh… I don’t know what to tell you. Jason and I hit it off and became friends fast,” Tim says. “I mean, at first he hated me enough to want to slit my throat…”

“Wow, alright,” Jason interrupts as he returns, a pout on his lips. “I see we’re very comfortable joking about my early… grumpiness. It’s not something I feel guilt or still have nightmares about at all”

Tim almost snorts at that. “Like I was saying, we got better.”

Chad nods thoughtfully and leans back to be more comfortable, nothing about his body language suggesting he might be getting ready to leave.

“So!” Steph claps her hands together. “Thank you for understanding, Chad. Now maybe let's talk about something lighter, shall we?”

And that’s what they do, with some sttrugle. At first, Chad seems too upset to talk about anything and Steph has to use all of her charm to get him to forget about the fantastic start of his visit. Jason helps by making sarcastic remarks that almost sound genuine and Tim… Tim can’t do much.

He texts Cass and she agrees to take his patrol duty for the night. Tim considered making up an emergency at WE and going out anyway, but in the end he decided that was unfair to the others.

He also sends a message chewing on Damian for sending Chad his way without a warning. No one ever visits Tim’s apartment other than his family and his hero friends, so they could have been in full uniform in the middle of the living room. Damian responds with a dismissive text filled with words that Tim doesn’t know. Tim threatens to break all of his crayons and puts his phone away

By this point, Chad is a bit more like himself again and Tim almost wishes he stayed distressed, because the rest of the night is painfully weird. To avoid more awkward conversation, Jason puts on a random horror movie for them. Chad comments on how impressive it is that none of them seems to mind the gore. He squeals and groans and gives Steph a horrified look when she simply keeps eating her pepperoni pizza as though nothing of note is happening on the screen.

The thing is that the movie’s gore is decidedly inaccurate to the point that they barely recognize it for what it's supposed to be. Besides it’s nothing worse than some wounds they’d either suffered or seen as vigilantes.

Maybe it’s because Tim didn’t get the adrenaline he expected from patrol, but he ends up falling asleep on Jason’s shoulder during the climax of the second movie.

He wakes up alone on the couch with a blanket half-thrown over his legs. It's still the middle of the night and he has half a mind to go to his room before he hears muffled voices from the kitchen. Rubbing his eyes, he follows the sound without thinking much.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Steph greets him.

She and Jason apparently are building a castle of Uno cards in the middle of the kitchen table.

Tim joins them. “It’s 3am.”

“Witching hour,” Jason mumbles.

Steph gestures at the castle and offers Tim a card. He takes it.

“It was a dirty trick to fall asleep like that,” she tells him. “You missed the selfie party to celebrate the first time he visited Jace and Timbo.”

Tim groans. “He stayed long?”

“Too long.” Jason adds another pair of cards to the castle. “I think I have a headache and the Lazarus pit is supposed to make you immune to headaches.”

“That's what I was telling Jason before you got here, Tim. We’re socially capable, right?”

“Hmmm… Right, I guess.”

“How come we couldn’t get rid of him? Why were we so lost while we were, like, just hanging out with him? Is everyone outside of Gotham like that?”

Part of Tim is relieved that Steph hates Chad too. He thought he and Jason had finally caught Batman’s moodiness, but Steph is one of the most cheerful people he knows and her dry sense of humor and quick quips are a lot more bearable than cousin Chad’s peppy attitude.

The other part of him…

“I think it’s less about him not being from Gotham and more about him being a civilian,” Jason says.

The castle falls. None of them reacts.

“That can’t be right,” Steph says. “We have civilian friends and they’re not like that.”

“Do we?”

“Yeah! Jason-- Hm. Tim has Tam… Oh, forget it, she’s not talking to him again. I have Francisco and- I just remembered he’s the son of a gangster.” Steph pauses. “Huh. Do we seriously not know any civilians?”

They don’t. Not on a friendly level, at least.

Tim had considered that before, but he didn't want to think about it. It was weird he was so distant from a normal life that he felt unsettled by it. Not bad. Just weird. If he hadn’t found out Batman’s and Robin’s identities, would he grow up to be a Chad? Finishing high school, living in a frat house in college, and all that? Would he still be a Drake, neighbor to the Waynes?

He loves all of his siblings and Bruce and Alfred and he doesn’t want to consider a life without them.

However.

In a world without Batman. Bruce would still be a good man. He still wouldn’t hesitate in adopting an orphaned circus boy. He would probably also adopt the little shit that tried to steal his not-batmobile tires. If by a miracle he also adopted the boy next door that tragically lost his parents and a girl from a very broken family and a young boy whose parents couldn’t be there for him anymore. His gremlin of a biological son would have grown up beloved and incapable of harming anyone, let alone assassinating a person.

He remembers the plan to bring Jason back to the world of the living and how easy it had been for him and Bruce to put it together and make it seem believable, because in their world it was believable and it could have been the truth.

If Jason Wayne, a regular boy, son of a regular man, had been killed in a freak criminal act and brought back to life thanks to superhero shenanigans, all of them would have been there for him. Jason wouldn’t resent his father for not killing his murderers, because that wasn’t a possibility, and they’d find a way to get him to overcome the effects of the trauma. Bruce certainly wouldn’t spare effort or money to get his son back to full health.

If Stephanie’s father hadn’t been a super criminal, Tim’s first girlfriend wouldn’t hit him in the face with a brick on their first meeting. She would have been a normal girl with a normal life and she could even run into him at school. There is no doubt in his mind that he would have found and made Steph his friend no matter the universe, except… would he?

In that reality, he didn’t know what gore looked like. He would get too upset to function for half an hour at the mere sight of a gun. He’d visit relatives unannounced and the worst thing that could happen was to find them heading out as he arrives. He draws the line at the khakis and boat shoes, because he doesn’t think he’d wear those in any universe, but still.

That would not be Timothy Drake-Wayne. Tim had seen his own internal organs before. Tim’s not only unfazed by fire guns but also built some for his older brother. Tim is fully aware that visiting any of his siblings might mean walking into a ninja fight at worst and finding them pretending to drive the batmobile at best.

Steph and Jason don’t say anything for a while and Tim could easily blame it on the fact that it’s almost 4am and they have yet to sleep, but he knows it’s because they’re reaching the same conclusion he did: they’re not normal people. They always knew that, but knowing something and seeing evidence are two different things.

And again… it’s not bad. It’s not that Tim wouldn’t change anything about the past, it’s just that he doesn’t regret the life he lead up until this point.

It’s still weird. Too weird.

BABS

Babs: The red dynamic duo ship is back with a vengeance, huh?

Babs sent you a link.

Tim had never had a panic attack. Considering the life he leads, that’s a pretty surprising thing. However, that text from a woman he considers part of his family kicks his fight-or-flight instinct like nothing in the world could. He clicks on it. He reads the article.

He screams into a pillow for about ten minutes.

Jason and Steph find him lying face down on the floor trying to get his phone’s AI to buy him a ticket to Smallville. He's sure Conner will take him in. He’ll work at the farm. He’ll stop being Red Robin. He doesn’t care.

It’s an article from a teen magazine.

TIM WAYNE AND MYSTERY MAN?

Ah, the Wayne Family. Our favorite and most iconic family of Gotham. Timothy Drake-Wayne (18), or Tim, how he prefers to be called, has been under our radar for quite a while and not just because of his cute face. The young CEO of Wayne Enterprises and heir to Drake Industries is smart, rich and incredibly charming if the rumors are true. That being said, the question we’re all asking is: how is this boy still single?

Little to nothing is known about Tim Wayne’s love life and we were all crazy to know if he is in the market for a girlfriend.

Well, ladies, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Tim Wayne might have a special someone. Nothing is confirmed yet, but Chad Wayne (26), Tim’s adoptive father’s cousin, shared a rather interesting picture on his snapchat.

[IMAGE]

Once we got over how freaking hot Chad is looking, we noticed something in the background. Right behind Chad, we can barely see someone that looks exactly like Tim Wayne fast asleep on the shoulder of a real heartthrob. Our suspicions were confirmed by Chad’s caption that said “visiting the little cousins”!

It’s a well-known fact that Tim Wayne is openly bisexual, so could this be his boyfriend? Or are they just dudes being bros, unbothered by toxic masculinity? Only time will tell.

THE BIRDNEST

spoiler alert sent a screenshot.

spoiler alert: lmao

WonderWing: … ok first I thought it was funny but now I’m concerned

WonderWing: do I need to talk to them?

WonderWing: do I need to talk our dad???

In the hood: WHY THE FUCK DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO US?

In the hood: WHY IS ANYONE SEEN NEAR THIS DAMN KID AUTOMATICALLY HIS SIGNIFICANT OTHER??

send me a Signal: scratch that what is this openly bisexual business?

send me a Signal: I mean we know hes bi but hes not that vocal bout it?

spoiler alert: lmao tell em dick

WonderWing: lololol when he was like 12 there were rumors that Jack Drake’s son was gay right?

WonderWing: high society trashy gossip

WonderWing: around the same time his mom thought it was a good idea to let him be interviewed for this random magazine

WonderWing: they mentioned the rumors prolly because they wanted him to like say something motivational about bullying or wtv

send me a Signal: i think i know where this is going

send me a Signal: what did he say?

spoiler alert: i like my men how i like my women

send me a Signal: of course he did

spoiler alert: yeah and he wasnt out to his parnts yet so that part is less fun

send me a Signal: oof

In the hood: are you kidding me? Tim came out to the whole world because he couldn’t stop himself from making a dumb bi joke? Why can’t he stay in the closet like the rest of us?

Boss A$$ Bat: Bi rights

WonderWing: steph did you change cass nickname again

spoiler alert: ye

Boss A$$ Bat: I like it (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

send me a Signal: wait tims too quiet where is he

in the Hood: Steph took away his phone because he kept trying to book a flight to Smallville to become a farmer.

send me a Signal: of course. why wouldnt he.

Chad apologizes profusely for not noticing Tim and Jason were on that shot, but thankfully he does it over the phone so Tim can hang up halfway through his heartfelt apology.

The kids that still live in the manor aren't so lucky.

Tim gets a stream of facetimes from Duke, Cass and even Damian. Apparently Chad won't stop asking Cass to speak up, because she can, why bother with this weird sign stuff? (Cass stops Duke from hitting him.) He insists on asking Damian to play football with him until Damian knocked him out with a ball to the face. Bruce forced Damian to pretend he dislocated his shoulder on the stunt to prevent further invitations. Even though Duke is, by all means, perfect, Chad keeps stalking him and asking about his opinions on his siblings and if he thinks Bruce is doing the best job on raising them. The answers never satisfy him and he keeps asking as though he thinks the boy will change his mind if caught by surprise. Duke starts using his powers to jump out of the window whenever Chad is about to walk into the room until he lands on Alfred's roses. The fact that the butler isn't mad, just disappointed causes Duke to stop his daring escapes.

Bruce, despite his cool facade, isn't much better. He now has to keep his public persona at home too and, when it isn't driving him insane, he is being annoyed by his children exchanging weird looks and holding back giggles while he plays the himbo part.

Long story short, Chad is making a few days feel like torturing years.

The breaking point is the day Tim walks into his living room only to find Steph and Damian sitting on the couch facing each other while she dutifully paints his nails black.

“What is happening?” Tim asks. “Did I fall into a parallel Earth?”

“Tt, do not concern yourself with us, Drake. I’m here for Brown, not for you.”

Steph smirks at him.

“What the- Okay, first of all this apartment is mine and Jason’s. Steph doesn’t live here. Sometimes. Second… Since when do you get along with Steph?”

“I tolerate her.”

“What the hell? That’s like I love you in Gremlin language! Since when did you get Damian?”

Her smirk widens and Tim more or less expects her to do a little victory dance. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. I’m just irresistible.”

“Hm.” Tim turns to Damian. “Chad drove you out of the house and Bruce didn’t let you go to Dick's place in Bludhaven, right?”

“Father says I cannot miss school.”

“Great. If you’re going to become our second unofficial roommate, please stay away from Jason’s pots. He says he has a system and he's a nightmare when we mess with them.”

“I would never spend more time than necessary in your disgusting nest.”

“You’re literally on my couch! Letting my best friend paint your nails! You freaking pest!”

And Damian isn’t the only one.

Cass used to come over regularly, but the frequency of her visits increases dramatically now that Chad is staying at the manor. She isn’t bad to be around, though, as she mostly keeps training in the basement or napping on the couch that Steph is more than happy to share with her. When Tim asks why she doesn’t simply stay in the Batcave, Cass tells him Bruce is keeping their time at the cave to a minimum because Chad noticed sometimes they vanish even if all cars were in the garage.

Chad is also painfully public. He’s constantly tweeting and updating his Instagram and making sure everyone and their mother knows what he’s doing, who’s with him and where they are. That makes it difficult to kick him out without drawing attention. Gotham's elite is a nest of gossip and intrigue and people ought to ask uncomfortable questions if a rich guy sends a rich relative away for seemingly no reason. Bruce might be the most private person in the world, but Brucie Wayne is supposed to be a fun-loving man.

Cass convinces Tim not to make much fun of Bruce, because apparently, after Chad posted a picture of him and Bruce trying to bake and Brucie is wearing an apron that says “Kiss the Bat!”, Superman himself called him only to laugh for ten minutes. Tim Supposes that’s punishment enough.

When Duke is the one seeking shelter, it isn’t as fun. As much as Tim likes the guy, he’s a chronic worrier in a completely different way of Tim. He wants to make sure they're all living healthy lives and eating properly and, for some reason, whether Steph and Jason are bullying Tim. He question things such as the fact that Steph is ruining her back on the couch, Tim’s habit of leaving dirty dishes in the sink overnight and the lack of the right brands of food, whatever that means. Tim gets tired of it pretty fast, but he also finds that being unnecessarilly dark is a efficient way to get Duke to shut up.

“So Steph basically moved in, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you guys share the rent or…?”

“I own the building, Duke.”

“Right. So she doesn’t pay any bills.”

“She kills bugs for us sometimes. She buys candy, too.”

"Does Jason pay bills?"

"He does. We split it evenly between the two of us."

"Huh. Where does he get any money?"

"Don't know. Don't care."

"Is Bruce okay with that?"

"If Bruce wanted to have a say in my life he shouldn't have died and forced me to get emancipated."

"... Tim, I love you so much, man, but sometimes it's hard to be your brother."

"I know, Duke. I love you too, Duke."

One night, he comes back from patrol and he finds all of his siblings literally camping in the living room. Someone even built a pillow fort by tying a preposterous amount of blankets to the porch door and the TV stand. Too tired to care, Tim turns to his room.

“Good night, Jay. Good night, Steph. Good night, parasites that do not live here.”

“You take back those words on this instant, Drake,” Damian hisses, but fortunately someone (Steph) tucked him too tightly into his sleeping bag, so there’s nothing he can do but wiggle around like an angry worm.

“Why are we parasites?” Duke asks from his air mattress. “I’ve done the dishes. That’s more than what Steph does.”

“Good night, Tim,” Cass says from… somewhere. They know she found a place to sleep. They don’t know where it is.

DAD

Tim: brus pls get rid of him

Dad: I can’t, Tim, it’d be suspicious to kick out a relative for no reason.

Tim: every1 is living at my place bc of him

Tim: even damian

Tim: do u kno how insuferable a man has to be that damian would rather spend time with jason and i

Dad: If everyone being at your place is bothering you so much, why don’t you invite Chad?

Tim: … no. ur not pushing him to me.

Dad: Chad and you are close in age, aren’t you? You could get along if you tried.

Tim: i 19! he 26!

Dad: Jason is 22 and he’s your best friend.

Tim: conner is my best friend

Tim: jason is a partner in crime at best

Dad: If you’re able to think of something to shorten Chad’s visit, I’m all ears. I admit it’s inconvenient to have him here. Otherwise, I think spending time with your siblings will do you some good.

Tim: i hate you

Dad: Alright, Tim.

Tim: … ok that was a lie and im sorry i love u bruss

Dad: I love you too, Tim.

One day, Tim goes to the kitchen for a mug of coffee and finds Barbara comfortably working on her laptop.

“...you don’t even live at the manor.”

“Hm? Oh, I’m not avoiding cousin Chad, Steph just invited me over for waffles.”

Tim just takes his coffee and leaves without saying anything else.

And then shit finally hits the fan.

Because Tim isn’t an idiot like Bruce, he didn’t make his public persona something that would be painful for him to play. As far as Gotham’s society knows, Tim Drake-Wayne is a calm and collected young man, work-driven and not too ill-mannered for a rich boy, which isn’t as different from the real Tim. Real Tim is an overworked ball of anxiety that appears to be a calm and collected young man, so no one is surprised when he doesn’t acknowledge the rumors about him and the mysterious man.

At least not until a son of a bitch with too much free time decides to ruin his brother’s life on twitter.

@earthnotflatffs101 yo don’t this dude with tim drake low key look like jason todd?

And the motherfucker even dared to repost Chad’s selfie and an old picture of a 13 year-old Jason walking alongside Bruce.

Of course the tweet goes viral.

Everyone starts talking about the eerie resemblance between Tim’s buddy and his deceased brother that he supposedly never met. Some find it tasteless that everyone is making a conspiracy theory out of an allegedly dead child, but they are quickly overpowered by the wave of old gossip being revisited. It takes one Sunday afternoon for everyone to start pointing out how weird it is that Tim Drake left the Wayne manor seemingly out of the blue and started living by himself at such a young age and how my sense it’d make for him to share a place with a brother. They notice Chad captioned the picture as "visiting the cousins" plural even if it's public knowledge that Tim Drake- Wayne lives alone. People start demanding to know who is the mystery man lending his shoulder to Tim, tagging the few Waynes with known social media in their posts and even WE corporate account.

It’s the very definition of a shit show, in Tim’s humble opinion.

Red Robin and Batgirl skip their Sunday patrol to brainstorm ideas of damage control. Damian is pacing around the kitchen as the two of them desperately try to apply an algorithm Oracle made to make sure less people will see posts about Jason Todd. There’s not a lot they can do about the fact that #IsJasonToddAlive? is trending. They’re so distressed that Damian forgets to be unpleasant.

“I see no other option,” Damian says at some point. “We should kill that man before he ruins our family any further.”

“How would killing him solve anything?” Tim groans.

“It would make me feel better.”

“No.”

“His death would cause people to forget about Todd.”

“... Go on.”

“Tim, you’re not going to let Dami kill Chad.”

“Why not!”

“Because with our track record he’s going to come back with radioactive powers or some shit.”

“That would be good! He’d finally fit in with the family! As it is now, we’re becoming the freaking Kardashians with a hint conspiracy theory, Steph!”

That’s not the biggest problem, though.

The problem is that Jason doesn’t come home on that night.

Tim and Steph wait for hours after Damian finally calms down in his sleeping bag, but the sun rises and Jason’s room remains empty.

He isn’t freaking out, by any means. Jason is an adult man and he can handle himself. He used to go missing by months at a time before moving in with Tim. He must be busy doing Red Hood stuff. He could let them know he’s okay, just for shits and giggles, but it’s alright. He doesn’t owe them anything.

On the third day after #isJasonToddAlive went viral, Tim and Steph go on patrol even if it’s not their turn. It’s a spur of the moment thing, because they’re home and bored. They agree to split up and just ride around town aimlessly, see what happens and meet at the end of the night to grab waffles at that 24 hour diner Steph likes so much.  One that Jason first took her to after one particular bad night in which she failed to stop a mugger from shooting their victim.

He is just riding his bike, not paying attention to where the wheels take him. It’s just a coincidence that he ends up in Red Hood’s old territory. He hears from some loiterers that Batgirl had been seen roaming around just south from where he is. He keeps his patrol focused on the north side.

A beeping sound informs him that someone is trying to contact him. He accepts it almost right away.

“ Jason ?”

“Nope, it’s me, Timmy,” Dick’s voice answers.

He sighs. And cringes when he realizes he broke the no-real-names-when-in-uniform rule. He’s lucky it isn’t Batman calling him. “Sorry, Nightwing, I thought… Never mind. You need something?”

“No, it’s just that I just got here at the manor. I thought I’d let you know.”

“Oh. Is everything okay? I didn’t even know you were coming back.”

“Well, with this whole Jason is alive thing blowing up I thought I’d come home, help in any way I can. Reporters are driving B insane.”

“Ugh.”

“Yeah. Also… Do you know Jason’s here?”

There is a beat. Tim presses the breaks with too much force and it’s a miracle that his bike doesn’t simply throw him away with how fast he stops.

“ What? ”

Dick chuckles over the comm. “I figured he didn’t tell you. Do what you want with this information. I’m gonna help Alfred now.”

Tim doesn’t bother saying goodbye, but he’s sure Dick will forgive him. He’s already pressing the buttons on his wrist pad to contact someone else. “Batgirl? Meet me at the cave. Now.”

It takes a lot of effort to stop Steph from storming into the manor through the main entrance in full Batgirl gear. And it’s a good thing Tim managed it, because there is a literal swarm of reporters in front of the gates and Tim wonders if anything happened in the short two hours he was out patrolling.

Once they’re in the cave, they’re careful enough to change into civies. Unlike Tim, Steph doesn’t have clothes stashed there so she simply steals a sweater from Damian’s locker while Tim checks the news.

“Someone saw the mystery man that looks like Jason Todd getting into Bruce Wayne’s car two days ago, ” he tells her when she comes out of the changing room. “How did we miss that?”

“I don’t know, you’re the tech dude,” she groans. “Maybe we hid so much crap the computer started hiding it from us too.”

It’s an explanation as good as any other and the truth is unimportant now. They climb out of the cave with unusual care, checking twice to make sure no one is around to see them emerge from the secret passage. As soon as the cave entrance is hidden, they hear altered voices.

Steph reaches for Tim’s hand when they walk towards the commotion and intertwines their fingers. One could think the gesture was a request for comfort. Tim had been friends with her long enough that it was a silent plea to hold her back if she needs to fight the urge to dropkick someone.

“... can’t simply hide him forever, Brucie!” They hear Chad saying.

Then, in a deep voice that isn’t quite Bruce or quite Batman, but that is still firm and definitive:

“If you can’t agree with me, feel free to leave. But stay aware that if you do anything to expose my son to unnecessary attention, I will not take it lightly.”

They walk into the room to find a Chad that looks somewhere between mildly horrified and extremely angry. Bruce is standing against the fireplace and he is definitely using the shadow he’s casting to appear bigger and more threatening, a trick he usually only uses when he’s wearing a cowl.

“What’s going on?” Tim asks.

“Tim!” Chad turns to him. “Get your father to see reason. I’ve been telling him that this is the perfect time to tell everyone Jason is alive. He wants to… to hide him like he’s a dirty secret.”

Tim raises an eyebrow. “What does Jason think?”

“Jason doesn’t know what’s best, Tim, he’s not okay! He has a gun in your house, for crying out loud!”

For the sake of the intensity of the argument, Tim pretends not to notice the batglare he’s getting from his father and focuses on giving Chad a batglare of his own:

“So? You have a problem with my brother?”

Steph is squeezing his hand enough to hurt. He isn’t sure who’s holding who back now.

Chad takes a step back. “You people are insane. Mom was right. Trying to help you guys is useless.”

“ That’s what you’ve been trying to do?” Steph blurts.

Chad shakes his head and storms out of the room… And just like that, Chad’s gone. Gone from their lives, hopefully forever, and if not... Tim knows last year Duke learned a lot about restraining orders.

“I was wondering when you two would come pick him up,” Bruce says. “I hoped it’d take a little longer, it’s nice having him home.”

“Where is he?”

“First… what is this about a gun?”

“First of all, it was Damian’s fault for giving him our address.” Steph shrugs. “Second of all, the gun is the least dangerous thing in Jason’s room and right now I’m more dangerous than any weapon you have, so where is he ?”

“Library.”

They bolt out of the room and straight upstairs. Tim is so caught in the relief of the biggest source of problem being gone that he gets careless. Jason always said Tim is too quick to forgive, even if he doesn’t forget, and he guesses that is true. When he enters the library and he finds himself facing a startled Jason, he’s not angry. Mildly annoyed, for sure. Relieved that his worst paranoiac fears rooted in PTSD are proven to be untrue. Concerned by the fact that Jason looks almost small, younger, maybe because he’s wearing one of Bruce’s shirts or because his expression is so off guard.

But, most importantly, Tim isn’t holding Steph’s hand anymore.

“Jason Todd, you mOTHERFUCKER!”

“No, don’t- ”

But it’s too late. She leaps and dropkicks him and Jason screams in pain and soon the two of them are literally rolling on the floor yelling insults at each other and knocking an entire table sideways. Tim sighs.

“Say uncle! Say uncle right now, you musky bitch!”

“ It’s musty, dumbass!!”

“You’re that, too!”

He sits down in one of the comfy reading chairs and waits for them to get it all out of their system. At some point, Steph is straddling Jason’s back pulling him backwards by the nostrils and he somehow is reaching back to tickle her sides and both of their gazes meet Tim’s unimpressed glower. They stop.

“You two done?”

“She started it!”

“ Bitch- ”

“Enough already,” Tim groans. He waits until both look appropriately ashamed and get off of each other. “Steph is right, though, what the fuck, Jason?”

Jason cringes, but still tries to play it cool, as though nothing unusual happened. “The news had my face, I decided to lay low.”

“And how’s that working out for you?” Steph snaps. “It took us three whole days to find you without actively looking. Bruce found you even before.”

“Also lay low hiding from what? Us?”

Grumbling something impossible to understand, he stands and crosses his arms in a clear attempt to look tough. In the absence of his leather jacket and the presence of all of Tim’s annoyance he only looks stupid.

“Look, I freaked out, alright? Me being found out was my fault.”

“How the heck is Chad’s stupid selfie your fault?”

“Because I knew it was a bad idea, okay?” Jason snaps. “I shouldn’t have sat there and made dumb excuses, I should have told him to fuck off the moment he saw my gun. I noticed him taking the stupid pictures, but I didn’t even care that I could be in one of them, I thought it wasn’t worth waking Tim up. All these months playing house and messing around with you guys made me reckless and soft. ”

Steph retreats a step as if he had slapped her.

“Okay, Jason, I’m willing to put up with a lot of angsty bullshit from you, but… Is that really what you think of us? That we’re, we’re what, bringing you down?”

“That’s not what I said!” He runs his fingers through his hair in frustration.

“No,” Tim interrupts. “He's right.” When Steph makes to argue, he raises a hand asking her to listen. “You did grow reckless. That’s what you’re supposed to do, Jason. You’re supposed to relax and have down time and mess around with us. And if shit happens… We have each others' backs. You’d known that if you had come home, because you’d know Steph and I spent the past three days trying to cover for your stupid butt, since we knew you’d want that.”

Jason doesn’t say anything for a minute. When Steph doesn’t either, Tim continues:

“You don’t have to just survive anymore, you know? I thought you knew that when you agreed to live with us. You’re family.”

“You sound like Dick.”

“I mean, Dick was the first person that treated me like family. Maybe that’s why I was so... Hm. Never mind.”

“You’re still upset he fired you, huh?”

“No. I mean, I have been. But I know now it wasn’t personal. He was doing the best he could, even if he didn’t really understand what I needed back then. I know Dick always loved me.”

“Hm. Did you talk to him so he could apologize or did you work all that on your own and forgave him by yourself?”

“Nice try, but right now we’re talking about your issues, not mine.”

Because Steph had been awful quiet for a while - which is something highly unusual - they turn to her in question. They find her wearing her furious expression, the one that puts fear for their lives in criminals hearts, but the effect is ruined by the fact that her big eyes are pooled with tears.

“Oh shit. That’s new. I didn’t know she did that. I thought she destroyed her tear ducts when she was a kid or something. What do I do?”

She simply shakes her head. “I get you, Jay,” she says, her voice a bit wobbly. “Admitting you have something means knowing you can lose it. But is the fear of losing it worth throwing it away altogether?”

Jason pulls her into a hug. She sniffles and rubs her face on his chest, purposefully wiping her runny nose there before she hugs him back.

“I hate you so much, Jason.”

“I hate you too, Steph,” he says softly. “And, from the bottom of my heart, my bad.”

She sniffles again. “Tim, get your gay ass over here. This is a triple hug situation.”

Tim snorts and mumbles something about the fact that Dick can never find out about this or he’ll never forgive them for not including him.

He joins the triple hug nonetheless.

The trio ends up sitting on the floor, their backs resting against the table Steph and Jason knocked over. They learn that Jason had escaped to one of his old hideouts when he heard the news. He was both annoyed and creeped out to find Bruce already there waiting for him and the fucker had the gall to bring Alfred along to make sure Jason wouldn’t say no.

In exchange, they tell him Damian was offering to kill Chad on Jason’s behalf, which makes him bit moved.

“Bruce had already said everything you said, by the way,” he tells Tim. “It’s scary how you’re more like him than his own biological son.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “We said the same thing because we’re right.”

“It almost sounds like you do want me to go out and tell everyone I’m alive.”

“I mean, yeah, but that doesn’t matter.”

“Wait, what?” Steph frowns. “You want people to know Jason’s alive? Then why did you make me spend hours sitting in front of a computer hunting tweets about this glorified zombie?”

“Because if Jason’s secret goes out, it’s for us, not for him,” Tim says. “It’s a pain to be part of a public family. We’d get to go out in public without worrying about being seen and to, I don’t know, post stupid pictures online, mock old people together in Bruce’s galas, but it also means that he would have to avoid reporters and have a double life like the rest of us do.”

After Tim finishes speaking, Steph nods as if that makes sense. Jason finds himself frowning at his feet.

“I’m gonna do it.”

“Wait, what?”

“I’m gonna come out as a living person. I’ll maybe even pepper in the fact I’m also queer, just to spice things up.”

“Jay, you don’t have to…”

“No, I don’t. When it was Chad’s bullshit about me having to live my best life, I wasn’t going to, but if it’s for you guys, I can do it. Steph’s right. I can’t live a half live." His smile twists into something wicked. "And I know exactly how to do it.”

Congratulations, @JasonToddWayne! Your twitter account has been successfully created.

The first and only post is a picture of a man in a leather jacket and sunglasses in the middle of a fancy lobby. Hanging upside down from the chandelier above him is no one other than Dick Grayson-Wayne holding a flashlight right behind the man’s head to simulate a bright aura. Around him, some kneeling, some standing, but all holding out their arms towards him are all of the Wayne kids, Tim, Cassandra, Duke and even Damian. If you look closely, you can see a smiling butler on the background and, further, a shadow that looks very much like Bruce Wayne facepalming.

The caption of the picture simply says: I lived, bitch.

@dgraysonman retweeted that.

@stephssss retweeted that.

@thomascommaduke retweeted that

@babsgeez retweeted that

@BruceWayne retweeted that

The thing about being part of a scandal you purposefully caused is that you get to kick back and watch the world burn around you while you wear an evil little grin on your face whenever people ask what the hell you were thinking. Tim used to get annoyed by interview requests that had nothing to do with WE and everything to do with his personal life, but for once he enjoys watching the messages piling up and eventually saying no to all of them.

Bruce makes a brief and vague declaration about his son being back from the dead, no big deal, and he expects everyone can respect his family's privacy in this delicate moment. He gives the press just enough and refuses to elaborate. Only liars give too many details and they’re not lying. Not entirely, at least.

Of course, Jason doesn’t help by posting the weirdest freaking memes to his twitter account and, whenever someone tries to get answers from his, his retorts vary widely from “I returned from the grave to wash Damian’s mouth with soap” to “I was captured by a group of murderous ninja that dipped my corpse in a cursed pool that brought me back to life”. Unfortunately, he gets verified and no man should hold so much power.

They return to their lives, Tim in his room, Jason in his and Steph on her couch. Sometimes they even meet in the kitchen to play Uno and prank call Dick - it never works, because Dick always says he’s flattered that they wanted to hear his voice, but it’s the thought behind it that counts.

They go on patrol sometimes. By this time, the public seems to have caught on that Batgirl and Red Robin are basically a duo. Sometimes the Red Hood is included in the mix. For once, Tim doesn’t mind that they know as much.

He thinks they’re heading towards more peaceful days.

DUCK DUCK BRUISE

Duck Robin: hey stephanie what the hell

Duck Hood: Do I even want to know

Bruise: we need our own groupchat

Duck Hood: Why is it named that?

Bruise: bc we red red and purple

Bruise: u never played duck duck bruise?

Duck Robin: its duck duck goose steph

Bruise: u and i led v different childhoods

Duck Hood left the chat

Bruise added Jason Todd to the chat

Bruise changed Jason Todd’s name to Duck Hood

Bruise: u cant escape us jay

Drake Robin: one of us! one of us! one of us!

Duck Hood: Next time either of you complain about not getting laid I’ll show you a screenshot of this conversation.

Jason, Tim and Steph are walking home. It’s still day and, even if the sun isn’t quite shining because this is still Gotham, it’s nice and warm outside. The reason they went to get groceries together is because Jason had been horrified to find out that neither Tim nor Steph knew how to pick fruit and they spent a good part of their afternoon arguing over which apple was the ripest. Tim refused to get out of the shopping cart until their groceries were paid.

It had been fun.

Steph forced them to carry all the bags, arguing that she is but a frail young woman even if Tim is pretty sure she can bench press him. The real reason is because she wants to play Pokemon Go on the walk home and that’s valid, so they carry the bags. She is one of the few people of Gotham that isn’t afraid of getting mugged, so she might as well use that privilege.

A text stops her from catching a bulbasaur right before it stops her entirely.

“Steph?” Tim calls, his brow furrowing in worry.

“It’s happening again,” she whispers.

The brothers approach her to look at her phone. They’re already familiar with this at this point, so none of them is surprised to see a headline and a picture.

MYSTERIOUS BOMBSHELL SEEN LEAVING JASON WAYNE’S APARTMENT

Tim recognizes the outfits they wore two days ago on the day he snapped and forced them to take out the trash together, which ended a week long battle of wills. It’s also the day the biggest bag ripped open and an obscene amount of RedBull cans rolled down the curb. The picture is them watching the disaster. Steph is a pretty girl, but that picture is not doing her any favors. Her face is all scrunched up, as Gothamites tend to be on the rare occasions they see the sun, part of the ripped trash bag still in her hand. Jason has his hands on his hips looking like every bit of the mother hen he is and he is wearing crocs over socks (Tim has sworn to kill Roy Harper for corrupting his brother like that, making him think that’s an okay thing to do and say disgusting things like just try it, you annoying hipster, it’s comfy. )

“You know what? They called me a bombshell, I’m not even mad.”

“How come it’s Jason’s apartment? I’m literally the only person in this household with a dayjob!”

“First of all I'm an university student. Second, you only do actual work because you’re a sucker, you’re all trust fund babies. And that includes you, mr. Crime Lord.”

“Thank you, miss Eats All my Fucking Food.”

They resume their walk without reading the rest of the article. Tim thinks to himself that this is not too bad. Then it gets worse.

“Hey. Are those reporters?” Steph asks. “In front of our house?”

It only takes a glance to find out that she’s right. There is a small group of people hanging out near their apartment complex even though there’s no apparent reason to be there. Any decent Gothamite knows you don’t loiter for no reason, because you never know when the freaking Killer Croc is going to randomly pop out of the sewer or some crap. Those people are there with a purpose and that purpose involves a lot of them holding cameras.

“Yeah, I’m out,” Tim says.

“What?”

“This is the first time I’m not involved in the news. I’m going to enjoy my immunity. You two are on your own for this one.”

He turns his back to them. Enough is enough. Sometimes you just have to draw a line in the sand, let the universe know what you’re willing to put up with on that day. Tim is not willing to deal with this. He gestures at Steph and Jason not to follow him as he stalks into the adjacent empty alley. He takes a long, deep breath and shouts at the top of his lungs:

“COOONNEEEEEEEEEEER!”

Tim had never been better, or at least that’s what he tells himself 50 times in a row. He chose to be in denial and deny he will. He sits on the floor of his best friend’s room and takes a deep calming breath of the fresh air coming through the window. It doesn’t smell like gritty cities or nosey reporters at all.

Conner finally comes back and hands him a bowl of popcorn before taking a seat by his side. He turns on the old television in his room. Tim smiles.

“Hey, your siblings are on the news,” Conner says.

Tim glances at the phone Conner is holding. It’s a picture of Steph walking into their building carrying Jason in her arms as one would carry a toddler, one arm supporting his bottom and the other pointing threateningly at the camera. There is no doubt in Tim's mind that they’re mimicking the meme on purpose. He doesn’t bother reading the headline. He doesn’t want to know. He simply puts the phone aside and hugs Conner.

“I don’t want to go back to Gotham ever again. Let me live here, please.”

Conner laughs. “Sure, Ma’s been trying to get me to kidnap you for a while now.”

“Good. I’m going to learn farm work. I’ll bring honor to us all.”

“Sure," Conner pets his hair. "It’s been a whole day now. You already miss Jason and Stephanie, don’t you?”

“...yeah.”

“I’ll fly you back home tonight.”

“Thanks, Conner, you’re the best.”

Despite everything, there’s no place like home.

[dottie-wan-kenobi]

Survivors guilt and Dick please!!!!

Thanks for the prompt! I added Damian (and Jason, kind of), hope that’s alright. This is set during the time Bruce is “dead”, and is also the first one that actually got me crying dsfhkjdsah

The movie Brother Bear (2003) is talked about in this -- if a summary is needed, there’s one at the top of the chapter on AO3

Written for the @badthingshappenbingo square “Survivor’s Guilt”. X’s are finished, asterisks are requested, and the rest are free!!

----

“Hey, why don’t we watch a movie?” Grayson asks, leaning against the back of the couch Damian is occupying. He’s not lounging, as he’s above such a thing, but he is in a comfortable position, going through as many of Father’s files as he can. “You need a break.”

“I do not,” Damian replies, hardly looking up. “I need to keep going.”

“You’ve been at this for hours, lil D.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Alright, Dami,” Grayson says, dragging the infernal nickname out until Damian glares up at him. Of course, he’s smiling. He’s always smiling. It’s annoying. “I just really think you should take a break now and come watch a movie with me.”

“No.”

“What if it was an order from Batman? ‘Cause I can make it an order from Batman to his little Robin, you know. And you said you’d follow my orders.”

Trying not to grit his teeth, Damian realizes he’s not going to win this one. The files are settled on the furthest cushion, and he makes sure to recognize how he leaves them before he grudgingly stands. Of course, Grayson is beaming, and Damian doesn’t miss how smug it is.

“C’mon,” Grayson says, heading towards the living room. Damian follows sedately, resisting the urge to disappear back into the sitting room and lock all the doors. It won’t do any good, and by the smell of popcorn coming from where they’re headed, it seems Grayson is determined. A determined Grayson is not one that can be won against.

Sure enough, the much larger couch is covered in pillows, blankets, and a large bowl of popcorn. Defeated, Damian sits down in one corner, pulling the nearest blanket over his legs. Grayson joins him, sitting in the other corner and stretching his legs out so they land in Damian’s lap. Scowling, he asks, “What drivel are you going to force me to endure this time?”

“Hey! Lilo and Stitch is not drivel. You’re out of your mind, kid.”

“I am not—!”

“I’m kidding, Dami,” Grayson laughs, sitting up just to reach over and attempt to ruffle Damian’s hair. He gets his hand slapped away for the trouble. “Anyway, I was thinking we could watch Brother Bear.”

The TV comes on then, and Grayson, taking Damian’s silence as acceptance, goes to the list of movies they own. Brother Bear, it turns out, is an animated movie for children.

“I’m not a child, Grayson!” He hisses, unspeakably annoyed. “We don’t have to watch these silly movies every single time.”

“Who says it’s for you?” Grayson counters, and though he’s still grinning, he sounds exhausted. “Maybe I just don’t wanna watch this alone.”

“Ask Pennyworth, then.”

Grayson shakes his head. “No, he’s busy, and anyway, this is a movie one watches with their brothers. It’s in the title and everything. Now hush, I’m turning it on.”

Damian crosses his arms belligerently, refusing to enjoy this in any way, shape, or form. But he can’t leave with Grayson’s legs pinning him down, and this couch is quite comfortable as well…. With a sigh, he reaches out for a handful of popcorn, and turns his attention to the movie.

Sometime over the next hour, they finish the popcorn and the bowl gets set on the floor. Damian finds himself unconsciously sidling up closer to Grayson, until he’s practically laying on the man. His chest is a comfortable pillow, and with the back of the couch pressed so close, Damian feels cocooned and relaxed, even.

He watches the movie, but not because he’s enjoying it—he’s not. And he doesn’t do it for Grayson, either, because that would be ridiculous. He does it because he’s stuck, and there’s nothing more interesting to do except pay attention.

On the screen, the main characters sit on top of a mountain, and Kenai, the older of the two, tells Koda, the small bear cub, about his betrayal. About how he killed the cub’s mother, and got turned into a bear by the Great Spirits for it. The scene is an emotional one, to be sure, and the actors play it well. Damian bites the inside of his cheek, and pretends not to notice himself curling tighter into Grayson’s side. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, demanding that they stop stinging. He’s not a child, he shouldn’t be crying over some stupid film! It’s ridiculous!

Grayson sniffles, and Damian freezes.

“Sorry,” Grayson whispers, a breathy laugh following the word. “This part always gets me.”

“It’s just a movie, Grayson.”

There’s silence for a few moments, and Damian looks up to his face, finding that the older man’s eyes are trained on the television. A tear is sliding down his cheek. The sight of it makes Damian’s stomach twist uncomfortably. Then Grayson says, “It was Jason’s favorite.”

Jason Todd, he means. Damian scoffs, opening his mouth to reply.

Grayson beats him to it. “I know—I know it seems weird. For me to miss him. But he was my brother, too, and we watched this together once. I did it with Tim and Cass, too, and now it’s your turn.”

“They aren’t—”

“Yes, they are.”

“But I’m—”

“Damian.” He sounds firm, upset. His eyes shut, still turned away, and more tears fall.

Damian wants this to end. He doesn’t want to see an adult cry, be so weak. It makes his throat feel hot and tight, like he might join in, and that’s something that needs to be avoided at all costs. Changing the subject, he asks, “Why is Kenai so upset? Koda’s mother killed his brother. He was right to kill her in retaliation. If someone killed you, I—I would get my revenge.”

Grayson turns to him then, the hand not curled around Damian’s back coming up and wiping his face. “That’s sweet, Dami, but it’s not what I want. Okay? When I die, I don’t want you to get revenge, I want you to grieve and move on. Be happy. Miss me, but not too much.”

“I don’t understand,” Damian says, confused. ‘Not too much’? What could that possibly mean?

“I hope you never do.” Grayson sighs, keeping his hand over his eyes. “Sorry. I’m sorry, I’m just.” He exhales again, this time much louder. “You asked why he’s upset. Kenai, when he killed Koda’s mom, he thought he was doing the right thing. But then the Spirits showed him it wasn’t necessarily the right thing, there are consequences, you know. And he’s regretting his actions, because the consequences aren’t worth it. If he’d done something differently, maybe the mama bear wouldn’t be dead, and then Koda wouldn’t be alone.”

Incredibly unsure, Damian says, “But Koda’s not alone. He has Kenai.”

“Not forever. One day, Kenai won’t be there when it really counts, and Koda will be on his own when he really needs a brother around, you know? And Kenai…he’ll regret it for the rest of his life. Because if he’d just been there, then maybe Koda wouldn’t be dead, and maybe Koda wouldn’t end up alone and hurting and killing people.”

“Grayson, I—I feel you’re talking about something else.”

Wiping his cheeks again, Grayson turns back to the TV, jaw clenched. “Sorry. We can talk when it’s over, okay? I’ll explain whatever doesn’t make sense.”

Damian scans his face, easily noting the tension. But it’s clear he doesn’t want to talk about it. And Damian, he doesn’t really care that much about Grayson’s weaknesses.

Clearing his throat, he presses his own cheek into Grayson’s chest and turns his attention back to the screen.

[elareine]

You still look like a movie (DickWally, side JayTim)

When Gotham Academy offered him a position, Wally jumped at the chance. He’d trained as a teacher here, after all, and he thought the city could use all the help it could get.

The memories of grad school were a mixed bag, as these things tended to be. Living prices in Gotham had been low, still were, which had been what allowed Wally to truly break away from his father for the first time. He’d made his first best friend here and had his heart broken.

That had been ten years ago, though. When he arrived at school the week before the term started, Wally was determined to make new memories.

His hiring had been kinda last-minute, so he didn’t expect any arrangements to have been made for his first day. Apparently, the old teacher had been kidnapped by a clown-penguin or something? Gotham was so weird.

But there was a figure waiting for him at the gates. And he looked familiar.

Wally blinked. “Jason?”

Jason Todd grinned and ground out his cigarette. “Hi, Wally. I’m your welcome committee.”

So Dick’s delinquent little brother had grown up to become a teacher, too, huh? Who’d have thought? The students they met on the corridors clearly liked him, though, judging by the enthusiastic greetings they got. Jason was kinda doing a half-assed job of showing him around, though, soon abandoning it entirely to drag Wally into one of the classrooms.

A pale, dark-haired young man gave Jason a wave, then smiled politely at Wally. “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met.”

Wally was about to introduce himself, but Jason intervened. “Wally, this is Tim Drake. He teaches CS and, occasionally, Math. Tim, this Wally, our new Chemistry teacher.”

“West?” Tim asked, peering at Wally’s face. “Wait, are you that Wally?”

“Uhm.” Wally didn’t know how to answer that question.

Luckily, Jason seemed to know exactly what Tim was talking about. “Yes. Yes, he is.”

Wally watched in confusion as Tim’s smile suddenly turned a lot more genuine. “Welcome to Gotham Academy, then, Wally. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Wally was just going to ignore that. “Thanks. Good to be here. You another brother?” Wally had always bet Dick that Bruce Wayne’s adoptions wouldn’t stop at two. That man screamed ‘father energy’ as loudly as ‘will not be in a stable long-term relationship.’ Of course, he’d adopt.

“Sort of.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Definitely. You know that if we’d divorce, Bruce would sign the papers in a heartbeat.”

“I’m a grown man.”

“You think that’ll stop him?”

Oh. Okay, then.

One of the reasons Wally had been so eager to leave his old school had been the constantly-reinforced need to stay in the closet. And here he was and the first two dudes he met were married to each other.

“Anyway,” Tim pointedly turned back to Wally, “Dick will be so happy to see you.”

Would he, though? And more importantly - “Does he teach here?”

“Does he ever.”

“Jason’s just here on loan,” Tim explained. “He usually teaches at the other end of town. Dick’s the one that roped him into this.”

“That’s cool. That you’re doing that, I mean; in my old school people always refused to help out even when we didn’t have an English teacher for six months—”

“Right,” Jason said. “Let’s get going.”

This was good, Wally thought as he followed Jason through even more corridors. He’d get to see Dick again, but he’d have time to prepare for it. Once he sorted through the mix of dread and joy rushing through him at the prospect, he’d be fine. Great, even. Totally cool.

They turned a corner, and Jason called out: “Yo, Dick, check out who just joined our school!”

Dick Grayson turned around to where he’d been talking to one of the administrators, and. Uh.

Wow.

Dick, as a teenager, had been short and wiry. As a young man, he’d been the epitome of an athlete, lean and with a flexibility that had caused Wally some sleepless nights.

As a man in his thirties, he was a total fucking knockout, Jesus. Where had that jawline come from?? Wally hadn’t acquired anything like that. It was unfair!

“Wall-Man!”

“Robin!” Wally called back, unable to resist that smile or the hug Dick immediately drew him into.

“I haven’t seen you in ages!” Dick grinned. “Awesome to have you here, Walls.”

See, that was the thing about Dick. He might be one of the weirdest people Wally knew, thanks to his family, but also the nicest. He’d even pretend it hadn’t been Wally’s massive, creepy crush on him that had caused him to flee to the other side of the planet.

“Yeah, well, last thing I heard, you were in China. What in God’s name possessed you to come back here?”

Dick shrugged, running a hand through his hair. “I dunno, man, it always comes back to this, doesn’t it?”

Considering the situation, he and Dick in a hallway in Gotham, Wally had to agree. “I guess.”

When the silence stretched on a bit too long, Dick finally looked away from Wally. “Hey, Jason, if you want, I can take over the tour—”

Jason had already left.

It was incredible how easy it was to fall back into old patterns with Dick. Two months in and Wally was as regularly a guest in Dick’s office as Dick was at Wally’s apartment after work, which is to say, almost every day, including today.

“Do you need anything else?” he heard Dick say. The group of students shook their heads, so Wally had no qualms about walking in.

“Walls, hey,” Dick smiled when he saw him. “Lemme just finish that form, and I’m all yours.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” Wally was dying to tell Dick about the shit John from 4a had tried to pull away, but it would need to wait until the group of students that was still lingering outside had moved out of earshot.

“See, I told you he’d be taken,” he heard one of them say. “Guys like that don’t reach their thirties single. He’s certainly not interested in you.”

“Oh, shut up!”

“Don’t be sad,” a third voice interjected helpfully. “Mr Grayson is like the hottest teacher around. No shame in losing out.”

Wally would very much like to tell them how much he resented the implication he would go for a teenage girl if Dick were slightly less hot.

Wait, what was he thinking?

Wally glanced at Dick. He was still focused on his paperwork and hadn’t heard anything.

Good. Last thing Wally needed was for his stupid crush to fuck things up between them again.

“So that’s happening again, huh?”

“...why are you crowding me into a wall?” Wally asked curiously. It was quite impressive, really, the way Jason towered over him despite not being that much taller. If Wally weren’t so sure he could outrun Jason, he would even feel slightly intimidated.

Jason backed off a bit, still glowering. “Just be glad it’s me and not the munchkin parade. Damian was all for locking you two into an attic at swordpoint.” He pointed his thumb vaguely into the direction of Dick’s office. “I’ve heard the students discuss running interference, Wally. This has to stop.”

Wally sighed. Trust the Waynes to have figured him out. “Am I that obvious?”

“Not obvious enough, apparently.” Jason snorted. “Do us all a favor and actually kiss him this time. He’s a dumbass who thinks this has always been one-sided.”

“Well, yeah.” Wally’s brain decided to skip right over ‘kiss him,’ because what. “It has, I’m just being stupid; I know Dick isn’t interested in me that way, but it’s so nice to have him back, he’s my best friend and I missed him so much, that’s more important than being in love with him.”

“I think that you need to kiss him,” Jason said again, more loudly, and why was he speaking so loudly, almost as if he wanted someone else than Wally to hear it—

Wally turned.

Dick was gaping at him. There wasn’t a better word for it. Even he couldn’t make that level of ‘wtf’ look attractive.

Of course, he’d heard all of that. Wally wanted to sink into the ground. “You, uh. Maybe wanna talk about that?”

“Yeah,” Dick nodded. “Yeah, I think we should.” He made toward his office but abruptly turned back before he’d finished the movement. “No, actually, we should follow Jason’s advice.”

Wally heard grumbling behind him. “I’ve been saying.” He’d tear Jason a new one for this, he swore, right after he found out what Dick meant by that.

And then he did find out and forgot all about Jason Todd, because Dick was—rather predictably, but still incomprehensibly to Wally—kissing him, and that was more important than anything else.

The first few years after Dick had left, Wally had idly fantasized about this. In his mind, there had been elaborate love confessions that displayed a degree of coherency neither of them ever possessed in real life; kisses in the rain, maybe, or at an airport; Dick somehow swooping in and rescuing Wally from what his life had become.

Later, when he’d started getting his shit together, the phantasies turned more mundane. What it would be like to have Dick with him again. How Dick would laugh at Wally’s impression of his annoying boss; whether he’d get along with Wally’s new friends; what Dick’s opinion on fidget toys might be.

And yes, how it would feel to be kissing him the corridor for the entire world to see. That, too.

The answer?

Even better than Wally could’ve ever imagined.

[jinmukangwrites]

Dwelling on What If (1/6)

Summary: The children of crime alley suddenly start disappearing with Red Hood suspecting a trafficking scheme in play. His questions are answered as he finds himself and Damian Wayne abducted and hunted for sport.

Notes: Dedicated to @doc-squash who is an amazing, talented artist who is carrying the entire batfam fandom on their back. They also made the prompt idea in an old post a few weeks back and I've been working on this 12k beast of a fic ever since then because I couldn't get this particular prompt out of my head. Seriously, Doc, I know we have never talked before but you are seriously amazing and I have mad respect for you <3

Warnings: kidnapping, trafficking, description of injuries, a swear here and there because it's Jason and he gets to swear sometimes, probably inaccurate descriptions of New Jersey geography and medical stuff but it's fan fiction so I don't care too much to make everything super realistic, some blood, guns, knives, hunting for sport, slight dehumanization, angst. It's not as violent as it sounds, I tried to keep this toned down, but just to be safe :)

It was interesting to write exclusively in Damian’s perspective for this. Honestly, I am so much more confident in writing his character now. Anyway, please enjoy!!

-o-o-o-o-

Damian groans as consciousness slowly returns to him. His head pounds as he brings his eyebrows together, trying to remember how to open his eyes. It takes a second, and the feeling of cold metal seeping through his clothes reaches him before he can even blink his eyes open. Blurry images greet him, fuzzy shapes obscuring more fuzzy shapes, until it slowly focuses into something that only slightly unnerves him.

Bars, well, not quite bars actually. Bars are what his grandfather used in his prison, thick tubes of steel usually an inch in diameter placed closely together so the one trapped behind then couldn't even squeeze their shoulders through. No, these aren't bars, these are wires, a few millimeters in diameter and crisscrossing around each other to make some sort of woven pattern. For a second, it reminds him of the kennel father bought when they first got Ace and Titus until he realizes that this is exactly what it is.

He's staring at a kennel wall. From the inside.

An uneasy feeling settles in his gut but he pushes that aside as he slowly places his hands on the cool surface below him. He leveres himself up inch by inch, fighting down the feeling of nausea that rises to his throat. He slows and forces a breath through his mouth, the symptoms of being drugged are easily recognizable. 

Finally, he finds himself upwards and collapsing back so he's sitting back on his legs which are folded beneath him. He closes his eyes and breathes through his sudden lightheadedness until his stomach stops trying to force whatever he had for lunch upwards. A few moments pass, and a few more, and he's about to risk opening his eyes and moving again until he's stopped by a familiar voice. 

"Mornin', demon brat."

Todd.

In a matter of a few heartbeats he has already thought of two different situations where he'd find himself in a cage with the voice of Todd nearby. Maybe Todd has finally truly snapped and decided to kidnap Damian to get to his father or Grayson. Damian wouldn't put it past him, Todd is a delinquent and a disappointment to the family, yet that doesn't explain how Damian would have actually ended up captured. One things for sure, if Todd ever decided to take Damian hostage, he wouldn't succeed. Damian is the one true heir to the cowl of his father and could have defeated every single one of his so called adoptive brothers in combat by the time he turned six. 

The next situation seems like the more likely one: Todd isn't the cause, but the victim to it too.

He forces his eyes open and finds his second theory is the correct one, through that only makes things more complicated; at this point he would have preferred Todd go wild and kidnap him. 

Across a small, wooden room with nothing but a dull bulb hanging from the ceiling to illuminate is a second kennel, same size as the one Damian currently finds himself trapped in. Inside that kennel is none other than Jason Todd, fathers greatest mistake… after Drake of course. The guy is a nuisance in every sense of the word. Carefree, idiotic, never taking a single thing seriously. He likes to pop in randomly to start arguments for argument sake, he's famous for interrupting important stakeouts with his loud guns and annoying personality, and worst of all, he thinks Damian like a child.

Tt.

It's proof of this as Damian comes to meet the sight of Todd casually leaning in the corner of his kennel, hands crossed over his stomach and legs crossed at the ankle, toes just touching the opposing corner of the cage. He's staring at Damian with a half eyebrow raised and a goofy, lopsided grin which makes Damian want to tear right through the wires separating them and break only the most painful of bones in his body. 

"Have a good nap there, buddy?"

Damian shoots a glare before he turns away and scoots over to where the door of the kennel he found himself in would be; slowly as to not aggravate any lingering nausea. He reaches his fingers up to the latch of the kennel door and frowns as he wraps his grasp around a small yet sturdy looking padlock. Frowning, he brings his hands down so he can place his feet—bare, shoeless, someone took his shoes and socks—against the lower part of the door in an attempt to bend it outwards and crawl out. 

"I'm gonna tell you now it won't work, squirt," Todd's voice cuts in and Damian refuses to roll his eyes or even acknowledge him. "The bars are stronger than they look."

Damian ignores him still as he pushes against the door and braces his hands behind him. He pushes and pushes until his back is pressed painfully against the opposite wall of the kennel and his legs are shaking with effort.

Defeated, he relaxes his legs and glares at the door. Not a single bit of metal even slightly bent out of shape. He can hear snickering besides him. 

"Tt."

"Oh, c'mon. Maybe if you push a little harder-"

"Shut up, Todd."

"He speaks!" 

Damian spins around to shoot a narrowed look but it doesn't go quite according to plan as his stomach rolls and vision blurs ever so slightly. He allows the feeling of sick to settle before he opens his mouth again. "What happened?" 

Todd fakes a surprised gasp and Damian bristles at the action. "You mean to tell me the great Damian, the blood heir, doesn't remember how we got here?!"

"Of course I remember!" Damian snaps, he doesn't but there is no way he'd raise Todd's already cliff-like ego another notch by telling him so. "You're going to tell me what you think happened so I can correct you where you are wrong."

Todd sighs and leans his head back against the wall behind him. "Whatever you say. So bossy…"

Before Damian can snap at him again, Todd quickly launches into a story about how he was in Crime Alley scoping out a possible lead into a case of some sort that he's working on and he ran into Damian who was also working on a lead, though Todd seems pretty confident that they were working on different cases. Damian wonders why he was alone in a place like Crime Alley until it occurs to him that he had just finished an argument with his father and had stormed out of the house for cool off. What the argument was is beyond him.

Apparently, they were cornered in some shady, insignificant alley by a group of people who looked like they were on drugs but still knew what they were doing with the tasers in their hands. 

Jason and Damian, looking like unsuspecting wonderers who had stumbled into the bad part of town, had to act like so because of Bruce's stupid "don't give yourself away" thing. As Todd speaks, Damian begins to remember the event  with clarity. In fact, that was the exact cause of the argument with father. Damian doesn't see the point in holding back while in civilian clothes. What's the point to? If he can fight someone he should fight them, not pretend to be helpless just because he's not wearing a mask. 

He supposes there's a reason to hold back, after all it would be bad if all of Gotham were to find out Damian Wayne was actually a local hero called Robin. But what he doesn't understand is why he has to hold back as much as his father wants him to. Children all over the world know basic defense, many others have actually taken karate and martial arts classes. He doesn't see why he needs to pretend to be completely oblivious and weak when it comes to hand to hand combat. 

He remembers forcing himself to hold back when they were cornered, he can tell Todd was as well, yet he still threw punches like any well built man his age would when confronted by hostile parties. However, it was inevitable in the end. There were too many thugs to knock them all out and not raise questions. Todd eventually let a fist slip and Damian was grabbed behind. He could have easily slipped his arm out so he could break the jaw of his attacker, but he caught the glare of Todd and then he watched as Todd was viciously jabbed by a taser gun and he went down. It was then, as annoying as it was, that he knew he had to go down too. Thankfully, the taser wasn't used on him, but a sickeningly sweet smelling cloth was sealed across his nose and mouth by the hand of his attacker. 

It was humiliating to pretend to struggle, to let them drug him and drag him to the blurry image of a classic "kidnapper van" as Grayson calls it.

"Does that all sound correct to you?" Todd suddenly asks, his eyebrow twitching upwards with the corner of his lips matching the action. 

"It was adequate."

"Screw you."

Damian once again resists the urge to roll his eyes. "Have you made any contact with the thugs in-between the time you awoke and I did?"

"You mean did I see the kidnappers while you were sleeping like a princess?" 

Damian couldn't stop the eye roll. He tried. 

"Have they talked about any ransom? Plans?"

Todd shook his head. "Silent, haven't seen a soul. Also, I don't think they'll be asking for any ransom. It's not like this was an aggravated abduction."

"How so?"

"C'mon, kid, they cornered two random guys in an alley. Plus, if it was for random, why did they take me?"

Todd, for once, is correct, though Damian hates to admit that even to himself. Jason Todd died years ago, right now, the man across from him has no connection to the Wayne's whatsoever as far as the public knew. This isn't premeditated, there is no way the abductors could have known Damian would travel alone to Crime Alley that night and meet up with a random man. The chances of that happening is close to zero unless they somehow had some sort of fortune teller with them, which in of itself is extremely unlikely. 

At this moment, Damian notices something flash across Todd's seemingly laid back expression. Something in the way his eyes glanced over to the closed door to the small, practically humid room they find themselves trapped him for just a second. Something cold, calculating, and almost… cautious. 

The uneasy feeling settles in Damian's stomach once again, though this time it isn't because of nausea. 

"Todd, what was that case you were working on?"

Todd looks Damian straight in the eyes and it occurs to Damian that this is the first time since he's woke up that Todd has actually made eye contact with him. Then, before Todd can open his mouth and explain anything, the door flies open. 

-o-o-o-o-

The man is a medium build, though he looks bigger because of the beard hanging from his chin and resting on his chest and the way his stomach bulges out in an obvious beer belly. Damian feels the urge to try and get the man to spill what's going on, but he holds back when the man sets a reusable grocery bag on the floor next to his kennel. The man reaches down to his belt and pulls out a small gun. 

"Go all the way back, brat, or I'll shoot you," the man grumbles simply. Damian glares at him but begins to scooch away from the kennel door so his back is pressed against the far side of the cage. As strong as the wires of the cage are, they'll do nothing to stop a speeding bullet. He draws his feet closer towards him and stays that way as the man lowers down to put a key inside the padlock. There's a click and Damian tenses as the kennel door opens and the gun is pointed directly at his head with nothing now to stand in between. 

If he were dressed as Robin, he could easily grab this man's arm and break it in three different places before he could even think about shooting, but right now he's Damian, which forces him to be vulnerable. 

In what looks to be sickeningly practiced movements, the man grabs inside the bag with his free hand and pulls out a water bottle and… what looks to be a doggy bowl filled with gross looking crackers of some sort. The smell alone suggested dog food, from a local Walmart, not an actual pet store. The bowl and bottle are placed inside the kennel and Damian makes no move as the cage is closed again and locked. 

The man picks up the bag and sets of down now in front of Todd, he puts Todd through the same procedure until they both now have water and food probably not meant for humans.

The man steps away from Todd and gathers up the bag, he goes to walk away and Damian can't hold his tongue any longer. 

"Who are you heathens?!" He demands. 

The man stops in his tracks and shoots Damian a glare. "If you want to live long enough to see tomorrow, I suggest you keep your mouth shut, brat."

Damian narrows his eyes and is about to retort against all better judgment but Todd suddenly speaks up.

"Hey, I need to pee."

The man snaps his neck over to Todd and strides over to the cage. Todd puts on a fake, fearful expression and even flinches when the man kicks the kennel violently. "Then go, bitch."

And without another word, the man turns and leaves, closing, and locking the door behind him. 

Todd let's out a breath and Damian stares at him. "What was that?" He demands. 

Todd takes a second to look away from the door before he meets Damian's gaze. "You asked what my case was," he says slowly, "if… this is it, and I'm pretty sure it is, he would have killed you if you talked back. No hesitation."

Damian falls silent for a second as the weight of the situation blankets the atmosphere. Kidnapped, in civilian clothes, with allegedly merciless abductors. "What do we do?" He asks quietly, on instinct, almost like it's Grayson or his father in the other cage; he wants to take the question back but Todd has also seemed to recognize the heaviness in the air.

His face remains grim as he answers. "Act your age, and if you have a chance to escape, take it."

[violetsmoak]

Philtatos [4/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20101543/chapters/47615902

Blanket Disclaimer

Summary: During a patrol where Red Hood and Red Robin cross paths, Jason is infected with the blood of the Eros, the ancient God of Love, who informs them that they must track down his missing bow and arrows, or Jason will go slowly mad with an obsessive desire–for Tim. Though overwhelmed by the sudden attention being paid to him, Tim sets to work trying to solve the case, before Jason succumbs to madness. In the meantime, Jason discovers that there’s more than godlike powers at work here, as well as a legacy that reaches back through the sands of time.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

Beta Reader: None at the moment.

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: #gods in disguise #secrets #shield #undying love

First Chapter

Author's Note(s): This one's a little less polished since my computer decided to eat half the chapter and I had to rewrite it in a hurry, but I'll fix it later.

________________________________________________________________

How does this even happen?

It’s tempting for Tim to let his head fall against the computer console in his frustration.

A week in, and nothing. No reports of random people wandering around with a bow and arrows, none of his underworld contacts have mentioned anything showing up at on the black-market or at illegal auctions. It’s as if Eros’ diviners have vanished into thin air.

That he’s frustrated is putting it lightly.

Adding to that is the fact he hasn’t seen or heard from Jason in the same amount of time. The other vigilante finally appears to have found the tracer Tim stuck on him and sent it on a trip to the Gotham City dump. It’s both a relief, because it means he’s acting like himself, and a disappointment, because it means he’s still resistant to Tim’s help.

Apparently when he asserted the Red Hood would eventually reach out to him, he underestimated the exact amount of stubborn that is Jason Todd. He’d come to Eros about something, as Tim discovered when checking his now blank security feeds; the Olympian wouldn’t say what, instead complaining about rude capes and the obstinacy of men.

Tim scowls at the dot pixel pattern of static where the footage of their meeting should be, trying to get his emotions under control. He’s annoyed, because Eros is annoying, but also because Jason managed to not only get into his apartment undetected, but down into the Nest.

Yes, he knows Jason is a lot smarter than he pretends to be, but it’s a dart to his pride because he thought he was being clever.

He’s also worried, since something upset Jason enough to come here in the first place. And he’s hurt because he’d chosen to speak to the winged appetite that compromised him to begin with instead of the one person trying to help him right now.

He waited until I wasn’t around to come here. And Eros won’t say what they talked about.

Mostly to be contrary.

As for the reports coming in from the authorities cleaning up after the Red Hood in the past few days, his take-downs are edging toward the worse side of brutal once again.

Something must be going on. If he’s being affected, though, wouldn’t he not have the interest to keep on with his usual activities?

It’s been an almost physical effort not to approach Jason once again, to plead with him to just accept help for once.

Versions of that plan have never worked for Bruce or Dick—or, well, any Bat, really—so Tim doubts it will work for him.

It’s why he now forces his focus back onto Eros’ case, as futile as it’s been. He knows he’s has more difficult cases, but this one feels like it’s intentionally trying to frustrate him in a way even the Riddler’s games never have.

You’d think people carrying around a bow and arrows would be pretty easy to find, but apparently not.

The Olympian is irritating, even as he answers Tim’s questions. His story hasn’t changed from when he first told it—a trip to Amsterdam that didn’t go as planned, and then a desperate hunt throughout all the cities where Tim tracked thefts.

So far, everything lines up with the investigation Tim was running before and offers no new information.

“Are your diviners like you?” Tim asks, considering the giant map on his computer screen; a red line drags across the Atlantic Ocean, connecting locations on the bordering continents. “I mean, will they not turn up on CCTV or other security devices?”

It would explain why he hasn’t found anything yet.

“Nah, that’s just me,” Eros tells him as he flips through a gossip rag. “I have to make the conscious decision to not show up on camera. It’s a strain on my abilities.” He sighs, putting down the magazine. “I used to be able to go completely invisible in the good old days. Back when people truly believed in us.”

“And now you just, what, mess with imaging frequencies?”

“Pfft—Glorified camouflage.”

“Considering government reliance on facial recognition software, you’re still able to ghost the system. That’s something.”

“Don’t patronize,” Eros grumbles. Then he tilts his head as something occurs to him. “Although, now that you mention it, they can change forms.”

Tim stills. “…What.”

“Yes, to make them less conspicuous. You don’t think I wander around with a bow and arrows all the time, do you? Outside of a Renaissance fair that sort of thing catches the wrong kind of attention—”

“Why the hell didn’t you say this before?” Tim hisses, fingers itching with conflicting impulses to tear at his hair or punch the Olympian in the face. Luckily for the well-being of all parties involved there’s a thick sheet of bulletproof glass between them.

“Uh, one, you didn’t ask. Two, I’m the only one who knows how to change their form, so I didn’t think it was an issue,” Eros replies, ticking options off his fingers.

Tim takes a deep breath through his nose and releases it. “If you want me to solve your case and get your property back, you have to tell me all the information. Even if it seems insignificant.”

“Well I know that now,” Eros huffs; at Tim’s continued unimpressed expression, he rolls his eyes stands up. “Fine! Mea culpa. What do you want to know?”

“What forms can your diviners take?”

“Since they were forged to be divine weapons, they have to conform to their purpose. So they can only be reshaped into other weapons.”

“Any weapon? Knives? Brass knuckles? Mace?”

“In theory?” Eros answers, and then looks curious. “Actually, that’s an interesting concept. I might try those out when I get them back.”

His attention span is possible worse than Bart’s.

“Focus—what form were they in when you were in Amsterdam?” There’s no footage of that, because apparently that café valued customer privacy over possible security issues.

“Well, I’d just finished watching a James Bond marathon, so I was inspired. I made them into these sweet, gold-plated .45 calibre revolvers. Single shot, custom-design, monogrammed.”

And another breath…

“Which you didn’t think to mention.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, was that important?”

“Yes, it was important! How am I supposed to help you find your diviners when you have me looking for a bow and arrows, and they’ve basically become the Golden Gun?!”

“Guns. Plural.” Eros corrects reasonably. “And you’re a detective. It’s what you do. I already said I don’t tell you how to do your job.”

Tim’s heard that love is blind; it turns out love is also an idiot.

With monumental effort, he lets it go; he’ll revisit the shape-changing weapons on his own time. There’s other information he needs. “Back to the theft, though—is there anyone you were with at the time, anyone who might have witnessed what happened?”

“I was with a lot of people that night. And it’s not like those people are going to a pot café to pay attention, if you know what I mean?”

“Not really.”

“Well, that’s not surprising. You don’t strike me as the fun one.”

Tim rolls his eyes at the dig, “What about other Olympians?”

“What about them?”

“Could they have stolen it from you?”

“In theory, but I would have noticed. And then booked it in another direction.”

“You don’t get along with your family?”

“Do you?”

“It’s…complicated.”

“It always is.”

“What about your wife?”

Eros tenses, expression going unnaturally blank. “What?”

“I started doing a bit of research on you,” Tim explains, studying the sudden change in demeanour. “Just the basics. But the most popular story about you has to do with your wife, Psy—”

“Dead,” Eros cuts him off, abrupt.

“But I thought she became an immortal goddess?”

“How many times do I have to explain that the stories don’t get everything right?” Eros sneers. “She’s dead. Point final.”

The message in his voice and eyes is for Tim to drop it; even as his curiosity grows, filing the information into his mental dossier of the Olympian, Tim can recognize a painful topic.

He lets it go. For now.

“So, no one was around? The coffeeshop, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Eros groans, body language easing out of it’s rigidity once more. He winds his fingers into his hair. “There was a pair of identical twins from Sweden that looked like walking Alps, and by the Styx did I want to climb those.”

“Gross.”

“And then there was the clingy redhead, the hot waiter with the manbun, one total MILF relieving her glory days—I don’t know, okay? There were a lot of people!”

Tim leans back in his chair, carding his fingers together. “What exactly is a god of love doing getting stoned in Amsterdam, anyhow?”

“Hey, I don’t judge your life choices.”

“I’m not judging, I’m just—curious. You’re not human, you can go wherever you want, do whatever you want, without being tracked—can probably influence people to get whatever you want. And you decide to gorge yourself on pot brownies in a glorified basement?”

“You might not understand this, but sometimes it’s nice to go somewhere and forget for a little while,” Eros drawls.

Actually, I get that more than you imagine…

“That’s unexpected,” Tim offers. “Considering who you are, you’d think you’d be happier."

"When has love ever been synonymous with happy?" Eros challenges. “You know that better than most, right?”

“I’m fine. I’m living with it.”

“Not talking about your walking Alp, darlin’. I mean the loss you’ve gone through.” The Olympian is studying him now. “I can see the scars left over from every person you let into your heart and who left you. The boy you loved, your parents, your best friends, your father figure…and it’s not just death I’m sensing. You’ve had things taken from you, things you loved more than anything, just wrenched away.”

“My entire life has burnt down! Again! I don’t call this ‘okay’, Dick.”

“You have to understand—”

“Oh, are you still here?”

“What Earth are we on that you choose him over me?”

Even after all this time, it hurts.

He is uncomfortable at the reminder of blacker times, some fresher in his mind than others. He still has moments when his mind is trapped back in the days after losing Robin, after his father’s death, when he gets stuck in those memories and can barely get out of bed. It’s like sleep paralysis, except he’s awake, and it usually takes Dick dropping by his place unannounced or Alfred phoning him to remind him not to miss upcoming family dinners, to get him out of it again.

To remind him it’s in the past and can’t hurt him anymore.

But now, this latest thing with Jason has more than just the potential to hurt, it’s practically a certainty. In fact, Tim wonders if Jason being cursed to desire him isn’t just the universe continuing its general theme of dumping on him.

“I don’t need a replay, I was there,” Tim says stiffly, and decides he needs a break from Eros for a little while. In about three hours he has to get up and go to work, something he’d rather skip, but the old guard on the Board of Directors is getting up to their usual bullshit and he can’t skip the meetings today.

The rest of the week continues in the same trying fashion. When he isn’t working the case, going through hours of footage from various airports, train stations and other checkpoints for a sign of someone carrying any weapons this time, he’s at WE fighting a bunch of old, fiscal conservatives trying to undercut employee wages. Neither initiative seems to be going anywhere.

On the sixth night since the warehouse fight, Tim is running on very little fuel, to the point his judgement is starting to waver. He’s weighing the pros and cons of checking in on Jason again. He thinks he could probably manage it without him noticing this time. But then, Eros is taking one of his rare (and much appreciated) food-coma naps, which means some valuable quiet time for him to think.

The main computer chooses that point to blink to life with a message from the Tower, and Tim’s stomach leaps with hope that Cassie has something for him.

Except it’s not her that grins down at him.

“Superboy? Where’s Cassie?”

His best friend makes a face. “Ouch, not even a ‘hello’?”

“Sorry, just a bit stressed,” Tim groans. Apparently his exhaustion has brought him past the point of basic etiquette. He needs another Red Bull. “Hi.”

“You sound so enthusiastic,” Connor deadpans. “Anyway, Cassie’s gone to see her Mom in Gateway City. She said she’d be back soon.”

Tim nods. That makes sense, considering Dr. Sandsmark’s knowledge of Ancient Greek artifacts and mythology; he feels stupid for not thinking to contact her before.

“Hey Rob!” Bart shoves his face into the frame. “When are you coming back?”

“Might be a little while. I got side-tracked with a case here that’s, uh, time sensitive.”

“Sucks.”

“While you’re here, can I get some of those bars of yours?”

He thinks Batburger is about to offer him and endorsement deal.

“Are you pulling another case where you’re too lazy to get up and eat? Dude, we talked about that.”

“Also, those bars are gross.”

“Of course they’re gross to you, you’re used to homemade Kansas awesomeness that fills you up if you just look at it.”

“They’re not for me,” Tim interrupts. “It’s for a…actually—” There’s no other way to see it. “He’s my prisoner.”

His friends look impressed.

“Damn, Rob, are you going Dark Side on us?”

“Ooh, do they have cookies?”

“Ha, hah. And even if I was, everyone else has already done it, I’m due. But no, the guy’s a glorified witness, with the metabolism like a Speedster.”

“So, hell on the grocery bills,” Connor says with a nod.

Tim’s comm buzzes, the line from his cellphone; against the backdrop of his mask, Cassie’s number pops up.

“Gimme a sec, incoming call,” he says, and patches into the line. “Hey—”

“Everything he said is true,” Cassie interrupts before he can finish the sentence. “Eros, I mean. People infected by his blood only get worse unless treated—think the Henry VIII, the Manson family, or John Hinckley Jr before they were cured.”

Tim recognizes all of those names. “Wait, but they all lived afterward.”

“They were the ones who got cured. Other’s haven’t been so lucky. Medea killed her own children and set her ex’s new girlfriend on fire.”

The blood rushes from his face. “What?”

“I mean, all those people had severe issues before they got infected, which might be a factor, but if your victim already has trouble controlling their emotions…”

Cassie trails off.

It’s like the bottom has dropped out of his stomach. “How long?”

“Two weeks, give or take. It depends on the mind frame of the victim.”

A very real, visceral fury spreads throughout Tim’s body, anger on Jason’s behalf and at the spoiled godling that’s watching all this unfold like it’s one of his TV dramas.

“…Thanks, Cassie,” he manages to croak. “Call you later.”

He hangs up.

“Are you okay?” Connor asks; on screen, his body becomes more tense in response to Tim’s expression.

“I have to go,” Tim replies, tipping his cowl over his head.

“Need help?” Bart asks. “You know we can be there in less than three hours if you do. Two if we’re really booking.”

Tim considers, then shakes his head. “I—we should be able to handle this.” Bruce is never happy when metas show up without his permission, even when they’re saving the collective asses of the Family. “But I’ll keep you posted. If there is anything, I’ll contact you right away.”

“Good luck,” Connor says, still concerned.

“Thanks,” Tim replies, ending the call.

I think I’m definitely going to need it.

⁂

The sun beats down on him from its zenith, and he can feel his arms burning. The air is hot and humid, carrying with it the taste of the sea he usually associates with the Mediterranean, yet he’s still sweating in his linen tunic.

In his hands—browner than he’s used to, scarred but in a different way than he expects—he carries a wreath of laurel leaves, woven together with fine gold thread. In front of him, a giant mound rises out of the earth, grass and wildflowers covering it, rippling lazily in the wind. At its base, a thick column of aged marble, already falling into disrepair.

He should see about having that fixed before they head for Sardis.

Jason takes a few steps forward, kneeling to place the wreath at the base of the column; despite the heat, a chill moves up his spine as he presses his hand to the earth, clutching a handful of dry soil and bringing it to his lips.

“It is my privilege to stand at the hall of your rest, Honored Forefather,” he murmurs. “And know that I will do your blood proud.”

The words are less flowery than anything the priests and governors might come up with, but the sentiment remains just as genuine.

Glancing to his right, he sees a similar column several yards away, and another man is kneeling there with his own wreath. It takes him a moment before he recognises him.

Tim.

Except—he’s different: his hair is longer, skin darker than Jason can ever remember seeing, because Tim is supposed to be a pasty-faced nerd. He’s also wearing a red tunic and lace up sandals, and his features are much more relaxed than Jason is used to. No dark circles beneath his closed eyes. He mouths words that are lost in the breeze.

Jason’s own gaze falls there for a moment, taking in the flushed colour of his lips. Something at the back of his mind chides him for looking, but it’s lost within a burgeoning warmth in his chest.

He’s lucky to have him here, someone as faithful and intelligent and honest—

Eyes blinking open, Tim notices him watching; his mouth tilts upward in amusement, and Jason’s heart seems to beat faster. The smaller man straightens up, leaving his offering behind him and wanders over, movements as smooth as a cat. And—

No, this isn’t a good idea, he’s supposed to be avoiding him, right? He can’t remember why, but—

“What are you thinking of?” Tim asks softly. “You’re supposed to be making sacrifices to your ancestor’s memory, not staring at your liegeman.” He adopts a severe expression. “It’s distracting me from being appropriately solemn.”

Jason shrugs, fond smile on his own face.

“He was happy, when he lived,” he says, nodding at the column where he knelt before. “And fortunate in finding a faithful companion, and a great poet to sing of his deeds after his death.”

“You say that as if you have neither,” Tim snorts.

“There are no more poets of merit to speak of my deeds. Everything is lost to the logical, pedantic record of history.”

“And there’s the sense of drama I was waiting for,” Tim deadpans. “You could always write the histories yourself.”

“Hah! You would say something like that. Always planning, aren’t you?”

“Well, someone has to.”

Jason rolls his eyes, and gestures with his hand that Tim should follow him. They amble down a grassy footpath, returning to the level ground where their horses wait for them. There are guards spread out around them, close enough to help if something should happen but far enough away, they can’t hear what’s said.

He approaches the massive black Thessalian, absently patting the ox-head brand on its haunch with one hand while his other reaches to detach a large cloth-wrapped package from his saddlebags.

Tim appears curious when Jason hands it to him.

“I made sacrifice at the temple this morning before we rode out and left them with one of my finest sets of armour,” he explains. “They insisted it was too much and that I should take something in return. This called to me.”

Tim opens the bundle, eyebrows raising at the bronze shield that gleams in the sun.

“It was found in the ruins of the great city herself after the battle. It made me think of you.”

“Oh?” Tim watches him from beneath hooded eyes, a delicate colour blooming across the bridge of his nose. “You think of me as a shield?”

“I think of you as my shield,” he corrects seriously. “I will always be a sword. I can’t be anything else, or others would see it as weakness. But you���you protect everything that I am, even from myself. You throw your own needs and wants to the dirt to raise up mine. You weather the anger of men who believe themselves to be greater. For my sake.”

Tim appears struck mute at this, clutching the shield to his body as he stares at Jason with shining eyes. His mouth parts several times, as if he’s trying to figure out what to say, and once again Jason’s gaze falls upon his lips.

Tim shoots a darting glance at the guards near them, and something like frustration passes across his features, mixing with calculation.

And then he’s grinning that sharp grin again, and Jason’s stomach flips pleasantly as it fixes on him. Tim sets the shield to one side with careful reverence and takes a step forward until their faces are within inches of one another.

Jason licks his lips, expectation weighing heavily on him, and waits for Tim to break the silence.

“I think we should run a race.”

Which...was not the response he was expecting. Jason blinks at the non sequitur. “What?”

“In the old style,” the younger man continues, setting the shield on the ground and backing away. He’s reaching for the belt of his tunic, eyes sparking with mischief and something else. “To honour our ancestors, of course.”

“Of course,” Jason agrees, and reaches for him, but Tim dances out of his way.

“Ah, no! You’re entirely to dressed for that.”

He’s jogging backwards now, and Jason laughs, reaching again for him, “Get back here—”

“You’ll have to catch me—”

“Hood!”

Jason gives a full-body jerk, dragged out of his reverie by a voice that is no longer laughing, but tense.

“Red Hood!”

The world returns to him, gritty and smelling like rancid trash and smoke. There are several bodies at his feet and the smell of blood in the air; he hears groaning, so he knows they’re alive. That should be a relief, somehow, except he’s distracted.

There’s someone standing in front of him, the height and build familiar, it could be him, except the eyes are wrong and he’s younger and—

Not him. Nothing like him.

For a beat Jason is irritated when he realises the person in front of him is not Tim, because he was sure he just heard him. On the heel of that annoyance is the realisation that he’s looming over a kid that can’t be more than a few years older than Damian, who’s staring at him with unbridled terror, pressing himself into the walls of the alley.

New kid on the corner. Johns were harassing him, so I taught them a lesson, but then…

Jason’s hand lingers in front of his face, inches away, fingers curved like they intend to brush the boy’s jawline.

Realisation hits at what he must look like, what the teenager must think, and it’s soon followed by disgust because he knows the motivation behind his current position. He pulls back, staring down at his hands in horror.

What the hell did I almost do?

“Hood, look at me,” Tim says, only it’s the Red Robin voice, growled from the shadows, and it sends a shiver up Jason’s spine.

He immediately turns to face him.

The nameless teen take off at a run, but that’s not important; what’s important is that Tim is here, barely three feet away. He moves to close the distance, posture open and soothing, and Jason is already relaxing in response, twitching to reach toward Tim’s outstretched hand.

And…no.

He should not be relaxing. He should not be reaching out or touching Tim in any way because—

Because…

It’s hard to think why, but then he remembers.

Because it’s not him who wants to, it’s the infection. And he might do something worse.

Jason’s entire body seizes up again, and he stumbles backward.

“Hood, it’s okay,” Tim says in a placating whisper. “I’m going to help you. I promise.”

And Jason wants to, he really does. Wants to just go with him, maybe let himself fall against his body in exhaustion, because Tim might be small but he’s strong and could hold him up and—

“Back off!” Jason snaps, both to himself and to Tim, who jerks as if he’s been slapped. The sight helps ground him a bit more. “You are the lastperson I should be around right now.”

“Ja—”

“No!”

He takes off. Doesn’t bother with shooting a line into the air—his hands are shaking too much for that—and just runs. He knows this place better than the other vigilante ever will, knows how to disappear even when being pursued by a Bat.

And right now, he needs to disappear.

Grotty buildings and dark alleys fly by him as he crashes through the backways.

This is better, just one foot in front of the other. The icy air in his lungs is painful, but the good kind—distracting. Waking him from whatever funk he was in.

What the hell was that before? A dream?

But he was awake. And since when are dreams, or even hallucinations, so cohesive? Sequential? He knows it happened like he was living it, though he can’t remember exactly anymore. The details are drifting away like sand grasped too tightly in a fist, but he remembers feelings. Warmth. Safety. Laughter.

And Tim smiling at him; everything else is hazy, but he remembers that detail without difficulty.

Jason’s stomach lurches, torn between something fond and possessive, and the sense of disgust crouching at the back of his mind and spreading through his body the more he thinks about it.

He has to stay away—from Tim, from anyone who looks like him. Just until he can figure out a fix (or hell, even afterward, just to be sure). No, wait, he can’t figure it out. It would involve investigation, chasing down leads, probably running into—

No. Better barricade himself in somewhere. Take himself out of the equation.

Tim will be fine to figure this out on his own—he said he was trying to help, which means he’s aware of what’s going on with Jason. Which, yes, is mortifying, but also a comfort, because he trusts the younger man to figure it out.

He wonders for a moment if that’s because of the growing fascination, and then decides it’s not. Even before, he’s had an inexplicable amount of faith in Tim’s abilities to plan and get results.

It’s why he wanted him to be his Robin.

Why he still wants—

“Damn it!” Jason growls, stopping for a moment to breathe and then to punch the nearest wall in frustration.

The comm in his ear buzzes to life.

“Red Hood?”

Not Tim, but Oracle.

“Tell me you found something,” he orders, trying to get his mounting panic under control.

“Not yet. I’ve got a lead that looks promising, but still waiting on confirmation,” Oracle replies. There’s a pause, and then when she speaks again, it’s without the voice synthesizer. “Tim told me what’s going on.”

Shame hits him. “Of course he did.”

“We want to help you, Jason. This isn’t something you have to go through on your own.”

“Tell me that the next time you get shot up with Olympian blood that makes you fixate on Huntress or Clayface or someone. I just need somewhere to ride this out—”

“I can think of somewhere that would be well-equipped.”

The Cave.

“No.”

“Now isn’t the time for your pride. If you really don’t want to hurt someone—to hurt Tim. Again. Your best bet is to get B’s help.”

The kicker is, Jason knows she’s right. And he’s off his game enough that all of his usual arguments and complaints and resentments just don’t seem to register. All that he can focus on right now is Tim—and wanting to do everything he can to stop obsessing over him.

To stop wanting him, wanting to touch and taste and—

“Damn it,” his says again, but this time it’s whispered, almost defeated.

Bruce is the only one Jason knows that will do anything in his power to stop him from becoming exactly the kind of monster he’s been fighting his whole life. Even if it means throwing him in Arkham until whatever is driving him insane gets fixed.

And even if it doesn’t…

He’ll lock me up and throw away the key to keep me from hurting Tim. And I’d let him.

“He’s enroute to you now,” Barbara says.

“Is the demon brat with him?”

“Yes.”

He remembers the terrified expression on the nameless teenager’s face as he reached out to him.

“Keep him away. I don’t…know what I might do.”

Barbara’s silence is heavy, and Jason feels a wave of disgust with himself rush over him.

“I’ve told B to send Robin to rendezvous with Red Robin,” she says, and it’s Oracle’s voice again. “He’ll be there in five minutes. Try not to bolt.”

It’s the longest five minutes of his life.

⁂⁂⁂

Next Chapter

[scaryscarecrows]

Living Dead Boy

Aftermath of the 'Roots and Leaves' arc. All you really need to know is that Sheila Haywood happened. Jason needs a hug. And a therapist, but let's be real, Gotham's mental health field is not safe.

Jason knows something’s wrong when he wakes up coughing, collarbones aching from doing it lying down, and tastes dirt and decay in his mouth.

And Mom’s here. That’s probably bad.

At least, he thinks it might be. But he can’t place the why.

The coughing is not stopping and he finally sits up, half-gagging and feeling mud frothing at the back of his throat. What’s happening?

“Mom?” he says, or tries to say-the mud (somethin’s moving back there s’wiggling and tickling his uvula). But she gets it, turns around with a tired smile and wow, she hasn’t looked this healthy in…in…he can’t remember.

“Jayjay.” Her fingers are freezing, when they touch his head. Freezing and heavy and limp like a dead fish. Maybe the heat’s out again. “My sweet boy.”

Yeah, heat’s out. That’s all. He coughs again, shifting the wiggling thing forward a little bit for a second or two. Mom gets that frown between her eyebrows like she always got when he was sick.

The cold fingers move gently through his hair, nails scritching against his scalp and sending chills across his skin. He doesn’t feel good. It’s hard to breathe.

The wiggly thing squirms against the roof of his mouth and he pulls a hand, heavy and numb, up to his lips to try and pull it out. It’s squishy between his fingers and he feels it start to come, long and slow like a mucus strand, before Mom shakes her head and taps his fingers until he lets go. It squirms back down his throat.

“No, baby, that’s gotta stay there.”

“But-”

“I’ve missed you.” She sits down and strokes his cheek. “Oh, baby, I’ve missed you so much.”

He’s missed her too, which is strange, because didn’t he just see her? He could have sworn…they got lunch, just last week…

Didn’t they?

Now that he had it halfway out, the wiggly thing is really annoying. And it’s not the only thing moving in him-he can feel things skittering between his ribs and behind his eyes. What’s wrong with him?

“Mom?”

Sheila, with half her head missing, tousles his hair.

“Hey, kid.”

Huh?

Her remaining eye, red with a blue center, locks on his throat. Before he can ask why, she’s got her fingers there, gently squeezing, and it feels like…like she’s squeezing a bean bag, but he’s the bean bag. Mud forces itself up the back of his throat and onto his tongue, gritty and bitter, and something tickles for a minute before it digs free.

It’s a beetle. He can feel it scurrying around behind his teeth before squeezing through his lips and running on down his chin and over the hollow of his throat before digging back into him, just above his collarbones.

“Mom-”

“Welcome home, Jason.”

The beetle burrows into his lungs, pincers cutting through the tissue, and he coughs. Sheila’s fingers tighten, forcing bits of dirt down his throat and up into his mouth and he can’t breathe-

“-son. Master Jason.” Mm… “Wake up, now.”

Huh…?

He’s still coughing, that’s for sure-harsh, agonizing horsey-noises that have him half-arching off his bed. His body aches and he’s freezing, skin prickly-painful despite the fact that he’s…naked…what? No, he had pajamas on when he went to bed, he knows that, where are they what happened-

“You need to calm down, young sir, before you hit your head.” The words don’t quite register but the tone does and he stops thrashing, wonders when he started. “That’s better.”

A mental check says that his sheets are still in place, his sweats are down around his ankles somehow, and that he doesn’t feel sticky and gross and sore. So. Odds are good that he disrobed himself, somehow, at some point. All right. That’s. That’s all right.

He still can’t breathe. Why can’t he pull in a full breath, why does it feel like he’s got six feet of earth on his chest-

“Can you open your eyes for me?”

The tone, quiet and unconfrontational yet still tinged with steel, dances around his brain and he does as asked. He’s still in his own bed, and a glance towards the floor reveals his Batgirl shirt, tangled and inside-out. Further glances reveal Alfred.

Wait. Alfred? Great, this is still a dream, and it’s going to suck.

He opens his mouth, intending to start his wake-up mantra (or try for it) and starts coughing again, lungs twisting and tensing. Firm hands ease him upright and prop him up for a few moments until the coughs die off.

“Alfie?”

“Perhaps you should not have, ah, flown the coop quite so soon, sir.”

Any idea to play the stoic takes one look at the situation and hurls itself from the window, middle fingers in the air, screaming ‘fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck this I’m OUT’.

“I don’ feel so good.”

A glass flits across the corner of his eye and a straw is pressed against his lips. Apple juice. It’s cold, too, a step from frozen the way he always liked it, and it feels like the nectar of the gods going down his throat.

“I’m not surprised.” This could be bad. “Back down.”

Another pillow has appeared out of nowhere and he’s now propped up higher than he’d like, but he can breathe. A little. The persistent tickle at the back of his mouth is gone, anyway.

“You’ve given everyone a bit of a fright, sir.” Everyone’s got their talents. “Three days without seeing hide nor hair of you triggered mild family panic.”

Everyone he knows is a stalker. Dick gets a freebie, because Bruce is the biggest creeper of them all and he didn’t have a chance, but Barbara? The Replacement? They have no excuse.

“Didn’ realize I was sick,” he mumbles, pulling a hand out of the blankets and only just remembering that he can’t quite pick up the glass. He has Dummy Cups, got some early on just in case, but this is one of his regular ones, the ones with 1950s-style fruit graphics on them. Alfred, thankfully, gives him another sip without having to be asked.

“Mm.”

It’s not his fault, he tells himself, even as he opens his mouth and rasps, “Sorry, Alfred.”

And he is. Well. He’s sorry for (presumably) worrying Alfred. Everyone else can go die in a fire.

Alfred combs his fingers through sweat-stiff bangs and makes a displeased noise.

“A shower, I think, is our first order of business.”

* * *

The shower wipes him out. He doesn’t know when it happened, but at some point he got clean sheets on his bed and he is grateful when he crawls in between them, tongue jammed against the roof of his mouth to try to keep his coughs at bay.

Now, in that awful drowsy state between sleep and awake, his brain’s running again, throwing up images of Mom and Sheila and Harley Quinn with her makeup tear-ruined and screaming, you took my Mistah J away from me!

At some point, she turns to Sheila, blood and brain matter plunking accusingly onto the rug, and then she falls, arm bouncing cold and dead with a syringe still held loosely in stiff fingers.

He feels lousy. His head hurts. His lungs hurt, too, and he’s selfishly relieved that Alfred’s here. Getting up and actually making food, or even calling for delivery, is too much.

It’s the least you deserve, Sheila hisses in his ear, slender surgeon’s fingers wrapping around his neck. He shakes his head and pulls away, pretends he doesn’t feel the hot, sticky marks she leaves behind.

It’s a few hours later, when he’s had a mug of chicken soup and is honestly close to falling asleep and playing dead for a year, that Alfred picks up his coat.

“I need to be getting back, Master Jason.” Oh. Right. “I presume I am correct in that you do not wish to return with me?”

Hell no.

He nods, regrets it a second later, and only feels a little guilty at the barest exhale a few feet away.

“I will return at noon tomorrow to ensure your continued survival.” And there’s where Bruce gets his dramatic streak. “Until then, is there anyone you may contact should things go…poorly?”

“My neighbor.” He swallows around the sudden lump. “Four-oh-six, Mz. Melinda May. She’ll probably be by soon anyway.”

“I will inform her of the situation, then.”

“S’okay, you don’t-” The look he gets makes his insides shudder. “T’anks.”

He’s screwed now.

Alfred does not realize the dreadful thing he’s about to do, or maybe he doesn’t care. Whichever it is, he finishes putting on his coat, fusses with Jason’s blankets, and cups his face.

“You will call me, or another person of your choosing, if you require assistance,” he says seriously. “Is that quite understood?”

“Yes.”

“Good boy.” He straightens up. “I will see you tomorrow, Master Jay. Pleasant dreams.”

And then he’s gone, turning off the main lights and leaving Jason with a large travel mug of ice water and a bottle of cough syrup they both know he’s not going to touch. He should get up, he knows, make sure everything’s locked, but…

He trusts Alfred to lock the door, and he’s tired.

He makes a pillow stack as low as possible while still being effective and rolls onto his side, back to the wall. And then he sees it-the more loved than he’d ever admit Robin Bear. Dick had gotten it for him, partly as a gag gift and partly because, well, Dick, when he was twelve. He’d scoffed, insisted he was too old for a teddy bear, and ended up clinging to it for dear life the first time he got a syringeful of fear toxin. When Alfred had snuck it onto his bedside table, he has no clue.

He reaches over, rubs his fingertip across the stitched nose. He’d forgotten about it, to be honest, what with…with everything.

If he pulls it into his arms and presses his forehead between the ears, well, he’s sick. Fuck off.

THE END

[denouemwnt]

badass batmom

you can also read it in AO3!

pairing: bruce wayne x batmom x batfam

warnings: swearing, angst, violence, miscarriage.

summary: Bruce’s got hurt while fighting against the Joker, who just kidnapped your sons, Tim and Damian. While the other kids are trying to end the chaos the villain is causing in Gotham City, it is up to you to save your boys... But will you leave a trauma from the past aside to save them?

words: 3207

A/N: I really love the Batmom stories the amazing authors on Tumblr write, I think I read all stories when I had my other blog (and certainly I’m re-reading everything again!). I got really inspired by them and decided to try to write one story that was in my mind for a long time. I’m not as good as these talented writers but let’s try and see where it goes. Oh, and Y/V/N is your ‘vigilante’ name.

(you can see my masterlist here!)

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Another sleepless night. You are living a hard period of your life when you even can’t do your favorite thing in the world: sleep. Maybe you need to be aware if something happens; there is always a possibility when your kids and husband are fighting crime on the streets.

This “hero” thing turned out very difficult to you. When Bruce said about Dick being his sidekick you didn’t agree for the first time. He had a very brilliant idea to put your child on the streets to fight crime. It’s not something a normal father would do.

When you saw Dick training with his father you knew that he would be an amazing Robin. And he was. This happened to all your kids and soon you realized you couldn’t stop them from doing something they liked because of a trauma of the past.

Only Alfred and Bruce know what happened. You never felt ready to tell the whole family about that period of your life, you never had the courage for it.

Because you can’t sleep, you go to one of the most peaceful places on the manor: where you make your beautiful paintings. The idea of capturing images with your own hands always made you relax since you were a kid.

You walk to pick up the new and small canvas you bought last week to put delicately on the easel. When you were about to catch the paint-brush you hear a nervous knock at the door. You turn around to see your oldest son, Richard, still wearing his Nightwing suit, but without the mask.

“Something happened, dear?” Something bad happened, you can see through his eyes.

“It’s Bruce… He- he got hurt pretty badly.” He says to you waiting for any reaction.

Your mouth tries to form words but all your mind can think of is what you just heard. What if something else happened?

Dick sees how shocked you are and leads you to where his father is.

You walk with quick steps to the cave to see your husband being stitched up by Alfred. There are new (and deep) cuts in his body. You feel tears falling through your cheeks and get closer to him.

“He is going to be ok, Mom.” He reassures you and puts his mask again, exiting the cave.

Soon the butler gives you some space, finishing stitching the last cut and going back to the house.

“What- what the hell happened to you?” You stop in front of Bruce and carefully hug him. Your heart slowly breaks from seeing how hurt he got.

“Right now, it doesn’t matter what happened to me, Y/N.”  He kisses your forehead and takes your hand in his.

“What do you mean? Something else happened? Are the kids ok?” You take a step back, still with your hand in his, and look at him waiting for answers.

“Joker got Tim and Damian. Dick and Jason are taking care of him while I’m recovering, yet I don’t know if they are going to get their brothers in time.”

“What?”

You can’t believe he did it again, that he had the audacity to touch your kids again after all the suffering he already brought to your family. And getting Bruce hurt like that? He is going to certainly regret bringing so much pain to your loved ones.

You are not going to wait until one of your boys put The Joker behind bars at Arkham. You are the one who is going to do it, after getting Tim and Damian from his dirty hands.

You promised yourself you wouldn’t risk your life at the streets fighting crime anymore like your family does.

You promised yourself you would never wear that suit again.

This is a different situation. You need to do this.

And you are going to do it.

“Bruce… I am going to get our boys back.” You quickly kiss his cheek and go to the tiny secret place where only Alfred, Bruce and you know, where your old suit is.

You begin dressing it and the memories from the time when you used to protect Gotham fill your head. While being Y/V/N in the past you felt so good knowing what you did to help the city.

After you are fully dressed, steps are heard behind you and a hand is put carefully on your shoulder when you turn around to be face-to-face with your husband.

“Are you sure about this, dear?”

“It’s hard to wear it and certainly it’s going to be harder to fight again remembering what happened. But that’s why I didn’t stop training, right? I need to help my family right now.” You sigh as he gets closer to you.

“You are a very brave woman, Y/N,” he kisses me. “And I love you.”

“I love you too, Bruce.”

_____ 

When Damian opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was his own face.

The walls were full of mirrors, with strange shapes and sizes.

He counted ten armed men inside the room, but no sign of the Joker. If he was right and he probably where, he and Tim were just a distraction to lead Jason and Dick to the opposite side of the city.  

If he could only say to Alfred that they could handle these men... but his gadget was broken.

So was Tim’s.

“Robin, can you-” The Red Robin was interrupted by a scream and after it, a blackout.

What happened was something his father would do, but Bruce got hurt, and his older brothers didn’t act like that, Damian thought.

Damian and Tim only could hear grunts, kicks, and sounds of gunshots coming from the men and the supposed vigilante that was fighting with them. They quickly undid the knots on the ropes that were supposed to be hard to undo and started fighting with the remaining men.

That’s when the emergency lights lit the room – a little later than usual – while the three of them continued combating the Joker’s thugs and both of the batboys saw a woman fighting. She remembered them the way that their parents used to train together.

She moved discretely between the men and put them on the floor one by one, using advanced techniques of martial arts. If they didn’t see her, they would believe that a ghost was fighting with them because the vigilante was so quiet and careful. It isn’t possible that the woman may be their mother, right? Tim thought.

But when the only man that was still on his feet pointed two guns at the kids’ faces, her reaction was just too fast.

“Get. Away. From. Them.” And simply like that, he fell on the ground after the shock of her fist on his face.

“Mother?” They looked at her with amusement and surprise at the same time.

“Hey, boys.” Y/N hugged them. “Are you ok? Did one of those jerks hurt you?” She checked them for any bruises. 

_____ 

A few minutes earlier.

“Master Wayne just asked me to warn you about a new vigilante who is going to help you get Tim and Damian back,” Alfred says from the cave while seeing the images from the cameras around the place where the boys where.

The butler secretly smiles knowing that Y/N is back at her old business, proud that she decided to wear her suit again and fight for her family.

Alfred is the closest thing to a father figure for Y/N, just like he is for Bruce; however, there is a huge difference between the Bat and her: she actually has a family.

“Wait- what? Don’t tell me that Bruce adopted another kid! I don’t need help to save Tim, you know that already, Alfred.” Jason sighs and sits on his motorcycle to get to the building where his brothers are.

“And Damian.”

“Yeah, him too.” Jason rolls his eyes.

He is just tired of all this shit happening in Gotham. Some psycho makes some chaos, get caught, go to Arkham, escape, repeat. But now, deeply, it is kind of serious for him and he doesn’t need anyone to annoy him.

“Master Jason, you-” Todd turns off the gadget and starts driving to finish his mission as soon as possible.

Little he knew that Alfred was going to tell him that he could go back and help Dick.

When Jason arrives at the old building at the quiet street in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Gotham, Jason realizes it is too late.

Because Tim and Damian are already out of it with someone that is supposed to be the vigilante Alfred said. He has never seen that woman before and thinks that maybe she is some old Bruce’s affair, but there’s is something incredibly wrong. His brothers are smiling and they only smile when- oh no.

“What the hell?”

_____ 

The boys are still waiting for an explanation - especially when after you rescued Damian and Tim you received an invitation from The Joker himself -, but unfortunately, you can’t just go home and pretend that he isn’t around. You always have to put the others first, that was what your father always said to you when you were a child.

All of you stop in front of the abandoned construction he was supposed to be. When you prepare to enter it, two very short men dressed like clowns appear just behind you.

“Y/V/N, Mr. J said specifically that only you were invited.” And suddenly they disappeared.

Just like what happened that night, you thought.

You need to go there and face him alone again. Maybe Dick is there with him since no one can localize him. Maybe it is your chance to do what you should have done that night.

“Mom, are you sure?” Tim asks.

You nod and open the door.

The room was full of smoke, with a terrible smell and trash all over the place. You could see rats running on the floor and spider webs on the walls.

When the door closes behind you, Alfred starts talking about Dick.

“I was able to locate Nightwing, Y/V/N. He actually is not too far away from you, where Harley Quinn was found. Right now she is already in Arkham.”

You sigh with relief but it is soon replaced by anger when you see Joker.

“I knew you were still a kind of backup for the Batman, even after being so unprofessional after that night.” He smiles.

“What do you want from me?” You get closer to him.

“It is a pleasure to see you too, Y/V/N. Wow! We didn’t see each other for a long time, right? We have a lot to catch up!” He laughs.

That fucking laugh.

“Why are you doing this?” You take a few more steps closer.

“My explanation is not important at the moment.” He starts walking around you. “You are the star of the show today, my dear! How have you been after that little accident? I mean, it’s been a long time and I haven’t seen you after that!”

“Little?” You say sarcastically and sigh. “You know what you did to me. It wasn’t a little accident.”

“If you think with me, it was indeed a little accident, because the baby bat was so small I didn’t even notice.” And he shows me, the walking stick.

“Shut the fuck up or I will kill you right now!” You scream, pulling out all the anger you kept inside all these years.

“Oh, wow! Now I know why you don’t hang out with Batman anymore. Not really his type.” He makes a fake sad face and shows you a little stuffed bat. “Look what I found! That baby would have made a really good Robin.”

That was the limit.

You punched him right in the nose that started bleeding really badly. He started laughing and tried to hit your head with his walking stick, but you bowed down at the same time, so he decided to throw the stick away and grab one of his knives.

The Joker tried to stab your chest but you quickly held his arm, kicked him on the floor and picked up the knife from his hand. You were about to immobilize him when he pushed you at the wall and stabbed your lower belly.

“The baby dying inside you.” He smiled.

You were with so much anger that you didn’t even felt the blade cut your skin deeply when you took it out of you. He turned around to grab that fucking walking stick and you stabbed him in the back.

“Not fair at all.” He grunted and fell on his knees.

You took the knife out and grabbed his arms to push it against his back.

The clown strikes his head in your nose and it’s time to yours to begin bleeding. He turned around and you punched his face, making him fall to the ground. You put your feet on his chest and pressed it a little bit.

Your boys get in the room and look at you surprised one more time. Dick was about to say something when Joker’s laughter interrupts him and you interrupt the clown with another fist on his face.

“Gordon is on his way.” 

_____ 

Some years ago...

“It is going to be fine, Bruce. It will be my last mission, I promise.” You could see how nervous he was through his eyes, so you take his hands in yours, reassuring him that everything is going to be ok.

He sighs, finally letting go of the breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“Ok, baby. Even if you want to go on patrol with me after tonight, there’s a good chance that belly will stop you.” He genuinely smiles.

“Oh no, you didn’t say that.” A genuine smile escapes from your lips too. “No one can notice that there is a baby inside here, I’m sure he is going to be really small.”

Bruce gets closer to you and gives a really tight hug.

“She, Y/N.” He whispers.

You take a few steps back and put your mask, so does he.

“We are not discussing this again, Batman. Let’s go.”

“Ok, Y/V/N. Let’s go.”

A few minutes later, you and your fiancé arrive at the abandoned circus where Joker indirectly said he would be at.

But seconds before you make your entrance to confront the clown, two small men dressed just like the joker stop both of you.

“The Bat can’t enter.” They say at the same time. “Y/V/N, Mr. J said specifically that only you were invited.” And just like that, they disappear.

“Are you sure about this, Y/V/N?” You knew that if he wasn’t the Batman right now, he would get closer.

You nodded and discreetly went to the main entrance, it was supposed to be a door, but only some old curtains took its place. You walk through an empty hallway with some obscene drawings at the wall until your feet stop just before the stage of the old circus.

“Look who finally got here! The Y/V/N herself!” He took his hat off and revered to you as if he were polite enough to do that to someone.

“What do you want?” You cross your arms over your chest.

“To take you off from the Bat, of course! You just disturb my plans with him!” He laughs.

You felt that someone was right behind you and turned around to see one of his men. And soon you felt something you didn’t before, a needle on your neck.

How could you not feel that?

A few moments later you woke up on the ground of some dirty room. There was nothing keeping you up there, you were technically free if it wasn’t for the clown that appeared in front of you.

The Joker smiled and pointed to the door, where you could hear sounds of fighting that filled up the room. Bruce was here making his way to you.

You heard a metal crashing on the ground, it was his walking stick. You tried to get up but you couldn’t, it was certainly the thing that guy injected inside you.

No, please, this can’t be happening, you thought.

He got closer to you and started laughing; this sound was the only thing you could hear.

And then he hit you right thigh first.

You tried to get up again but your body was too weak, so tears began to fall on your cheeks as you waited for the worse. You screamed for help, it was the only thing that came out of your mouth. You tried to protect your belly with your arms and legs, but he hit it.

He hit it three times. Each one of them harder than the one before.

You wondered where Bruce was but soon you heard him still fighting, it was impossible for him to get you.

All you could do was beg him to stop.

Your baby, the only thing that came to your mind. Your poor baby. You were such a bad person, you thought. Why you decided to come here? Why? You felt blood getting out between your thighs. No, this can’t be happening.

Your baby died inside you and it’s your fault, you thought.

You killed your own baby.

And then Joker saw the blood and the shock on your face. 

“Oh no! You had a little Bat inside your smashed belly, didn’t you? Such a naughty girl, Y/V/N.” He laughed even more.

You were a monster.

You felt your baby’s blood on your body. In your mind, you heard him cry.

Because you always knew there was a little boy inside you.

But he is not a boy anymore; he is just blood on the floor.

It was your last mission, indeed.

_____ 

“So... That was what happened. I was young, dumb and really irresponsible.” You finish telling about that night to your boys. “I’m really sorry I haven’t told you about it before. It is something that haunts me until today.” You sigh.

“And it haunts me too.” Bruce holds your hand firmly and kisses it. “Your mother, Alfred I suffered for months. It is not easy to lose a child.” He looks at Jason, who turns his gaze to the other side of the living room.

“But in the end, we have four amazing kids and we are so grateful for having all of you here with us.” You smile at them.

“I hope that you plan on not having more adoptions on the way,” Jason says.

“Who knows?” Bruce says and they look at him in shock.

“You’re kidding right?” Tim asks seriously.

“Who knows?” There is your time to say it.

“C’mon, family hug!” Dick screams and it becomes a huge mess.

Feeling the arms of your family (even Alfred, he tried to escape discreetly but you got him) around you is something that makes you so happy after those dark days.

“I hate this.” Damian murmurs but holds them like he’s never done before.

After fifteen seconds hugging (that’s a record!), all of you manage to get out of the hug.

“Ok, so everyone to the table, we ordered pizza!”

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You can go to my masterlist to read more of my batmom series and my other batfam stories!

Feedback is always welcome ❤️

[cas-backwards-tie]

Too Attached

Request: Hey. Can I ask for a Bruce Wayne imagine where he and the reader are married for quite some time, but are having problems and maybe are considering a divorce? How the boys would react to it and stuff. You choose the ending, tho. Thanks so much

Warnings: Talk of Divorce, Hurt Boys, Arguing

Author’s Note: This literally got me so sad as I was writing. I hope this fulfills your request and I hope you guys like it. It was hard to come up with something the Reader and Bruce would fight over, but I got some help from my good friend @loudmouthwally (who’s great, you should check her out if you haven’t) and so now it’s probably x1000 better than it would’ve originally been. Hope you enjoy!

I finally feel like it’s time to go to bed. I look over and pick my phone up, seeing that it’s 3:12 am I figure I should get some sleep as I’ve finally finished another chapter of my book.

As I reach over to take a sip of the water on my nightstand as the door opens. I sigh a little in anger as I try to ignore the problem, but feel the need to say something. “So you finally decided to come home” I mumble as I get myself comfy under the covers.

I hear a huff before the reply, “Y/N, you know it’s not like that.” I hear the sounds of ruffling fabric as I guess Bruce is changing into something to sleep in.

“Sure, sure...” I turn over so I don’t have to face him as I turn my little lamp off.

“What do you mean, sure? What’s that supposed to mean?!” He raises his voice a little, and I sigh knowing that either neither of us are going to sleep, or we’re going to ignore each other again and get some sleep.

“You know what it means Bruce” I try to snuggle further into my blanket to stop the thoughts racing through my mind.

“I know that it means you’re annoyed with me and obviously you don’t want to talk about it.” The bed dips as Bruce huffs again.

I risk a glance over my shoulder and sure enough he’s waiting expectantly. “I’m just tired of this Bruce...” The tears that start to well up in my eyes sting. I don’t want to have this conversation, yet, I know that bottling up our emotions for too long is not good and we’ve been doing that for a while now.

“Of what?” His voice softens, “Of us? Of me?” He puts his hand on my shoulder and turns me to face him, the tears still stinging my eyes, threatening to spill over.

I take a shaky breath before the words just flow out of my mouth without thinking, “Yes, and No... I’m just tired of this lifestyle Bruce!” I start to raise my voice as I sit up so I can look him better in the eye.

Bruce looks as if he’s about to speak but I continue on rambling, “I know- okay? I know that when I married you I married into this lifestyle, your lifestyle which came along with the boys and everything and- and.... I’m just tired of it Bruce! I can’t do this anymore,” oh here come the tears....

“Y/N, you know that I can-” Bruce speaks warily.

“Can’t give up Batman- I know! I know... We’ve had this talk before” I mumble the last part more to myself than anyone.

“Then what does this mean? Do you- Y/N...” Bruce staggers off, lost in thought.

“It means I’m tired Bruce! I’m tired of being alone- we never do anything together anymore, hell, we never even make love anymore, and I’m sick and tired of constantly worrying about you and the boys’ safety! I’m saying I CAN’T- I WON’T wind up seeing you in a body bag. I just can’t! I couldn’t take it! And I don’t know what to do about it. I wait for you to come home every night and am worried sick that something’s wrong constantly...” I look down at my hands which are fidgeting with one another, “maybe we should get a divorce....” I whisper, direly wishing the words hadn’t come out of my mouth the second they had. Wishing, that there was another way. Another solution. Something we could do. 

I look up at Bruce to gauge his reaction, only to find that he’s tense, with a grimace and his lips pulled tightly across his face. “I-If that’s what you want, then I guess....” I instinctively move my hand to place it on his shoulder, but decide against it. 

The night passes on, our conversation seems to slow after that. After I mentioned the possibility of getting a divorce. Eventually we both decided to just give up on our conversation and go to sleep, purposefully scooting to the edges of the bed.

The next morning isn’t easy. As everyone gets ready we all make our way down to the kitchen to eat breakfast.

When I get to the kitchen all the boys look up at me, seemingly expectant of something. “What? What is it? Is there something on my face?” I question, quickly looking towards the sink for a reflection, but it doesn’t work.

“Bruce already left.” Dick mentions monotonously.

This is when I know what’s wrong.

I feel like there’s nothing I can say. What can I say? I don’t know what to tell them, and I know that they know that something is wrong.

“What happened between you and Father?” Damian pipes up as he seems to ask nonchalantly between bites of his cereal.

“We,” I sigh, knowing that there’s no use in lying, they’d find out eventually and honestly, I’ve never been one to lie. “had a fight last night, that’s all.” I try to focus on making myself a bowl of cereal and ignore the looks on their faces which seem to be malicious... That could also just be my minds way of interpreting it because if I’m being honest, I’m still upset from last night.

“Oh we know,” Tim says in a way that makes my stomach sink.

“So what? What’s the outcome? I mean obviously Bruce is still mad at you,” Jason says with a saddened look to his face, making me really worried.

“To be honest, I’m not sure... We discussed some things, but- as of now, I don’t really know.”

“You’re getting a divorce, aren’t you?” Dick accuses.

I give a heavy sigh, “I don’t know! Okay?” I feel the tears threaten to spill over again, not even sure when they welled up exactly, either. “I’m sorry” I whisper, knowing that if Bruce and I did get a divorce, it’d only hurt these boys more, and knowing these boys, they’ve been hurt TOO many times in their young lives.

And I don’t want to be the cause for more. I wipe away a stray tear and turn my back to them to get the milk from the fridge, along with the blueberries.

With that I hear a huff and stomps away from the kitchen, which I know to be Dick’s when he’s angry or upset. Then follows Tim with a sigh.

“Why?” Damian’s voice ask shakily, which is unusual for the boy.

“I can’t take it anymore, Damian. I can’t keep worrying all the time that every night could be the night that one of my sweet boys returns home in a body bag. And that includes your Father.” I look up to see a tear run down Damian’s cheek, which then causes me to cry silently. I look over to Jason and he immediately looks away, not meeting my gaze.

Moments pass. No one moves.

“I understand,” Jason interrupts the silence first.

“What?” I ask as if I hadn’t heard him, but I want to make sure I’m hearing right.

“I understand” Jason says clearly and boldly.

Another couple moments of silence pass before Jason clears his throat and straightens the papers he’s pretending to read. “You don’t want to have to deal with it if any one of us died. I get it- hell, I’d probably do the same in your shoes. But it wouldn’t matter. Getting a divorce that is.” Jason growls.

“Why not? Why wouldn’t it matter?!” Damian doesn’t understand and tries to argue with Jason. Of course it would matter- they’d all be losing the only Mom in their lives that actually did anything for them- that’s why. But of course Jason and I both know that’s not what he meant by that.

“Because what if we died Damian?! She’d still feel JUST as bad if not worse that she left! It wouldn’t matter either way because she’s already attached... and once you’re attached there’s no way to detach... and not even divorce could do that.” Damian understands and backs down, returning to sit in his seat, glancing at me.

He seems to be trying to read me, as if for any proof to deny what Jason had said... but ultimately Jason was right, and there wouldn’t be anything to deny within my countenance. I return to making my cereal, worried about Dick and Tim’s reaction, but also grateful that at least Jason can understand the way I feel.

“I love you, you know that... right?” I offer up before being met with a nod from Jason and a small ‘yes’ from Damian.

“Then don’t leave us,” Damian says a few seconds later, and with that, I don’t know how to respond.

“I can’t promise that Damian” I whisper before I take a bite of my cereal.

The rest of breakfast is in silence. And I don’t know how to proceed with anything. I don’t know if staying or leaving would be better, and I can’t think of any way to fix the way I’m feeling. Bruce would never give up Batman, and my boys would never quit fighting either, it’s a lose-lose scenario and I don’t know which lose would hurt me less.